The Blood Whisperer

by Zoe Sharp

  “Grogan will blame Viktor for whatever the girl has told him has been going on. It will seem he has run away.” She nodded to the gun. “You will bury that with him?”

  “Yes.” Dmitry looked the gun over briefly, saw the serial numbers had been professionally removed. “Where did it come from?”

  She shrugged again, said carelessly, “I asked Viktor to get it for me.”

  There were a thousand questions Dmitry could have asked but he watched her walk away into the trees with all of them unspoken. Her own car would be parked somewhere nearby. She would be back in London in an hour and providing Viktor’s body was never found, no-one would ever know.

  Dmitry retraced his steps to the Merc and removed the shovel he’d previously stowed in the boot. He took his time about it. When he returned, Viktor had ceased to gurgle and shudder. The woods surrounding them were suddenly very still and very quiet.

  Despite any lingering childhood superstitions, as he struck the blade of the shovel into the earth, Dmitry was glad both of the darkness and his own isolation.

  At least there was no-one here to see the tears that ran freely down his face.

  104

  Afterwards Erin couldn’t be sure exactly what had woken her. One moment she was soundlessly dreamlessly asleep and the next she found herself lying eyes open and scared in the darkness, gasping.

  She collected her breath, strained to hear for the repeat of some faint scuffling that must have disturbed her but the flat was apparently quiet as the grave.

  She shivered. Why did I have to think of it like that?

  For a minute or so she lay primed, ready to launch out of bed but praying she wouldn’t have to. Erin had long ago recognised that she was easily frightened. But children change all that—they bring out courage you never knew you had. Eventually it was the thought of something happening to Jade that had her slipping out from under the warm security of the duvet and groping for the towelling robe she’d dumped across the foot of the bed.

  As she crept out into the tiny hallway she could see the faint glow of the night light spilling out through her daughter’s bedroom doorway and her heart rate snagged.

  She always closed Jade’s door at night.

  Jade was a self-contained child who rarely woke demanding attention but she was also a light sleeper. Erin had treated herself to a chick flick on DVD after she’d put her daughter down and she was certain she’d closed her bedroom door so the low volume didn’t stop her getting off. It was a school night after all.

  But now the door was standing ajar.

  Erin hovered in an agony of indecision. Maternal instinct won out. On trembling legs she edged closer but as she drew level with the doorway leading to the living room, next to her own bedroom, a figure whirled out into her path and grabbed her.

  She would have screamed out of sheer fright but a hand clamped over her mouth to prevent her loosing off anything more than a strangled squawk.

  For a moment she was utterly paralysed. But as her attacker began to drag her back towards her own bedroom that was enough to kick-start Erin’s sense of self-preservation. She bucked against the hands that gripped her, struggling ferociously with fists and heels.

  “Be still,” hissed a voice in her ear and what shocked her into obedience was the fact it belonged to a woman. “I came to talk, that’s all. Do you want to give your little girl nightmares?”

  Mutely Erin shook her head. She allowed herself to be bundled into her bedroom and set free with a shove that had her staggering. The door closed behind them and the overhead light snapped on, dazzling her. Erin cowered against the wardrobe, shielding her eyes from the light and the stranger in equal measure.

  “W–who are you? What do you w–want?”

  “You know who I am,” the woman said quietly enough for Erin’s curiosity to overcome her caution.

  She opened her eyes a sliver and immediately wished she hadn’t. The woman was right—Erin did know her. Not personally, but she certainly recognised the face. Impossible not to if you’d watched the TV news or seen a newspaper in the last few days.

  “Oh God,” Erin moaned.

  Kelly Jacks.

  The woman nodded as if she’d said the name out loud. “Then you’ll know why I’m here.”

  “Please! I don’t know anything! He never told me.”

  She regretted the words as soon as they were out. Even to her own ears they smacked of evasion if not of outright lies.

  Kelly Jacks stared at her for what seemed like a long time. She was dressed in a hooded black sweatshirt and baggy cargoes. The fact that her clothes looked as if she’d worn them to roll around in the dirt made her appear more dangerous, more desperate, than if she’d been clean. Not to mention the bruises on the woman’s face.

  Erin remembered seeing bruises like that in the mirror.

  Her bag was sitting on the chair next to the bed where she’d dumped it before she undressed. Kelly Jacks stepped across and upended it onto the duvet, giving the spilled contents a cursory skim and eventually picking up her purse.

  “You’re after money?” Erin said, surprised into speech. “There’s not much in there but take it. Take it and get out!”

  Her bravado was treated with disdain. But instead of the carefully folded notes, Kelly Jacks eased her bank card out of its slot and studied the raised letters on the front. On the whole, Erin would have preferred it if she’d taken the cash.

  “Just checking I’d got the right person,” Kelly Jacks murmured. “Six years ago you were Callum Perry’s girlfriend. And if he didn’t tell you what he was about, who did he tell?”

