The Mourner

by Susan Wilkins

Seeing his potential weakness, Kaz had seized the initiative. She’d announced without preamble that there was an appointment she really had to keep. She furnished him with the skimpiest explanation – Helen Warner had committed suicide and Kaz had arranged to go and offer her condolences to Warner’s bereaved partner.

  Joey had lounged on one of Mike’s large squidgy sofas, scratching his beard in puzzlement. ‘The lawyer? Weren’t you and her, y’know, shagging? In’t that what you told me?’

  Kaz didn’t miss a beat. ‘Nah, you was right all along. I was lying when I told you that. Helen was a bender, but not me.’

  Since their reunion as adults, Joey had kept his affections brotherly and satisfied his sexual needs with a string of casual girlfriends. The secret incestuous bond of their teenage years had slipped into the shadows of the past; neither ever mentioned it. But Kaz knew full well that it mattered to him to believe she was attracted to men. It kept the door open, if only a crack.

  He’d grinned and wagged a finger at her. ‘You’re a little tinker, in’t you? I knew you was fibbing. Think you can pull the wool over my eyes.’

  Kaz was banking on the fact she could. Leaving him in the flat with Mike was a calculated risk. But she worried that Nicci Armstrong would be as good as her word. If she didn’t turn up to the meeting as arranged, Nicci might be pissed enough to turn her in. Once a cop always a cop. In any event, it was a gamble she couldn’t afford to take. Escaping from the flat might also present some kind of opportunity she hadn’t yet fathomed to get Joey off her back.

  ‘Ain’t a problem so far as I’m concerned, babes.’ He gave her a breezy smile. ‘Tolya can drive you.’

  The big shouty four-by-four with tinted windows, which had been Joey’s vehicle of choice before he went down, had been replaced by a grey and anonymous second-hand Ford Focus. Tolya took the satnav out of the boot and fixed it to the windscreen with a suction pad. He let Kaz tap in Julia’s address as he drew on his leather driving gloves, then they set off.

  Mike had assured her both verbally and with a pointed look that he would be fine. He’d turned to Joey and asked if he’d ever had his portrait painted. Appealing to Joey’s vanity proved an astute move and as Kaz and Tolya had left, Mike was setting up his easel.

  Kaz gave her driver a sideways glance. During his time on Joey’s payroll he’d seen her abused by her cousin, hysterical, and stark naked with a gun in her hand. It didn’t make them friends, but they were certainly more than acquaintances.

  She adopted a casual tone. ‘How’s your brother?’

  ‘Yevgeny? He good.’ His eyes remained on the road.

  She relaxed into the seat. ‘What you guys been up to then? You been away?’

  ‘We make a little trip back home, see family. But we come back. London is best place. Plenty Russian friends, but free. Good work. No hassle.’

  ‘I must say, Tol, your English has improved.’

  ‘Yeah?’ He grinned broadly and shot her a glance. ‘You really think?’

  ‘Definitely.’

  ‘I study. Lessons two time a week. Yev still much better than me. I catch up.’

  ‘So what’s Yev doing?’

  ‘Y’know. Business. We should have drink. He like you. He always say you smart lady.’

  ‘I like him.’

  ‘My sister, she come back with us. Aaah, she love London.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  For a mile or two they travelled in silence. Through Fulham and then along the King’s Road. Kaz let her gaze drift over the procession of swanky boutiques and upmarket design shops. London was a great place to be rich. The fact that she had no money made her feel like an outcast in the city where she was born.

  An excited look came into Tolya’s eye.

  He raised a gloved finger from the steering wheel and pointed. ‘Road there. Very good restaurant. My cousin boyfriend. Chef. One star Michelin.’

  ‘Really. D’you get any free grub?’

  ‘Grub?’

  ‘Food.’

  ‘Sometimes.’ He hesitated, as if searching for the right words. ‘Joey go away. Amsterdam maybe. Keep low . . . er . . .’

  ‘Low profile?’

  He grinned. ‘Yeah. Low profile. Good word. So maybe you run things for him now?’

  Kaz gave a disbelieving hoot. ‘I don’t think Joey would be happy with that.’

  The Russian shrugged. ‘Why not?’

  ‘I testified against him, Tol. Grassed him up. He’s not about to trust me, is he?’

