In the Dark (39 page)

She lay there as it grew dark, listening to the music and wishing that she could tell Paul about the day. That they could laugh about it. Wishing that it had still been like that between them before he'd died. Wanting to curl up, and to smash things, and to hurt whoever had left her feeling like this. Whoever had scooped the hole out in the middle of her. She lay there, and the kicks inside were like little screams.

She was due to have her baby in two days.

THIRTY-FOUR

‘I thought it was nice,' Laura said.

‘They're usually . . .
nice
, though, aren't they?' Frank had carried a tray of breakfast things through to the conservatory. It was a gorgeous morning and he enjoyed looking out at the garden while he ate and flicked through a couple of the papers. ‘“Nice” is so bloody . . .
safe
, though,' he said. ‘Don't you reckon?'

‘People like to feel safe when they've just lost someone. How else would you want them to feel?'

‘Just for once I'd like to see a funeral that says something about the person who's died, you know? That tells you a bit about what they were really like.'

‘I thought what that police officer said was really moving, and the readings . . .'

‘Yeah,
nice
, I know.' Frank shook his head. ‘That copper was probably saying the same thing he says at every one of these. Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting people should be dancing around and telling jokes or anything like that, but there should be a bit more . . . celebration or whatever. And a bit less God poking His nose in wouldn't hurt, either.'

Laura smiled. ‘I like all that, too.'

‘Paul didn't have a religious bone in his body, and his girlfriend doesn't strike me as a God-botherer either, so what's the point?' He took a bite of toast and sat back in his chair. ‘Paul would have hated all that. He'd've sat there taking the piss out of the vicar or trying not to fall asleep.'

‘I think somebody got out of the wrong side of bed.'

‘Yeah, I didn't have a great night.' He stared past her, out across the back lawn. The garden looked good, though he needed to tell the lazy sod that did it to take a bit more care with the edging. ‘I'll seriously miss him, that's all. Need all the friends I've got, my time of life.'

‘You're not old, Frank.'

‘Feels like it sometimes.'

‘Course you'll miss him,' Laura said. ‘I'll miss him, too.'

‘It would have been great if yesterday had been
about
him a bit more, that's all I'm saying. His personality, you know?' He flicked crumbs from his shirt onto the plate. ‘Maybe I'm just getting awkward as I get older.'

She came and sat down next to him. ‘Maybe you've been to too many funerals.'

 
The Clapham branch of the Workz was probably much the same as all the other high-end gyms and health clubs across the city: chrome, steel and smoked glass; extra-fluffy towels and chi-chi toiletries; a hefty annual membership fee which was a decent incentive to go twice a week for a few months, until you realised that life was too short to waste time on a rowing machine.

Helen sat in the corner of the salad 'n' smoothie bar, flicking through a brochure while she waited. She'd been on the phone since before seven, organising things, and it felt good to have mapped out her day already. This would be a nice way to kick it off.

She watched Sarah Ruston come down the stairs from the women's changing room; watched her toss a bag onto a chair and walk across to the bar to order something. Her hair was tied back, damp, and she wore a sleek, black tracksuit with red piping. The face seemed much improved, even from a distance, though her arm was still in a sling.

Looking pretty good, though, all things considered.

Ruston turned, sucking at the straw in her drink, and saw Helen stand and wave. Her eyes widened, and after a few seconds she picked up her bag and walked across. ‘What are you . . .?' She looked at her watch. ‘I've not got very long, I'm afraid. I'm supposed to be meeting Patrick.'

‘That's OK,' Helen said. ‘I've only got a couple of minutes myself.'

Ruston sat down on the edge of a chair. Her eyes stayed low and she noticed the brochure on the table. ‘Thinking of joining?'

‘Well, it
would
be nice to get back in shape once I've got rid of
this
.' Helen smiled. ‘But at six hundred quid a year, I think I'll just try and do a bit more walking. Maybe go mad and buy a workout video.'

‘Yeah, it is a bit steep,' Ruston said. ‘I wouldn't bother, but membership comes with the job. They've got one of these places near the office, and we get to use all of them, so . . .'

‘So, why not?'

‘Why not?'

‘You're a bit bloody keen, though, aren't you?' Helen nodded at the sling.

Ruston tried to smile and lifted her arm. ‘Actually, I took it off when I was working out, and I only did an hour on the treadmill. Probably get rid of it for good next week.'

‘Even so.'

Ruston sipped at her juice.

‘I always think it's weird,' Helen said. ‘Coming to places like this, sweating like a pig and trying to keep your body beautiful, when you're filling it full of shit the rest of the time.' She looked for a reaction. ‘What is it? Crack? Coke as well, I should imagine.'

‘Sorry?'

‘I mean you wouldn't step straight off the treadmill and walk into a pie shop, would you? Doesn't make any sense.' A female employee in a tight white coat walked close to the table. Ruston looked up hopefully, but Helen paid the woman no attention. ‘Slumming it a bit, though, I would have thought, going all the way across to Lewisham to buy the stuff. Isn't there some nice city boy in an Armani suit who could have sorted you out?'

The blood had left Ruston's face fast, the all-but-faded bruises a little paler suddenly.

‘You must have owed them plenty,' Helen said. ‘I mean, you've got to have one hell of a hold over someone to make them do what you did. Something like that. Or maybe you were so off your Botoxed face that you didn't even think about it . . .'

Ruston cried for almost a minute. She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes and kept her head down; there wasn't too much noise. Helen watched, and loved it.

‘I don't need to hear a sob story,' she said, when Ruston finally looked up. ‘You know, before you start wasting your breath. I think, considering where I was yesterday, I might be the wrong person to try that out on, don't you?'

