by Rod Reynolds
‘Why?’
‘It’s a police matter and the risk is too great.’
‘What? She was my friend, isn’t that my choice to make?’
He straightened his shirt. ‘I get your frustration, but aside from the fact that legal’s word is god, I can’t accept you putting yourself in any further danger.’
‘Stop it. What we do outside of work doesn’t give you a right to decide what risks I can or can’t take.’
‘I’m not. Take the personal out of this; can you imagine if I gave you the green light and something happened? I have a responsibility to the company and to its staff – I can’t ignore that.’
She pointed to the bruises. ‘I deserve to see this through.’
‘At any cost?’
She stared at him, neither of them moving. She could see a vein in his forehead pulsing.
‘There are more layoffs coming,’ he said.
‘That’s not a surprise.’
‘Yeah, but it’s been signed and sealed now. Big headcount reduction.’
‘What’s the relevance?’
‘It might open up an opportunity to move you.’
‘Again?’
‘Back, I mean. To the news desk. You’ve done your time.’
‘Okay.’ She said it with no emotion.
He spread his arms. ‘I thought you’d be pleased.’
‘I am. But it feels like a consolation prize.’
He drifted across the office again, finally anchoring himself by planting his hands on his desk.
She stood in front of him. ‘You can’t expect me to just forget what they’ve done.’
‘I’m just asking you to leave it to the police. Please. We’ll liaise with them, stay close to the investigation, make sure they can’t let up for one second.’
‘It feels like I should be doing more.’
‘Whoever these bastards are, they don’t get to kill one of our own and just walk away. I promise you that.’
She looked at his face, saw the wiry red lines snaking across the whites of his eyes. ‘How soon are you moving me?’
CHAPTER 39
Stringer looked out his window at Dalton’s Range Rover parked on the street below.
He took his time dressing, a protest he recognised as pointless. At five past, another text came to remind him they were waiting. He read it and threw his phone on the bed.
The morning was overcast, the clouds that brought the rain the day before still lingering. His mother would call it sticky, a word that fired a memory – the days from his childhood where he’d come downstairs to find her in the kitchen in her nightdress, wiping the sweat from her forehead with a piece of kitchen roll. All while drinking a hot cup of tea. The old man would still be in bed, the smell of a lit Benson & Hedges always the first signal he was awake.
The Range Rover door opened as he crossed the pavement, Dalton in his usual seat.
Stringer put his hands on the chassis and ducked his head inside. ‘What do you want?’
‘Get in.’
‘Save yourself the trouble, let’s talk here.’ An open hand to point out the empty street around them.
Dalton picked up a phone from the back seat and held it out to him, the screen lit and showing a call was connected. ‘Mr Suslov is eager to hear your progress.’
Stringer ran his tongue around his cheek and hauled himself up into the ride. There was a passenger in the front seat next to the driver, a new wrinkle from how it’d been all the other times. ‘Who’s he?’
Dalton ignored the question, reaching across Stringer to close the door. ‘Well?’ The car pulled into the road.
Stringer opened his hands on his lap. ‘I’m following various strands.’
‘Such as?’
‘There was a getaway car. It looks like it was stolen for the job, but I’ve got a line on its address anyway.’
‘And?’
‘And I’m working on it.’
‘If the car was stolen, what does the address matter?’
‘There’s something off about it.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning I’m working on it.’
‘Where did you get the car details from?’
‘I told you I needed some money. Where is it?’
‘Mr Suslov was reluctant.’ Dalton flicked a nervous glance at the phone on the seat next to him, then fixed Stringer with a look and shook his head. He mouthed, He was fucking furious. ‘You said you’d located the scene. Putting two and two together, am I right to think CCTV footage exists?’
Stringer cocked his head, staring through him.
‘If you’ve been sitting on more information about what happened…’
‘What are you going to do with it? Pass it to the cops?’
Stringer looked at the phone now, wondering if Suslov was simmering on the other end. Dalton clocked him doing it and shot him a middle finger. He looked out the window, seeming to check where they were. It prompted Stringer to do the same and he saw they were approaching Old Street roundabout.
‘What about the wife?’ Dalton said.
‘You tell me.’
Dalton shifted in his seat. ‘What does that mean?’
‘It’s only you and Suslov think she’s relevant.’
‘So you haven’t even looked for her?’
‘What for? She didn’t do it.’
Another glance at the phone. The call timer ticked in silence.
Stringer sat back in his seat. ‘Where are we going?’
‘Somewhere we can talk.’
‘We can talk here. I thought that was the point.’
Dalton stared at him in silence. Something was different, a new tension about the man that Stringer should’ve picked up sooner. He glanced at the door, trying to remember if they’d locked them when he got in.
Without warning the car made a sharp turn into an unmarked entrance. They cruised down a slope, plunging from daylight into gloom. An underground garage. They cut right across a line of bays, the car park empty apart from them. Stringer released his seatbelt and flung it off. ‘What is this?’
Dalton kept his gaze down, his eyes flitting between the phone and the footwell.
They came to a stop and the driver and passenger jumped out. They opened Stringer’s door and pulled him off the seat.
