Cold Kill

by Rennie Airth

  Addy shut her eyes. She didn’t know how to deal with this … Rose getting tied up with a cold-blooded killer? Malek was right. This was some other world he was telling her about.

  ‘But if Horvath was protecting her, why did she choose to disappear?’

  ‘He thinks he may have frightened her when he asked her about the memory stick. She knew there were people ready to kill to get their hands on it. His guess is she panicked, thought she’d be better off on her own.’

  Malek crushed his empty paper mug and dropped it into a trash can. Spilling her coffee on the ground, Addy followed his example. She just couldn’t put anything into her stomach right now.

  ‘We’ve been able to trace some of her movements.’ They walked on. ‘She stayed in three different hotels in the Paddington district, only spending a few nights in each. And she booked a flight on Christmas Day. It might have been the first one she could get a seat on with the airlines jammed. No one flies on Christmas Day.’ He looked at her. ‘She was going to New York, Addy. My guess is she wanted to be with you.’

  Addy blinked back the tears. Oh, Rose …

  ‘What about the memory stick? Where is it now?’

  ‘As far as we know, still in that bank in Zurich. Your aunt told Horvath she had left it there. It certainly wasn’t among the things she brought with her in that bag, and it’s not in her house either. We had some men go over it again this morning. But there’s no reason to think Charon knows that. If he’s here in London, which Horvath thinks is likely, it must be because he thought she had the stick in her possession and he was hoping to get it off her. From what you told me I don’t think that Russian meant to kill her. It was an accident. But he had to get rid of Ryker, whoever he was, and you too, before he could take her. But he failed, and now Charon must know he’s playing a losing game. With your aunt gone, his only hope now is to lie low and hope the Russians don’t catch up with him.’

  ‘What about the police?’ Addy scowled. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Well, we’re looking for Klepkin, and if we find him he’ll be charged with murder. He’ll get life.’

  ‘And Charon?’

  Malek shrugged. ‘Look, Addy, the truth is if he walked into a police station today we couldn’t arrest him. What could we charge him with? Stealing a billion dollars from some Russian crooks? If that’s a crime, no one’s reported it, and somehow I doubt they will.’ He snorted. ‘We’ve no evidence to suggest he’s broken the law in England.’ He looked at her. ‘There’s the law, Addy, and then there’s justice …’

  ‘And they’re not always the same thing. Thanks for the lesson, Dave.’ She glowered. ‘What about that business in Paris? Didn’t you say he killed two people?’

  ‘According to Horvath, the Russians never reported it. They removed the bodies and cleaned up afterwards. They don’t want the police involved; they want to handle this business themselves. And get their money back, of course, but that’ll only happen if they can get hold of the memory stick.’

  ‘Did Rose tell them she’d left it in the safe deposit box?’ she asked.

  ‘Who can say?’ He shrugged. ‘But even if she did, they can’t claim it. Your aunt would have had to be there to open the box – either her or Moreau, whose name must be on it too. So he’s the only person who can open it now. But if the Russians know about it, they’ll keep watching that bank till doomsday. Charon would be a fool to go anywhere near it.’

  He glanced at his watch. They had walked the full circle of the park and were back at the gate where they had come in.

  ‘Maybe Rose never put it in the box,’ she said. ‘Maybe she just threw it away.’

  ‘What? A billion dollars?’ Malek shook his head. ‘Can you imagine anyone doing that?’

  TWENTY-ONE

  ‘Come on, Addy, you’ve got to eat something. How about a sandwich?’

  Dave Malek peered at her face as though he were trying to read something that was written there. They were sitting in a pub where he’d taken her after learning that she hadn’t had any breakfast that morning and wasn’t planning on lunch either.

  ‘Or a Scotch egg?’

  ‘What the fuck is that?’

