Hard Place

by Douglas Stewart

  “A typical day, then.” Ratso’s tired face showed frustration at the lack of anything positive. “We gave up bugging Zandro yonks back, after that negative report from the listening boys in Sussex. He never uses that known mobile number except for crap routine calls.”

  “Unless he’s using a code? Like if he says he’s buying cheese, he’s buying E’s?” It was Nancy Petrie, her face and voice bright with enthusiasm.

  Ratso turned away from the whiteboard and headed for the water dispenser to fill a small beaker. “Good thinking, Nancy but whatever code he’s using would defy the Enigma machine.” Ratso’s brow furrowed as he ran his fingers through his wavy hair, as if that would provide inspiration instead of a couple of flakes of dandruff. “We need a new angle on Zandro. The bastard’s in this up to his double chin.”

  He drained the water, lobbed the cup into a bin from three meters and loped toward the door, where he stopped.

  “Any new ideas?” He saw blank and sheepish looks. “I want results. Not faces as empty as Old Mother Hubbard’s cupboard.” His tone was clipped, his pent-up frustration showing through. “Zandro’s not Superman,” he snapped. “There’s a connect somewhere. Call this the Cauldron?” He glared round the packed room. “Cauldrons bubble! You should be brimming with ideas.” He swivelled 360 degrees, taking in everyone, his eyes wide and burning with passion. “Look! Somehow Zandro’s communicating with his lieutenants.” He knew he was being unusually brusque but could not help himself. “Anybody remember Winnie-the-Pooh? When he had lost something, our Winnie looked everywhere without success but then the bear of little brain said something like, We’ve looked everywhere it isn’t. We must now look where it is.”

  He heard sniggers from the youngsters.

  “No,” Ratso barked. “This is not a fucking joke. He’s making us look like a load of donkeys. Right?” He stomped between the desks until he reached the whiteboard again, banged it with his knuckles. “Not looking in the right places. Not doing the right things. If we’ve no breakthrough on him by next week, we’ll need a brainstorming session. New ideas. Think right out of the box. Got it? We’re missing something. Someone or some place is the link.” He banged the board again for emphasis before heading for the exit.

  The room was totally silent, the listeners taken aback by the rare sharpness of Ratso’s tone. The youngsters on the team returned to their screens or paperwork, nobody saying a word.

  Jock joined Ratso by the door. “There’s something you need to know.” The Scot kept his voice unusually low. “That DCI Caldwell phoned. Y’know—him of the yellow shirt and expensive loafers?”

  “What did he want?”

  “You’re to see Arthur Tennant.”

  Ratso shrugged. He was not surprised. “Good of Arthur to drop by here occasionally. I’ll go up now.” As soon as the heavy-duty door had closed behind him, there was a spontaneous burst of laughter as someone asked if anyone had smelled a rat.

  Ratso went up two flights of stairs, his black trainers silent on the worn lino. He knocked and then entered the office of the Detective Chief Inspector without waiting for consent. Tennant’s office was larger than Ratso’s but not by much. The room smelled of aniseed balls. Ratso had often wondered if Tennant had Pernod on tap somewhere under the cheap metal-framed desk. But knowing his boss, Tennant probably had an endless supply of aniseed balls that he never produced or offered around.

  “Morning, Ratso.” The words were innocuous enough but the listener felt the cold blast of trouble ahead. “Take a seat.”

  Ratso sat down and clasped his hands behind his head to show relaxation. “Morning, boss. I’ve just checked downstairs. There’s nothing new.”

  If Tennant heard, it didn’t show on his impassive face. His features never flickered, never showed the slightest reaction. His face was round with small dark brown eyes. The man who put pug in pugnacious, Ratso had often joked to Jock Strang in the Nags Head. His head was shaven close so that his ears looked large, floppy, even grotesque. His teeth could have graced a zebra. The lines on his face were deeply etched so that he looked older than fifty-one. But above all, it was his hands that you always noticed, though they weren’t particularly large, small, or even riddled with early arthritis. No. They were always in the frame because Tennant’s hands were always moving—waving, chopping, calming, or pounding his desk somewhere between the phone and a photo of him being introduced to the Prince of Wales.

