The Killer

by Susan Wilkins

  Kaz gave him a rueful smile. ‘Doesn’t sound very Joey. He thought about the future, we even talked about it. But getting him to stick to a plan? Nightmare.’

  ‘He was clear about the support he wanted to give to his family.’

  ‘So basically there’s stuff out there and he’s left it to us? Me, Natalie and Mum.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘I can’t give you a current valuation immediately. It’ll take several days. But if you wish to retain my services—’

  ‘Do I have a choice?’

  ‘Undoubtedly you do.’ He threw out his arms to encompass the leafy canopy above and around them, which was starting to turn copper and gold. The traffic’s roar was muted to a hum. It didn’t feel like the heart of a major city. ‘I love it here. Walk a mile in any direction and you will find the rich, the seriously rich of every nation. Why do they come to London? Because it’s possibly the best place on earth to securely warehouse your assets, see them accrue in value and avoid tax. There’s an industry of people out there who will help you.’

  ‘What you saying? I walk into my local bank?’

  ‘No, obviously not. But you do have a choice.’

  She sighed. ‘I need some time to get my head round all this.’

  ‘Of course you do.’ He nodded sagely. Then a thought occurred to him. ‘Tell you what, let me show you one other thing, then I’ll leave you in peace.’

  ‘Okay. Whatever.’

  Emerging from the gardens near Lancaster Gate, they picked up a cab on Bayswater Road and headed south. Now it was Kaz who remained silent and stared out of the window. She knew Joey had made money and not peanuts. That was why Paul Ackroyd had been so keen to get her onside. He wanted his cut. But what were they talking about here? The lawyer had said he would need several days to give her a valuation – that suggested serious money.

  The taxi crossed the river at Wandsworth Bridge. Her gaze skated over the tiered facades of the swish new apartment blocks rising up beside the river, but she paid them little real attention until they turned into a side road and stopped at the entrance to one of these blocks. Next door was still a building site and flags flapped over the adjacent sales office.

  Sullivan turned to her and smiled. ‘Not superstitious, are you?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘You’ll see.’

  He led her through the foyer, gave the concierge, who appeared to recognize him, a nod, and they entered the lift. He pushed the button for the thirteenth floor and smirked.

  As they alighted from the lift, he pulled a bunch of keys from his bag. ‘This one’s currently on the rental market. Partly furnished. But it faces the river – the view’s fantastic.’

  Kaz stopped in her tracks and sighed. ‘Hang on, I thought you were giving me time to think. I don’t even know that I want to rent a place at the moment.’

  Sullivan tilted his head and grinned at her. The starchy lawyer had morphed into something softer. ‘Oh, no. You misunderstand. This is part of the portfolio. I was planning to rent it out, but I thought you might find it useful while you sort yourself out. It’s yours. You own it.’

  Kaz stared at him in disbelief. He slotted the key into the heavy double doors and opened them up. The security system bleeped. Stepping inside, he tapped in the code to disable it.

  ‘Come and take a look.’

  Kaz felt as though she should take her shoes off. Engineered oak flooring stretched away from her down the hall and into a double-height sitting room flanked on two sides with wall-to-ceiling plate glass. There was a wrap-around balcony, a high-gloss kitchen, a sweeping staircase leading to an upper floor. It was like something out of a design magazine and Kaz could imagine her brother here, choosing fixtures and fittings, like a kid in a toy shop. He loved the trappings of luxury and regarded it as payback, reparation for their shitty childhood. Other people lived like this, why not them? That had been Joey’s line.

  ‘This must’ve cost millions.’

  The lawyer nodded. ‘We bought off plan, paid three point two. Not bad.’

  Having completed a circuit of the sitting room, Kaz slid open the balcony door and went out. The river snaked below her; turgid and brown, swollen by the recent rains, it surged under the low arches of the bridge before sweeping on eastwards.

  The wind on her face felt refreshing. If only it could blow the chaos away. She was finding it hard to make sense of her feelings. In the last week she’d been bounced from terror, through shock and despair, to elation, without time to really process any of it. And gnawing away at her beneath the surface was death and loss: Joey gunned down in a London street, Helen’s murder disguised as suicide. But she was alive and free, she had a gun in her bag, and now she had this. If nothing else, one thing was clear to her: the Kemals were going to rue the day they came after Kaz Phelps.

