by Roberta Kray
Warren looked at the bank of bells. ‘Which one is that?’
‘Not here,’ the guy said, flapping a hand as if eager to get rid of him. ‘Round the side and down the steps.’
‘Right,’ Warren said. Before he could make any further comment the door was swiftly closed in his face.
He went back to the car and passed on the good news.
‘Okay,’ Harry said. ‘I’ve got an idea.’
Warren listened carefully to the plan. ‘You sure about this?’
‘Yeah, it’s the only way. You take the motor and I’ll see you later.’
After checking that there was no other exit, Harry walked back round to the side of the house and gazed down the flight of stone steps that led to the basement. There was a light on but the curtains were tightly closed. He moved quietly down the steps and stood for a while listening at the door. The TV was on, the evening news clearly audible.
Harry knocked gently.
No one answered.
He tried again, a little louder. This time there was definite movement from inside before the TV was abruptly turned off. But still no one came to the door. Harry leaned in close. ‘Agnes? Are you there? It’s Harry, Harry Lind.’
Silence.
‘Agnes?’
Harry waited a moment before he quickly rapped his knuckles against the door again. ‘Agnes? Come on. You either talk to me right now or you’ll be spending the rest of the evening down the cop shop. I’ve got the phone in my hand. I’m going to give you ten seconds and then—’
The door finally opened a few inches. Agnes peered out, looking about as scared as anyone could look.
‘It’s all right,’ Harry said. ‘I’m alone. Can I come in?’
She thought about it and then, resigned to the fact she had no other option, opened the door fully and stood aside.
Inside, the flat’s proportions were what estate agents would describe as ‘compact’. The living room, incorporating a tiny kitchen area, was about twelve foot square and had the distinctive smell of damp. A half-open door to the right revealed a shower cubicle and toilet and a closed door to the left presumably led to the bedroom. There were a couple of lamps, a small table with two folding chairs and a scattering of house plants. But what really drew Harry’s attention was a heap of blankets lying neatly folded on the old green sofa.
He turned to Agnes. ‘You should have called me back,’ he said. ‘I wanted to help.’
‘I wish to but … but am too afraid.’
‘Because of what happened to Troy?’
At the mention of his name, Agnes slumped down on the sofa and covered her mouth with her hand. She looked like she was going to cry. ‘What they do is very bad.’
Harry, recalling the state of Troy’s battered body, nodded. ‘Yes, very bad.’ He picked up the blankets, placed them carefully on the floor and sat down beside her.
‘You want to explain what happened?’ he said gently. ‘You want to tell me about it?’
Agnes hesitated, in two minds perhaps as to how much she should reveal, and then it all came tumbling out.
‘Everyone talk about Al at Vista – he do something wrong, in big trouble. Troy, he look at me and guess. He think I know where Al is gone to. Every day he say: Where is he, where is he? He never stop.’ She flung her hands out. ‘I think he is my friend but then am not so sure. He say people very angry and they hurt me bad. Troy say he help but I think not. I hear him talk on phone. He wants the money off these men. He promise to tell where Al hides. And later I see the men come.’
‘How many men?’ Harry said.
‘Four,’ she said. She gave a shiver. ‘All big, very strong.’
‘Would you recognize them again?’
Agnes shook her head. ‘Outside,’ she said. ‘In car park. I not see clear. I watch from window but is very dark.’
Harry had the feeling that she wouldn’t identify them even if she was able to. She would be too terrified to act as a witness. ‘And then?’
‘They talk to Troy … I call you, yes, on phone? I very afraid. I think Troy tell them of me. I – I see them hit hard and Troy fall to ground. I do not know what to do so … so I go, leave fast. I stop taxi and come to flat.’
‘And you’ve been here ever since?’ Harry said.
Agnes gave a shrug before leaning forward and covering her face with her hands. Her voice was thin and shaky. ‘Where else?’
