Death is the New Black

by Dominic Piper

  ‘After a while I stopped. I was shocked. Shocked with what I’d come out with and shocked by myself. I was jealous of her. I was jealous of Sara Holt. I’d never thought it before and I’d certainly never said it out loud. I couldn’t believe it. It was like a weight had been lifted. This is going to sound ridiculous, but I felt cleansed by thinking it. I actually felt physically lighter.

  ‘My dad was clearly upset. He’d helped me so much – as much as he could, anyway. And here I was in my mid-twenties and seriously unhappy. I could see his mind ticking over. I could see he was trying to think of something he could do to alleviate my pain. Then he came up with it. Nothing too nasty. Nothing physical. Just a few scary encounters to spook her. Not regular; just now and again. Just enough to put her off her stroke.

  ‘I’d told him that she seemed highly-strung and had had some sort of nervous breakdown in the past. I think that’s why he thought of The Campaign, as he called it.’

  Jesus Christ. ‘And you didn’t try and stop him? Discourage him? You saw the effect it was having on Sara. You could have gone to the police straight away. If you’d have done that, we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in now.’

  ‘How…’ She sighs, pulls down the sun visor and examines her face in the vanity mirror, wiping the smudged makeup from around her eyes with the tip of a finger. Her movements are so delicate, vulnerable and feminine that it’s difficult to not want to reach out and touch her and comfort her.

  ‘How could I possibly have reported him to the police? He’s my father. I owed him so much. He thought he was doing the best for me. And he’s still involved in some heavy stuff, you know? Not as bad as in his heyday, but the last thing he’d want would be the police sniffing around for something like this. And with his past record, they’d take what he was doing very seriously indeed.’

  She turns to face me for the first time since we’ve been sitting here. I try to keep my expression blank.

  ‘You don’t know what he’s like. Once he’s got something in his head he’s unstoppable. All the ideas pile into his head one after another and he has to carry them out. Besides, I thought it would be untraceable, do you understand? It would just seem like a random load of events. Never the same people twice. It would just seem like typical London stuff. He didn’t mention breaking into her flat, but he said there were things he could do that would make Sara think she was going a bit batty. Those were his words: a bit batty.

  ‘It seemed harmless enough. I was the only one she confided in at first. It was hard not to laugh because I knew who was doing it and why. It was me who suggested she get a bodyguard and that translated into you.

  ‘I never thought she’d take it all so seriously that she’d hire someone to investigate it. I thought when the police couldn’t find anything that would be the end of it. I didn’t even think she’d get the police involved. It was all deniable stuff. All of it could be explained away.’

  She starts crying again. I fold my arms. Well, at least my guess about all this having all the hallmarks of professionals was correct. Her father must have got all his bent mates to chip in on this. He’d sling them a wad of cash, tell them what to do and let them get on with it.

  They probably all thought it was a big laugh. Freaking out some fashion designer bird who’d got too big for her boots. Instead, he’d got a perfectly charming, hard-working, talented woman on diazepam, worried out of her mind, frightened for her safety and wondering if she was going insane.

  He’d also pushed two of his foot soldiers directly into my path where they met a sticky end. He could never have banked on that happening in a million years and I’m wondering what he’ll do when he finds out. As if on cue, Black Suit does a little bit of pained murmuring from the boot, which makes Isolda jump.

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘Just some guy. I’ll tell you about it later. Listen, Isolda. This has become really serious now. You’re in a lot of shit. And I suspect Sara’s in real danger. But there’s one thing I still don’t understand. When did this suddenly change from harassment to abduction? What happened?’

  She looks down again and shakes her head from side to side. ‘It was my fault, but I didn’t realise what I’d done until it was too late. It was yesterday. I had lunch with Dad.’

  ‘I remember. Romanian restaurant. You looked slightly perturbed when the subject was brought up.’

  ‘He was a bit concerned that Sara had hired you. He asked about you; what sort of person you were, whether you looked like you might have been police, whether you might have heard of him or any of his friends. I told him no.

