by Zoe Sharp
She was a junkie hooker with a kid on the way, argued her reasonable half. What could she have done? Who would have taken her seriously?
“Allardice is gone,” she said. “Retired. I don’t even think he’s in the country anymore.”
Erin gave her a cynical glance by way of response. “Gone, huh? Well he was here a few days ago, trust me. Large as life and definitely twice as ugly.”
“What—here in your flat?”
“No, even he wouldn’t go that far,” Erin conceded. “He turned up outside Jade’s school when I went to collect her.” She shivered, wrapped the towelling robe a little tighter. “Just to let me know he could still get me any time he liked. To remind me to keep my mouth shut. So—you were never here and I never spoke to you, right?” Her mouth gave a twist that might have been intended as wry but came across bitter. “Sorry, but I’ve got my daughter to think about . . .”
“I understand.”
Kelly pushed back her chair and rose, suddenly needing to be out of the suffocating little flat where Erin had burrowed with her child—knowing it wasn’t entirely safe but staying anyway.
As she passed on the way to the back door with its easy-pick lock and no inside bolt, she paused, waited until Erin looked at her.
“I didn’t kill him but I’m very sorry,” Kelly said softly, “for everything that happened.”
An expression of stubbornness settled across the younger woman’s features. “You made him think he could get something out of it. It was like waving a bottle of drink at an alcoholic,” she said. “You might not have put the knife in yourself but you put temptation in his way and he . . . couldn’t resist it.”
106
O’Neill had let Dempsey drive to Reading, reckoning the DC was still young enough to enjoy a fast run along the M4. It was late by the time they left London and traffic on the motorway was sparse.
Before they hit the road, O’Neill had pulled together what they knew about Brian Stubbs. It came to the sum total of not a lot. Name, age, profession, marital status (divorced, no kids), immediate family and address. Apart from a couple of brushes for drink-related affray offences—for which Grogan’s slimy brief had successfully argued extenuating circumstances—it seemed Stubbs slept with a clear conscience.
How he’d sleep from here on in was anybody’s guess. And, if the state of the man who was led into the interview room was anything to go by, things were unravelling for him pretty fast.
Even after spending a relatively short time in the cells, Stubbs was dishevelled and off balance. O’Neill had been told he’d refused legal representation and found that intriguing. Like he didn’t want anyone to know.
Now the vet peered past the accompanying uniform as if fearful they’d called his brief anyway. When he caught sight of O’Neill and Dempsey sitting waiting for him, his relief was obvious.
O’Neill let Dempsey go through the introductions and formalities, leaving him to observe the shaky hands and bloodshot eyes on the other side of the table. He knew at once what lay behind them.
“Like something to drink Mr Stubbs?” O’Neill offered, and noted the man’s twitch of confirmation. “Tea or coffee perhaps?” he went on blandly. “I believe the machine here even makes a creditable stab at hot chocolate, if that’s your poison?”
Stubbs let his head hang, shook it once. “No—thank you,” he mumbled. A residue of good manners.
“All right,” Dempsey said bright and brisk. “I understand you have some information that may be relevant to our current enquiries, sir?”
It took Stubbs a moment to gather himself. He took a deep breath that appeared to reinflate his sense of self-importance.
“I need some assurances,” he said. “A deal—freedom from prosecution.”
Dempsey glanced at O’Neill. “Sir, we can’t make those kinds of promises without knowing how you’re involved in, whatever it is—”
“Involved?” Stubbs seemed outraged. “Of course I’m not involved. I barely know the man.”
O’Neill sighed. “So what exactly are you hoping for immunity from?”
Stubbs cleared his throat. “The, erm, unfortunate incident this afternoon,” he said rubbing a hand around his neck as if hoping to massage away the flush that was rapidly forming. “With my car.”
“Want us to fix any parking tickets or speeding fines while we’re at it?” O’Neill asked with deceptive mildness.
“You can do that?”
O’Neill cursed inside his head, exchanged a fleeting look with Dempsey that told him his DC was thinking along much the same lines.
Waster.
“Mr Stubbs. You knocked down a little old lady in broad daylight with almost three times the legal limit of alcohol in your bloodstream,” O’Neill said pushing his chair back and getting to his feet. “We could practically bottle the sample you gave us.”
Dempsey followed his lead and rose also, but before the two of them could step away from the table Stubbs blurted out, “Explosives!”
Both detectives froze.
If Stubbs had been asked to pick one word in these terrorism-heightened times guaranteed to grab a copper’s attention, O’Neill considered that was probably pretty much at the top of the list.
“What kind, what quantity, and where?” he rapped out.
Stubbs floundered for a moment, drew himself together. “And what about my deal?”
O’Neill leaned into him across the table, resting on his knuckles and jamming his face up close. “Mr Stubbs, I am half a beat away from arresting you under the Prevention of Terrorism Act unless you tell me what you know. Right now.”
