by Tiana Carver
Neither of them spoke for a few seconds. Then Marina turned to Mickey.
‘Thank you.’
He smiled, sighing with relief. ‘No problem. I’m not having him get rid of another one.’
‘Good.’
‘But,’ said Mickey with a smile, ‘it’s time to get back to work.’
Marina gave a mock salute. ‘Yes, sir.’
She walked out of the office, back to her own desk.
91
‘Here,’ said Phil. ‘This is the one.’
Phil stood on the pavement outside Donna Warren’s house. Don beside him. They both stopped, stared at it.
‘Looks empty,’ said Don.
‘Yeah.’ Phil walked up the front path. ‘I’ll knock anyway.’
He had phoned Don as soon as he had listened to his voice-mail. He couldn’t believe who it was from.
‘Hi,’ she had started, clearly uneasy. ‘It’s … Rose Martin. Detective Sergeant Rose Martin, in case you’ve forgotten, which I doubt you have. Or I should say, Detective Inspector.’ Then a sigh. ‘If that’s actually real. Anyway. I’m … I need to talk to you. About Glass. Brian Glass. He’s your DCI now.’ Another pause while she tried to find the correct words. ‘Don’t trust him. Really. Seriously, don’t trust him. He’s dirty. Bent. And I’ve got evidence. There’s a book. It’s here. In my hand. It’s … you wouldn’t believe it. The stuff in it. You just …’ Another sigh. Then a laugh. ‘I can’t believe I’m calling you. You, of all people.’ Another laugh. ‘Considering how much I fucking hate you. And you know that. That’s not news.’ Another sigh. ‘But you’re honest. And I can trust you. And I need someone I can trust.’ She paused again. When she spoke, it sounded like the words were reluctant to come. Her voice small and hesitant. Stumbling. ‘And you did save my life. And I never really thanked you for that. Not with everything …’ She cleared her throat. ‘Anyway. I’m rambling.’ Then her voice stronger, back to business. ‘Listen. This is important. If you don’t hear from me again, come to this address.’ She gave out the address of the house they were now standing outside. ‘Meet Donna. Donna Warren. Talk to her. She’ll tell you everything. And she’ll have the book. It’s a cheap blue exercise book. You must get it. Read it.’ Another pause. ‘I’m going to call him now. Glass. Give him a chance to explain himself. To turn himself in. It not …’ A longer pause. So long that Phil thought she must have hung up. When she spoke again, her voice was uneven. ‘Nice knowing you. Well it wasn’t, but you know what I mean.’ Then the sound of the line going dead. Quickly.
Phil had checked the time of the call, tried to remember where he’d been, what he’d been doing. He’d been at the hospital, talking to Samuel. He remembered that Glass’s phone had rung at the same time. He knew who that would have been. Glass had disappeared straight afterwards.
He had phoned Don.
‘Not gone in to work?’ he had asked him.
‘Reckon they can do without me for one day,’ Don had replied. ‘Reckon you might need me more.’
Phil hadn’t answered.
He had met Don on Barrack Street. Played him the voice-mail.
‘What d’you think?’ he had asked him.
‘Sounds legit,’ the ex-copper had said. ‘On the level. She wouldn’t have gone to all that trouble of calling you, you especially, if it wasn’t important.’
Phil agreed.
‘And Glass …’ said Don. ‘I reckon she’s right about him.’
‘How d’you mean?’
‘I’ve got my doubts about him too. Had them for years.’
Phil had stared at him.
‘I was going to share them with you.’
‘When?’ said Phil, bitterness in his voice. ‘When I was older?’
‘Sorry.’ Don sighed. ‘Look, how are you? Bearing up, I mean.’
‘I’m fine,’ said Phil, clearly lying. ‘Jim Dandy.’
‘Maybe we should—’
‘We’ll talk later. Let’s deal with this first.’
He knocked on the door. They waited for a reply. There wasn’t one.
He tried again, harder this time. He received nothing but sore knuckles.
‘Not in,’ said Don.
Phil stepped away from the door, cupped his hands round his face, peered in through the filthy front window.
