by Gytha Lodge
But as she settled herself at her desk, she decided that a run would be a good idea. She was going to face up to being alone, in darkness, and enjoy it. The threat of her ex had become less real. More ridiculous. She wished she’d told Ben about it earlier.
She loaded up the spreadsheet of knife orders again and spent a good half-hour trying to link either Niall Reakes or Dina Weyman to the address in Winchester where the knife had been sent. And then, in the end, as she finished up one of the DCI’s newly bought chocolate twists and threw the bag in the bin, she realised that the obvious route would be to call the firm and ask to talk to this Marc Ruskin who had apparently taken the delivery.
It didn’t take long to raise him.
‘This is Marc Ruskin.’ His voice was brittle, his cheerful, northern-accented speech not quite steady. ‘Is this … about Alex?’
Hanson had a momentary floating sensation. ‘Sorry, you mean …?’
‘My – friend? Who was murdered?’
Hanson tried to make sense of this. ‘Yes, I … Could you tell me how you knew him?’
‘Through my cousin,’ Marc said. ‘Through Step. We were a group. Me, Step, Alex. Occasionally my brother, when he wasn’t working.’
‘You used to go out together?’
‘Yeah, we did.’ He gave a slightly emotional-sounding laugh. ‘I know we seem like a weird bunch. From finance people to personal trainers and everything in between. But we were pretty close.’
Hanson made an effort to get mentally back on her feet. To take control of this interview. ‘When did you meet Alex?’
‘A little while after he met Issa,’ Marc said.
‘Were Alex and Step particularly close?’ she asked next, April’s comments about him very much in mind.
‘Yes, I’d say so,’ Marc agreed. ‘The two of them meet up a lot more often.’
‘There’s never been any … jealousy issue, has there?’ she tried. ‘Between Step and Issa?’
There was a brief silence from Marc, and then he said, ‘I don’t know. I think Issa can be a little bit resentful of Step sometimes.’
‘And the other way?’ Hanson went on. ‘Does Step resent Issa?’
‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ Marc said. ‘Not really. Only when he tells Alex not to see him.’
There was a silence as Hanson wondered how to move the conversation round to the knife. She decided there was no gentle way of doing it, so she went on, ‘Can I ask about a package that was sent to you, a while back?’
‘Uhh … a package?’
‘Yes,’ Hanson said. ‘From a company called Steel and Silver. This was in January last year.’
There was a brief pause, and then Marc said, ‘Oh, you mean that Alex sent over? Yes, the knife for Step’s birthday.’
Hanson paused, very much aware of her heart beating in her throat. ‘It was a present for Step Conti?’
‘Yes,’ Marc said. ‘Beautiful thing that Alex had found. It was just Step’s kind of thing.’
‘So …’ she said, as her brain attempted to catch up with this. ‘So why didn’t Alex have it delivered to his house?’
‘Oh, because Issa would have lost his shit,’ Marc said, with a laugh. ‘He’s an absolute pacifist. I mean, Alex is, too, but … you know. He wanted to get Step something he would love.’
‘Is … Step into weapons?’ Hanson asked.
‘Well, he likes anything with workmanship, but he’s got a particular thing for hunting knives and ceremonial swords, that kind of thing. Has a huge display in his house.’ There was a brief pause, and then Marc said, ‘Was there a particular reason …?’
‘We were just wondering what was in it,’ she said, as calmly as she could. ‘Did Step like it?’
‘Yes,’ Marc said, more slowly. ‘He loved it.’
‘Perhaps you could describe the knife, just so …?’
‘Well, it had a long, tapered blade,’ Marc said. ‘And lots of … of black scrollwork round the handle.’
‘That’s great,’ Hanson said, with a breezy, final note. ‘Thanks so much for all your help. We’ll probably need to talk to you again later, but that’s all for now.’
‘OK,’ Marc said. ‘Thanks.’
There was something in his voice that told her he’d started wondering about that knife. She lost no time in heading to the DCI’s office.
