‘Go on.’
‘It was Sadie who saw her getting mugged. Sadie who stole her credit card.’
Stella sat up. ‘Of course...’ Stella hadn’t put Delaney’s street-person together with the girl who’d taken the casino-chip key ring. ‘It was, yes.’
‘I saw Sadie just after she was released. The cops never charged her. She told me about it: about the mugging. She said that the woman just stood there; she seemed almost cooperative.’
‘Shock,’ Stella said, ‘or maybe she’d heard of nonresistance, the best way to avoid getting stabbed. You lose your wallet and your watch, you keep your life.’
‘And then, when they started to leave, she called to them. One of them came back and hit her: really beat her.’
‘She thinks they’re going, she calls them bastards, they find the time to show her just what bastards they really are.’
‘Sadie didn’t think it was like that. She didn’t say the woman yelled at them or called them a name; she said: “She called to them.”’ He shuffled through the reports and found a certain page. ‘She’s an obsessive. Had an affair with this guy Souza, wouldn’t leave him alone until he threatened to have her killed.’
Stella thought about it. ‘You think she was calling them back.’
‘I do, yes.’
‘Because they hadn’t done the job properly.’
79
By night, the Ocean Diner was neon shadows and slow music, a place to be alone, a place to be picked up, a place to hang out. By day, it was different: brighter music, brisker movements, people doing business.
Stella and Duncan Palmer were doing business of a sort. The diner was neutral territory, an attempt to put Palmer at his ease and allow him to talk freely: good for business, Stella hoped. She was trying to get information without giving any, or without giving too much.
‘Her name came up, simple as that. We weren’t thinking about her, but there she was suddenly. A croupier at Jumping Jacks. And we learned a few things about her that made me want to talk to you.’
Palmer spooned up froth from his coffee. ‘Such as –?’
‘She had an affair with Billy Souza, the guy who –’
‘I know who he is.’
‘People said she fastened on, that he found it difficult to get rid of her.’
‘Billy Souza is a well-known bastard.’
‘We know that. Billy’s not under discussion here.’ Stella paused. ‘Would you have married Valerie Blake? Is that what you intended to do?’
They both knew there was no way back from that question. Stella had chosen a window table since it was furthest from the bar, the music, the waiters. Palmer turned his head, avoiding Stella’s gaze. It had been snowing on and off for days, sometimes leaving a thin covering that was muddy ice-water within the hour. Now the flakes were thicker and more frequent, they were snow showers. Crystals touched the window and stuck and dissolved.
‘It’s a problem,’ Palmer said. He didn’t speak again for several minutes. Stella waited; she knew these rhythms; in the interview room, she would have watched the tape counter revolve, checking the time-lapse in case there was an awkward question from a defence barrister. Finally, he added, ‘It was a fling. A pre-wedding fling. You’re about to settle down, I don’t know, make a life with someone and you think about all those women out there… And you reckon one more time, just one, I deserve it.’
‘A binge before the diet,’ Stella suggested.
Palmer shrugged. ‘I went to the casino after a stag party. The whole idea was to pick up some girls. We were all a bit drunk.’
‘And you picked up Lauren.’
‘Not that night. But she came on to me.’
‘So you went back. When you’d sobered up.’
‘We went out, we had sex, she was keen, I saw her a few more times.’
‘And Valerie?’
‘And Valerie what?’ There was a challenge in his voice.
Stella said, ‘I’m not being judgemental, I’m just asking questions. Things were going on as normal – with Valerie. You were making arrangements for the wedding and so forth.’
‘It was set for a week after my American trip. I’m past the stage of making excuses,’ he said, ‘because there aren’t any available to me. A pre-wedding fling: you’ve heard of such a thing…’
‘Sure, of course, it happens, why did you take Lauren Buchanan to the States?’
