Cold Kill

by David Lawrence

‘No?’ The Trader downed his drink and got up. ‘She certainly talks like one.’

  ‘She’s nothing,’ Bloss said. ‘Trust me.’

  There was a light covering of snow on rooftops and parked cars, but the hookers and the dealers were still out on the Strip. Business wasn’t great, but people had needs whatever the weather. The neon cut patterns in the snow.

  Bloss was talking to Kimber as one enthusiast to another. He was telling him to kill Stella Mooney. Kimber told him about Jan and the problems he’d had, but added that all was well now; all was possible. He mentioned the flat near Ladbroke Grove and the flat at Vigo Street. Bloss was looking for a lead, a way of turning things his way.

  ‘There’s a difference. You remember telling me about going into Valerie Blake’s flat, that you thought about waiting for her to come back, about being able to take your time.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Jan lives with someone. If you do Jan, it has to be like Kate Reilly. You’ll have to find a place, an opportunity, the right moment. Look what happened the other night. Look at the risk you ran. Stella Mooney lives on her own. You can get in; you can wait.’

  ‘I’ve been following Jan. I’ve been getting ready.’

  ‘You followed Stella.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking more about Jan.’

  ‘You could be there when she gets back. Be there in the dark, Bobby. Maybe you could hide and watch her until you’re ready. No one to see you, no one to interrupt.’

  Kimber said, ‘Yes, I could.’

  ‘Think of yourself in the dark, waiting, where are you –?’

  ‘In the bedroom. The bedroom’s at the back.’

  ‘You could be in a closet or under the bed.’

  Kimber said, ‘Yes, I could.’

  ‘You hear the door open and slam. She’s back. Maybe she’s going to have a drink or make something to eat. You could open the bedroom door a little and watch her doing that.’

  Kimber said, ‘Yes, I could.’

  ‘But whether it’s early or late, she’ll come into the bedroom, won’t she? Maybe you’ll have a lot of opportunity to watch her, maybe just a little, but she’ll come into the bedroom, to change her clothes, perhaps, get undressed, or to go to bed, and you could be there to watch.’

  Kimber said, ‘Yes, I could.’

  ‘And then you come out of hiding. And there she is.’

  Kimber said, ‘There she is, yes.’

  ‘This is just you, Bobby. Not us together. I have to go away for a while.’ Bloss put the Glock down where Kimber could see it.

  Kimber nodded. He said, ‘Yes, I could do that, couldn’t I?’

  ‘You could, Bobby. Yes, you really could.’

  Bloss walked through Notting Hill towards the tube, a face in the crowd, no one of note. He had bought a hat and a scarf and he bowed his head against the wind, hat low, scarf wound round.

  It was almost midnight, almost Christmas Eve. The last tube trains would be full of drunks and people trying not to notice drunks. Tomorrow Stella Mooney would be killed by Robert Adrian Kimber and the investigation would hit a wall; her death, cops on leave, tens of thousands of people at airline check-in counters...

  He passed a TV rental store and saw pictures of a small war taking place somewhere, of soldiers wearing bandoliers, a plane on a strafing-run. A moment later, his own face appeared, but by that time he had passed by.

  A skinny boy in a quilted coat was sitting backed up to the glass and steel frontage of ToyMart. He said, ‘Christ is coming, the Lord is coming.’

  82

  Stella, Maxine, Harriman and Stilano: the team. In the squad room they went into a huddle over coffee and chocolate, they talked tactics. Lauren Buchanan was still refusing a lawyer. People did that; it was a form of denial. Once a lawyer looked in, you had to start thinking of ‘proceedings’ as ‘official’. Stella had put Sorley on notice of a probable request for an extension, but he was still shrugging that one off.

  Harriman and Maxine had both been in with Lauren that morning, which meant Stella would sit down with her next. She said, ‘How does she seem?’

  ‘Like someone holding out,’ Harriman said.

  ‘You can talk about Valerie Blake, you can even talk about Leon Bloss, but you can’t talk about Duncan Palmer. Palmer’s a minefield.’

  ‘Same as yesterday,’ Stella said, ‘so that’s the way in.’

  ‘She’s just fooling herself,’ Silano said, ‘about Palmer.’

  Stella shook her head. ‘She believes it – herself and Duncan Palmer. She can see the future.’

