Nicci raised a finger. ‘You and him meet up, and a few hours later he’s dead under a tube train.’
Eddie puffed his cheeks, a sorrowful look in his eye. ‘Yeah, tell me about it.’
She laid a hand on his arm. ‘No one can blame you, Eddie. What I’m saying is, after he saw you, he did something.’
‘You think he was being watched?’
‘Yeah. He made a move that someone had been waiting for. Or that caused them to panic.’
‘And he gets shoved under a train?’
She nodded and drummed her clenched fist on the table. ‘Those last couple of hours, what was he up to? Where did he go? What did he do?’
‘All he said to me was: “Catch you later, mate.” Like he didn’t have a care in the world.’
73
Kaz stared at the palm tree. She remembered the first time she’d seen it – an indoor palm tree, the odd but magnificent centrepiece of the building’s airy atrium. She’d run her fingers across the bark to check it was real.
The day she got out of jail, paying a call on Helen Warner had been top of her list. She’d felt ridiculously nervous. Taking Helen by surprise was maybe not a good strategy. But the lawyer had greeted her with warmth and a skittishness that told Kaz the sexual frisson between them wasn’t just in her imagination. That had been the beginning of the affair. It seemed like a lifetime ago now.
Helen had given up the law for politics. However, her old firm, Crowley Sheridan Moore, still had their offices on the fifth floor of this smart block off Cheapside. Kaz stood beside the reception desk as the young woman behind it spoke on the phone.
Returning the receiver to its base, she smiled at Kaz. Her shirt was blue and tailored with small epaulettes on the shoulder, a uniform designed by the security company that employed her to convey an unthreatening sense of impregnability.
‘Mr Moore is only able to see clients by appointment. If you email his assistant, she’ll arrange this for you. You can find their address on the website.’
Kaz sighed. ‘You told them my name?’
The young woman’s smile didn’t waiver, the eyes were fixed, staring through Kaz. ‘Yes, of course.’
‘Did the assistant actually speak to him?’
‘I’m sure if you email they’ll get back to you.’ There was no impatience in the young woman’s manner. This was what she spent her days doing – getting rid of dubious-looking casual callers, politely.
Kaz swivelled on her heel. Tolya was standing a few yards away, arms folded. Their eyes met, he tilted his head indicating she should follow him. Kaz glanced back coldly at the young woman. She wasn’t about to thank her, she knew the helpful smile was fake.
Tolya exited via the revolving doors.
When Kaz joined him on the pavement he was rubbing his bare arms. ‘So fucking air-con freezing they make it. I don’t know why.’ He stood for a moment soaking up a brief burst of afternoon sun. Kaz paced in a small frustrated circle.
In addition to being Helen’s erstwhile boss, Neville Moore remained Joey’s lawyer. Crowley Sheridan Moore, in its earlier incarnation, had been an East End firm of villains’ briefs. They’d represented the Phelps family since the very early days of Terry Phelps’ ‘trouble’ with the law.
With the demise of Fred Sheridan, Neville Moore had moved the firm upmarket and to its current City location. He’d diversified the client base and sanitized its image with pro bono work and a dash of radical campaigning. But Moore knew that the shrinking legal aid budget couldn’t be relied on, whereas organized crime could. He trod a fine line between defending his clients and aiding and abetting them in their criminal careers. Kaz reckoned that if Helen Warner had been looking for a confidante as slippery and shrewd as her opponents, she might well have chosen her old boss.
The problem, it seemed, was getting to see him. Tolya was peering at her over his aviator shades and she noticed he was grinning.
Catching her eye he laughed. ‘Don’t look so worried. You wanna go inside? We use back door.’
She followed him as he wandered round the corner and down a narrow side lane leading to the flank of the building. Hardly more than a snicket dating back to the warren of streets that underpinned the old City, it was painted with double yellow lines that filled nearly half the road. They walked along beside twenty-foot high concrete walls and finally came to a gap. Only just high enough to accommodate a Luton van, the opening led down a short ramp to an underground car park. Access was controlled by a red-and-white chequered automatic barrier and two snub-nosed black security cameras pointing downwards from brackets on either wall.