‘A knife that matches our murder weapon was delivered to the workplace of Marc Ruskin,’ she told him, before he’d had a chance to say anything, ‘who turns out to be Step Conti’s cousin. Alex ordered it himself, as a gift for Step Conti. He gave it to him for his birthday.’ There was a brief pause while the chief looked at her, and she added, ‘Marc described it perfectly to me, and I think he’d started to cotton on to why I was asking. He might warn Step about it.’
Sheens’s expression was unreadable at first, and then he said, ‘Right. We’d better get over there.’
Step Conti’s house looked just as picture-perfect on a gloomy day as it had in clear sunlight. Though there was a keen, cold wind blasting across from the heath that hit Jonah and Hanson hard. It had snowed again out here, too, a hardened layer that had immediately frozen on top.
Jonah couldn’t help laughing slightly as he and Hanson both slipped and nearly fell at almost the same time, and then moved flat-footed across the icy driveway towards the front door. They both looked, he suspected, a little ridiculous, and not much like the stern forces of justice they represented.
He waited for the two uniforms from the squad car to catch up with them before he rang the bell. One of the officers was already heading to the side of the property to make sure Step didn’t do a runner out of the back.
Step Conti’s expression was contained as he answered the door. It was hard to tell whether he felt under pressure as Jonah greeted him.
‘We’ve been given some information about a gift you were given for your birthday,’ Jonah said. ‘A knife. Do you have it with you?’
Step looked from Jonah to Hanson, and then behind them to the second uniformed constable. And then he said, ‘The one Alex and the guys gave me? Sure. Come in.’
Jonah caught Hanson’s gaze as Step moved to let them in. She looked wary, which matched his feeling. He nodded to her, a silent agreement to be on their guard.
Step led them through the sitting-room door this time. Jonah remembered how he’d nearly taken them into this room during their last visit and then changed his mind.
They found themselves in a large space with exposed brickwork and bifold doors at the far end. The left-hand wall was mainly given over to a series of display cabinets, built around a big flat-screen TV.
The locked cabinets were all full of weaponry, though most of it was old-fashioned. Old muskets or fragments of them. Ceremonial swords. Daggers. And, at the far end, a much shinier collection of blades that looked to be new. It was no wonder, Jonah thought, that Step had hidden this from them on their first visit.
Step went straight to the far end and waited while Jonah and Hanson caught up. Jonah could feel the constable at his heels, and hoped he was on his guard. Their suspect was standing in front of a whole arsenal. But Step made no move to open the case.
‘It’s this,’ he said, gesturing.
And there, sitting neatly between two less elaborate hunting knives, sat what looked to be their murder weapon. Only this one was clean, unbloodied and gleaming.
33
Louise descended the stairs again, a little self-conscious in her very low-cut black dress. She dropped her rucksack down by her feet and tried to grin at April.
‘Great,’ April said. ‘You look much more like you again.’
‘I’m still me when I’m wearing a dressing gown,’ Louise countered.
‘No, we’re all slobs in a dressing gown,’ April argued. ‘This – this is the strong, mouthy, fun person I know. This is Louise.’
‘I don’t feel strong,’ Louise said. And then she pulled a face. ‘Sorry. I sound like a self-pitying idiot.’
‘That is exactly why we need to get you out of here.’ April gave her a grin that was full of mischief. ‘A change of scene is going to do you so much good. We can book you a massage, drink cocktails crazy early, and then party. OK?’
‘That sounds good,’ Louise agreed.
‘So you’re ready?’
‘Yes, I …’ Louise paused. She didn’t really want to ask April this. She didn’t want to break the spell. ‘Look, there’s something I need to know.’ She hesitated, still dreading the consequences of this, but then ploughed on. ‘When we went clubbing last summer, and I said I thought I’d seen Niall. I … I did see him, didn’t I? I know it was him.’