  Erin cringed, the fear pressing down deep in her belly. “He never talked about work—”

  “But you didn’t work at the bar with him did you?” Kelly Jacks said then shook her head. “No, I would have known about you if you had. Your name would have come up. But you were involved with him—I mean, that is his kid lying asleep next door, isn’t it? So why didn’t your name come up, Erin?”

  “I–I don’t know.”

  “Your name didn’t come up,” Kelly Jacks went on, relentless, “because somebody made sure it didn’t. Now why was that I wonder?”

  Erin’s shoulder twitched into a jerky shrug. “Could have been a mistake.”

  Kelly Jacks came across the room in two fast strides, fisted her hands in the front of Erin’s robe and lifted her bodily off the floor. She was slim and barely came up to Erin’s nose. The show of strength shocked her, constricting her belly, her chest, making it hard to breathe.

  “Do not mess with me,” Kelly Jacks said. “I spent five years in prison for something I now believe I didn’t do. And if I wasn’t capable of murder when I went in, believe me—I certainly am now.” She relaxed her grip slightly. “Want me to prove it?”

  “No!”

  “So talk. Whatever they threatened you with Erin, or promised you, that’s a long way from where we are right here, right now. All I want you to think about is what I will do if you don’t tell me what I want to know.”

  Erin whimpered. Kelly Jacks spun her round and dropped her onto the duvet. Erin’s cellphone, spilled from her handbag, was less than a foot from her hand but she wasn’t brave or stupid enough to try for it.

  “You don’t understand,” she begged, “what will happen . . . to me. To Jade . . .”

  Above her head she heard Kelly Jacks’s breath rush out like escaping steam. Then she swore, short, crude and heartfelt. Erin felt the mattress give suddenly. She darted a quick sideways look and found Kelly Jacks sitting alongside her, leaning forward with her forearms resting on her knees and her head low.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m no bloody good at this strong-arm stuff—and certainly not on somebody who’s obviously been beaten with the shitty end of the stick too many times before.” She lifted her head and a pair of brandy-coloured eyes met Erin’s with a startlingly frank gaze. “I thought I could pull it off but I find I can’t do that to you. Sorry for the scar
e. You’re quite safe from me.”

  Erin could only gape at her. Kelly Jacks flicked her eyes away and stood up, stuffed her hands into her pockets as if she didn’t quite know what else to do with them. “All I will say is, I think whoever’s put the frighteners on you so badly is probably responsible for your boyfriend’s death. I’m out to get him. And if I manage it you’ll be able to stop looking over your shoulder for the rest of your life.”

  She turned for the door, had almost made it when Erin’s voice finally came back to her.

  “Wait,” she said.

  105

  Kelly sat alone at the tiny table in the kitchen of Erin’s flat. She had both hands wrapped round a mug of tea tight enough to stop them shaking.

  She was aware of a vague nausea like a kind of dull pressure high up under her ribcage. She put this down partly to lack of food and the possibility of concussion from her earlier blow to the head. And partly down to the fact that she had just tried to mould herself into the kind of monster she’d always despised. The kind that preyed on the weak.

  Is that what it’s come to?

  The kitchen was small and cluttered, bland cabinets with a microwave taking up a quarter of the available worktop space. A child’s crayon drawings randomly peppered the fridge door, held in place by alphabet magnets. Every item of furniture or bric-a-brac had come from IKEA. At least it was bright and cheerful. At that moment, Kelly felt neither. She took a sip of tea which was loaded with sugar but didn’t help.

  Through the thin wall she heard the flush of a cistern, running water and then the hollow click of an overhead pull switch. The bathroom door stuck slightly as it was opened, no doubt warped by years of steam. A moment later Erin appeared hesitantly in the kitchen doorway.

  “Sorry,” she said. “Always do need to pee really bad when I get nervous.”

  “Is your daughter all right?”

  “Yeah—still sleeping, bless her.” Erin came forwards, fiddling with the tie of her robe and flashed a smile that came and went like cheap neon. “She’d be ever so upset if she knew she’d missed the chance to show off her dollies to someone new.”

  “Look, Erin—”

  “Yeah I know,” the younger woman said quickly. “You didn’t come here for that.”

  She crossed the room and slid into the chair opposite hardly able to meet Kelly’s eyes. “I still blame you, you know,” she said, her voice suddenly quiet and colourless.

  Kelly shook her head. “I realise you believe that—even I believed it for a while—but it’s not true. I didn’t kill him. I was framed.”

  “Isn’t that what they all say?”

  “I’ve no reason to lie. I’ve been tried and convicted. I’ve served my time. Think about it—what do I have to gain by claiming innocence now?”

  Erin took a breath and tucked a stray strand of blonde hair back behind her ear, looked Kelly right in the face with pale blue eyes. “What do you want to know?”

  Kelly gave a helpless shrug. “Everything, I guess.”

