by Jessie Keane
‘What the hell are we going to do about this?’ asked the man angrily.
‘Nothing,’ said the killer. ‘What we do is nothing. We sit tight, that’s all.’
‘If any of this ever leads back to me . . .’
‘It can’t. It won’t.’ The killer was annoyed with himself for once again giving in to his sexual impulses. Usually, he kept himself to himself. He was happy that way. People, particularly women – thank you, Dad – were always troublesome in the end. He hated that he was so tempted by them. But he could control it. He could.
‘Don’t worry,’ he told his uncle.
It irked him that he hadn’t fully completed his task. On the day of the wedding, with Kit Miller running at him, he hadn’t had time to retake the third shot and to pick up his spent shell casings, police his brass as he should have, as any good marksman would.
‘It will be fine,’ he said. ‘You’ll see.’
‘It better fucking be,’ said the man. ‘Or I’ll want a refund on that first down payment, I’m warning you.’
‘A refund? Fuck off.’
‘Then get on with it. Miller – I want his arse. All right? Once that’s done, you’ll get your cash.’
62
Jenny and Aggie Rose were down the police station at the invitation of DI Romilly Kane. DS Bev Appleton was sitting in on the interview. So was DS Harman, taking notes. Both the Rosettes were subdued.
Joanie Fletcher, the hostess who’d served Crystal and her date that evening, was in the other interview room, waiting, but no one expected to get anything of any use out of her.
‘Is there anything you can tell us about this man on the CCTV. Take your time,’ said Romilly. ‘Think about it. Any small detail will help.’
‘Nothing really. Except, when he came backstage, he said his name was John,’ said Jenny.
Which was probably not his real name anyway. ‘No surname?’ asked Harman.
Both girls shook their heads.
‘He was tall,’ said Romilly. ‘How tall?’
‘Six-two maybe?’ said Jenny.
‘Taller,’ said Aggie.
‘Six-three then.’
‘Thin, fat? Medium build?’ asked Bev.
‘Thin,’ said Aggie. ‘Real skinny. Thin in the face, you know. Sort of long.’
‘Clothes?’ asked Romilly. She pressed play on the machine and the CCTV sprang into life again, the image of the tall man following Crystal Rose through the nightclub. ‘Looks like a pale jacket,’ she said.
‘Caramel-coloured,’ said Jenny. ‘Camel, don’t they call it? It looked expensive. You could see the hand stitching on the collar. Bespoke, I reckon.’
‘Any marks, moles, tattoos?’ said Romilly.
‘Nice hair. Dark. Thick and straight.’
‘Anything else?’
‘No. Good skin. Smelled nice.’
‘What smell would you say? What aftershave?’ asked Romilly.
The Rosettes looked at each other.
‘Musky,’ said Jenny.
‘Musky and sweet,’ agreed Aggie.
There were a thousand musky and sweet aftershaves on the market.
They questioned the Rosettes for another half an hour before letting them go. Next they tackled Joanie Fletcher. Nothing. The man was tall, thin, good-looking. Nothing else. He’d paid cash. That was all.
After the Rosettes interview, Bev hurried off to her next case. When Romilly and Harman had finished with Joanie, Harman busied himself with paperwork. Romilly sat in her office, brooding. The man who was probably the last person to see Crystal Rose alive was tall, thin, dark-haired and neat in appearance and he smelled good. Him and a million others.
Then the phone rang, and it was Kit Miller.
63
‘You’re sure about this?’ asked Romilly as she stood on the corner near the lock-ups with Kit.
‘My boy said she’s been back there once already since the wedding, on a Thursday morning. Now she’s back and it’s Thursday again. Visit number two. Might be nothing, who knows. But she’s not taking stuff in there. She’s bringing stuff out. You’d expect her to be clearing hubby’s stuff out of the flat, right? Not taking more stuff back there.’
‘You’ve been going round the gun clubs,’ said Romilly.
Kit turned his head, looked into her eyes. Said nothing. He’d been doing a lot of things. Having a sit-down with Thomas Knox. Giving Leon a thorough bollocking for being so bloody hasty and depriving them of the answers they needed. None of which he was going to tell her about.
‘We’ve had complaints,’ she said.