April pulled a wry face. ‘Ah. I … Sorry.’ She gave Louise a doubtful, slightly humorous look. ‘That was the first time I saw him with Dina. I didn’t know whether to tell you. I was just – I was so goddamn angry with him that I stormed over, but when I got there, they weren’t kissing or anything, and I overheard them talking about money. Dina left the moment she saw me, and Niall begged me not to say anything. He said she’d offered to get him a job. That it really, genuinely wasn’t more. And I thought, you know, that might have been what I heard.’ April sighed. ‘I told him to get out of there, but I said I’d be keeping my eye on him. I felt really crappy for lying to you, but it sort of seemed more like a business arrangement than a date. You know?’
Louise studied her for a moment, and then said, ‘You still basically trusted him?’
‘Yeah, I did.’ And April nodded. ‘Ever since I first met Niall, I’ve thought he was decent. You know, the first time we met, out in Dallas, he thought I was in trouble, and he just straight off tried to help. It wasn’t sleazy like every other guy in the world. He never flirted or made any moves on me. He just – saw a human being suffering, and he decided to try and fix it.’ She gave a small smile. ‘I mean, he was flat out wrong. I didn’t need any help. But it made me like him. And I’ve always liked the way he tries to help you, too.’
Louise gave her own sigh. ‘I suppose he does. Up to a point. So … when you told me on Friday about seeing them together …’
‘Oh, I’d seen them again, like I said,’ April replied. ‘She was just all goddamn over him like a rash. Whatever political manoeuvrings in the world of pharma may have been going on, he was clearly enjoying it. I felt so torn about telling you. I thought maybe I should just give him a warning and see which way he jumped. And then you told me you were going to get pregnant …’
Louise could feel herself blushing a deep red. ‘Oh, God. I don’t know what I was thinking.’
‘You were thinking it was how you’d sort your life out,’ April replied with a shrug. ‘And if Niall hadn’t been lying to you, then maybe it would have fixed things.’
Louise shook her head, mortified. ‘A child would never have fixed our fucked-up marriage. It was over years ago.’
April pulled her into a fierce hug. ‘I’m sorry, honey. But you’re going to find yourself a really great guy. One who knows you’ll be an awesome mother, and who hasn’t got some crappy ex-wife Rebecca-ing in the background without having the good grace to be dead.’
Louise found herself caught between laughing and crying. She took a long breath in, trying to tip herself towards laughter, and said, ‘Thanks, April. For everything.’
‘You’re welcome,’ April said, releasing her with a half-smile. ‘Shall we go?’
‘Yes,’ Louise said. ‘Let’s go.’
34
Step Conti was the picture of unruffled calm. Even while he was stuck in a low armchair, with the DCI in full attack mode and two uniformed officers loitering in the background of his sitting room, he was calm and clear-headed. Hanson found herself wondering, idly, whether this was how Ben would be under interrogation.
Step explained that he had only ever had one copy of that knife. He also hadn’t shared with anyone where it had come from.
‘I couldn’t have done, because I didn’t know myself,’ he said. ‘Alex just told me he’d had it imported from Poland, and I didn’t try to find out. It’s beautiful as it is, without needing any history.’
Hanson wasn’t positive that she believed him. As strange as it might be to buy a second version of a very distinctive knife in order to kill with it, it wasn’t beyond the realms of the possible.
The DCI seemed to be thinking along the same lines and carried on with his questioning. Midway through, he suddenly changed tack.
‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘Did you have feelings for Alex Plaskitt that went beyond the purely friendly?’
And at that point Step had finally shown some kind of reaction.
‘Feelings for him? But I’m not – no, of course I didn’t.’ He shifted in the armchair and looked from Hanson to Jonah and back. ‘I’ve never fancied anyone male, and the only person on earth I’d get jealous about is through in the kitchen.’
‘Why were you so angry with him about kissing a woman at the club, then?’
Step shook his head. ‘Obviously because he was risking everything for something stupid and meaningless. I was angry because I know how much Issa means to him. Look, he’s screwed up before, and it was awful for both of them. Alex felt … If you’d seen how broken he was after he cheated on Issa …’
‘So you were acting as his conscience,’ the DCI said, with heavy scepticism. ‘Why is Issa so distrustful of you?’
