The Career Killer

by Ali Gunn

  The secrets that Beya had to hear were far more serious. It was with a heavy heart that Elsie knocked at her front door.

  ‘Miss Mabey! You have news? Come, come. I make the tea.’

  Oh God, not the tea again. Beya had bounded off before Elsie could ask for water instead so she gingerly shut the door behind her and traipsed into the kitchen where the smell of baking bread wafted through the air.

  ‘That smells amazing, Beya.’

  ‘You like?’ Beya said. ‘Have some. I make too much.’

  ‘I couldn’t possibly...’ Elsie protested half-heartedly. Beya wasn’t listening anyway and Elsie knew she’d be leaving burdened with as much bread as Beya could fit into a shopping bag assuming, that was, that Beya didn’t hate her after this conversation.

  ‘I spoke to a young man called Vito—’

  ‘That boy no good,’ Beya said. ‘He come here. He put feet on my sofa. Rude, rude boy.’

  ‘He’s made some allegations.’

  A dark shadow crossed Beya’s face. ‘I know. The reporters come ask me if they true.’

  She had to ask. She winced as she did. ‘Are they?’

  ‘No!’ Beya stomped. ‘How dare you think my Nelly be like that? Where all this money he say she made? Where all nice things he say she given? Look around you, Chief Inspector Mabey, this is Croydon.’

  The kitchen was remarkably shabby in comparison to Beya’s attire. Last time Elsie was here, she hadn’t noticed that the paintwork was peeling off the walls. The kitchen hob, clean though it was, had seen better days. If Nelly had joined the ranks of the uber-wealthy, her family home hadn’t benefitted from the extra cash.

  Another pang of guilt. Elsie didn’t want to ask the next question either. Sometimes being a detective meant hurting the families of the dead. ‘Would you mind if I looked in her bedroom?’

  ‘Go. Go look. When you find nothing, I will be here.’

  ‘Which room is it?’

  ‘Up the stairs, third on the left.’

  All the way up the stairs there were photos of Nelly and Beya throughout the years. There was Nelly’s first day of school when her face was almost cherub-like, and then, at the top of the stairs, a photo of her dressed up and ready to hit the town for her eighteenth birthday complete with oversized birthday girl badge and helium balloons.

  Families reacted one of three ways to a murder. The most common reaction was to spend far too much time in the room of the deceased, weeping for the departed. The second technique was avoiding the room entirely. As the bedroom door was firmly closed, it seemed that Beya hadn’t had the heart to go in since her daughter’s murder.

  The third – and far more extreme reaction – was to renovate the room entirely, destroying any and all evidence of the person that had once lived in it. Beya was nowhere near the moving-on stage and wouldn’t be for many years.

  When Elsie opened the door, she found a room that was far removed from the little girl in the photograph. There were no pastel pinks here. Instead, the room was dominated by a huge bed, at least a king-sized, made up of an ornate metal frame and a thick, expensive memory foam mattress behind which was a three-panel canvas showing a champagne glass and two jazz musicians. Equally expensive sheets and a silk duvet cover completed the look. The colour palette was rich deep red and plum colours which tied together the walls, the curtain drapes, and even a red wooden divider at the end of the room.

  It was stylish, an oppressively dark plush look which was not at all to Elsie’s taste, but Nelly had made the room her own. On the other side of the divider was a desk with space for a laptop. Elsie knew that Fairbanks’ team would have already taken that in for evidence. A handful of books, all of the “finding yourself” variety, were arranged alphabetically on a shelf high above.

  There was no sign of cash anywhere.

  Where would Nelly have hidden things in this room?

  It was a bit of a conundrum for Elsie. Despite being the only daughter of a police detective, she hadn’t had to work hard to elude him. Before she was a teenager, she already knew where criminals hid their drugs and money. She had learned about the Ziploc bag in the toilet cistern, about the drugs taped to the underside of drawers, and even about her father’s own favourite hiding places. The great DCI Peter Mabey had once confessed to hiding pocket money from his father by unscrewing the fascia of a plug socket, tucking the money into a drawstring bag inside the partition wall, and looping his stash over the rear of the plate for easy retrieval later on.