‘Complaints? About what?’
Romilly counted to ten. ‘You did pick up that third shell casing.’
Kit shrugged and looked away.
Romilly sighed and returned her attention to the car parked in front of one of the lock-ups. ‘Could be anything in there,’ she said. ‘Maybe things of sentimental value? Something to remind her of Clive Lewis?’
‘Oh please. She’s come out of there once already with a laundry bag stuffed full of something, and I don’t think it was some old git’s pipe collection. You checked the bank statements, didn’t you? There was no paper trail, nothing untoward going into the accounts from drug sales, but for sure it has to be going somewhere. Look out. Here she comes.’
Mrs Lewis was coming out of the lock-up, a big and clearly heavy blue tartan laundry bag in her hand. She put the bulging bag on the pavement and secured the lock-up door. Then she went over to her car, stuffed the hefty bag in the boot, and got in.
Romilly detached herself from their corner and legged it over to the car. She tapped hard on the driver’s window and flashed her warrant card as Mrs Lewis started the engine.
‘Police! Switch off the engine, please.’
Mrs Lewis’s eyes widened in fear. Instead of switching off the engine, she threw the car into reverse. It leapfrogged back and smashed into the Volvo parked behind her.
‘Police! Stop!’ shouted Romilly, trying the door’s handle.
Mrs Lewis was fiddling with the gears. She found first and the car jumped forward. Her door swung wide open and knocked Romilly to her knees. Kit stepped quickly in, leaned over and grabbed the keys, switching off the engine before Mrs Lewis could take another swing at reverse and flatten Romilly like roadkill. He hauled her back to her feet.
‘You OK?’ he asked.
‘I’m fine,’ she snapped, scrabbling free of his grip. She turned to the woman in the car. ‘You’re under arrest,’ she said.
Before taking Mrs Lewis down to the station, Romilly first took the woman around the back of her car and popped open the boot. The laundry bag was full of money. A lot of money. Then she locked the car and took Mrs Lewis with Kit back to the lock-up. White-faced, hands shaking, Mrs Lewis opened up.
There was a big square slab of tarp-covered something in there.
Romilly stepped in and loosened the side ties on the tarp. She threw it back.
‘Holy fuck,’ said Kit.
Under the tarp was a massive pile of money. Romilly turned and stared hard at Mrs Lewis.
‘It’s nothing to do with me,’ she said.
Romilly took the smaller woman’s arm. ‘Come on, let’s get this secure and then we’ll take you down the station. This will be impounded.’
Kit was watching all this with mild amusement.
‘Does anyone else have a key?’ asked Romilly after Mrs Lewis had locked it up and they stood outside once more.
‘No. Well. Mr Hinton did,’ she said.
Kit’s amusement faded to nothing. He stepped toward the woman and she shrank back as she saw the expression in his eyes.
‘What did you say?’ he asked.
‘Mr Hinton had a key. That . . . that’s what Clive’s note said.’ Her face crumpled. ‘What’s going to happen to me?’ she wailed.
Romilly and Kit stared at each other over the woman’s head.
Rob had a key?
How the hell did that work?
‘We’re going down the station and you can explain to me what’s been going on here,’ said Romilly. ‘All right?’
64
‘I told you – he left me a note,’ said Mrs Lewis, sitting in an interview room down the cop shop. ‘I had to get the will out, didn’t I. And the note was there too, in an envelope with the key and directions to the lock-up, and he said if I ever lost it, Mr Hinton had a spare. I never even knew he had a lock-up. So I went there, and there was all this . . . money.’
‘And you had no idea the cash was there, before that?’ asked Romilly as DS Harman sat slouched in a chair in the far corner, listening but saying nothing.
Mrs Lewis shook her head.
‘But when I apprehended you, that was at least your second visit.’
‘Well . . .’ Mrs Lewis looked flustered. ‘It was Clive’s money, wasn’t it. So it was also mine. And I must say, I was shocked to find it there. All that cash. I couldn’t believe it. We’d lived hand-to-mouth for years. Clive was . . . well, I hate to speak ill of the dead, but Clive was very careful. Went into a panic every time a bill dropped through the door. Every time we took a big wedding order he’d say, oh that would pay so-and-so’s bill. We never had a holiday. Never had a damned thing.’
