The Mourner

by Susan Wilkins

  A puzzled frown settled on Nicci’s brow. ‘Paige Hollister? No one else?’

  Eddie leant forward, his forehead and wiry eyebrows filled the screen. ‘I’m emailing you them now. See what you think, boss. Cosy dinner, very intimate, then next morning, in the hotel foyer, they had words.’

  ‘What d’you mean words?’ Her tone was tetchy, she found Skype calls frustrating.

  ‘Looks like a row to me. Warner’s trying to keep it down, but Hollister’s having a right old strop. Walks out on her.’

  Nicci sighed. ‘No sign of Kaz Phelps?’

  The image on the screen fractured into rectangles for a moment then rearranged itself in the form of Eddie’s smiling features. ‘Nope. Unless Warner met her somewhere else.’

  ‘That’s possible.’

  Eddie rocked forward. ‘Come again?’

  ‘Did Warner go out for any length of time?’

  ‘Arrived about four in the afternoon. Had dinner in the brasserie at half seven. She and Paige Hollister checked out at ten the next morning. Didn’t have breakfast.’

  ‘Did Paige stay in the same room?’

  ‘Looks like it. I know I said I thought Robert Hollister was giving her one. But maybe that’s wrong. Maybe it was Warner and the wife?’

  The email icon on Nicci’s dock pinged with an incoming message. ‘Your email’s just arrived. Thanks, Eddie.’

  ‘No probs.’

  She hesitated for a second. ‘Oh, and well done.’

  His impish features broke into a broad grin. ‘Thanks, boss. Should be back mid-afternoon. You need anything else, give us a bell. Oh, hang on, nearly forgot the other thing. I was trying to tell you yesterday before I came up here—’

  ‘Yeah, okay, get on with it.’ Much as she wanted to, Nicci couldn’t rein in her impatience.

  The eyes on the screen blinked at her. ‘Ray – my mate who went under the train – I finally got his wife on the phone. Poor woman’s gutted. Delicate situation, obviously. She told me that just before he died he talked about – guess who – Helen Warner. He was helping her out.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘He never said. But thing is, Nic, he never mentioned that to me. And I asked him. So he was keeping it secret. Even after Warner’s death. What does that tell us?’

  Nicci was getting irritated. Was he being deliberately obtuse? ‘Well, what does it tell us?’

  ‘There was still something to hide. Tina – that’s Ray’s wife – she couldn’t tell me any more and I didn’t wanna press her.’

  Nicci stroked the soft skin between her brow and lids, it felt sticky and sore. It was all rolling round in her head, this new information. But somehow she couldn’t make it compute.

  She realized Eddie was staring at her and waiting.

  ‘Okay, Eddie, thanks. See you when you get back.’

  ‘Cheers, I’ll—’

  She clicked off the call, interrupting him in mid-flow and turned to the blank page of her notebook. Surely she’d been making notes? No, she’d been about to. Then – then what? Something had distracted her. Rubbing her temples with her fingertips she took some deep breaths. It was as if the hangovers were starting to become seamless. What with that and the constant jumble of skittering thoughts, she couldn’t think straight. Maybe she should just go home and crash out? Later. She’d have to wait until later. There was too much to do.

  Paige Hollister? An affair with Paige Hollister? It was definitely plausible. Did Julia Hadley know? She checked her watch. She’d be heading over to Hadley’s place later for the meeting with Phelps, having rearranged the time and venue in order to avoid Turnbull. She got up and glanced round the room. No sign of him at the moment. He was probably bitching to Simon Blake about her behaviour and trying to get her fired. She’d resolved to ignore him and get on with her day.

  What she did see was Rory heading for his desk. They hadn’t spoken since the previous evening outside Whipps Cross Hospital, though she’d tried to call him several times. He shot an aloof glance in her direction, their eyes met and immediately he looked away and went to talk to Hugo, his number two in the security department.

  Nicci sat down and took a breath. Great. A crap morning had just got worse. The dull ache in her head, the vague feeling of nausea, if only those annoyances would abate maybe she could get back on track. She took a long drink from a litre plastic bottle of water. Should she go over and confront Rory? Probably not. What she needed to do was focus on the job in hand.

