‘Is there CCTV in Souza’s office?’ Silano asked.
‘Works the other way.’ JD was now eyeballing the croupier at the head of the line. ‘We look at them, they don’t look at us.’
‘Recording devices?’ JD shrugged. Silano said, ‘Who runs electronic surveillance?’
‘Woman called Arlene Pearce. The scrutineer.’
Arlene took Silano through to the room next to Billy’s office where the CCTV cameras were racked and showed him the mikes. She showed him that they were deactivated: flick-flick, red light on, red light off. When they emerged, Silano asked her to lock the door, then he took the key.
They went through the staff one by one, as if they were shuffling a deck, looking for an ace to match the ten. And there she was, Louise, her pert nose, her vicious pony-tail, lighting a cigarette and saying, ‘I’m clean, I’m straight and I’m earning. Leave me alone.’
Maxine showed her Oscar Gribbin’s photo.
Louise said, ‘Okay, he’s a punter.’
‘When was he last in?’
‘He doesn’t play blackjack. A couple of days ago, maybe. He’s regular.’
‘What’s his game if not blackjack?’
‘Craps, I think. Not sure. Roulette?’
‘Who runs those tables?’
‘It depends.’
‘All right. We’ll ask JD.’
‘Ask Arlene, she’ll know.’
Maxine nodded and Louise started to get up. Maxine said, ‘You didn’t call me.’
‘Nothing to say.’
‘I might need some eyes and ears in this place.’
‘Find someone else.’
‘I don’t need to.’
Louise sighed. She said, ‘I call you, never the other way round.’
Gerry Harris raised Stella on the third try. She had been waiting to hear from Tom Davison, but Harris had interesting news of his own.
‘One of your guys was over here. Silano?’
‘That’s right.’
‘I was out, but someone took a message. He was asking about Oscar Gribbin. And now I hear you’re having a look at Billy Souza.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Are you kidding?
‘You have an interest in Souza?’
‘Yes. And what’s fascinating here,’ Harris said, ‘is that you go from Gribbin to Souza.’
‘Gribbin gambled at Jumping Jacks. That’s the connection. Not much to it. It occurred to us that if Gribbin was in the casino the night he died, the killer might have been there too.’
‘It’s not the connection,’ Harris said. ‘Not the only connection.’ Stella was silent. ‘Gribbin’s an importer of metal goods, everything from scrap to vehicle bodywork and parts. Customs were looking, they tipped us off, we started looking too. We think Gribbin realized this because the only time we jumped him he was clean.’
‘You think he was sidelining.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Sidelining what?’
‘Illegals at first.’
Stella saw the little group cowering in the warehouse, the upturned faces, the mother with the dead child at her breast.
‘At first –’
‘It’s profitable, I mean, it’s big business, but there are risks. Mostly your cargo is volatile. It has a mind of its own. It can tell tales.’
‘It can die,’ Stella added.
‘Yes, that’s right, it can.’ Stella heard the snap of a lighter and waited for Harris to get his first lungful down. ‘We suspected him, but we never got a line on him – contacts in the countries of origin, finance, that sort of thing. Then he stopped, we were pretty sure of that. After a while, though, he started gambling at Jumping Jacks. Became a regular.’
‘And so?’
‘We were looking hard at Billy Souza. We still are.’
‘And he connects – how?’
‘Gribbin was a carrier, pure and simple. He moved merchandise around the world. But if he was carrying contraband of some sort or another, he needed a supplier and a distributor. Gribbin hauled the cargo, but someone had to buy it – the importer.’
‘And you think that’s Souza?’
‘Could be.’ He paused. ‘DS Mooney –’
‘Stella.’
‘Right, Stella, I’ll have to rely on you to keep us up to speed on this. It’s your murder, but it’s our ongoing investigation.’
‘I promise.’
‘Okay.’
‘So what’s the cargo? What do you think he’s importing?’
‘Guns.’
The call from Tom Davison came in at the end of the day. He said, ‘I’ve got what you want, DS Mooney.’
