Die Twice (12 page)

I looked at him. ‘Really?'

‘What if they weren't corrupt, Dennis?'

I was beginning to get tired of this. ‘Look, Danny. My contact's a middle-aged businessman who's made a fair bit of money over the years. What I'm trying to tell you is that he's an intelligent man. He's not going to do anything that's going to get him in a load of shit.' I finished the cigarette and tea at the same time and threw the one in the other.

Danny signed. ‘So what I've been thinking all day is this: Maybe there's more to this whole thing than meets the eye. This thing could be a lot bigger than we think. If those customs officers weren't corrupt then they were involved in something so sensitive that they had to die for it.' He emphasized the last words like a paperback detective making a speech to his assembled suspects. ‘And if that's the case, then not only is your contact heavily involved, he's also got some fucking good contacts of his own to set this sort of thing up.'

‘Well, if that's the case, then you shouldn't be worried. Because there's not much chance of us getting caught, is there?'

‘Maybe not, but, well … you've got to think…'

‘What? What have you got to think?'

He sighed again, choosing his words carefully. It took a long time to get what he wanted to say out. ‘That what's the point in keeping us alive? We're loose ends, Dennis. Loose ends involved in something very, very major. And now we've done what we were meant to do, then, you know…' He let the sentence trail off into the distance.

‘Jesus, Danny, you've got to get yourself into some gainful employment. You've been watching far too much TV. This isn't a fucking mafia film. If we keep our mouths shut and go about our daily business as if nothing's happened, then we'll be all right. I told you that on the night. Nothing that's happened since changes anything.'

‘I hope you're right,' he said, but he didn't sound convinced.

I felt paternal towards him then. ‘I am. Don't worry.' I stepped forward and patted him on the shoulder, not in a patronizing way, more of a man-to-man way. ‘Just try not to think about it, and remember, in a few days' time it'll all have blown over.'

‘Yeah, I know, I know. It's difficult, though. Sitting here all day.'

‘Do you want to come to a pub quiz?'

‘Eh?'

‘A pub quiz. There's one I go to on Tuesday nights when I've got the time. It's teams of four. There's a couple of blokes I normally play with, but we're often short of a fourth.'

Danny looked at me aghast, his usually thin blue eyes bugging out like they were on mini springs. ‘Are you serious? Fuck me, Dennis, I don't know how you can live with yourself.'

‘What? Going to pub quizzes?'

‘You know what I mean.'

‘Like I said, we've just got to carry on as normal. And what's more normal than a pub quiz?'

‘And to think my sister was going to marry you.'

‘Lucky you came along and fucked it all up really, wasn't it?'

He shot me a guilty look then, which I knew he would. It was cruel really, making him pay again for something that happened all that time ago.

I grinned at him to show I was only joking, and clapped him on the shoulder again. Still very much man-to-man. ‘Come on, it'll be a laugh. Shit, it's got to be better than sitting here biting your nails and gawking at the TV, waiting for your mugshot to appear.'

‘I can't go back inside again, Dennis. Not after last time.'

‘You won't have to,' I told him. ‘I promise.' We looked at each other for a long moment. ‘So, are you coming then?'

‘Where is it?'

‘Pub called the Chinaman. Just off City Road.'

Danny thought about it for a moment. It looked as though he was trying to work out whether he could afford to do something so frivolous when, by rights, he ought to be putting all his concentration into shitting himself. In the end it seemed he could afford to let his concentration slip for a few hours.

‘Fuck it. Why not?' He picked up the jiffy bag. ‘At least I won't be short of cash for a drink.'

10

‘He was an accountant.' Malik chewed on his sandwich as he spoke.

‘You spoke to your mate, then?'

He nodded, finishing his mouthful. ‘Yeah, last night. He's been working round the clock.'

‘I can imagine.'