  She spun her chair round in Pascale’s direction. ‘You got a minute?’

  Pascale gave her a warm smile.

  ‘Okay. I want you to focus on Robert Hollister’s wife, Paige Hollister. Everything you can get: biog, what the gossip mags say about her – everything that’s out there.’

  As the researcher got down to work, Nicci picked up her phone. She still needed to call Delgado before she headed over to Julia’s. But as she scrolled through her address book for the Hackney cop’s number, the phone buzzed with an incoming call. It was a mobile number and came up as unknown. Nicci stared at it for a moment.

  The curiosity of a cop was still her default setting so she immediately answered the call. ‘Nicci Armstrong.’

  There was a brief lacuna of silence. ‘Nicci, it’s Fiona Calder.’ The tone was clipped and confident. ‘I think our meeting the other day was . . . well, unfortunate in its outcome. I’d very much like to see you again.’

  This threw Nicci. She took a breath, then thought, fuck it, do I need to be polite? ‘See me? Why?’

  ‘Believe it or not, I would still like to be of use to you.’ There was a hesitation. ‘In fact, I think we might help each other.’

  Nicci’s brain was scrambling to play catch up. Help each other? An innocuous enough phrase yet freighted with possible meanings. And the Assistant Commissioner was calling from a mobile, which, as far as Nicci knew, was not her usual number.

  Nicci decided to test the water. She adopted a casual tone. ‘Okay, well, I’m a bit busy right now. I could come over to your office, I don’t know, some time in the next couple of days.’

  ‘No, not the office.’ Calder’s voice took on a tone that assumed authority. ‘Let’s meet for coffee. I’ve got a window in my diary this morning at eleven. That is, assuming you can make it.’

  60

  Kaz’s first instinct was to take her chances and run for it. There were people about. If Joey chased her and tried to grab her he’d risk drawing attention to himself. And if she hollered and screamed surely someone would call the police.

  As if he’d read her mind, Joey grinned at her and pointed across the street. Standing at the top of the steps leading down to Mike’s basement flat was a familiar figure, sleeve tattoos emerging from his tight black T-shirt.

  Joey put the aviator shades back on. ‘You remember Tolya.’

  The Russian raised three fingers in mock salute and smiled. He and his elder brother had been Joey’s enforcers before he went down.

  Letting the threat sink in, Joey slipped his hands in his pockets. ‘We been having a chat with Mike. He’s making pancakes. I told him to put a few more on ’cause I’m starving. Well, y’know yourself, babes, the food in the nick is crap.’

  ‘Don’t hurt him, Joey. He’s an old man and he’s not well.’

  ‘I ain’t planning to hurt anyone. All I want is a quiet chat.’ His face was all innocence, but the dark glasses concealed his eyes.

  ‘Why don’t I believe you?’ She stared at her own reflection in the mirrored lens.

  ‘Believe what you like. Me, I’m gonna go and sample some of old Mike’s pancakes. You coming?’

  Kaz knew that once she was off the street and out of the public gaze she’d be at his mercy. He probably had a gun somewhere. Easy enough to conceal, tucked in the back of his jeans under the loose polo shirt. On the other hand if she ran away, Mike would be left unprotected. Joey wouldn’t take any chances, he’d just kill him.

  She tugged on Buster’s
leash. It was a pity he wasn’t some vicious, half-starved attack dog. She crossed the road in Joey’s wake, one question burning through her brain – how the hell had he found her? Glynis? That seemed unlikely, since he was surprised by the dog. But then who else had her number? Putting a trace on her mobile would’ve been no problem. If he had Tolya back on board then he’d have other resources as well.

  In one sense she admired his nerve. Anyone else who’d just escaped from jail would’ve been out of the country, heading for a safe bolthole. Not Joey. He was wandering around as bold as brass with a baseball cap, a beard and a pair of sunglasses as his only disguise.

  As they neared the steps to the flat she turned to him. ‘How d’you track me down?’

  He smiled. ‘You pissed a few people off last night, you and your mates.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘I’ve had Sadik Kemal on the blower, threatening me with all sorts of bollocks. I calmed him down.’

