by Lee Weeks
‘It is a nuisance but nothing I can’t handle. Seems like your appearance has coincided with a spell of bad luck for me, Mr Hart. And not just me. Sonny was a friend of mine. Tyrone tells me that you proclaim to be his successor. You are ambitious, to say the least. Sonny built up his reputation over years. You have been here a few days and you step into Sonny’s very wet shoes. You must be either extremely clever or very stupid.’
Carmichael smiled. ‘Anyone could have killed Sonny; could have been an accident even; he was off his face when I saw him.’
‘Yes. Perhaps. Tyrone is finding it difficult to answer me in full. He does say you have the wherewithal to do the job. He says you have girls arriving soon.’
‘Yes, but I’m not happy to hand them over to you if they’re going to end up on the M25 motorway. Tyrone told me you sold her on to a specific client. That person messed up. He has to pay.’ Carmichael threw a crumb across to the rats. ‘Seems like everyone’s getting sloppy. Sonny wasn’t the only one to make mistakes.’ There were a few seconds of silence as Digger’s face flushed with anger before he took a breath and calmed himself. He didn’t enjoy being made to feel incompetent. ‘I merely passed her on to someone; I had no choice: she was already bought. Hands were tied. . you understand.’ Digger looked across at Ray, who had both of his hands nailed to the table sitting in pools of blood. He was shaking violently, his face twitching in agony. ‘Don’t worry, people are being punished. Things are getting rather tricky here. The police are persistent. They are ruining my business and, ultimately, all of our businesses.’ Digger listened hard; he heard nothing. He leant across and banged his fist on the top of the nail. Ray screamed. ‘I don’t like things to get out of hand. I will be happier when everything calms down. I don’t need the aggravation. I am handing that side of the business over to you. You want Sonny’s job, you got it. Sonny wasn’t ambitious. He never wanted more than being a supplier. I sense that you would like a bigger stake so I am passing over part of mine to you. You bring the girls in and you manage them. I will introduce you to the other men in the chain and you can deal directly with them. You just keep supplying me and I’ll be happy.’
‘Okay. . I think we can do a lot of business in the future. I look forward to meeting the club owners.’
Digger got off the phone and made another call and then he waited impatiently as he tapped his fingers on the table and watched Ray sweat. A small whimpering sound trickled continuously from Ray’s mouth as he tried to control the pain.
‘Here you are at long fucking last,’ Digger said to the man entering the kitchens. Digger banged his hand on the table. ‘Thank God for that.’
‘Sorry, boss. I was on a job.’ Deano stood six foot seven. He was in proportion except for his head, which was much too small for his body. One of his own hands could completely engulf it.
Deano looked at Ray as Digger talked. Since the man known on the street as DD, short for Deano the Death, had come to stand by him Ray had started crying openly. He knew there was a worse fate than having your hands nailed to a table.
‘This man.’ Digger showed Deano a photo of Carmichael. ‘Hart. Follow him and be ready to move on him if I say.’ Deano took his time studying the photo and then he nodded. He went to leave. Digger called him back and pointed at Ray. ‘And take out the trash on your way.’
Chapter 44
Sandford was making a brief appearance at Fletcher House to chase up some results; he had washed down the shelves of the spice cupboard at Blackdown Barn, collected the liquid and sent it away to be analysed. Now he had to find someone who liked cooking to tell him what it meant. His back was aching from unscrewing the entire kitchen. Halfway through standing up he had felt his back seize. He leant one hand on the top of a desk as he answered his phone.
‘Sir?’ It was Davidson.
‘Yes. . I’m back here, sir. There’s still a lot to do. . I appreciate that but I want to keep the team small; save any cross-contamination. We are digging up the garden. The apple trees will take some shifting. . No. . the cellar hasn’t yielded any positive results. We’re down to clay soil now.’ Sandford closed his phone and went over to Robbo who was back at his desk.
‘Oh my God, how come they let you out?’ Robbo laughed when he saw him.
‘Just come back to follow up some results and to get warm.’
Robbo rolled his chair down to the other end of the desk, picked up a collection of samples and handed them to him.