Stubbs flinched back from the controlled venom, his darting eyes searching for an escape route.
His gaze fixed on Dempsey who did not provide one. “This is not just about losing your licence anymore, sir,” he said. “This is serious jail time.”
“All right, all right,” Stubbs muttered, scowling. “Here I am, trying to do my bit and what do I get but—”
O’Neill straightened to his full height slowly enough for it to be a threat, let his voice simmer. “What kind of explosives, Mr Stubbs?”
“I don’t know—I’m hardly an expert am I?”
“So how do you know about any of this?”
Stubbs hesitated. “Look, I happen to, erm . . . know a chap who does a bit of demolition—blows up tree stumps, that kind of thing. All perfectly legal of course. So when another chap asked me if I knew where he could get hold of some explosives I simply . . . made the introductions that’s all.” He tried an ingratiating smile.
“Who was buying and who was selling?”
“I’d really rather not name the seller if you don’t mind. It’s not really relevant anyway is it?”
O’Neill dredged through the facts of the report he’d read before they set out. “Probably not,” he said mildly. “I seem to remember that you have a brother who does a bit of land clearance though, don’t you? Maybe we ought to have a little chat with him.”
He could tell by the way Stubbs sagged that he’d guessed correctly. “And the buyer?” he nudged.
“Look, this could put me in a very awkward position—”
“You’re not a stupid man Mr Stubbs,” O’Neill cut in, a trace of doubt in his voice. “You must have known you were going to have to tell us the details.”
He saw the indecision. Stubbs had not thought any of this out, he realised and was just lurching from one crisis to the next. O’Neill’s object was to keep him teetering until he fell just the way they wanted him.
“You’re only doing your duty, sir,” Dempsey added. “I’m sure it will look good to the judge when your driving offence comes to court.”
“Harry Grogan,” Stubbs mumbled. Dempsey met O’Neill’s look and raised his eyebrows. O’Neill shrugged in reply. Stubbs, with his gaze averted, missed the exchange.
“Why would a respectable businessman like Harry Grogan want explosives?”
“The man’s a crook—a gan
gster!” Stubbs protested.
O’Neill shook his head. “Not in the eyes of the law he’s not. Clean as a whistle. Of course if we had a witness who would testify to his personally obtaining explosives that might all change.”
“Ah well, it wasn’t Grogan himself you understand. A man like him doesn’t get his hands dirty does he? I mean—”
“Who was it then sir?”
“One of Harry Grogan’s bodyguards—Russian chap called Dmitry although strictly speaking I believe he’s perhaps Ukrainian. Nasty piece of work either way,” Stubbs said. “Dmitry is usually the one who relays Mr Grogan’s orders or instructions. Turns up at my house, lets himself in like he owns the place!” He throttled back his indignation. “I assumed this time was no different.”
O’Neill felt Dempsey glance at him again but refused to let Stubbs know the importance of what he’d just said. “Dmitry have a last name?”
The vet shrugged. “Something totally unpronounceable. They all are in that part of the world aren’t they?”
“I don’t suppose this Dmitry mentioned what his boss wanted the explosives for by any chance?”
Stubbs shook his head. “I didn’t ask. I’ve worked for Harry Grogan for long enough to know one doesn’t question his orders.” He gave a weary smile, more genuine this time. “If I’d done so this afternoon—refused to turn out to see his damned precious colt before the big race tomorrow—I wouldn’t be in my current predicament.”
That, O’Neill thought, was a matter of opinion. But aloud he said, “So, if your only contact was with Dmitry, you can’t actually say for definite that it was Grogan who wanted the stuff?”
Stubbs looked astounded. “Who else would it be for?”
107
Back in his cell an hour later, Brian Stubbs still felt shell-shocked by the whole experience.
He was not, as the older of the two detectives had pointed out, a stupid man, but he recognised that he’d been woefully naïve. He’d thought he could dangle a few little titbits and have them turn him loose. Now he was in it up to his neck. Worse in fact than when he’d started.
Stubbs slumped onto the thin mattress and raked both hands through his unkempt grey hair.
“Why couldn’t you have simply kept your big mouth shut?” he wailed in the empty room.
Unsurprisingly, he got no answer.
They’d made him go over and over it, about how he’d arrived home one day a week or so ago to find Dmitry had somehow broken in and was lounging in his armchair, drinking his booze with that smug, arrogant look on his face. The trouble was, Stubbs was frightened of him and Dmitry knew it.
If they’d stuck to the explosives, those two, maybe that wouldn’t have been so bad. After all, he knew nothing beyond what he’d told them. Dmitry asked for the introduction, presumably on Harry Grogan’s behalf, and Stubbs had provided it. End of story.