‘Get your fucking hands off me.’
The two muscled him against the bare concrete wall. Dalton dropped down from the back seat and placed the phone on the roof of the car. He reached back inside and produced an iPad. He watched Stringer as he came over, holding it like a clipboard. ‘You’ve been meeting with a journalist.’
‘What the fuck is this about?’
‘Why did you meet with Lydia Wright?’
‘None of your business.’
‘Mr Suslov would like to know.’
‘Get fucked.’
Dalton looked at the man on the left and nodded. The car boot opened, someone pressing a button unseen. The driver walked over and pulled out a golf iron. He came back to Stringer and raised it slowly to his face, clipping his chin. He rested the edge of the blade on his forehead, the metal like a cold finger on his skin.
‘The journalist,’ Dalton said.
‘No.’
For a second nothing moved. All eyes on Dalton, disbelief that this was really going to happen. Then he nodded again.
The passenger grabbed Stringer’s wrists and pinned them above his head. Before he could even struggle, the driver swung the golf club into his guts.
He buckled, folding into himself in the instant before the man pinned his arms again. There was a pounding silence in his head, the garage tilting.
‘The journalist.’
Stringer spat on the floor to one side and gasped for a breath. It was all he could do to get a whisper out. ‘She’s irrelevant.’
Dalton swiped something on the tablet. ‘She’s irrelevant, the wife’s irrelevant – is there anything that is relevant? Did you kill Jamie Tan?’
> Stringer stuttered in disbelief. ‘You know I didn’t.’
‘Let’s be precise.’ He turned to talk to the phone on the car like it was a jury. ‘Did you arrange his murder?’
‘No.’
The driver swung the club again, connecting with his ribs and stomach. Stringer retched and his legs gave this time, the other man letting him fall to his knees and then to all fours.
He scrabbled on the floor. A pipe ran down the wall next to where he’d been standing, water leaking from it, the grainy discharge under his fingers.
Dalton came over and crouched in front of him, turning the iPad around to hold it in front of Stringer’s face.
His eyes were watering enough to blur the image, but recognition came anyway. It showed him marching up to Jamie Tan in the street with his phone held out. Dalton swiped and the next image came up – Stringer looming over him. The next – Stringer looking as if he was yelling at him.
‘You want to explain these pictures?’
A strand of drool slipped from the corner of his mouth, collecting on the concrete.
‘Mr Stringer?’
Shit… ‘The fuck are you doing watching me?’
‘That’s rich, coming from you. Now, do I need to reiterate who’s asking these questions?’
Stringer closed his eyes. ‘It was thirty seconds. The only contact we ever had.’
‘The purpose being?’
Stringer said nothing, scrambling for a lie.
‘Looks like you’re threatening him,’ Dalton said.
‘No.’
‘Then what?’
Stringer breathed hard.
‘What?’
‘I wanted to panic him, see if he’d fuck up even worse.’
‘What were you showing him?’
‘A picture. Him passing out class As. He didn’t know anything about me.’
‘Safe to say he’d remember you though.’
‘It was thirty fucking seconds. A stranger on the street.’
‘And yet shortly after, he’s dead. Then you turn up asking for more money. Did he come looking for revenge? Did you kill him in self-defence?’
‘No.’ Acid bile burned in his throat.
‘Did you kill him to blackmail Mr Suslov?’
‘What? No…’
‘Why are you talking to the journalist?’
‘For another job. Unrelated.’
‘You’re lying.’
‘Where is this shit coming from?’ Stringer said.
‘Were you blackmailing Tan on the side?’
‘No.’
‘That’s what you do, isn’t it?’
‘Only when I’m getting paid.’
‘Tan was a wealthy man. Easy pickings.’
‘Not enough to cross Suslov.’
‘You expect us to believe this bullshit? Where’s the wife?’
The change of direction threw him. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Is she alive?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘When was the last time you saw Tan?’
He clutched his stomach, rearing slowly back to his haunches. ‘Which one?’
‘Don’t be smart. Jamie.’
It took a second for his thoughts to clear. ‘The day before.’
‘Where?’
‘On the train. I was watching him.’
‘After you walked right up to him like that? And you think he didn’t notice you?’
‘I was careful.’
‘You knew his movements then.’
‘Of course I did.’
‘You knew he’d be on that train that night.’
‘For Christ’s sake, I had more reason to keep Tan alive than anyone. He lives, I get paid.’
‘He died and you asked for double.’
Stringer clutched his stomach, trying for one good breath. ‘Bring the phone.’
‘What?’
‘The phone. Over here.’
Dalton let the iPad dangle by his side and came back with the mobile. He held it up to Stringer’s mouth.
‘I didn’t kill him, Suslov.’
Silence.
He took a breath to gather himself and spoke again. ‘Tell this fucking child to let me go.’
A sharp noise came from the phone, like Suslov was clearing his throat. Dalton hit the button to take it off speaker and brought it to his ear. He listened, moving on the spot, but then turned away from Stringer and the other men. He dipped his head, saying something in a low voice that seemed like a protest. At last he nodded, then said, ‘Okay.’ He put the phone back on the roof and stood in front of Stringer, holding the iPad to himself again. ‘Get him up.’
