In Her Blood

by Annie Hauxwell

  Doyle put his mug down, eased himself out of the armchair and went over to the kettle. He filled it up at the butler sink, where in the old days Frank had kept eels fresh. As a little boy, Doyle used to stand on tiptoe and peer at them, horrified but fascinated by the writhing and thrashing.

  He put the kettle onto the gas ring and turned to Coulthard, who was watching him nervously.

  Coulthard was slumped on a kitchen chair. His shirt hung at his waist, his chest spattered with blood and snot from his broken nose and busted teeth.

  ‘No more Mr Nice Guy,’ said Doyle.

  The kettle’s whistle began to sing. He turned off the gas, wrapped a dirty tea towel around the handle and picked up the kettle. He nodded at the lads, who grabbed Coulthard’s arms.

  ‘One more time, Mr Coulthard. Did you kill my daughter?’

  Despite the cold, Coulthard was covered in clammy sweat. ‘How many times do I have to say it?’ he cried. ‘No! It wasn’t me and I don’t know who it was! All I did was make sure the investigator running the job couldn’t get anywhere with it.’

  ‘Tell me one more time,’ said Doyle.

  Spitting blood and struggling to breathe, Coulthard gabbled through his story again. ‘After you clocked the blokes doing surveillance – and don’t forget I was able to check and confirm you were the target – the investigator wanted to continue the op. But I told her we didn’t have the bodies. I knew that wouldn’t stop her, she’s a stubborn cow, so to make sure I told the boss there was nothing in it, that we should shut the investigation down. So he closed the file.’

  ‘You told me you were the boss. Now I find out from my partner that this bloke Nestor was the boss,’ said Doyle.

  Coulthard made a sucking sound. Doyle knew his mouth would be dry.

  ‘I never said I was the big boss! I was boss of operations, yeah, but not the whole shooting match!’

  ‘So what you’re saying is that you’re a wanker and you lied to me about what you could do.’

  ‘No! Yes!’ Coulthard was falling apart.

  ‘So what about this bloke Nestor, then, the real boss. He shut down the job on your say-so?’

  ‘Yeah! I was sorting it, just the way you wanted.’

  Doyle brought his face close to Coulthard’s.

  ‘You lying toe rag. He closed the fucking job down off his own bat.’

  Coulthard blanched.

  ‘Well?’ roared Doyle.

  ‘Yeah, yeah, all right,’ said Coulthard.

  ‘Why?’ demanded Doyle.

  ‘He didn’t say. And now he’s dead so there’s no way to find out.’

  So Coulthard didn’t know about Nestor’s connection with Fernley-Price, thought Doyle, and that his dosh was tied up with the banker wanker. How must Nestor have felt, discovering that his money was now invested in Doyle’s enterprises? As long as Doyle was doing well, so was Nestor. If Doyle went down, Nestor stood to lose everything. Of course he stopped the investigation.

  Was that enough to make the geezer top himself? Guilt? Doyle couldn’t stand not knowing. So Nestor was turning a blind eye to the misdeeds he was supposed to pursue – so what? It was the same in every bloody regulatory authority in the kingdom. There must be something else, but Doyle couldn’t put his finger on it.

  ‘I’m very disappointed,’ he said to Coulthard as he advanced towards him with the steaming kettle.

  Coulthard’s eyes were wide with fear. ‘I looked after your interests, didn’t I?’ he screamed. ‘I didn’t know the informant was your daughter and I didn’t know Nestor was involved!’

  ‘I can’t hear you properly. Who killed my Gina then?’ snarled Doyle.

  The lads braced themselves and licked their lips. Doyle started to tip the kettle. He didn’t want the water to go too far off the boil.

  Outside, a motor started. Doyle paused. He looked at the lads and the lads looked back, gormless. The motor roared.

  ‘For fuck’s sake!’ yelled Doyle.

  The lads knew this cue. They ran to the door, fumbled with the latch and finally flung it open.

  ‘The car!’ one shouted.

  The Merc was bouncing down the gravel incline, headlights ablaze. The lads shot after it. Doyle put down the kettle and ran out of the shed after them, registering on the way out that the light over the door wasn’t on.