  It meant that her father had become overconfident. He was so sure that he’d be able to find any contraband that he assumed Elsie didn’t have any. When she did eventually decide to hide a pack of cigarettes – which eventually ended up in the bin after the first one made her choke and vomit – she simply stashed it inside her underwear drawer knowing that her dad would never in a million years rifle through her unmentionables. He was barely around with work anyway and Elsie had always been responsible for the domestic chores so it was pretty easy to keep things a secret.

  Nelly never had that opportunity. Beya was one of those parents who lived for, and through, her children. Nelly was Beya’s sole focus all day, every day. It must have been a stifling environment to grow up in with little chance to grow, to experiment, and to fail.

  If Elsie had been brought up like that, how would she hide something from a loving yet overprotective mother? It came down to space. If the allegations that Vito had made were true then Nelly would have needed to conceal drugs, jewellery and money.

  Sniffer dogs would find the former pretty quickly. If Elsie didn’t have any luck searching by herself then that would be the logical next step. It wasn’t ideal though. Poor Beya was traumatised enough and seeing a search team tear the house down in search of her dead daughter’s drug stash would break her heart.

  The bedroom was nearly empty. There was nowhere obvious to hide things. The mattress had no lumps or tears where things could be put inside. There wasn’t any room under the bed because Nelly had stuffed dozens of pairs of shoes under there.

  The chest of drawers concealed Nelly’s first secret, though what Elsie found wasn’t exactly well hidden. Sex toys. Dozens and dozens of sex toys. Elsie slammed the drawer shut as quickly as she’d opened it. There might be something hidden underneath but looking in there again would be a last resort.

  Her next stop was the bathroom. The medicine cabinet was largely filled with over-the-counter painkillers, contraceptives and a surprising variety of supplements. Why on earth had Nelly needed so many pills? On the first shelf alone Elsie could see multivitamins, fish oil capsules, St John’s Wort and a microwaveable eye mask in a box which bragged that it could stop dry eyes in ten minutes a day. She might have to try that one herself.

  She was about to give up except for a little niggle in the back of her mind telling her that there was something somewhere in Nelly’s room. She backtracked out of the bathroom and scanned around once more.

  Nothing jumped out.

  Shoes! Why on earth did she have so many pairs hidden under the bed? The layer of dust on them was so thick that they hadn’t been worn for many months so it wasn’t simply that Nelly was a shoe addict.

  Elsie sat on the floor crossed-legged in order to drag the shoes out, one pair at a time, causing a great cloud of dust to puff up into the air and make her want to sneeze. There were many low-profile shoes – no good for hiding things in – and a couple of pairs of knee-high leather boots. She homed in on those.

  They were much more expensive than the kind of boots that Elsie allowed herself to buy though at her height, the choice was limited. Because of her height, she had to buy most of her shoes at a shoe shop in Soho that specialised in selling to transsexuals and drag queens. The shop, which was subtly named High Heels for Tall Folk, had no problem stocking a size nine and a half shoe capable of supporting a six-foot-tall woman.

  Her ‘aha!’ moment came when she picked up the nicest pair of boots. They were less dusty than the
other shoes and once they were in her hands, Elsie realised that the left boot was markedly heavier than the right. She flipped it upside down to decant its contents. A small bag of white powder fell out. Bingo. Cocaine. There had to be a few hundred pounds worth there. It was enough to make Elsie think that Nelly had been a user but not enough to have been dealing. Elsie pulled out an evidence bag from her pocket, turned it inside out, and bagged the powder. A sample would go to the lab to confirm that it was coke.

  Now came the hard part. Beya.

  Elsie pocketed the evidence bag and headed down the stairs. Beya was waiting for her at the bottom.

  ‘So?’ Beya prompted. ‘You find what you seek?’

  Her tone was pleading. She was desperate to cling onto the image of the gorgeous little girl pictured on the stairs.

  ‘No,’ Elsie lied. ‘I didn’t find anything.’