  56

  It was early afternoon by the time Nicci finally swanned into the office. Alicia greeted her with a smile.

  ‘How you feeling now?’

  ‘Oh, fine. Thanks. The doctor put me on this new medication. Works really fast. Few hours, the migraine’s gone.’

  Nicci was aware that she was giving way more explanation than necessary, but she felt like a guilty teenager who’d bunked off school to meet her boyfriend in the park. She was half in a dream full of flashbacks of the morning she’d spent with Tom Rivlin and it was still making her smile.

  Settling her features in a serious, businesslike expression, she headed across the room to the investigations section. Pascale was typing away. There was no sign of Eddie.

  ‘Busy?’

  Pascale removed her earbuds and smiled. ‘Yeah, Craig’s asked me to do a brief—’

  ‘Craig, eh?’

  ‘He says to call him Craig. It’s on that bloke whose wife you’re supposed to be minding.’

  ‘Qassim.’

  ‘He wants a full in-depth background on him. How much time he’s spent in the country, bank checks, the lot.’

  Nicci frowned. ‘Why?’

  Pascale shrugged. ‘I’m just glad to have something to do.’

  Nicci wended her way back across the office. The cyber geeks were all at their desks. She smiled at Bharat, the departmental head, who was excited about the hieroglyphics on his screen. The conference room was empty and next to it the door to Simon Blake’s office stood open. Craig Naylor was sitting behind the desk staring at his laptop.

  Hovering in the doorway Nicci cleared her throat. He looked up, stroked his beard and smiled. ‘Thought you were off sick?’

  ‘Migraine. It’s gone.’

  He held out a hand, inviting her in. ‘Stress. You’ve probably had a bit too much of that lately.’

  She sat down, facing him across the desk. ‘Where’s Simon?’

  ‘He’s having a few days off. I told him to get out on the golf course. Forget about this place for a while.’

  He was smiling benignly enough, but his manner didn’t fool Nicci. Behind the chummy ex-cop facade there was something off-kilter about Naylor.

  ‘So, are you going to sack me?’

  Naylor gave a wry chuckle. ‘Good God, Nic. Why on earth would I do that?’

  He was presuming to call her Nic, as Blake did, which gave her another reason not to like him.

  ‘Because there’s clearly been some kind of takeover and no one’s seen fit to tell me what’s going on.’

  ‘Well, you’ve been off sick.’ He folded his arms. ‘There’s no great mystery. SBA has been going through a bad patch financially. A major investor pulled out and that created quite a few problems for Simon. I think you were aware of that.’

  ‘Yeah. Sort of.’

  When Naylor grinned, his beard seemed to bush out and he looked even more like a pirate. ‘Y’know, I remember Blake when he was a commander – real copper’s copper. I know he had his problems with the hats, but he had a lot of respect from everyone else in the job.’

  ‘He earned it.�
��

  ‘No question. But all this brown-nosing potential investors, it’s taken its toll. Setting up a new business is stressful and it’s hard to get the strategy right. That’s why I’m here.’

  ‘I thought you were the new head of security?’

  ‘We’re in the security business.’

  ‘You mean you’re the new boss? I’m not trying to be difficult here. I just want to know what’s going on.’

  ‘Fair enough. What do you want to ask?’

  ‘First off, why have you got Pascale digging the dirt on Turki bin Qassim? He’s a bodyguarding job.’

  Naylor grinned and tilted his head. ‘You’re smart and ballsy, that’s what Blake said. So let’s cut to the chase.’

  ‘I wish you would.’

  ‘We’ve got new investors on board, but it’s a crowded market. This business is only viable if we use all our potential resources.’

  ‘Meaning what?’

  ‘HNWIs come to us as clients, but they’re also a valuable data resource. Security and investigations need to become an integrated operation.’

  ‘What’s that, translated into plain English? We’re going to protect them and at the same time spy on them?’

  ‘Yeah. Basically.’

  ‘Isn’t that illegal?’

