‘That was really good, thank you. That’s what I miss when I go back home,’ said Erika, taking a long pull on her beer. ‘Indian food.’
‘You don’t have Indian food in Slovakia?’
‘Not really. Slovak cooking is very good, so we haven’t gone all multicultural with our cuisine.’
‘When did you come to the UK?’
‘In 1992,’ said Erika.
‘So you came just at the tail end of our nation’s terrible cuisine.’ He laughed. ‘You should have seen the stuff I used to eat growing up. Fish fingers, chips, minced beef stews with very little taste. I didn’t see my first avocado until I went to medical school… My parents weren’t very adventurous with food,’ said Isaac, laughing.
‘Where did you grow up?’ asked Erika.
‘In Suffolk, in a small village near Norwich.’
‘My mother used to fry everything, and it always tasted good, but after dad died she was more of a drinker than a foodie,’ said Erika.
‘She was an alcoholic?’
‘Yeah, but the only person she harmed was herself. She never got violent; she held down a job… Anyway. Let’s talk about something else.’
‘Fancy a cigarette?’
‘I’ve been craving one all day.’
She grabbed a packet of cigarettes and a lighter from the kitchen drawer, and they pulled on their coats and went out onto the small patio. It was freezing cold, and threatening snow. The clouds hung low and glowed orange from the light pollution in the city. They smoked in silence for a few minutes, looking out at the buildings stretching away over the tops of the trees.
‘If you were a serial killer, and the police knew who you were, and where you lived, where would you go?’ asked Erika.
‘That’s an interesting question, sounds like a game.’
‘I asked this in the incident room earlier today, because we’re getting desperate. Max Kirkham and Nina Hargreaves have just vanished… When I asked the question, Moss thought the same as you, like it was one of those games, “who would you most like to sleep with?”’
‘Definitely, Jason Statham,’ said Isaac.
‘What?’
‘He’s who I’d most like to sleep with.’
‘Who’s he?’
‘Oh, come on, Erika. Haven’t you seen The Transporter? And Transporters 2 and 3? Shaved head, excellent body.’
‘No. I don’t seem to get much of a chance to watch films.’
‘OK, who would you most like to sleep with, apart from the people you work with?’
‘There’s no one I work with who…’ She noticed Isaac raising an eyebrow. ‘OK. I’d most like to sleep with, um, Daniel Craig.’
‘Oh, please, you’re such a public servant, Erika. You want to sleep with James Bond?’
‘Not James Bond, Daniel Craig. Anyway, shut up about that. I’m being serious about the question. Where would you go if you were a killer on the run?’
‘Well, I wouldn’t knock on your door, cos you’d slap a pair of cuffs on me quicker than you can say Octopussy. I suppose I’d go to my parents, or I would try to get abroad.’
‘Max Kirkham hasn’t got a passport.’
‘Could he get a fake one?’
‘Yes, I suppose so… When they killed Daniel de Souza, emptied the safe at his flat, his mother didn’t know how much cash he had in there, but she said he would often keep several thousand pounds. And it depends if Max knows people who can get him a good forgery. And then they’d have to get two passports, because we’ve put a stop on Nina’s.’
‘It’s incredibly difficult to go on the run. There are CCTV cameras everywhere, and this is a small country, let alone London being so densely packed with people. I’d definitely change how I look: I’d go blond. Or ginger. In the movies when people are on the run, very few of them opt to go ginger,’ said Isaac.
They heard a creak from above and then Alison’s voice came over the top of the balcony.
‘Sorry loves, I was just hanging out my smalls and I heard what you were saying…’
‘Hi, Alison,’ said Erika.
‘I agree with whoever you are, the man with the lovely smooth voice.’
‘Hi, I’m Isaac,’ said Isaac, moving out on to the grass and waving up at Alison. Erika joined him and waved and then they ducked back under the awning.
‘Jason Statham is lush,’ said Alison. ‘But if I’d murdered someone, I’d go to me mam’s house in the Gower. She’d keep me safe.’
Erika rolled her eyes at Isaac. ‘Okay, thanks, Alison,’ she said.
