‘What time is it? Oh . . . we were asleep, Kathy. Bren’s going abroad first thing tomorrow morning.’
Kathy thought that she caught something more in Deanne’s voice than irritation at being woken up, a residue of an old suspicion that her husband was a bit too admiring of the capabilities of the young female detective sergeant that Brock had brought into their team. ‘I’m sorry, I know it’s a bad time to call, but I just had to speak to him before he goes.’
‘I see . . . Hang on.’
There was a delay, during which Kathy wondered what was going on. Weren’t they in the same room? Then Bren came on, yawning. ‘Hi, Kathy. What gives?’
‘Sorry, Bren.’
‘Yeah, yeah. What’s the problem?’
‘I need to get hold of Brock.’
Bren hesitated, then said, ‘I’ll give you his home number.’
‘I’ve already tried that. There’s no reply. And I’ve seen Dot, and she won’t, or can’t, tell me where he is.’
‘Well . . . then I don’t think I can help. What’s the problem?’
‘I need to talk to him about what he did yesterday— sacking me, and the business with the Canada Cover.’
‘Christ, Kathy.’ Bren groaned. ‘That’s history. Things have moved on.’
‘I shouldn’t have let it go at that,’ Kathy persisted. ‘I was just so taken by surprise. I need to hear him explain it to me.’
‘Well, you can’t!’ Bren didn’t try to hide the exasperation in his voice. ‘Is that all? Can I go back to bed now?’
‘You’ve been working with him for longer than anyone else on his team. You must have some idea where he is.’
‘Kathy, I don’t! You know what he’s like. He’s a secretive old bugger. He keeps his private life private. I’ve been working for him for eight years now, and I’ve seen the inside of his place maybe twice. He’s been here for dinner with us a good few times, and each time he comes on his own and is excellent company and tells us next to nothing of his private life. Christ, do you think Deanne hasn’t tried to get something out of him? I mean, that’s a professional grilling, believe me, but he just smiles and tells a few yarns, and doesn’t give an inch.’
Kathy could hear some smothered noises in the background, followed by Bren’s chuckle.
‘Anyway, the fact is, I don’t know who his friends are, if he has any, and I haven’t the faintest idea where he is, and even if I did, well, if he doesn’t want to talk to you, why the hell should he?’
‘Sammy’s done a bunk, Bren,’ Kathy said. ‘McLarren told him, as clear as could be, that Brock switched the Canada Cover and so provoked the kidnappers into murdering Eva. Now Sammy’s disappeared, and it seems that he owns a gun.’
‘Christ. A pistol?’
‘A Tikka M690 Deluxe hunting rifle, seven millimetre, with telescopic sight.’
‘Bloody hell. Brock needs to know.’
‘Yes.’
There was a silence as Bren thought. Kathy heard some murmur of discussion between him and Deanne, then, ‘He had a wife, and a son, I think, but they were divorced decades ago. I think they’re in Canada. As far as I know he hasn’t been in touch with them for years. He used to fly gliders, belonged to a club on the North Downs somewhere . . . not far past Maidstone, I think. But I haven’t heard him talk of it for several years . . . I don’t know, Kathy. I’m stumped.’
‘Do you remember, Bren, the first case I worked with you on, the murders in Jerusalem Lane?’
‘The Marx sisters, yeah, what about it?’
‘One morning I spotted Brock getting out of a red sports car, driven by a woman. I gave you the number, and you found out the name. Do you remember? We thought it was a hoot, him being so secretive.’
‘Vaguely, yes, now you mention it. I’d forgotten about that. She never surfaced again, as far as I know.’
‘Can you remember her name?’
‘You’re joking. Can you remember the car number?’
There was a long silence, then Kathy said, ‘No, but the computer will.’
‘Eh?’
‘The vehicle registry computer will have a record of your enquiry. If you ask it, it’ll tell you again.’
‘What, now?’ Bren said wearily.
‘The computer never sleeps,’ Kathy said. ‘Thanks, Bren.’
Ten minutes later he called her back.
‘A red Mercedes sports, registered to one Mrs Suzanne Chambers, then resident in Belgravia, a brisk walk from Queen Anne’s Gate.’
‘That’s right, I remember it was a posh address.’