  ‘Get that fucking car and bring the little toe rags in it to me!’ he bellowed, as they ran down the incline shouting abuse at the disappearing tail lights.

  From out of the darkness an old-fashioned milk bottle connected hard with the back of Doyle’s head and he went down, face first.

  Berlin dropped the milk bottle, still in one piece. They don’t make them like that any more, she thought, running into the shed and straight to the astonished Coulthard. Plastic ties bound him to the kitchen chair. She grabbed an old knife from the sink and sliced through them with one cut. They were obviously from Poundsavers.

  She pulled him to his feet and he hobbled after her, joints stiff from lack of circulation. Shuffling past Doyle’s prone form he helped life return to his legs by giving Doyle a good kick in the guts.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, come on!’ hissed Berlin.

  He caught up and followed her across the creaking sheet of iron. When they got to the other side, Berlin kicked it into the channel. Looking back they could see the Merc had hit a ditch and was hanging at an angle, its motor still roaring. The lads were caught in the glare from the high beams, standing there, staring at it.

  Berlin and Coulthard ran like the clappers.

  Berlin hailed a cab heading west down Roman Road. It pulled over and she opened the door.

  ‘I’m going to resign,’ mumbled Coulthard.

  ‘No, you’re not,’ she replied. She leant on the cab door. He could see she was trembling with fatigue.

  ‘Jesus, you put Doyle down,’ he whispered. He didn’t know who he should be more afraid of: her or Doyle.

  ‘I wasn’t even there,’ she said. ‘Some slick joyriders trashed his car and you took the opportunity to snap the ties and belt him. A tough bloke like you, in the gym all the time.’

  She was just too smart for her own good. He wondered how much she had heard.

  ‘How did you know they had me?’

  When he got no reply he remembered his manners.

  ‘I mean … look, thanks.’ He glanced up and down the road, nervous. ‘What was going on back there, with Doyle, I should explain. It was a misunderstanding.’

  ‘You obstructed my investigation because you owed him.’

  ‘Something like that,’ he stuttered.

  ‘Well, now you owe me.’

  Now he knew who to fear most. She gestured and he climbed in the cab, as meek as a lamb. ‘What are you going to do, you know, about all this?’ he asked, his voice tight with trepidation.

  ‘Bank it,’ she said, and slammed the cab door.

  44

  A HOT BATH eased Berlin’s aching back, but she knew that tomorrow she would feel it in her legs. She hadn’t run so far, so fast in years. The contents of an ampoule had finally subdued the tremor in her muscles that she hadn’t been able to control. She wanted to believe it was the adrenalin draining out of her system, but she knew it was more likely the onset of withdrawal because of the delay in getting to the heroin. It was a precursor of worse to come if she didn’t sort something out.

  Her world had been the antithesis of the stereotypical junkie’s universe. She had lived an ordered, careful existence according to a strict timetable. Now she was descending into the chaotic lifestyle you’d associate with a rampant illegal addiction. And the real nightmare hadn’t even begun.

  She feared that Dempster would prove unreliable, but she had to keep that option open as the alternative was high risk. She hadn’t heard a word from him since their row, but tomorrow she would be doing more of his dirty work. She had to keep her end of the bargain. Time was running out.

  A sense of foreboding threatened to dominate her, b
ut she had to get past it, and fast. Coulthard’s gratitude and contrition would last about as long as her bath. She knew him too well. It wouldn’t be long before the whole episode would become another one of his stories, where he escaped the clutches of the bad guy single-handed. Still, she didn’t regret it. You wouldn’t leave a dog in Doyle’s hands, let alone a human being. Even if it was Coulthard. And she had eliminated one risk: she wouldn’t have to worry about her disciplinary proceedings.

  She eased herself out of the bath, wrapped herself in a thick towelling dressing gown and opened her computer. She had ‘borrowed’ an old version of analytical software from work, and now it would come in very handy.

  *

  Information is just a collection of discrete facts, perceptions and feelings. Subjecting it to a process produces intelligence: actionable knowledge. This was work that required perspiration, not inspiration. Sift, review, collate, eliminate.

