Cold Killing

by Luke Delaney

  Sally had been at the Public Records Office all morning. She was bored and frustrated. The clerk helping her search for records relating to Stefan Korsakov seemed bored too. He was no more than twenty-five and still had traces of acne. He wasn’t impressed with Sally’s credentials. Sally didn’t know his name. He hadn’t told her.

  These days the bulk of the records were on computer, with only the clerk having access to the system. That was fine with Sally, so long as she didn’t have to wait much longer amongst the millions of old paper records stacked from floor to ceiling in the dark, cavernous building.

  She heard footsteps approaching along the corridors of shelving and she was relieved to see the clerk return holding a piece of paper, but he wasn’t smiling.

  ‘I’ve found the person you’re interested in. Stefan Korsakov, born in Twickenham, Middlesex, on the twelfth of November 1971.’ He put the paper on a desk and smoothed it out for Sally to see. ‘Stefan Korsakov’s birth certificate,’ he announced. ‘This is the person you’re interested in?’

  ‘Yes,’ Sally answered. ‘I was beginning to think I’d imagined him.’

  ‘Excuse me?’ the clerk asked.

  ‘Never mind. Don’t worry about me.’

  ‘Really.’ The clerk sounded bored again.

  ‘Is he still alive?’ She looked up at the clerk. ‘If he’s dead, I need to see his death certificate.’

  ‘Do you know where he might have died?’

  ‘Not a clue,’ Sally answered honestly. ‘Does that help?’

  ‘I take it you want me to do a national search?’

  ‘Sorry. Yes.’ Sally sensed the clerk’s annoyance rising.

  ‘That’ll take days. Maybe weeks. I’ll have to send out a circular to the other offices around the country. All I can do is wait for them to get back to me.’

  ‘Fine.’ Sally pulled a business card from her handbag and gave it to him. ‘Here’s my card. My mobile number is on there. Call me as soon as you know. Any time. Day or night.’

  ‘Will there be anything else?’

  ‘No.’ The word was barely out before Sally changed her mind. ‘Actually, you know what, while I’m here there is one more thing I’d like you to check for.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘I’d like you to find birth and death certificates, if they exist, for this man.’ She wrote a name and date of birth on some paper and handed it to the clerk.

  He read the name. ‘James Hellier. It’ll be done,’ he said. ‘But—’

  Sally finished for him. ‘It’ll take time. Yes, I know.’

  Hellier made his excuses and left the office shortly after his meeting with Gibran. No one had questioned why or where he was going. He knew no one would.

  The police still had his address book. They hadn’t let him take a photocopy of it either. His solicitor was working on recovering it, or at least getting a copy. No matter. If DI Corrigan wanted to be a tough fucker, then that was fine. He had contingency plans.

  He had no sense of being watched this morning. Strange. Maybe his instincts were jaded. He was tired. Yesterday had been a long day, even for him. Maybe Corrigan had accepted what he said in interview as the truth, but he doubted it. So where were they, dug in deep or simply not there?

  He walked along Knightsbridge, past Harvey Nichols towards Harrods, turning left into Sloane Street, walking fast towards the south. Suddenly he ran across the road dodging cars driven by irate drivers. A black-cab driver blasted his horn and shouted an obscenity in a thick East End accent.

  He ran at a fast jog along Pont Street, like a businessman late for a meeting, hardly noticed by the people he ran past. He turned right into Hans Place and jogged around the square.

  On the corner with Lennox Gardens was a small delicatessen. Hellier went in and asked for a quarter kilo of Tuscan salami; while being served, he examined the other two customers in the shop. He could tell instantly they weren’t police. As the shopkeeper wrapped the meat, he suddenly ran from the shop at full speed. The shopkeeper shouted after him, but Hellier didn’t stop. After about a hundred and fifty metres he slowed and walked into the middle of the street, standing on the white lines, the traffic sweeping either side of him. He studied the entire area around him, each pedestrian, every car and motorbike, but nobody caught his eye uncomfortably. Nobody checked themselves as they walked. No car swerved away into a side street.