  ‘He wanted to know whether or not you could handle yourself in a fight. That seemed important to him. I told him that I had no idea, that I didn’t know anything about you.

  ‘I told him that you’d been recommended to Sara by a woman called Gracie Short who did a fashion blog. I thought you’d handled some sort of marital problem for her. Apart from that, we didn’t really know anything about you. I think he tried to check you out on the Internet, but found nothing.’

  Her face is soaked with tears now. There’s still something in me that wants to touch that face, to wipe those tears away, but that isn’t going to happen.

  ‘Daniel – I hope you don’t think that you and me…that I came on to you because of all of this…’

  ‘That’s exactly what I think.’

  That was a cruel shot, but it’s just tough luck and she has to take it on the chin. I don’t really know if that’s true; whether I really do think that her interest in me was one hundred per cent to do with the case.

  Part of me would like to think it wasn’t. Part of me would like to think it was genuine. Part of me would like to take her; here, now, in broad daylight in Manchester Square.

  I can recall the immediate, provocative body language, the continuous, casual touching, the teasing eye contact. Sensing that I was attracted to her and getting me to take her to dinner when we barely knew each other. The whole thing was probably just an added, enjoyable bonus for her; a bit of fun, just like Sara’s harassment.

  I try to remember every single word we’ve spoken over the last few days; her reluctant but steady questioning about the case, her touching concern for Sara. Could all of it have been fake? I really have no idea, but I have to assume it was. I have to be extremely careful dealing with her now. I have to treat her as the enemy. When I think of all the progress reports I’d given her I could kick myself into the middle of next week.

  ‘I wanted to get close to you, it’s true.’ She continues. ‘That was the reason I suggested going to The Perfume River. I thought I could get an idea of how likely it was that Dad’s activities could be detected, how likely it was that you’d see that it wasn’t all in Sara’s mind.

  ‘That date was ostensibly meant to be a professional evening; concerned colleague seeing if she could help in any way. I thought I may get enough info from that evening to tell Dad to back off, if I thought that’s what was needed. That’s what was in my mind at first, anyway.

  ‘But as soon as I walked in that bar – perhaps even before that – I could tell by the way you looked at me that you wanted to sleep with me. And that’s a turn on for me, it always is. I never get used to it.

  ‘And as I listened to you talk, as I watched you, I started imagining us together and it became overwhelming for me. I knew it was going to be difficult for me to keep my focus. I wanted you so badly it was like a pain. I just decided to go with it and see what happened.’

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

  ‘What happened when you had lunch with your father?’

  ‘I don’t remember when it came up. I was telling him about you. The questions you asked. How thorough you were. He said not to worry about it. How there was no way you could outfox his mates. Then I started bitching about Sara again. I had a rant about how phoney she was, how much her nice-girl image was put on to get people to like her professionally. There were so many phonies in the fashion world that she made a point of
not being seen like that, but even she was phoney underneath.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Then I went further and said that even her name wasn’t her real one. I’d never mentioned this to dad before. I had no reason to. It sounds so cool, doesn’t it? Sara Holt. It’s just one of those names. Memorable and snappy; easy to spell, a fashionista name, a brand name. But it’s not her original name; it’s her American stepdad’s name. She took his surname when her mum remarried, when she was fifteen.

  ‘Her real name, her birth name was Sara MacQuoid. Not quite so cool, too much of a mouthful, difficult to spell, very unusual. When I told Dad this, he looked like someone had just slapped him in the face. He went as white as a sheet. For a second, I thought he was having a stroke or something. Then he asked me to spell MacQuoid, so I did.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘You must believe me when I tell that you that I had no idea about this. It was the first time that Dad had ever mentioned it. He didn’t like talking to me about his past.’

  ‘What was it? What did he tell you?’

  ‘MacQuoid was the surname of the detective who put Dad in prison. DS Alistair MacQuoid, Sara’s father.’