  “Overslept?”

  Bloody cheek coming from you, you lazy slob. Ratso’s hackles rose. You could accuse him of most things but failing to put in the hours was not one of them. He said nothing, forcing his boss to continue.

  “Trouble on the line from Hammersmith, perhaps?”

  “Not so I noticed.”

  “Late night?”

  Ratso shrugged, uncertain where this was leading.

  “I received these. About forty minutes ago.” Arthur Tennant slid his notebook to one side and revealed some photos. Ratso saw a solitary figure, back to the camera. Tennant shoved it across the near empty desk so that Ratso could pick it up; a quick glance showed it was a shot of him crossing Wolsey Drive yesterday evening. Fucking shit! What the hell? He fought to look disinterested, cool in the face of the enemy. Photo two showed him at Charlene’s door. Photo three captured the warm welcome on the doorstep, Charlene on tiptoes. The rest were taken of his departure this morning—the friendly kiss, the tearful look on Charlene’s face, him blowing a kiss from the road.

  “Well?”

  “Well nothing. I went to see the grieving woman, an old friend and I stayed the night. I guess that Beau Brummel character—er, DCI Caldwell—his lads must have seen me arrive as well as leave this morning.”

  “Don’t piss me about. What the hell were you doing spending the night with the dead man’s woman? Especially when she looks like she’s got the hots for you.” Then, in a familiar movement, he rammed a finger up his left nostril and explored hungrily. Ratso looked away with a loud sniff but Tennant, not one to feel embarrassed, continued with typical vigour.

  “I was comforting her. She and Neil have been close friends for years.”

  “Is that what you call it. Com … forting.” His contempt was obvious as he withdrew his finger and inspected it carefully. “Emphasis on the come, I expect.” He seemed to be enjoying Holtom’s discomfort. “De-briefing her, were you?” He laughed again at his joke but this time it was Ratso who sat poker-faced before starting to ease himself out of the uncomfortable chair with the sagging bottom.

  “I didn’t come here to listen to this crap. If I want smutty jokes, I’ll go to the Improv. Is that all, boss?”

  “Sit down. I have questions.” Both hands jabbed downward before he turned a page on his pad and Ratso saw the familiar lazy scrawl in biro. “You went to identify the body yesterday?”

  “Correction. We went to see who it was.”

  “DCI Caldwell,” he studied his notes “said you did not recognise the deceased.” Ratso said nothing, raising Tennant’s blood pressure a notch or two. “Well? You’ve just admitted you knew Neil Shalford”

  “No secret, boss.”

  “Did you recognise him yesterday morning?”

  “Yes.”

  “So why did you deny recognition?”

  Ratso thought any moron from SCD7 could see why denial had been the only option. “I didn’t deny recognition, sir.” He added the final word as a measure of defiance.

  “Oh? So you’re challenging Caldwell, are you?”

  “I’ve two witnesses. Yes.”

  “You mean lie-my-arse-off–for-you Sergeants Strang and Watson?”

  “I mean two reliable witnesses who will recall my precise words. As should a yellow-shirted DCI, even if he’s seeking promotion using shit-stirring garbage like this.”

  “So? What did you sa
y?”

  “Beau Brummel asked me if I did or did not recognise him.” He pulled out his notebook written up after leaving the crime scene. “I replied, quote, ‘Very familiar but not the guy we were … I dunno whether to say … hoping or expecting. Not the guy we wanted to see on a slab.’” Even as he repeated the words used, Ratso admired the cunning way he had danced on the head of a pin. But it had still obstructed the course of Caldwell’s enquiries.

  Tennant’s hands stilled. His little eyes looked upward as if seeking a cribsheet on the ceiling. Ratso took the chance to pile in.

  “You think I should have said, Oh yes, Mr Brummel. We know this is Neil Shalford and we know who murdered him and why and where. Because he was working for SCD7 on an operation without backup that went pear-shaped.”

  Tennant’s mouth dropped open as the facts clicked. Then a slight smile and look of relief took over, as he realised how bloody smart he had been passing the buck to the AC. “Well. Put like that.”