‘Here’s the result of the plastic sheeting: three companies produce that gauge, that width. They’re sending me the lists of customers.’
‘Any sign of Carmichael?’
‘None.’ Robbo sat back in his chair and looked hard at Sandford.
‘I expect he’ll turn up soon enough.’
‘Yeah, but in what way? We both know what he’s capable of.’
‘Sorry to interrupt.’ Ebony came in and handed Sandford a file. ‘I was told to bring you in my report on Rose Cottage.’
‘Thank you, Detective. Before you go. . do you like cooking?’ She shook her head. ‘What about your family? Your ethnic roots? Do you know how to cook some of the food from your culture?’
‘You mean Caribbean?’
‘Exactly.’
‘No. . I don’t know any of my Jamaican family.’
‘Okay. . shame. . everyone should know how to make one national dish,’ replied Sandford.
‘What’s yours?’ asked Ebony.
‘Welsh cakes.’
‘Ask Robbo — he cooks all the time. .’ She turned to Robbo.
‘Yes, ask me. What’s this about cooking?’
‘About spices to be exact,’ said Sandford. ‘From the shelves at Blackdown Barn. What would you make if I were to give you a mix of garam masala. . chilli, coriander-’
‘I’d make you a hot Indian curry, maybe a chilli chicken tikka masala?’
‘Wait, I haven’t finished the list: paprika, Mediterranean herbs, hickory essence, and pimento.’
‘Oooh, interesting. . I’d say you had a touch of the South African braai thing going on and definitely some colonial British in there. We can’t go a week without a curry and anywhere in the world we colonized is the same. But the sweetness, that’s the key to South African cooking: a strange mix of sweet, hot herbs and spice. . the thought of it is making me hungry.’
‘Making me starving,’ said Ebony as she left.
Sandford picked up his plastic samples and left. ‘Catch you lot later, back to the fridge.’
Robbo typed in the South African link. He watched HOLMES make the connections and come up with the results. He stirred sugar into his coffee and took a sip. He clapped his hands in front of his face in an attempt to wake himself up before picking up his coffee and walking into the ETO. Ebony was back to back with Carter. Jeanie sat opposite.
‘Justin de Lange. .’ Robbo pulled up a chair between Ebony and Carter. ‘Interpol have come up trumps. He trained as an anaesthetist but didn’t go on with it; we knew that — but one of the reasons is because he was accused of rape. It wasn’t the first time either. This time it was a friend of the family. Seems he’d had problems through boarding school. The school covered it up but mainly Mummy paid people off. She died while he was in med school; looks like he went travelling straight after.’
‘Why would Martingale want someone like that on his team?’ asked Carter.
‘Yeah. . and even more to the point, why would he allow him to marry his daughter?’ said Robbo. ‘The son he never had, maybe?’
‘Yeah,’ said Carter. ‘He must have had something Martingale was looking for.’
Jeanie shook her head. ‘He can’t have known.’
Ebony looked at her. ‘I think he must have, Jeanie. He would have made it his business to find out everything. Maybe he’s using the information somehow. Maybe it works to his advantage to keep a hold over de Lange?’
‘Could be,’ said Jeanie. ‘But where does that leave Nikki de Lange? Is their marriage a sham?’
‘Carter thought so, didn’t you?’ Ebony answered, looking across at Carter. He nodded.
‘Yeah. They look like they should be a perfect couple: good-looking, successful. Maybe they’re too perfect. The Lion King and the Snow Queen.’
Ebony nodded in agreement. ‘They seem to be the same types, both very aware of their looks, both aware of everything around them. If anything he is vainer than she is. He must have got that tan from a sunbed or a bottle. His lion mane hair is obviously his pride and joy. She seems more brittle, pasty-looking, she looks beautiful but she doesn’t look healthy. I think no couple could have two people competing to be the most perfect. I would agree with Carter: something’s not right. Not that I’m an expert on what a happy couple should look like.’
Carter glanced her way, as did Jeanie. Jeanie smiled encouragement. It was the first time anyone had heard her say anything even remotely connected with her private life.