‘Tell me.’
‘Better than that, I can show you.’
‘Davison, you’re persistent, that’s all I can possibly say in your favour.’
‘No, I can show you. I’ve got it with me right here.’
‘Where are you?’
‘Sitting in the car park. Mazda sports with the engine turning over.’
64
Pete Harriman had a few stops to make. The first was to the pub, where Marilyn Hayes was waiting for him. They talked for fifteen minutes. The second was to out-patients, where a nurse checked his stitches and told him he was healing nicely. The third was seven floors up and through corridors that smelled of disinfectant and death. Ronaldo was out of ITU and in a private ward and the girl with him wasn’t a nurse, unless nurses arrive naked under a full-length fur. Harriman waited while she buttoned up and sidled out.
Ronaldo said, ‘Don’t go far.’
‘All the comforts of home,’ Harriman observed. He showed Ronaldo a picture of Oscar Gribbin and got no response, which was pretty much what he’d expected. The Strip is home territory to some, a foreign country to others. Next he showed a picture of Trixie Gribbin’s bracelet.
‘The last time you asked me a question,’ Ronaldo observed, ‘I got a blade in the fucking kidneys. I’m paying for minders to watch my girls, which means that the girls are having to compensate. They’re giving head so fast they nod in their sleep.’
‘I need to hear about the bracelet. Someone’s going to want to offload it.’
Ronaldo looked at Harriman’s stitching and laughed. ‘You didn’t see them coming either, did you?’ The laugh died. ‘Have you found them yet?’
‘Magna,’ Harriman said. ‘We know who they are.’
‘Do me a favour, Mr Harriman. Leave them alone. I’m thinking of taking a little trip over to Harefield when I’m back on my feet.’
‘Is that right? Friends of mine in the Drugs Squad fully expect to find them in possession of a very large amount of scag.’
‘They don’t carry.’
‘They would be on this occasion.’
Ronaldo shook his head. ‘Here’s a deal. I’ll ask about the bracelet, I’ll put people on to it, okay? You leave those cunts on the street.’
Harriman smiled. He gave Ronaldo his card, just a reminder, then walked out into the corridor where the girl was waiting. He said, ‘This must be your night off.’
The Mazda sat low to the road and cornered hard. They went down from Notting Hill towards Hammersmith, taking red lights on the second beat and lane-switching like Mad Max. Stella said, ‘So this is the family car.’
Tom Davison was late thirties and good-looking in a professorial sort of way. He had a mop of dark hair, slightly tangled, and wore combats and big boots to go with it. It was a style and it suited him.
He said, ‘No. Honda Accord, two kiddie seats, stained upholstery.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘Chinese food, remember?’
Stella had no idea why she’d got into Davison’s car. She should have simply said, Give me the reports. They hit Hammersmith Broadway and slalomed through the home-going traffic, Davison finding a neat line into King Street. She said, ‘Give me the reports. I can get out anywhere here.’
He pulled over, put on the hazard lights and handed her
a large brown envelope. ‘Okay. I’ll call you in the morning and talk you through it.’
She didn’t get out. They sat together in silence for thirty seconds while cars lined up to get round them, flashing and hooting. She said, ‘There’s a place in Chiswick High Road that cooks without MSG.’
Davison nodded. ‘I know. That’s where we’re going.’
It was early and the restaurant was almost empty. They ordered a bottle of wine and Stella took out the report. Davison said, ‘You only need that if you haven’t got me.’
‘Tell me.’
‘Oscar Gribbin was shot three times, the third, fatal bullet being to the back of the cranium, though either of the others would have done the job eventually by way of blood-loss and shock. Ellen Clarke was garrotted. Technically, she died of asphyxiation, though there was a good deal of collateral damage to the thorax, etcetera, etcetera.’
‘I got all that from the PM report.’
‘I know. I’m just putting in the background. There were significant differences from the earlier killings. To begin with, there was a gun involved. That’s new. One pretty obvious difference is that Oscar Gribbin was there at all.’