  ‘How the fuck d’you know him?’

  ‘We’ve never actually met. But I been negotiating with them for a couple of months. I had a warehouse full of top-quality weed and no one to distribute it.’

  ‘Did they know you was in jail?’

  This prompted a dry laugh. ‘Nah, course not. But then they think I’m Sean.’ He took off his shades and looked at her. ‘I must admit, when you shot that miserable fucker I never realized how useful he was gonna turn out to be. He’s the perfect cover.’

  Kaz stared straight into the piercing baby-blue eyes. ‘You gonna kill me here or somewhere else? I’ll go with you now if you leave Mike out of it.’

  Joey shook his head wearily. ‘For fuck’s sake, babes, you’re my sister.’ There was an edge to his voice, but the irritation was born of fatigue. He had an uncharacteristic lassitude about him. She wondered if he was on something.

  ‘I testified against you. Mum hates my guts. I reckon you do too.’

  ‘Mum’s . . . well, y’know what she’s like. All them drugs she took over the years – silly cow lost the plot. She don’t really understand the world the way you and me do.’

  ‘What’s that’s supposed to mean?’

  He leant on the railings. ‘I ain’t gonna hurt you, okay. I just want a chat. But first of all I could murder one of them pancakes.’ A wry smile lifted the corner of his mouth. ‘Sorry, bad choice of words.’

  Kaz scanned his face. The handsome boyish features had become almost gaunt. The beard and the hair made him look older. Jail time had hardened him. And it touched her. She could still feel the connection, the childhood bond, dragging her back. But was he just playing with her? Was this part of his revenge – persuading her to trust him again, drawing her into his web so that he could pull the trigger? She had no way of knowing.

  61

  His face was pale and baggy-eyed, but then Simon Blake had had two sleepless nights wondering how the hell he was going to get his business back. Moneymen, they were all the same. They used you up and spat you out. There was no integrity. They looked for where the most profit was to be made then they cashed in their chips.

  Across the desk from him Alan Turnbull was lounging in a chair, one leg loosely crossed over the other as he dished up his spiel. A concierge service. A fucking concierge service! That was his big idea. He wanted SBA to buy out some two-bit company that specialized in running around wiping the arses of rich foreigners. Or high-net-worth-individuals, as Turnbull called them. Blake felt like grabbing him by the lapels and asking ‘What the fuck happened to you? What turned a respected senior police officer into Duncan Linton’s lackey?’

  But then, if he was honest, he already knew the answer.

  They weren’t so very different, him and Turnbull. They’d both seen the kind of money that was swilling about in the City, the million-quid bonuses and share options handed out to men with no more talent or brains than them. Envy had seeped into their consciousness and they’d decided they wanted their share. The difference was, Blake was determined to operate in an ethical fashion. Security and investigations – areas in which he had serious expertise – that was his core business, expanding into cybercrime, which was where the future lay.

  He’d thought standing up to Linton would be a piece of piss. Now he was wallowing in the backwash of his own naivety.

  He’d sat up most of the night trawling the Net – obscure financial websites, arcane blogs read only by the cognoscenti. He’d been a good detective once, meticulous, thorough. The devil’s often hidden in the detail – he’d learnt that from his first boss in CID, an old sweat who used to walk around in a trilby hat. What he’d discovered was that Duncan Linton had a business plan of his own.

  He was investing in new UK businesses based on a high degree of technical skill or professional know-how. Usually they’d been set up by individuals who’d got their training in the public sector – in universities, in hospitals, in organizations like the police. Linton gave them his backing, pushed them to expand, then a couple of years down the road, when they were really taking off, he’d force them to sell. The sale was usually to investors from abroad – the last two or three had been to the Chinese. Each time, Linton had recouped a sizeable return on his investment while his hapless victims, individuals like Blake who’d simply wanted to run their own show, ended up making a fraction of what they should have and answering to a new boss.

  Now that he’d figured out Linton’s game, Blake was sure of one thing – he wasn’t going down without a fight.