  He wasn’t being followed, he was convinced of it. And even if they had been following him, he’d lost them. They’d underestimated him, assumed he wasn’t aware of surveillance and counter-surveillance, and now they’d paid the price. But he knew next time they would be more aware. More difficult to shake off.

  Sean studied Dr Canning’s post-mortem report. Some detectives found it easier to look at photographs rather than spend time at the scene. He realized the value of having everything logged photographically, but preferred to be confronted with the real thing than these cold, cruel pictures. At the scenes he felt something for the victims: sorrow and regret – sadness. But when he studied the photographs they felt almost more real than the scenes themselves – the stark coldness of what they depicted and the harshness of the colours somehow even more unnerving than the actual scenes.

  The report was excellent, as usual. Dr Canning had missed nothing. Every injury, old and new, had been observed, examined and described. Sean was totally engrossed. Finally he noticed DC Zukov loitering at his door.

  ‘What is it, Paulo?’ he asked.

  ‘This little lot just arrived in dispatch for you, guv.’ He held up several dozen paper files.

  ‘Stick them down here.’ DC Zukov dropped them on to Sean’s desk and retreated. They were the files from General Registry he’d asked for. Each held details of a violent death. These weren’t like the files Sally had studied at Method Index that concentrated on unique and uncommon crimes. These were case files of daily horrors. Young men stabbed to death outside pubs. Children tortured to death by their own parents. Prostitutes beaten to death by their pimps. The cases in front of him all involved excessive use of violence, but would they contain some detail that would leap out at him? Would one reek of the killer he hunted? Of Hellier?

  He was about to begin studying the first of many when Donnelly burst in. ‘Bad news, guv’nor. Hellier’s lost the surveillance.’

  ‘What?’ Sean couldn’t believe what he was being told.

  ‘Sorry, boss.’

  ‘Tell them to get back and cover his office and home. He’ll turn up eventually, and they can pick him up again.’

  ‘Not that simple, I’m afraid,’ Donnelly said wearily. ‘All the surveillance teams have been pulled away on an anti-terrorist op. Sign of the times, eh?’

  ‘Give me some good news, Dave. What about the lab? Any news?’

  ‘All samples taken from the victim and his flat have been matched to people who admit to having sexual relations with him, but the lab found no blood on any of those individuals or their clothes. Only Hellier is anything like a genuine suspect. In short, the lab can’t help us. They still haven’t processed Hellier’s clothes, but I won’t be holding my breath.’

  ‘Fingerprints?’ Sean asked.

  ‘Spoke with them this morning. There’s three sets of prints they can’t match to anyone. All the others came back to the same people who’d left body samples there.’

  ‘What about these three unmatched sets? Do they come back to anyone with convictions?’

  ‘No. They’re no good to us unless we come up with other suspects we can match them to.’

  ‘Bollocks. Okay, we cover Hellier ourselves. Who have we got that’s surveillance trained?’

  ‘I am,’ Donnelly said. ‘And I think a couple of the DCs are: Jim, and maybe Frank.’

  ‘Good,’ Sean said, in spite of the fact it was anything but. ‘We’ll split into two teams and do a twelve-hour shift each. Dave, you lead Team One and get Jim and Frank to run the other.’

  ‘Hold on a minute, guv’nor,’ Donne
lly argued. ‘We’re talking about two teams of what, maybe five people. Almost none of whom are surveillance trained. We’d be wasting our fucking time – and I haven’t even mentioned the fact he’s seen more than half the team when he got arrested.’

  ‘That’s why I won’t be with you,’ Sean said. ‘I’m gambling he was concentrating on me when he was arrested. You need to exercise special care too. I doubt he’s forgotten what you look like. No offence.’

  ‘None taken,’ Donnelly replied. ‘But this is still little better than hopeless.’

  ‘We’ve got no choice.’ Sean sounded desperate. He was. ‘So let’s get on with it. Take whatever cars and radios you need. Apologize to the troops for me. I’ll speak to them myself later.’

  ‘Fine,’ Donnelly said.

  Sean could hear the dissatisfaction in the DS’s voice. He understood it, even if there was nothing he could do to quell it. They had to try something. What else could he do?

