‘OK,’ Rudy said easily. Too easily? ‘Money first.’ They slipped the cash to him under the table, and he wedged it somehow inside his tight jeans. Then he said, ‘OK, we go, but not right now. People watching. I don’t want get reputation for snitch. You—’ he pointed at LaSalle – ‘wait outside. You and me—’ he pointed at Loessop – ‘dance a bit. You don’t look so much like cop. Then we leave, meet outside.’
LaSalle and Loessop exchanged a look, then LaSalle nodded and got up. ‘OK. But no funny business.’
Rudy grinned wider. ‘My business very funny business, no? Mama think her Rudy in very funny business if she know what I do.’
The capitulation wasn’t all it seemed, for as soon as Rudy emerged onto the street, he took off like a greyhound. Fortunately, it’s fundamental in a copper’s DNA to chase someone who runs, so there was no lag for reaction and Rudy’s lead was not long. He was younger and lighter than either of them; on the other hand they had the incentive of knowing they’d have to face Mr Slider and Mr Porson if he got away.
It was a glorious, adrenalin-fuelled chase, through the narrow streets of Soho, dodging the evening revellers and the crawling traffic; down Wardour Street, left into Noel, left again into Poland, across Broadwick Street, into Lexington. Onlookers stepped helpfully out of the way, even when LaSalle shouted, ‘Police!’ In the old days someone would have stuck out a foot. Loessop began to fall behind, but LaSalle had long legs. Where were the two men carrying the sheet of glass, the tottering stack of cardboard boxes, the young mother pushing a pram, when you needed them? Across Brewer Street and into Windmill, and if he got to Piccadilly Circus they’d lose him in the throng, or down the tube. LaSalle put on a spurt. As Rudy hit Shaftesbury Avenue he glanced quickly back, and ran into a clot of young people coming the other way out of Denman Street. The whole lot went down in a muddle of arms, legs, and swear words.
Loessop arrived panting as LaSalle reached into the tangle for the arm he wanted, and was in time to hear that sweetest refrain: ‘All right sunshine, you’re nicked.’
SEVEN
Feeling the Force
The chase seemed to have done Rudy good. He seemed quite invigorated on the drive back to Shepherd’s Bush, and sang Russian pop songs in a melodious tenor. In the interview room, perhaps encouraged by the two hundred knicker down his trousers, and the promise that he would be released without charge if he co-operated, he was quite relaxed. They brought him tea, and a sandwich, which he inspected carefully before biting, with the air of a widow from the Bronx facing her first plate of snails in Paris.
Then he sat back, crossed his legs, and said, ‘OK, what you want to know?’
Rudy had not really known Stefan before that evening. He’d seen him around the club, that was all. Mr King had recruited them separately. He didn’t know why they had been chosen out of all the guys who were regulars.
For their looks, Loessop thought. Rudy was very striking-looking, and Stefan almost girlishly pretty. They’d look good on tape, and make an impression on the viewer. Two plainer or unremarkable figures wouldn’t make nearly such good blackmail material.
Rudy didn’t know Mr King, hadn’t seen him before, to his knowledge, though he claimed to be a friend of the management. He’d asked Rudy if he’d like to do a special job for good pay, and took him outside to a big car with tinted windows. Stefan was already in there. Mr King gave them drinks and smokes and explained the job. They were to pick up a particular man, take him to a particular place, and have a good time with him. There would be a camera filming the whole thing. It would take a couple of hours, and they’d get five hundred apiece.
Stefan was worried that there would be trouble for them afterwards. Mr King said absolutely not, no trouble, and raised the money to seven fifty. Rudy wasn’t worried about trouble, but he knew what the market price for such co-operation ought to be. He said a thousand each for the evening, and they were on.
That was last Thursday. Mr King took them to see the houseboat, the Anna Rosita. She was very big, very luxurious. He showed them where the camera would be, and warned them not to block the line of sight. There would be lots of drink, there would be cocaine, and they could go as far sexually with the customer as he and they wished – no pressure either way. As long as the customer got naked and there was some dancing and touching, the rest was up to them. They should just have a good time. It was money for jam.