‘I saw you on telly last week, Erika. I didn’t know you’d been working on that murder case. I hope you catch them soon. I don’t like the idea of two killers working together. Must be easier for them if they join forces. Ta ra.’
‘Night,’ said Erika and Isaac. They heard the balcony creak above them, and her patio door close.
‘She sounds nice,’ said Isaac.
‘Just cos she called you “the man with the lovely smooth voice”.’ Erika grinned.
He waggled his thin eyebrows. She offered him another cigarette, and they lit up again. Erika lowered her voice.
‘Mandy Hargreaves came forward and gave us the ID on her daughter, so Nina’s not going to go there. We’ve also had her under surveillance for the past couple of days; there’s been no contact. Nina has no siblings or other relatives. We’ve also got her ex-best friend under surveillance, but nothing there either.’
‘What about Max Kirkham?’ asked Isaac, exhaling smoke from the corner of his mouth.
‘He’s an orphan. He grew up in a children’s home in West Norwood. Mother is deceased.’
‘And just how thoroughly has that been checked?’
‘I had someone on my team check, and they gave me the information.’
Isaac waggled his finger comically. ‘The Erika I know would have checked that out for herself, and made sure she’d seen a death certificate. Max sounds like a man with a chequered past. He’s also a man of limited means, but people who grow up poorer can often have much stronger family bonds… Have you seen a death certificate?’
‘No, but I trust my team. They’re all very thorough,’ said Erika.
‘You trusted Nils Åkerman.’
‘I didn’t look at it like that. The trust was implied. Like I trust you, and your judgement.’
‘Have you heard any more about him?’ asked Isaac.
‘No. I’m tempted to go and visit him in Belmarsh. Look him in the eye and… I don’t know. I don’t know what I’d say. He betrayed me and so many people, but I’ve worked in drugs units for long enough to see that drugs take people over. They steal their personalities. Maybe it’s the wine talking, making me extra forgiving.’
Isaac smiled. ‘I don’t know if it’s the wine talking, and I know he’s a vicious mass murderer, but don’t you think Max Kirkham is quite sexy?’
‘No! You’ve obviously had more wine than me.’ She grinned. They stubbed their cigarettes out and went inside. ‘But you’re right about Max’s dead mother. I need to check it out.’
Chapter Sixty
Nina and Max spent the rest of the weekend planning and preparing for Monday. They cleaned out the white van, filled it up with diesel and filled an extra 10 litre diesel can, stashing it in the back. Mariette was sent out on two trips to the supermarket, and returned with enough canned and dried foods to fill a large rucksack. On Sunday morning, Max sent her out on one last shopping trip to central London with a stack of the stolen cash. She returned late afternoon.
‘Can you mind my carpets,’ she said as Max and Nina carried all the bags through to the living room.
‘Did you get everything?’ asked Max.
‘Yes. And in return I want my second payment of five grand.’ Despite the cold weather, she was covered in a sheen of sweat, which made her make-up run.
‘Tomorrow morning. I’ll give it you, bright and early,’ said Max. He then started to work through the items in the bags, pulling them out as Nina cro
ssed them off a list. ‘Camping stove, four thermal sleeping bags…’
‘Why do you need four? There’s only two of you,’ said Mariette, blotting at her face with a tissue, and watching as it was all unloaded onto her carpet. Max ignored her.
‘Three pay-as-you-go mobile phones, plus two extra batteries. We should put these all on to charge, Neen.’
‘Okay,’ she said, writing it all down.
‘It took me a bloody age to get all that… And everywhere is teeming with Christmas shoppers. It’s not even December.’
‘Why don’t you fuck off and make some tea,’ snapped Max, glaring at her.
‘Five grand, that’s what I keep saying, five bloody grand,’ muttered Mariette, leaving the room and closing the door.
‘It’s ten grand!’ he shouted after her. He turned back to Nina, who was chewing on the pen nervously. He pulled out a big multipack of Haribo. ‘Look, these are for the girls. They’ll love them, there’s all different stuff: Gummi Bears, Cola Bottles…’
Nina smiled weakly and wrote it down. Max pulled out two spare laptop batteries, and then a long yellow and red plastic box. He whistled.
