‘That would get you further.’
‘Then you’re a very nice lady,’ said Dougie, deadpan. ‘Nice looking, but you’re clever too aren’t you? I like your hair very much. When did you die?’
She considered whether to answer. Then she did.
‘1944. The Blitz. I was shagging a spiv in his living room and we didn’t hear the doodlebug. Luckily I climaxed in the nick of time, though he didn’t. He screamed in my ear when he died. Similar situation to this one actually, me disentangling myself. C’est la vie, or rather, c’est la morte. Is that the small talk done?’
‘Just about. Do you know this man? Here, take a look.’
He showed her a photo on his brand new Met issue e-berry.
It was a photograph of Roy the Boy Hall.
‘Yes.’
‘How?’
She hesitated. Her smile faded and she became grim.
Her grimness made her even more beautiful, and also more real. Dougie liked her a lot more now; though still not much.
The woman studied Dougie carefully, making a judgement about him. He clearly passed, and she answered his question. ‘He comes here often, three times a week sometimes,’ she said.
‘Customer?’
‘Not with me. Yes. Some of the girls – yes.’
‘Not really a customer though?’
‘He doesn’t pay, he gets paid.’
‘By your boss.’
‘It’s called protection.’
‘Why do you need protection?’
She lit a cigarette. Hardly anyone smoked these days, not since it became illegal, so Dougie was intrigued at her technique. Tapping the tip. Lighting it with a cupped hand. Blowing smoke out then tilting the cigarette hand back, unconsciously striking a pose. It was like ballet with nicotine. It reminded Dougie that she was from a different age.
‘We’re a small establishment,’ she continued. ‘We need a police licence. Drugs are openly used by the customers, so we need to have immunity from prosecution. So, my boss pays for that.’
‘You know who this man is then.’
‘I know he’s a policeman. His name is Roy. He told me. Roy Hall. He supplies girls to us sometimes, resurrected girls I mean. Not me, but quite a few of my friends were scooped out of Hell by Roy and his pals.’
Dougie made no reaction; but within him, alarm and anxiety fought for ascendancy.
‘And will you write a statement to that effect?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because this man knows my man. My spell-binder. Can’t take the risk.’
She sighed, frustrated at his stupidity.
‘I’d leave your boss out of it. I guarantee that.’
‘You expect me to believe you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well I don’t.’
‘Fair enough.’
‘Were you lying?’
‘Yes.’
She laughed. For a moment it felt as if she liked him. ‘Well ain’t that just tickety-boo,’ she said.
She blew smoke; Dougie was engulfed in a fug of tobacco. She looked even more radiant through the smoke. Dougie realised he trusted her.
He’d just been fishing here. Sure, he’d suspected Roy was taking backhanders from the brothels; but he hadn’t realised he was a procurer for pimps too. But it was, he realised, a worthless discovery, which he couldn’t act upon. Not while Roy had the mobile phone footage of Angela committing murder. Even so, Dougie was a great believer in the adage that knowledge is power.
‘So who is your pimp?’ he asked. ‘Surely it can’t hurt him for me to know his name.’
‘He doesn’t have a name.’
‘Everyone has a name.’
She shook her head.
‘He just turns up. You know him when you see him. That’s what he’s like, one of those guys, you know?’
‘Description?’
‘Big grey beard.’
Dougie’s flesh started to crawl.
‘A warlock?’
‘Of course a warlock.’
Dougie’s flesh crawled even more; his pulse started to race.
This was when Dougie first learned the truth about his post-Occlusion world. It was as profound an epiphany as when he’d realised that Carter Street nick was utterly corrupt.
‘You’re trying to tell me that a warlock runs a brothel?’ Dougie accused. ‘That’s –’
She was smiling. ‘You don’t know much, do you?’ she said.
‘You’re saying, warlocks are corrupt,’ said Dougie, stunned.
‘Everyone,’ said the beautiful prostitute, who once had been a debutante, before becoming a gangster’s moll, before dying in that bomb blast, ‘is corrupt.’
Chapter 9
Skip forward two weeks. Sunday the eighteenth of March, 2018.