Harry nodded. This explained why Troy had been less than welcoming on the few occasions that they’d met; he must have hoped that a painful encounter with a baseball bat would be enough to put him off his search for Al. With rumours of a generous reward on offer from Keppell, Troy wouldn’t have wanted anyone else muscling in on the action. But then he had made a fatal mistake. Concerned perhaps that someone else might secure the money before he could, he had moved too soon, calling Jimmy and claiming that he knew more than he did. And Jimmy Keppell wouldn’t have been in the mood for time-wasters. So when Troy hadn’t been able to come up with the goods …
‘If only I stay,’ she murmured. ‘If only …’ She was crying now, her shoulders gently heaving.
‘Troy made his own choices,’ he said. ‘If you’d stayed, you’d probably be dead too.’
The only thing Harry couldn’t figure out was why she and Al hadn’t done a runner. What were they doing still holed up in this dingy place? With a van full of drugs they could have been miles away by now – not just out of London but out of the country. It didn’t make any sense. There was only one way of finding out the whole truth.
While Agnes still had her face in her hands, he stood up and softly crossed the room. Quickly he pushed open the bedroom door. ‘Would you care to join us?’
There was a short pause before Al eventually accepted the invitation. He shambled out looking tired and dishevelled. Gone was the rosy-cheeked family man with the happy smile; he was in need of a shave and his eyes were bloodshot.
‘You’re a cop, right?’ he said. He sounded almost relieved about it.
Harry shook his head. ‘Private investigator. Your wife hired me.’ It wasn’t quite the truth but it would do for now.
Al sat down in a chair by the table, leaned forward and put his hands between his knees. He rocked gently back and forth for a few seconds. ‘How is she?’
‘Worried sick. Why did you do it, Al?’
Al’s only response was a low pained moan.
‘Is my fault,’ Agnes whispered through her tears. ‘Is all my fault.’
‘It was your idea?’ Harry said, turning towards her. He was still finding it hard to comprehend how these two had ever managed to strike up a conversation, never mind plan a drugs robbery. It must have been down to the money because whatever bound them now had nothing to do with sex; their relationship, judging from the blankets he had lifted from the sofa, was purely platonic.
‘An accident,’ she said.
That was one way of putting it. Harry raised his brows but Agnes didn’t elaborate. He glanced towards Al who was staring determinedly down at the brown frayed carpet. ‘Your brother-in-law isn’t too happy with you either.’
Surprisingly, Al didn’t seem too alarmed by this piece of information. ‘He wouldn’t give a toss if he never saw me again.’
‘That could be true but he’s still less than pleased that you waltzed off with his property.’
Al looked up, frowning. ‘His …?’ Then his forehead suddenly cleared. ‘Oh, that. Christ, Ray always was a tightwad. It’s hardly going to break the bank, is it?’
Now it was Harry’s turn to look confused. ‘What do you mean?’
Al shrugged. ‘It’s only a few lousy cases of vodka.’
Harry stared at him. Was Al being deliberately dense, playing some kind of game? No, he didn’t have the brains for it. Which could only mean that …
Agnes wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘He come from nowhere. He step out in front, right in front of van.’
‘Shit!’ Harry murmure
d. The truth was finally dawning on him. The two of them didn’t have a clue what was hidden in those cases. Al’s disappearing trick had been down to something else entirely. ‘Are we talking hit-and-run here?’
Al’s intake of breath was followed by a long despairing sigh. His scared exhausted gaze met Harry’s. ‘He’s dead,’ he said softly. ‘I killed him.’
Harry expelled a resounding sigh of his own. He remembered his phone call to Valerie, the day she’d told him about the gangland murder in Hackney; she had mentioned a hit-and-run then but he had not made the connection. There had been too many other things on his mind. He tried to keep his voice calm. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘You want to tell me about it?’
Al made a vague movement of his head that might have been a nod. He opened his mouth but no words came out. Then, as if trying to scrub the guilt from his skin, he began to rub at his face with his hands. He was a man on the edge, close to breaking point.
