The Murder Bag

by Tony Parsons

  As the old caretaker watched, a cigarette clutched in one balled-up fist, Monk raked a pile of newly mown grass, shovelled it into a wheelbarrow and carried the load round the side of the cottage to where the smoke from a small bonfire was rising. Easing the old man’s burden.

  I raised my hand in farewell but they did not appear to see me.

  Then there was another gunshot as I reached the car, much closer now, coming from somewhere just beyond the tree line. The stuttering shot tore through leaves and took its time to crack the sky. Len was wrong. Whatever they were killing, they were not using a .410 to do it. I know what a twelve-bore shotgun sounds like.

  That’s big vermin someone’s hunting, I thought, happy to get back into the car.

  There was something wrong with the silence.

  It jolted me from my shallow sleep, and before I was even awake I was sitting by the side of the bed, staring straight into the eye of the madman who sat on my bedside table.

  12:05, he told me. Five minutes after midnight?

  Outside I could hear the hum and roar of the meat market as it began its night. The clamour of the trolleys, the shouts of the men, still laughing with the long hours of the night ahead of them.

  What had woken me?

  I pulled on my pants and a pair of lightweight knuckle-dusters that sat in the drawer by the bed. They weighed nothing but would crack open a skull like a boiled egg if you could get close enough. I stepped out of my bedroom, resisting the urge to call Scout’s name. Inside his cage, Stan stirred in his sleep.

  Our front door was shut. Our windows were unbroken. There was no fresh air coming from somewhere it shouldn’t be.

  I looked at Stan’s cage. It was not a sound that had broken my sleep. It was the absence of a sound.

  I knelt beside Stan, felt under him and beneath the blanket that covered his basket and pulled out the alarm clock we had put there to stand in place of his mother’s heartbeat. The battery had died some time ago. I smiled at him in the darkness and touched his soft red coat. Then I walked into the kitchen and dropped the old alarm clock into the bin.

  Stan didn’t need it any more. He was home.

  But under the door to my daughter’s bedroom, I could see that Scout still slept with all the lights on.

  30

  SALMAN KHAN OPENED his front door unshaven and squinting in the pale morning sunlight, a baseball bat in one hand and a cigarette in the other. He held them both loosely, as if either might slip from his hand in a strong wind. He was in a dress shirt, open to his waist, with a black bow tie hanging around his neck like fresh roadkill. He looked like he had been wearing black tie to bed for a week.

  ‘Mr Khan,’ Wren said. ‘DCI Whitestone received a complaint—’

  ‘Because they’re not here any more!’ Khan gestured with his baseball bat. ‘The officers who were protecting me! The ones who were here after the – what is it? The Osman Warning!’

  Wren smiled sympathetically. ‘Because the threat to your life is over,’ she said, all professional calm. ‘The perpetrator has been convicted.’

  He laughed viciously.

  We just stared at him, letting the laughter fade and then the silence grow.

  Khan looked over our shoulders. There was a young Nepalese security guard on the drive. You were starting to see them all across London’s money-belt – private policemen hired to watch over just one wealthy street. The rich were getting scared.

  But nobody was more scared than Salman Khan.

  ‘Thank you, Padam,’ Khan said.

  The Gurkha saluted. ‘Sir.’

  We followed Khan inside his house. A midget motorbike was resting against a double-sided winding staircase. Through glass panels in the marble floor you could see down into the basement area and the impossible blue world of an indoor swimming pool. You could feel its heat, taste the chlorine. Wren looked at me and I knew she felt it too.

  These people have so much.

  ‘Your family are away?’ I said.

  ‘They can’t stay here! It’s too dangerous! If anything should happen to them . . .’

  This was meant to be routine, one of the last jobs on the Action Book in the winding up of Operation Fat Boy. But Salman Khan could still smell murder in the air.

  ‘What are you afraid of, Mr Khan?’ I asked.

  ‘Are you serious? Some of my closest friends have died.’

  He stubbed out his cigarette and immediately lit another one.

  ‘Mr Khan,’ I said. ‘Look at me.’

