The Blood Whisperer

by Zoe Sharp

  She should have known better than to expect flattery from a pig like that.

  Myshka sat very straight and stared at her own reflection. She didn’t need to lean close anymore to see the lines around her eyes, across her forehead and beginning to ring her neck like an old chicken.

  She would always have a striking look she knew, because of the way she’d learned to carry herself, the way she’d been taught to dress. But soon people would speak of her in the past tense—“she used to be such a beauty”—in hushed tones. As if she hadn’t the sense to die young before everything began to leave her and she was left only with her memories of faded glory.

  Dmitry will not leave me.

  The conviction was strong, overwhelming. Dmitry had always stood by her. He would always do so.

  After today he would be able to do nothing else.

  113

  Steve Warwick hammered on the door to the en suite bathroom.

  “Hurry up in there, can’t you?” he called sharply through the panelled oak. “What’s taking so long?”

  “I want make myself pretty for you,” Yana’s wavery voice called back.

  But Warwick was already halfway across the bedroom raking a hand through his still damp hair as he yanked a dress shirt off its hanger and shoved his arms into the sleeves. “Matt’s used to how you look,” he shouted casually over his shoulder. “And he’ll kick up a stink if we’re late.”

  “Am coming.”

  Warwick sighed impatiently as he fastened his tie in the full-length mirror on the bedroom wall, turned back the cuffs and slipped on cufflinks.

  He tried out his trademark killer smile and hoped that nobody would see past the urbane confident appearance he presented to the trembling man beneath. The deadline with Harry Grogan was rapidly approaching. Warwick had no more hope of paying what he owed now than he did when he’d made that absurd deal—never mind the extra eight percent on top.

  He felt himself begin to sweat with remembered fear. Perhaps another squirt of antiperspirant wouldn’t be a bad idea.

  “Yana, come on!”

  As he crossed the room again he glanced at the drab black dress she’d laid out on the bed. Anyone would think she was going to a funeral he thought, not a race meeting.

  114

  O’Neill looked like death.

  That was DC Dempsey’s first thought when his boss came hammering through the office door. He had a manila folder in one hand and a cardboard cup of vending-machine tea or coffee in the other.

  Dempsey wondered if maybe last night’s Chinese hadn’t agreed with him. Or maybe it was something to do with the six-pack the DI had cracked open when Dempsey dropped him off at his flat on the way back from Reading.

  O’Neill had tried to get Dempsey to stay and help drink it but judging by the state of him this morning he hadn’t needed any help on that score.

  Dempsey wasn’t much of a drinker which was still something to be ashamed of in today’s police force. He hid it well though, getting more than his share of rounds in just so he could slip over to non-alcoholic lager after the first couple of pints.

  This morning he’d already been out for a run alongside the Thames in Putney, where he shared a flat with his sister, before he’d bounced into the office.

  He was early he knew, but this was his first murder enquiry since coming up out of uniform and he didn’t want to blow it. Nobody, surely, could have predicted that Kelly Jacks was going to climb back into her flat via the damn skylight but he was still anxious to shake off the sting of that failure.

  DI O’Neill, on the other hand, looked like this was the last place he wanted to be on a Saturday morning with what appeared to be the mother of all hangovers.

  As Dempsey eyed him warily, the DI took a slug from the cup, winced predictably and dumped the whole thing into the first waste bin he passed.

  “All right Dempsey, let’s hear it,” he said by way of greeting, dropping into his chair.

  And it had better be good. Dempsey heard that bit as clearly as if it had been voiced.

  “Um, morning boss,” he said making an effort not to look or sound too healthy. “I’ve dug out what I can on Lytton and Warwick’s company. Not much, unless we’ve reason to get a warrant, but I’ve tapped up Companies House and the Revenue—”

  O’Neill held up a warning hand with enough authority to stop traffic. “Impress me with your reasoning later sunshine,” he said. “For now, just cut to the chase will you?”

  “Yes boss.” Dempsey flipped through the top few pages of the printout on his desk. “There’s not much out of the ordinary. They make a pretty bloody healthy profit, file their returns on time and pay their taxes. The only thing I found that might be interesting is their insurance. They’re both directors of the company and apart from a few office staff everything else is done via subcontractors. I mean, both the wives were on the books as well, but I think that was just a ploy to offset some tax liability—”

  “What about the insurance?”

  “Um, well, they’ve got a key-man policy each. Or I suppose I should call it key-person these days. Basically, because there’s only really the two of them they’re both considered crucial to the running of the company. So if either or both of them kicks the bucket there’s a huge payout to compensate . . .”

  His voice trailed off as he registered the hard stare O’Neill lasered in his direction. The effect was spoilt only by the puffy bloodshot eyes.

