Kaz grabbed the hammer. Seeing the rage in her eyes, he held his arms across his face to protect himself. ‘Na, please, don’t! Don’t!’
Staring down at him, she became aware of her own thumping heartbeat as the events of the last twenty-four hours cascaded through her brain. The image of Yevgeny, his skull cracked open, his vacant gaze, haunted her, fuelling a murderous wrath. She wanted revenge – for him, for Joey, for Helen, for all of it.
Brian had the look of a scared rodent and vermin should be exterminated, there was no dispute in her mind about that. Her brother wouldn’t have hesitated. She raised the hammer, watched Brian flinch, heard him whimper. And suddenly the pain of it all flooded through her and tears were prickling her eyes. She wasn’t Joey and she didn’t ever want to be.
Taking a step back, she lowered the weapon. ‘Get the fuck out of here before I change my mind.’
Scrabbling to his feet, Brian glanced at the exposed cavity under the floorboards. ‘You said get your gear. That’s all I was doing.’
She glared at him. ‘Your gear? I don’t think so.’
He scuttled towards the door, then, judging himself to be at a safe distance, he turned and gave her a sour smile. ‘Never realized you’d turn out to be such a chip off the old block. Your old man’d be proud, you know that?’
9
Nicci Armstrong stood at the vast plate-glass window and gazed at the westward sweep of the Thames glistening in the afternoon sun. She was in a penthouse apartment at Chelsea Harbour owned by a Hong Kong-based hedge fund manager who used the place on his occasional visits to London, about twice a year.
Simon Blake Associates had the security contract for the building, which included managing the concierge service and ensuring the cleaners did their job. The apartments, many of which stood empty for a good part of the year, were supposed to be cleaned once a week. But an irate owner from Shanghai had arrived to install her daughter at University College and had discovered dust on her kitchen worktops. Threats were issued, Blake had come down to apologize to the client personally. Further inquiries had revealed that Hugo, SBA’s acting head of security, had been skiving off. When an explanation was demanded of him, Hugo called in sick; Blake concluded he’d already got another job.
Nicci had been on her way back from Essex when a hassled Blake had phoned her and asked if she’d help sort out the mess left by Hugo. So she was checking the flats one by one to assess how recently they’d been cleaned.
She had her phone in her hand. A text from Tom Rivlin had just popped up informing her that Karen Phelps had been released. She texted back: Hows Stoneham taking it? His reply buzzed back a minute later: Dont worry. I’ll talk her round.
Nicci put her phone in her bag and returned to the view out of the window. She’d been imagining what it would be like to live in such a place. It made her own flat feel like a broom cupboard. She was not a woman much given to envy, certainly not of the material kind. She sometimes gazed wistfully at families with kids of the age Sophie would’ve been. But to be surrounded by such wealth suddenly felt uncomfortable. Did the people who owned it really deserve to have so much to spare and so much to waste?
She shook the thought out of her head; little in her life, particularly in recent years, had been fair. But jealousy and resentment were toxins. If you let them poison your mind, life became a misery. She knew this and she knew that, for her, staying on an even keel was a daily task and one she had to work at.
Once she’d finished checking the penthouse she took the lift back down to the ground floor. The manager of the cleaning company had just arrived and was waiting for her. In his forties, with doleful brown eyes and hunched shoulders, he put Nicci in mind of a whipped dog.
She offered him a handshake. ‘Nicci Armstrong, from SBA.’
He took her hand awkwardly, his palm damp. ‘Samir Naseer. I’m so sorry, Ms Armstrong. As I explained to Hugo—’
‘Hugo has moved on. You need to explain to me.’ The cop in her had been expecting a shifty gangmaster with a bunch of illegal immigrants in his employ. Naseer looked like a stressed-out businessman with too many problems on his plate.
‘I apologize. There really is no excuse.’ He gave her a sheepish smile. ‘We pay above the minimum wage to attract better staff. But reliability is always a problem. I realize we are in breach of our contract with you.’
‘The flats I’ve checked don’t actually look that bad.’ Nicci had been through half a dozen. They were unlived in, the air a little stale, some were furnished, others completely empty. And they were all cleaner than her own place. She sighed. ‘But a client has complained so we’re obliged to take that seriously.’