  He brushed this aside with a wave of his gloved hand. ‘He don’t blame you.’

  ‘Not much.’

  ‘I am four brothers. Me youngest. We all go to army. Nicolai, Yuri, dead in Chechnya. Two son my mother lost. For what? For motherland? For greedy fucking politicians in dachas with fat wives? Fuck them all. Family is blood. Yev I trust. Sometime we argue. Still, Yev I trust.’

  This was the most Kaz had ever heard him say. She wondered about the extent of his loyalty to Joey. Did it stretch beyond the next payday? Probably not. Yet Joey was forced to rely on these guns for hire. He was an escaped convict on the run. It was his offshore bank accounts that paid for their protection. But what if Kaz could renegotiate the deal?

  The brothers’ only allegiance was to each other. Was there some way she could persuade them to favour her over Joey? She’d managed to come to an understanding with Yevgeny before. Could she do it again? Could they provide the escape route she was searching for?

  They turned south down Wandsworth Bridge Road and headed for the river. The tide was low and sluggish, a dog-walker wandered the muddy foreshore, her canine companion scattering the gulls.

  As they drove over the bridge, past the tiered ranks of upscale apartments rising up from the riverbank, she glanced at Tolya. ‘What’s she called, your sister?’

  ‘Irina.’

  ‘Nice name.’

  ‘She work for hairdresser.’ He added a dismissive frown. ‘For now. She loads ambition. Her English . . .’ He grimaced. ‘Not so good. She study hard.’

  ‘She could become a stylist.’

  He puzzled over the word. ‘Maybe . . .’

  ‘Someone who does the whole look – y’know, hair, clothes. For models and actors. It’s all about taste. You can earn loads. Someone I knew at art college got into that.’

  He was listening intently, processing it all despite his shaky grasp of the language. ‘She like art. She very pretty. Not like me and Yev.’ He laughed. Kaz joined in.

  It was becoming clear to her that she’d stumbled on an angle that might just play. It was certainly worth a punt.

  She adopted an offhand tone. ‘I’d like to meet her.’

  ‘Yeah?’ He beamed with genuine pleasure. ‘She want very much make English friend.’

  ‘Maybe we should all get together? Have a night out? You, me, Yev, Irina? Course, you’d have to persuade Joey.’

  Tolya dismissed this with an abrupt shake of the head. ‘I tell him. He don’t mind.’

  65

  Nicci had sent texts to both Julia and Karen Phelps to let them know she’d be late. She was still feeling like death warmed up, but her mood had changed completely. The meeting with Calder was a game changer. Blake had insisted that the Assistant Commissioner held the key to the investigation and he’d been proved right.

  Having dosed herself with paracetamol, Nicci took a taxi to Wandsworth. She sat in the back of the cab with a notebook balanced on her knee, making sure she’d got all the main points down. Swigging from a bottle of water she reviewed her conversation with Calder. She’d been backed into a corner, that was the phrase her old boss had used. Nicci wondered to what extent this was true. In her view the more accurate explanation was probably that Calder didn’t want to jeopardize her position in the hierarchy and her chance of the top job.

  Still, the conflict between Calder’s guilty conscience and her reluctance to stick her head above the parapet had yielded the breakthrough that Nicci needed.

  S
he paid the cabbie and walked up the path to Julia’s front door with something approaching a spring in her step. She would knock the booze on the head and show those bastards. A write-off, discharged as medically unfit? She was a bloody good detective, Calder was right about that. Now she was going to prove it.

  She found Julia and Karen sitting at the kitchen table nursing mugs of coffee. The atmosphere was freighted with tension and a postcard sat on the table between them. As Julia bustled around making a fresh cafetiere, Karen picked up the card. The image on the front was a painting of a nun by Gwen John.

  She offered it to Nicci. ‘I’ve just been telling Julia about this. Came to me via witness protection.’

  Nicci took the card and turned it over. The handwriting was tight and neat, in blue fountain pen.

  Saw this and thought of you. I hope you’re leading a virtuous life now. I thought the pain of missing you would go away eventually. It hasn’t. My life is busy, but full of lies and complications. You know my number. I wish you’d bring some light into my dismal existence by calling it. H xx

  Nicci shot a look across the kitchen at Julia. She was waiting for the kettle to boil, fidgeting with the mugs and keeping it together – just.

