The Wreckage

by Michael Robotham

  “That’s not a real drink.”

  “Alcohol goes straight to my head. Makes me do dangerous things.”

  She’s flirting. He’s hooked.

  “Is Bernie about?”

  “Why do you want Bernie?”

  “He promised to look after me.”

  “I could do that.”

  “Maybe later.”

  The barman points across the warped wooden floor that is dotted with old cigarette burns. Up a handful of stairs there is a raised restaurant area with private booths. Only one of them is occupied. Bernie Levinson is sitting by himself, a serviette tucked into his collar, dipping bread into a broken piecrust.

  Holly takes her glass of water to a table near the fire doors where Joe O’Loughlin is waiting.

  “He’s here. Maybe I should talk to him first,” she says. “You might make him nervous.”

  “You’re mistaking me for Ruiz.”

  “OK then.”

  They cross the floor and climb the stairs, slipping into the bench seat opposite Bernie. The pawnbroker grimaces at the sight of Holly as though something has given him heartburn or blocked his colon. Then he looks at the professor. “Who the fuck are you?”

  “Joe O’Loughlin. I’m a friend of Holly.”

  Bernie ignores his outstretched hand and goes back to eating, keeping both elbows on the table.

  “That stuff I brought you, Bernie. I need it back,” says Holly.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “The nice leather briefcase and the laptop.”

  “Huh?”

  “This isn’t a set-up, Bernie. I’m not wearing a wire. See?” Holly lifts her top, showing her pale stomach and light blue bra. She turns left and right, showing her back. Bernie waves his hand dismissively.

  “How do I know you’re not wearing a wire down there?” He points to her jeans.

  “You’ll have to take my word for it.”

  “ Your word!” He laughs.

  “I just want the stuff. I know you haven’t sold it.”

  Bernie covers his ears. “I’m not listening.”

  Joe notices the enlarged tips of his fingers and nail clubbing, which suggest low oxygen levels in his blood and congenital heart disease. Mid-fifties, overweight, a signet ring on the little finger of his right hand, a plain wedding band on his left; married, children most likely. Bernie puts down his knife and fork and pats the breast pocket of his coat. There’s something important inside. Not a weapon. Not a mobile phone. Medication.

  “Someone killed Zac,” says Holly.

  Bernie searches her face, looking for a lie. He shakes his head, wobbling his chins. “Oh, no, no, no, I’m not involved in this shit. I’m just a businessman. I buy things. I sell things.” He’s addressing Joe now, trying to convince him. “I run a family business. My grandfather. My father…”

  Bernie has taken a phone from his pocket and placed it on the seat beside him. The screen is lit up. He’s calling someone… sending a message.

  “We just want the stuff back,” says Holly. “We’ll pay you the money.”

  Bernie’s lips peel away from his teeth. “Let me get this straight. You came to me with certain items-which, by the way, I had no idea were stolen-and you sold me these items in good faith, but now you want them back?”

  Holly nods.

  “That suggests to me that someone has made you a better offer. Maybe I should negotiate with them directly.”

  “It’s not a question of money.”

  “In my experience, it’s always a question of money. What’s this item that’s so valuable?”

  “We’re not sure,” says Joe.

  “You’re not sure?”

  “Holly is hoping she’ll know it when she sees it.”

  Bernie laughs but it turns into a coughing fit. Tugging his serviette from his collar, he tosses it on his plate and calls for the bill. Beneath the table, Holly’s hand touches Joe’s thigh. She leans closer, cupping his ear.

  “Something isn’t right,” she whispers.

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s lying.”

  Joe glances at Bernie, who is peeling off two ten-pound notes.

  Holly confronts him outright. “You’re lying.”

  Bernie looks offended. “What are you talking about?”

  “I don’t think you have the gear anymore.”

  “Maybe we should give him the benefit of the doubt,” says Joe.

  Holly looks at him angrily. “Why doesn’t anyone believe me?”