He nodded. ‘Of course.’
They stood silently for a moment in the spacious marble-floored foyer. Nicci felt at a loss. Naseer wasn’t in the wrong, as far as she could see, any more than she was. Yet they were both being called upon to account for their perceived shortcomings. This wasn’t a world she was used to, the world of power and money. But her job now was to provide a service and not to argue.
Naseer bowed his head. ‘The client is always right.’
Fuck that, was Nicci’s immediate thought, although she managed to hold back from saying it.
She took a business card from her bag. ‘Get some industrial-sized cans of air freshener, Mr Naseer.’ She handed him the card. ‘Ask the concierge to call you when he knows any of the owners are expected. Go in and spray the flat before they arrive. And call me if you have problems.’
He inclined his head and smiled, his features softening. ‘You are very understanding.’
The phone in her bag buzzed and she gave him a nod. ‘Excuse me.’
Stepping aside, she took the phone out. Rivlin again. She adopted a polite but disinterested tone. ‘Tom, how’s it going?’
‘I’ve got a piece of intel that I was hoping you might interpret for me.’
‘If I can.’
‘Yevgeny Koshkin has cropped up in a trawl of some surveillance photos taken last week by the intelligence unit of the Met’s Serious and Organized Crime Command.’
‘Doing what?’
‘Entering premises under surveillance: old industrial machine shop, which has been turned into a skunk factory. It’s thought to be controlled by a Turkish gang, the Kemals. Ever hear of them?’
Nicci took a breath as her mind hurtled back to a dark alley in Tottenham and her encounter with these nasty, vicious, misogynistic drug dealers. She’d always feared that night would return to haunt her. Now it had.
10
Once Brian had left, slamming the front door behind him, Kaz used his abandoned claw hammer to lever up two more floorboards. Stashed in the gap between the joists she found a bundle of cash wrapped in a Tesco’s carrier bag. The plastic was filmed with dust and cobwebs, suggesting it had been there for a while, but the fifty-pound notes inside were crisp and pristine. Kaz sat on the bed and counted them out: twenty-five grand – quite a haul. No wonder Brian had been anxious to get his paws on it.
Returning to the kitchen with the money, Kaz made herself a cup of tea. She stacked the notes in a neat pile on the granite worktop. Her brother’s legacy was far from simple. On the one hand, it was thanks to him that she had a Russian billionaire after her. Pudovkin had already eliminated Joey, Tolya and Yevgeny, and he wanted her dead too. But on the other hand, her brother had left assets; knowing him, he’d have squirrelled stuff like this away in numerous secret locations. Joey Phelps had been a major-league drug dealer as well as a savvy businessman and the cash she’d unearthed was probably only the tip of the iceberg.
She sipped her tea and considered her situation. For whatever reason, the cops had let her go. So the immediate threat of being trapped in a jail cell, unable to escape her pursuers, had been lifted. But she was far from home free.
Nicci Armstrong had turned out to be a tosser. But it’d been a moronic idea to even think the ex-cop would do anything to help her. She was typical of the breed an
d her weasel words didn’t cut any ice with Kaz. They always reverted to type, she should’ve known better. What she needed now was to be in a position to defend herself. No one else was going to do it for her. She also had to protect Irina, who may well be another loose end as far as Pudovkin was concerned.
As soon as she’d been released from custody Kaz had phoned Irina, but she wasn’t picking up. She’d gone to ground with her phone switched off. Kaz assumed she was with Mika. He worked for Yevgeny, but how good would he be at keeping Irina safe and how long could his loyalty be relied upon without a boss to pay his wages? It all came back to money. Only money, serious money, was going to insulate Kaz and her friend from harm.
Her brooding was interrupted by the faint crunching of tyres on the gravel drive outside. Anxiety was keeping her senses sharp and that was good, it would help her survive. As she strode briskly through the hall to investigate, she made a mental note: the electric gate needed repairing. Peering through the spyhole in the front door she watched a minicab pull up. As the back window slid into her sightline she saw her mother’s tight, apprehensive face. Ellie Phelps had arrived home.
