The Killing Club

by Angela Dracup

  The bus eventually drew up in a large square, bordered with shops and cafés and hotels. Everybody got off and Craig followed on.

  He wandered along the pavements, looking mainly into the cafés. He hadn’t eaten since the day before and his stomach was hollow and growling with hunger. The cafés seemed to be full of women and children: old ladies talking together and eating scones and cakes, young mums trying desperately to talk to their friends whilst keeping an eye on their kids at the same time. He knew he would stick out like a sore thumb amongst them. But at least he had money in his pocket and that was something to be grateful for.

  He walked around the square three times until eventually he steeled himself to walk into the doorway of a small friendly looking pub. He went to the toilet first and washed his face and hands, then smoothed his hair down. Staring at himself in the mirror; he didn’t think he looked too bad. True, there was a shadow of stubble beginning to show on his face, but there was nothing to be done about that. Anyway, he’d noticed plenty of young guys around who didn’t seem that fussed about shaving.

  Nobody took much notice of him settled at a small table in a corner of the bar, as he sipped a half pint of lager and ate a cheeseburger and chips he had ordered at the bar. It was warm and cosy in the pub and after he’d finished his food he started to feel better about his situation. The lager had given him a little boost of confidence and he went up to the bar and bought a packet of cigarettes and a slim folder of matches which bore the name of the pub. The woman at the bar was plump and pretty and friendly. ‘Are you a student, love?’ she asked him.

  He shook his head. ‘No.’ He could see she was curious about him, and he’d have liked to have been able to tell her about what job he had. Not the clearing-up job in the pub back near Mrs Hartwell’s place, which he’d no chance of getting now. He’d probably never dare show his face again in that part of the world. He couldn’t go back to Mrs Hartwell, not with her daughter hating him so much and wanting rid of him. The thought saddened him.

  ‘Hey, cheer up,’ the bar lady said. ‘It may never happen.’

  Oh, but it has happened, he thought. I murdered a guy and got thrown in prison. Not too many people could say that. But then, not too many people would want to. He gave her a little smile. ‘No, that’s right,’ he said.

  He went back to his table and lit a cigarette, the first one he’d had in a long time. Pulling the acrid smoke into his lungs made him relax further. Heaven.

  But when the cigarette and the lager were finished, he started to wonder what to do next. He tried to organize his thoughts, factoring in all the things which had happened since he arrived at the Old School House. Mrs Hartwell being so kind, and then getting so worried about that bloke Mac the Knife turning up. And then there was this puzzle about the man called Christian who had died: her next of kin, Mac the Knife had said. And was he the same person whose flat they had been to see? Mrs Hartwell had said it had belonged to a friend of hers. He didn’t quite understand it all. But one thing he knew for certain, he trusted Mrs Hartwell, he knew she liked him and that he liked her. And that had she wanted to help him and now it was all spoiled.

  Someone had stopped by his table, looking down at him. He jerked his head up. The woman he saw was wearing one of the lowest cut dresses he’d seen, outside of lasses he’d seen on TV. Her boobs were the size of grapefruits, almost falling out of her dress as she bent towards him. ‘Can I cadge a match?’ she asked, glancing at his little cardboard wallet.

  Craig recalled watching films where men offered to light a lady’s cigarette, holding the match whilst the lady inhaled. ‘Sure.’ He tore a match from the folder and struck it against the lighting strip. He noticed his hand shaking slightly as he held out the match and she bent her head. She was wearing a spicy perfume which tickled his nostrils. She smiled at him and slid on to the stool next to him. ‘Do you mind if I sit here?’ she said, placing her large glass of white wine on the table.

  ‘No,’ Craig said, slightly alarmed at this turn of events.

  ‘I’m Alma,’ she said, looking at him expectantly.

  ‘Oh, aye.’ He took in her long auburn waves, her dangling earrings, and her heavy make-up. He tried to keep his glance from her breasts which were both alarming and exciting.

  She smiled. ‘And what’s your name?’