‘Jeez, she even made it to the camping supply shop,’ he said, opening the box and taking out two long yellow cylinders with what looked like a red screw-on cap on each end. ‘And she got it right. Two long-range rocket-propelled distress flares. I thought the stupid cow might come back with a pair of distressed flares or bell bottom trousers.’
Nina watched him examine the long plastic cylinders.
‘How do they work?’
‘You hold it with this bit at the top,’ he said, indicating an arrow. ‘And you unscrew this bit at the bottom.’ He twisted one end. The lid came off, and a small length of string fell down. ‘And you pull. It fires a burning rocket 300 ft in the air…’ He carefully replaced the cap and screwed it tight. ‘This, Neen, is the key to our escape. And there’s another one as a backup. Okay?’
She nodded.
‘And your mate. Can you trust him?’
‘I trust him, cos he knows he’s going to get a big wedge of the ransom money. And that’s the best kind of trust.’
Nina looked at everything strewn across the rug.
‘I can’t believe we’re doing this.’
Max carefully put the distress flares back in their box and then turned to her.
‘We are doing this, Neen,’ he said. ‘We’re doing this for us, for a chance at a future together. Not this miserable existence with no money, no hope, and no prospects. The odds are in our favour. This is our time. And we have to take this opportunity with both hands. No one will get hurt.’
Nina looked into his eyes, and for a moment, she almost believed him.
Nina didn’t sleep much that night. She watched Max, snoring peacefully beside her, for a couple of hours, then she got up and padded downstairs to make herself a cup of hot milk. As she placed a small pan of milk on the stove and lit the gas, she caught sight of the landline, sitting on its little table in the hallway. She tiptoed into the hall, and listened to the sounds of the building. The clock ticking, the burning gas hissing on the stove. When she picked up the receiver, the dialling tone sounded warm and reassuring. She knew her mother’s number off by heart; it hadn’t changed since she was a little girl when she used to practise answering the phone, picking up the receiver saying, ‘Hello, 0208 886 6466,’ like her grandmother used to do. With her heart hammering, Nina started to dial: 0,2,0,8… 8,8,6… 6,4,6… Her finger hovered above the final ‘6’.
‘You bailing on him?’ came a voice which made her jump. She turned and saw Mariette, sitting on the sofa in the dark living room.
‘No,’ said Nina, replacing the receiver.
‘Don’t shit a shitter.’
‘What?’
‘Don’t bullshit a bullshitter…’ said Mariette, heaving herself up off the sofa. She shuffled into the hall. Under the harsh light from above, every line and bag on her face was accentuated. She wore a grubby white towelling robe, and Nina could see the outline of her cigarettes and lighter in the pocket.
‘You’re scared, aren’t you?’ she said, putting her arms around Nina and kissing her on the top of the head.
‘Yes.’
‘Well, let me tell you, girl. I’ve spent most of my life being scared, and it’s done me fuck all good.’
Nina started to cry. Mariette pulled back and slapped her around the face.
‘Now stop that. You need to take this opportunity to get out of the country, do you hear me?’
Nina put a hand to her stinging face, shocked.
‘I thought you didn’t want to know what we were doing?’
‘You think I’m stupid? You think I haven’t heard? Now, you’re going to go with Max tomorrow, do you hear? If you don’t, I’ll call the police, and I’ll tell them everything. Do you know what they do to girls like you in prison? And do you think anyone in your family will give you the time of day? A modern day Myra Hindley, that’s what they’ll call you.’
‘I’m nothing like her…’ started Nina.
‘You’ve killed four people. They’ve got your DNA, and photos of you. They can link you to the crimes. Are you fucking stupid? You’ll go down for life. Unless you decide to end it in a police cell with a makeshift noose made out of a bed sheet.’
‘You bitch,’ said Nina.
Mariette grabbed her by the throat and slammed her into the wall. Her eyes were now cold and hard, like Max’s.
