by Michael Kerr
Ryan smiled. “You look terrific,” he said. “Are you dressing up to the nines to try and impress my mother?”
“Damn right I am,” she said. “It’s first impressions that count. Are there any subjects I should avoid?”
Ryan’s smile vanished. “Suicide is one to steer clear of. And blood sports. My mum has no time for anyone who supports any pursuit that causes suffering to animals. She has never understood why supposedly intelligent men and women would want to hunt and shoot defenceless wildlife, or watch stuff like bullfighting. Doesn’t matter what arguments are put up, she believes that moral reasoning should overcome animal instinct.”
“That sounds like a good analogy to the Tylers’ of this world. They have a deficiency of morals. Maybe it’s a vitamin thing.”
“You think that if they ate more greens, then they would lose the desire to kill?”
“You’re taking the piss, Ryan. I remember a violent offender who said he had no control over his temper. He used to red mist and hurt people for no apparent reason. After therapy counselling and being on a rage suppressant drug, it was discovered that drinking Coke blew his mind. One can of the ‘real thing’ and he turned into Mr. Nasty.
“That was years ago. Nowadays it’s common knowledge that certain food and drink can affect moods. Everyone’s reactions can vary to the additives they ingest.”
“To a point which they can’t control their behaviour?” Ryan said.
“Exactly. Most of us are able to hold back from doing what we know to be wrong. If that reasoning is compromised, then there’s no safeguard.”
“That scenario might fit a very small percentage of offenders, but I refuse to believe that diet is a root cause of murder and mayhem. What happened to the Coca-Cola Kid?”
“He joined the Salvation Army.”
“You’re kidding!”
“Yeah, Ryan. I have no idea what became of him.”
They hugged, started giggling, and for a few minutes forgot that they were murder cops.
Ryan pulled into the small, subtly lit car park of the Bonhomie Hotel. The rain of the previous twenty-four hours had cleared the air. It was warmer than of late, and moths circled and bumped the large coach lamps at either side of the entrance door.
They went in and settled on high stools at the small bar. The surroundings were pure art deco. They could have been back in the twenties or thirties. A guy with an Errol Flynn moustache and gelled hair was tinkling the ivories in a corner, and the bartender wore a bow tie and a short maroon jacket. He smiled graciously and waited for Ryan to order. Julie asked for a large vodka and tonic, demonstrating that she was a little nervous. Ryan ordered the vodka, and a Jack Daniel’s on the rocks for himself.
“It’s like a time capsule in here,” Julie said. “I won’t be surprised if Noel Coward gets up and sings.”
“Here’s the next best thing,” Ryan said as his mother walked into the bar.
He slid off the stool and embraced his mum, and then introduced Julie to her.
“Pleased to meet you Mrs―”
“Make that Jessica, Julie. You look very different to how I saw you on TV. Less severe. Maybe it was the power suit and lack of makeup.”
“What’s your poison, Mum?” Ryan said.
“White wine and soda, please, Francis.”
Julie wanted to grin, but didn’t. She knew that Ryan would be inwardly squirming at being called Francis. He didn’t even answer to Frank at the Yard.
The meal was excellent, and Julie and Jessica hit it off, unintentionally leaving Ryan out of the greater part of the conversation, which suited him fine.
When the coffee was served, Ryan took a sip and excused himself. He was too hot, and went outside for some fresh air. Lit a cigarette and thought about living with Julie, and maybe buying a place together: doing things, going places, and having a dog to give them the excuse to take long walks. He had always been a city person, but was beginning to yearn for space, and surroundings that were not brick, concrete and glass. The polluted stone canyons of London were becoming dirtier and more dangerous. A change was long overdue. It was only the thought of commuting to and fro that had put him off moving out into the sticks. But he could avoid the morning migration and early evening exodus. He was not governed by normal office hours.
Back inside the hotel, Ryan went over to the young guy who had waited their table. His name was Michael. Ryan asked him for the bill.
