Death Trap (41 page)

Rio gave him a blank look so he continued. ‘“A Long Long Way To Tipperary” was a popular song during the Great War and the other—’

‘Is a strapline from a much-used recruitment poster. Why is someone sending me this—’ Samson Larkin. His name slammed into Rio’s mind as her words stopped. He’d been singing another World War One song as they sat in the café in Northern Cyprus. A song that had an upbeat chorus that included the words ‘Smile, smile, smile.’ Well she wasn’t smiling.

Without answering Calum took her phone from her. He flicked his thumb against the buttons a few times and then, with a sigh, passed it back to her. ‘Whoever it is doesn’t want to be found because the Caller ID is unknown.’

‘I know who it is,’ Rio said. ‘Mad boy Samson Larkin. I suspect it’s his way of letting me know he’s still around.’

‘That’s a strange way of pressing your buttons.’ Calum switched the conversation. ‘I’ll try to find out more about the knife.’ He turned back to the car and watched Nikki. ‘Are we sure that this is going to be a safe place to take her to?’

Rio let out a huge punch of air as if the enormity of keeping this girl alive had just hit her. ‘I can’t think of anywhere else to take her. We don’t have a choice.’

1:16 p.m.

Rio cut the engine of her car outside Ophelia Bell’s home. Nikki was still asleep in the back.

‘What happened three years ago?’ Rio asked Calum. ‘Why did you get kicked out of the service?’

His green eyes became icy. Rio noticed the way his hand drifted to his leg.

‘Is that how you hurt yourself?’ she quietly asked.

His mouth twisted into a cynical smile, no dimple, as his hand snapped away from his leg. ‘One day we’ll talk, but not now.’

If he didn’t want to talk, so be it. Rio killed the past dead as she turned to gaze at the sleeping teenager. Nikki’s head was slumped to the side, her hair a mass of fussing short strands cupping her head. Her small chest rose and fell, but no sound came out of her parted lips. Peaceful. The slumber of the innocent.

Calum’s hand reached for the door. ‘You take her inside and I’ll get back to the office—’

Rio’s hand reached across and touched his arm. ‘You should go home and get some rest.’

‘Nah. I’m a big boy now, Doctor Rio. I’ve just got a hunch about something . . .’

‘You can’t go and leave me hanging like that. Is this something about Maurice Bell?

Calum lowered his voice. ‘This is just a hunch, OK? We know that he had a partner in his early days, someone we can’t find anything about, except the name Slim. Who else do we know who once had a partner?’

Rio frowned as her brain ticked away. Her eyes widened slightly. ‘You think it’s Terry Larkin?’

‘He might have been young back in the seventies, but remember he was a good ten years older than his brother. What if he was Bell’s partner during those slum landlord days? We know that Terry dabbled in property when he first started out and it ended badly. What if both men reconnected and Bell was meant to put up the money for Terry’s drugs deal, but maybe he bailed out once he knew what the money was going to be used for. Revenge is the only thing on Terry’s mind. Maybe he killed Bell with an accomplice.’

Rio sank back into her seat trying to take it all in. ‘But what about Cornelius—’

‘Cornelius lived a life on the edge. He could’ve been in debt to Terry and this was the only way out?’

Rio let out a long, uneven breath. It made sense. And Cornelius hadn’t worked on his own.

‘We need to go after him—’

But Calum placed a finger on her lip. ‘I might have this all wrong. I’ve got some information that I hope will be coming in to me when I get back to the office. Let me figure this out before we do anything else.’

Rio cupped Calum’s face. ‘I wish we could’ve just worked this all out.’

He knew that
this
had nothing to do with the case.

‘Take care of our girl in the meantime. Make sure you get some sleep; it’s been one hell of a long day for you.’

Then he was gone.

A few minutes later a groggy and mentally numb Nikki stood with Rio in front of Ophelia Bell’s front door. Rio was surprised at where the other woman lived. She’d been expecting somewhere plush and yeah expensive, not this maisonette-style ground and upper floor flat, with black railings around it. Weren’t those actors on the box paid big bucks?