‘It was what you suggested – the way she was with Souza. To begin with, it wasn’t much; over-affectionate behaviour, wanting more of my time, wanting to give me sex non-stop, as if she could keep my attention that way.’ He laughed sourly. ‘Which, by and large, she could. Then it got heavier. Talk of being in love with me, making plans. She never told me to leave Val, but she’d talk about how it could have been if… and how great it would be if… If we’d met earlier, if life were different, if Val met someone else.’
‘If Val died.’
‘She never said that.’ He spoke without having caught a hint of the meaning behind Stella’s remark. He was still in the dark.
‘In the end, I took her to America in the hope that I could end things that way. She asked to come, but didn’t make an issue of it. She just said it would be our time together, something she’d always have to remember.’ He smiled. ‘That sort of shit.’
‘You believed her?’
‘Listen, I could see she was over-keen, but I hadn’t really started to worry all that much. She knew I was getting married.’ He seemed suddenly angry. ‘Also she was a hot fuck.’
‘Casino girls are,’ Stella remarked, ‘or so people say.’
‘In America, it got worse.’
‘In what way?’
‘Talk of how terrific we were together, that it was crazy to let something so good go to waste. Then she began to say things that made it seem as though a decision had been made: what terrific luck that we found each other before the wedding, how Val would get over it. She was living in a world apart. If I tried to talk to her about it, tried to make it clear that I was going to marry Valerie, that Lauren and I were going to end, she just went quiet, as if she couldn’t hear me.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I was in the middle of a business trip. I thought I’d sort things when we got back to England.’
‘How?’
‘Tell Val. Only way out.’
‘And then that wasn’t possible.’
‘I’d been ducking her calls, you guessed that when we first spoke. I didn’t even know about the burglary. I could tell I was running into real trouble with Lauren and it was all I could cope with – that and five meetings a day. I didn’t want to hear Val’s voice.’ He stopped and gazed out at the snowfall a moment. ‘I never heard it again.’
‘And Lauren,’ Stella remarked, ‘is still with you.’
‘No. Well, yes, she is, but she’s going.’
‘Is she?’
‘What have I got to lose?’
‘Then why hasn’t she gone already?’
‘The mugging. It really fucked her up. She’s terrified to go out, she’s seeing a counsellor, Christ, she didn’t get out of bed for a week.’
‘So even with Valerie dead, you didn’t want Lauren.’
‘Even less, in a way. I wanted her gone. I expect this sounds crass, but I expected to marry Valerie and I wanted to marry Valerie. I thought we could make a life together.’
‘You told Lauren this.’
‘She went crazy. I mean, one minute crying, the next throwing furniture at me. She pretended she was pregnant. But it didn’t matter and she could see that. She had nothing to threaten me with.’
‘Then she got mugged.’
This time, Palmer did hear the edge in Stella’s voice. He looked at her, eyes wide. ‘You think she beat herself up?’
‘I think she got someone to do it for her. I think she knew how to do that, knew who you talk to if you want something like that done. I think she talked to a man called Leon Bloss.’
‘He pretended to mug her, this man?’
‘No, someone else did that. I think Lauren spoke to Leon Bloss about Valerie.’
Palmer was motionless. He seemed to be breathing in without breathing out; he started to shake his head as if he could erase the thought or render it null.
‘Where did she live – before she moved in with you?’
‘She’s got a place in Queensway.’
‘Do you have a key?’
He nodded. ‘I’ve been going there to fetch things for her: you know, clothes and so on.’
‘I’ll get a search warrant,’ Stella said, ‘but I’m assuming I won’t need one for your flat.’
‘What will you be looking for?’
‘A connection between Lauren and Leon Bloss.’
Palmer put a hand to his mouth, as if he might be sick. ‘You really think she did this?’
‘I’m sure of it.’
‘My God,’ he said. ‘My God…’ Staring at her wide-eyed.
Stella took out her mobile phone and speed-dialled a number. Pete Harriman answered. She said, ‘Where is she?’
‘Here with us,’ Harriman said. ‘Interview Room One.’
80
Stella sat down with her. She said, ‘We know pretty much everything, Lauren. We know about Leon Bloss.’