‘Not any more.’
‘Oh.’ Kathy’s heart sank. ‘She’s gone?’
‘Now listed at 349A High Street, Battle, East Sussex.’
‘Ah!’
‘It’s a long shot, Kathy.’
‘I know.’
‘Good luck. I mean it.’
‘And you, Bren. See you when you get back.’
That night, lying alone in her narrow bed, the light of a full moon glowing through the curtains, Kathy suffered a feverish and fitful sleep, her mind filled by bizarre creations, like creatures escaped from a fairy-tale, or the inhabitants of some Hieronymus Bosch landscape of hell—a Chinese philatelist, a decapitated princess, Raphael and The Beast, Brock the thief—all impossible, surreal fictions. One part of her mind, a skeptical and practical part, told her that such creatures could not exist in the real world, while another part, equally insistent, reminded her that she had seen Eva’s head with her own eyes, and heard Brock’s dismissal of her with her own ears.
14
Acting Badly
She rose early, too early to go hunting Brock, she thought. Feeling agitated and impatient, she scribbled a list of notes while she nibbled some breakfast toast, then made a phone call to the duty officer in the Central File Office.
Half an hour later she found the address. The building was of the 1930s, and didn’t look as if it had had much maintenance since, especially in recent years. The board of bell-pushes lay disconnected on the front step, and the front door opened on a shove. Kathy went up to the first floor, found the door she wanted and pressed a buzzer on the jamb. There was no reply. She tried again without success, and was about to give up when a door on the other side of the landing opened and a young man carrying a brightly coloured motorbike helmet came out.
‘He’s there,’ he muttered, as he walked past. ‘He just got back half an hour ago.’
Kathy nodded her thanks and pressed her thumb on the buzzer again, this time keeping it down, hearing the shrill noise muffled through the door.
After a minute the door was thrown open and a flabby figure dressed in sweatshirt, boxer shorts, feet bare, almost toppled out. ‘Jesus fucking . . .’ He stopped cursing and blinked at Kathy uncomprehendingly. He looked terrible, eyes bleary and bagged, stubble thick on his grey skin, hair standing upright in tufts.
‘Morning, Mr Wilkes. DS Kolla, remember? The Eva Starling case?’
‘Oh, Christ . . . yes, OK. Whassamatter?’
‘Sorry to bother you. I needed to check a couple of things. Can I come in?’
‘In?’ He squeezed his eyes with the thumb and forefinger of his right hand, steadying himself against the door jamb with his left. ‘What time is it?’
‘Six thirty,’ Kathy said brightly.
‘A.M.? Bloody hell. I only just got to fucking sleep. I was on a job all last night.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry. I thought I’d catch you before you went out. You want me to come back?’
‘What? Oh, Christ, I’m awake now, aren’t I? Better come in.’
He shuffled back inside and Kathy followed, closing the door quietly behind her.
It was pitch dark until he managed to stumble to the window and sweep the curtains back, letting sunshine flood in over a jumble of bedding, clothes and worn furniture.
‘Don’t mind this,’ he mumbled, scratching and yawning. ‘I’m between homes at the moment.’
It wasn’t t
he mess Kathy minded but the smell, of sour damp cloth and pungent body odours, both very strong. She went over to the window. ‘Mind if I . . . ?’
He shrugged and picked up a half full bottle of milk while she undid the catch and slid open the window. The sound and smell of passing traffic billowed in.
‘It’s about Eva, is it?’ Wilkes said, voice hoarse. He took a pull at the milk and slumped onto a chair piled with discarded clothes. ‘I read about it in the papers. Sick, innit. How’s old Sammy taking it?’
‘When was the last time you spoke to him?’
‘On the phone, a week ago. When he asked me to look out for Eva. I told you lot.’
He caught the look on Kathy’s face and straightened up slowly. ‘Why? What’s happened? He done a runner?’
‘We need to speak to him urgently. If he contacts you, let us know straightaway, will you? Here’s my number.’
‘Yeah, Right. Will do.’ Wilkes was alert now.
‘You must know him pretty well. You’ve been working for him for a long time.’
‘We weren’t what you’d call friends. He’d just give us a bell if he needed some little job done, a bit of information, whatever.’