Harry decided to help him along. ‘It was a Saturday evening. You’d spent the day on the market and then Ray called. You were to go to Tommy Lake’s lock-up, collect some booze and take it to Vista. You got through the first part okay but somehow you never made it to the club. After you left Tommo—’
Al finally picked up on the narrative. ‘I – I drove down through Dalston. Agnes was standing at the bus stop. I knew she must be on her way to work so I stopped and asked if she wanted a lift.’ As if his offer could be all too easily misconstrued, a dark blush rose to his cheeks. His hands fluttered to his face again. ‘I wasn’t … I mean, I was just being friendly. There wasn’t much point in her waiting around for a bus when we were both headed in the same direction.’
‘Absolutely,’ Harry said. ‘I understand.’
Al swallowed hard before continuing. ‘The traffic was pretty heavy, all jammed up, so I took a shortcut through the back streets. We were almost there when—’
‘Is all because of me,’ Agnes interrupted. ‘I talk, show pictures on phone – you know, pictures of girls at club. We laugh and …’
Harry could see how that might have been a little distracting. ‘And then?’
‘He just appeared,’ Al said. ‘There were cars parked on either side of the street. It was dark. He came out of nowhere. He just walked out and …’ He bit down hard on his knuckles. ‘I didn’t see him.’
‘Did you stop?’
Al’s head jerked up. ‘Yes, I stopped. Of course I stopped. He was lying in the road. I got out of the van and went to look but … but he wasn’t moving. He wasn’t breathing. His eyes were open and there was blood coming from his mouth. I should have called an ambulance. I should have called the cops. I know I should, but—’
‘You panicked,’ Harry said.
‘I could see he was dead. I didn’t know what to do.’
Harry thought of everything that had happened since, of the two other deaths, of the two brutal murders that had stemmed from this single accidental killing. His stomach turned over.
Harry’s gaze swung from Al to Agnes. ‘And so you came back here.’
She nodded. ‘I stay for while and then go to work. I get there late and Troy, he notice it. I say the buses bad but he not believe. This is why, later, he think I know about Al.’
Harry was still trying to slot the final pieces into place. ‘So what about the vodka?’
Al looked bemused. He had just confessed to running a man over and Harry was stressing over some knocked-off bottles of booze. ‘What?’
‘The boxes you picked up from Tommo. Where are they now?’
‘Where they’ve always been – in the back of the van.’
Harry laughed. It was a knee-jerk, slightly manic response. He couldn’t help contemplating all the local junkies, the dealers, the punks who must have walked past that hedge over the past few weeks completely oblivious to what was lying on the other side. And then he thought of something else. ‘What about the bag? Denise said that you took an overnight bag from the wardrobe.’
Al frowned.
‘A black Nike holdall,’ Harry said.
‘Oh yeah, that. The zip broke on mine so I grabbed that one instead. I had some CDs I needed to take to the stall.’
Harry raised his eyes to the ceiling. All it had taken was one false clue to convince him that Al was guilty of a premeditated crime. Had it not been for that single piece of ‘evidence’, he might not have jumped so readily to any of the more obvious conclusions. Al Webster had experienced a crisis all right but it hadn’t been of the mid-life variety.
‘So what was the plan?’ Harry said. He glanced around the room. ‘Or were you intending to hide out here forever?’
It was clear from Al’s expression that nothing as solid as a plan had even begun to take form. From the moment of the accident panic must have replaced any logical thought. Harry turned his attention back to Agnes.
‘Is that why you thought I was looking for him, because of the accident?’
She gave a nod. ‘Troy say people unhappy with Al. I think they are friends, yes, of this poor man who died. I think they wish to hurt him.’
‘And no one mentioned drugs to you?’
Agnes stared at him, puzzled. ‘What is to do with drugs?’
Harry was about to start explaining when a slight noise, not much more than a scrape, came from outside. His ears pricked up. There was someone on the steps. He was halfway to his feet when the door suddenly burst open. An oversized goon, wielding a sawnoff, came hurtling into the room.
‘Don’t move!’ he yelled. ‘Nobody move!’
