Cold in Hand

by John Harvey

  ‘Sally?’

  She thought she heard a noise from behind the office door.

  ‘Sally. This is Detective Chief Inspector Karen Shields.’

  Another sound, muffled and small. Moving quickly around the counter, Karen turned the office door handle and stepped inside. Sally was sitting pressed back against the side wall, legs folded beneath her, arms tied, a wide band of tape across her mouth.

  Even as Karen registered a movement at her back, the hard small circle of a pistol barrel pressed cold against the nape of her neck.

  ‘Don’t move.’

  The gun slid upwards until it was resting under the base of her skull.

  ‘Now slowly lift your arms. Slowly! Slowly! Slow.’

  Sally’s eyes, watching, were wide with fear.

  ‘Now step away, into the centre of the room. Stop. That’s all. Good. Now turn around.’

  Ivan Lazic’s pale face contrasted sharply with his dark eyes, the dark brown, almost black, of his short-cropped hair and beard. The scar that zigzagged his cheek stood out like a lightning flash.

  ‘Identification. Show me.’

  Carefully, Karen opened her wallet and held it out towards him.

  Lazic smiled thinly. ‘Detective Chief Inspector, that is good.’

  His accent, to Karen, sounded Russian. Russian, Serbian, she couldn’t tell the difference.

  ‘Now sit,’ Lazic said, gesturing with the gun. ‘Behind the desk, there. Sit on your hands.’

  When she was in position, he dragged a second chair across and sat facing her at the other side of the desk.

  ‘What do you want?’ Karen asked. The room was small and windowless and she could already smell her own sweat.

  ‘I want,’ Lazic said, ‘to give myself up.’

  ‘There’s a police station in the centre of town. All you had to do was walk in.’

  ‘And get myself shot.’

  ‘That wouldn’t happen.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘If you went in waving that gun, perhaps.’

  ‘And still, if not?’

  ‘Police in England don’t shoot unarmed men.’

  ‘No? Like they didn’t shoot this Brazilian, on the train in London. How many shots? Five times to the head?’

  ‘That was different.’

  Lazic laughed. ‘Different, yes.’ He caught his breath. ‘You know, when I was growing up, in my country, I read about the British police, how they never carry guns, and I think, how stupid, how brave. But now . . . this morning, for instance, here . . .’ He looked at her. ‘That was different too.’

  He laughed and when he laughed he gasped and when he gasped a small sliver of blood appeared at one corner of his mouth. Between the lapels of his coat, the wool of the sweater he was wearing was stained, Karen could see now, pinkish red.

  ‘You need a doctor,’ Karen said. ‘Hospital.’

  Lazic smiled. ‘Sally, she was my nurse.’

  There were beads of sweat visible on his forehead now and Karen wondered just how badly hurt he was, how long he could hold on. She looked down at the gun in his hand and instinctively he tightened his grip.

  ‘I want to make deal,’ Lazic said.

  ‘What kind of deal?’

  ‘I tell everything I know, everything.’

  ‘It may be too late for that.’

  Lazic winced and bit his lower lip. ‘No. Valdemar, Viktor, they have run, I know. I am sure. Leave me . . . leave me . . . what is expression? Holding baby. I do not think so. You take me. I go with you. We make deal.’

  Karen shook her head. ‘Even if I wanted to, it’s not as easy as that.’

  ‘Easy, yes. And only with police, not Customs.’ A smile lifted for a moment the edges of his mouth. ‘One of officers, customs officers, he and Valdemar, they are friends. Valdemar give him money, girls. I know. I have tape. We make deal.’

  For a moment, he leaned back against the chair and closed his eyes. Long enough for Karen to think about going for the gun but no more.

  ‘You will arrange,’ Lazic said, ‘doctor for me. Soon.’

  The stain on his chest was darkening, spreading.

  ‘The gun,’ Karen said. ‘First you must give me the gun.’

  He looked into her eyes. Then slowly, very slowly, he leaned forward and placed the pistol on the desk.

  ‘I must use my phone,’ Karen said, reaching towards her pocket.

  But Lazic was no longer really listening.

  44

  ‘Christ!’ Butcher’s voice reverberated in her ear. ‘You did what? What’re you after, some medal for valour? The George fucking Cross?’