He straightened up, looked at Don.
‘We’d better break in,’ he said.
92
Mickey was back at his desk. Doing what he hated most. Paperwork. Or rather electronic work, as most of the things he was following up were all online.
He had kept his head down after Glass had stormed out, and in the absence of anything else happening, or any other leads to follow up, kept trying to track down the Shaw connection. Find out where it all intersected.
And then his phone rang.
At first he thought it must be Lynn. She probably wanted to tell him what a great night she had had, wondering when they might do it again. He was smiling as he went to answer it.
He took it out of his pocket, checked the screen. Number Unknown. His heart sank slightly, his hopes dashed, his fantasy put on hold. Probably a sales call, he thought, and made to answer it, ready to tell whoever it was that he wasn’t interested and to never call him again.
‘Detective Sergeant Philips.’
That should spook them, he thought. Make them hang up, even.
But it wasn’t a sales call.
‘What’s the matter with you, then?’
Mickey was taken aback. The voice was indignant, angry. But familiar.
‘Sorry?’ he said.
‘Sorry? Yeah, you fuckin’ should be.’
He placed who it was. Stuart. His informant. ‘What should I be sorry for, Stuart?’
‘For all the bloody effort I’ve put in for you, that’s what.’
Mickey was on the back foot, really confused now. Let him talk, he thought, fill him in. ‘Effort?’
‘Yeah, effort. It wasn’t easy finding out all that stuff, you know. Risked life and limb, I did.’
‘What stuff?’
‘What you asked me. You havin’ a thick day or somethin’?’
Mickey smiled. ‘You risked life and limb? To tell me Weaver was probably killed by some Lithuanian hitman?’
There was a pause.
‘What? What the fuck you talkin’ about? Hitman? I didn’t leave no message about no hitman.’
Mickey was interested now. He leaned forward, covering the mouthpiece so the rest of the office couldn’t hear what he was saying.
‘What message did you leave, Stuart?’
An angry sigh. ‘I left … You know what I left. You must have got it. What’s the matter? Can’t you work your phone now?’
Mickey took the phone away from his ear, checked the display. Number Unknown. He replaced it.
‘I think we’d better talk, Stuart.’
‘Damn right we should talk. That’s what I’ve been telling you, haven’t I?’
‘When?’
‘Soon as. Red hot, this is. As you should know.’
Mickey was standing up. ‘Usual place. Ten minutes.’
‘Gotcha. And bring your foldin’. You’re gonna need it.’
‘One other thing,’ said Mickey. ‘You calling me on a new phone?’
‘Yeah,’ said Stuart. ‘That’s right. Made of money, me. No, same old phone. You should know, you’ve got my number. Or you’re supposed to have.’
He hung up. Mickey broke the connection, looked down at his phone.
He knew something hadn’t been right with Stuart’s message. It wasn’t just his copper’s intuition; it was something definite.
He sat down again, checked his phone once more, writing down the number that Stuart had just called him on, checking it against the one in his phone’s memory.
They didn’t match.
Mickey sat back, rubbed his chin. Tried to think it through. He checked through all his other numbers, trying to find a match. Nothing. There had to be
something. Maybe he’d entered Stuart’s number wrongly. No. Completely different number. And he’d called him on it yesterday. He hadn’t received any calls from Glass, either. All night. Admittedly, he hadn’t had his phone on, but they should have been there when he turned it on in the morning.
No. Couldn’t be.
Not wanting to believe what his intuition was telling him, he took out the business card Lynn Windsor had given him. Checked the mobile number on it against the one Stuart was supposed to have texted him on.
Direct match.
He sat back again.
No. Couldn’t be.
It felt like his whole world had undergone a seismic shift. This finding had taken him – and the investigation – into completely new territory. He had to do something about this, formulate some plan.
But first he had to go and meet Stuart.
Standing up, taking his phone with him, he left the office.
93
Phil looked at the lock on Donna Warren’s front door, tried to find a way to open it.
‘Think we’ll have to break it down,’ he said.
‘What, and alert the whole street?’ said Don. ‘Give it here.’