  An almost eerie calm had descended over her. Kelly wondered if Erin had taken something out of the medicine cabinet while she’d been in the bathroom. Valium, maybe. Something to round off the sharp corners of her fear.

  “You’re right, of course,” she said. “Callum and me, we were going out. He was a lovely guy—a rarity in my line of work I can tell you. He knew what I was and didn’t care. Said he loved me anyway.”

  “Your line of work?”

  The colour rose in Erin’s cheeks. “I was on the streets, on the game, hooked on smack.” She gave a harsh little laugh. “He thought he could save me.”

  Kelly regarded her steadily. “I’d say he managed it.”

  Erin shook her head. “Having my baby did that,” she said fiercely. “I’ve been clean since before Jade was born. Don’t even smoke anymore. That was harder to give up—I still crave a fag every now and again.”

  Kelly thought of the occasional glass of wine she’d enjoyed . . . before. Champagne on special occasions, perhaps brandy or a finger of single malt after a meal. It had been a long time since she’d willingly allowed anything intoxicating into her system. It was no longer a craving, she thought—more a sadness.

  “How did you two meet?”

  “At the wine bar. He was serving,” Erin said. “We used to go in—me and some of the other girls. Bit of Dutch courage before work.”

  She might have been talking about a factory job.

  “Wine bar?” Kelly queried. “I thought Perry worked at a club?”

  “He did, but a mate of his owned a wine bar opposite St Pancras. Bit of a dive but all right you know? Callum helped out in there sometimes. That’s how he met . . .”

  Her voice drifted off.

  “Who did he meet, Erin?”

  She flushed again, her attention suddenly fixed on a few stray grains of salt that had lodged between the table and its fold-out flap, chasing them along the crevice with her fingernail.

  “No-one,” she said. “Just a friend. She died—somebody beat her to death. ‘Occupational hazard’ was how your lot described it to me. Jesus, her own mother wouldn’t have known her after what they did.”

  “In a little hotel near Euston station,” Kelly supplied, the memory reaching forwards to wrap itself clingingly around her. “They tortured her and left her body in the bathtub.” And when Erin glanced at her, alarm spiking, she added, “I wasn’t always on the run Erin. I worked that case. If it helps, I never stopped looking for answers.”

  Erin sat up abruptly, glared at her with eyes that had begun to redden. “No! No, it doesn’t help. You just don’t get it do you? The more you people poked into it, the more Callum got the idea into his head that there was a cover-up going on.”

  Confused by her vehemence, Kelly said, “I think he was right.”

  She’d aimed to calm her but had the opposite effect. Erin shot to her feet, scraping her chair back, paced over to the sink and turned to lean against it, restless. She had bunions on both feet, Kelly noticed, the big toe squashed over into the others. A throwback deformity from all that time spent loitering in killer heels.

  “He was right—that was the whole point. But Callum decided it was a good way to make some easy money. Bonus pay he called it, so I could get out of the game—especially . . .”

  “With a baby on the way,” Kelly finished for her.

  Erin’s eyes dulled down, lost some of their fire. “Yes,” she whispered. She looked at the fridge directly across from her with its coat of artwork. Some of the pictures had ‘For Mummy’ across the bottom in an uneven childish hand.

  Not ‘For Mummy and Daddy’ then . . .

  “He didn’t understand who he was dealing with—not regular punters who could be squeezed for cash so their wives didn’t find out. These were people further up the food chain. People with influence and more to lose.”

  “They wouldn’t pay him to go away,” Kelly guessed. “Because they couldn’t afford to have him keep coming back.”

  Erin shook her head, her face screwed up with the memory. “It all got turned around on him somehow, so instead of Callum having something over them, they had something over him. He was so scared. And then . . . he was dead.”

  Kelly watched her rock silently for a minute, then asked carefully, “Who’s ‘they’, Erin?”

  “Callum always swore there was some shady Mr Big lurking in the background but I only know one—one of yours,” she said, bitterness creeping in now. “A copper. Who else could arrange to have him killed like that—as an example to the rest of us?”

  “Who?”

  She hesitated as if even now the threat lingered, distant but no less disturbing. “Allardice,” she said at last. “Detective Chief Inspector Allardice.”

  No surprises there then.

  “And he’s the one who threatened you—and Jade?”

  “Always was a cold-blooded bastard,” Erin said. “I mean, who else would take down one of their own to get rid of
Callum?”

  Somewhere deep down it was the name Kelly had been expecting but it still hit her with a jolt to hear it out loud. Maybe that was why it took her a moment to catch up with the significance of the rest of it. “You knew?” she demanded. “You knew I was set up?”

  Erin nodded. “Callum was coming to you because he thought you might actually do something with what he had, even if he daren’t do it himself. He thought you were on the level. He thought he could trust you.”

  It was Kelly’s turn for silence. Relief warred with outright bloody anger that yet another person had known she wasn’t a murderer and had done nothing about it.