  Beya broke into a broad, relieved, smile. ‘I told you Vito was a bad man. Come, come have some tea.’

  Chapter 34: An Office with a View

  Ozzy had a top-floor office with a view right out over the Thames and across the river to Waterloo.

  ‘It’s been too long, Knox,’ Ozzy said. ‘You haven’t changed a bit.’

  ‘Apart from the grey hairs,’ Knox said. ‘I’ve got a few more lines too. Nobody warned me my thirties would be this tough.’

  ‘It’s the stress,’ Ozzy said. ‘I had my fortieth birthday a couple of weeks ago but I feel like a pensioner some mornings. Don’t you miss the good old days of us running around as sergeants? We thought we knew it all.’

  ‘Only morons think they know it all. The older I get, the more I know that I don’t know.’

  ‘Can I ask about the elephant in the room?’

  She rolled her eyes but nodded anyway.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Fairbanks and I had a disagreement,’ Knox said simply. When Ozzy motioned for her to carry on, she sighed. ‘He made a catastrophic mistake which he somehow pinned squarely on yours truly.’

  ‘That’s nothing new. Fairbanks messing up I mean. But why’d he pin it on you?’

  Like every good detective, Ozzy was like a dog with a bone. He’d never let it go. Knox glanced at the clock and stalled for time, knowing that she could avoid Ozzy for a while after she’d helped with the Katz Klawz investigation. ‘Ozzy, time is getting away from us. We need to be ready for tonight.’

  ‘Fine,’ he said, his expression one of pity rather than annoyance. ‘I know something funny is going on here. I’ve heard all the rumours. You can trust me, you know. I’ll have your back if you need me to.’

  ‘I appreciate that, Ozzy. But I’d rather just move on. Tell me what you need tonight.’

  ‘Okay, okay. Tonight is simple. I want you wired up and going back for the follow-up appointment you arranged earlier. Ask as many questions you can about how many other women work at Katz Klawz, how long she’s been a beautician—’

  ‘Technician. That’s what they’re called, Oz.’

  ‘Whatever. You get my drift. The more information you can get, the better. I’ll be in a van around the corner with Ian. Obviously, you won’t have a panic button so if you need reinforcements just say the phrase “What can I do about my damaged cuticles?” and we’ll come running.’

  ‘Really? Bit of a long phrase in an emergency. How about “Help!”?’

  ‘You know we’ll come running if we hear anything obvious. This is just if you need to be subtle. While you’re there, see if you can give Sumiko this.’ Ozzy slid what appeared to be a lipstick across the desk.

  ‘GPS?’

  ‘Latest and greatest. It’s accurate to within a few feet and small enough to hide inside the lipstick.’

  ‘No way to find it without using it up first then.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘You want me to give it to Sumiko?’

  ‘If you can. No harm if you can’t. It just makes everything a bit easier. If we can watch the GPS tracker move, we can line it up with the car in which Sumiko travels. Then we’ll be able to look up the owner of the car before we move to intercept. This is an intel-gathering exercise after all, and the more we know, the better the outcome

  Knox put the lipstick in her handbag next to her actual make-up. ‘I feel like James Bond. Or the female equivalent. Jane Bond? Nah, that sounds a bit naff.’

  Ozzy ignored her. ‘When you’re done, leave and head to Soho by car but take a roundabout route. You know that safe house we’ve got in Peter Street?’

  ‘By Westminster College? Dodgy roll-up garage looking place near the walk-ups?’

  ‘That’s the one. It should be a good base for wherever these girls are working. It gives us a response time of five minutes or less to anywhere in Soho via motorbike, a bit more if we need a squad car. You know what traffic is like around there. I’ve asked Yohann to head over now to get ready.’

  ‘You sure we haven’t been made?’

  The safe house was almost as old as Knox. If the criminals knew it belonged to the police then any operation would be compromised.

  ‘Totally sure.’

  It was good enough for Knox. ‘Alright, let’s do this thing.’

  IT WAS HALF AN HOUR before closing when Knox returned to Katz Klawz. Sumiko was still working and the Sister was loitering nearby, looking every bit as stern as she had done earlier in the day. There were still no customers.

