A Hard Woman to Kill (The DCI Hanlon Series) (6 page)

There was a momentary silence. Danny could imagine Anderson, his thin, sunken face, and those eyes that looked as if they belonged to some religious fanatic. Funny, thought Danny, his eyes burned, but his voice never did.

He could see Anderson in his imagination, in his memory, his face framed with his longish, lank hair, holding his mobile. Morris Jones, his lieutenant, would be with him. He always was. Like a faithful dog. Jones’s eyes wouldn’t be burning; they were dead and fish-like, glazed. Anderson didn’t waste words. He trusted Danny and knew he would never exaggerate. If Danny said he needed to see it, he meant it.

‘One hour,’ was the reply. Danny thought of logistics, North London to here, a small crew to organize. It couldn’t be done any faster.

He automatically straightened his back. ‘As soon as possible, Boss, please.’ He took a deep breath and looked around the bar. ‘We need cleaners.’

There was a pause on the phone. ‘Jordan?’

‘Jordan’s here,’ said Danny. No need to elaborate; Dave Anderson would see what had happened to his brother only too soon.

‘Within the hour,’ said Anderson coldly. His voice wasn’t ice; it was liquid nitrogen.

The cleaners arrived within thirty minutes. Impressive speed by any standards. By ‘cleaners’, Danny had meant people to deal with the crime scene. Anderson wasn’t a messy criminal. He always made sure that things were tidy and the people who worked for him, whether full or part time, knew it. He hated sloppiness, hated untidiness. There were three of them, accompanied by Morris Jones, Anderson’s right-hand man.

For Danny, with only the dead to keep him company, the half-hour had seemed a very long time indeed. He thought about going elsewhere in the flat, the bedroom or the kitchen, but the thought of leaving the corpses alone was even less appealing than being with them. He had experienced a kind of hallucinatory thought that the bodies might somehow, horror-film fashion, rise up from where they sat so patiently, to come and find him, to traipse through the doorway in single file, searching him out. At least in here, he thought, slightly hysterically, in here I can keep an eye on things.

The sense of relief when his mobile rang to tell him they had arrived was enormous. He opened the door to the four men and ushered them inside. They followed Danny into the living room and stood there silently, taking in the charnel-house scenario. Their faces revealed a mix of horror, revulsion and bewilder ment, but not Jones: his face was its usual deadpan blank.

Jones was tall and formidable with an impressive pedigree of violence, but that wasn’t why Anderson employed him. Muscle was ubiquitous. He was a superb organizer. The three cleaners, junior employees of Anderson, stood awaiting their instructions. They cast fascinated, horrified looks at the bodies round the table. Particularly the head. The severed head. Nobody had seen anything remotely like it. On the TV, yes, on the news, at the cinema, but not in real life.

Jordan’s disembodied head dominated the room as he had never done in real life.

Morris Jones was always beautifully dressed. Today it was a charcoal suit and a camel overcoat. He was tieless; it wasn’t a fashion choice. He didn’t like wearing ties purely on utilitarian grounds. He was a man used to violence and in his youth, when he’d been in a great deal of fights, he’d had opponents use his tie to grab hold of him. So the hint of colour that he felt was needed in his ensemble was provided by a brilliant-red silk scarf hanging around his neck.

‘Where is he?’ asked Danny. He didn’t need to elaborate as to who ‘he’ referred to. Jones checked his watch. A Patek Philippe.

‘He’ll be about ten minutes,’ said Jones. ‘It’s the old man’s funeral next week, and now this. What a fucking mess.’ His tone of voice carried more a sense of weary irritation than anything. A harassed housewife faced with some more mess that thoughtless children had left behind.

‘You two,’ said Jones to the men with him, ‘start in the other rooms, you don’t need me to tell you what to do, and you, Mickey, down to the van, start bringing up those bags, OK. I need a quiet word with Danny here.’

The three men nodded and disappeared to their allotted tasks. Jones looked at Danny.

Danny nodded at the bodies and the table. ‘I just don’t understand all of this. I really don’t.’

Morris Jones gave him a contemptuous look. I don’t care what you make of this, the look said, your opinions are of no interest to me whatsoever.

Jones went over to the bar and poured himself a bitter lemon. He gazed at the green/blue drink and sipped it appreciatively. He ran his eyes over Danny speculatively.

‘Seen Jackson around, have you?’

The question was anything but innocuous. After Jordan’s release from Armley a couple of months previously, Anderson had assigned a reliable man called Barry Jackson to him as his minder. Dave Anderson had told his brother it was because he had received death threats and he wanted extra security, but the real reason was to make sure Jordan, loyal but hot-headed, didn’t do anything stupid. Well, nothing too stupid anyway. To keep him out of trouble.

Jordan had had a tendency to lose his temper and cause trouble. The incident that had got him sent to Armley was a road-rage explosion, pure and simple, nothing to do with business. He’d forced a motorist who’d cut him up off the road and beaten him senseless. It had been stupid, thoughtless and violent. That was Jordan for you. Jones or Dave Anderson might kill or injure you, but only for professional reasons. Not Jordan.

And now Barry Jackson was missing.

Danny shook his head. ‘No, Morris.’ Jones nodded, then stretched his powerful arms as if relieving stress or tension in his muscles. He had a very long reach. Danny was a stocky, muscular six feet, the other man was taller, rangier. Jones opened his mouth wide and took the plate that held his top teeth out of his mouth. A baseball bat in the face causes havoc dentally, as does a steel-toed boot. Most of Jones’s face had been broken or fractured over the years. Mouth included. He put the denture down on the bar. Its pink plastic, set with replica front teeth, grinned wetly at Danny. Morris Jones smiled humorlessly at the other man.