  He continued to listen to Turnbull with half an ear as he waffled on about building a brand. Blake wasn’t daft, he’d read the books. He already knew his brand – ex-coppers and ex-military – professional, reliable, solid, people you could really trust. Part of him almost felt sorry for Turnbull. He’d been suckered by Linton too, forced into a foolish ploy which had totally failed. The result was he’d become a pariah to his old colleagues and friends. He had no choice now but to dance to Linton’s tune and he’d been slotted into SBA for the sole purpose of acting as Linton’s informant.

  Blake knew he’d been stupid, but he wasn’t about to compound it by turning soft. Turnbull could go to hell. Glancing through the glass door of his office he noticed Nicci Armstrong walking across the reception area towards the lifts. For some odd reason the very sight of her filled him with hope.

  He raised his hand, cutting Turnbull off mid-sentence. ‘Sorry, Alan, we’ll have to continue this later.’

  Jumping up from his desk he headed out of the door without a second glance at Turnbull. He caught up with Nicci as she pressed the call button for the lift.

  She jerked her head in the direction of his office, where Turnbull was still sitting. ‘Is he trying to persuade you to sack me?’

  ‘We need to talk. This has all been a stupid distraction. What matters is the Warner case.’

  Nicci sighed. ‘I’ll take that as a yes, shall I?’

  ‘Actually, he hasn’t mentioned you.’

  ‘He will,’ she smirked. ‘I told him to go fuck himself this morning.’

  ‘That was diplomatic.’ He couldn’t help smiling. One of the many things he admired about Nicci was her fearlessness. Grief seemed to have liberated her from the usual social constraints. She’d face down anybody. She had no time for bullshit.

  ‘I’m not working with him.’

  ‘I’m not asking you to.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Listen, Nic, this is a complicated situation. I need you to bear with me.’

  Nicci was studying his face. They’d worked some difficult cases together and she’d seen him looking like shit before. What she’d never seen was this nervy tension pulsating off him. Though struggling to conceal it, he was radiating uncertainty. She wondered idly which of them was in worse shape, him or her. Probably her.

  She gave him a quizzical look. ‘Can’t you find other investors? ’Cause Linton’s got you by the balls, hasn’t he?’

  He shot a nervy glance back across the office to where Turnbull was chatting ami
ably to one of Bharat’s computer guys. ‘What I need is to crack the Warner case. A big, headline-grabbing result to really raise our profile and make us serious contenders. That would give me some leverage.’

  ‘Then you need to stop pissing about and give me some help. Because at the moment it’s a fully resourced squad of detectives versus me, Eddie Lunt and his dodgy contacts, plus a couple of researchers. And I have to tell you, Simon, it’s an uphill struggle.’

  ‘I know. And I appreciate your efforts. I really do.’

  He was giving her that look again. She shifted uncomfortably. ‘What about the guy from the transport police? Has he come up with anything?’

  ‘Ken Sturridge? He’s getting back to me.’

  ‘Hassle him.’

  ‘I will.’

  The lift announced its arrival with a ding. The doors slid open. Nicci just wanted to escape – from the office, from Blake, from the complications of her own folly. But he put his hand against the door sensor to hold it.

  ‘I know how fucked up this must look to you.’

  Nicci stared at him wide-eyed: the F word was not a normal part of Blake’s vocabulary. ‘No, I get it. I know what Turnbull’s capable of. As for Linton, I can only guess. Be careful, Simon, that’s all I’m saying.’

  ‘Thanks, Nic.’ His hand brushed her sleeve – a gentle, comradely gesture – it was in no way intrusive. ‘Thanks for your support. I’m going to sort this mess out, believe me.’

  Nicci returned his smile. ‘I do.’

  62

  Tolya demolished four pancakes, drenched in butter and maple syrup. Joey, for all his protestations about being starving, struggled with two. Keeping a wary eye on his guests, Mike tidied the counter, picking up the discarded eggshells and dropping them in the bin. He shot a concerned look at Kaz. Joey had come knocking at his door with all the smiling insouciance of a casual caller. By the time Mike had twigged who he was it was too late. He’d been catapulted into a world where normal rules didn’t apply.

  Kaz sat across the table from her brother, watching and waiting. Buster was at her feet wide-eyed and hopeful. Joey fed his last half-pancake to the drooling dog, then put down his knife and fork.