Lauren smiled. ‘There’s nothing to know.’
‘You worked with him. He was for hire: Billy hired him. You hired him.’
‘Leon told you this, did he? You’ve talked to him, you know where he is.’
‘There’s no way out of this for you, Lauren, no way back. The damage is done.’
‘Aren’t you supposed to charge me?’
‘We’re just talking, for the moment. There’s lot to get through.’
‘Aren’t you supposed to charge me or let me go?’
Maxine sat down with her. She said, ‘What puzzled us was the other deaths. The other women. But then things came clear, because DNA is like a witness for the prosecution who stands up and says, “He was there. He did it.” The connection’s easy to see: you, Bloss, Valerie.’
Lauren was smoking and drinking coffee from a thin plastic cup. She held it by the rim to protect her fingers and sipped cautiously. She said, ‘I met Duncan at the casino. That’s all there is to it. We’re in love and we’re getting married. It was a great tragedy, what happened to Valerie, but in a way it was a blessing.’
‘A blessing?’
‘It saved everyone from a life of sadness. Aren’t you supposed to charge me or let me go?’
Harriman sat down with her. He said, ‘It must have seemed easy. It must have seemed simple. You wouldn’t even be there when it happened. You’d be in America.’
‘And I was. I was in America when Valerie died. That’s the point.’
‘We know you paid Leon Bloss to do the work, Lauren. How much did you pay him? What’s the going rate?’
‘You say you know… so prove it. Show me some proof. Shouldn’t I have a lawyer here with me?’
‘You can have a lawyer, of course you can.’
‘I don’t need it. You have to charge me or let me go.’
Stella sat down with her. She said, ‘I talked to Duncan. He told me he wants rid of you.’
‘You’d say anything.’
‘You were a fling, he told me. It didn’t even have to be you. Just someone to screw because soon he’d be married, soon he’d be on the leash. A bit of excitement before he settled down to a wife and family. He walked into the casino, there you were, you liked him, he liked you. Fine. You were his bit of spare, his bit on the side, surely you knew that. You were wham-bam, Lauren, you were fuck and forget.’
Lauren got up and walked across the room, then turned and walked to the other side, moving briskly, as if she were crossing a road against the traffic. She stopped and stood with her face very close to the wall.
‘You would say that. It’s what you’re supposed to say.’ She was trembling slightly – Stella could see the quake in her shoulders. ‘You’re supposed to charge me or let me go, haven’t I got that right?’
Frank Silano sat down with her, but he was the night-watchman. He put the tape on and listed those present but didn’t ask any questions.
Stella was in with Mike Sorley. ‘She’s been given rest periods, food and drink and so on?’
‘All by the book.’
‘Been offered a lawyer.’
‘She has.’
He looked at the transcripts. ‘You’ve had her since late morning, it’s now six thirty, you’re not getting anywhere, are you?’
‘Not so far, not really. I might need an extension.’
‘It’s all conjecture,’ Sorley said. ‘What about Bloss and Kimber? There’s more of a return in that. We know we can nail them: there’s DNA.’
Sorley had requested additional officers and wanted to be sure that his money was being well spent. The AMIP-5 squad room was now three squad rooms and there were fifteen extra officers allocated to the task of finding Leon Bloss and Robert Adrian Kimber.
‘There’s a media team making sure that we get maximum coverage, we’ve got an extensive house-to-house going, we’re still working the Harefield Estate where Kimber used to live, we’re trying to get Bloss through employment records, local tax offices and credit card companies, we’re trying Blosses and Kimbers in the phone book in the hope of finding relatives, it’s thorough so it’s slow.’
‘You can have her tonight and tomorrow until the twenty-four hours are up. Ask me about an extension then, but I’m not sure. You’ve gone off a bit fast here. You’ve jumped the gun.’ Sorley shook a cigarette from a packet that bore the legend SMOKING CAUSES LUNG CANCER AND OTHER SERIOUS RESPIRATORY ILLNESSES. It was a lot of information for the space available. He lit a cigarette, but he didn’t cough. The box of man-sized tissues on his desk was unopened. ‘You had a search team in at her flat?’