  He looked at me, looked away, and threw his baseball bat aside with a scream. ‘Fuck!’

  ‘How’s your father’s business doing? A building firm, isn’t it?’

  It took him a moment to recover.

  ‘My father died ten years ago. The company was sold at the time of his death. Why do you ask?’

  Wren said, ‘Who was Anya Bauer?’

  The name seemed to mean nothing to him. He shook his head. ‘I don’t know what’s going on,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re supposed to be—’

  ‘What happened at that school?’ I said.

  ‘How long are you going to keep asking that question?’

  ‘Until I get the truth.’

  ‘What happened? Nothing. High jinks. Nothing more. I can’t deny that we did things. Irresponsible things.’

  ‘Like what?’ Wren said.

  ‘God, I don’t know! Smashed some glass. Made some noise. Bought some charlie.’

  ‘That’s it?’ Wren said. ‘Petty vandalism and recreational drugs? Come on.’

  Khan shot her a wary look. ‘But none of it was at our instigation. And all of it was done in a spirit of experimentation and adventure.’ He seemed to stop himself, then clenched his teeth. ‘We fell under his spell, you see.’

  ‘You mean Peregrine Waugh? He was your House Master twenty years ago, wasn’t he?’

  Khan shook his head. ‘I mean the Master’s favourite.’ He laughed. ‘I mean Peregrine’s representative on earth.’

  And I suddenly saw who had the most to lose.

  ‘You’re talking about Ben King, aren’t you? Was he the Master’s favourite?’

  He couldn’t look at me. ‘I didn’t say that,’ he said. ‘I didn’t give you any names.’ He gripped a fistful of his hair. ‘You’re meant to be here to help me!’

  ‘Would you like to make a statement?’ I said.

  Khan’s mouth twisted into a grotesque parody of coquettishness. ‘Would you like me to, detective?’

  ‘I think you’re ready to talk to us, Mr Khan,’ I said. ‘I think you know that it’s really the only option you have left.’ I looked around at all the useless luxury. ‘This is no life, is it?’

  He sucked hungrily on his cigarette.

  ‘I need to talk to a few people. I need to talk to my wife, my beautiful—’ He choked up. Hung his head. Then gathered himself. ‘And my lawyer. And my children, God help me. After that, I’ll come to your station.’ He was starting to compose himself now. ‘I believe there’s a possibility that I can help you with your enquiries.’

  ‘And when will that be?’ Wren asked.

  ‘When I am fucking ready, young lady.’

  I shook my head. ‘Not good enough, sir,’ I said. ‘And watch your mouth when you’re addressing my colleague. We have reason to believe that a serious crime was committed during the period when you were a student at Potter’s Field. I could take you in now if I wanted to.’

  He laughed. ‘Really? And by this time next year you would be waiting outside in your new security guard’s uniform, watching over my children as they unload their mountain bikes from my wife’s Porsche Cayenne. Wouldn’t you?’ He paused, took a breath. ‘Tomorrow morning,’ he said. ‘Afternoon at the latest. I promise. I want it to be over.’

  ‘It will be,’ I assured him. ‘We can help you. But you have to help us: what happened at that school?’

  ‘What happened? I’ll tell you what happened. They bre
ak you down and then they build you up. That’s what they do at those fine old English schools. That’s what your parents are paying them for. They take you apart bit by bit and they put you together again in their image. They take scared little boys and they turn them into captains of industry, leaders of the land, future Prime Ministers.’

  He took a long pull on his cigarette.

  ‘The first day I met Peregrine Waugh – I was thirteen years old, he was just an English master – he drew a single chalk mark on the wall just above the blackboard. “That is Shakespeare,” he said. And then he drew another chalk mark, at the very top of the blackboard. “That is T. E. Lawrence.” And then he got down on his knees – we were all laughing madly, of course – and drew a third chalk mark just above the floorboards. “And that is you.”’ Salman Khan smiled a crooked smile as he waved his cigarette. ‘And we took it from there.’

  It was a busy morning at the Black Museum. A dozen young cadets in uniform were squeezed into Room 101. Sergeant John Caine contemplated them without pleasure or pity.