  “Is there any other way?”

  “I’ll have to say something to Caldwell.”

  “Tell him to get lost and that if he pokes his nose into SCD7’s sensitive OPs again—or worse still, screws up thousands of hours of our work—I’ll personally stuff his highly polished loafers right up his arse.” Ratso stood up. “And warn him I shall enjoy it. As might he.” He pointed at Tennant for emphasis. “And if he thinks I murdered Neil to carry on an affair with his widow, tell him to charge me.” Ratso glared at Tennant. “And, sir, don’t go near the truth either, otherwise I’ll have Wensley Hughes after you from a great height. I wouldn’t give a fag paper for your career after that. The AC put his head on the block when you hadn’t the balls.”

  Tennant did not like problems, never had. His arms waved helplessly as he anticipated the difficult phone call ahead. Ratso was almost out of the door when he let rip again.

  “Tell the git to stop concentrating on me and work on the Hogans. A witness yesterday linked them to Neil. Keep him out of my hair.”

  “But, er, er … you and what’s-her-name? I mean, I see where Caldwell’s coming from.”

  “You reckon I’d pull off the fingernails of an old mate? Cut off his todger and stuff it in his mouth? Do me a favour, sir.” His voice had risen to a crescendo but now he turned quiet. “Me and Charlene? Yeah! She’s a right little raver. ’Cos she’s in mourning, she’d only let me give her one while wearing black stockings and suspenders. Trouble was I hadn’t got a black condom, so I was scuppered.”

  In a trice, he was out of the door, leaving his boss to wonder where truth ended and fantasy began.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Chiswick, West London

  Despite Jock Strang’s confidence that he would locate Klodian Skela in an hour, it was another day before Ratso and Tosh Watson pulled up outside the apartment block just north of Chiswick High Road in West London. It had been Tosh who followed up a lead that several Albanian families lived as tenants in a rundown five-story at the western end of Chiswick.

  Ratso’s check of the public records at the Land Registry had revealed that the landlord for the entire block was a Gibraltar company called Chewbeck Holdings Limited, registered in the offices of a Corporate Service Provider in Main Street, Gibraltar. The name of the lawyers involved was not a matter of public record but a phone call had revealed some unpublished information. The conveyancing when Chewbeck had purchased the block had been carried out by solicitors Ratso had never heard of called Arkwright, Fenwick and Stubbs, with offices in Lime Street in the heart of the City of London.

  Ratso decided to start with Gibraltar. He knew that many respectable businesses operated from there for bona fide business reasons. In particular, large British bookmakers had taken the exit route to the Rock on accountants’ advice. But Gibraltar had also been a hotbed of sharp-end business and had laundered money for years. As he logged onto Gibraltar’s Companies House, he was immediately transported back to a wild night with the Gibraltar police a couple of years ago. Lifetime friendships had been formed during a raucous karaoke party followed by entertainment from some energetic lapdancers. With a wistful sigh, he returned to data mining and quickly found Chewbeck Holdings Limited.

  The Gibraltar CSP was home to hundreds of companies and offshore trusts and was little more than a place to display a nameplate. The directors of Chewbeck were a couple of local professionals, no doubt officers of countless companies managed as part of their business. They didn’t own the asset; in reality, the shareholder owned the company. Unfortunately, the published data showed a meaningless nominee shareholder, which concealed the real owner of the block of flats.

  Ratso had got Tosh to put a watch on the block and to photo everybody coming or going. Yesterday evening, Tosh produced a photo that pulled Ratso up short. No question—the man was part of the couple he had seen approaching Bardici’s Range Rover. Now there he was entering the block, after which a light had come on in a second-floor flat. Nobody had seen him leave.

  Ratso glanced round the shabby concrete walls of the entrance. The faded green stair rail looked filthy and the walls were covered in spray-painted slogans written in what Ratso guessed was Albanian. A used condom lay discarded by the wall leading to the ground-floor flats. Ratso reminded himself to wash his hands when he returned to fresher air. Fastidious he was not but there were limits.