Mr King showed them a photograph of the man they were to pick up. Rudy recognised him – he had been to the club before, one of the regulars. Stefan didn’t recollect seeing him, but he didn’t come in so often. Mr King said the man’s night was a Friday. They should try to pick him up next evening. If he didn’t come in, they must hold themselves ready for the following Friday. As it happened, he had come in – Friday last week, as it was now.
When they had picked him up, they must say they are ringing for a cab – except that they would ring a number Mr King gave them, and he would pick them up and take them to the boat, which they would claim belonged to a friend of theirs. They would say the friend was letting them live there until they got a place of their own.
‘So what did you think was going on?’ Loessop asked. ‘Didn’t it sound fishy to you?’
‘Fishy? What fishy?’
‘Like there was something dodgy going on? Something illegal?’
‘No. Why think that? Lots of times, business guys, they want to make good time for client. Make him happy, do good business.’
‘Pretending to pick him up? Pretending the houseboat was yours?’
Rudy shrugged. ‘Make little play for him. What you say, role play? No harm.’
‘And everything being filmed?’
Another shrug. ‘Customer want movie afterwards, remember what good time he had. All part of play.’
The customer would not stay all night, they were told. He would have to get back to his wife and family, so it would be just a few hours’ work for them. They must be sure he left first. Afterwards, the same car would pick them up. Mr King would drive them wherever they wanted to go, and give them their money. And that would be the end of it. They’d never hear any more about it.
‘So, on the night, did it all go as planned?’ LaSalle asked.
‘Smo-o-oth as milk,’ Rudy said, with a slow, sideways sweep of the hand. ‘Mr King one smooth operator. No troubles. Go like clockwork. Customer have nice time, Stefan and me get nice money, say bye-bye, see you.’ He gave a child’s wave. ‘Only didn’t expect to see you guys,’ he added. He examined their faces sternly. ‘But you got nothing on me. I don’t do nothing illegal.’
‘I told you, we’re not here to make trouble for you,’ LaSalle said.
‘So, who this Mr King? He private detective?’
‘Is that how he seemed to you?’
He thought a moment. ‘No, he not like ‘tective. He was like fixer. He knew all about the cameras, lights and stuff, like the techno man, you know? But he tough cookie – see plenty of them back home. You want something done, you go to tough cookie fixer guy. Got no—’ he searched for a word – ‘emotion. No feeling with job, just job, you know?’
‘So who was he working for?’ Loessop asked.
‘Mr King? He never say.’
‘Did you know who the man was – the man you had to pick up?’
‘Mr King show us photograph. I seen him before, round the club, but I don’t know his name.’
‘He must have introduced himself when you picked him up.’
‘Given you some name to call him by,’ LaSalle translated when the question elicited a blank.
‘He say to call him Jimmy,’ Rudy said, with a shrug that said, ‘What do names matter?’
LaSalle gave Loessop a glance, and he produced the mugshot of Kimmelman. ‘Just for the record. Is this Mr King?’
Rudy looked, said, ‘Yeah,’ then looked more closely and said with alarm, ‘Hey, he dead?’ He jumped up. ‘No trouble, you say no trouble!’ For the first time he was not s
miling.
‘No trouble for you,’ LaSalle said, standing too. ‘We’re not trying to trap you. Sit down.’
‘No more questions,’ Rudy said. ‘I go now.’
‘Sit down! You’re not finished yet.’ Rudy sat, scowling. ‘We’ve got to get out a statement for you to sign.’
‘No sign nothing! I got nothing to do with this,’ he said, shoving the photograph back at them. ‘Give his customer good time, that’s all. You got nothing on me.’
‘We’ve got you on film taking cocaine. That’s an illegal substance,’ said Loessop, showing some steel. ‘You sit down, be quiet, and sign the statement, and that goes away. All right? We’re not interested in you. We’re after the person who killed Mr King.’
He fidgeted, crossing and uncrossing his legs. ‘You said no trouble for me,’ he said again, sulkily.
‘No trouble for you. Just the statement, then you can go.’
He seemed reluctantly reassured, and relaxed a little. ‘Okay,’ he said slowly. He sighed. ‘O-o-kay.’ Then, ‘What happen to Mr King?’