She'd let them get all the details later, in an interview room, but Helen could hazard a decent guess. A City high-flyer with a high-maintenance lifestyle and a very expensive habit. Credit cards long maxed out and debts piling up, until the supplier you're into for serious money comes up with a novel way to pay off what he's owed. The lovely house around the corner was probably mortgaged up to the hilt, unless the older, richer other half was taking care of it.

At that point Helen wondered how much Patrick knew.

‘I didn't have any choice,' Ruston said.

Helen could have flown across the table at her then, told her that the choice between settling a bill or killing someone might normally cause a person to stop and think a bit. She could have punched every word of it into her.

‘They threatened to hurt my family.'

‘What do you think you did to
mine
?'

Now, Ruston was fighting to get it out over the sobs; clawing at the arm of her chair and shaking her head; wiping away the snot with a sleeve. ‘I didn't know anyone was going to be killed. They didn't tell me anything. They just showed me
where
. . . what speed to drive at . . . I didn't know who . . . the . . .'

‘Who the
target
was?' Ruston opened her mouth, but all that came out was a cracked whine, like a nail on a blackboard. ‘You drive a car at someone, it tends to do a lot of damage.'

‘I'm sorry . . .'

‘You will be.'

Helen stood up and moved around the table when she saw Patrick come breezing across the atrium towards them. She leaned down and took a firm grip on Ruston's damaged shoulder; said it nice and calmly, so Ruston would know she meant every word. ‘I wish you'd broken your neck.'

If Patrick was at all thrown at seeing her, he didn't show it. He jerked a thumb back towards the entrance. ‘What's all the excitement? There are two police cars outside.'

‘Sarah might be tied up for a while,' Helen said. She could see two officers in the reception area, brandishing warrant cards at the woman behind the desk. A couple more were on their way in, pushing through the glass doors. She'd thank them on her way out.

She stopped in front of Patrick before she left. ‘Just to let you know. I couldn't give a fuck about your BMW.'

 
Theo carried his plate across to a table in the corner, then went back for a couple of tabloids that had been read and left sitting on the counter. It would kill half an hour, maybe. He guessed that this was what it was like to lose your job, except that there hadn't been any notice, and getting laid off didn't usually involve wondering when you were going to get a bullet in your head.

Everything had fallen apart since they'd found the bodies in the stash house. The police had gutted the place and the sniffer dogs had gone crazy. Now it was just one more empty flat in the block. All the business had ground to a halt, with punters buying elsewhere and everyone in the crew standing around on corners wondering what was going to happen; when someone was going to tell them what to do next.

A few days before, Easy seemed to have got things sorted - smoothing everything over and reorganising the stock and the selling. But Theo hadn't seen him since Saturday night. Nobody had. Truth of it, he was getting sick of the others asking what Easy was doing and where he was.

Theo had called him plenty of times, but Easy's mobile was switched off or the battery had died.

Or whatever.

There was still stuff about the murders on the front pages, but nothing he hadn't seen before. Seemed like they were just rehashing old stories to keep up sales, while they were waiting with bated breath for the next one. Like they knew it was coming. He thought about how Easy had gone mental outside the bar; how he'd nearly given them another body to get all worked up about.

Theo had gone back down to the Dirty South on the Sunday morning and checked around the back for blood. He'd found nothing, was relieved that Easy seemed to have been happy enough waving his blade around and scaring the shit out of the bloke. He'd watched all the news reports as well, just in case, and seen no mention of anything, which was good. Not that a stabbing was going to be a mega-story, not any more, but all the same.

All he could do now was sit on his arse and keep safe, keep everyone around him safe, until someone told him what to do next.

He turned the pages slowly as he ate, one eye on the door like it always was, feeling the weight of the gun he'd taken from the stash house in his pocket. The one that Sugar Boy hadn't been quick enough to get to.

He stopped chewing, stopped
breathing
for a few seconds, when he saw the picture. And the headline above it: DISTRESS OF COP'S PREGNANT WIDOW.

Her face was tight and her mouth was open like she was shouting, but he knew it was the woman he'd spoken to a week or so before. He'd been surprised at the weight when he'd lifted her up. The woman with the blue Fiesta, the broken eggs.

Theo read the story, but he wasn't really taking it in. He'd helped her and she'd thanked him for it. Christ, she'd even said something in that car park, some joke about naming her baby . . .

He remembered the noise as the BMW hit.
Felt
it. The metal and the glass and the low thump as they drove away and he tried to look back through the rain.

‘
Be as good a name as any, probably
.'

He stared down at the picture and let his breakfast go cold. The headline said ‘distress', but it didn't seem that way to him.

She looked like she wanted to kill someone.

THIRTY-FIVE

Helen looked up at the CCTV cameras on each corner of the roof as she waited at the front door. She'd seen others at the gates where she'd turned off the road and wondered if he'd been watching her as she'd driven up. Not a surprise really, that a man like this was careful. He had plenty to protect, and there were probably a good few who'd be happy to see him lose it all.

But then, he'd have a few of his own too; people who could warn him of any threat, or gather information when others were struggling. A network. And his own methods for getting people to make some noise when an official investigation had its nose pressed against a wall of silence.

It made no sense, the idea that whoever was behind Paul's death was also responsible for the shootings. If you were trying to cover your arse, why set up something that would necessitate getting rid of a whole gang afterwards? So, with whoever had used the boys in that car to do his dirty work out of the picture, it wasn't a big leap.

There weren't exactly many other contenders.

Helen had called Jeff Moody early, after several conversations with the Murder Squad to sort out her appointment at the Workz. When she'd mentioned Frank Linnell, he'd assured her that he was still making enquiries, checking into the precise nature of Linnell's relationship with Paul.

‘I think I might be able to find a bit more out myself,' she'd said.

‘Not sure that's too clever.'