Demon Detective Constable Baal and Dougie stood side by side in the corridor outside the High Dependency Ward of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich, behind a glass screen, watching the beautiful prostitute endure pain beyond measure.
Her name, Dougie had by now learned, was Lavinia Warburton. Her father had been an ‘Honourable’, and the family house was in Belgravia. She’d been slumming it when she started going out with Bill, a Cockney wide boy spiv who had deserted from the British Army on the first day of basic training, and who had spent the war on the run in the East End selling black market gear.
It had been a grand and glamorous existence for Lavinia, living in sin with her bit of rough, to the dismay of her aristocratic family. However in Dougie’s opinion, from his brief and bracing exposure to this strong willed, sharp-witted woman, Lavinia would have eventually come to her senses and ditched the thieving spiv bastard. And then, after the war, she would have gone on to be a wife and mother and respectable member of the Society set. Her wild oats sown and lessons learned.
Instead she’d died and gone to Hell.
And now she was pale and wasted and gasping for breath in a hospital bed. The flesh had fallen off her. All that remained was parchment-thin skin over immaculate bone structure. Her wrists were like twigs. Dougie barely recognised the poised and beautiful woman he had seen at Eltham.
‘I didn’t know these creatures could die,’ Dougie told Baal. ‘Not unless they get a silver bullet through the body or brain. And even then, it has to be cursed by an exorcist, or thrice anointed by a warlock.’
Baal sneered and said nothing.
‘I command thee, I command thee, I command thee, answer me truthfully,’ said Dougie, wearily.
‘The resurrected can die,’ said Baal, ‘if they defy their spell-binder’s invocation. But I doubt it will go that far. She’ll just get weaker, and thinner, and more in pain.’
‘How? Why?’
Baal shrugged, scornfully.
‘I asked you a question, damn you,’ Dougie snapped. ‘Beast, I com –’
‘I’ll tell you,’ said Baal scornfully. ‘It’s your fault. She told you too much.’
‘She told me nothing.’
‘She told you something. This is her punishment. She probably won’t technically die, as I say; she’ll just live like this, in utter agony, forever. Or until her spell-binder takes pity on her.’
‘Her spell-binder is a warlock.’
Baal was silent.
‘Say something.’
‘What can I say?’
‘And Roy Hall is your spell-binder. He runs you.’
‘Yes. That’s not a secret.’
‘You must know then that he’s corrupt,’ said Dougie. ‘Roy Hall is corrupt. He runs a protection racket for brothels. He procures the damned, too, don’t ask me how, but he gets whores out of Hell and he sells ’em on. He steals from drug dealers. I’ve even heard rumours that he – he may be a contract killer.’
Baal was silent.
‘I command thee thrice, tell me if that is true,’ said Dougie.
Baal spewed black blood. It was a shocking moment. The vomit spattered his hooves, and pooled
on the hospital floor like tar. His puke was hot and toxic; steam was rising from it.
‘I want to,’ said Baal. ‘I want to tell you.’ He looked at Dougie. ‘You should –’ he began to say.
Then he was mute.
Baal’s red eyes stared imploringly at Dougie. He desperately wanted to betray his master, but he could not. Instead, he looked up. And to the right. And down. And to the left. And up again. Dougie realised he was forming a shape with his eyes. A square. Why a square? Was that – Suddenly Dougie guessed it: A Masonic Square.
Dougie was beginning to understand how his world really worked.
A week later DDC Baal was gone, never to be seen again; and Resurrected Detective Constable Fillide Melandroni had taken his place.
Back to the present.
Gina and Dougie drove down Battersea Bridge Road.
‘Worried?’ Gina asked.
‘No,’ he lied.
What Dougie was doing today was the culmination of six months of hard work and witness-coaxing. Twice, Shane Benson had bottled it, and had refused to give evidence. But Dougie had played it cool. He’d let Shane off the hook - he hadn’t given him a hard time about backing out.
However, after that, he’d made a point of calling round Shane’s flat every now and then for a natter. He’d told Shane exciting stories about police work and the fearsome villains who Dougie had nicked, through his brilliant detective work. He’d even done the shopping for Shane’s Nan.