But they hadn’t left it there. The older one, O’Neill, had that same predatory air as Dmitry, that same ability to smell blood in the water and home in on it. It was O’Neill who’d led him gently, sneakily, into talking about his professional life and encouraged him to boast, just a little, of his prowess as a veterinary surgeon.
And then the bastard had dropped the smiling act and said, “Tell me about your supplies of ketamine.”
Stubbs had known right then that he was well and truly screwed. He’d no idea how they’d found out he’d been letting a little of the drug go out through the side door or that the last lot had been acquired by Dmitry. It was only after Stubbs had spilled everything he knew that he discovered it had been little more than a lucky guess.
Bastards!
Stubbs clenched his hands into fists in his lap. Only when they were curled tight did the habitual tremors become unnoticeable.
They’d got him every which way. Not just for being drunk behind the wheel and running down that stupid dozy old woman but half a dozen other charges relating to conspiracy to cause explosions and, to cap it all, possession with intent to supply.
No two ways about it—he was going to prison.
It was only then as the weight of it all piled down and began to crush him that Stubbs recalled a final indignity.
A few years previously, when his reputation had not yet begun to tarnish quite as badly, he’d been working for a trainer with a considerable string. There had been a few mistakes—maybe even the start of the downward slide—and he’d been let go. The trainer had given him an expensive bottle of booze to soften the blow.
It was only much later Stubbs had realised the irony of the parting gift—that he was fired because of his drinking. On principle he had put the bottle away and never opened it.
After Dmitry’s last visit though, Stubbs had noticed the gift was gone and he knew the damned man had stolen it.
Perhaps I should have told those two about that.
He quashed the thought as soon as it rose. They’d probably have tried to pin something else on him. Shame though—the way he was feeling at the moment, drowning his sorrows with a few healthy shots of Bacardi 151 overproof rum was a bloody good idea.
108
“I could kill for a decent cup of Earl Grey.”
Kelly spoke the words to her own reflection in the Vauxhall’s rearview mirror. She could see only a narrow slot of her face across the eyes, strobed by the passing streetlights and the flare of oncoming cars. Apart from the shadow of bruises around her cheekbone she looked no different from a week ago, before all this had begun.
Before the world at large assumed her capable of killing for a far lesser reason than a good cup of tea.
She headed west from Erin’s flat on the borders of Hampstead Heath and skirted Golders Green. It was only when she got onto the North Circular and saw the distant bright arc of the new Wembley stadium that she realised she was on autopilot heading back to the McCarron offices.
After a moment’s surprise Kelly shrugged and kept going. The Vauxhall was getting low on fuel and she didn’t want to risk filling up. Not in a garage that was covered with CCTV and staffed by people who had nothing to do between customers but stare at the front covers of the newspapers. Her own face had been made uncomfortably familiar over the past few days.
No, she knew the car had outlived its usefulness and taking it back to her boss’s house in Hillingdon was probably not a wise plan. Ray had mentioned his nosy neighbours often enough for her to know the chances were the Mini had been reported by now. If the police had any sense they’d be watching out for her return.
Besides, Ray hadn’t yet shopped her to the police for nicking his car or his cellphone. So the least she could do was park the old Vauxhall somewhere it wasn’t likely to be towed or stripped within a day.
She left the North Circular just after The Ace Café and pulled up carefully on the road outside the office, peering up at the darkened windows. Kelly crawled into the car park, stopped nose-in to one of the up-and-over doors and climbed out. Nothing stirred. It had rained earlier in the evening and the concrete glistened under the streetlights. The smell in the air was of diesel and winter.
Kelly unlocked the main door using the key on Ray’s set, punched in the alarm code and wound the garage door up from the inside without turning on the overhead lights. The ratchet mechanism seemed very loud in the gloom. Kelly was glad to shunt the car inside and drop the door again.
She lifted her backpack out from behind the driver’s seat and gave the controls a cursory wipe down. She’d had plenty of legitimate reasons to have been in her boss’s car but not as the last person behind the wheel. If the techs wanted to drag the vehicle in and go over it with a fine-tooth comb she knew they’d find plenty of evidence. Shed hair, skin cells, fibres, footprints, dirt, sweat or some other source of her DNA.
Every contact leaves a trace.
Locard’s Exchange Principle had been one of the first things they’d taught her when she began her training as a crime-scene investigator. It had fascinated her—how hard it was to eradicate all
possible remainders of yourself.
Ever since her first scenes Kelly had this image in her head of the different strands of evidence swirling around the place like coloured mist. All you had to do was be able to see it.
But in this case the evidence was not physical. It was hearsay and conjecture. Full of might be and what if. She had never felt so lost among it.
Weary, she climbed the stairs to the upper floor. There was enough light bleeding in from outside for her to make her way without bumping into anything. Upstairs had the nutty smell of burnt coffee left too long too brew in the filter machine, mingled with the enzyme cleaner they used at scenes and furniture polish.