Hanson expected Step to become frustrated, but he gave a slightly weary smile. ‘Issa thinks I encouraged him the last time round, or maybe even matchmade him, because I was the one who put them in touch. Alex and Sarah. I had zero idea anything would happen. I’d just met her at work, and she’d told me she was unhappy with her weight and fitness.’ He shifted very slightly again, leaning forwards and resting an arm on each knee. ‘If Issa wants to believe that Alex’s straying only happened because of me, then in some ways I’m happy for him to think so. Alex just had fleeting moments when he wished he’d fallen in love with a woman instead. Deep down he knows – he knew – that any acceptance from his family would be hollow, and he wanted to make a life with Issa.’
‘So you didn’t feel jealous when he hooked up with someone?’ Hanson asked.
‘No,’ Step said, back in control now. ‘Alex was a really wonderful friend, and I miss him like crazy. But I never in a million years thought of him as anything else.’
Step asked if they’d checked the time of his return on Friday evening with his wife, which Lightman had done previously. But the chief asked Hanson to put the question to his wife again, so she left them in the sitting room while she went to find her.
Karen Conti was trying to bake cookies with two kids who seemed more interested in eating smarties out of the packet. She answered over her shoulder, looking worried by the question. But she seemed quite definite that Step had been home by twelve thirty.
This all meant there was no justification for bringing Step into the station. Given that his own knife was sitting there, unused, and that they had little more to point at him than an observation from April Dumont, they had to leave it.
The other members of Step and Alex’s group knew about that weapon, too, Hanson thought. That was where they needed to look.
As soon as they were back at the station, Hanson opened up the data file from Alex’s phone. By Step’s account, the knife had been given to him on the nineteenth, so she set her date range from January the tenth to the nineteenth.
She vaguely heard Lightman tell the DCI, ‘Issa Benhawy was in Blue Underground on Friday, looking for Alex. One of the bar staff spoke to me.’
Hanson’s head snapped up. She hadn’t thought about Alex’s husband in some while. He seemed such an unlikely violent killer: a pacifist who hated any kind of aggression. So much so that his husband had hidden that he was buying a knife for Step.
But his pacifism could be as hypocritical as the next person’s, Hanson thought. He might believe in non-violence until pushed, and it sounded as though Alex had done a lot of th
ings his husband might have objected to that Friday night.
‘Issa has also been spending a lot of time hanging around Saints Close,’ the chief said. ‘O’Malley had him back there this morning, until April Dumont arrived and chased him away.’
‘Did we check for his car reg on the ANPRs?’ Hanson asked.
‘We did,’ Lightman said. ‘His car wasn’t flagged anywhere on Friday night, but I’m going to check Alex’s car, too. He would have had access to it.’
There was a pause, and the DCI said, ‘OK. I’d like to look at him more closely. There could be reasons for his behaviour other than grief.’
Hanson nodded, and returned to what she had been doing with a new sense of significance. If Alex had sent a message about the knife before they’d given it to Step, Issa might have known about it. Particularly if, as a jealous husband, he was looking at Alex’s phone to see if he’d cheated again.
There were thirteen WhatsApp strings on Alex’s phone on the right dates, she discovered. He’d been a fairly heavy phone user.
Several of the strings, she dismissed immediately. One to Issa she hesitated over, but then moved on. Alex wouldn’t have sent his husband a photo of a knife he was hoping to hide. It made no sense.
And then she saw a group chat from the twelfth with the names Marc and Chez, and she opened it with a feeling of buzzing excitement.
There were only a few messages on it. The first was from Alex to the rest of the group, and said:
Look at this Polish beauty! Absolutely psyched for Saturday.
Beneath the words, an icon showed that there was an image attached to the message. Hanson clicked on it and sighed as her screen was filled with a large photo. The knife was identical to their murder weapon.
With perfect timing, the phone on her desk rang the moment she opened her mouth to tell the chief.