A Killing Moon (30 page)

‘By history, you mean convictions,’ said Charlton, pouncing on Brook’s choice of words.

Brook hesitated. ‘Some arrests.’

‘I see. Can you prove that Max Ostrowsky killed Kassia Proch?’

‘Not yet,’ said Brook softly.

‘I’ll take that as a no.’

‘Sir, Nick Tanner is dependent on Jake for everything. They were together when they torched the van. They wouldn’t have split up.’

‘Maybe he’s hiding in that flat they broke into,’ said Charlton, sarcastically.

‘I just got the call,’ said Noble, rejoining Brook. ‘It’s empty.’

‘They were there?’

Noble looked hesitantly at Brook. ‘It looks that way.’

Charlton’s demeanour darkened. ‘So how the hell was
that
missed?’ he barked. ‘The same bloody tower block.’ Silence broke out and all heads in the room turned to see blood spill.

‘My fault,’ replied Brook coldly. ‘I relied on uniform to do the legwork.’ If a pin dropped, nobody heard it, and the silence crackled with unspoken anger. But far from taking the wind out of Charlton’s sails, a volcanic rage seemed to bubble up through him and he jabbed a finger into Brook’s chest.

‘We have a confession; I want Tanner charged. Now! Get him in front of the magistrates first thing in the morning and stick one in the win column. Then we question him about Caitlin and the others. Understood?’

Brook stared back at Charlton’s animated expression, aware that he had nothing but a theory to void a signed confession. ‘There’s
no
connection between Kassia Proch’s murder and the other missing girls. I should’ve realised sooner.’

‘You don’t know that,’ scoffed Charlton.

‘I know Tanner was in prison when Valerie Gliszczynska disappeared.’

Charlton was on the back foot for a second before clambering on to safer ground. ‘You haven’t answered my question. Will you charge Tanner, or do I need to do it?’

Brook’s gaze fell. ‘I’ll do it,’ he said quietly, though by this time Charlton, anticipating victory, was already storming away. When the incident room door slammed, Brook looked uneasily round at his team, their faces turned to him for a reaction. ‘That went well.’ The assembled detectives laughed before returning to their work, the hubbub of normality restored.

Cooper sidled up. ‘Nick got into a black Mercedes outside the Traffic Street entrance. It belongs to Ostrowsky. No sign of coercion. I’m working on a route.’

Thirty

26 April

Banach felt a hand gently touch her shoulder to rouse her.

‘Are you okay, Angie?’ said Helen Cowell.

Banach yawned and stretched in the chair. ‘Good, thanks.’

‘You’ve been crying.’

Banach reached up to feel the dry tackiness on her cheeks. ‘Just tired.’ She stood to get feeling back into her legs, looking down at Mitch sleeping peacefully. The drip had been removed and only a fresh bandage around his skull was evidence of injury. ‘Been a hard week.’

Cowell smiled. ‘It’s after two. You should go.’

‘I’d like to stay a while longer,’ said Banach. ‘I can’t face going home.’ Cowell submitted with a sigh. ‘Thank you.’

‘How’s . . . everything?’

Banach laughed. ‘You should’ve been a diplomat. No decision yet.’

‘Have you spoken to the father?’

Banach rolled her eyes towards the sleeping policeman. ‘He doesn’t know yet. But I made an appointment at the Rutherford.’

‘I see,’ said Cowell. ‘Constable Ryan will be discharged in the morning, if that helps.’

‘Doctor . . .’

Cowell smiled. ‘You want to tell him yourself. I understand. Mum’s the word.’

‘Interesting choice of words,’ said Banach.

Brook and Noble’s footsteps echoed on the exposed floorboards. It took them only a minute to confirm that Max Ostrowsky had left his three-room flat in a hurry.

‘I thought Tanner’s flat was bare,’ said Noble, looking around. The main room contained only an armchair – no carpet or curtains – and the floor was littered with half-eaten takeaway cartons, full ashtrays, crushed cigarette packets and empty vodka bottles. The bedroom contained only a single sleeping bag, though this time the detritus was confined to teeming ashtrays and Styrofoam cups.