  Coulthard owed Doyle and interfered with Berlin’s investigation, but where was the evidence to support the proposition that he killed Gina Doyle? He hadn’t known who she was, and there was only a mobile number for her in the logs.

  Gina wasn’t the type to be easily lured to her death. The wound at her neck was very particular too. Berlin had a note from Thompson’s description at the case conference: ‘A bite or a tear. A wound from some kind of serrated edge or teeth that perforated the neck, almost severing the head.’ Coulthard was a wheedler, a dodger, a manipulator. He avoided dirty work. And Gina’s death had been dirty.

  She had been wrong about him forcing Nestor to shut down the investigation. Nestor had taken the initiative there because … the thought took her nowhere. She looked at her charts and realised there was nothing to indicate Nestor’s motives or to tie him to Gina.

  When Doyle was interrogating Coulthard he said his partner had told him Nestor was the boss. Doyle also knew that Nestor had put a stop to the inquiries ‘off his own bat’. Doyle hadn’t elaborated on the nature of the partnership – domestic or business – or how the partner had come by his or her information about Nestor. Another broken connection, indicating a line of inquiry.

  She had thought Nestor weak, but not corrupt. Nestor could have vetoed her investigation at any time. Why would he need to kill?

  She struggled with the connections, but she couldn’t tie any of them back to Gina’s murder.

  She sat back and reviewed her work. She took cold comfort from the fact that she was ahead of Flint and Thompson. She made a note of unresolved lines of inquiry: Nestor’s inaudible conversation with an unidentified person who may have murdered him, the Doyle family file and Harvey Marks’s account of their history, and now the intel from Doyle’s interrogation of Coulthard. She wondered if she should have let the latter go on a bit longer, but dismissed the thought as uncharitable.

  She had also known the victim, which gave her some insight into Juliet Bravo/Gina Doyle. It was all progress, of a sort. Logging names, places, vehicles, telephone numbers and all the other myriad facts, significant and seemingly insignificant, that swirl around an investigation was just the first stage. Teasing out the links between them would expose the gaps in her knowledge and provide a rationale for the next stage.

  No one would NFA this investigation. She just had to keep her head on straight long enough to see it through.

  The Sixth Day

  45

  BERLIN KNEW SHE was being kept waiting quite deliberately, even though she was the first appointment of the day. It was a test.

  She had woken with a splitting headache and for a brief moment had wondered why the day was so unwelcome. Then she had tried to move. Her knees ached and her legs were as stiff as boards. The one thought that sustained her was that Coulthard must feel much worse.

  She wriggled her toes to get the blood moving through her taut muscles, determined to remain calm, to give no indication of weakness. This was one she had to tough out.

  Through his office window Bonnington watched Berlin in the waiting room. She sat perfectly still, apparently reading a magazine, relaxed. Too relaxed. She looked tired, but she was alert, able to focus on what she was reading, so she hadn’t got her hands on sedatives or tranquillisers. Which she would certainly need if she was in withdrawal.

  She glanced up and caught him staring. Bonnington tasted bile at the back of his throat. He tried to tell himself that his anger should be directed only at the establishment that allowed this travesty to continue. It was wrong.

  Berlin held his gaze. He felt his rage rising. She was a victim. He mustn’t blame her. She needed his help. But it was no good. Her defiance was obvious. Discipline was the answer.

  He opened his office door and stepped into the hall wearing his best smile.

  ‘Berlin, would you like to come in?’

  Berlin reclined on the purple beanbag and watched Bonnington squirm on his. A thin film of sweat beaded his upper lip.

  ‘This is blackmail,’ he snapped.

  ‘I’m levelling the playing field,’ she said. ‘You think you have the right to make choices about my life, so I’m just taking a little bit of that power back. It’s very simple. Dempster is convinced you’re a killer and he wants me to help him prove it.’

  ‘And you will if I don’t give you a referral to another heroin prescriber?’

  ‘Correct,’ she said.

  Bonnington flushed and sprang to his feet. ‘This is all wrong. I’m going straight to the police and having this out. I’m not going to be blackmailed by a crooked policeman and a degenerate …’ He stopped himself before he said it.