‘Go on,’ prompted Romilly when Mrs Lewis hesitated.
The woman’s mouth crumpled like she’d tasted something bitter. ‘You know what? He was a mean bastard. Sitting on all that, hoarding it, and never telling me a thing about it – while I scoured the supermarket aisles for the shelf with all the bargains, and collected money-off coupons, and switched off all the lights in the flat, and bought clothes from charity shops. I scrimped and saved the whole damned time.’
‘So you went there and found it, and took some of it,’ said Harman. ‘Twice.’
‘It was mine, wasn’t it. Clive’s dead, I’m his widow. So yes, I took it.’
‘And where is the money you took on your last visit?’ asked Romilly. ‘I have to remind you, Mrs Lewis, that the money was the proceeds of crime. And as such, should be seized.’
‘But I spent all the first lot,’ said Mrs Lewis. ‘I bought some stuff for the flat.’
‘You kept receipts?’ asked Harman.
Mrs Lewis’s face reddened and Romilly felt a surge of sympathy for her. She believed that Mrs Lewis was telling the truth: she’d gone to the lock-up and found the stash, had no clue where it had come from or what Clive had done to get it, and had simply done what many other people in the same situation would; she’d started filling her pockets.
She was probably a law-abiding woman, but she’d been married to a penny-pinching and essentially crooked man. Romilly decided that they wouldn’t push too hard on the receipts. Let the poor cow have a little something, why not? She’d earned it, married to that.
‘I suppose I might have receipts somewhere,’ said Mrs Lewis, gulping down a mouthful of the hideous cop shop tea. ‘Although I don’t usually keep receipts. I’m very tidy-minded, Clive was always saying that. The minute something comes through the door, I chuck out the receipts, the packing, everything.’
‘We’ll need a statement from you,’ said Romilly. ‘After that, you’ll be free to go.’
Mrs Lewis stared at the DI in surprise. ‘Really?’
‘Yes, Mrs Lewis.’ Romilly stood up, glanced at her watch. ‘Take Mrs Lewis’s statement, will you?’ she asked Harman, and left the room.
65
Ruby walked into the Savoy Grill and there he was, as arranged, waiting for her. Thomas Knox. Old school crime lord. Much respected. Much feared. And she must be off her head, to think that she could trust him or believe a word he said.
‘Ruby.’ He got to his feet, kissed her cheek in greeting.
‘Thomas,’ she said, and sat down.
‘Drink?’ he asked.
‘Champagne, please,’ said Ruby.
Thomas beckoned the waiter, asked for a bottle of Bollinger.
‘See, I remembered your favourite. But celebrating? Seems unlikely, right now,’ he said, watching her with those cool blue eyes.
‘I need cheering up,’ she said on a sigh.
‘Lots of trouble going down,’ he said.
‘You can say that again.’
‘I was sorry about Rob Hinton.’
‘I know. It’s devastating for Daisy. So terrible.’ Ruby passed a tired hand over her face. ‘We only heard yesterday that the police are releasing his body for burial. As his widow, Daisy should make the arrangements, but she’s not up to it. So it’ll be down to me. And then we have to get through the funeral. I can’t imagine how awful that’s going to be.’
The waiter came with the ice bucket, uncorked the champagne skilfully, poured them each a glass, and left the bottle chilling.
‘Well, drink up,’ said Thomas, lifting his glass. ‘To better times, yeah?’
‘To better times,’ said Ruby.
‘You know what Winston Churchill said?’
‘No, what?’
‘When you’re going through hell – keep going. So, what can I do?’ he asked.
Ruby looked at her old lover with narrowed eyes. ‘Maybe I’m wrong to trust you,’ she said.
‘Maybe you are.’
‘Kit doesn’t.’
‘Kit don’t even trust himself. We had a sit-down, you know, Kit and me. Or do you know?’
‘No. I didn’t know that.’ Ruby was alarmed. Kit didn’t have much of a grip on things right now.
‘How did it go?’
‘I spoke, he listened. Maybe he believed what I told him. Maybe not.’
‘We found the blond git from the heist,’ she said.