‘It’s an identical sleeping bag to the one in the Cream,’ said Brook, examining a label.

‘At least DNA shouldn’t be a problem.’

A uniformed constable appeared at the door, ushering a whiskered old man in front of him.

‘You have information about Max?’ said Noble.

‘Is that his name?’ said the old man, moving his eyes around the room. ‘Fuck me! What a shithole. You wouldn’t think he’d know someone with a Merc.’

‘Did you see him leave?’

‘Aye, carrying a holdall.’

‘And he got into a Mercedes.’

‘With some bald bloke big as a brick shithouse. I kept my door closed, I can tell you.’

‘When was this?’

‘Few hours ago. Maybe six.’

Brook beckoned Noble outside on to Arboretum Street, where the squad car lights were still flashing. ‘Forget local and house-to-house, John. If Ostrowsky’s got any sense, he’ll get Max out of the country. It’s the smart move.’

‘Ports and airports,’ nodded Noble.

Zeke put an ear to Caitlin’s mouth. ‘She’s still breathing.’

‘Good.’ Red withdrew the white-hot iron from the blowtorch flame. ‘Hold her head.’

Zeke held Caitlin’s skull to the ground while Red moved the hot iron closer to the bubbling wound. With a quick movement she touched the iron against the damaged tissue and held it for a few seconds, ignoring the sizzle of evaporating blood and burning flesh.

‘There,’ she said, tossing the iron on to the concrete. ‘It’s in God’s hands now.’

The distant sound of a phone ringing distracted them.

‘At this hour?’

Red ran to the house while Zeke plunged his broken hand into a bucket of icy water and splashed his bloody cheek clean. Then he opened the steel door leading off the main barn and pulled on the handle of a circuit breaker. Dormant machinery inside the unit began to hum. With his good hand, he gripped Daniela’s long hair and dragged her body towards the darkened room.

He didn’t notice Caitlin’s eyes open briefly at the noise of Daniela’s body being hauled away, instead setting to work with the unit’s high-powered machinery.

He reappeared a few minutes later in a bloodstained rubber apron, steaming faintly in the cold night air. He carried a large steel pan covered with a lid.

‘That was the Doc,’ shouted Red. ‘Get cleaned up. We’ve got a new girl.’

Zeke grinned. ‘The Lord will provide. When?’

‘Now.’

‘Now?’ said Zeke, setting down the pan and removing his apron. ‘But we haven’t scoped her out. Who is it?’

‘Unknown, but the Doc has a line on her and says it’s an emergency.’

‘I don’t like it.’

‘Neither do I, but with a baby to save, we do as we’re told, right?’ said Red.

‘What about the pick-up spot?’

‘The Doc says it’s perfect. No one knows she’s there.’

‘Where?’

‘Tell you on the way.’

‘Sorry, boys.’ Zeke called across to the pen. ‘You’ll have to make do with pig nuts until tomorrow.’

‘It’s full of holes,’ said Noble, reading through a copy of Tanner’s confession.

Wearily Brook turned a page of the original. ‘You should go home before you lose another night’s sleep, John.’

‘I’ll follow you out for a change,’ replied Noble, not looking up from Tanner’s statement. ‘Jake knows just enough to convict himself – the cleaning, the cause of death. Is it possible he did it?’

‘He was coached,’ said Brook. ‘He didn’t take a shower, so why clean the trap and why risk moving the body? The moment he stole Max’s van, he put himself in our sights. It doesn’t make sense.’

‘So you think . . .’

‘I think he stole the van not realising the body was already in there.’

Noble concentrated hard. ‘Okay. But here’s what I don’t understand. If Max did kill Kassia . . . in her flat . . . why would
he
move the body? Surely it makes just as much sense for him to leave Kassia where she is.’

‘That is a very good question.’

‘I’ve got a better one. Having taken the decision to move the body, why the hell would he leave it in his van?’

