by Rob Ashman
Elsa began to cry, she wiped the tears from her cheeks.
‘I know love, I know,’ Damien wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her into him. ‘They’ll find her.’
‘How many times did you see her?’ asked Malice, taking out his notebook.
‘I don’t know… five or six times. I lost count. We always saw her at the Mexborough. They will have records, you can check with them.’
‘You use false names at the hotel. Why was that?’
‘I’m a senior partner in a law firm. It pays to be discreet — and besides, it adds to the excitement.’
‘Did she ever come here?’ asked Pietersen.
‘No, never. That would be too close to home, so to speak.’
Elsa sobbed against Damien’s shoulder, then straightened up.
‘You don’t think something has happened to her, do you?’
‘I’m sure she’s fine, love,’ Damien said, hugging his wife.
‘Would you mind if we took a brief statement from each of you?’ asked Malice. ‘Separately.’
Elsa looked at Damien. ‘I’m not sure… I want you with me,’ she said.
‘It will be fine. Tell the officers what you know, it might help them find Belle. I’ll put the kettle on while you talk to the officers. We’ll have a cup of tea, okay?’
Elsa nodded and wiped her eyes with her sleeve.
‘Yes, okay.’
Damien left the room followed by Pietersen. She scanned the hallway and dipped her head into the dining room.
‘You like your art, Mr Kaplan,’ she said as he filled the kettle.
‘Yes, it is a passion of mine.’
‘Nice pieces.’
Pietersen walked over to study a burnished gold and orange vase on the window ledge.
‘I make them myself. That one won first prize in a competition.’
‘Wow, that’s impressive.’
‘Do you like art?’
‘I do. Do you mind?
‘No by all means.’
Pietersen picked the vase off the shelf and turned it in her hands.
‘How did you get that glaze effect?’
‘You know about pottery?’
‘A little.’
‘It’s a special recipe. I built my own kiln… would you like to see it?’
One hour and two cups of tea later, Elsa closed the door on the officers who were getting into their car. Damien was next to her. He slipped his hand into hers.
‘That went well,’ he whispered.
‘Practise makes perfect.’
‘You were brilliant. What a performance.’
‘You were pretty good yourself.’
‘What do you think?’
‘I think I rather like him,’ Elsa pursed her lips.
‘No, seriously. What do you think?’
‘They’re going away happy. But they’ll be back.’
Damien kissed his wife on the cheek.
‘I was wondering… the offer you made earlier… does it still stand?’
‘And what offer might that be?’ Elsa pushed her body into his and allowed her hand to slide down to his crotch. ‘This one, perhaps?’
Chapter 27
‘T hat’s a first for me,’ Malice said as grey and black outlines of the countryside flew by the car window. Pietersen gunned the engine, sending them hurtling around the country lanes towards the motorway.
‘Me too. It takes all sorts I suppose.’
‘I loved it when he said we don’t know her on a personal level… sounded pretty fucking personal to me.’
‘There’s something not right.’
‘Swingers,’ Malice repeated for the umpteenth time since they’d left the house. ‘Swingers.’
‘Saying it over and over won’t help us find Garrett.’
‘Yeah, I know. But… swingers.’
‘Okay, apart from the obvious, what did you think?’ she asked shifting down a gear.
‘I mean, did they look like swingers to you?’
Pietersen shook her head.
‘I don’t bloody know. How many swinging couples have you met?’
‘To my knowledge — none. But now I’m wondering.’
‘Wondering what?’
‘Well I never thought they would look like that, so now I’m thinking I might have done.’
‘Can we talk about something else?’
‘Like what?’
‘Like… what did you think?’
‘Oh, erm, it didn’t feel right to me either,’ Malice furrowed his brow and stroked the stubble on his chin.
‘In what way?’
‘They were too helpful, too open, too…’
‘Prepared? It felt like they were expecting us and the whole thing was scripted.’
‘Scripted — that’s the word. Scripted.’
Pietersen glanced across at her partner.
‘Not swingers… now the word is scripted.’
‘Keep your eyes on the road or we’ll end up in a ditch.’
‘Yes, boss. Anything else?’ She turned her head to look at him.
‘We’ll need to follow up on their statements. They gave us a lot of information which we need to corroborate.’
‘One thing we know for sure… Belinda Garrett was alive after their last meeting at the Mexborough. We have her on CCTV catching a train back to Paddington.’
‘And we have the Kaplans going in the opposite direction in their car which they’d left at the station car park.’
‘So why do I get the feeling we’ve missed something,’ she drummed her fingers across the steering wheel.
‘Me too.’
‘He has a real passion for pottery.’
‘Who does?’
‘Damien Kaplan. He’s made some amazing stuff.’
The country lanes gave way to a duel carriageway and Pietersen relaxed back into her seat.
‘Really,’ replied Malice, in as bored a tone as he could muster.
‘Yeah, really. He built his own kiln.’
‘Fascinating,’ he brought his hand up to his mouth and faked a yawn.
‘Just thought I’d mention it.’
‘Putting that fine arts degree to good use?’ Malice said, stifling a laugh.
‘Piss off.’
‘Just saying.’