  ‘Ground rules,’ he said. ‘You do not touch anything. You do not photograph anything. You do not take a souvenir that you think nobody will miss. Believe me, I will miss it. Everything here is far older and far more valuable than you are.’

  A few guffaws. But Sergeant Caine wasn’t laughing.

  ‘So show respect,’ he continued. ‘And keep your sticky paws in your pockets at all times.’

  He unlocked the door to the Black Museum.

  ‘Go on. Off you go.’

  They set off, excited and laughing, like big kids on a school trip. When the last of them had shuffled into the first room, the one mocked up to look like the original museum in Whitehall, Sergeant Caine turned his attention to me.

  ‘They’ve come down from Hendon,’ he said. ‘This spotty shower are coming to the end of their course and sending them to me is an attempt to prepare them for the real world. A new initiative.’

  ‘I’ll wait, if that’s OK.’

  He nodded. ‘Best to wait. Join them if you like.’

  I followed them through into the Victorian sitting room, nine young men and three young women who were happy to be on a field trip, snickering at the fake fireplace and fake sash window.

  They passed under the hangman’s noose and reached the table covered with weapons. Shotguns and rifles, replicas and the real thing, walking sticks that were really swords, umbrellas that were really handguns, and a glass case full of automatic weapons. By the time they went through the doorless opening into the museum proper, their laughter had stopped.

  They saw the walking stick that turned into a sword that then turned into a knife – the Cop Killer. There was every kind of gun, every kind of knife – some of them dark with prehistoric blood. They paused longest before the display about the officers of the Metropolitan Police who had been killed in the line of duty.

  By the end of their visit – and it doesn’t take very long to see the Black Museum – they were silent and shaken.

  ‘This place is a learning centre,’ Sergeant Caine told them, leaning against his cluttered desk and holding a mug that said BEST DAD IN THE WORLD. ‘I hope the lesson that you have learned today is that there are many ways to kill a policeman.’

  They said nothing.

  ‘Thank you for visiting the Crime Museum at New Scotland Yard,’ Caine concluded with a formality I had not heard before. ‘Before you graduate from Hendon, I suggest you go to your school’s Simpson Hall where you will find the Metropolitan Police Book of Remembrance. Her Majesty the Queen has signed it and, before your studies come to an end, so should you.’ He looked at their serious young faces and nodded once. ‘Take care of yourself and take care of each other. Thank you, good luck and goodbye.’

  When we were alone I opened my kitbag. Inside was a large evidence bag containing the Kevlar Stealth that had been worn by DCI Mallory on the night he died. It was almost new apart from the large stain on the right shoulder from the neck wound that had killed him.

  Handling it with great care, I entrusted it to the safe keeping of Sergeant John Caine of the Black Museum, New Scotland Yard.

  31

  STAN’S FAVOURITE CAFÉ in Regent’s Park was The Honest Sausage, just off The Broadwalk near London Zoo. We were at an outside table sharing a bacon sandwich, my dog on my lap, when she walked in. Sooner or later, every dog person in central London walks into The Honest Sausage.

  ‘You again,’ Natasha said.

  She didn’t sit down. Susan and Stan did the dog dance, moving in tight, excited circles as they sniffed at each other’s rear end. Then the Pekingese-Chihuahua cross had suddenly had enough and turned and yapped in his face. Stan backed off immediately, tail between his legs, edging closer to me for protection.

  ‘Fancy bumping into you,’ Natasha said. ‘What’s the lovely old English saying? Accidentally on purpose. Hello, Stan.’

  At least she was pleased to see my dog.

  ‘It’s a good saying,’ I said. ‘I went to your old apartment block but they said you had moved.’

  ‘Just across the park. Marylebone. I downsized.’

  I held out the manila envelope to her. ‘Your videotape. I wanted to return it.’

  She took it from me without speaking, her mouth tightening. She still hadn’t sat down. She wasn’t going to now. Not with the videotape of that old rugby match in her hand.

  ‘I also wanted to say that you were right, and I was wrong. About how your late husband lost his eye. I was rough and rude. And I’m sorry, I really am.’ I shrugged. ‘That’s it.’