  Karen smiled, enjoying his indignant surprise. ‘All in a day’s work.’

  ‘Give me the gun, you said, and instead of letting you have one between the eyes he just puts it down? Here, help yourself.’

  ‘More or less.’

  ‘More or less? This is the guy who’s killed two as far as we know . . .’

  ‘As far as we think.’

  ‘Who’s killed two, possibly three in the last month and God knows how many in the past. The scourge of fucking Serbia and you get him to surrender, nicely nicely.’

  ‘He was pretty badly wounded in this morning’s raid.’

  ‘Not badly enough.’

  ‘And he wanted to do a deal.’

  ‘The only deal he’ll get, parole after twenty years instead of twenty-five.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘When’re you shipping him down to London? We’re the primaries on this, remember? Agreed.’

  ‘Yes, but look, I don’t think he’s going anywhere right now. Not for a good few days, at least.’

  ‘While you interrogate him, you mean?’

  ‘Chris, he’s not talking. Not to anyone. Too doped up with painkillers to think.’

  ‘No problem getting a sample, though. Have a word with one of the docs. I want to check his DNA against what we found under that girl’s fingernails.’

  ‘Will do.’

  ‘And, hotshot . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Keep me up to speed, okay?’

  ‘You got my word.’

  There’d been prolonged applause when Karen had walked back into the CID office that afternoon and a note of congratulation had already come down from the Assistant Chief. Mike Ramsden had been busy organising a right royal piss-up for that evening.

  ‘If there’s a male stripper, Mike,’ Karen told him, ‘that’s it, I’m leaving.’

  ‘One?’ Ramsden said. ‘For you we’ve got a whole bloody chorus line.’

  She was filling in a report when the phone interrupted her thoughts.

  ‘Principal Officer Daines?’ the switchboard operator said.

  Karen looked at her watch. It hadn’t taken long. ‘Put him through.’

  ‘Chief Inspector, I hear congratulations are in order.’ His voice smooth as shit on the underside of a shoe.

  ‘News travels fast.’

  ‘Lazic, I thought we had him this morning, but somehow he slipped away.’

  Karen didn’t reply.

  ‘Of course, we’ve had our eye on him for some time, just waiting for the right moment to haul him in. A file on him that stretches all the way back to Kosovo and beyond. But most recently he was near the heart of this gun-trafficking deal, more or less Zoukas’s right-hand man.’ He paused. ‘I guess, with his injuries, we’ll have to wait a day or so before you can hand him over.’

  ‘I think,’ Karen said, ‘if any handing over’s to be done, it’ll be to the Met. SCD1, Homicide and Serious Crime Command.’

  Daines’s voice tightened. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘I’m not sure what exactly you were considering charging him with,’ Karen said, ‘but whatever it is, I think you’ll find murder takes precedence.’

  ‘Murder? What murder?’

  ‘Take your pick.’ Karen was still smiling when she broke the connection and immediately dialled Ramsden’s number. ‘Mike, the guard on Laz
ic’s room at the hospital, I want it doubled. And clear instructions, nobody gets to talk to Lazic, wish him well, grapes, flowers, anything. Understood? And that does mean anyone. SOCA especially. Got it?’

  ‘Got it,’ Ramsden said. ‘I’m on my way.’

  It was Catherine Njoroge who phoned Resnick eventually. Unfit for duty, she told him, doesn’t mean you can’t socialise. Join us in a drink. Still he hesitated, and it was mid-evening by the time he showed his face, no one yet seriously the wrong side of sober, but a lot of beer and whisky under the bridge and the decibel level around twice as high as normal.

  So far, much to Karen’s relief, no strippers had arrived, a bunch of local bodybuilders, all greased up and G-stringed and anxious to give it the full monty, though there were signs of karaoke breaking out later and Karen was already wondering whether she would have drunk enough by then to give them her best Aretha, stomping through ‘Respect’.

  When she saw Resnick hovering just inside the door, she beckoned him over and they found a little space close to one of the windows looking down into the street.

  ‘You must be getting fed up,’ Resnick said, ‘with people saying well done.’