Tolya scanned the entrance and smiled. ‘I prefer back door.’ Turning to her he placed his palm over his left cheek, eye and his nose. ‘You do like this.’
With his hand concealing half his face he strolled past the cameras and ducked under the barrier. She followed suit. They descended the ramp into the low-ceilinged vault, which was divided into slots for a couple of dozen cars. It was relatively empty – a Bentley Continental, several high-end BMWs – only the cream of the building’s tenants got a parking space.
In the far corner there was a plain grey door with a keypad beside it. Tolya headed for it, glancing round as he went. The only other camera was fixed above the door and angled downwards. For a man well over six feet tall he hardly needed to stretch to reach the camera from underneath. He gave it a couple of sharp nudges until the lens was pointing upwards.
He turned to the keypad. Kaz watched him with fascination. Each move was carefully considered but there was no urgency. He remained totally relaxed.
Rubbing his chin he pondered. ‘Okay . . .’
‘How d’you know what number?’
He smiled. ‘Most people got no imagination.’
He keyed in 1234. The small light at the top of the device remained stubbornly red. He tried 1939. Still no dice. He sighed. His gaze roved round the dingy basement for inspiration and alighted on an Aston Martin DB5 in ace condition at the end of a row. With a grin he tapped 0007 into the keypad, the light turned green and the door clicked open.
Kaz chuckled in admiration. ‘Piece of piss!’
Puzzled, he held open the door for her. ‘Piss? You mean like . . . toilet?’
‘Nah, it’s a saying. Means easy. Clever boy, aren’t you, Tol?’
He accepted the compliment with a smile.
A service lift carried them to the fifth floor and, taking a leaf out of Tolya’s book, Kaz strolled past the law firm’s protesting receptionist and down the corridor to Neville Moore’s office. She had a rough idea of its location, which was a couple of doors down from Helen’s old office.
Sauntering up to the PA’s desk, she tapped her index finger on the top of the shocked woman’s VDU. ‘Now you gonna tell him I’m here?’
The PA lurched back in her chair. ‘I’m sorry, you can’t just walk in here like this. I’ll have to call security.’
‘Your choice. Your job.’ Kaz gave her a thin smile. ‘I think you’ll find my brother, Joey Phelps, is one of Neville’s . . . well, more lucrative clients. He’s gonna want to see me.’
Hand poised above the phone, the PA dithered. This tall young woman, eyes as dark as her leather jacket, was definitely intimidating. Also she knew who Joey Phelps was.
Kaz tilted her head. ‘Make up your mind time.’
Ignoring both of them, Tolya wandered round the PA’s desk towards the inner sanctum. Neville Moore LL.B was engraved on the glass panel running along the side of the door. The Russian didn’t hesitate; he grasped the handle, depressed it and pushed the door open. The office was empty.
‘As you can see, he’s really not—’ The PA’s annoyance turned to panic as Tolya crossed the threshold. ‘Urm, you really can’t go in there.’
It was too late. Kaz joined him. For a lawyer’s office, it was curiously pristine. The desk was completely bare, no files, no phone, no computer. A shelf of immaculately arranged law tomes and some bland ornaments we
re the only other objects in the room.
The PA hovered in the doorway. ‘Mr Moore is away on sabbatical.’
Kaz glared at her. ‘Since when?’
‘For the last month.’ Raising her chin she gave the intruders a sniffy and triumphant look. ‘He’s visiting family and friends in Australia. They’re currently on an island in the Great Barrier Reef.’
Kaz plonked herself down on the leather sofa. ‘Well, that’s kinda weird. ’Cause I bumped into him just yesterday morning – in London.’
74
The house was a white-fronted, three-bedroomed semi in a street calmed by speed bumps and shaded with trees. The curtains in the downstairs bay window were almost closed and a child’s tricycle stood abandoned by the side gate.
Eddie raised his eyebrows, glanced at Nicci and pressed the doorbell. Its sing-song chime echoed through the quiet house beyond and after a couple of minutes the door was opened by a brisk woman in her thirties.
‘You must be Eddie. I’m Tina’s sister.’