‘By the way, what size jacket do you wear?’
‘What?’
‘Your jacket, what size is it?’ she reached across and pulled at is lapel.
‘I don’t know – extra large.’
‘What’s that in inches?’
‘What is this? An episode of the Sewing Bee.’
‘I’m serious.’
‘I don’t know, it varies. I think I take a forty-six inch chest, long.’
‘Mmm,’ she mused.
‘What, are you going to buy me a new suit?’
‘No, the jacket I picked up off the chair was a forty-eight inch, long. And there is no way Damien Kaplan is anything like that. It would swamp him.’
The clock on the dashboard read 19.45 as they entered the outskirts of town.
‘Stop!’ Malice shouted.
‘What?
‘Stop the car.’
‘But we are miles from the station.’
‘Just pull over.’
‘Okay, okay. Are you alright?’
Malice yanked his overcoat from the back seat and leapt from the car as it drew into the kerb.
‘Give me ten minutes.’ He banged the door shut and left Pietersen staring out the windscreen with her mouth open. Up ahead, four men were loitering on a street corner. Malice pulled his coat on and strode towards them.
Pietersen watched as he slapped one guy on the back and another on the shoulder.
What the hell’s he doing?
She waited and watched.
‘Anyone would think you’ve been avoiding me, Wrigley,’ Malice said, letting his hand drop from Bullseye’s shoulder. The other two men dressed in matching back tracksuits and hoo
dies grunted before making a sharp exit. Closely followed by Bullseye.
‘Now why would I do that?’ replied Wrigley.
‘Have you heard?’
‘About Burko? Everyone’s talking about it.’
‘Any ideas on who might have topped him?’
‘No. There’s a lot of chatter but nothing concrete,’ Wrigley unwrapped another piece of gum and popped it into his mouth – to join the others.
‘And what about the other night? What happened to the idiots with the bats?’
‘You don’t want to know.’
‘I do.’
‘Let’s just say they went to a better place.’
‘Shit. That wasn’t a smart thing to do.’
‘Maybe not, but that’s what happened.’
‘What did they say?’
‘They said a lot but we couldn’t understand them. They were eastern European and spoke very little English. Bullseye thought they were taking the piss and got a little over enthusiastic.’
‘Why were they trying to bash your head in?’ Malice shifted his position and glanced up the road to ensure Pietersen was still sitting in the car.
‘No idea.’
‘You need to give me more than that.’
‘They kept saying the same thing over and over — Lubos Vasko.’
‘What the hell is a Lubos Vasko?’
‘I reckon it’s a name… a Slovakian name.’
‘I’ll keep my ear to the ground,’ Malice said, turning to leave.
‘Hey, Mally. Thanks for the other night, man. I owe you.’
‘Yeah, you do.’
Malice trotted back to Pietersen. He found her drumming her fingers against the steering wheel.
‘Thanks,’ he said, piling himself into the front seat.
‘I suppose that was another spot of business.’
‘Yeah it was.’
‘You going to tell me?’
‘Nope.’
‘Does it help us find Garrett?’
‘Nope.’
Pietersen slammed into first gear and screeched away. She glanced across at Malice.
‘At least this one didn’t run away.’
‘He didn’t need to.’
Chapter 28
M alice crunched his fist into the speed ball. It bounced off the platform above and he missed the rebound by a country mile. The gym was hot and smelled of poor personal hygiene.
Fuck it!
He tried again and managed to achieve the rolling rhythm that told him his hand-eye coordination was working well. Then he missed again and the suspended ball boggled around in front of him. He tore away the fastenings around his wrists and yanked off the lightweight gloves.
Bollocks to this.
He punched the ball hard, sending it thudding into the suspended platform and walked away.
‘That little ball too fast for you,’ Jim sneered as Malice passed by on his way to the changing room.
‘Something like that.’
‘You ain’t gonna hit that thing proper until you fix whatever’s going on in your head.’
Malice ignored the home-spun wisdom and slammed the heel of his hand into the door. That was the trouble with Jim. Not only was he a great trainer, he was a psychologist, a counsellor and all round clever git when it came to working out what was going on in people’s heads.
‘When Mohammad Ali beat Sonny Liston he didn’t win because he was stronger,’ he used to say. ‘He didn’t win cos he could punch harder, nor because he was fitter. He won because he got inside his head. If your head ain’t right… nothing’s right.’
And annoyingly the miserable bastard was right. Malice hadn’t slept a wink. His thoughts were awash with visions of Burko’s beaten body, the two men wielding baseball bats and a man named Lubos Vasco. Whoever the hell he was. Punctuated with the occasional light relief of drifting into the world of swingers.
He put his kit into his locker and made his way out.
‘Get rid of what’s in your head and then maybe… just maybe… you’ll be able to do some good around here.’
Malice held his middle finger up and exited into the car park. The early morning sun was still below the horizon, tucked up in bed where most normal people were at this time. He got into his car and the roar of the engine woke up the birds.