Brook flicked through Tanner’s statement. A few moments later, he covered his face with his hands. ‘Christ! What an idiot.’

‘Who?’

‘Me! Listen to this. “The van was unlocked so I got in. The key for the ignition was on the floor in front of the driver’s seat. I signalled Nick to get in and we drove away.”’

‘Max didn’t lock the van?’

Brook slumped forward to rub his eyes. He took a minute to think it through. ‘I’ve been so blind. He’s been at least two steps ahead all the way.’

‘Who?’

‘You’re right,’ said Brook. ‘Max wouldn’t kill Kassia and leave the body outside his flat in an unlocked van – nobody’s that stupid.’

‘So if Max didn’t move the body . . .’

‘. . . then he didn’t kill her.’

‘So all that business with the hammer and the blowtorch?’ said Noble.

‘Same objection I made to Jake,’ said Brook. ‘Why go to all that trouble to burn off her tattoo and prints and disfigure her when she’s already invisible?’

‘It wasn’t done to hide her identity?’

Brook shook his head. ‘It was done to
suggest
an identity – the killer’s.’

‘Max.’

‘Exactly. Max’s blowtorch and hammer, the van too – all used to implicate him. And the victim was stripped to make it look like a sex crime to point to Max’s history.’

‘But Kassia hadn’t had sex.’

‘Because it wasn’t
about
sex, John. It was a crime of passion – her head injuries tell us that. But it wasn’t passion for Kassia.’

‘What then?’

‘It was passion for what she carried.’

‘The baby?’

‘The baby,’ repeated Brook. ‘Damn it, I should have realised when we checked the Rutherford staff for anyone who’d lost a child.’

‘Ostrowsky’s wife and baby died in childbirth,’ suggested Noble.

‘And he never remarried,’ said Brook.

‘He’s single, good-looking and successful,’ continued Noble, nodding. ‘He met Kassia somehow and she fell for him. Why wouldn’t she, living in a poky flat a long way from home? They had an affair.’

‘Hardly an affair, John. I suspect their relationship was largely sexual. But when Kassia became pregnant, Ostrowsky fell in love with the idea of replacing the child he’d lost . . .’

‘But Kassia decides to have an abortion.’

‘When she tells him her plans, she doesn’t realise the anguish it causes him,’ said Brook. ‘To lose a second child after the death of a first. It’s against his religion and his instinct to father a child at last.’

‘He would have tried to change her mind . . .’

‘No doubt. Maybe he even threatened her, but Kassia must’ve realised he didn’t love her. She refused, and when she left the clinic the night she was scheduled to have the procedure, he killed her.’

‘But she didn’t abort the child,’ argued Noble.

‘But he doesn’t know that,’ said Brook. ‘Either she doesn’t tell him or, blinded by rage, he doesn’t give her a chance to speak.’

‘Killing his own child,’ said Noble, shaking his head. ‘You could almost feel sorry for him.’

‘Don’t. He was smart enough to wait until she arrived back at the flat and cold enough to disfigure her corpse and frame his brother.’

‘But he couldn’t cover his shock when we told him Kassia was pregnant,’ said Noble.

‘Under the circumstances, I’m surprised he held it together that well.’

‘It all makes sense. But why would he implicate his own brother?’

‘Because Max is a sexual predator.’

‘We don’t know that,’ said Noble. ‘He’s never been charged.’

‘Only because Greg’s been covering for him over the years.’

‘Then why stop now?’

‘Ostrowsky thinks himself a religious man,’ said Brook. ‘And to a religious man, Max’s recent behaviour is not just an embarrassment but an affront to God.’

‘Recent behaviour?’

‘Max is bisexual.’

‘What? Are you sure?’

‘Pretty sure. Ironic that what was happening between Nick and Max was the final straw for both Ostrowsky
and
Jake.’

‘Nick and Max?’ repeated Noble.