“That’s been settled, sir,” Michael said. “Mrs. Ryan gave me a credit card before you arrived.”
They had a liqueur, and when Julie went to the loo, Ryan gave his mother a quizzical look. “Well?” he said.
“She’s far too good for you, Francis. If you let her go, then you need your head examined.”
“That good?”
“Yes. You won’t find a better woman if you live to be as old as Sempiternal.”
Ryan laughed. Sempiternal was the name that Jessica had christened an ancient yew tree that grew in the small churchyard beyond her back garden. A tree surgeon had once told her that the yew was probably over a thousand years old. As a young boy, Ryan had found that concept beyond his comprehension. A thousand years was a millennium. How could anything survive for that long? From his bedroom window he would gaze at the towering, gnarled trunk, and the enormous, twisted branches and could imagine time flowing by, around the perennial, as empires rose and fell, and generations of all else were consigned to history. He had chosen to see a face formed in the fissured bark, and for a few years had believed that Sempiternal was sentient and all-knowing. Only after his father’s death had he realised that it was just an old tree; so much dense and prospective timber. It could not give him answers to the questions he asked. As with the likes of Father Christmas, the Tooth Fairy and all other childish things, he had put his belief in the aged yew aside.
“Maybe I should ask old Semp’ what he thinks,” Ryan said. “I used to ask him all sorts of stuff.”
Jessica reached out and caught hold of his hand. Squeezed it. “I know. I remember standing at your bedroom door and listening to you talk to it once,” she said. “You were asking it to help you with some history homework. Your logic was that if it had been there at the time, it would have firsthand knowledge of everything that had taken place.”
Julie came back. Jessica told her about Sempiternal, and Julie found it difficult to imagine Ryan as a little boy, talking to a tree.
“You must come and visit my home, when Francis let’s me move back in,” Jessica said. “I’ll show you photographs of this big lummox when he was a cute little baby, and then as a William Brown type, wearing short trousers, and with one sock up and the other down round his ankle. He made being scruffy an art form.”
“I shall look forward to that,” Julie said.
On the drive back to Julie’s, Ryan was contemplative. Couldn’t get past looking back and seeing the boy he had been. It seemed that his memories of those bygone days were unreal and belonged to someone else.
“You okay, Ryan?” Julie said.
“Yeah. I was just wondering where time went.”
“It doesn’t go anywhere,” Julie observed. “I think of it as a static medium that we pass through. I always have trouble with songs like As Time Goes By. Time is something we’ve invented to mark our own duration.”
“So why do you wear a wristwatch?”
“Because I’m a slave to convention. I’d like to think that one day I could throw it away and live without having to worry about what time and date everyone else was working to. Maybe when I retire I’ll do that.”
“You could end up very early, or late for dental appointments and stuff.”
“Shut up and drive,” she said, squeezing his thigh. “I don’t need to hear logic at this time of night. Just get me home and make love to me, unless you’d rather stop off at a park and talk to the trees, Francis.”
Sergei was pacing the carpet. The first he knew that anything was amiss was when Mickey Rondell
i phoned, asking why the hand over had not taken place. Not being able to contact Georgio or Valentino was confirmation that something had gone wrong.
Gregor had contacted a source at the Yard and found out that there had been a shooting at Snaresbrook. One guy wounded, and another found dead in the boot of a car.
Valentino had not been able to make a phone call till the next morning. The police had fucked him about, but having not charged him with anything, relented and let him make a call, once a line-tap was set up.
“I’m in hospital,” Valentino said to Gregor. “I was shot in the leg. Georgio is―”
“We are aware of what happened,” Gregor said. “Just answer my questions. We do not know who is listening in. Where is our friend?”
“I have no idea.”
“What do the police know?”
“That Tyler owed Georgio money. We went to collect it, and Tyler produced a gun.”
“Do they believe you?”
“No. But it is all I am going to say.”
“Have you been charged with any crime?”