  The pub was in Clapham, just next door to Battersea, he’d told her, and was nothing like the place where she’d met Mike. That had been populated by the kind of people you might expect to find in a gossip magazine: smartly dressed and talking with the kind of braying notes that Brits of a certain class, like Molly, for example, seemed to favour. Addy’s sharp ear had caught their tony accents and tucked them away for future reference. The walls of this pub were lined with photographs of soccer teams, draped with tinsel as a gesture to Christmas, and the drinkers were a rougher lot – some of them in workmen’s clothes, and with a good ethnic mix – and it seemed Dave was known to quite a number of them. There’d been waves from the bar when they came in and a loud call. ‘Watch it! Copper in the house!’

  ‘You live around here?’ Addy had asked, and when he’d nodded she’d thought in the strange, disconnected way she couldn’t shake off that if things were different, she might have been wondering at this point if he was going to suggest that they go over to his place and … and so on. But all that seemed an age away now.

  When they were still in the park, he’d said he had something more to tell her, but maybe she’d had enough for one day and wanted to go home and rest. Faced with a choice between answering more of Molly’s questions and simply listening, she’d agreed to the alternative suggestion.

  ‘Tell you what – I’ll get you a nice roast beef sandwich,’ he said, and before she could stop him he rose and went to the bar, returning a minute later with their drinks: a beer for him and a glass of red wine for her.

  ‘Sandwiches on the way.’

  He studied her again.

  ‘I won’t say I know how you feel, Addy. But try not to torture yourself. None of this was your doing. You’ve been dragged into it much the same way as your aunt was.’

  Since this was just what Addy had been feeling – that somehow she was to blame for Rose’s death, if only she hadn’t rushed up the mews to help Mike, what followed might not have happened – she wondered how he had guessed. If nothing else, he was turning out to be an interesting guy: sharp, but with a human side, and just now he was treating her with kid gloves, as though he’d taken the measure of her grief and knew what the situation called for. At any other time … but there was only this time – now – and she didn’t know if it would ever end, this feeling she had of irretrievable loss.

  ‘You said you had something more to tell me?’

  Before he could reply, a hand reached between them. It was holding a plate with two thickly cut sandwiches on it. A face with a wide grin crowned with dreadlocks paused for a moment beside hers. ‘Enjoy.’

  Malek picked up his sandwich. ‘Come on, Addy. I want to see you eat. Bite. Chew. Swallow.’

  She couldn’t help it. She had to laugh, and then did as she was told. It was the same as it had been with Mike – he was treating her like a big brother, but somehow she didn’t mind. His dark gaze was fixed on her.

  ‘Cops’ eyes,’ she said. She’d managed a swallow, and found to her surprise that he was right – she felt better for it.

  ‘What … what do you mean?’

  ‘They look at you differently. Everyone says so. It’s true, isn’t it?’

  He considered the question over a swallow of beer.

  ‘I suppose so.’ He shrugged. ‘You pick it up on the beat. I was in uniform before I joined the CID. You’re taught to look for things that aren’t the way they should be – doors, windows, cars, people too. It’s a hard habit to break.’ He took another sip. ‘So how am I looking at you?’

  But Addy just shook her head. She wasn’t ready for it, wasn’t up to flirting if that was what he was doing and didn’t know when or if she would ever feel that way again.

  He went on looking at her for a moment longer and then nodded, as though he und
erstood.

  ‘That other thing we learned from Horvath …’ he began.

  The change of subject took her by surprise and she half choked on the piece of roast beef she was swallowing.

  ‘Yes, what was it?’

  ‘We told him about the person who broke into your aunt’s house the first night you were there and asked him if it was connected in any way to her. We said we were pretty sure from witnesses in the store that the man was Japanese and that it seemed he was fleeing from four other men, also Japanese. Horvath didn’t know about it – we’d kept the story out of the press – but he guessed at once who the man was. He even gave us a name. One second …’

  Malek reached into a pocket and drew out a notebook. Opening it, he riffled through the pages until he found the one he wanted.

  ‘Kimura,’ he read out. ‘Hideki Kimura.’ He passed the book over to Addy. ‘He’d been employed as a bodyguard by a Japanese gangster, a big shot in the Yakuza. You’ve heard of them?’

  Addy nodded. She stared at the name.