Kaz opened the front door and stepped out to greet her. The taxi driver was helping her out of the back of the cab. ‘All right, love? Nice and easy.’ Ellie huffed and moaned, but he was patient with her.
Turning to Kaz, he grinned. ‘Don’t remember me, do you?’
She frowned; it took her a moment to get him in focus. He was about her own age, tawny skin, broad-shouldered and well-muscled, one side of his head razored to the latest cut. His dark eyes twinkled. ‘We was in the same class for a bit.’
‘I never paid much attention at school.’
Supporting Ellie’s weight with one arm, he offered Kaz his other hand to shake. ‘Darius Johnson. Everyone called me Woggie back then.’
Kaz accepted the firm handshake. ‘Don’t expect they do that no more.’
‘Nah, they don’t. Not twice anyway.’ As he chuckled, Kaz caught a glimpse of steel behind the smile. Then he turned his attention to Ellie. ‘Let’s get you inside, eh? She was saying she feels very shaky. Probably the meds. I do the hospital run a lot. They discharge people far too soon.’
Leaning heavily on Darius’s strong arm, Ellie was shepherded into the sitting room and installed on one of the large sofas. She gave him a weak smile. ‘Thanks, lovey.’
‘No problem, Mrs P. Happy to help.’
Kaz extracted a note from her jeans pocket. ‘What do we owe you, Darius?’
He waved the money away. ‘No sweat. I seen the news. Your brother’s funeral, all that stuff.’ He shook his head sadly, then gave Kaz a speculative look. ‘I was never in Joey’s league, but we know people in common, if you get my drift. I do other things besides minicabbing. Work the doors on some of the clubs round here.’ He pulled a business card from his shirt pocket. ‘You ever need help with any bits and bobs, ask around, you’ll find I got a good rep.’
Taking the card, she returned the smile. ‘I’ll bear that in mind.’
‘Right, I’m off.’ He gave Ellie a mock salute. ‘Get well soon, Mrs P.’
Kaz escorted him out and double-locked the front door behind him. She turned the card over in her hand and pondered. One side had his name printed on it with a phone number, email and website. The other side had a picture of him in headphones grooving over a set of turntables and the slogan: DJ and the Essex crew. She racked her brains; could she even remember him?
Schooldays seemed a ghostly, disconnected memory; a time she didn’t want to revisit. The boys in her class had never registered on her radar; they were scrawny, spotty and silly. In common with most of the other girls she’d only ever deigned to notice the boys who were older. She did vaguely recall that there were several black and mixed-race kids, who were generally bullied and racially abused by their white peers. But by then she’d tuned out; she was never part of the schoolyard gang. She’d been forced to join the adult world far too soon. Looking back wistfully she almost wished that she did remember Darius Johnson. But then, when she thought about it, she wished most of her teenage years had been different.
However, he remembered her and that gave her an odd sense of reassurance. It made her realize she wasn’t entirely alone, there were other resources, other useful individuals out there that she could call upon if she chose to. She wasn’t restricted to her brother’s former employees and business contacts. The Phelps name still carried clout with the likes of Darius Johnson. Her brother and father may be dead and gone, but her family’s fearsome reputation lived on and she was the beneficiary. This was also Joey’s legacy to her.
11
Nicci had agreed to meet Tom Rivlin; she’d found it hard to refuse, though she was unsure what she would say. It was five o’clock and the pavements, pubs and cafes of Soho were teeming. Along Old Compton Street tourists meandered, gaggles of thirsty office workers made a beeline for the bars, loungers and liggers drifted, waiting to see who or what would turn up. It was the last place she’d have picked, but then she was a Londoner.
She found Rivlin sitting at a kerbside table outside Bar Italia in Frith Street. He was wearing sunglasses, sipping a small espresso and enjoying looking cool. Nicci had to smile.
‘You look like a man who’s skiving.’
He shifted the shades up onto his forehead and gave her a lazy grin. ‘Had to attend a joint briefing with the Met, so technically I’m doing a double shift. Plus you’re my new chis. So what can I get you – I’m on expenses.’
‘Just a green tea.’ She took the chair opposite. He caught the waiter’s eye and placed the order.