  ‘Makes a change from stupid cow. Thinking it, even if they don’t come right out and say it.’

  ‘Not too often, I shouldn’t think.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Karen said and smiled.

  ‘Anyway,’ Resnick said, raising his glass, ‘well done.’

  ‘Luck, Charlie. Fell right into my lap.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  A roar of laughter went up from a group in the centre of the room, ribald and raucous.

  ‘What’s the state of play?’ Resnick asked.

  ‘They’ve operated on Lazic to take out the bullet. Should make a good enough recovery, apparently, though by the time they got him to the hospital, he’d shipped quite a lot of blood. I doubt if the doctors will agree to him being moved for a few days and until then, my best guess, we’ll keep him under wraps. Soon as we get the sign he’s fit to travel, drive him down to London, somewhere high security like Paddington Green, let the Met have first crack at him.’

  ‘Hardly seems fair, after what you’ve done.’

  Karen shrugged bare shoulders. The dress she was wearing had been chosen with care: attractive, yes, but for an evening celebrating with a bunch of fellow officers, mostly male, she didn’t want to be sending out any signals that suggested she might be available. Though by the end of the evening, she didn’t doubt one or two of them would try.

  ‘The Florescu murder,’ she said, ‘that’s looking the strongest by far. But I know the lead officer pretty well. He’ll play it straight. Let me have a crack when the time’s right.’

  Michaelson and Pike came over to talk to Resnick and guide him back in the direction of the bar. The ACC, who’d just dropped in for a moment, pressed a large Scotch into Karen’s hand, along with the Chief Constable’s congratulations and apologies for not being there in person. This rate, Karen thought, they’ll be offering me the freedom of the city. On a small stage off to the side of the room, Mike Ramsden was preparing to get things going with a quick burst of Carl Perkins’s ‘Blue Suede Shoes’ delivered à la King.

  Daines was sitting on the stairs outside Karen’s apartment. Though it was far from a cold night and certainly not cold inside the building, the collar of his suit jacket was turned up against his neck. His tie was loose, the top button of his shirt unfastened.

  ‘Good night?’ he asked.

  ‘Lively,’ Karen said.

  ‘I’ll bet. Somehow my invitation got lost in transit.’

  ‘From what you said earlier, I didn’t think you were exactly cheering.’

  ‘About Lazic getting arrested? We did out best earlier. Bastard tried to shoot his way out. That’s how he stopped one himself.’

  ‘A good result for you, though. All those weapons seized. Arrests aplenty. Though I hear both Zoukas brothers somehow slipped the net.’

  Daines gave a small shrug. ‘It happens.’

  ‘Doesn’t it though?’ She was looking at him hard.

  Daines smiled. ‘You wouldn’t want to invite me in?’ he asked, with a nod towards her apartment door. ‘Nightcap. One for the road.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Karen said, ‘I wouldn’t.’

  ‘Too bad.’ He got to his feet and, when he did, because of the stairs, he was a good head taller. ‘I tried to see Lazic at the hospital. Couple of guys sitting there with sub-machine guns in their laps wouldn’t let me in. Acting on instructions, they said.’

  ‘We wouldn’t want to risk losing him now. Not any of us, I’m sure.’

  ‘Did he say anything about me?’

  ‘About you? No, why? Should he?’

  He moved in closer and Karen readied herself; if he tried anything he was just at the right height for a quick elbow in the balls.

  ‘You’re playing games with me, aren’t you?’ Daines said.

  ‘Not at all. If you want a report of Lazic’s medical condition, that can be arranged. As soon as he’s fit enough to be moved down to London, you’ll be informed. You’ve got my assurance he won’t be questioned while he’s here and I’m sure you can liaise with SCD once he’s in their care.’ She took a step up and moved to go round him. ‘Now that about sorts it, don’t you think?’

  He stepped across into her path and his face was pressed close to hers; his breath warm on her face. Even in the subdued light of the stairs, she could see the green glimmer at the corner of his eye.

  ‘If I thought you were fucking with me . . .’

  ‘Yes?’ She held his gaze. Not for the first time, she wondered if he was armed.

  ‘If you are . . .’

  ‘Then what?’