Phil stepped out of the way and allowed Don to move in front of the door. He fished inside his jacket pocket, brought out a small silver object.
‘What’s that?’ said Phil.
‘Lock pick,’ Don replied calmly. ‘We all used to carry them. Back in the day, as you youngsters are so fond of saying.’ He shook his head. ‘Call yourself a copper. You lot, I tell you. Don’t know you’re born.’
It didn’t take him long. Phil stood all the while looking up and down the street, checking for twitching curtains, interfering or challenging neighbours, someone calling the police.
Ultimately he decided they were safe. It wasn’t, he concluded, that kind of neighbourhood.
‘And,’ said Don, ‘we’re back in the room.’
The door opened. The two men entered, closing it quietly behind them.
‘Don’t touch anything,’ said Phil. ‘Don’t move.’
‘And don’t teach your grandmother to suck eggs,’ said Don.
They stayed where they were, just inside the doorway. Phil saw close-up what he had glimpsed through the window. Rose Martin’s lifeless body sprawled on the floor.
‘Oh God …’
‘She didn’t die easily,’ said Don.
‘They never do,’ said Phil, and sighed. ‘We’re too late. Too bloody late.’
He looked down again. The body had been there a while. It was starting to lose its resemblance to the person it had once been, her spirit having long since departed, turning into something else, just another collection of matter, another organic component of the planet.
‘That phone message,’ said Don. ‘She must have gone to meet him straight afterwards.’
Phil nodded, not taking his eyes off the body. ‘He ran out of the hospital when you turned up. When Lister killed himself.’
‘D’you reckon he did this?’
Phil sighed. ‘I wouldn’t like to think that another officer could be responsible. But …’ He shrugged. ‘It looks that way. Circumstantially, anyway.’
He kept staring at the body.
‘Poor Rose …’
‘Thought you didn’t like her.’
‘I didn’t. But that doesn’t mean …’ Another sigh. ‘I saved her life once.’
‘She said.’
‘Why couldn’t I have done it again?’
Don turned to him. ‘Now don’t start all that.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘All that blaming yourself. That leads to a very dark place, believe me. And you don’t want to go there.’
You mean again, Phil said to himself. ‘No. Suppose not.’
‘There was nothing you could have done. She knew that what she was doing was risky. She shouldn’t have done it.’
‘No.’ Still staring. ‘But … why?’ Another sigh. ‘I don’t know. Maybe she couldn’t believe one of her work colleagues was a murderer either.’
‘Maybe. We’ll never know.’
Phil looked up. ‘What about the other woman? Donna Warren, was that her name?’
From where he stood, Don looked through into the kitchen. ‘Don’t think she’s here.’ He turned to Phil. ‘You don’t suppose she did this, do you?’
‘Do you?’
Don didn’t answer.
‘We both know who we’ve got in mind for this.’ Phil scoped the room once more, trying not to dwell on Rose’s body. ‘Can’t see this book anywhere.’
‘How did she describe it?’ said Don.
‘A cheap blue exercise book. Let’s look upstairs.’
They went slowly up the stairs. Careful not to touch the handrails or walls. Don following Phil’s indentations on the stair carpet. They went into the main bedroom.
‘Looks like there’s been a fight in here.’
Don scanned the room. ‘But no book.’
Phil turned to him. ‘You know what I think? We’re not going to find it. It’s not here.’
‘I agree. We’d better go.’
They turned round, made their way downstairs without touching anything once more. At the bottom, Don turned to Phil.
‘I think you-know-who must have it.’
Phil gave a grim smile. ‘You-know-who? Have we jumped into Harry Potter land now?’
Don frowned. ‘What?’
‘Never mind. You’re right. Glass’ll have it by now. We’d better—’
‘Is this what you’re looking for, gentlemen?’
They both turned, startled by the voice. Two men, suited and tied, were standing in the kitchen doorway. One was holding up a cheap blue exercise book in a plastic evidence bag. The other was holding a gun.
The one holding the gun spoke. ‘I think we’d better go somewhere a bit more private, don’t you?’
Phil shrugged. ‘Whatever you say.’