“No. They are still investigating. There is nothing to worry about.”
“Rest, Valentino. Get well.”
Sergei had thought it over and considered all possible eventualities. Valentino was a good boy, but was now a problem. The police would find something to charge him with, and could be very persuasive. Offering Valentino total immunity for information would be a logical move. And he would not relish the prospect of going to prison, or at best being deported.
Sergei poured himself a large vodka. Drank it down in two gulps. “I think it would be prudent to ensure that Valentino is not taken from the hospital to a location that we could not penetrate,” he said to Gregor. “I want you to take care of this.”
Gregor nodded and left the apartment. He had never liked the young man. Or Sergei’s nephew, Georgio. Homosexuality offended him. He was not prepared to accept what he thought of as perversion. Men buggering each other was something he had always considered to be base and totally at odds with the natural order of things. He would take great pleasure in putting a bullet through Valentino Pavlovka’s skull.
Timing is everything. Valentino called the police officer into the room and smashed a chair over his head. Quickly undressed the unconscious man, donned his clothes and took his gun. The baggy cargo pants that the cop had worn went over his cast. He limped out of the room and headed for the lifts. The door to one slid back, and unknown to Valentino as he stepped in next to a wheelchair-bound man wearing an oxygen mask and accompanied by a porter, Gregor Kirov exited the other lift.
Since speaking to Gregor, Valentino had not been able to relax. He knew that if the police had put any doubt in Sergei’s mind over his loyalty, then he would not hesitate to treat him as a loose end and have him killed. He needed to go directly to Sergei and convince him that he was above reproach.
He was lucky. A cab dropped off a fare outside the main doors of the hospital, and he climbed in and gave the driver thirty pounds out of the cop’s wallet and asked him to take him to Teal Towers at Walworth.
Gregor opened the door and saw the figure in the bed, facing away from him. He closed the door and drew a knife as he advanced, ready to cut Valentino’s throat.
The sight of fair hair saved the cop’s life. For a second, Gregor thought that he had entered the wrong room. He leaned over the figure and saw that the man was gagged, and bleeding from a gash above his eye. Valentino had overcome his guard and fled. Gregor left the hospital with all due haste.
DCs Phil Newton and Dag Hubbard were in a transit van with tinted windows, taking photographs and keeping a log of all comings and goings at Teal Towers.
“There’s a familiar face,” Phil said through a mouthful of chicken sandwich.
Dag stubbed a cigarette out in the silver foil tray that had held a steak and kidney pie, and picked up the Nikon. Focused the telephoto lens on the young man struggling out of the cab. Took five shots, while Phil wiped his hands on his trousers and scribbled down the time of subject D3’s arrival. Each recognised individual had now been allocated a prefix letter and number, until they were identified and could be named. And the numbers of the exposures taken of them were tied in to the time of arrival or departure, along with the prefix.
“Thought you caught a slug and was in the ‘ospital?” Benny White said with a gap-toothed smile as Valentino hobbled towards him.
“Since when did you start getting paid to think, Benny?” Valentino said. “You are a fucking doorman.”
Benny stiffened. His smile died, and scars on his face blazed blue-white against the now ruddy skin around them. He was sorely tempted to drop the smart-mouthed Russian with one of his huge, fisted hands. But he just nodded and watched as the young thug marched to the lift and tapped the four digit number into the keypad.
Gregor had called Sergei. Told him what he had found at the hospital. That Valentino was on the loose.
Sergei was surprised to be buzzed from the ground floor and told that Valentino was on his way up.
Drawing the Beretta he had taken from the cop at the hospital, Valentino handed it to one of the two men who stood either side of the door to Sergei’s apartment. He was still patted down. Few were allowed to cross the gangster’s threshold tooled-up.
“You look as grey as a winter morning in Moscow, Valentino,” Sergei said. “Sit, before you fall down. Why have you fled from the hospital?”
Valentino eased himself onto the edge of a sofa, with his plastered leg stuck out ramrod straight.