‘You helped him when he first met Eva, didn’t you? You went over to Portugal for him. Is that right?’
‘That’s ancient history, that is.’
‘Tell me about it.’
‘Oh . . .’ Wilkes yawned elaborately. ‘Sammy was doing some business over there, some development, and he wanted information on some people. He sent me over to do a bit of digging around for him.’
‘You speak Portuguese?’
‘Nah. I worked with a local guy. He speaks English pretty good.’
‘What did you find out?’
‘Sammy was interested in this old guy and his daughter. It wasn’t too complicated. Financial information, mainly. The family had been rich once, but now they didn’t have much more than their house, which Sammy and his partners wanted.’
‘What about Eva? Didn’t he want you to find out about her?’
Wilkes grinned slyly. ‘Oh, yeah. You might say that. She’d been in a bit of trouble. Nothing you’ll find in Interpol or whatever—her dad knew a lawyer who hushed it up. Teenage stuff, with drugs. Anyway, she was a real worry to her old man, and her auntie.’
‘Auntie?’
‘Yeah. Marianna. She calls her Auntie Marianna. Sort of mother figure, really. They were real keen to get her married off to someone solid with plenty of cash.’
‘Yes, but not someone aged sixty, surely? What about all the rich young men down on the Algarve? She was very good-looking.’
‘Oh, she was a right bloody cracker, I tell you, but the types she attracted weren’t to Daddy’s taste. She’d had a string of bad boys, and she was developing a reputation.’
‘Go on.’ Kathy gingerly removed a damp towel from the back of a chair facing Wilkes and sat down.
‘Yeah. Only Sammy wasn’t bothered. He just wanted her, and I reckon she just wanted out. Probably the idea of going off to London as the young wife of a rich, daft old sod didn’t seem so bad. Even so,’ Wilkes went on, warming to his story-telling, ‘her dad wasn’t having any of it, not at first. He’s a man of principle, see, a gent of the old school. He couldn’t come to terms with his daughter marrying Sammy.’
‘So? How did Sammy persuade him?’
Wilkes gave a smug smile. ‘Sammy sent me back a second time. He wanted me to find something on the old man that he could use, some kind of leverage. And I did.’
He sat back beaming, making Kathy ask, ‘Yes? Go on.’
‘While my off-sider went back through the paperwork, I followed the old geezer, see? For days and days, till I was sick to death of his routines—the bar, the quay, the park, the bar, the quay, the park, on and on. Then one day he stopped at a little shop in the old town. It sold antiques and gifts and coins and stamps. Old stamps. That’s what he was interested in, just like Sammy. He went in and talked to the owner for ages about the stamps. Didn’t buy anything.
‘So then I got my off-sider to see what he could find out about that, and eventually he came up with a press report, fifteen years old, about the de Vasconcellos family selling their famous stamp collection to raise funds to send Eva’s mother to Switzerland for a cure for her cancer. The collection had been in the family for three generations.
‘Sammy was over the moon when I told him. He came up with this idea of a book on these special stamps that look like Eva, and dedicated it to her old man. I thought it was a bit loony myself, but it worked like a charm.’
‘I see.’
‘Yeah, well, Sammy presented him with the book, and an album of the same stamps that he put together for him, and the old geezer wept. Really, Sammy told me, he burst into tears. Apparently Eva’s mother looked the spitting image. After that, Sammy could do no wrong. The old bloke sold him his house, gave him his blessing to marry his daughter, and then retired to an old folks’ home, where he probably still is, dribbling on Sammy’s stamp album.’
‘Sammy bought her with stamps, you might say,’ Kathy said.
‘Well, yeah, I suppose you could put it like that.’
‘Were they real, the stamps?’
‘Real?’
‘Yes. Or did he have copies made?’
‘Copies? You mean forgeries?’ Wilkes looked startled.
‘Yes. Did Sammy have someone who made rare stamps for him?’
‘Blimey. I never heard of anything like that. What makes you say that?’
‘Did Sammy know anyone in that line of business, Ronnie?’
‘A forger?’
‘A good one.’
Wilkes gazed up at the ceiling, thinking. ‘I’ve no idea. He never mentioned it to me.’ He smiled at Kathy blandly.