  She needs the bathroom. She makes her way across the dance floor to the ladies. Joe follows Bernie outside into the whiteness of the afternoon. The pawnbroker holds open the heavy door.

  Two paces into the alley, Joe is shoved from behind, driven hard into the wall. Bouncing back, he meets a man who delivers a short sharp punch to his stomach, enough to deny him air and double him over.

  Bernie puts his face close. His breath smells of steak-and-kidney pie.

  “This is my employee, Mr. Tommy Boyle. He used to box. Now he breaks things for a living. He works in a wrecker’s yard. Bones break easier.”

  Bernie takes Joe’s wallet from his coat pocket and checks his driver’s license.

  “So tell me, Professor Joseph O’Loughlin of Station Road, Wellow, near Bath, what are you doing with that moist little bint and why is someone so interested in what she stole?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Other parties are looking for her-one man in particular. You’re going to tell me why.”

  The door opens. Holly emerges, holding something behind her back. She doesn’t seem particularly surprised to see Tommy Boyle.

  “Ah, here she is, my little princess,” says Bernie.

  Holly raises a short crowbar above her head and brings it down on Tommy’s shoulder, raking down his arm. In a blur of movement, she swings it again, this time connecting just below his right knee. Tommy goes down like a felled tree, groaning and clutching his leg.

  “Get up and fight,” says Bernie.

  Holly raises it again, aiming at the pawnbroker, but he reels away with his hands in the air like a mime artist in a glass room.

  “OK, OK, settle down.”

  “She broke my fucking leg,” moans Tommy.

  Holly looks at Joe. “Did I hit him too hard?”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “Of course it’s her fault!” says Bernie.

  “You started it,” says Holly, sounding like a petulant child. “You shouldn’t have lied.”

  “You’re a freak!” Bernie spits the words. “I haven’t got your stuff, OK? A guy came and took it. Cleaned me out.”

  “What guy?”

  “A total nutjob-he didn’t like Jews or women or porn or golf.”

  “Golf?”

  “That’s not the point. This complete psycho came to see me last Friday; grinning at me like every sentence was a punchline. He wanted to see everything I’d bought from that evil bint.” He points his chin at Holly. “I was six hours locked in a storeroom. I’m lucky the guy didn’t kill me.”

  “What was he looking for?” asks Joe.

  “Some notebook.”

  “Did you report the robbery?”

  Bernie hoots sarcastically. “Rozzers would have laughed me out of the station.”

  Joe looks at Holly for confirmation.

  “He’s telling the truth.”

  Bernie lowers his hands and jabs a finger at her, spitting the words. “What have you got me mixed up in?”

  Adjusting the side mirror, the Courier keeps Holly Knight in view, marveling at how much anger and energy are contained in her small frame. How brittle she seems, yet strong. How fragile, yet unbreakable. He wants to take this girl in his arms, to feel her ribs against his chest, to cup her delicate throat in his palm and taste the salty ichor of her fear.

  Screwing up his eyes to see her better, he congratulates himself. He knew if he waited long enough she’d vis
it Bernie.

  “You shouldn’t park there,” says a voice. An office worker has stepped outside for a cigarette. “The weasels will get you.”

  “Weasels?”

  “Wardens.”

  Short and rather plump, she touches the corners of her mouth as though checking to see that she’s smiling.

  “I won’t be staying, but thanks for the tip.”

  The woman continues puffing and talking, telling him how many times the wardens have given her parking tickets. Maybe she’s flirting with him. Is she batting her eyelids or blinking away smoke?

  “Do you know what you tell a woman with two black eyes?” he asks.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. She’s already been told twice.”

  9

  LONDON

  She’s lower today.”

  “Lower?”

  “Her head is engaged. It means she’s upside down, ready to come out.”

  “Does that mean…”

  “She’s just ready. It doesn’t mean she’s knocking.”