  The ex-cop’s gaze travelled back to Karen. ‘When did you get this?’

  ‘April. Witness protection gave it to my probation officer. It was in an envelope. They’d maybe had it a couple of weeks. I dunno.’

  ‘Did you call her?’

  Kaz pinched the end of her nose, her eyes were welling up. ‘No. I wish the fuck I had.’ She folded her arms tightly, her chin jutted. She was determined to hold it together too. ‘I don’t know why she was in Glasgow. She had no way of knowing I was there. You know the rules.’ She stared defiantly at Nicci. ‘I never got in touch with her. And I never met her. I swear.’

  Unfastening the straps on her bag, Nicci lifted out her notebook and laptop. ‘I know you didn’t.’

  Julia flashed a look of surprise at Nicci.

  She set the laptop on the table and opened it. ‘I had someone check it out. And we’ve got CCTV footage from the hotel of the person it seems she did go there to meet: Paige Hollister.’

  Kaz frowned. ‘Who?’

  Scrolling through her emails, Nicci clicked on the message Eddie had sent her. ‘She’s—’

  Her reply hung in the air, incomplete, as Julia picked up one of the delicate white porcelain mugs with a silver band around the rim and hurled it at the wall.

  66

  Kaz found a dustpan and brush in the cupboard under the stairs. The mug had shattered into smithereens, which were spread liberally across the kitchen floor together with some flakes of plaster that had been gouged from the wall on impact.

  She returned to the kitchen and started to sweep up. Julia was slumped in a chair, face in her hands. Nicci poured boiling water into the cafetiere and carried it to the table with fresh mugs. She gave Kaz a neutral smile.

  If she’d noticed Tolya parked across the road in a residents-only bay, she didn’t say. Kaz was glad not to have to deploy a lie to cover it. The unvarnished truth about Helen’s last communication with her was painful. It left her full of self-reproach. Yet there was a relief in being honest and apparently believed. Especially when Kaz had been expecting accusations and argument.

  Julia raised her head and wiped her face with the back of her hand. ‘Paige is Scottish, though you wouldn’t know it from the accent. I think her father was an oil exec for BP. When he retired, her parents moved to Rothesay. It’s nice; we took Charles to visit them one time.’

  Nicci poured fresh coffee into the three mugs. ‘That’s not far from Glasgow?’

  Julia nodded, pulled out a tissue and blew her nose. She glanced at Kaz, then looked away. ‘I don’t understand why she couldn’t talk to me. Lies and complications? Secret meetings with Paige?’ Her face began to dissolve and the tears started to flow again.

  As the laptop loaded the CCTV clip Nicci reached across the table to pat Julia’s hand. ‘Listen to me, the first thing you need to know is that Helen was most probably trying to protect you.’

  ‘From what?’ Julia’s face crumpled with anger. ‘She fell in love with Paige when she was fourteen. Paige was the fucking babysitter! Her first love. I knew all about that.’

  ‘What about Paige’s husband?’

  ‘You mean Robert? He was one of Charles’s students at Oxford. Paige was his girlfriend.’

  ‘She was a student too?’

  ‘Yeah. Helen’s parents were a bit old-fashioned. Even though Helen was fourteen, they didn’t think she and her brothers should be left alone, so they hired a babysitter.’ Her tone sharpened. ‘They might’ve thought twice if they’d realized it would help turn their daughter into a dyke.’

  Kaz emptied the shards of porcelain into the bin and joined the others at the table. She’d always known the fragile connection she and Julia had made would likely be torpedoed by Helen’s card. Yet keeping it secret, she’d decided, was a fool’s option. She wanted the truth as much as Julia did.

  She sat down and Julia gave her an aggrieved look. ‘First Paige, then you. Was it because you both rejected her? She wanted what she couldn’t have.’

  Kaz met her eye. ‘I told you, she could’ve had me, but she chose you.’

  ‘Okay, I know this is difficult.’ Nicci decided it was time to play peacemaker. ‘But let’s stick with Paige and Robert. They were students at Oxford and Helen was fourteen when she met them. So what else do you know about them and their relationship with Helen’s family?’