  Lauren had put on some make-up, but the interview room light cast shadows and her eyes looked bruised. Stella sat down and switched on the tape. Maxine was in as observer.

  ‘We’re going to keep talking until we get somewhere,’ Stella said.

  ‘There’s nowhere to get to.’ Lauren lit a cigarette reflexively.

  ‘I’ve spent the last hour or so talking to Duncan Palmer. He told me what a pain in the arse you are, how he couldn’t get rid of you, how he only took you with him to America to keep you quiet.’

  Lauren smiled. ‘Yeah, right.’

  ‘He knows the whole story now. Duncan – he knows it all. That you talked to Leon Bloss, came to an arrangement. That Bloss killed Valerie for you.’ Lauren drew hard on her cigarette, making the paper crumple. ‘You can imagine what he thinks of you now. At first, you’re just a free fuck, up for it, a last-minute sex-spree. Then you’re a drag, you won’t let go. Then Valerie’s killed and you’re digging in, he can’t get rid of you. Now there’s Bloss and what you told him to do. Duncan hates you, Lauren, of course he does. He never really liked you all that much, but now he hates you.’

  ‘All this… all this is… you don’t know, you know nothing.’ Lauren turned away and shook her head. ‘You’re supposed to say it. What else would you say?’

  Stella stood in the squad room and stared out at the snow. Since early that morning, the fall had been heavy and the wind strong. The cars in the car park were coated, completely white, and the fall was drifting in corners.

  Her mobile went and she checked the display. Delaney. He said, ‘Are you spending Christmas with me?’

  ‘Or are you spending Christmas with me?’

  ‘You’ve got interesting wall-murals, but I’ve got a Christmas tree.’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘The Christmas tree.’

  ‘Of course.’

  She laughed. ‘I’ll have to go back before I come to you, collect some things. I don’t know how late I’ll be. There’s a fair chance I’ll be working tomorrow –’

  ‘Just come.’ He’d noticed that she’d said ‘back’ when referring to Vigo Street. Not, I’ll have to go home, but I’ll have to go back.

  ‘Okay.’

  He said, ‘I love you.’

  ‘I love you.’

  But there’s something I have to tell you about a man called Tom Davison. Something you’re not going to want to hear.

  Sorley caught her on her way through the squad room. He said, ‘You’re going to have to let her go.’

  ‘There’s some time.’

  ‘A little. Do you expect to get anywhere?’ Stella shrugged. ‘No. She’s going to walk, Stella.’

  ‘I know she did this. She paid Bloss to kill Valerie Blake.’

  ‘You may be right. I expect you are right. Only problem – there’s nothing in your favour. You moved too soon. As long as she goes on stonewalling, it’s just a theory.’

  ‘Unless we find Bloss.’

  ‘Does that seem likely just now?’

  Stella was silent on that one.

  She asked Marilyn Hayes to do the paperwork: time and circumstances of Lauren’s arrest, time and circumstances of her release, then collected some thin, bitter coffee from the squad vending machine and went to her desk. She picked up a few emails; she found a Twix bar deep in a drawer.

  There’s an hour before I have
to let her go. She can sit there and sweat, the bitch.

  As it happened, Stella didn’t need an hour. Twenty minutes later Nick Robson came back into the squad room with a couple of members of the search team that had spent the morning at Lauren Buchanan’s flat. He was holding a small plastic evidence bag.

  He said, ‘You might want this. It’s uncontaminated from the search site; don’t take it out of the bag.’

  Stella looked at the item inside. It wasn’t necessary to remove it. The engraving on the cross was clear: VB.

  When she went back to the interview room, Lauren had brightened her make-up and was wearing a cheery smile.

  ‘Is there more, or can I go now?’ she asked.

  ‘There’s more,’ Stella said. She switched on the tape but didn’t speak. Instead, she held the evidence bag up so that Lauren could see the cross. Harriman was sitting at the table now, next to Stella. He told the tape what was happening and he described the object in the bag. A gold cross engraved with the initials VB.

  ‘Did you really need to have this?’ Stella said, ‘I think you did. A token. An indulgence. The winner’s medal.’

  Lauren looked at the cross for about a minute; she didn’t blink.