‘Other things were familiar.’
‘The way Clarke was killed and partially stripped.’
‘That’s right.’
The waiter came back with the wine and asked if they were ready to order. Davison said, ‘The usual.’
Stella looked at him. ‘You come here a lot?’
‘All the time.’
‘Bring the family here?’
‘The kids love chow mein.’
‘What’s the usual?’
‘It’s what everyone eats in Chinese restaurants. The bullets were from a Glock forty-five, bound to be an illegal import, I suppose. There were no fingerprints, but there was DNA.’ He took a sip of wine. ‘Robert Adrian Kimber, all over the place, thick as autumn leaves. We found hair: a very large and helpful amount.’
‘Kimber killed them both?’
‘On the evidence, you’d have to think so.’
‘Mister Mystery?’
‘Well, now, that’s the interesting part.’ Davison took a sheet of paper from the brown envelope and put it down on the table. ‘Quite often scene of crime material gets passed around the lab, this guy might run the tests, or that guy. I’ve done all of yours. It must be your phone manner; that or the black silk panels. It’s allowed me to see a pattern.’
Davison pointed to the paper: he’d made a little evidence-tree.
‘Valerie Blake dies and we get Mister Mystery’s DNA. Sophie Simms dies, we get the same thing. We could isolate these two because the guy that was responsible for the earlier attacks on women got caught.’
‘Martin Cotter. We think Mister Mystery was trying to make his killings seem part of Cotter’s pattern: using a garrotte and so forth.’
‘Right. So we have Blake and Simms, both killed by Mister Mystery. Then Kate Reilly is murdered and we find Robert Kimber’s DNA at the scene. And Mister Mystery’s. And here’s where I begin to see a difference. Mister Mystery is being very careful. He knows about forensic tracing. He’s probably wearing latex gloves and I bet he’s wearing some kind of tight coverall hat. The chances are he thinks he’s leaving no trace at all. What he doesn’t know is that it’s almost impossible to perpetrate that level of violence and not shake a few cells free, a few hairs. He’s tricky, but I’m trickier.’
Davison topped up Stella’s glass. He was talking, she was drinking.
‘At the Reilly scene, there were the usual scant leavings from Mister Mystery, but Kimber’s DNA is all over the place. In fact, it looks pretty certain that Kimber did the killing. So, while Kimber is taking virtually no precautions – possibly because he doesn’t know any better – Mister Mystery is trying to leave none.’
The last point on the evidence-tree said Gribbin/Clarke.
‘So now we come to this. Where Kimber’s DNA is thick on the ground.’
‘And Mister Mystery’s?’
‘He must have thought he was away clear. Almost nothing. Next to nothing. Infinitesimal.’ He smiled. ‘But then infinitesimal is my stock-in-trade.’
‘And you can place him at the scene?’
‘God knows what he was wearing, frogman’s outfit, I should think. But he couldn’t go out like that, could he? Had to take it off. And when you remove clothing, you shed DNA. I can put him by the front door, both inside and outside the house.’
Stella picked up the evidence-tree and stared at it. ‘And your theory is?’
‘Christ, I haven’t got a theory. I’m a scientist. Theories are guesswork; science is fact.’
‘Here’s a theory of mine,’ Stella said. ‘You’re not married, are you?’
‘No,’ Davison said, ‘I’m not. That’s a fact.’