The two men gripped his jacket and pulled him to his feet. Then the driver walked over to the car and tossed the golf club into the boot. He bent over to extract something from deeper inside, coming back holding a handgun.
Dalton glanced at it then looked back at Stringer. ‘Where’s the wife?’
Stringer stared at the phone, trying to block everything else out. The low ceiling was lined with fluorescent strip lights, a glare that seemed to penetrate him like an x-ray. They knew he’d been talking to Lydia, they had pictures of him with Jamie. Now the test they’d been building to: see if he’d lie again about Alicia, only to show him a picture of them together. A guess at what Suslov had said on the phone: If he lies, kill him.
Unless that was the bluff.
‘Stringer?’
‘I need my phone.’
‘What for?’
‘The address.’
‘Where is it?’
He nodded to his trouser pocket.
Dalton signalled the passenger. ‘Get it.’
The man patted his pocket and reached inside, producing the phone. ‘It’s locked.’
Dalton nodded and the passenger passed the phone to Stringer. ‘Open it.’
Stringer turned it to grip one-handed as if he was unlocking it with his thumb. Then he swung it into the driver’s mouth.
The metal rim smashed into his teeth. Blood spurted and the man dropped the gun to throw his hands to his face.
Stringer burst past him and ran towards the left-hand wall. He could hear the second man shouting behind him. Up ahead: an alarm panel, red light blinking. He smashed his palm into it, breaking the glass to set it off. A piercing siren bounced around the walls, filling the tight space.
He kept running, zagging around a column so they wouldn’t have a clear shot, making for a door under a fire-exit sign on the other side of the garage. He could hear footsteps pelting after him. He didn’t look back, his lungs burning.
He crashed through the emergency door and slammed it shut. He was at the bottom of a stairwell. He flattened his back against the door and braced his feet on the wall opposite, a metre off the ground. He grabbed for the baton in his pocket but it snagged on the way out, a desperate grasp catching thin air as it clattered to the floor.
The man crashed into the door and it jolted him violently, coming open a way before it snapped shut again, his legs just holding. He pushed until they were almost straight in front of him. He arched his back straining to get to the baton on the ground, but it was out of reach.
The door juddered again, but the man had no momentum now and it barely gapped. Stringer could feel him pounding on the other side, shouting something that was lost in the noise from the alarm.
He counted seconds, fearing a gunshot. How long until someone responded to a fire alarm in a building in the city?
The door moved again but held. His legs started to cramp. He tried to hold it but the pain got too bad and he had to drop his feet to the floor. He whipped around to plant his hands on the door to brace it again, stretching the cramp out of his calf as he did.
The hammering stopped. The door was still. He held his position a few seconds longer, weighing it, weighing it…
He grabbed the baton off the floor and darted up the stairs.
Two flights up he came to an emergency exit. He burst through
it and found himself on the street, the daylight blinding him.
CHAPTER 40
Monday morning, Lydia finally grasped the nettle. Thirty-plus hours in the office had her at breaking point.
She came out of Liverpool Street station and made the short walk to the HFB building. There was a sense of safety being surrounded by crowds of people on their way to work – proof that the real world still existed, that other people were still living normal lives. The mundane something she could still claw back.
The receptionist at HFB said Adam Finch hadn’t arrived for work yet. Lydia pretended she’d mixed up her times and said she’d wait for him. She took a seat by the entrance and studied the faces streaming in, feeling exposed sitting in Jamie Tan’s place of work.
Finch showed up fifteen minutes later, with florid cheeks and his tie worn loose, the top button of his shirt left undone. Looked like the end of his week, not the start.
She jumped up to call after him. ‘Adam…’
He stopped and turned around, the look on his face showing that he remembered her. He carried on walking.
‘Adam, please, I really need you to talk to me.’
He reached the bank of lifts and pressed the up button half a dozen times.
She came close enough to talk in a hush. ‘Someone tried to kill me last week. A friend of mine was murdered. Your friend Jamie’s at the heart of all of this.’
He looked up at the lift indicator and went to press the button again.
She put her hand over it before he could. ‘You didn’t contact me on the off chance I knew where Jamie was, so why don’t you just tell me whatever you wanted to say?’
He rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand, his document bag dangling from it. ‘I don’t know what you’re on about.’
A lift arrived and he moved towards it. She went after him, holding out her arm so the doors wouldn’t close. ‘Whatever it is that’s got you spooked, it’s going to keep eating you up until you get it off your chest. I just hope to god no one else has to die before you do.’
A man and a woman filed around her into the lift. She could feel them eyeing her, but she kept her gaze on Finch.
‘Do I have to call security?’ he said.
‘They killed my fucking friend, did you hear me?’ She saw herself in the mirror at the back of the lift and got a flashback to Goddard at City Airport. Eighteen months on and still making the same mistakes. She looked at Finch, his mouth ajar, looking like he wanted the ground to swallow him up, people inside the lift and out staring at her like she was a madwoman. She put her arm down and stepped back, staring at him.