  He stared at her and then, as if making a sudden decision, he stepped away. ‘Just wanted to add my congratulations,’ he said, with a quick, almost apologetic shrug. ‘Job well done.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Karen said.

  She waited until he was out of sight, his footsteps fading down the stairs, before letting herself into the apartment and securing the door behind her.

  When Resnick had got home, some time earlier, he had made himself a sandwich – all that beer, more than he was used to, making him hungry – and put a pot of coffee on the stove. Chet Baker somehow suited the mood. It was a while before he thought to check his phone: three messages from Ryan Gregan, the most recent an hour before.

  45

  After meeting Gregan, Resnick had made himself take a long, slow walk, back through the Arboretum and along Mansfield Road as far as the Forest Recreation Ground before cutting through to St Ann’s. The manner in which he’d confronted Daines had been foolish. Juvenile. Sufficiently out of character for him to take the judgement unfit for duty to heart. Unfit? Unfit was too bloody right.

  Not now.

  Howard Brent was outside his house, touching up the offside front wing of his car where someone had scraped it driving past. He had barely paused to look up as Resnick approached, but when Resnick spoke he had listened. Listened and replied, his normal hostility tempered by something he would have been hard put to explain. Slowly, he straightened and watched Resnick as he walked away.

  Jason Price lived in the upper two rooms of a terraced house in one of the short streets that narrowed out either side of Sneinton Dale; one room had a narrow bed and a spare mattress on the floor, the other an old two-seater settee that had been dragged in from a nearby skip, a couple of wooden chairs and a third-hand stereo along with, Price’s pride and joy, a large-screen plasma TV he had traded for ten grammes of amphetamines and fifty tabs of LSD. There was a microwave in one corner, next to a sink with a small hot-water heater alongside. The lavatory was on the floor below.

  When Resnick arrived, Price was in T-shirt and boxer shorts, having not long got out of bed. It was a few minutes past eleven, Sunday morning. Church bells all over the city were ringing, calling the people to shopping centres and supermarkets, Homeb
ase and B & Q.

  ‘What the fuck . . . ?’ Price said, opening the downstairs door.

  ‘Marcus here?’ Resnick asked.

  Price nodded. ‘Snorin’ upstairs, i’n’it?’

  ‘Get on some clothes and get lost. And don’t wake him. Let him sleep.’

  ‘What’s this all about?’

  ‘Just do it.’

  Price knew the law when he saw it; knew better than to argue. Thank Christ him and Marcus had smoked the last of his stash before turning in. Five minutes and he was gone.

  The upstairs room smelt of dope and tobacco and the slightly sweet, not unfamiliar stink of two young men who slept with the window firmly closed. Resnick flicked back the catch and levered the top half of the window down and Marcus, angled across the mattress, one bare foot touching the floor, stirred at the sound. Stirred and rolled on to one side and resumed sleeping.

  What was he, Resnick asked himself? Eighteen at most? Asleep, he looked younger, his face smooth and his skin the colour of copper. Fragile. Vulnerable. Somebody’s son.

  ‘Marcus.’ Resnick pushed at the side of the mattress with his shoe. ‘Marcus, wake up.’

  Another push and the youth spluttered awake, twisting his head towards Resnick and gasping as if seeing something in a dream, except that this, he realised seconds later, was worse.

  No nightmare: this was real.

  ‘Get up,’ Resnick said. ‘Put something on.’

  Marcus rolled sideways and pushed himself to his feet. Bollock naked, he reached for his jeans and a V-necked top.

  ‘What the fuck is this? Where’s Jason? What’s goin’ on?’

  ‘I’ve been trying to figure it out, Marcus,’ Resnick said, ‘and I’m still not sure. Which was it? Greed or plain stupidity?’

  ‘What? What the fuck you talkin’ about?’

  ‘Selling the gun.’

  ‘What? What the . . . ? I dunno what you’re on about. What fuckin’ gun? I dunno nothin’ ‘bout no fuckin’ gun.’

  But the shiver in his eyes said that he did.

  ‘A Baikal semi-automatic, Marcus, remember? I don’t know who you bought it from, haven’t been able to find that out yet, but I know who you sold it to. A man named Steven Burchill, round the back of the Sands in Gainsborough . . .’