“I am not stupid, boss. The police told me that Tyler had contacted them. He informed them of what he had done to Georgio and me, and gave them the address in Snaresbrook. A big cop, Ryan, said that he would tell you that I had talked, if I did not make a statement implicating you with Tyler, and all that you had paid him to do. He promised me immunity from any prosecution if I betrayed you. I told him nothing.”
“Do you think I would have believed the police, Valentino? Or doubted your loyalty for a second?” Sergei said. “My trust in you is boundless. I will make arrangements for you to become someone else. It is time for Valentino Pavlovka to disappear.”
“I need to avenge Georgio,” Valentino said. “Tyler must die at my hands for what he has done.”
“And so he shall,” Sergei said. “Now have some vodka, relax, and tell me exactly what happened.”
Valentino told him everything. He drank too much vodka, and was overcome by the combination of medication, alcohol, and the pain in his leg. He passed out.
Sergei was impressed. Appreciated the lengths that the young man had gone to. Decided that he deserved to live, and had him taken to his apartment and put to bed.
Gregor was less enthusiastic when he returned. “What if his escape from the hospital was no more than a ploy arranged by the police, Sergei? Is it wise to put such faith in him?”
Sergei sighed. “Like it or not, Gregor, my nephew loved him, and he loved Georgio. They were like a happily married couple. The boy wants revenge on Tyler, as I do. This is not some spineless youth. He is a proficient killer, who I now realise would not dishonour me.”
Gregor raised his eyebrows. “Let us not forget that he and Georgio were less than proficient in dealing with Tyler.”
“Nothing in life is a guaranteed certainty, my friend. They went to abduct Tyler, not to kill him. Had we not been attempting to do Savino a favour, then this would not have happened.”
“What do you propose to do?”
“Something very interesting. In a few days we will have Valentino taken to a private clinic in Bushey. The man who runs it is from the old country. He is a plastic surgeon who operates discreetly, usually on famous people who do not wish it to be known that they have been under the knife. Valentino will be cared for, and will also have his face altered beyond recognition. And you will arrange for him to have a new identity. I want him to have the pleasure of dealing with Tyler who, as the police, now know what he
looks like. If we find Tyler in the meantime, we will hold him until Valentino is able to make him suffer for murdering my nephew. Understand? That is how it will be.”
“Very well, Sergei. And what about our continued safety. The police are almost laying siege outside. I think it is time we moved.”
“I agree. I am becoming too high-profile. We can run operations from anywhere. I think the factory at Woking would be a suitable, temporary place to go. We will need to make sure that they do not know we have left here.”
“I shall see to it, Sergei. We can leave by the basement, at night, after arranging a suitable diversion for the stupid police who sit across the street in a van and take photographs of us.”
“They are not stupid, Gregor. If it were not for the law they try to uphold, we would not have adequate protection from the likes of cops like Ryan.”
Chapter THIRTY-FIVE
Ryan and Julie had slept in, but were in no rush. Neither had messages, and the hours they worked made it easy on their conscience to be late for once. They were up and dressed, ready to leave for the Yard when Eddie phoned.
Ryan answered his mobile.
“The officer guarding Pavlovka – Craig Beale – was brained with a chair, and had his clothes and gun taken,” Eddie said.
“Shit! “When did it happen? How is he?”
“I only just got the call. Craig’s okay. It was nothing that a few stitches couldn’t take care of. He said that they were going to X-ray his skull, because he was knocked out. He says he was out of it for at least ten or fifteen minutes.”
“So a guy recovering from a serious gunshot wound and wearing a full leg cast, got out of bed, overcame an armed officer, and walked out of the hospital?”
“Seems that way, boss. Unless someone lifted him. Craig doesn’t remember much. Said the guy called him into the room, and the next thing he remembers is a nurse standing over him. I’ve got cars patrolling the area. And I’ll get over there and look at any hospital CCTV tapes that are available.”