‘Ten grand might not be much to a stuck-up little cunt like you,’ she said, leaning in close so her voice was a low whisper. ‘But it’s the most money I’ll ever see again in my lifetime. Now, you’re going to go back upstairs, and then you’re going to leave tomorrow morning with my son, and do whatever you need to do to start a new life. We’ll never have to cross paths again…’ She stared at Nina, whose face was now turning purple, and then let go. Nina sank to the floor, gasping for breath as she slowly walked back up the stairs. There was a hissing sound and then a smell of burning. ‘And your milk’s boiled over,’ said Mariette.
When they woke up Mariette was out. After breakfast, Max left the £5,000 in cash on the kitchen table and they came down to the van.
With a new set of plates, they drove to Hilly Fields Road and parked a hundred yards down from Marsh’s house. They waited and watched as Marsh went off to work, and then forty-five minutes later Marcie emerged with the twins. They wore identical green dresses, with thick blue jackets, hats, gloves and thick green tights. Marcie lifted the two girls up into the back seat of the Space Cruiser, buckled them in, and then they drove away. Nina looked into the back of the van where they’d placed an old mattress and blacked out the windows in the back doors.
‘Max, they’re only little,’ she said in a small voice.
‘How many times have I said this? We’re not gonna hurt them. If they do as we say, they’ll get their kids back within a day or so. You’ve done far worse, you do realise that, Nina? Cos you’re coming over all Mother fucking Theresa, and we both know that isn’t the case!’
‘I know what I’ve done.’
‘Good, now we need to focus,’ he said.
They passed the next half an hour in silence, and just as Nina was giving up on Marcie returning home, her car appeared in the side mirror and swept past them and into the driveway. They waited until she was inside the house, and then Max unbuckled his seatbelt.
‘Now, are we going to do this?’
Nina looked into Max’s eyes and nodded.
‘Yes, we are.’
Chapter Sixty-One
Marcie Marsh arrived home from dropping the twins at nursery and was unloading a shopping bag from the local organic store into the fridge. She’d bought some lovely ripe Brie, crusty bread, and a bottle of organic white wine. She wouldn’t tell Paul that it was organic; he despised ‘poncy wine’ as he called it. She shuddered when she thought that his favourite wine was Blue Nun, something he hid from his friends and
colleagues, and he always made her keep a bottle in the fridge for when he came home from work.
She went to put the wine in the fridge, when she saw his bottle of Blue Nun in the inside door and lifted it out. It was almost empty. She smiled, and closed the fridge door, taking both bottles of wine to the sink. She tipped the last of the Blue Nun down the sink and then opened the bottle of organic white. She was just smiling to herself and putting a funnel into the top of the Blue Nun bottle when the doorbell rang.
Marcie wiped her hands and went to the hallway, checking her reflection in the small mirror on the way. When she opened the front door, there was a lad outside with a shaved head wearing thick black framed glasses. He gave her a geeky smile and showed his ID, along with a black toolbox he was carrying.
‘Morning, love, I just need to read your water meter. Won’t take me a second,’ he said.
Marcie thought he looked a little familiar, but it was nothing more than a passing thought.
‘Okay.’ She smiled, standing to one side to let him in. ‘Your shoes are nice and clean, but do you mind taking them off?’
‘Sure, no probs,’ he said. He hopped on one leg as he slipped off the right and then the left shoe. Marcie saw he was wearing Bart Simpson socks.
‘Nice socks.’
‘You think?’
‘No,’ she said with a laugh. ‘My husband has a Bart Simpson T-shirt he can’t bear to part with. It’s almost disintegrated, but he insists on keeping it.’
‘My wife got me these for Christmas,’ he said, pushing the glasses up his nose and grinning at her.
Marcie looked him up and down with an almost appraising eye. She closed the front door and showed him down the hallway to the meter cupboard next to the kitchen door. She unlocked it, pulled the door open, and as she turned around, she saw the man was standing very close with a strange look in his eyes.
He moved so fast that she only registered he had punched her when she hit the floor. She felt pain shooting through her face as he grabbed her by the hair and dragged her into the kitchen. He punched again and again, and then she blacked out.
Cold Blood: A gripping serial killer thriller that will take your breath away (Detective Erika Foster Book 5) Page 24