  Elizabeth gazes out of the window of the Merc, feeling Claudia moving inside her, fighting for room in a shrinking world. Her conversation with Mitchell has been replaying in her head. What he said. What she said. He had lied to her. In her overheated imagination it feels like something final, as though he’s broken more than some bond of filial love.

  Ruiz parks in a street of white Victorian terraces with iron railing fences and front doors that are set above street level up a dozen stone steps. Lower stairs lead to basement flats where leaves and rubbish have collected against the doors.

  Even before they turn into Old Brompton Road, they see flashing lights reflecting from the windows. Police cars have blocked the traffic in both directions and a white, tunnel-like tent covers a doorway.

  Gerard Noonan emerges, holding a mobile phone six inches from his mouth and shouting because he’s unwilling to risk brain cancer. Anyone who cuts open dead people must fear myriad ways of dying.

  Ruiz tells Elizabeth to go back to the Merc. She doesn’t respond. There is a particular light in her eyes as though she has come to a realization that isn’t obvious to the rest of the world.

  On the far side of the road, a constable in a reflective vest is controlling a small crowd behind fluttering police tape. Further along the street, a young woman is sitting in the back of a patrol car. Peroxide hair. Black mascara tears. Ruiz ducks under the tape and walks with purpose towards the crime scene. The constable stops him.

  “I’m on the job,” says Ruiz. Although six years retired, he still looks and sounds the part. The constable hesitates and Ruiz strides onwards, veering slightly to the left and disappearing behind the SOCO van. The door of the patrol car is open.

  “Are they looking after you?” he asks.

  The young woman blinks at him. She’s wearing a crimson blouse, short skirt and angel earrings. There are pain lines in the corners of her mouth.

  She nods.

  “You work for Mr. Hackett?”

  Another nod, even more rapid. Ruiz slides on to the seat next to her. She tugs at her skirt, covering more of her thighs.

  “He’s my uncle,” she adds. “I told that other detective.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Janice.”

  “That’s a nasty cold, Janice.”

  A shiver runs through her shoulders. “That’s what he said to me.”

  “Who?”

  “The man who came to the office on Friday. He said he was an old friend of Mr. Hackett, but I didn’t believe him. I rang Uncle Colin and I said, ‘That man isn’t your friend,’ but I don’t think he listened. Uncle Colin isn’t frightened of anything. He used to be a soldier. He went to the Falklands.”

  She is speaking in a rush, words and sentences running together. Ruiz waits for her to pause for breath.

  “This man-did he give his name?”

  “He said he was a courier but he didn’t have any packages and he didn’t look like a messenger. He told me to go home for the day. It’s this flu. Uncle Colin said I was spreading the plague.”

  Janice takes a ball of tissue from the sleeve of her cardigan. “Auntie Megan called me this morning and said he hadn’t come home and wasn’t answering his phone. I knew something was wrong.”

  She blows her nose and takes another big sniffle. “I found him in the loo. There’s blood everywhere.”

  “When you talked to your uncle, where was he?”

  “On a job.”

  “What job?”

  “He was looking for that missing banker.”

  “Did he say where he was calling from?”

  “Luton.”

  Campbell Smith emerges from the white canvas tunnel. He struggles to remove his blue plastic overalls and shoe covers. When he notices Ruiz he ignores him for a split second as though he’s simply part of the familiar. Then the information registers and anger blooms in his cheeks.

  “I want that man arrested! Get him out now!”

  Ruiz is pulled from the car and pinned across the bonnet. His arms are wrenched back. Wrists handcuffed. Campbell is raging about interference with a murder investigation and impersonating a police officer.

  “I’d be careful of your blood pressure,” says Ruiz, his cheek pressed to the warm metal.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I had business with Mr. Hackett.”

  “What business?”

  Elizabeth North yells from behind the barricade. “I brought him here.”

  Campbell glances at a handful of reporters who are getting every word. He holds his tongue.

  Ruiz speaks next. “Can I go now?”

  “My office in an hour-be there.”