  Julia exhaled. ‘They became family friends. Robert Hollister was Charles’s star student. He and Paige got married after they graduated, Helen was a bridesmaid at the wedding.’

  Nicci popped a sugar lump in her coffee. ‘A bridesmaid? That must’ve been tough for Helen.’

  ‘It was a crush, an adolescent crush. I don’t think anything ever came of it.’ Julia seemed rattled as she pushed away the unwanted images invading her head.

  ‘You sure about that?’

  Julia sighed wearily. ‘I don’t know. In recent years Paige has been unhappy. Her kids are grown-up, Robert’s affairs are pretty much common knowledge. Helen stayed friends with the Hollisters for her father’s sake. Charles thinks that Robert’s the dog’s bollocks.’

  Nicci nodded. ‘Well, his protégé could be in government soon, that’s quite flattering. And presumably the Hollister connection helped Helen’s political career?’

  ‘She hated all that. The nepotism.’ Julia took a mouthful of fresh coffee. ‘She went out of her way to avoid Robert’s help.’

  Idly brushing flecks of dust from the computer screen, Nicci turned to Kaz. ‘Did she ever talk to you about the Hollisters?’

  ‘Once we talked about first love. She said hers betrayed her.’

  That was putting it mildly, thought Nicci. Telling them what she’d discovered from Calder would not be easy. The fact neither seemed to have an inkling meant it was going to come as a major shock. Kaz would cope, she wasn’t so sure about Julia.

  ‘Okay, well, a former colleague of mine has given me some information.’

  Julia jumped in, immediately suspicious. ‘A police officer? I knew there was a cover-up!’

  ‘Helen went to see this . . . person for advice. She explained that as a teenager she’d fallen in love with a girl who was a few years older than her. She was besotted and would’ve done anything for this girl. The girl told her that they could have sex, but only if she allowed the girl’s boyfriend to watch.’

  Julia’s hand grasped her mug, the knuckles whitening with tension. Kaz merely shook her head and sighed.

  Nicci ploughed on. ‘Helen was fourteen. The first few times they had sex the boyfriend watched, then he joined in. Then he took over. Reflecting on this as an adult, Helen realized it was probably the plan all along. She was afraid to tell her parents, the girl told her she wouldn’t be believed. So she continued to acquiesce for the next couple of
years.’

  Scraping back her chair, Julia got up, a restless fury taking possession of her. She paced up and down the room a couple of times. Nicci waited.

  Julia turned. ‘Is that it?’

  ‘That’s only the beginning.’

  Julia and Kaz exchanged glances.

  Kaz’s brow was darkening. ‘The beginning?’

  Nicci fortified herself with a mouthful of coffee. ‘In her early twenties, Helen did her best to avoid the couple. But as we know, they were family friends. On one occasion she tried to speak to her mother, who got extremely upset and made her promise never to mention it to her father.’

  ‘Or anyone else, presumably?’ Kaz huffed. ‘Why didn’t Hollister just find himself a hooker? There’s loads who’ll play the lesbo game for a john.’

  ‘Apparently he took the view that he and Helen were simply having an affair and his now wife understood. On a number of occasions he trapped or forced Helen into situations where they had sex. Finally, she confronted him, insisted it had to stop. He agreed, then reneged on that agreement.’

  Julia slapped her palm on the table. ‘Why the fuck haven’t the police arrested Hollister?’

  ‘Helen didn’t name him specifically. She wanted to know the chances of a prosecution being successful. All she would say was that he was a high-profile politician. My colleague told her that it would be tricky – historical allegations of child abuse, her word against his? She needed corroboration from the wife. Or other evidence.’

  Kaz pushed back in her chair. ‘D’you think that’s what she was trying to get from Paige?’

  ‘Maybe.’ Nicci glanced at Julia. ‘A week before she died, Helen called my colleague. She’d been on a trip to Brussels about a month earlier. Remember it?’

  Julia was pacing, hugging her own torso in a vain attempt to contain the pain. ‘Yeah, some EU thing. A summit on drugs policy.’

  ‘So Hollister was there?’

  The reply was a terse nod.

  ‘Well, she told my colleague that she was raped by Hollister in a hotel bedroom. However, guessing he might try this, she’d set up a camera in the room and filmed it.’