  25

  HYPODERMIC

  I keep under the speed limit as much as possible as I’m still not sure whether the police will be looking for the SUV after this morning’s antics. I’m slightly worried that Nick Sarna may report it as stolen or AWOL at some point and I don’t know how long I might require it. I decide to give him a call.

  ‘Hi. Daniel Beckett. I’m just letting you know that I’m in the Explorer. I’m going to need it for a while. I’ll let you know where it is when I’ve finished with it.’

  ‘Will it be in one piece?’

  ‘It’ll have a huge scrapes down the sides, wing mirrors hanging off, bullet holes in all the windows and I’ll have kicked the windscreen out.’

  ‘Fuckin’ A. How’s it going with the Basquiat woman?’

  ‘Disastrous. I’ll speak to you later.’

  ‘Hey. Make sure you bring it back with a full tank.’

  I hope he’s kidding.

  We’re heading up through Camden on our way to Kenwood, a leafy area of Hampstead Heath where Isolda’s father is ensconced in some gigantic mansion, bought years ago with his ill-gotten gains.

  I get Isolda to give him a call on some fake pretext or other, just to let me know for sure that he’s home. Even if they don’t have Sara there, I’ll be taking him in exchange for her. I’ll need to know what to expect, but before I start questioning Isolda again I attempt to run this insane situation through my mind. Isolda has a quick chat to him and turns to me.

  ‘Dad’s at home. He’ll be there for the rest of the day. He sounded pretty relaxed and cheerful.’

  ‘Well, that’s put my mind at rest.’

  Relaxed and cheerful? She folds her mobile away and stares out of the window just as we pass the Roundhouse. I think she’s a little stunned. I’m trying to put the timeline together. She has lunch with her dad who finds out that the girl whose life he’s been making a misery is the daughter of the detective who put him away. But despite that, Footballer Dad/Uncle Jackie/Jack Heath is still at it with the harassment that very evening.

  That doesn’t quite make sense, unless Uncle Jackie couldn’t be contacted and couldn’t be called off. Or perhaps Tommy Jennison had to have a really profound, deep think about the whole situation, which took him the rest of that day and the early hours of the next one.

  Maybe he simply forgot or it slipped his mind in all the excitement. Maybe someone else was handling that side of things and didn’t get the info in time. Black Suit said something about Uncle Jackie not using a mobile phone and was annoyed that they could never get hold of him.

  No, of course he hasn’t got a fuckin’ mobile. Are you kidding?

  Whatever, Tommy Jennison acted fast. He must have spoken to Isolda who told him about the lunch date with Rachelle Beauchesne. Let’s face it; it’s pretty unlikely he found out about it through Twitter.

  He was concerned about me interfering with the whole process, found out from Isolda where I’d be that morning and sent Blond Hair/Robbie Hyland to try and get me out of the picture, with a potent but ultimately useless cocktail of money and menaces.

  Maybe, under normal circumstances, he’d have set Uncle Jackie on me. I can hear Black Suit groaning in the boot once more. I wish he’d shut up; he’s spoiling my concentration.

  They must have just hoped/assumed that I wouldn’t be babysitting Sara the whole time and wouldn’t be there when they attempted to snatch her, and even if I was, so what? They’d have been confident that Blond Hair and Blue Suit could easily have taken care of some lowlife private investigator, particularly one who didn’t seem to use a vehicle of any sort. Big mistake; and not the first one they’d made.

  Isolda puts her hand on my knee and give it a squeeze, as if we’re partners in crime or are on our first date in school. I ignore the squeeze and don’t look at her. It still feels like an electric shock, though.

  I can’t imagine what’s going to happen to her if and when this whole thing is sorted out. Has she even thought it through, I wonder? It’s the sort of thing I’d have to ask DI Bream about. I’m not even sure what you’d call Isolda’s type of crime. Conspiracy to abduct, psychologically harass, trespass, burglarise and assault? Something like that? Who knows?

  One thing’s for sure, she and her dad and his surviving cohorts will have to have a damn good squadron of high-flying hyper-expensive lawyers to prevent them doing jail time, particularly Tommy Jennison with his unsavoury record. What an idiot. He obviously can’t help himself.