‘Move.’
They moved.
94
Mickey walked back on to the footbridge overlooking Balkerne Hill. It felt like more than a day since he had last been here. The air felt colder. The sky heavier, darker. The cars beneath seemed to be moving faster, louder. Everything seemed heightened to Mickey.
Once again, Stuart was waiting for him. His leather jacket pulled tight around his skinny frame, cigarette clamped in the corner of his mouth, sucking down smoke seemingly to keep himself warm.
He turned as soon as Mickey approached. Looked anxious. Scared.
‘So tell me what’s happened,’ said Mickey, coming to stand alongside him.
‘It was there in the text I sent you,’ said Stuart, sucking the final dregs of life out of his roll-up, flicking the butt over the railing.
‘Pretend I never got it,’ said Mickey.
Stuart frowned. ‘Did you or didn’t you?’
‘Just pretend.’
Stuart nodded, pointed to Mickey as if about to impart wisdom. ‘Ah, now, y’see, that’s why I never commit anything to paper. I mean, that’s bad enough, but electronics is worse, innit? I mean, you never know who’s listenin’ in. Someone could be listenin’ in to us now, couldn’t they?’
Mickey frowned, lost. ‘What? Who?’
Stuart pointed up to the clouds. ‘Up there. Satellites. They can beam right in from space with pinpoint accuracy, listen in to what we’re sayin’. Take photos an’ all. They can.’
‘Right. So what did this text say?’
Stuart sighed, shook his head. A teacher exasperated that his thick pupil had failed to grasp the lesson. ‘That I’d found out somethin’ about this Weaver guy. Like you asked me to.’
‘What did you find out?’
‘He runs this import-export company with this Lithuanian guy. An’ we all know what import-export means, don’t we?’
‘Covers a multitude,’ said Mickey.
‘Yeah. An’ none of it legal.’
‘What Lithuanian
guy?’
Stuart screwed up his eyes, tried to think. ‘Bul … Bol …’
‘Balchunas?’ said Mickey. ‘Is that the name?’
Stuart clicked his fingers. ‘Yeah, that’s him. Balchunas. Yeah. That’s the fella.’
‘And that’s it? That’s the big news?’
‘Course it’s not. Don’t be stupid. I heard they got a big shipment comin’ in tonight.’
‘Of what? Drugs?’
Stuart shrugged. ‘Dunno. Prob’ly. He’s into all sorts of iffy stuff, what I heard. But just a big shipment. That’s all I … my sources could tell me.’
‘And it was definitely tonight?’
‘Yeah.’ He rubbed his stubbly chin. ‘Worth a lot of money, I reckon.’
‘Thought you didn’t know what was in it?’
Stuart looked confused. ‘What? The shipment? No, I meant me. My information, what I’ve just told you. That’s what’s worth a lot of money.’ He shook his head as if he was dealing with an idiot.
‘So where’s this shipment coming in to? Did you hear that?’
‘Harwich. Well, the ship’s comin’ in there. Then they’re takin’ it to their lock-up. Well, I say lock-up. It’s this place they got outside of Harwich, along the coast. Huge, it is. Where their base of operations is.’
Mickey took out his notepad, started writing this down.
‘Can’t miss it,’ said Stuart. ‘Full of those metal containers, the ones that come off the ships and get put on to lorries, know what I mean? Piled up high, they are. Huge. Like a big tin city.’
‘And that’s definitely tonight.’ A statement requiring clarification, not a question.
‘Definitely. Stake my life on it.’ He reconsidered. ‘Well, sure as I can be. From what I heard. You know what these things are like, don’t you? You know what I mean.’
‘What about time? Did you hear anything about that?’
Stuart raised his hands as if in surrender. He made an incredulous face. ‘Come on, Mr Philips, do I look like I carry the shipping timetable on me?’
‘Take an educated guess.’
Stuart sighed. ‘When it’s dark. Best I can do.’
Stuart stopped talking. Mickey looked at him. Knew that was as much as he was going to get from him.
‘Thanks, Stuart.’ He took out some money, peeled off a couple of notes, handed them over.