  Hellier arrived at the antiques shop in the Cromwell Road at about 1 p.m. The shopkeeper recognized him immediately.

  ‘Mr Saunders. It’s been a while,’ he greeted Hellier. ‘And how has life been treating you lately, sir?’

  ‘Fine,’ Hellier said without smiling. ‘I need to make a collection. I trust it’s safe.’

  ‘Of course, sir.’

  The shopkeeper disappeared into the back.

  Hellier wandered slowly around the empty shop. He ran his trailing hand across the fine wooden furniture. He stopped to lift and examine several china pieces. Their value alone would have stopped most people from touching them. Hellier handled them as if they were Tupperware. He breathed in the scent of the shop. Leather, wood, riches and age. He deserved it all.

  The shopkeeper reappeared carrying a metal safety box. ‘Do you confirm that your property is kept in box number twelve, Mr Saunders?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Excellent.’ Pulling a key from his waistcoat pocket, he unlocked the padlock then stood back for Hellier to open the box’s lid.

  Hellier removed a small white envelope and another larger one. He quickly checked the contents, which included a passport for the Republic of Ireland. Satisfied, he slipped both envelopes into his pocket and closed the lid.

  ‘Do I owe you anything?’ he asked.

  ‘No. Your account is still very much in credit, Mr Saunders.’

  Regardless, Hellier pulled five hundred pounds in new fifty-pound notes from his wallet. He placed them on the desk next to the till. ‘That’s to make sure it stays that way.’

  The shopkeeper licked his lips. It was all he could do not to grab at the cash. ‘Will you be returning the property today, sir?’

  Hellier was already heading for the door. He answered without looking back. ‘Maybe. Who knows?’

  With that he was gone.

  The shopkeeper liked the money, but he hoped it would be the last time he saw Mr Saunders. He was scared of Mr Saunders – in fact, he was scared of lots of the people he kept illicit safety deposits for. But Mr Saunders scared him the most.

  Sally drove back towards Peckham alone. It had been a long and uninteresting morning at the Records Office. Truthfully, she was beginning to feel a little left out of the main investigation and now she also had to put up with the frustration of waiting days for the results of her searches − all of which meant she had yet to eliminate Korsakov. She knew Sean wouldn’t be best pleased.

  Her mobile began to ring and jump around on the passenger seat. In defiance of the law, she answered it while driving. ‘Sally Jones speaking.’

  ‘DS Jones, this is IDO Collins from fingerprints. You sent a request up yesterday, asking for a set of conviction prints for Stefan Korsakov to be compared with prints found at the Graydon murder scene.’

  ‘That’s correct,’ she confirmed, excitement growing in her stomach.

  ‘I’m afraid that’s not going to be possible,’ Collins told her.

  ‘What? Why not?’

  ‘Because we don’t have a set of fingerprints for anyone by that name.’

  ‘You must have,’ Sally insisted. ‘He has a criminal conviction − his prints were taken and submitted.’

  ‘I don’t know what to tell you,’ Collins replied. ‘I’ve searched the system and they’re not here.’

  The possibilities spun around Sally’s mind. Korsakov was rapidly becoming the invisible man. First his charging photographs and now his fingerprints. Sally didn’t like what she was finding. She didn’t like it at all. She remembered what Jarratt had said: maybe Korsakov was a ghost.

  IDO Collins broke her thoughts. ‘Are you still there, DS Jones?’

  ‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘I’m still here. In fact, you know what? I think I’d better come see you.’

  Hellier hailed a black cab and directed the driver to take him to the Barclays Bank in Great Portland Street, around the corner from Oxford Circus. Tourists and shoppers jammed the pavements. Red buses and cabs jammed the roads. It was an unholy mess. Diesel fumes mixed with the smell of frying onions and cheap meat. The heat of the day kept the air heavy.

  The cab drew up directly outside the bank. Hellier was out and paying before the driver knew it. He dropped a twenty-pound note through the driver’s window and walked away without speaking.