  ‘Craig.’

  ‘Ooh. That’s a nice name. Is it Scotch?’

  ‘Scottish,’ he corrected her, remembering what his granddad used to tell him.

  ‘Really.’ She took a draw on her cigarette. ‘You know your stuff, don’t you?’

  He made no comment. Her presence seemed to envelop him: the look of her, the smell of her, the sense that she wanted something from him.

  ‘So what’s a big handsome lad like you doing in a place like this?’ she asked, causing him to wonder if she was being friendly or sending him up.

  ‘Just having summat to eat,’ he said.

  ‘Haven’t seen you round here before.’ She was eyeing him with close interest, sizing him up.

  ‘No,’ he agreed.

  ‘Strong silent type, aren’t you?’ she said, laughing and blowing out a plume of smoke from her glistening fuchsia-pink lips.

  He couldn’t think of an answer.

  ‘Like another lager?’ she asked, pointing to his empty glass. ‘I’m buying.’

  He hesitated. He wished she would go away, leave him alone to think. ‘All right,’ he said.

  She got up and went to the bar. A few moments later she was back at the table. ‘Craig, love, I’m really sorry but I’m a bit short for paying. Could you lend me a quid?’

  Craig searched in his pockets, his hand going to his back pocket and lifting out the wad of notes he’d taken from Ruth Hartwell’s teapot, then quickly shoving it back again as he remembered that the bus driver had given him some loose change, which he’d put in his other pocket. He got out two pound coins and gave them to the woman.

  ‘Thanks love, I only need the one,’ she said, giving him back the coin she didn’t require and sashaying back to the bar.

  ‘There,’ she said on her return. ‘Cheers.’

  She’d bought him a pint and he knew he had to be careful; the half had already made him a little woozy. He sipped it cautiously and answered the woman in monosyllables as she asked him questions about himself. Where did he work? Where were his family? Did he have a girlfriend? What sort of music did he like?

  After a while, she suggested that they move on to another bar, somewhere where they laid on a bit of entertainment.

  ‘OK,’ he said, planning to give her the slip once they were outside.

  He followed her out of the exit door which led to the car park behind the pub. She took his hand and led the way to a Range Rover which stood in a far corner. For a moment he thought she was going to open it up and invite him to take a ride with her. His mind whirled, and spun even faster when she pushed him up against the rear door of the car and reached up to kiss him, at the same time grasping one of his hands and placing it between her breasts.

  Her lips worked over his, sucking and nibbling. And her hands were all over him, on his buttocks, then between his legs. Long-pent-up sexual desire seized him until he was in a state of helplessness to resist, but then suddenly he was aware of an empty feeling in his left-hand pocket and, with the sure instinct of a criminal who has served time, he knew he had been robbed. His stash of twenties, Ruth Hartwell’s twenties, had been taken by this thieving slut.

  He peeled her arms away from him and in one easy movement twisted her wrists around her back in the time-honoured manner in which the police and prison officers nick and control wrongdoers. She screamed and kicked out at him with the pointed heel tips of her shoes.

  ‘Give me the money back, you bitch,’ he hissed at her. ‘Give it back – or you’re dead. I’ve done it once before, I can easy do it again.’ He shook her like a German shepherd dog shaking an annoying poodle.

  ‘Jesus!’ she yelled. ‘Let
me go, you bloody maniac.’

  He slapped the back of her head hard. ‘Where’s the money?’ he said, holding her fast with one hand whilst the other roamed her body. He felt a square lump on her upper thigh. Wrenching up her skirt he pulled the money from the elasticated top of her stocking and stashed it safely into his pocket.

  He kept hold of the woman, fury pulsing through him in hot red waves. He could easily strangle her; she was all flab and no muscle. But the anger wasn’t like he had felt when that bastard tried once too often to push himself on to his mum, just to give him, Craig, a load of misery. That anger had been almost sweet in its intense purity of purpose. This bitch simply wasn’t worth it.