  ‘And what did you think might happen? Did you think you were going to return my VHS tape and say sorry and then I would take you home with me and have wild sex?’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘it crossed my mind.’

  She shook her head. ‘We missed our moment,’ she said.

  I was surprised how sad that made me.

  ‘Did we really?’

  ‘Yes. Men and women have a moment and sometimes they just miss it. Bad timing.’

  ‘Like missing a flight?’

  ‘Exactly like missing a flight.’

  My phone was in front of me on the table. It began to vibrate. WREN CALLING, it said.

  Natasha laughed. ‘We don’t even know each other.’

  ‘I know you,’ I said. ‘You’re one of those party girls with a good heart who wants to settle down but chooses the wrong man and then it all falls to pieces. You can see yourself getting harder and more cynical and you don’t like it because you were expecting a better life. Stop me if I’m getting warm.’

  My phone was still vibrating.

  ‘Story of my life,’ Natasha said. ‘But what kind of man are you? Are you one of those men who stop looking at a woman so he can look at his little phone? The world is full of those men. That’s not what I want.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘That’s not me. I can’t stand guys like that. I’m actually thinking of getting rid of this phone.’ WREN CALLING. ‘But you know what? I do have to take this call.’

  ‘Of course you do.’

  Natasha scooped up her Pekingese-Chihuahua cross and walked away on those long legs. Without turning round, she raised one hand in farewell.

  I picked up the phone.

  ‘Whitestone heard from Salman Khan’s lawyer,’ Wren told me. ‘Khan’s not coming in.’

  ‘He’s not coming in today?’

  I could hear her breathing.

  ‘Max, Khan’s never coming in.’

  Salman Khan’s beautiful home had burned for most of the night and the wealthy street stank of smoke and death. A body had been recovered and taken away before I arrived.

  Where the house had stood on the leafy St John’s Wood avenue there was now a blackened husk, sodden and steaming – a five-million-pound monument to ruin. The great pyre had collapsed in on itself at some point, taking the roof with it, and among the wreckage you could just make out what had once been the subterranean swimming
pool, now heaped with collapsed brick, bent steel, burned wood.

  Fire Officer Mike Truman stood between two fire engines and watched his men carefully picking their way through the ruin. DI Gane and I were with him, Gane taking notes, while beyond the police tape uniformed officers kept back a small crowd wielding camera phones. They seemed to be mostly hired help walking dogs to the park or children to school. You didn’t see the locals walking about round here.

  ‘There’s evidence of some kind of accelerant,’ Truman said. ‘A petroleum distillate like diesel fuel or gasoline. But we also found a small motorbike – a child’s motorbike, if you can believe that – at the foot of the staircase, so that could explain the traces of accelerant.’

  Gane said, ‘That’s the fire’s point of origin?’

  Truman nodded. ‘Looks like it.’

  ‘But how did he die?’ I said.

  ‘You mean was it the fire or the smoke that killed him?’

  Gane was staring at me. ‘No. DC Wolfe’s asking, did someone cut his throat?’

  I had never seen a burned corpse before. I had never seen how death by fire seems to coat a body in a black substance that comes from the very centre of the earth. I had never experienced the double shock of seeing what a fire takes away, and what it leaves behind.

  Every inch of living flesh on Salman Khan’s body had been replaced by something that resembled a rough black overcoat yet you could clearly see his ribcage, his teeth and the fine bones of his hands, the fingers now long and tapered with all the flesh burned away, like the fingers of a concert pianist.

  The fire took away everything but left the shadow of some unimaginable pain. His mouth was open, as if crying out in agony, and his elegant hands were placed over his heart and genitalia, as if protecting himself in the last instant of life.

  Whitestone and I were in a viewing room at the Iain West Forensic Suite watching on CCTV as Elsa Olsen examined Khan’s charred remains.

  ‘Did you ever see pictures of Pompeii?’ Whitestone said, more to herself than to me. ‘They look like they’re screaming, don’t they? They look like they’re going to be screaming for ever.’