  ‘Apparently Kimura ran off with a young girl that this boss was grooming to be his wife, or maybe just his mistress, I don’t know – they do things differently in Japan – but the thing is Kimura pinched her from under his nose and the two of them fled to Singapore.’

  ‘Why there?’ She gave the notebook back to him.

  ‘Because, according to Horvath, the Singapore government runs a very tight ship, and although this Yakuza boss would like to have sent a crew of his thugs after them, he knew there was no way they would escape the notice of the police there. So for the moment he was stymied.’

  Malek drained his glass of beer and waved to the barman for another.

  ‘Kimura meantime hadn’t been idle. He knew they couldn’t stay in Singapore indefinitely. It was too close to home. He had South America in mind as a place of refuge, but he wasn’t sure he could handle the arrangements on his own. It would mean coming out of hiding. And so he turned to Safe Solutions for help.’

  ‘He knew about them?’

  ‘More than that: he had once worked – if you can call it that – with one of their people, a joint operation so to speak. It was some Yakuza business in Hong Kong. Horvath claims he doesn’t know what was involved – he hated having to admit that those gangsters were once clients of his firm – but I doubt he was telling the truth. The interesting thing is the man Kimura was partnered with was none other than our friend Charon.’

  ‘I thought you said he worked for the CIA.’ Addy had been listening closely.

  ‘That was before. According to Horvath, he went freelance after he left them and Horvath claims he was shocked when he joined Safe Solutions to learn that they had been using Charon for the odd assignment. He says he warned his superiors the man wasn’t to be trusted but they wouldn’t listen to him. Anyway, since Charon already knew Kimura, he was offered the job – an “extraction” Horvath called it – which involved getting both Kimura and his lady friend out of Singapore and on a plane to Buenos Aires without anyone noticing it.’

  Malek paused to reflect. ‘They should have listened to Horvath. Maybe Charon felt he was wasting his time with the firm. They were paying him on a job-by-job basis, but the money wasn’t big and he’d come up with a plan of his own. He’d got in touch with the Yakuza boss and discovered he was willing to pay a king’s ransom to get the girl back. They struck a deal.’

  Addy winced. ‘What about Kimura?’

  ‘As Horvath understood it, Charon was given a free hand. If the chance came to remove him from the picture, well and good, if not, he could be left for others to hunt down and kill. Nice people, huh?’ He caught her eye.

  ‘So what happened?’ Addy took a swallow of her wine.

  ‘Charon screwed up. He had no problem making contact with the pair in Singapore and started setting up their escape as planned. But once he’d got Kimura out of the way on some pretext, he went to the apartment block where they had a room and cornered the girl. I don’t know what he intended doing. Horvath thought he was probably going to drug her. He may have had some help on hand. Drug her and whisk her out to the airport where a private jet would have been waiting. But the girl must have sussed what was going on. She cut her throat.’

  ‘Oh my God!’ Addy gasped.

  ‘So it all fell to pieces and Charon had to make himself scarce. He knew Kimura would be out for his blood, and the Yakuza, too, most likely. And to make matters worse, Safe Solutions finally realized Horvath had been right all along and severed their ties with him. Not that it did them any good: the Yakuza boss held them responsible, and according to Horvath they lost him as a client. Charon had to lie low after that and he didn’t surface again until he learned about the scam that Cypriot banker had pulled on the Russians and decided to get the memory stick for himself. Horvath said he didn’t know how he and Klepkin got together, but when all was said and done, they were birds of a feather and probably knew each other. He said what Charon needed was a whole new identity, the kind that cost a great deal of money to manufacture, but with the Russians on his trail and with Kimura and possibly the Yakuza as well closing in, it was just a question of time before they caught up with him.’

  He fell silent. He was watching Addy, waiting for her reaction.

  ‘That must be about the time he met Rose,’ she said.

  Malek nodded.

  ‘But Kimura couldn’t have known about her.’

  ‘Horvath’s not so sure. It’s obvious he was bent on tracking Charon down and somehow he must have learned about your aunt’s connection to him. They had worked together before, remember. Charon himself had vanished – even Horvath didn’t know where he was – but your aunt was reachable and Kimura may have thought he could find him through her.’