It was twenty past two the following afternoon, and we were in the station canteen. A fairly unproductive morning had been spent helping to collate all the statements we and the other officers had taken so far in an effort to make some sort of sense of them. So far nothing was leaping out at us, and the one possible suspect, the pimp, had still not been found. Nor was anyone sure where else to look for him.

‘How are they coming along with everything?'

‘You know what it's like, Sarge. It was difficult for him to say too much but it seems they're working on a lot of leads. From what I can gather, they're concentrating on the accountant and trying to establish what he was doing with those customs officers.'

‘Two customs officers and an accountant. It sounds like the name of a bad film.'

‘It's an interesting combination, I'll give you that.'

I finished picking at the Caesar salad I'd ordered and pushed the plate away, thinking about the inevitable cigarette. ‘What does your mate make of it all?'

‘He said they'd already dug up a lot of info on the accountant and there was nothing to suggest he wasn't a sound guy. He didn't have a record or anything.'

I remembered the accountant's face, the shock on it as he looked down the barrel of my gun. I lit the cigarette. ‘So what was he doing with them?'

‘That's the million-dollar question. My friend says there was an official reason why they were together. He wouldn't say exactly what it was, but from what I can gather the accountant had information on something that was very useful to the customs men.'

‘So they're pretty sure the customs men were part of some sort of investigation?'

Malik nodded slowly. ‘That's my impression. He didn't say for sure, but I think that's the angle they're looking at it from.'

‘So the only way the murderer would know they were there at that time—'

‘Was if it was an inside job. It's a worrying thought. You don't like to think of the forces of law and order as being corrupt.'

‘You think someone tipped the killer off?'

He shrugged. ‘That's what it looks like. What else could it be?'

I hoped Malik's information was wrong – which, of course, it could have been. A lot of the time on big cases involving a lot of detectives, contradictory stories get thrown up. From my point of view, it would be a lot easier to believe that the three victims were the pondscum Raymond had labelled them. Not only did it make what I'd done a lot more palatable – at least to me – I also felt it would make it much more difficult for the investigating officers to come up with a result. If it was an inside job, then the list of people who would have been in a position to know where those men were going to be and when they were going to be there would be pretty short.

But at the moment, it was still conjecture. I knew I was going to have to find out more information from Raymond, but at the same time I was going to have to be careful about how I did it. I'd never looked at him as a threat before, but suddenly I didn't want to give him a reason for wanting me out of the way as well. Maybe there'd been more truth in Danny's words than I'd initially given him credit for.

‘You look very thoughtful, Sarge. Everything was all right at the doctor's yesterday, wasn't it?'

‘Oh, yeah, yeah. No problem. Nothing serious anyway. I'm just not looking forward to chasing around questioning the rest of those kids at the childrens home. It just seems like a hiding to nothing.'

We still had close to two thirds of the kids to take statements from, and, although I quite fancied the idea of seeing the alluring Carla Graham again, I didn't want to waste any more time talking to snotty little bastards who wouldn't help you if their lives depended on it. I'd already told Knox I didn't think we'd get anything helpful out of it, but he'd insisted. He wanted to make sure he covered every angle of the case, if for no other reason than to cover his arse from any future kicking by superiors frustrated by a perceived lack of results.

‘Wasn't it you who told me when I started out that only five per cent of policework gets you anywhere, and it's always spread right across the one hundred per cent you have to do?'

I grinned. ‘Did I really say that? Shit, that must have been a long time ago.'

‘Two years. That's all.'

‘I must have been lying.'

‘So, what is the answer then? The secret of policework?'

I was about to tell him that it was not to give a fuck about it and make sure you earned an alternative income, when DC Hunsdon walked in. He looked pleased. There were only about a dozen of us scattered about the canteen and most were uniform. Since CID always like to stick together, he made his way over to us.

He stopped when he got to the table and leaned forward, smiling, hands on the top.

‘I can see you're dying to tell us something,' I told him.