‘This is such a great little hang-out. A DI from SOCD I palled up with told me about it. You ever been here before?’
He seemed so smug that Nicci couldn’t resist the temptation to tease. ‘Not for about ten years.’
‘Aah, don’t burst my bubble.’ Rivlin chuckled. ‘I thought I was hanging with the hipsters here. Now you’re pulling rank and going all London and snobby on me.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘You should be.’ His look was very direct. He was playing her again and she knew it. But it didn’t stop the fluttery feeling in her lower belly. Annoyance came to her aid. However good-looking he was, she wasn’t about to be the chump.
‘The coffee is supposed to be very good.’ She checked her watch, making it clear to him that she had other places to be.
‘Seriously, thanks for coming.’ He was hanging on to the eye contact, still trying to reel her in.
The waiter placed a glass cup of water on the table in front of her. She concentrated on that, lifting the teabag out of the saucer and dunking it. ‘The Kemals, then.’ She sighed. ‘Really not much I can tell you. I’m sure you’ll get more from SCD7.’
‘Yevgeny Koshkin was talking to them only days before the shooting. Why?’
Nicci focused on her tea and tried not to sound evasive. ‘What do my former colleagues say?’
‘They gave me quite a lot of background: powerful North London gang, part of the so-called Turkish mafia, well-connected back in Turkey, established heroin, cocaine and people-traffickers. Older brother, Asil, he’s the brains and boss; younger brother, Sadik, is the enforcer. But a skunk factory is not really part of their usual business model. They’re smugglers, they move things.’
‘Perhaps they were going to move something for the Russian. All these gangsters do business with each other.’
‘Then why visit the skunk factory?’
Nicci had an inkling of where Rivlin might be headed, but she continued on the evasive tack. ‘If the Kemals didn’t want it, maybe he planned to buy it?’
Rivlin smiled and took a small Moleskine notebook out of his inside pocket. ‘I’ve got a theory I want to run by you.’ He thumbed through the pages. ‘The National Crime Agency has been trying to recover assets from Joey Phelps’s little empire for more than a year. Not much joy so far. But one of their assumptions is that Phelps had a large
slice of the cannabis trade in North London, particularly skunk. So I’m thinking, what if the Kemals simply moved in and took over the operation when Joey went down in . . . when was it, May? North London’s their backyard. To them, Joey Phelps was an Essex wide boy, muscling in.’
Nicci was watching him closely; his intensity was compelling. His long, lean fingers stroked the notebook as he unravelled the puzzle; he was being a proper detective and she envied that.
He tapped the notebook on the edge of the metal table. ‘It explains why a bunch of traffickers would suddenly end up with a skunk factory and it explains why Yevgeny Koshkin knew where it was and went round there. I think he was hoping to reclaim Joey’s property. Maybe he was doing it for Karen Phelps?’
She took a breath. There was no way she wanted to get embroiled in this. ‘It’s a promising theory.’
‘It’s also a motive for the churchyard killings. Let’s say the Russian was trying to heavy them but the Kemals weren’t about to roll over. It’s what most gangland murders are about: turf.’
Nicci sipped her tea and gave him a tepid smile. She’d spent a hot and hassled tube journey across town panicking about the Kemals. As soon as Rivlin had mentioned them on the phone her brain had scrambled into overdrive. The fucking Kemals! It was a mess she should’ve never got involved in. But then nor should Karen Phelps for that matter.
She thought about Viktor Pudovkin and Kaz’s firm belief that he was the one behind the shootings. Did she buy the notion of the Kemals as alternative suspects? It made a lot more sense than Pudovkin.
Rivlin opened the notebook again, glanced at a page. ‘Then we’ve got Jumira Bogdani, our dead Albanian shooter. She’s quite a piece of work. I’ve talked to the Dutch police and they’ve got her as a key player in a Turkish people-smuggling ring they busted back in 2011. She slipped the net. But the leading members of the gang did go down and, guess what, one of them turns out to be a cousin of the Kemal brothers.’
Nicci shrugged. ‘I don’t know what you need me for. Looks like you’re well on the way to cracking it.’
The Killer Page 6