‘That sounds like a lie,’ Kathy said, watching his expression carefully.
‘Oi! I don’t need to take this from you! I given you lots of help!’
Kathy shook her head dismissively. ‘After they were married, you spied on her for him, didn’t you?’
‘I never!’
‘I know, Ronnie. You reported on what she did in London, when she was at the flat in Canonbury.’
‘Yeah,’ he conceded. ‘But it wasn’t spying, just keeping an eye out for her, making sure she was all right. Sammy was concerned about her.’
‘You gave him written reports?’
‘Nah. I was never one for the paperwork.’
‘That’s why you haven’t got anywhere, Ronnie. What about notebooks? You must have made notes of times and places?’
‘It wasn’t like that. I didn’t follow her all the time. He didn’t want me to do a proper surveillance job on her, just look in from time to time, to make sure she didn’t get into trouble.’
‘And did she?’
‘Nah. Boring, really. Shopping, going to the movies, having a nosh. I sometimes felt tempted to tell her how to have a good time.’
‘And did you?’
‘Course not. Sammy’d have killed me.’
‘Did she have a boyfriend?’
‘No way.’
‘What about the waiter at the Italian restaurant round the corner from her place?’
‘You reckon?’ He considered this for a moment, then dismissed it. ‘Nah, I’ve watched them together in the restaurant. They were friends, nice, sharing a joke, but nothing more, I’m sure.’
‘Did you ever eat there with her?’
‘I did once, matter of fact. She caught me out, getting out of a taxi, and I had to pretend it was a complete accident, me being there. She insisted on taking me in and giving me a nosh.’
‘Did she get her drugs from the waiter?’
‘Eh?’ Wilkes raised his eyebrows in innocent surprise.
‘Come on, Ronnie,’ Kathy said wearily. ‘Eva had a heavy coke habit.’
‘No!’ He expressed astonishment.
‘I hope you’re a better punter than an actor,’ Kathy said, noticin
g the form guides and racing pages scattered among the debris on the table by the window. ‘Drugs was the thing Sammy was most worried about, wasn’t it? Come on, Ronnie, don’t be stupid.’
‘Yeah,’ he conceded. ‘He was worried about that. But if she was doing it, she was careful. I never saw her make a score, and I never saw her look as if she was under. Sammy got me to search the flat a couple of times, but I never found nothing. I reckon if she was getting stuff it was either from the restaurant or the cinema. Those were the two places she went regular, like.’
‘Did he send you after her every time she went to London on her own?’
‘Pretty much, I guess.’
‘Tell me about this last time.’
‘This last time?’ Wilkes asked vaguely, wrinkling his brow in thought.
‘Yes. Sammy rang you.’
‘Oh, yeah.’ His face cleared. ‘Sammy rang me, that’s right.’
‘When?’
‘Oh, well, Sunday night.’
‘What did he say?’
‘Just the usual. Eva was going up to the flat for a few days, and would I keep an eye out.’
‘What time was this?’
‘Latish. I dunno, ten, eleven, maybe.’
‘At night? Was that usual? To phone you at that time?’
Wilkes shrugged.
‘And you’re certain it was Sunday?’
He looked at Kathy and hesitated. ‘I think it was.’
‘Don’t you keep any records? A diary or something?’
‘Nah. You reckon it was earlier?’ he asked. ‘Or later?’
‘I want you to tell me, Ronnie. Think. Where were you when you took the call? It was your mobile, was it?’
‘Cor . . .’ He scratched his head. ‘I was here, I reckon. But which day . . . I think it was Sunday.’
‘You were positive the first time.’
‘Was I? Well, I couldn’t swear.’
‘All right. What did you do then?’
‘Nothing that evening. The next couple of days I called round to the flat, but there was no sign of her. I called Sammy, and at first he said to check on Marty Keller again, like I told you, then he changed his mind.’
That made sense, Kathy thought. By then Sammy would have received a ransom note and wouldn’t have wanted Ronnie poking around, possibly alarming the kidnappers. But the timing of the earlier call to Ronnie puzzled her. Sammy had said that his wife had gone up to the flat on the previous Thursday. Surely he would have called Ronnie earlier than Sunday night.
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