  ‘Do you want to talk about it?’ Stella asked. ‘Because if you do, I’m here to listen.’

  The tape turned.

  ‘You could help us. We’re looking for Leon Bloss, the man you paid. Maybe you could tell us where to find him.’

  Lauren shook her head. She was crying.

  They left her alone for a while. They gave her some time; time to despair. Maxine and Silano went for coffee and sandwiches.

  Harriman said, ‘This Bloss is a piece of work.’

  Stella gave a sour laugh. ‘I can’t disagree.’

  ‘He takes a contract from Lauren Buchanan to kill Valerie Blake. He takes a possible contract from Billy Souza to kill Oscar Gribbin. He kills Valerie in a way that makes it seem she’s one in a string of other victims – clever-clever – then Robert Kimber comes into his life and he realizes that if Billy Souza activates the contract on Gribbin, he’s got a ready-made patsy.’

  ‘He thinks ahead. He’s a pro.’

  ‘He needed Kimber to kill, didn’t he – to start killing?’

  ‘So that his DNA would be at a murder scene, yes, but more than that – he had to make Kimber authentic. The man had already confessed to Valerie’s murder and been shown the door. If Bloss was going to put him in the frame for Gribbin’s murder, he needed him to actually be a killer and needed us to know that. Whatever evidence we held back, Kimber would be completely accurate about the details of Kate Reilly’s death because he’d killed her. After that, we wouldn’t have had him down as just a victim of the Judas Syndrome.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘Shrink speak.’

  ‘So Bloss kills Gribbin and thinks he’s away clear. Someone looking hard enough might make the Gribbin–Souza–Bloss connection, but who’d be looking? Kimber’s DNA is all over the shop and he’s already wanted for Kate Reilly’s murder. Case closed. Merry Christmas.’

  ‘Gribbin’s girlfriend was a piece of luck. Bloss could work her into the mix – not only Kimber’s DNA but an MO that goes back to Valerie Blake and then to Cotter’s victims. Bloss doesn’t know Cotter’s been caught. Maybe he thinks that, if he stays lucky, and if we’re looking to clear our files, we might decide to charge Kimber with the lot, including Valerie Blake. Couldn’t be better.’

  ‘What do you think he said to Kimber?’ Harriman asked.

  ‘Said to him?’

  ‘Bloss. What did he say to start him off: to make him kill Kate Reilly?’

  ‘I don’t suppose it took much,’ Stella said. She was remembering Kimber in the interview room, his fantasies of death, his gloating smile. ‘Just a whisper or two. Just a hint of the pleasures to come.’

  Harriman looked at her. She was smiling, as if she’d made a poor joke, but a shiver ran through her.

  Stella and Lauren; Lauren and Stella. They took rest breaks, they had coffee. Neither spoke. They sat together for a long time. Dusk was coming in, a smoky light filtering through the snowfall. It wasn’t by the book, this sitting and saying nothing, but Stella had a feel for it.

  Lauren said, ‘I thought it was the right thing to do.’

  Stella switched on the tape. She gave details of those present and the time.

  ‘It was the only thing to do,’ Lauren added, nodding as if backing her own opinion. ‘It’s what they all do, when you have to put someone out of the way. Billy, Leon, JD, all the hard men; it’s what they do. It’s not so unusual. I knew that if she wasn’t there he would forget her, because that’s what happens. People forget.’ She looked at Stella. ‘You must know that.’

  Lauren went on talking; she talked for almost half an hour. She gave them a number for Leon Bloss that registered as ‘discontinued’.

  The street-people had gone to ground. The luckiest had found a refuge or a squat; the worst off were rolled in their bags under bridges or in subways. Jamie was in church, the place where he most wanted to be. He sat at the back and off to the right, where he could hear the choir at practice without being seen. The voices thrilled him; they opened portals to God. When he looked towards the choir stalls, he could see, in the stained glass, the risen Christ surrounded by angels.

  It was the church where Kimber had murdered Kate Reilly.

  When the voices came to an end, Jamie got on to his knees, then on to his stomach, and lay down in the space between the pews. No one could see him there. He pulled his bag over and took a hassock as a pillow. Long after the choir had left and the church had been dimmed to a single light above the altar, Jamie could hear the rustling of the wings of angels.