  “OK, OK,” Dempsey said quickly, suppressing a grin. “Basically, they upped the policy amounts, boss. Back end of last year it went up to ten million apiece.”

  O’Neill stopped glaring and leaned back in his chair, clasping his hands behind his head and closing his eyes. For a horrible moment Dempsey wondered if this was some kind of elaborate put-down. Your information is so boring it has sent me to sleep.

  But after a few seconds O’Neill straightened up. The glare was gone. “Who benefits?”

  “Well, essentially—the company benefits.”

  “Ah, but if anything happens to Lytton or Warwick themselves, who benefits then?”

  “Well, we know from looking into the wills of both Lyttons after the wife’s death that if he’d died first she stood to inherit all his worldly goods, including a good chunk of his half of the company. But as she died before him—and Lytton doesn’t have any other relatives—the company goes lock, stock and two smoking barrels to the remaining director, Steve Warwick.”

  “So it wouldn’t be out of the way to assume that the same arrangement is true for Steve Warwick and his wife—he dies, she gets the lot?”

  “His wife?” Dempsey queried blankly. He looked up to catch O’Neill actually smiling. “Boss?”

  “We’ve been looking at the wrong man,” O’Neill said. “We’ve been looking at Lytton when we should have been looking at Warwick.”

  Mystified, Dempsey knew the DI was waiting for him to give in and ask so he gave in and asked, “Why? Looking at him for what?”

  O’Neill made him wait a beat longer then said, “It was bugging me. I knew there had to be some connection but I couldn’t see what. You were the one who pointed me in the right direction, as it happens.”

  Impress me later with the reasoning—just cut to the chase, Dempsey thought savagely and wished he had the balls to say it out loud.

  O’Neill nodded to the manila folder. “I was up half the night going over the files and I finally hit on the connection.”

  Chastened, Dempsey reached for the folder, flipped it open to find photocopies of two passports. He recognised the first as Dmitry Lyzchko, a Ukrainian-born Russian employed by Harry Grogan.

  The second face was unfamiliar to him but he read the details and it only took a moment for the implications to sink in.

  “Holy hell,” he murmured. He glanced up. “What are they up to?”

  “Well, we’ve got a shitload of explosives, family connections—or a lack of them—and a sudden increase in life cover. I could hazard a
pretty good guess.”

  115

  Matthew Lytton stood on the balcony of the racecourse restaurant looking down at the gathering throng. Behind him was the same table where he’d sat with Kelly Jacks on the day he’d brought her here.

  Lytton gripped the smooth polished rail in front of him. He wasn’t going to think about that—wasn’t going to think about Kelly. There were other things he needed to worry about today. Even if he was having trouble getting her out of his head.

  Outwardly, he knew he presented a picture of the successful entrepreneur. He even had a buttonhole pinned to his lapel—a tight combination of lilac and blue rosebuds to remind people of his absent racing colours. Veronica’s idea, subtle but clever like the woman.

  Behind him, the waitresses hurried efficiently between the tables, setting up. He ignored them. For the racecourse staff this was just another day. For him it was momentous.

  And Steve Warwick was late.

  Nothing entirely unusual in that, of course. Steve always did like to be a law unto himself but today of all days . . .

  A voice from inside the restaurant filtered out to him. “Hey sweetheart, any chance of some fresh coffee down in the private boxes?” Lytton hadn’t heard that voice for quite a while but it was one he recognised immediately. “The amount you’re charging for them, I’d like a pot—make it hot and strong.”

  He turned just as Harry Grogan stepped out on the balcony in an immaculate grey suit with a pale tan overcoat unbuttoned over the top. All he needed was a slanted trilby on his shaven head and he’d be the archetypal gangster.

  “Matthew old son,” Grogan greeted him. “Not brought that nice little filly of yours today.”

  “Grogan,” Lytton returned calmly. “I didn’t think it was sporting to enter her in a race where I’m the main sponsor.”

  “Probably best—not enough bone,” Grogan dismissed. “Wouldn’t stay the distance.” A glimmer of something that might have been humour flickered in those flat grey depths. “Should have thought of that when you were setting up this race of yours.”

  “A mile and four furlongs is the same as the Derby.”

  “Got your sights set on the classics have you?” Grogan pursed his lips. “Ambitious. I like that in a man.”

  “You should know.” He looked over into the man’s eyes and could read nothing there.

  “Oh, I think between you and your partner there’s more ambition than I’d want to have.” Grogan stepped forwards to the railing and looked down at the massing crowds. “Going to be an interesting day,” he said. “Let’s hope we all come out of it winners, eh?”

  With that he turned and walked away leaving Lytton with the feeling he’d just been given a message—a warning.

  He pulled out his cellphone and punched in Warwick’s number. It rang without reply, eventually clicking over to voicemail.