  ‘No. They’re hiring us to guarantee their security. We need to know what we’re dealing with. It’s intel-gathering, that’s all.’

  ‘Until you sell it on.’

  ‘Which we may or may not do.’

  Nicci shook her head in disbelief. ‘It’s hardly ethical.’

  ‘Ethics!’ He laughed drily. ‘I love that fucking word. Y’know I was a Federation rep for ten years, saw plenty of good officers – officers like you, Nic – get the chop for no good reason.’

  ‘In my case there was a reason.’

  He gave her a concerned look. ‘Yeah, I heard about that and I’m sorry. Truly. But that doesn’t alter the fact that the bloody government don’t give a toss. Cut, cut, cut. They’ve made the job impossible and that’s why I got out.’

  ‘I wouldn’t disagree. But what’s that got to do with how SBA operates?’

  ‘Everything. Globalization, mate. The world’s changed. This country’s changed. But I’m a pragmatist – you’ve got to be. Some filthy rich foreign fucker wants to get the drop on another filthy rich foreign fucker, so they can beat them to another dodgy deal – what do I care? It’s no skin off my nose. And frankly, what do you care? I’ll pass on a bit of intel, if it means I earn a bonus. And that bonus is going to pay to put my kids through uni so when they come out they can get a decent job without a mountain of fucking debt. Make sure me and mine survive – those are my ethics.’

  His forehead had broken out in a sweat and he wiped a bubble of spit from his beard. They stared at each other for a moment. She noticed his eyes, glassy and hard.

  He covered this with a sheepish grin. ‘Sorry about the rant.’

  Nicci shrugged. It was hard to judge exactly what she was dealing with here. Just another embittered ex-cop? There were plenty of those about. But was he still connected to Pudovkin?

  He tapped his index finger on the desk. ‘Look, Simon obviously rates you. All I want is for us to work together and get on.’

  ‘Yeah, me too.’

  He gave her a friendly nod. ‘All right then? Glad we had this talk.’

  ‘Yeah.’ She got up.

  ‘And call me Craig. Ex-job, we stick together, mate. Show these fuckers, eh?’

  Nicci painted on a smile and started to head out.

  ‘Oh yeah, I nearly forgot.’

  She stopped in the doorway and turned back to face him.

  ‘There’s this ex-con, Karen Phelps? I’ve been told you know her.’

  Taking her time to consider this, she betrayed no hint of surprise. ‘Sort of. Why?’

  ‘I’ve got a client who wants to track her down. Do you know where she is?’

  Nicci pretended to think. ‘No. Haven’t seen her for ages. Sorry.’

  ‘Perhaps you could do some digging for me? Nice big payday for us if you can ferret her out.’

  He grinned, the beard bushed out again and it occurred to Nicci it was no coincidence that he looked like a pirate.

  57

  Returning to the hotel, Kaz had plenty to think about. Sullivan had given her the keys and alarm code to the apartment and he’d introduced her to the concierge. It all felt vaguely unreal. She had the envelope of documents from the safe deposit box tucked under her arm and an arrangement to call the lawyer once she’d read them.

  Striding through the foyer, she headed straight for the lifts. She was distracted by her thoughts and so didn’t hear the receptionist the first time.

  ‘Mrs Ackroyd! Excuse me, Mrs Ackroyd!’ It was the young man who’d checked her in.

  Walking over to the desk, she gave him a smile. ‘Sorry. I was miles away.’

  ‘Your husband and son have arrived.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They’re waiting in the rooftop bar.’

  Kaz felt the colour drain out of her cheeks. She glanced at the door; her first instinct was to run for it and lose herself in the crowds.

  The receptionist grinned. He enjoyed being the bearer of good news. ‘Your husband said he wanted to surprise you because he knew how desperate you were to be with Finlay on his birthday.’

  ‘Finlay.’ As she spoke her nephew’s name the full horror of the situation began to dawn on her. ‘Have they been here long?’

  ‘Half an hour.’

  Paul – it must be Paul – had got Finlay. Did he have Natalie too? Would he hurt them? No, it was Kaz he wanted, not them. She was aware the receptionist was watching her.