  The young constable jerks Ruiz back roughly, making the handcuffs bite into his wrists.

  “Take those off,” says Noonan, who’s been listening to the confrontation. “And you treat him with respect. He’s a former DI.”

  Campbell is already at his car. The door slams shut. A liver-spotted hand emerges from the window and places a flashing blue light on the roof. Moments later the siren sounds.

  “That guy is going to be on my slab one day soon,” says Noonan.

  “Heart attack?”

  “Either that or someone is going to punch him too hard.”

  The pathologist has work to do. Ruiz has questions.

  “How did Hackett die?”

  “A forty-five; small hole going in, big hole going out.”

  “Is that a medical opinion?”

  “Observation is one of my gifts.”

  “Same caliber as killed Zac Osborne. It’s going to be the same gun.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “There’s a link. Zac Osborne robbed Richard North a week ago Friday.”

  “Why wasn’t it reported?”

  “Elizabeth North made a statement but everybody concentrated on her missing husband.”

  Noonan’s curiosity has been piqued. Ruiz tells him how the private detective had been hired to follow Richard North and had photographed him leaving a bar with Holly Knight.

  “It was a scam. Holly and her boyfriend robbed him.”

  “Same sting they pulled on you.”

  “You know about that.”

  “The email has gone viral. So you were saying…”

  “Zac Osborne is dead and so is Colin Hackett. Same weapon. Same killer.”

  Ruiz glances again at Elizabeth, who is still on the far side of the road. She’s shifting from foot to foot, mouthing the words, “I need to pee.”

  “Is there a toilet she can use?”

  Noonan addresses the constable. “Take her to the cafe over the road. Try not to lose her.”

  Ruiz watches them leave. “Was anything taken from Hackett’s office?”

  “Memory cards from his cameras and his computer hard drive.”

  Ruiz nods. “Somebody wanted the photographs of Richard North.”

  “Any idea why?”

/>   “Not yet.”

  Sunlight shines through the branches above, making shifting patterns of shadow on Noonan’s smooth, pale head. As they linger there, Ruiz senses that he’s being watched. His eyes slowly scan the crowd until they rest on a dark-haired man whose face is lifted at an awkward angle, as though his eyes are not looking at him directly but are still studying him with peculiar interest. There is a strange air about him, sinister yet jaunty: an impression of hidden laughter. For a moment they scrutinize each other before the man turns away and slips into the crowd.

  “You’d better go, Vincent,” says Noonan. “Don’t underestimate Campbell. You don’t have any goodwill left.”

  10

  LUTON

  The flat is small, just three rooms, overlooking a run-down series of shops with broken neon signs and metal grates protecting the windows and doors. On warm evenings, Taj climbs out the upper window and sits on a narrow ledge smoking and drinking coffee while Aisha puts the baby to sleep.

  He can hear the clatter of his Asian neighbors echoing up and down the stairwells and through the open windows: arguments, music, children and TV sets. Sometimes he can even convince himself that he is among the chosen people, the lucky ones.

  But there are indignities to be suffered. Insults to be endured. Rejections. One particular woman, obese and choleric, always gives him a hard time when he collects his jobseeker’s allowance and housing benefit. She scowls at him behind her desk, mispronouncing his name even after he corrects her; and she treats his payments like money meant for her kidney transplant.

  Aisha is calling him inside. Taj puts out his cigarette and climbs off the ledge, swinging his legs through the window and arching his body like a gymnast. His wife looks pretty in tailored trousers and a smock with beading around the neck.

  “Didn’t you hear the phone?”

  “No.”

  “Syd wants to see you.”

  “Did he say why?”

  “Something about the courier coming.” Aisha looks at the dishes piled in the sink. She’s been working all day at Homebase. On her feet. The least Taj could have done was wash up after breakfast.

  She’s annoyed, but she won’t say anything. Taj has been on edge for months, ever since he lost his job. Short-tempered. Angry. She won’t risk starting an argument.