Malice opened the door to the office to find Pietersen sticking photographs to a whiteboard with magnets. He’d spent the last twenty minutes shaving and taking a shower in the police station changing facilities and had used up the last of his deodorant. He was wearing a clean shirt and tie that didn’t have food on it. He figured that if he was going to be working with a woman, it was unfair for him to turn up looking like he’d spent the night sleeping in a cardboard box underneath a bridge.
‘Hey,’ she said over her shoulder.
‘You’re early,’ Malice looked at his watch. 6.50 a.m.
‘Yeah, not through choice.’
‘Oh?’ he removed his jacket and dumped his bag on the desk.
‘My car is on the blink. I wasn’t sure if I needed to catch a bus to get to work.’
‘What’s up with it?’
‘I don’t fucking know,’ Pietersen spun around and flapped her arms to her sides. ‘What I do know is it’s running rougher than a badger’s arse and it will probably cost me a ton of money to get it fixed. A ton of money that I haven’t got.’ She flushed red in the face.
‘That sounds shit.’
‘Yes, it is. I only had the damned thing serviced a couple of months ago.’ She turned to face the board, picked up a pen and began scrawling names under the pictures and connecting them with arrows.
Malice disappeared and came back with two coffees, handing one over.
‘Sorry,’ Pietersen said. ‘I’m pissed off.’
‘That’s okay, your motor running rougher than a badger’s arse will do that to you.’
She looked at him and half-smiled.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ they both said in unison.
‘Ha, you first,’ said Pietersen.
‘What if they’re lying?’
‘My thoughts exactly.’
‘What if the Kaplans are letting us see what’s under the rug so we don’t look under the carpet. It’s a well-worn tactic to avoid further scrutiny. They’ve given us a lot of detail around Garrett’s disappearance which really doesn’t put them in a good light. The implication being look how honest we are, so honest we’re making ourselves look bad. But what if they’re lying?’
‘There is no way that jacket was his.’
‘Perhaps their latest conquest was lying in bed all the time we were there,’ Malice took a sip and recoiled from the heat.
‘They were acting pretty cool if he was.’
‘And that’s part of my problem with the Von Trapps, they’re too cool.’
‘These are the hotel bills from the Mexborough.’ Pietersen pulled a wad of paper from the board. ‘They got together on six occasions; each time checking in on a Saturday and leaving on the Sunday. The duration of time between visits is either two or three weeks.’
‘Belinda’s house mate said that she was going to see friends on this weekend.’ Malice took the papers from her hand and pointed to a date on the wall calendar. ‘Which is three weeks after they were last together at the hotel.’
‘And the housemate is pretty sure a red suitcase is missing.’
‘Exactly. Then there’s the phone. I found it plugged into the wall at the side of her bed. Now who goes away for the weekend and forgets their phone? You might forget it when you go to the pub, or pop out to the shops. But for a weekend? You leave the house thinking — keys, wallet, phone.’
‘Maybe she left it so her movements couldn’t be traced. If she turns it on it will ping off the phone masts and give away her location. Now why would she not want others to know where she was?’
‘If someone told her to?’
‘The Kaplans,’ Pietersen stabbed her finger into the board,
just below their mugshots.
‘What was it Damien said? They wouldn’t meet her at the house because it’s too close to home,’ Malice slid into his chair and unpacked his bag, taking a moment to admire his handiwork with his freshly laundered shirt.
‘We know she doesn’t drive, and we also know that she bought her train ticket on the morning of travel when they were last together at the Mexborough. How about I get hold of the CCTV from Paddington train station on the Saturday morning of the weekend she went missing? See if I can spot her — it’s worth a shot.’
‘Good idea. Though Paddington is bloody massive, what about getting our hands on the CCTV at the nearest station to the Kaplans’ place. That would be a narrower search. We can always circle back around to Paddington if that draws a blank.’
‘Okay hold on,’ Pietersen tapped away on her keyboard. ‘The nearest is Fallgate Station. I’m on it.’
‘I have a couple of things to follow up on with regards to the murder on the Claxton Estate. Can I leave you with that?’
‘Yes, we might need to bring in some help,’ Pietersen didn’t look up from the screen.
‘I’ll have a word with Waite, see what she says.’
‘Let’s pay the Kaplans another visit later.’
‘Good idea.’
Malice picked up the car keys from the desk with the Porsche badge on the keyring.
‘Do you need this today?’ he asked.
‘What?’ The jangle of the keys broke her concentration.
‘Do you need your car? I’ll take a look at it if you like.’
‘There’s no need. I mean … we have a stack of work–’
‘I’ll be back later. Oh, one more thing.’
‘What?’
‘I’ve never been very good at this relationship lark, so you might want to help me out.’
‘Go on.’
‘I would have thought Belinda Garrett is a good-looking woman.’
‘Agreed.’
‘So why would she spend her time screwing Damien Kaplan? Who, let’s be fair, is no oil painting.’
‘You’re right he isn’t, but his wife is. Didn’t you say that Garrett likes boys and girls?’
‘Yeah, her house mate said that.’
‘And that’s your answer. Unless Damien Kaplan is hung like Dapple the pony then my money would be on Elsa being the focus of Garrett’s affections.’
Malice shook his head and walked away. The image his partner had just planted in his head would stay with him the rest of the day.