  ‘Junkie,’ she finished his sentence. Now she had him. He’d lost his cool and revealed his true feelings. She adjusted her tone to one of urgent persuasion.

  ‘If you’re charged with murder, or just taken in to help police with their inquiries, as they say, the papers will get hold of it. Even if the charges are dropped, you’re finished professionally.’

  This gave Bonnington pause. He sat down again and regarded her with a cold stare. It was disconcerting how quickly he seemed to regain his self-control.

  ‘So what exactly have you got that you think would convince Dempster to charge me? I didn’t kill her.’

  Berlin took a moment. Gotcha.

  ‘Her? I was talking about Lazenby.’

  46

  THOMPSON DISLIKED THIS time of year. He arrived at work and left again in the dark. But what he particularly loathed was being kept in the dark all day.

  The morning’s steady stream of irritations had become an avalanche of frustration: incomplete logs, computer failures, calls not returned. This was the final bloody straw. Yesterday he had sent one of his outside team to find the old file on the Doyle family. Now he was reading an email that told him the file had been signed out of the archives to DCI Dempster.

  Dempster was beginning to get on Thompson’s nerves.

  He stood up and reached for his coat. Flint sprang from his chair but Thompson waved him back. ‘Keep at it, Flint. I need to see a man about a dog,’ he said and strode out, dialling a number on his mobile.

  Dempster had made light of snatching Berlin from Flint and Thompson, but it hadn’t been nearly as easy or without consequence as he’d let her believe. The call from Thompson wasn’t entirely unexpected. Now they were going to meet in what he hoped would be a damage limitation exercise.

  Thompson had made the first move and had chosen the turf. They were going to meet at Becks in Red Lion Street. WC1. Well away from the police station. It wasn’t Dempster’s idea of lunch, but he had a feeling that Thompson was one of those types who would smirk if he had suggested sushi.

  Dempster decided to keep shtum and let Thompson make the running. It would be a struggle for him to say nothing, but when necessary he could deliver the silent treatment. It seemed to work for Berlin. Or he would lie. He didn’t have a problem with lying to another officer. He didn’t know Thompson from a bar of soap and he had to cover his arse.

  *


  Thompson watched Dempster examine the menu in forensic detail.

  ‘It better be good,’ he said.

  ‘I can guarantee it,’ said Thompson. ‘Everything’s cooked in beef dripping, the old-fashioned way. This place hasn’t been Jamie-Olivered.’ He chuckled at his own joke, but Dempster didn’t seem to get it. He’s a queer fish, thought Thompson. He also noticed Dempster only seemed to have the one suit, which didn’t fit him anyway.

  A harassed waitress hovered over them. Thompson ordered black pudding, bacon, egg and chips, bread and butter and tea.

  ‘I’ll have the same,’ said Dempster.

  She grabbed a couple of plates of ready-buttered bread from a counter and plonked them down, then left them to it.

  ‘What’s your interest in Doyle?’ Thompson jumped straight in.

  ‘You’re aware I’m here to support the taskings of the local Murder Investigation Team who are working Lazenby’s murder. There may be a connection to Doyle.’

  There was no connection and they both knew it, thought Thompson. He frowned. ‘I didn’t ask for a quote from operational policy, mate,’ he muttered. He waited to see if Dempster would elaborate, but he just sat there. Thompson ate a piece of bread and butter. ‘You signed out an old file on Doyle’s father, the grandfather of my victim,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Dempster.

  ‘So, what’s the connection to Lazenby?’

  Thompson knew damn well that Dempster must have got the file for Berlin, in exchange for some underhand bit of business they were doing. Dempster didn’t reply, so he probed from another angle.

  ‘There was no reason for Berlin to run from us, you know.’

  ‘Your bloke was chasing her.’

  ‘Impetuous youth. He thinks it’s a sign of disrespect when you’re talking to someone and they run away.’ He paused as the waitress returned with two enormous plates of food, each topped with a thick wedge of glistening, marbled black pudding. Thompson fell on it like a starving man.

  ‘You just happened to be handy, did you? To do your Sir Galahad impression. Pass the brown sauce,’ he said, mouth full.