‘Remember when Jake started at Bar Polski, he took Nick along while he worked. I’m guessing Max started grooming Nick the minute he saw him. With special needs, Nick would’ve been flattered by the attention, and maybe even by money and gifts. Who knows? I suspect he is suggestible; he’ll do things he doesn’t understand because it makes him feel popular.’

‘And Jake starts to suspect and stops taking his brother to work,’ said Noble.

‘And starts thinking of how to send Max a message.’

‘By stealing his van.’

‘I doubt there was a set plan, but once he finds the van unlocked, it’s hard not to steal it,’ said Brook. ‘What Jake doesn’t know is that he’s blundered into Ostrowsky’s plan to frame his degenerate brother. It’s all there in Jake’s past. The assault on a homosexual that landed him in prison – the only violent act on his record – a reaction in defence of a brother unable to understand consent, unable to comprehend what some people might want from an attractive young boy. Remember the sleeping bag at the Cream Bar . . .’

‘Max’s?’

Brook nodded. ‘The vodka, too.’

‘But how did Max get his stuff into the Cream Bar?’ said Noble.

‘I found the keys. There wasn’t time to tell you.’

‘Where?’

‘In your desk. You hadn’t booked them into evidence.’

‘The keys from the burnt-out van?’ Noble was confused. ‘So Jake dropped them when he stole the van.’

‘SOCO found them in the
back
of the van, John.’ Brook arched an eyebrow. ‘Max’s van. If Jake mislaid them during the theft, they’d be near the driver’s seat. Max had the keys.’

‘How?’

‘Probably Nick took them and gave them to him so they could have somewhere to meet and have sex.’

‘But if the keys were in the burnt-out van, Jake couldn’t have been in the Cream.’

‘No.’

‘Unless he climbed in.’

‘Admit to murder but deny an assault? No. He was telling the truth.’

‘Then who assaulted Ryan and Banach? Max?’

‘Why would he?’ asked Brook.

‘Maybe he went there looking for Nick.’

‘But Max knew the keys to the Cream were in his van, which by then was in the police pound. And there was someone with a more compelling reason for finding Jake and Nick.’

‘Ostrowsky,’ nodded Noble.

‘And when the news conference told him that Jake and Nick had stolen his van, he set his people on their trail. His bodyguard . . .’ Brook clicked his fingers.

‘Tymon.’

‘Tymon went to the Cream looking for Jake,’ said Brook. ‘And it was Tymon who went to Arboretum Street to take the van after Max had parked up for the night. Ostrowsky owns it; he’d have spare keys. So if Tymon’s challenged, it’s not even stealing. Then he drives to Kassia’s flat and takes Max’s hammer and blowtorch from the van to disfigure the body. He wraps her body in a plastic sheet . . .’

‘Why not just use the bed sheets?’

‘They’re not transparent, John. With plastic, anybody investigating the van will see immediately that there’s a body. It’s a frame-up, remember. That’s why Tymon replaces the tools in the van and drives back to Arboretum Street with Kassia’s body. He leaves the van unlocked and sometime later returns to the flat to clean up.’

‘So when Kassia’s flat was cleaned, it was to cover up
Ostrowsky
’s presence.’

‘His DNA would be everywhere. The shower, her clothes . . .’

‘You’ve got to hand it to Ostrowsky. It’s brilliant.’

‘He must have got the shock of his life when we turned up to tell him his van had been stolen. His plan was in ruins and he needed a new one, and quickly. Fortunately for him, he has Jake – a convicted criminal and the perfect fall-guy. All he needed was leverage.’

‘Nick,’ nodded Noble. ‘Where do you think they’re holding him?’

‘The warehouse in Pride Park has got to be favourite.’

‘We should—’

‘Charlton would never sign off on a raid,’ said Brook. ‘And even if we find Nick there, we still wouldn’t have enough to touch Ostrowsky.’

‘We’d have Nick at least,’ said Noble. ‘Then Jake might cooperate, testify that Ostrowsky coached him.’

‘All that gets us is proof that he’s protecting Max,’ said Brook.