‘This is my colleague, Nicci Armstrong.’ He stood aside to let her go first.
Nicci had done enough ‘bad news’ calls to know the drill. The sister escorted them through to the conservatory at the back of the house. Tina was curled up on the sofa cradling a blonde-haired toddler in her arms. The doors opened onto the garden where two slightly older boys were kicking a football to each other.
Nicci was struck by the gruff but heartfelt sincerity of Eddie’s manner as he greeted the widow. If he was playing a role, he was very good at it. She expressed her condolences, tea was made by the sister and they sat in silence for a few minutes, waiting for Tina to adjust to their presence.
Hair pulled back in a pink scrunchie, her face was puffy from crying. She edged the small girl off her knee and stroked back the child’s fine blonde hair. It brought a lump to Nicci’s throat.
Tina straightened her daughter’s dress. ‘Go on, lovey, go and play in the garden with the boys.’
The sister took the child’s hand. ‘Come on, Ruby. What’s happened to your bike? Let’s go and find it, shall we?’
The mother watched as Ruby was led out into the garden. Her eyes followed the child, reluctant to let her go, fearful of yet more loss.
Nicci cleared her throat. ‘It’s very good of you to agree to speak to us.’
Tina’s gaze travelled back grudgingly from the three children on the lawn to Nicci.
‘If you know what he was up to, I want to know about it.’
Nicci opened her palms. ‘We’re trying to piece it together.’
An angry frown gathered on Tina’s brow. ‘Fucking police – I told them. My husband would not’ve . . .’ She had to swallow hard. ‘They treated me like some kind of airhead who couldn’t face the truth. Suggested I “get something from the doctor”.’
Eddie leant forward, rapping the glass of the low coffee table to make his point. ‘I told Nic soon as I heard, I’ve known Ray a good few years and there’s no way he’d’ve topped himself.’
Tina nodded fiercely and sniffed back a tear.
Giving her time to compose herself, Nicci pulled a notebook out of her bag and opened it at a fresh page. ‘We think Ray’s death and Helen Warner’s might possibly be connected.’
Tina compressed her lips. ‘Eddie said, on the phone.’
‘So let’s begin with anything he said to you about working with her.’
Tina closed her eyes, ordering her thoughts. ‘He first met her a few months back. New MP, smarter than most of them – everyone recognized that. He’d been working on the drugs brief for some time, testing the water for a more rational policy, that was the idea. Robert Hollister wanted Helen Warner to front it.’
Nicci made a note. ‘Do you know how Ray viewed Warner’s relationship with Hollister?’
Tina gave a dry laugh. ‘Jesus wept, he wasn’t knocking her off too, was he?’
‘What did Ray think?’
A sad smile spread over Tina’s face. ‘Ray was . . . well, y’know, gossip was why he got out of the newspaper business. It drives the agenda on all the red-tops. He came to hate all that. He wanted to tackle the serious issues of the day. He reckoned people’s private lives should remain private.’
Nicci tilted her head. ‘What if their behaviour in private was immoral or even illegal?’
‘He knew of plenty who were popping pills and shoving coke up their noses but still publicly backing the war on drugs, if that’s what you mean. He hated hypocrisy.’
‘What was his response to Helen Warner’s death?’
‘We heard about it on the radio at breakfast time. He always listened to the Today programme on Radio Four. He was . . . really angry.’
‘Angry? He didn’t think it was suicide?’
‘He usually drops the boys off at school. He went stomping out the house that day, left me to take them.’
‘Did he talk about why he was angry?’
‘Came home very late that night, so we never really got a chance. Then of course next day we had the burglary.’
Nicci and Eddie exchanged looks.
Eddie frowned. ‘He never told me you’d been burgled.’
‘They didn’t take anything much. Not even the telly. Just made a hell of a mess. He said it was probably kids. But that pissed him off too. He went out and spent about five hundred quid on alarms and security cameras.’
Nicci twizzled the pen between thumb and index finger. ‘Did you have an alarm before?’
‘Well yeah. Truth was, when I went out with the kids, sorting out the buggy and all that, I sometimes forgot to put it on. That must’ve been what happened that day.’