‘Unless Nikki de Lange is a victim,’ said Jeanie. ‘She’s ruled by her father and her husband. . maybe.’
‘Maybe it was part of a deal with de Lange,’ said Robbo. ‘You run my companies and you’ll get a big slice of it in the end.’
‘What about her? What does she get?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Robbo. ‘She’s caught in the middle of it all, maybe. She was home-tutored by Martingale. There are no records about her exam results, her university achievements. There’s not a photo of her in any newspaper clipping. It’s like she’s barely been allowed to exist.’
‘No photos? Not even when she got married? The local press must have covered it?’ asked Jeanie.
‘Not even then. .’ answered Robbo. ‘More than that. . so far I haven’t been able to find any proof that they are married. . There is an entry in a midwifery hospital in Port Elizabeth for her birth. It ties in with what she said about being four years older than Chrissie Newton. Apart from that she seems to have lived her life in seclusion and maybe even isolation.’
‘Daddy’s girl,’ said Jeanie.
‘And now he’s paired her off with Daddy’s right-hand man,’ Carter replied.
‘We should try and find out more about her,’ said Jeanie. ‘Ask Harding. . see if she knows any more about it than we do,’ Jeanie winked. ‘She likes you. Ebb.’
Carter laughed. ‘Don’t tell Ebony that. She’ll ask for a transfer. We need to go round to Mr and Mrs de Lange and see how the happy couple co-habit.’
Robbo commandeered Carter’s desk as he logged into his own PC remotely.
‘Let me also show you this. You asked me to dig up any dirt I could find on Martingale. Well maybe this is not directly about him but it’s about one of the companies on the list you gave me. It’s a company called Remed Ltd. They are a medical research company. Bear with me.’ Robbo brought up several photos on the screen. He clicked on the first one.
‘This is Mr Hans Grun. And this is one of the last photos of him alive. Here he is with his devoted American wife called Patsy.’
‘He looks healthy enough,’ said Carter as he studied the photo of the silver-haired, fit-looking man in his early fifties.
‘Hans Grun died in Soho under suspicious circumstances on one of his many visits to London on business. That was in nineteen eighty-four. They think Hans was murdered when a robbery went wrong. In his will, Hans’ wife Patsy discovered that he’d left his body to science and she donated it to Remed Ltd. Sweet — you think. Very commendable that your dying wish is to donate your body to medical science? What would you expect to happen to it?’
‘Used for research, I suppose?’ answered Carter.
‘Exactly. You’re going to think the worst that can happen is some spotty-faced med school kid messes with it. . but hey, it’s in the name of science. But then Patsy decided to track down what happened to his body and here’s the fun bit. Patsy discovered that her husband’s bones had been melted down to make dental products for cosmetic dentistry and had also been made into a gel for plumping women’s lips. Patsy wasn’t happy and she sued Remed Ltd.’
‘Interesting,’ said Carter.
‘They gave her some compensation; it wasn’t illegal just a bit unethical.’
‘When I looked into the shareholders in Remed Ltd I found a familiar name. Digger Cain has been there from the very beginning. He was certainly there when Hans got melted.’
‘So Martingale must know Digger? He must have lied to us.’
‘Not necessarily; it’s Justin de Lange who set the company up and who has been running it all this time.’
Chapter 45
Ebony walked over to the Whittington Hospital where Harding worked. It was less than a two-minute walk. Carter would pick her up in thirty minutes to drive to Hammersmith and check out the de Langes’ living arrangements. She took the lift down to Pathology in the basement and signed in at the reception.
‘Doctor Harding, can you spare me a few minutes?’
Harding looked up from her microscope and removed the slide she was examining. It was a cross-section of one of Silvia’s femurs.
‘Shoot.’ Harding sat back in her chair and pointed at another chair over at Mathew’s empty desk. Ebony drew it over. ‘How’s it going?’
‘I wanted to ask you about James Martingale. . you’re a friend of his?