Harry, caught in the unfortunate position of being almost upright, was unable to curb the rest of the movement. As he straightened up, the guy – hyped up on adrenalin or maybe something less natural – must have perceived him as a threat. Instead of shooting, however, he swung the gun smartly towards Harry’s head, catching him hard across the jaw. His knees buckled and he crumpled to the floor.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
By the time Harry managed to look up again, everything was hazy. His brains were still rocking. He gently shook his head. It was a mistake. Even that careful movement had the effect of substantially increasing the pain in his jaw. One thing was clear however – he was staring straight down the barrel of a shotgun. The owner of the weapon, an ugly-looking bloke even in soft focus, was standing over him with a sneer on his face.
There was an eerie silence in the room, one of those ominous post-cataclysmic sort of silences, as if the whole world was holding its breath. Harry squinted. To his left he was faintly aware of Agnes curled up on the sofa. Opposite, Al was sitting rigidly, his hands on his knees, his eyes unblinking and his mouth wide open. He looked like one of those victims of Pompeii, caught in burning hot ash with their forms preserved forever.
All of these impressions were garnered in a matter of seconds. Harry found himself staring at the shotgun again. He wondered if he was about to die. Oddly, he didn’t feel as bothered as he thought he should. Perhaps it was because this whole scenario seemed not just familiar – it wasn’t that long since Joan Sewell had been waving a pistol at him – but almost inevitable, a natural finale to everything else that had gone on recently.
And then a familiar mocking voice cut through the silence. ‘For heaven’s sake, Rizzer, hasn’t anyone ever told you that it’s bad form to slug a man with a limp?’
The pug-faced goon gave a snigger before stepping aside.
‘Hello, Harry,’ Ray Stagg said.
Harry gazed up at him and groaned. ‘I’d like to say it was a pleasure to see you again but—’
‘Yeah,’ Stagg said. ‘It’s mutual but thanks for leading us here. I’m very grateful.’ He tilted his head towards Al. ‘It’s always good to catch up with family.’
Al’s blank brown eyes didn’t flicker. There was no response at all. His body remained perfectly still, his gaze fixed. It was hard to tell if he was even aware of Ray’s presence.
‘You’ve been following me,’ Harry said.
&nb
sp; Stagg grinned. ‘Sweet of you to notice … but a bit late, don’t you think? I heard you private dicks were supposed to have an instinct for that kind of thing.’
Harry rubbed at his jaw. It hurt when he spoke but at least he could still speak. ‘It comes and goes.’
Stagg glanced at Agnes, sighed, and looked back at Harry. ‘Well, this is nice,’ he said. ‘All of us here together. Quite a reunion.’
A small strangled sob escaped from her throat. Harry hoped she was too scared to move; he didn’t fancy her chances if she tried to make a run for it.
‘Okay,’ Stagg said. ‘Now, you know what I want. We can either—’
‘It’s in the van,’ Harry said.
‘What?’
‘What you’re after is in the back of the van.’
‘Don’t fuck me about,’ Stagg said. Unable to accept that anything could be that simple, he glanced towards the goon who was obviously able and more than willing to blow Harry’s brains out. ‘I haven’t got the time or the patience.’
‘It’s all there,’ Harry said. ‘You want me to show you?’
‘You’re lying.’
‘Fine,’ Harry said. ‘Believe what you like.’
As if he’d been looking forward to beating the information out of him, Stagg seemed disappointed. His upper lip curled into a snarl. ‘So where are the keys?’
Still in a state of shock and apparently struck deaf and dumb, Al continued to stare straight ahead. Harry looked at Agnes and nodded. She didn’t say anything but a trembling hand eventually rose to point towards the shelf above the television.
Ray walked over and picked the keys up. He gave a laugh, threw them into the air and caught them again. He glared at Harry. ‘This had better not be a wind-up.’
‘It isn’t.’
‘So let’s go take a look,’ he said. ‘Just you and me.’ His cool blue eyes narrowed. ‘And while we’re gone my friend Rizzer here will make sure no one gets any stupid ideas.’
Harry got the message. He stumbled to his feet. The pain in his jaw had become a dull steady throb.
‘Hold on,’ Stagg said. ‘Hold it right there and spread your arms.’