  ‘Hi!’ Knox said. She forced herself to smile despite her pulse racing along at a hundred beats a minute. ‘Can we put another coat on and then decorate my nails as we planned? I’d like little those flowers, please. You did a great job today but work has ruined them and I want everything to be perfect for my date.’

  Before coming in, Knox had roughed them up as best she could.

  ‘Sit, sit,’ Sumiko said, her voice pitching unnaturally high. The Sister leered at them.

  Knox took her seat. ‘I’m so sorry to be a pain but can we put on an extra coat before we do the decorative work? I work in the back of a big restaurant doing the washing up and it’s so punishing on my nails.’

  ‘No problem. I can make all good for you for tonight.’

  The urge to reassure Sumiko was overwhelming. Knox couldn’t say anything out of the ordinary while the big woman was watching. How could she tell Sumiko that everything was going to be okay without overtly saying so?

  ‘It’s going to be a wonderful night. He’s taking me out for dinner.’

  ‘You lucky girl, where you going?’

  ‘Just somewhere in town,’ Knox said, picking every word carefully. ‘It’s a surprise. There’s this little restaurant on Wardour Street that we both love.’

  The name of one of Soho’s most famous streets pricked Sumiko’s ears. Knox could see her beginning to breathe a little faster, her face flushing red.

  ‘When you eating? I like to eat early.’

  Good girl, Knox thought. It seemed Sumiko understood what Knox was trying to convey. ‘Probably half six, maybe seven. They do a lot of early-bird deals. I want to get there before it gets too busy. I hate it when a restaurant is full, don’t you?’

  ‘Me too, me too.’

  Sumiko deftly finished restoring Knox’s nails.

  ‘Can we do those lotus flowers that you did for my friend?’ Knox asked.

  Sumiko inhaled sharply and looked at the Sister. ‘So sorry, no have time for such complicated design today. How about simple flower like one behind me?’

  Sumiko pointed to a photo on the wall.

  ‘That’s fine. Let’s do what we can with the time we’ve got.’

  Knox mentally rehearsed she needed to find out from Sumiko. Ian and Ozzy were listening in from a van around the corner. They were probably cursing her lack of progress right now.

  ‘This is a big place,’ Knox said. ‘Do many girls work here?’

  Sumiko leant forward. ‘Many come and go.’

  How many? Knox wondered. Was this nail bar a revolving door of trafficking victims?

/>   ‘Have you been here long?’

  ‘Since summer.’

  Five months. That was a lifetime of slavery. Knox felt her jaw tremble as anger flooded through her. She forced herself to stay calm.

  ‘Maybe one day you’ll have the chance to run your own place.’

  The thought elicited a wan, disbelieving smile from Sumiko who said nothing and continued to apply the topcoat to Knox’s nails.

  When she was done and it was time to pay, Knox made a big show of putting her handbag on the counter as she fished for her purse. With only the slightest encouragement, her bag toppled over, spilling its contents all over the counter.

  ‘I am so clumsy sometimes,’ Knox said as she shovelled nearly everything back into the bag. After a quick glance at the Sister to make sure she wasn’t looking, Knox nudged the lipstick towards Sumiko and winked. The bill was quickly settled as the clock ticked towards six, and Knox made a beeline for the door.

  ‘Miss!’ the Sister called out. ‘You forgot your lipstick.’

  Fuck.

  Chapter 35: Out of Place

  He couldn’t have looked more out of place if he’d tried. The premises of Quadrozzi Dress Design & Haberdashery on Bond Street were undeniably feminine. The walls were adorned with cream wallpaper with seams of gold tracing floral patterns. The dress selection was mostly wedding dresses with one long wall reserved for evening gowns that ranged from elegant to sleek and sexy. The one thing that every dress on sale had in common was the extravagant price tag. None matched the black lace gown that Leonella Boileau had been found wearing.

  A young woman dressed in a smart jacket and skirt combo approached him. She appeared bemused to find a man dressed in khaki trousers perusing their wares. ‘Can I help you, sir?’