‘Yeah. Kit said. He also said that before he could get the guy to talk, he died. Unfortunate.’
She nodded, thinking of Kit framed in her sitting room doorway covered in blood. ‘We’re all on the lookout for the other one. Kit got an address from the blond, but the black guy had already run from there. Could you keep an eye out too? Pass the word? We want him found, it’s urgent.’
‘Of course. Anything else?’ asked Thomas.
‘Pass any information back to me when you get it,’ said Ruby. ‘Not to Kit.’
Thomas looked at her steadily.
Ruby returned his stare.
‘Have you heard of a thing called sodium thiopental?’ he asked.
‘No,’ said Ruby.
‘It’s a truth drug. I told you I’d prove to you I wasn’t involved, didn’t I?’
‘We got nothing out of the first one. When we get this next one, I want him to talk.’ Ruby picked up her champagne glass and drank. ‘I want him to sing like a fucking canary. I want to get to the root of all this, and then I want to blast that root out of the ground. What I don’t want is trouble blowing up between Kit and you. That ain’t going to help.’
‘I can get the stuff, but understand this – it’s dangerous. It’s a barbiturate. It’s easy to go too far with it.’
‘So long as this bastard tells us what we want to know, who gives a fuck if he dies?’
Thomas’s eyes glittered as they held her gaze. He picked up his glass and clinked it against the side of hers. ‘You’re sexy like this,’ he said. ‘So, we got a deal? You trust me?’
‘We have.’ Ruby gazed back at him steadily. ‘And I guess I do. I think I have to.’
Silence fell between them. The air seemed to crackle with static as their eyes met.
‘I’m not happy,’ Thomas said at last. ‘In my marriage.’
‘Having talked to that airhead you’re married to, I’m not surprised.’
‘I think you know how this goes by now.’
I can say no, she thought. But do I want to?
‘I do. Yes.’
‘Good.’
Ruby hadn’t realized how miserable, how like a coiled spring she’d been, ever since the wedding. Up in Thomas’s suite, after two thundering orgasms, she felt the tension of it all slip away from her. Soothed by another bottle of champag
ne and warmed by Thomas’s naked body next to hers, she felt her eyes sting with tears and then she found herself crying hard, for the first time.
‘Jesus, it’s all so sad,’ she sobbed in his arms.
‘I know.’ He held her tight, smoothed his hands over her shuddering back. ‘That’s it, sweetheart. Let it go now. Just let it go.’
Ruby pulled away from him after a little while, reached for tissues, dried her eyes, blew her nose. She lay back down, cuddled up close to him. ‘They ought to prescribe you on the NHS,’ she said with a shaky laugh. ‘Take all your tensions away with Thomas Knox.’
He turned to her, fixed her with those ice-blue eyes. ‘I’ve missed you,’ he said. ‘I’ve missed this.’
Ruby half-smiled. ‘What, when you’ve got such a glamorous young wife?’
‘You know the thing about glam young girls? They talk a different language. It’s fucking boring. An actual woman like you? We understand one another, don’t we?’
‘Yeah.’ Ruby sighed and stared up at the heavy damask canopy over the bed. Toile de Jouy lovers romped up there. If all there was to a relationship was bed, she and Thomas would get along fine. But there was more, wasn’t there. She was still playing the part of the mistress, and hadn’t she had all this with Cornelius Bray? Hadn’t it damned near killed her? Yet here she was, in the same situation. Thomas – like Cornelius – had a wife.
Ruby sat up, clasped her hands around her knees.
‘I ought to be home, with my daughter. My grandkids are staying elsewhere, because Daisy’s been going off the rails. She’s blaming everything on Kit, she won’t even look at him. The whole situation’s fucked.’
‘And now you’ve got the funeral to arrange.’
‘I have, yes.’
‘I think coming here has done you good, though. Given you a break. Relaxed you.’
‘Yes. It has.’ Ruby tossed the covers back. ‘But I can’t stay the night. I have to go home. Right now.’
‘I’ll get the stuff,’ said Thomas. ‘I promise.’
66
It was Friday morning, nearly two whole weeks since the shootings. Kit sat Ruby and Daisy down in the sitting room and filled them in on what had happened at the lock-up.