  He knew she’d tell on him, make a fuss, raise the alarm. It couldn’t be helped. He thought of pulling her stockings off and tying her legs and arms together with them. It was what she deserved, but there was no point giving the police extra sticks to beat him with, once they caught up with him. Which they would. They always did, didn’t they? He’d seen it on the cop shows on TV. They had so much back-up and helicopters and guns and dogs and fuck knows what else. Oh yes, they’d get him. And then what?

  The woman was whimpering now, begging him to let her go. He thrust her from him and ran from the car park as though he were sprinting for Britain at the Olympics.

  ‘Jeremy phoned my mobile six times today,’ Cat told Swift later on that evening as they ate spaghetti threaded through a sauce of creamed artichokes at the kitchen table. A bottle of cabernet sauvignon stood on the table between them. Outside, the sky was darkening behind the hills in a cradling bowl of glowing orange light.

  ‘And?’ he asked.

  ‘And I didn’t answer. Then I rang him myself just before we started supper.’

  ‘Taking the initiative,’ Swift observed, dryly. ‘Often a good move.’

  ‘He wants to meet up. Make things right between us.’ She shook her head. ‘As if.’

  ‘Does he know where you are?’ Swift asked, choosing not to follow up with the more obvious question.

  ‘I guess not. I certainly left no clues for him to follow.’

  ‘But once you meet up?’

  ‘Oh, he’ll most probably hire the most expensive private investigator he can find and have me followed. Not being in control is a pastime he avoids.’

  So he’ll make a nuisance of himself, Swift thought.

  ‘Don’t worry, I can handle him,’ Cat said.

  Swift noted that she had hardly eaten any of her spaghetti. The issue of her and Jeremy’s relationship was constantly with her, throbbing in the background. In the past few minutes she had tried valiantly to find other topics of conversation, but Jeremy kept popping up, little fragments of his personality being gradually revealed along the way. And they were not sounding so sweet: Swift was gaining a picture of a controlling, manipulative and possibly ruthless man who liked having his own way.

  He laid his fork down. ‘Can we talk shop for a moment?’

  Her head jerked up. ‘Sure.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking that maybe we need to do a bit more digging regarding Charles Brunswick.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m with you. Go on.’

  ‘Brunswick insists that he hadn’t seen Christian Hartwell for a long time. And yet it looks very likely they were at the lap-dancing club together.’

  ‘Maybe Brunswick was anxious for that not to come out. Well, at least the bit about him, Charles, frequenting the club.’

  ‘Agreed. And maybe there was more to it than that. Maybe something relating to the rather amazing story Harriet had to relate about her and Charles’s adventures in a North African desert nearly twenty years ago.’

  ‘Ah yes, the desert affair,’ she said, swivelling spaghetti strands on to her fork and regarding them with contemplative interest. ‘Have you any theories?’

  ‘Not a one. Not yet. Just a hunch we ought to dig a bit.’

  She laughed. ‘It would be interesting to find out more about what happened according to the authorities in Algiers. Do I need to polish up my French after all?’

  ‘I think it would be helpful for you to make contact with them. And I also think it would be useful for you to speak to Charles Brunswick.’

  ‘Me not you?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘Any reason?’

  ‘I think he might be persuaded to be more … talkative with you.’

  She raised her eyebrows. ‘The feminine touch, eh?’

  ‘Afraid so. I hope you’re not going to get the sex discrimination police on to me.’

  ‘I might find it in my heart to let you off. And yes, I’m up for it. Where and when?’

  ‘At his place, either home or work. I think Ravi Stratton might be persuaded to fork out expenses for the train fare to London and back.’

  There was silence for a time.

  ‘Ravi Stratton was wearing a hearing aid, this morning,’ Swift remarked, taking a sip of wine.

  Cat’s mouth fell open. ‘So that’s the reason for her not seeming quite at the cutting edge of things in review meetings.’

  ‘It’s a possible theory,’ Swift agreed.