‘He met with an accident,’ said Loessop.
Swilley did not like loose ends.
Detective Constable Kathleen ‘Norma’ Swilley had many attributes that made her a good policeman. She was extremely fit, and an expert at hand-to-hand fighting: she knew several useful grips that would reduce an over-excited testicle-owner to meek, not to say watery-eyed, compliance. She was a crack shot; she had not applied to become a firearms officer – that was not her scene – but she belonged to a shooting club and enjoyed it as a hobby; and her unerring aim did mean she could project a screwed-up ball of paper from any distance into any waste bin in the CID room.
She was patient and painstaking, and above all she was methodical, which was why she had transferred to the Department in the first place. She had joined the Job from a desire to impose order on a disorderly world, but as a uniformed copper you were always being forced into last-minute reaction against the chaos created by the messiest section of society. As a detective, you could work at a more reasonable pace, and follow logic and deduction. Some craved the adrenalin rush of the fracas, but she found excitement in more cerebral challenges.
She had carried her desire for method into her private life. She had chosen her mate for the qualities which would make him a good husband, and more particularly a good husband for a copper. She had chosen the time to get married, when both their careers were at a suitable juncture, and her time to have a child, when she could safely take the time off, and when Tony’s increased working from home would allow him to co-ordinate childcare with her. Her life was tranquil and satisfying; but her success in achieving balance outside of work made it all the harder for her to tolerate inconsistencies within work.
Fortunately, the job of a detective was specifically aimed towards tying up loose ends, which meant she was perfectly within her rights on Friday morning to indulge herself. The office of the property development company Blenheim was in a large new tower block at Hammersmith Broadway, on the Talgarth Road, which she passed on her way from dropping Ashley off at pre-school. The boss, James Hadleigh, was in – the receptionist rolled her eyes slightly as she mentioned that he was always in early, indicating he was a workaholic – and had no objection to seeing her for a few minutes.
He was already in his shirtsleeves, a tall, well-built man with thick, springing dark brown hair, which sprang at least partly, as was soon obvious, from his habit of running his hand backwards through it, a displacement activity when his brain was operating too fast for his tongue. His energy and bursting good health gave him an animal attractiveness that Swilley felt the moment she entered his sanctum, and he greeted her with a broad smile and a cheerful, ‘What can I help you with?’
She recognised a busy man who would welcome points being got straight to. ‘Jacket’s Yard,’ she said. ‘I’m interested in why you bought it from Target. It seems odd that two development companies should get themselves landed with a white elephant, one after the other.’
‘Ha!’ He laughed. He had very good teeth. ‘Jacket’s Yard. Yes, I can see how it might seem to an outsider. We’ve got a tenant in there – virtually a peppercorn but it keeps the place warm.’
‘Eli Sampson. Junk car repairs,’ Swilley offered.
‘That’s right. D’you want to sit down?’
‘If you do.’
He grinned. ‘I’m game,’ he said, and sat behind his desk; but he glanced at his watch. She took the chair in front of it and, after a moment’s thought, crossed her legs. A policewoman, especially if she is good-looking, early learns not to radiate those pheromones that men take as an invitation. You must not be thought to be ‘putting out’, or you could quickly land in trouble. But as a detective, it could be a useful weapon in your armoury, judiciously used, for getting interviewees to let down their guard a little and tell you more than they meant to. So she crossed her legs, and put out just a little, and she saw his eyes gleam in response.
‘So, what is it about Jacket’s Yard? The weak bridge means it can’t be developed,’ she said, with the air of a serious journalist. He was smiling without answering, and she saw he wanted it to be a game. Figure it out – you’re a smart lady. He looked the sort that’d say ‘lady’ and not ‘woman’. Certainly not ‘girl’.
‘Unless you can get TfL to rebuild it,’ she concluded.
He laughed again. ‘Got it in one! You should be in the business. You see, Transport for London has an enormous estate of wasted land – old sidings and yards, unused warehouses, superseded engineering works, leftover bits alongside railway lines and so on. A lot of empty spaces. And a few years ago, the mayor – who’s in charge of TfL, as you know – decided that they should start making use of it for revenue purposes, either sell it to developers or develop it themselves, and plough the money back into services. There’s a shitload of modernisation work needed to the infrastructure, and the government doesn’t want to raise the public subsidy any further.’