  83

  Leon Bloss packed a bag, then he made a phone call. He pressed buttons to go from one recorded voice to the next. The seventh voice told him that due to blizzard conditions, there were no flights leaving Heathrow Airport. Calls to Gatwick, Stansted and Luton produced the same result. He switched on the TV and got the news and weather. It seemed the country had closed down; the country had seized up. He called the ferry ports and was told that there was a gale blowing in the Channel; all sailings had been postponed, but, if the weather improved, ferries would be putting to sea the next day.

  He made a provisional booking for the three o’clock sailing for Le Havre on Christmas Day, then stood by the windows looking at the white-out on the river and wondering who had fixed this for him, who had organized this kind of luck. An odd warbling sound broke the silence and he turned fast, not knowing what it could be, then realized it was JD’s mobile phone. JD sat motionless on the sofa. He’d been there all night and he wasn’t looking so good, his lips drawn back in a fixed grin, his face plum-dark. Bloss took the phone from JD’s pocket and looked at the display.

  Billy Souza calling.

  He let it ring out, then went to ‘Inbox’ and found fifteen missed calls, four of which were from Billy. Bloss was filled with a sudden rage that made him grind his teeth and clench his fists until his shoulders shook. He kicked out at JD’s legs and then again, kicking and screaming, making the body hop and sway, until his fury slackened. He should be gone by now, on his way to the airport, check-in would have been in an hour, take-off in three. He wondered when JD had been missed and reckoned it must have been late morning. He would have been expected to arrive at the casino at ten, would have been missed by, say, eleven, and the first calls would have been made then. Now it was one o’clock and JD had been out of touch for two hours. At first, Billy would have been more annoyed than concerned. JD had a girl, and they would have checked with her, but she wouldn’t have expected him to come home every night or say where he’d been. Soon, though, Billy would remember the errand he’d given JD the previous night.

  Take Bloss his money; tell him to leave now.

  Bloss had phones of his own, but the numbers had changed since he worked for Billy Souza. If they wanted him, t
hey’d have to make a house call. He thought it through: JD is late, Billy tells someone to put in a call. No reply. This happens a couple of times, then they phone the girl. She doesn’t know where he is, so she puts in a call and a few minutes later someone from Jumping Jacks does the same. Billy starts to get angry: he needs JD on the job because the casino is about to open. He tells them to keep trying, but they keep getting JD’s message. Finally, Billy puts in a couple of calls himself. Then he thinks back.

  Take Bloss his money...

  He went into the bedroom and collected his bag, his money, his fake passport, the videotape. He put in his copies of The Sandman and The Preacher and Elektra Assassin. The bag was a carry-on size rucksack – he hadn’t planned to stand around in baggage-reclaim halls being stared at by CCTV cameras. He shouldered the bag and left without a backward glance. There was nothing of Leon Bloss in the place, nothing that could identify him or provide a trace.

  Except, perhaps, JD, lolling back on the sofa cushions and black in the face with laughter.

  Jamie had slept for a while and dreamed of angels, their muscular wings and their perfect voices singing of the coming of Christ. When he woke, the echoes of those voices were still there, wafting among the roof beams.

  He walked down the aisle to the rood screen and then up to the altar. The table held a small crucifix about a foot high, Christ hanging there, nailed and racked. Jamie picked it up and looked at it closely. He put the crucifix under his padded coat, holding it trapped with one arm, and smiled a secret smile.

  84

  It had been easy for the hoodie-boys and it was easy for Kimber, because, all in all, properties are easy to break into; even easier if dark falls by four o’clock. Stella had put in a call to a house-security firm who had never called back. Christmas was their busy time: Christmas and summer holidays. Kimber hit the same bedroom window that the boys had hit, used his hammer to knock open the same window lock, climbed in the same way.

  He pulled the blind against the weather and stood in the dark for a moment, breathing deeply. He could smell her smells. The bedroom light was on a dimmer switch. Kimber turned it on low and made a tour of the room. Everything was there, just as he’d imagined it: clothes in a closet that was fronted by a long mirror, other clothes in drawers, perfumes and make-up and creams, bits and pieces of inexpensive jewellery, personal items – personal. He had brought a little bag with him. Bag of tricks. He put it on the floor, took off his outer clothes and draped them over a radiator, then went through into the larger room.