A pasty and tousled Ophelia pulled the door back. As soon as she saw Nikki she went into concerned cousin mode; or was that concerned mummy mode, Rio thought?

Ophelia reached out and pulled her blood daughter into her arms and squeezed tight. The girl clung onto her with the fierceness of finally finding her safe harbour.

Ophelia gazed at Rio with daggers in her eyes. ‘She told me she was staying with a friend. She looks like she’s been to hell and back.’

‘Let’s take this inside.’

The inside of the flat was more like what Rio was expecting – minimalist style, white walls and even whiter floorboards off-set by black furniture and a large, shiny-blue exercise ball in a corner of the main room. There was the touch of other humans in the room, but only as still lifes – a framed photo of two children sat neatly next to a hefty looking black stone carving of what Rio assumed depicted a mother and child touching hands. It was what Rio didn’t see that surprised her – no TV.

‘What you’re thinking now is what everyone thinks when they first come here,’ the other woman told Rio as she settled Nikki onto a chair that looked more suited to an office than a lounge. ‘That, because I’m an actor, there should be a telly. I’m sure you don’t take your work home with you; nor do I. I watch what I need to online on my laptop.’ Ophelia gave the teenager her full attention. ‘Go and freshen up. Then lie down and I’ll be in in a bit. Later on we’ll watch more episodes of
The Wilcotts
. I’ve got advanced copies on DVD.’

She whispered in the girl’s ear, but Rio heard, ‘Lord Freddy has finally gone back to the trenches.’

As Ophelia’s knuckles grazed gently against one of Nikki’s cheeks Rio couldn’t help but notice the bones jutting harshly against her skin. It couldn’t be easy for her, Rio thought sympathetically – all this anorexia and eating disorder business.

As soon as the youngster had left the room Rio got down to business and told the other woman what had happened, including Nikki and the knife.

That made Ophelia drop to the two-seater leather sofa. Her palms cupped her lower face as her sad gaze stared at Rio. ‘I feel like I’ve failed her. I should have insisted she come stay with me—’

‘There’s no point looking back,’ Rio interrupted quickly as she sat by the distressed woman. ‘What we need to do now is just keep looking forwards. I’ll be upfront with you. I’m no longer on this case. I’m suspended—’

Ophelia’s hands dropped from her face. ‘What?’

Rio didn’t answer immediately; she needed to think very carefully about what she was going to say next. ‘It’s my belief that your parents and their cleaner were deliberately murdered in a way that made it look like the Greenbelt Gang did it—’

Ophelia staggered to her feet. ‘I don’t understand—’

Rio joined her on her feet. ‘I think that your brother was involved in this.’

The other woman just stared, her eyes blinking rapidly. ‘Connie.’ It wasn’t a question, but a flat, monotone statement. Instead of continuing she strode across the room to a small-framed photograph that Rio had noticed next to the stone carving.

She came back and, with the sadness increasing in her gaze, displayed the photo to Rio. It showed a boy and a girl, anywhere between the ages of nine and twelve. The girl’s head was tilted ever so slightly, like she knew her way around a camera, while the boy’s expression was softer, almost shy.

‘That was me and Connie at our Auntie Patsy and Uncle Frank’s. Auntie was always reluctant to let him go home because he was the boy any mother would want.’ Rio let her speak. ‘Helpful, funny – he adored laughing – hard working.’ She pulled the photograph back and placed it face down on the arm of the sofa. ‘But as soon as he became a teen something changed; it was like he woke up one day and decided he was part of the wrong family. Got expelled from two good schools . . . Dad tried everything to set him up with jobs, but Connie just never lasted long. I had to turn my back on him when he started stealing from me—’

‘So he needed money?’

Ophelia lifted her finely shaped eyebrows. ‘He took drugs like they were ready-meals. I wouldn’t let him stay with me anymore because all he wanted to do was rip me off.’ A shudder passed through her. ‘I had no alternative but to cut him off.’

‘He didn’t do the crime on his own; he had help. Do you know if he ever mentioned a man called Terry Larkin?’