‘Yes. . in a way. He’s been very good to me, to this department. I told you. We wouldn’t be so well equipped if it weren’t for his generosity. We wouldn’t have been able to carry out the investigations we have. I’m proud of that.’
‘Did you know about his daughter, Nikki de Lange?’
‘No. I didn’t.’
‘So you never met her before?’
Harding shook her head; ‘I only heard about her existence the other day. I may have met her at some point.’
‘Do you not think that’s odd? That no one’s heard anything about her before? She was Chrissie Newton’s older sister. She must have been around when Chrissie died but there’s no mention of her in the original report.’
‘No need, I suppose. She wasn’t in this country; she wasn’t part of the investigation.’
‘She wasn’t a child then. She was twenty-seven. That’s hardly a kid. She was a grown-up that no one has ever really heard about till now.’
‘What’s the point in this? What are you thinking?’
‘That she was the child in the attic. That she was hidden away. Her dad is a bit controlling, possessive maybe?’ Ebony waited for Harding to react, but she didn’t. ‘Do you know whether he’s had many relationships?’ continued Ebony.
‘He had a good few. I would say he’s definitely a ladies’ man, but now he keeps it to sex only. He has a lot to lose, after all. The divorce settlement would make you think twice.’
It wasn’t hard for Ebony to see that Harding was talking from experience. ‘What about Carmichael — did you get to the bottom of his relationship with Chrissie?’ asked Harding.
‘He still maintains they were never lovers. But she contacted him again after all those years?’
‘And she had a child by that time.’
‘That’s exactly what I was thinking too. She must have wondered whether he was worth a second shot, whether he was father material? But would she go so far as to break up his marriage?’
Harding shook her head, opening her hands out in a shrug.
‘I don’t know. I am the worst judge when it comes to looking inside people’s heads. I can tell you what their last meal was but I can’t tell you whether they enjoyed it. I’ve had more affairs than I care to mention or can pretend to feel guilty about. Some have broken marriages some haven’t. Some have even done some good for marriages. But. . the one thing I do know is that if a woman is determined to get a man she will.’ She looked across at Ebony’s expression. ‘Yeah. .’ Harding continued: ‘. . Maybe I’m not the best at dishing out pearls of relationship wisdom.’
‘What about her husband, Justin de Lange? Do you know him, Doctor?’
‘I know the
name. I didn’t know he was Mr Martingale’s son-in-law. I know him as one of the trustees of the Chrissie Newton Foundation. We correspond about charity matters, that’s all. I see his name whenever we get a donation to the department. I haven’t met him yet. Can I help you with anything else? I need to get on with these slides.’
‘Sorry, one more thing — I wanted to ask you about cosmetic surgery practices.’
‘Okay, you can ask. . not sure I can be much help. I don’t work in that field.’
‘I know Mr Martingale does, and some stuff’s come to light about cadaver products being used?’
‘Common practice. No secret.’
‘Is it legitimate?’
‘Yes. In this country we stay within the guidelines. Of course I could take you to twenty private clinics in Moscow where you’ll be able to get foetal stem cells injected into your face.’
‘What about Poland?’
‘Fast becoming the place to go if you want private work done.’
‘Mr Martingale has a hospital there.’
‘He has hospitals everywhere. You can be sure that whatever he’s doing he’s staying well within the law. I have to crack on now, Ebony. Is there anything else?’
‘Can I just ask you to read this when you have a minute? It’s just some extra information on Justin de Lange. I’d like your take on it.’ She left the file on Harding’s desk.
An hour after Ebony left, Harding phoned Martingale.
He was at home; in the background she could hear music, a female opera singer, she didn’t know which one.
‘Thanks for the other evening,’ she said. She felt apprehensive, never ceasing to feel overawed by his achievements.
‘Thank you. I haven’t enjoyed myself so much in a long time.’
‘Really? I had you down as a man who entertains a lot.’
On a sexual level Harding hadn’t enjoyed the night as much as she had expected to. Martingale was a man who made love by numbers; there was no passion. By the end she’d felt exhausted by the constant manoeuvring into positions. It was clear he’d read all the books about sex, but he’d missed the point.