  ‘You know, I’ve always admired her because she’s had a tough time getting to the point she is now. But I could never work out why she just wasn’t fully in touch with the snappy style of modern-day police parlance.’ Cat grimaced. ‘Whatever that is.’

  ‘What sort of tough time?’ Swift asked.

  ‘Well, for a start, she’s Anglo-Indian and a woman,’ Cat explained. ‘That’s quite a handicap for anyone wanting to break through the glass ceiling which still has a place in the police force. She’s married to a High Court judge, which might have its drawbacks. And her first child was stillborn.’

  ‘She’s doing pretty well, then.’

  As they resumed eating their spaghetti, Swift’s phone rang. It was Ruth Hartwell, calling from the hospital. Being Ruth the first words she spoke were an apology for disturbing him at home at such a late hour.

  She explained to him what her consultant’s current thinking was. ‘He’s advising me to stay in one more night,’ she said. ‘My blood pressure’s leapt up, which is hardly surprising in the circumstances. I’m inclined to be compliant about his recommendation but there are so many things worrying me.’

  ‘Just take your time, Mrs Hartwell.’

  Ruth began by describing the visit made to her house by the man calling himself Mac the Knife, an account whose details were remarkably consistent with the story Craig had told.

  ‘I should have told you before,’ she apologized. ‘I buried my head in the sand and pretended that all the nastiness this man had brought with him would simply melt away. But, of course, it was a vain hope. He tracked me down when I was walking in the park and threatened me again regarding these photographs he wanted. He got out some scissors and got hold of my dog. That’s when I blacked out.’

  Swift fumed silently at the contemplation of the cold cowardice of a man who would stalk a gentle woman like Ruth and make her life a misery.

  ‘Craig came to visit me this morning,’ she went on. ‘And Harriet arrived shortly afterwards.’ She stopped. Swift heard her let out a long sigh. ‘You’ve met them both,’ she said, ‘you can imagine that it was not a happy situation. Harriet’s gone off back to London in a huff and Craig’s … simply gone. I’m very concerned about them both. However, Harriet can look after herself rather better than he can. Can you do something to help?’

  ‘We’ll put out an alert for him,’ Swift said.

  ‘Yes, thank you.’ She sounded as though she had little hope of a good outcome for Craig – and Swift was in silent agreement.

  ‘Mrs Hartwell,’ he said. ‘Regarding the photographs you mentioned, the ones Christian’s solicitor gave you? Have you looked at them?’

  ‘Yes, I have.’

  ‘Did they throw any light on Christian’s death?’

  A pause. ‘Not really. No.’

  He allowed her time to elaborate, but she remaine
d quiet. He knew that the issue of Charles Brunswick’s presence in one of the shots would have concerned her, but decided that if she didn’t want to talk about it, then neither would he, not until Cat had done her follow-up on the flame-haired surgeon. What he did tell her was that he was now in possession of photographs found in the kitchen of her house. He gave her a brief description of why and how this had come about. Many of his clients and witnesses would have blown a fuse on hearing how their house had been entered without permission. Threats of recrimination would have ensued. Maybe legal advice sought. He and his colleagues had been through all of this before. But Ruth Hartwell instantly appreciated that the police had been acting in her best interests. But she still made no mention of Brunswick’s appearance in the photographs.

  Swift could hear the disquiet and fatigue in her voice. He was on the point of offering reassurances of how his team would be doing all they could to further the enquiry and find Craig, and then ending the call when she spoke once more.

  ‘In addition to the photographs, Christian’s solicitor also gave me a mobile phone which he had left in her keeping. He had asked her to give it to me in the event of his death.’

  Swift felt prickles raise the hairs on the back of his neck.

  ‘I’m afraid I didn’t quite know what to do with it. I put it in a drawer in the kitchen. I’m very sorry. I know I should have told you about it. I should have told you everything,’ she added, sadly. ‘I’ve been rather stupid.’

  ‘No, you were in a state of great anxiety,’ Swift said. ‘It’s hard to act in a calm, impartial way when you’re both grieving and under threat. There’s no need to apologize.’