65
Jan leaves work. Jan walks to the tube. Jan stops to buy a paper or she goes to the 7/11 for some bread or something today she bought salad and soup and toothpaste. Jan goes three stops then changes then goes five stops. She wears the red wool hat so I cant clip her. Jan goes out in her lunch break too and thats when I can take photos. Jan walking down the road Jan going through the park Jan waiting for a take away coffee Jan close enough to touch. Sometimes I close my eyes and I think about Patricia except she was really called Kate Reilly I found out from the papers. I think about Kate Reilly but I change her into Jan or into Stella so its the same and Im following and Ive got the hammer and its just the way it was the same things happen and I get the same feelings but when I do her when I kill her its Jan. Or its Stella. I havent told Leon Bloss about this because he says we must stop for a while but the thing is Ive only just begun. Its new to me. Not the thinking about it. I used to think about it all the time but its different when you think about it after youve done it. Its different because you know what it really is you know what its really like. When I think about Kate Reilly its really good but its a memory. Ive done it and its over. When I think about it and pretend its Jan or Stella I know Ive got it ahead of me and I get really hard and have to hand myself off but even then I go on thinking about it. Leon Bloss doesnt understand about following. He knows about the killing but he doesnt know about my way of doing things. The following and the photos and the clippings and being close enough to touch. He keeps saying wait and I will wait but only until the time comes. Now Ive done Kate now Ive got Kate under my belt sort of thing I know that theres a right time for this sort of event. Its when the following isnt enough and the clippings and the photos are not enough. When the story I write about them needs a proper ending. Before I met Leon Bloss the stories were instead. There was the following and the photos and the hair clipping and the story was the rest of it. Now the story is just a beginning. No not a beginning its a plan. A guideline. Yes its a guideline like people have for making a film. A senario. I always thought Stella would be next but sometimes I think it must be Jan. I dont know how to choose. Perhaps something will choose for me. Perhaps either Jan or Stella will choose by doing something or being somewhere but I havent reached it yet – I havent reached the moment when I have to. Leon Bloss says wait but I know I have to. Hes got no right to tell me just because he was the person who showed me how to. He started me off with Kate. Now its up to me.
Stella leaves work and she goes to Vigo Street or she goes to the pub first and I can follow or I can wait for her at her home. I know Stella better because she questioned me about Valerie Blake but that makes things more difficult. With Jan I can sit opposite her in the tube and she doesnt know me I can go right up to her and stand behind her in a shop. Jan shares with someone which means I would have to do Jan like I did Kate in the street or somewhere. Stella lives alone at Vigo Street so I could go in. I could go in to her which makes for a different way of doing things. More time. More things to do. With Jan theres the risk and thats another thing thats exciting too. Ill think about it. Ill write some stories. Some guidelines. Yes. A senario. Yes.
66
Stella woke in the dark to the sound of someone speaking and thought it must have been herself. She got out of bed and went to the window, but there was nothing to see. She walked naked into the living space and looked out from there, but the street seemed empty. She switched on a standard-lamp that shed a yellowish glow like snow-light. A cab cruised past. Somewhere off on the high road a car alarm started up, then cut out. Her coat was on the sofa and she put it on in place of a robe. She found a drink and sat on a kitchen stool, her elbows resting on the worktop.
Let’s try to make sense of this. Mister Mystery thinks he’s leaving no DNA trace. Kimber’s leaving lots. MM’s being careful, Kimber’s not. Or doesn’t know he should be.
So why doesn’t MM warn him? Why doesn’t he say, ‘Do like me – wear the full-body condom and a pair of tights on your head’?
She took a slug of her drink. She wanted vodka but could find only whisky.
Let’s go further back. MM wants us to think his killings are the work of Martin Cotter, that’s why he half strips them – because Cotter had a sexual motive. And that’s why he uses a garrotte. But Cotter’s been kept under wraps, nothing in the papers, nothing on TV.
Right. So as far as MM’s concerned, we might still be thinking of his crimes and Cotter’s as being by the same man.
Right. And if we did think that, given the DNA evidence, who would we think that man was?
We’d think it was Robert Adrian Kimber.
Exactly. Kimber confessed to Blake’s murder. MM read about this. He contacted Kimber. Then he and Kimber killed Kate Reilly, Oscar Gribbin and Ellen Clarke. Each time MM tries to leave no trace. Each time Kimber leaves half a ton.
Especially in the Gribbin/Clarke case.
You would think it was a master–apprentice thing, wouldn’t you? Old hand teaches the new hand. Thrill-kill as a diploma course. Except the master doesn’t seem to have noticed that the pupil is making a very basic mistake.
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