Eddie laced his fingers and smiled reassuringly. ‘Easily done.’ He and Nicci were deliberately avoiding eye contact.
After she finished scribbling a note in her book, Nicci looked up. ‘The day of his death, were you in touch at all once he’d gone to work?’
‘He texted me about four thirty. Said he had a meeting with the lawyers, he might be late. The thing I don’t get is what was he doing at Bond Street?’ She rubbed her forehead as if physical pressure could solve this conundrum for her.
Nicci scanned her troubled face. ‘Going to this meeting?’
‘The lawyers were just downstairs from him.’
‘In Labour HQ at Brewers Green?’
‘Yeah. If the meeting had finished, he’d just be coming home, wouldn’t he? Nearest tube was St James’s Park. But he always walked to Victoria because it was easier. Only one change if he took the Victoria Line to Euston then got on the Northern Line.’
Eddie sighed. ‘Problems on the tube that day?’
‘Why go via Bond Street?’ Tina’s expression darkened. ‘I have wondered if he was seeing someone. I don’t think so. But it’s crossed my mind. I asked the police about CCTV. They said the platform was so crowded they couldn’t see him, much less what happened.’
Nicci had been peering at her notes. ‘Are you sure he meant the Labour Party’s lawyers? Could there be some other lawyers he might need to see?’
‘I don’t know. I just assumed. Do you think it was a lie and he was carrying on with some woman, taking her shopping maybe?’
Eddie shook his head firmly. ‘No.’
Tina gave him a grateful smile. Then she took out her phone. The tears welled up and she found her husband’s last text. As she read it, a puzzled look came into her eye. ‘Actually, he wrote “lawyer”.’ She held up the phone for Nicci to see. ‘No “s”. Probably just a typo though.’
Nicci peered at the phone. She didn’t reply, she simply smiled and nodded.
75
It had taken three security guards to escort Tolya and Kaz from the offices of Crowley Sheridan Moore. A huge, muscular Russian covered in tats, gazing at them sardonically from behind mirrored shades, had produced a jittery response and threats to call the police unless they left quietly.
Neville Moore’s PA had continued to insist he was in Australia, and
though Kaz herself didn’t believe it, she could see that the PA probably did.
They had returned to Mike’s flat to find her brother dozing on the sofa, the dog, Buster, curled up beside him and Mike putting the finishing touches to a bright acrylic portrait of Joey, in the style of the cubists. A face of flat multi-faceted planes, punctured by two iridescent blue eyes side by side, succeeded in conveying a sense of him, whilst remaining totally unrecognizable.
Kaz admired the painting. ‘Yeah, it’s . . .’
‘Amusing?’ Mike gave her an ironic grin. ‘Cubism tends to look dated to the modern eye, but I think it was a cunning way for the likes of Braque and Picasso not to upset their girlfriends.’
She grinned and scanned his face anxiously. ‘So everything’s been all right?’
He shrugged. ‘Yeah.’
Joey opened his eyes and sat up. Smiling at the sight of his sister, he stretched his arms above his head only to wince. ‘Aaww, fuck me. Time for more painkillers, I reckon. All right, Kaz?’
Kaz went to the tap and poured him a glass of water. She was mulling over her next move. He was still dangerous, no question, but there was also a fragility about him, a neediness. The younger Joey had suffered enough physical beatings from their father, but he’d never let on how he felt. Acting tough was not just a product of his macho upbringing, it was an issue of personal pride with him. So something had definitely shifted in her brother’s psyche.
He gave her a sleepy smile as she handed him the water. ‘How’d it go then?’
‘Okay.’
He glanced at Tolya. ‘She been a good girl? Behaved herself?’
The Russian simply nodded.
Easing himself into a more upright position, Joey grinned. ‘Just kidding, babes.’ He drifted off for a moment. ‘You know what I really missed inside: proper fish and chips. They got their own version, but it’s shit.’ He turned to Mike. ‘You got a decent chippie round here?’
‘There’s a good one I use down on Fulham Road.’
Joey gave Tolya a speculative glance.
The big man shrugged. ‘You want me get some?’
The Mourner Page 30