Ophelia shook her head. ‘I’ve been out of his life for a long time.’ Her face turned red. ‘What a bastard. All Mum and Dad wanted to do was help and how does he repay them . . .?’ She heaved in a heavy breath. ‘Connie needed money for drugs and God knows what else. Even with what I now know about him I can’t stop thinking of him as my kind, little brother.’

‘I can’t give you a protection unit because – like I said – I’m not meant to be anywhere near this case. As far as the police are concerned the case is closed. I might be putting you in danger—’

‘What I don’t understand—’ Ophelia frowned. ‘If there is someone after Nikki, how would Connie have any money to pay them?’

‘Maybe he didn’t, but his accomplice does.’ Yes, Terry Larkin was a man who mixed with the type of people who would give him a down payment. ‘That’s why I can’t stay with you myself; I’m going to need to find out as much as I can.’

The other woman straightened her back. ‘If there’s one person in this world I’ll kill to keep safe, it’s Nikki.’

Before Rio could answer her mobile rang.

‘Excuse me,’ she told Ophelia and walked across the room as she pulled out her phone.

‘Yes?’

‘It’s Cookie, Connie’s . . .’ Her voice was breathless. ‘I need to see you. I’m the one who killed his parents, not him.’

fifty-eight

1:15 a.m.

Calum tapped away at his computer inside his office. The only light he had was from the single lamp on his desk. The information that he sought came up on his screen: information about Maurice Bell’s former business partner. His mouth tightened as he read. Instantly he reached for his mobile to contact Rio, but just as his hand touched his mobile he stopped. Priority number one was getting the info printed and then he’d call her. His hands went back to the computer, pressed print.

It took two minutes. He grabbed his rucksack, put the papers inside, set the security system and then headed out. The cold chill in the early morning air gripped his face as Calum strode, as fast as his leg would allow him, to his car. He popped the lock, got inside, chucked the rucksack on the passenger seat. Pulling his mobile out, he got Rio’s number up on the screen and started texting

Terry Larkin is . . .

Calum’s eyes punched up at the noise he unexpectedly heard behind him, the heat of someone else. He moved – his finger accidentally pressing the ‘send’ button on the text – but was too late. Black gloved hands thrust from behind, over his face, and something sharp and slim snapped into the skin over his windpipe. Instinctively his hands came up, away from his mobile, as his head was yanked back. His fingers fought with what he suspected was wire around his throat. His legs kicked out. He savagely twisted and turned, but the pressure and pain in his neck only grew worse.

‘All I want is the girl,’ a voice hissed behind him.

Calum didn’t even try to talk, what he did do was try to recall how to act in this type of situation. His legs stopped moving. He loosened all the muscles in his body. He tried desperately to get his restricted breathing under control. But the pressure tightened around his throat.

‘If you don’t tell me, you know what’s going to happen.’

Screw. You.

Relax.

Relax.

His tongue started drying out. Some type of pressure inside his eyes was making them grow wider. And wider . . . If a blood vessel popped he knew he was in major league trouble.

Relax.

Relax.

‘You’ve got five seconds or I’m going to snap your neck.’

One.

Two.

Three
.

Calum stopped relaxing. Bundled up all the energy he could muster, muscles taunt and powerful, ready to strike. As he slammed to the side a searing pain ripped through his back, above his kidneys.

I’m not going to make it.

Make it.

Make . . .

Calum slumped to the side, onto his rucksack, the wire still strapped tight around his throat.

2:00 a.m.

Rio ignored the ping of the new text on her mobile for a third time as she faced Cornelius’s girlfriend Cookie. The younger woman had been waiting for her in a North-East London council flat that was totally empty – just walls, doors, windows, a fussy orange and brown patterned carpet and a woman who had confessed to murder. They stood in the narrow, tiny hallway, midway between the main door and a room that Rio suspected was designated on the flat’s floor plan as a bedroom. The woman in front of Rio still looked like a little lost girl, but with the imprint of a bad world on the ashen skin of her face.