  “Come on Steve,” he muttered under his breath. “What the hell are you playing at?”

  116

  “I don’t know what you’re planning, Kelly love, but it had better be good.”

  Ray McCarron was staring out of the side-glass of one of the works’ vans at what seemed to be an inordinately large number of coppers patrolling the area immediately surrounding the racecourse.

  “When I think of something,” she murmured from behind the wheel, “I’m sure it will be.”

  She was wearing logoed coveralls that were far too large and had a company baseball cap pulled down low over her face. The hat didn’t do a bad job of disguising both her features and the bruises she’d picked up over the past few days. They were just blooming to full glory. McCarron was sure she was only too aware that the marks on her face alone would cause people to take a second glance. A second glance that might make them realise who she was.

  Between the two of us we look like we’ve been worked over by professionals.

  Sometimes, it seemed, appearances were not deceptive after all.

  He eased himself in the seat and recalled the parting advice of the doctors at the hospital when he’d prematurely discharged himself. “Get plenty of rest Mr McCarron—nothing too strenuous.”

  He wondered how this ranked.

  “Head for the service entrance,” he said. “It’s just behind the stands.”

  Kelly put the van into gear. “You’ve been here before,” she said.

  “Once or twice,” he admitted. “A few times as a punter and then we got called in to deal with a vermin problem a couple of years ago.”

  “You mean rats?”

  “Well rats and horses tend to go together, what with the feedstuffs and all that.” He smiled. “Some bright spark put down poison and when they came in a couple of days later, the rats had not only trailed the poison everywhere, they’d corpsed it all over the place. Must have been fifty—big buggers some of them. We had to sanitise the whole lot.”

  “Does that mean you have friends in high places?”

  McCarron shook his head somewhat sadly. “The manager got the boot as soon as it was dealt with,” he said. “Shame really, I would have enjoyed a season ticket for our trouble.”

  Kelly swung the van towards a gate. “So apart from the fact you know the layout, how does that help us?” she asked, eyes fixed on the security guard who stepped out to meet them.

  “We’ll see,” McCarron said, winding down his window as the guard approached. “Morning mate,” he called in a booming cheery voice. “Where do you want us?”

  The guard looked about twenty, with a prominent Adam’s apple above the pinched knot of his collar and tie. He trailed down his clipboard with a forefinger, frowning.

  “You sure you got the right place?”

  McCarron looked up at the stands looming over them. “Only one racecourse round here isn’t there?”

  “Yeah I guess,” the guard said. He squinted at the name on the side of the van. “Cleaning? I thought all the cleaning was done last night.”

  “Normal cleaning, yes,” McCarron said not letting his cheerful demeanour slip. “We’re more in the nature of an emergency crew. For your unexpected nasty stuff.”

  The guard almost took a step back. “Like what?”

  “Don’t know until we get in there. We were just told it was bubbling or something, giving off some noxious fumes.” He smiled. “You should be all right down here though. Unless the wind changes direction.”

  “I dunno.” The guard hovered, looking round as if hopeful of more senior intervention. “You’re not on my list, see.”

  “Won’t be—nobody expects an emergency do they?” McCarron said. “Tell you what, don’t you worry.” He patted the van door casually and didn’t miss the way the guard’s eyes were drawn to the bold-font list of services written there. “We’ll stick this in the public car park and take the gear in the front door. We’ll be suited up of course but it shouldn’t cause too much of a panic.”

  “No, no!” Alarm flared in the guard’s face. “Don’t do that. They’ll have my guts for garters. Come in this way. Just park it somewhere out of sight will you?”

  “’Course we will,” McCarron said, smiling more broadly now. “Discretion is my middle name.”

  “Thanks,” the guard said. “Oh, what happened to your face?”

  “Mugged—just round the corner from here as it happens,” McCarron lied just for the hell of it. “Not safe anywhere nowadays is it?” He gave the guard a wave. Kelly drove the van through the gate and threaded it across a car park filled with exhibitors’ vehicles.

  “You’re a dark horse Ray,” she said, parking up near the rear of the building. “That rather nice piece of bluff might have got us past the gate guard but I have a feeling it may not get us much further.”

  “Didn’t expect it to,” McCarron said. “I’m going to pay my money at the turnstiles like a good little punter.”

  “And what about me?”

  He smiled again. “You, Kelly love, are going to do one of the many things you do best.”

  117r />
  O’Neill let Dempsey drive again. The way the kid sliced through traffic anybody would think he spent all his spare time playing Grand Theft Auto.

  O’Neill wedged himself between door handle and centre tunnel and spent most of the journey on his cellphone trying fruitlessly to reach someone higher up the food chain. Chief Superintendent Quinlan was taking a weekend off and nobody else wanted to handle this particular hot potato.