‘I see. And Jacket’s Yard is in a prime position,’ Swilley suggested. ‘Shepherd’s Bush is up and coming, property prices are on the rise.’
‘Right. The two biggest buildings flanking the yard haven’t been used in years. Add them in, and you’ve got a prime developable footprint. I didn’t pay much for Jacket’s Yard, and sooner or later the pressure’s going to be on for TfL to do something about the site, which means either they’ll buy Jacket’s from me – and believe me, they’ll have to pay me a premium – or they’ll sell me the empty buildings, and I’ll make sure the price includes strengthening the bridge. Then I’ll develop, and make the profit. Either way, I win.’
Swilley frowned. ‘You can’t be sure they’ll fix the bridge for you, can you?’
‘Oh certainly,’ he said with ease. ‘Otherwise it’s no sale, and the mayor knows that. I’ve taken the precaution of slipping that thought into his consciousness ahead of the game.’
‘You know the mayor?’
‘It would be silly to be a developer in London without making sure of your contacts,’ he said. ‘I know the mayor, and the Minister for Transport, and the Housing Minister. Get on very well with all of them. I’ve got the bases covered.’ She nodded, and left an alert, interested and inviting silence for him, into which to insert anything else useful he might have to say. His eyes drifted to her legs – she was glad she’d worn a skirt suit that day – and politely away again, and in payment for such inadvertent gaucherie, he gave her what she wanted. ‘Of course, Target must have known all that as well. That’s the only reason for buying the yard. No mystery about that. The puzzle is why, having held on as long as they did, they pulled out when the game was almost won. The current Housing Minister is also in charge of local communities, and the buzz word is development for the benefit of local residents.’
That’s seven buzz words, Swilley’s logical mind protested.
‘So they’re going to want that site turned into housing asap.’ He shrugged. ‘T
arget’s loss is my gain.’
‘Why do you think they sold?’ she asked, implying by her look that his opinion would be gold.
‘Money troubles,’ he said bluntly. ‘Between you, me and the grapevine, they’ve been divesting themselves for a couple of years now. It can only be because they need to cash out. Of course, I’d heard the rumours, so I gave them a hard time over Jacket’s and got it for the bargain basement price.’ He shrugged. ‘Not my problem, but I think if you look into it, you’ll find out someone’s in trouble somewhere. That’s the devil in this business – you’ve got to be able to hold out until the development’s finished and the units are sold. Many a company’s fallen down that crack, between buying the land and getting the return. That’s why big is better in this game. You need long pockets.’
‘And you’re big,’ Swilley said. For an instant she thought she might have gone too far, but he took her literally.
‘We’re big enough. And if Jacket’s gets off the ground in the next six months, we’ll be bigger still. That’s why I’ve got the tenant on a six-month lease. You’ve got to stay nimble. No room for hairy mammoths in the development business.’
‘Hairy mammoths?’
‘Dinosaurs,’ he clarified. ‘They died out because they got too big and couldn’t move fast enough.’
And there, she’d thought it was a comet hitting the earth. Not that it mattered. She had what she wanted. She stood up. ‘Thank you very much,’ she said. ‘You’ve been most helpful.’
He grew serious. ‘This is about that body found in the yard?’
‘You heard about that?’
‘Wiley’s let us know – the managing agent. I hope it’s nothing to do with our tenant?’
‘He’s not currently under suspicion,’ Swilley said circumspectly.
‘It’s bloody odd,’ he said, frowning for the first time. ‘Why should anyone kill somebody there? Who was it, anyway?’
Swilley thought it worth a punt. She was pretty sure Hadleigh had nothing to do with it – even if he had a body to dump, he’d hardly jeopardise his upcoming TfL deal by dumping it there. ‘His name’s Kimmelman. Leon Kimmelman.’ He shook his head. She pulled up the picture on her tablet and showed it to him.
Shadow Play Page 9