  Malek pushed his forelock back.

  ‘At least we know now who we’re searching for when it comes to that Arab woman who was murdered, though since he was wearing a mask when he broke into your aunt’s house, we still don’t know what he looks like. But we’ve messaged the Tokyo police, asking them to send us a photograph of the bloke. They must have him on record. But it still doesn’t get us any closer to Charon.’

  He took a long swallow of his beer.

  ‘What really puzzles me, though, is why he’s still alive – Charon, I mean. I’ve never heard of anyone so many other people want to see dead.’

  ‘Moreau?’

  Molly stared wide-eyed at Addy.

  ‘Are you sure that’s the name?’

  ‘Positive. The police think he might have been a friend of Rose’s, someone she met in the past few months. They want to talk to him.’

  Addy didn’t like the fact she was lying to Molly, even if they were only small fibs. But Malek had been insistent. The police didn’t want the whole story about Charon and his connection to Rose made public. He had raised the subject while they were driving back to Molly’s house from the pub.

  ‘Look, I know I said not to mention any of this to Lady Kingsmill, but you could try that name on her and see if she recognizes it, say he’s someone we’d like to interview. I gather she and your aunt spent a lot of time together.’

  ‘They were friends.’ Addy’s acknowledgement had been grudging. She didn’t like to think that Molly might have known things about Rose that she didn’t. ‘But she told me she’d seen less of her in the past few months. Molly thought she might have met someone she didn’t want to talk about.’ Addy felt she had to say it.

  ‘A man?’

  ‘Molly thought so. Rose was travelling a lot at the time, she said, and she didn’t seem to want company.’

  Malek’s next move had taken Addy by surprise.

  ‘You can also show her this photograph.’ He had reached into his pocket and handed her a print. ‘It’s a picture of Charon taken some years ago. Horvath told us not to put too much faith in it. Apparently the man has a habit of altering his appearance. You can keep it. We’ve made copies.’

  The photo was a head an
d shoulders shot of a man staring blankly back at the camera. It could have been a passport snap, Addy thought. He had fair hair and regular features, but nothing in the way of a distinguishing mark. ‘I don’t know him,’ she said. And then, ‘Did Horvath show it to Rose?’

  ‘He never got the chance. He only put two and two together – figured out what it was she’d got herself into and that this bloke Charon was part of it – after she’d disappeared. That was why he was so worried, he said, why he wanted to find her. He knew her life was in danger.’

  Now Molly sat frowning. They were in the kitchen. Expecting Addy back for lunch, she had taken a quiche out of the freezer and put it in the oven. Addy saw if she didn’t want to feel even more guilt about not saying what was really going on and what the police had discovered about Rose, she would have to sit with her and eat some of it.

  ‘Moreau …’ Molly repeated the name. Her frown stayed fixed. She was gnawing at her lip. ‘It rings a bell? I’m trying to remember … what’s his first name?’

  ‘Philip.’

  ‘Yes, that’s it.’ She nodded. ‘It was in Paris, I remember now, but months ago; one of the last trips Rose and I made together, before … before she started going off on her own.’

  She stared at Addy with unfocused eyes.

  ‘I’d spent the afternoon shopping. Rose had gone to see an exhibition, a retrospective … some famous painter, I forget who. We’d agreed to meet at La Coupole. Rose was there when I arrived. She was sitting with a man and she told me they’d met by chance at the exhibition.’

  ‘And it was him – Moreau?’

  ‘That was the name.’ Molly nodded. ‘He said he was French Canadian. I was rather intrigued. He was quite good-looking, not in a movie star kind of way, but attractive all the same, and I couldn’t help noticing it was the first time I’d seen Rose animated in the presence of a man – since Matt died, I mean. Later I teased her about it and asked if she’d found a new beau. She laughed it off, but the next day when we had a plan to visit Versailles, it turned out she had invited him to join us. I shut up after that. I was just praying Rose had found someone she liked, someone she was drawn to, and I kept hoping she would mention him when we went back to London, that perhaps they had made a plan to meet again.’