  He went to a keen-looking female cashier in her early twenties. She would want to do everything by the book. So did he. He handed her the larger envelope he’d taken from the antiques shop. It was documentation of his ownership of a safe-deposit box held in the bank’s vault. ‘I would like access to my deposit box, please,’ he told her.

  ‘Of course,’ she agreed. ‘Can I ask if you have any identification with you, sir?’ She sounded like every other bank clerk in the world.

  He smiled and pulled out a passport for the Republic of Ireland. ‘Will this be okay?’

  She checked the name and photograph in the passport, smiled and handed it back to him. ‘That’ll be fine, Mr McGrath. If you’d like to take a seat in consultation room number two, I’ll fetch the deposit box.’

  Within a few minutes the clerk came to Hellier’s room and placed the stainless-steel box on the table. ‘I’ll leave you alone now, sir. Just let me know when you’ve finished.’ She turned on her heel and left the room, shutting the door with a reassuring thud.

  Hellier pulled the smaller envelope from his jacket pocket, opened the flap and shook the contents out on to the table − a silver key. He couldn’t help but look around him as he put the key into the lock. It was stiff, causing him to feel a stab of panic as he jiggled it, eventually turning the lock and opening the box. Slowly he lifted the lid and peered inside. The box was as he had left it. He ignored the rolls of US dollars and pushed the loose diamonds out of the way, flicking a five-carat solitaire to one side as if it was a dead insect, until he found what he was looking for − a scrap of ageing paper. He lifted it closer to the light and examined it, relieved to see the number was still visible after all this time. He smiled, and spent the next ten minutes committing the number to memory. He ignored the first three digits – the outer London dialling code – but he repeated the remainder of the number over and over until he was sure he would never forget it.

  ‘Nine-nine-one-three. Two-zero-seven-four. Nine-nine-one-three. Two-zero-seven-four.’

  Sean read through the files from General Registry. He’d found it difficult to concentrate at first, the logistical problems of the investigation severely hindering his free thinking, but as the office grew quieter he was able to lose himself in the files.

  He’d already rejected several. They were all extremely violent crimes that remained unsolved, but they just didn’t feel right. Too many missing elements.

  He picked up the next file and flipped open the cover. The first thing he saw was a crime-scene photograph. He winced at the sight of a young girl, no more than sixteen, lying on a cold stone floor, her dead hands clutching her throat. He could see she was lying in a huge pool of her own blood and guessed
her throat had been cut.

  He leaned into the file. The photographs spoke to him. The victim spoke to him. His nostrils flared. This one, he thought to himself. This one. He flicked past the photographs and began to read.

  The victim was a young runaway. Came to London from Newcastle. Parents reported her missing several days before her body was found. Neither parent considered as a suspect. No boyfriend involved. No pimp under suspicion. Her name, Heather Freeman. Body recovered from an unused building on waste ground in Dagenham. No witnesses traced.

  Sean rifled through the papers to the forensic report. It was ominously short. No fingerprints, no DNA, no blood other than the victim’s. The suspect had left no trace of himself other than one thing: footprints in the dust inside the scene. They were striking only because of their lack of uniqueness. A plain-soled man’s shoe, size nine or ten, apparently very new with minimal scarring.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ he whispered.

  Sean checked the date of the murder. It predated Daniel Graydon’s death by more than two weeks. ‘You have killed before, you had to have, but how many times?’ His head began to thump. He searched for the name of the investigating officer and found it: DI Ross Brown, based on the Murder Investigation Team at Old Ilford police station. He bundled together his belongings and, taking the file with him, headed for the exit. He’d phone DI Brown once he was on his way.

  Hellier walked along Great Titchfield Street, still in the heart of London’s West End shopping area, although it was a lot quieter. He soon found a phone booth and pumped three pound coins into the slot. He heard the dialling tone and punched the number keypad. Zero-two-zero. Nine-nine-one-three. Two-zero-seven-four.

  The dialling tone changed to a ringing one. He waited only two cycles before it was answered. The person on the other end had clearly been expecting a call. Hellier spoke.

  ‘Hello, old friend,’ he said mockingly. ‘We have much to discuss.’

  ‘I’ve been waiting for you to call,’ the voice answered. ‘I expected it sooner.’