And so, without a single overt word being uttered, Dougie had given Shane the space in which to make his decision about whether to avenge the death of his best mate.
For all that time Dougie had used a police slush fund and personal savings to pay for a covert surveillance team of ex-copper private detectives to keep a 24-hour watch on Shane. That’s how little he trusted his own force. Wherever they went, Shane and his mum and sister were followed, and protected.
And now Shane was ready to give evidence in a court of law against a serving police detective who had conspired to murder on behalf of her boss Roy Hall.
In his witness statement, which Dougie had filmed, Shane testified that he had seen his best mate Nathan gunned down by three assassins, all of whom he could recognise if he saw them again. Especially the woman, Fillide Melandroni, who he recognised from photographs and had also ID’d in a walk past.
The other two killers had slipped through Dougie’s net, but Fillide was easy to find. She sat at the same briefing table as Dougie every fucking day.
Today, the bitch would be busted. Then Dougie could start to build his case against Roy Hall. He had the dossiers, he had the phone tap evidence, what he’d needed was the smoking gun. Roy’s murder of Nathan Fletcher via his spell-bound proxy Fillide Melandroni was just the ticket.
His actions today would of course mean the end of Dougie’s police career. Even if Roy went down, as Dougie firmly believed he would, from this point on there would no place for Dougie Randall in the Murder Squad. And no prospect of being transferred to any other specialist unit either. Traffic Division was the most he could hope for. The police force was a gang and it protected its own.
But Dougie didn’t care. He would savour this moment of payback, long anticipated. Then he’d quietly slink away with his pension. He’d done his twenty years, they wouldn’t be able to deny him that. He had his savings. He’d already bought a house in Cromer, in preparation for this move. And in truth, he’d be glad to get away from all the toxic serial killer shit.
Roy would try to have him killed of course. He would without doubt put a contract out on Dougie from his prison cell; with all the dodgy contacts Roy had made over the years, that wouldn’t be too hard for him.
And yes, that would certainly keep Dougie on his toes in his twilight years: the always imminent threat of being whacked whilst tending his vegetable garden. But he was ready for that too. Dougie had his own dodgy contacts; people who would grass up any would-be assassins before they could strike. And he was confident he’d be able to make sure his children were safe, even if he himself died in a hail of hitman’s bullets.
Dougie was resolved that this time Roy would pay the price for his many crimes. And as for Roy’s ‘get out of jail free’ card - the murder video featuring Angela - Dougie no longer gave a damn. He was, finally, past caring.
‘Where are the kids?’ Gina asked. She was planning ahead too, thinking of the possible reprisals against Dougie.
‘They’re in Leeds. With Angela’s parents.’
‘Will they be safe?’
Dougie smiled grimly. ‘Don’t worry. Angela’s brothers used to be Special Forces. They run their own security firm up there now. Jess and Danny will be fine.’
‘And what about Roy? What makes you think Fillide will implicate him?’
Dougie shrugged.
‘She won’t. She can’t. But there’ll be a trail. Trust me, the sewer rats are good at this shit.’
Gina was silent.
After a while, she said: ‘How long have you been planning this bleeding dog and pony show?’
‘Forever.’
They drove on.
They crossed the bridge at Battersea, then turned left at the roundabout by the Shell garage. After a few blocks Dougie parked up, several streets away from the Winchester Estate, in a back lane with garages. He and Gina got out of the car. Toad and Weasel joined them, from out of the shadows where they’d parked their own car.
‘The witness is with his mum in a pub in Darrow Street. The Royal Albert,’ Dougie said. ‘And yes, I do know he’s under-age, but it’s his local, so don’t sweat it, lads. I’ll meet Shane there, then bring him and his mum to you. Try not to look like Old Bill.’
‘We’ll do our best,’ said Weasel.
Toad and Weasel got back in their car, to wait. Dougie and Gina strolled two blocks to the pub. He took her arm as they walked, to deflect suspicion. It felt good. He entered the pub and felt a blast of muzzy breathed-out air and the stench of spilled beer, and that felt good too. He looked around. The pub was busy, but there was no trace of Shane and his mother.