  “Gotta be pretty desperate to have a knee-trembler here,” muttered Tosh. “No sweet music or soft lights. Just cat’s shit and a smell of urine.” Red and blue graffiti stained the communal letter box. Its door had been forced open and hung off one of its hinges, the results of typical mindless vandalism.

  Ratso pointed to the meaningless Albanian words on one wall. “I think it says Sharon was shagged here.”

  Tosh nodded agreement. “Yeah and isn’t that last word twice?” They chuckled all the way to the second-floor landing.

  The bottle-green door to number five had been severely kicked at some time in its history and though now repaired, the door had also been forced with a screwdriver or chisel. The splintered wood was a dead giveaway. The bell had been pulled from the wall and the bare wires hung loose. Tosh gave Ratso a despairing look and then banged loudly. After a few moments of silence, the sound of movement came from inside. A light came on. “Po?” Ratso knew from his trip to Tirana that the word meant yes.

  “Police. Open up.”

  There was a longer pause and Ratso imagined the man’s brain struggling into top gear to work out what was wanted of him and what to say. Slowly the chain was unhitched and the door opened.

  “Mr Skela? Mr Klodian Skela?”

  The man nodded, albeit reluctantly. Klodian Skela was wearing a vest under a dressing gown with a pair of slippers that looked so worn and stained it was hard to believe they had ever been new. Ratso flashed his ID. “I’m DI Holtom. This is Sergeant Watson.” As he spoke, Ratso was already pushing inside, taking in the smell of stale air and last night’s garlic-flavored meal. “We have some questions for you.”

  The man retreated a pace or two but blocked the way into the next room. He looked unshaven and his thinning hair hadn’t been combed today. His eyes looked bleary, as if he had not slept a great deal.

  “We’ll need some time. We’ll need to sit down with you.” Ratso nodded in the direction of the open door to the main room. Skela burst into a torrent of Albanian spoken at a furious pace.

  Watson tapped his toes impatiently as they heard him out. Then he thrust his face forward. “Cut out the Albanian crap, mate. You speak excellent English.”

  The man shrugged.

  “Stop pissing us about, Mr Skela. We listened to the recording of the call you made reporting a stolen vehicle. You spoke well and understood what was being said to you. Now. Take us in there.” He glanced at the almost closed door from which came a sliver of light.

  Reluctantly Skela
led them into what proved to be a bed-sitter with a table for four near the window and a double-bed against the far wall. The curtains were drawn but the bedside light was on and sitting in the bed, sheets pulled to her chin on seeing the three men enter, was a young woman certainly under twenty, with tousled long black hair and heavy pink lipstick. Ratso enjoyed taking a second look. She had high Slavic cheekbones, giving her a haughty look beyond her years. Ratso had expected to see the woman who had been on the jaunt to torch the Range Rover but this woman was too young by nearly twenty years.

  He wondered how much Skela had paid this bint for the night and whether his assumption that Skela was married was correct. Ratso pointed to the young woman and motioned her to go next door to the bathroom. She looked uncertain, though Ratso was sure she understood English. Skela rattled off a few words and she swung her long limbs out of bed, dragging the sheet with her but not before Ratso had spotted an eyeful of tit and a flash of trimmed, jet-black pubic hair. He watched her wiggle into the bathroom and close the door. He drew up a chair at the table with Tosh beside him. After some hesitation, Skela took a third chair opposite them.

  “Where’s your wife?” enquired Tosh.

  “Manchester. No here till four day.”

  Tosh cocked his head toward the bathroom and winked. “A secret, eh?”

  Ratso watched for the Albanian’s reaction; he didn’t look too proud of his conquest, so she must have been paid for the night. That or he was worried about something. Maybe his wife had a good way with rolling pins.

  Tosh leaned forward and looked at his notes. “You reported Mr Bardici’s vehicle stolen at 5:25 p.m. When did you first know it had been stolen?”

  “Maybe morning, maybe a bit later. I not so for sure know. I went collect car. Not there.”

  “You went to Mr Bardici’s home to collect the car? 22 Westbrook Drive. Right?”

  Skela nodded.

  “Alone? Nobody with you?”