‘And at Palmer’s.’
‘Find anything?’
‘Still looking.’
‘You’ve no evidence for this, Stella; you’re working off a maybe.’
Stella said, ‘No, I’m right.’ Then, ‘Are you feeling better?’
He smiled. ‘Cigarettes and whisky,’ he said, ‘that’s the way.’
81
JD delivered Bloss’s money to the Isle of Dogs, as promised. He said, ‘Billy wants you gone.’
‘I’m going.’
‘Wants you gone now.’
‘I know that. There’s something I have to do.’
‘Wants you gone tonight.’
Bloss sighed. He said, ‘I’ll be gone soon enough.’
They were standing close to the tall windows. JD took Bloss by the arm, his fingers curling hard into the bicep. ‘This isn’t advice, you cunt, this is what to do. It’s a message from Billy.’
Bloss said, ‘I understand. I’ve got it.’
‘You’d better.’ Freckles of JD’s saliva dotted Bloss’s face.
‘Sit down,’ Bloss said. He smiled and wagged the envelope that held the money. ‘I don’t need to count this, do I?’
‘If you like.’
Bloss tossed it down on to a table. ‘I don’t think I do. Have a drink. You’re not working tonight, are you?’ He was taking the heat out of things, making it clear he would do as he was told.
JD sat on the sofa and took the glass of Scotch that Bloss offered. He’d done his work, he’d put the frighteners on, and he’d got the result he needed. Now he could relax a little. He said, ‘Billy’s well pissed off with you.’
‘Tell him not to worry.’
‘He has to be protected.’
‘Of course,’ Bloss agreed. ‘Wait there, I’ll get the tape.’
‘What tape?’
‘Billy didn’t tell you?’ JD looked puzzled. ‘A tape I took from Oscar Gribbin: it shows Billy and Gribbin doing business.’
‘You’re joking.’
‘Billy asked me to get it for him. I got it.’
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Bloss walked past the sofa and into the screened-off bedroom area. He found the tape and took it back, lobbing it on to the sofa so that it fell next to JD, who picked it up. Bloss had also brought a hammer and the garrotte. JD was removing the tape from its cover when he realized that Bloss hadn’t come back into his sight-line. The adrenalin rush got him halfway to his feet before Bloss side-swiped him with the hammer.
JD made a sound deep in his throat and sat back down; he slumped sideways. Bloss straightened him up and put the garrotte in place, taking up the slack. JD’s arms rose, as if to go to his throat, but then fell again.
Bloss put his back into it.
When he was done, he straightened up, massaging his bicep where JD’s fingers had bitten in, then walked round to confront the man directly. He said, ‘Don’t fucking talk to me like that.’
He stashed most of the money in a drawer alongside the videotape of Billy and Oscar Gribbin, then put in a call to the Trader. He said, ‘I’m going to be up near the Strip.’
‘You’re trouble,’ Trader told him. ‘Big time. The whole fucking world’s looking for you.’
‘Have you made a sale?’
‘No.’
‘I need that money.’
‘Then you’ll have to take what you can get. The bracelet’s unmarketable. You know why.’
‘So who’s going to buy it?’
‘I’ll buy it. It’ll have to be broken, it’s the only way.’
‘How much?’
‘Two grand.’
Bloss was silent for a moment. He was trying to hold in his anger. Finally, he said, ‘Two? No, ten.’
‘This bracelet has to be broken quickly. I don’t know what the stones will make. I can give you five. We stop there.’
‘Five,’ Bloss said. ‘But I need it tonight.’
They met in the shebeen where Kimber had holed up. There was a poker game in the back room; it might have been the same poker game. Bloss took the five grand without saying thank you. The Trader was eager to be away. He said, ‘They’ve got you down for it. This cop definitely wants you for it – Mooney.’
‘I know. She’s not a problem.’
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