‘We've got the pimp.' He spoke these words in the manner of someone saying, ‘We've solved the case.' Somewhat optimistic, I thought.

‘Oh yeah? Where was he?'

Hunsdon sat down and lit a cigarette. ‘He came in here. Walked in with his brief about ten minutes ago.'

‘Who's going to question him?' Malik asked.

‘Knox is going to do it with Capper. They're going to lean on him hard.'

He didn't look at Malik as he spoke. Like a lot of the younger detectives, Hunsdon didn't like Malik. This was partly to do with the fact that he was a graduate, but also because he was Asian. There was a feeling that he got special treatment because of his ethnic background, a situation not helped by the way senior management tended to treat him as some sort of teacher's pet. The resentment was unjustified and stupid, but it was difficult to squash. It was a testimony to Malik that he never once acknowledged it.

‘Do you think he did it?' I asked him.

Hunsdon shrugged. ‘What else have we got?'

‘Hardly a reason for pinning it on him,' I said.

‘Yeah, but it's not just that, is it? The victim wasn't sexually assaulted but she was attacked in a way that was meant to make it look like a sexual assault, so it's probably not going to be a pervert. Plus, he was seen round the victim's flat just after the murder and attacked you when you tried to question him. And, if that isn't enough, he's got a history of violence, and he'd attacked the victim before. Put her in hospital a couple of months back with cracked ribs and concussion.'

‘Yeah, but that's not the same as cutting her throat from ear to ear and hacking great holes in her genitals.'

‘He fits, Sarge. Whatever way you look at it, he fits.' He said these last words firmly, and in a way that suggested there was no point continuing to argue with him.

Which there wasn't. Right or wrong, at least it meant that there was less work for the rest of us.

‘How are you getting on with the mobile phone records? Did Miriam have one registered in her name?'

He nodded. ‘Yeah, she did. And I tell you something, it took a fuck of a lot of phoning round to find out. The company's going to send us a list of calls she made and received over the past month.'

‘Maybe it'll throw up something.'

‘You never know,' he said, but he didn't sound that interested. In his mind, we'd already got our man.

11

As predicted, we ended up spending several fruitless hours at the children's home that afternoon trying to track down the various ‘clients' we hadn't yet spoken to. We managed to pin down a few but no-one who could help us much. To be honest, it did prove to be a bit of a waste of time. Carla wasn't there either, which disappointed me. She had a meeting out in Essex and hadn't returned by five o'clock, which was the time we'd decided that we'd had enough. I phoned through to Welland and told him that he might as well send uniforms down for the rest of the statements because it simply wasn't worth using us for it, and he agreed without much resistance.

That evening it was Malik's turn to take off early. He had to pick his kids up from his mother-in-law's as his missus, who was some high-flying accountant, was off on a seminar in Monte Carlo or some other such exotic destination. It made me think. The last seminar I'd attended had been in Swindon. ‘The Role of the Police Force in 21st-Century Britain' it had been called – about as interesting and informative as watching a car rust. I was definitely in the wrong job.

We left together and I took the tube down to King's Cross. I thought about heading back to the station and seeing what needed doing but decided a drink might be better instead. Welland had told me they were still questioning the pimp, and so far there was nothing of note to report, which didn't surprise me. You only turn up with your lawyer in tow if you don't want to say too much.

I found a pub on the Marylebone Road near the station which didn't look too shitty and took a seat at the bar. The barman was a young Australian guy with a ponytail and a silver ring through his eyebrow. There were only a few people in the place so we had a bit of a chat about this and that. He was a friendly sort, which is often the way with Aussies. I think it must be something to do with the fact that they're brought up in a nice sunny climate. I asked him what the crime situation was like over there. He told me it was pretty bad.

‘It's getting worse too, y'know,' he said. ‘A lot of guns around the place, and people more willing to use them.' I told him that that was the case everywhere. ‘Don't I know it,' he said. ‘Especially here. I always thought London was supposed to be a safe place.'