‘Have they arseholed it?’ Gina asked, quietly.
‘I’ll message them.’
Gina bought the drinks. Dougie messaged Shane. No answer. So he sent a message to Mickey John, who he’d known at Whitechapel, and who now had his own detective agency and was running the close protection team on the witness and his family. No reply. Then he phoned Harry Walker, who was Mickey’s number two. Nothing. No voicemail, no reply to email or texts. A blank wall.
He sent a WhatsApp to Shane: nothing. He texted Shane’s mum Gaynor, because he knew she didn’t have email on her phone. Nothing. Then he sent an email to Toad and Weasel in their car via the MetNet. He drank half a pint of beer. No reply to any of his messages.
Dougie went up to the bar for the next round. The barman was a skinny man in his late 50s with hangdog jowls and a 60s quiff that was dyed implausibly black. Dougie reckoned him for the landlord and a rockabilly fan.
‘Looking for Shane,’ Dougie said casually. ‘Shane Benson.’
‘You the filth?’ The landlord’s tone was calm, confiding.
Dougie looked cunning. ‘Yeah that’s right. I’m a police officer. I’ll show you my ID.’ He made no effort to find his ID.
‘Ah, get away with you. Look, pal, no drugs in this pub, know what I mean,’ said the landlord, censoriously; winking.
It worked every time. Admit the truth and it was instantly discounted as a lie.
‘I just want to see Shane.’
‘He’s a good lad. Fresh start. It’s what he deserves,’ said the landlord.
Dougie thought he’d misheard.
‘What do you mean?’
The landlord got cagey. ‘Nothing.’
Dougie thought. Then he took out his police ID. ‘Where’s Shane?’
The landlord did a double-take, then grinned. He brushed his quiff with one hand and his hand came away brillantined.
�
�Saint Lucia,’ he said.
‘The Caribbean?’
‘That’s where his mum’s family comes from. He’s half nigger you know, no offence, though he doesn’t look it. Someone’s paying for Gaynor and the lad to take a trip there. You’re out of luck, mate.’
Dougie nodded. ‘Cheers.’
‘On your way detective, you’re making the place look untidy.’
‘Yeah yeah.’
Dougie returned to his table and checked his messages. Mickey John had left a block capitals text from a phone that clearly wasn’t a smartphone:
SORRY GUV. I’M OFF THE CASE. PETROL THROUGH LETTER BOX JOB AND THE MISSUS DIDN’T LIKE IT. BTW, GUESS WHO’S A SHAREHOLDER IN MY FIRM. I DIDN’T KNOW. DON’T HOLD IT AGAINST ME. I OWE YOU BUT DON’T EVER CONTACT ME AGAIN. BEST WISHES, YOUR OLD MATE - YOU KNOW WHO I AM BUT THIS PHONE IS A FUCKING BURNER PAL, AND I AIN’T NAMING NAMES. QUE SERA.
Dougie scooped Gina up.
‘What?’
‘We’re fucked. The surveillance team has been pulled off the job. Shane and his mum are gone.’
‘Gone?’
‘Caribbean, believe it or not. At a guess, I’d say someone told them they were going on a witness protection programme. Someone claiming to be working with me. By now they could be -’
‘Yeah, I get it.’
Dougie stepped out on to the street, followed by a breathless Gina, still clutching her half pint of lager. She put the glass on the ground. He emailed Toad and Weasel on his e-berry with the news. Then he led Gina across the road, towards the Winchester Estate.
‘Do you need a search warrant?’
‘No. Crime in progress.’
‘What crime?’
Dougie didn’t answer. He led Gina into the estate, up three sets of piss-stained stone stairs. The pace was fast; she was out of puff by the time they got to Level Three, and his forehead was beaded with sweat. He stopped outside number 34, Shane’s flat.
‘Oh dear, someone’s attempted a break in,’ said Dougie, kicking the door savagely so it rocked on its hinges. But it was a reinforced door with a double mortise; no way could he break it down. ‘Hence, in pursuit of the crime in progress, myself and DI Henderson effected an entry.’
Dougie took out his gun and shot the mortise off. They went inside.
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