  At the very least, Isolda will lose her job at Maccanti and will never work in the fashion industry again. Well, that’s tough. She’s been an idiot, too, just like her dad. It obviously runs in the family. The awful thing is that I still really fancy her, can’t stop looking at her breasts out of the corner of my eye and under other circumstances would stop the car right here and ravish her. I must book a formal appointment with Aziza.

  As we head up Haverstock Hill, I suddenly remember that Sara told me her dad had been a detective with the Met, but it didn’t register as being important or relevant at the time.

  Of course with hindsight I can see that it was the key to the whole thing, but my initial focus had to be on who was breaking into her home and hassling her on the street and how to identify them and stop them. I must remember that I’ve still got Footballer Dad in my lock-up. Wouldn’t do to forget that.

  ‘Where am I going now, Isolda?’

  We’re in Hampstead High Street. It’s not a place I’m too familiar with. Everything’s getting very leafy and affluent. Despite that, I don’t like the look of it very much, which I’m sure will cause the residents a few sleepless nights if not uncontrollable panic.

  ‘Straight on,’ she says, her voice flat and lethargic. ‘We pass through Hampstead. In five or so minutes, you’ll see a big park on your right, then there’s a roundabout. Take the second exit. You’ll be in Spaniard’s Road, then you go straight on again for a while.’

  I’m not going to question Isolda about her father’s motives; it’ll be much better to get it from the horse’s mouth. What’s puzzling me and worrying me is what Tommy Jennison is going to do with Sara now he’s got her. Isolda has suggested nothing and it’s likely she’s as much in the dark regarding Sara’s fate as I am.

  All those years ago, DS Alistair MacQuoid gives him a well-deserved prison sentence. In a sense, it was a bit of bad luck. He’d have got a smaller sentence if it had just been harbouring stolen goods or whatever the hell it was. As it was, he was discovered hammering nails into a fellow crook, which probably didn’t go down too well with the jury.

  At the time, Jennison was married, had a two-year-old daughter, a wife, an ailing mother and a well-oiled little organisation. By the time he got out, his daughter was a grown woman, his wife had committed suicide after various a
ffairs and his crime business was undoubtedly down the pan to one degree or another. On the plus side, he still had an ailing mother.

  I’m sure his associates on the outside would have maintained his crooked empire for him, but things would never be the same again. I’m guessing that sixteen years is a long time to be gone in the crime biz.

  He would have been resentful, furious, bitter and remorseful. He would have had years to think about what he was going to do when he finally got out. He’d have been looking for someone to blame for his misfortune. They always do.

  He would not have considered for a moment that he’d done anything wrong. I’m guessing that he wouldn’t be too bright, so he’d probably be thinking of revenge, despite the time that had elapsed and consequences that it might bring. Maybe you have to have something like that in your head when you’re in prison, just to get you from one day to the next.

  So he gets out and asks around about DS MacQuoid. But DS MacQuoid is no longer with us and hasn’t been for some time. The wife of DS MacQuoid has lived in New York for years, has a new surname, would be difficult to trace, and, besides, lives too far away for practical revenge purposes.

  There’s no way he could locate her, travel to the States, kill her and get back to the UK in time for tea. He just wouldn’t have the skills, the contacts or the brains, so he was undoubtedly resigned to giving up the revenge idea as a bad job. But I can’t imagine he’d ever forget about the whole affair.

  Then out of the blue, years later, his daughter drops a bombshell. Her boss, the woman that he and his boys have been giving a hard time to, having a bit of a laugh with, turns out to be the daughter of his nemesis, DS MacQuoid.

  Like his daughter, Sara Holt is now a grown woman, too. But she’s a very successful, well-known, rich, beautiful, grown woman. And Tommy Jennison knows everything about her and her movements.

  He knows what she does, where she works and where she lives. He’s got a one-woman intelligence unit in his own daughter, supplying all the information he needs to intimidate and persecute.