  ‘Do you have a safe? I’ve got some business documents here. Could you pop them in it for me?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Kaz handed the envelope over. The receptionist disappeared into the back office and returned with a numbered receipt.

  Kaz thanked him and headed for the lifts. As she rode up to the rooftop bar her brain was in overdrive. She had a gun in her bag – if push came to shove she could protect her family. But that was a last resort. And Paul Ackroyd was no fool. He’d chosen to corner her in a public place.

  The bar and terrace commanded a panoramic view of the East End skyline with the Olympic Stadium as its centrepiece. It was mid-afternoon so there was a smattering of late lunchers in the restaurant and people having tea or drinks in the bar.

  Stepping out of the lift, Kaz saw them immediately. Paul, looking for all the world like an indulgent father, was out on the terrace, jiggling Finlay in his arms and showing him the view. Her sister was standing nearby with Darius.

  Bloody Darius? Well, that answered one question. She’d been right to remain suspicious of him. For all his protestations, he’d been working for Paul all along.

  It was Natalie who noticed her first and the anxious expression on her face turned to one of pure anger. She stomped over to meet Kaz and practically spat in her face.

  ‘Now you fucking satisfied?’

  ‘Okay, okay, we’ll sort this out.’

  Natalie’s chin quivered; she was close to tears. Kaz reached out to comfort her but Natalie slapped her hand away.

  Paul came strolling towards them; he was carrying her nephew. ‘Well, if it isn’t Mrs Ackroyd. You ran out on us without saying goodbye. Not very friendly of you, was it? And you stole Rafa’s credit card.’

  ‘This is between us, Paul. Leave them out of it.’

  ‘Yeah well, I would’ve done if you’d’ve been a bit more cooperative. Luckily for me, my faithful bloodhound here tracked you down.’

  Kaz shot a disdainful glance at Darius. ‘Yeah, he’s a useful bloke, isn’t he?’

  Paul grinned. ‘He had the bright idea of following Glynis. She led him right to you and he’s been on your tail ever since. He’s only just got here.’

  This meant he knew about Sullivan, he knew about the safe
deposit box, he knew about the apartment; Kaz’s heart sank. She snarled at him: ‘Thought you were on my side.’

  ‘Believe it or not, Kaz, I am.’ The look was earnest. He was sweating. He must’ve run up the stairs while she was talking to the receptionist. His sombre eyes met hers. For an instant she got the impression he was pleading with her, willing her to believe him. But the bastard had suckered her.

  ‘You two-faced tosser!’

  ‘Now let’s not get abusive. Don’t want to upset this little fella, do we?’ Paul handed the wriggling toddler back to his mother.

  Natalie clutched Finlay to her and glared at Paul. ‘You promised if I helped you do this then me and Finlay could go home. I wanna go home.’

  ‘And I’m a man of my word, Nat. I think I’ve got your sister’s attention. Think she realizes now that it’s not too clever, running out on your friends.’ He gave Kaz a sardonic smile.

  Reining in her temper, she met his gaze. He was right about one thing: mouthing off would get her nowhere. It was a waste of energy. Maybe she’d been naive to think she could simply walk away and he’d let her go. Paul Ackroyd was as greedy as the next villain and totally convinced that whatever assets Joey had left belonged to him. Had he ever intended to share with her and Natalie? Kaz doubted it.

  But before she’d done a bunk from the Ackroyds’ lovely farmhouse Kaz had been hatching another plan. Now seemed like a good time to resurrect it and, with a little luck, it was possible she could turn the situation to her advantage.

  Plonking down on the nearest sofa, she opened her arms. ‘Look, this is really unnecessary. I was gonna get in touch.’

  ‘I wish I could believe that.’ Paul was looming over her, arms folded. He had the tight T-shirt, the sculpted pecs, the black pointed-toe cowboy boots that made him look every inch the screen gangster. In many ways he reminded her of Joey – the same confident swagger – but he wasn’t nearly as smart. The outfit said it all: his weakness was his vanity. Kaz remembered their first romantic encounter. Back then he was a swaggering boy with a leather jacket and a motorbike. All the girls had fancied him, the boys too, and he’d basked in their adoration. Kaz was banking on the fact that underneath he hadn’t changed that much.