For a second Danny wondered what Jones was doing. Only for a second. Then he found out.

Danny had known some people who moved fast and Jones was up there with the best. Before he knew what was happening, Jones had grabbed his right wrist and spun him round so his back was against Jones’s stomach, then the taller man twisted his right arm back and upwards in a form of hammerlock.

He forced Danny over the back of a heavy, leather Chesterfield sofa, the twin to the one that Tatiana and the unknown man sat companionably on, and applied pressure viciously. Danny could feel the ligaments in his shoulder start to give.

‘Jesus, Morris, you’re breaking my arm,’ gasped Danny.

‘Where’s Barry Jackson, Danny?’ asked Jones. His mouth was close to Danny’s head and he spoke in an unnerving whisper. ‘It’s him I want, not you.’

‘I don’t know,’ he said. He could smell the leather of the sofa and the smell of Jones, cigarette smoke and some kind of expensive aftershave.

Jones increased the pressure. Danny groaned again in agony. It hurt so much he could see stars floating in his vision. He tried to move but Jones’s body weight was on top of him. Jones repeated the question and Danny could feel his hot breath on his ear.

‘Jesus, I don’t know,’ he repeated. He knew Jones would have no compunction about breaking his arm, or anything else come to that. Anderson wouldn’t care; he also knew that.

Danny’s left arm was trapped under his own body by his chest. He tried to move it out but Jones leaned more of his own weight forward to prevent this and reached his free hand down between Danny’s legs, seizing his testicles and squeezing hard and rotating at the same time. He’d known some pain in his life, but nothing remotely like this. He’d been kicked in the nuts before and that had been bad enough, bowel-churning, sickening pain, but this was worse and it went on, and on and on. He had always felt that things were never as bad as you might expect. Not any more. Now he knew that some things were exponentially worse than you could ever have imagined. The pain was excruciating. He thought he was going to vomit.

If Danny had known, he would have told him. Not only was the pain dreadful, so was Jones himself. There would be no point holding out against Morris Jones, no point at all. Not if you knew what was good for you.

‘Where is he, Danny?’ Jones’s voice was merciless in his ear. ‘Tell me what you know.’ Tears ran involuntarily down Danny’s face. Jones had a terrible reputation. Once Danny had unexpectedly walked in on him in the cellar of the Three Compasses. That was the name of the North London pub that the Andersons owned. He’d stammered an excuse and left, but not before he’d seen a huddled form on the rough concrete floor, covered by a blanket, and the bloodstained long-nosed electricians’ pliers in Morris Jones’s hand.

One naked foot, a man’s foot, had been poking out from the blanket. It hadn’t been moving. Jones had looked at Danny impassively. He’d been bare-chested, his shirt and suit jacket hanging neatly on the back of a chair. Danny had assumed he didn’t want to get them dirty.

The pupils of Jones’s eyes had been like pinpricks. Danny had heard the rumours about Morris Jones’s heroin habit; he guessed it was true.

‘I swear to God, I don’t know.’ More pressure on his arm and testes. He tried to resist, to push away, but Jones’s strength was terrifying. He felt a roaring in his ears and thought he was going to black out. Fleetingly he thought, If Jones is a junkie, he’s in bloody good condition.

Then he heard a voice saying, ‘Leave it, Mo, he’s had enough.’

Danny felt the remorseless grip slacken and stop. The weight disappeared from his body and he sank to his knees, coughing. The pain in his lower body was intolerable. For another long moment he thought he was going to vomit. He leaned forward on all fours, breathing deeply, willing the pain away.

‘Boss,’ said Morris Jones to Anderson. He moved back to the bar and replaced his teeth. He glanced at Danny incuriously. Danny hauled himself upright. His knees were trembling from the incredible ache in his pelvis. He retched drily and staggered to his feet.

Anderson stood looking at the silent figures on the sofa and Jordan’s head on the table.

‘Did you know, Danny, on average there are two to three murders per week in London? Statistics, eh, Jordan.’ He picked up his brother’s head gently and looked into the dead eyes as if seeking confirmation. Something about the face puzzled him and Danny and Jones watched as he gently tilted the head and, using his thumb and forefinger, opened Jordan’s jaws to look into his now open mouth.

Danny, his pain subsiding, watched his boss with awed fascination. Anderson was taller than Jones, gaunt, his hair hanging in its almost shoulder-length rat’s tails. His cheeks were sunken and the eyes glittered, as always, with a kind of unhealthy fire. With the severed head between his hands, he looked crazier than ever. He looked like an insane prophet.

He kissed his brother’s cold forehead gently, placed the head back down on the table and turned to Jones.

‘Check their mouths,’ he said. Jones nodded and went to the sofa. He didn’t need to ask what for. It had to be obvious or Anderson would have told him. He started his grim task with his face expressionless. Anderson came over to Danny.

‘Feeling better?’ he asked, with no real interest. Danny nodded. Anderson looked at him thoughtfully.

‘Whoever did this was known to Tatiana,’ he said. ‘Someone who works for me. She let them in. Someone knew where this place was. Someone knew where to bring Jordan’s head so I’d find it. I’m satisfied to see it wasn’t you.’ Anderson’s eyes held Danny’s momentarily. It was a frightening sensation. ‘If I thought you might. . .’ said Anderson, indicating the bodies behind him.

He didn’t need to finish the sentence.

Anderson produced an iPad from the leather briefcase he had with him and tapped at it. Google Maps appeared and he pressed a couple more keys.

‘There’s a tracker installed in Jackson’s car,’ he said matter-of-factly, ‘and right now Barry Jackson, or at least his car, is here.’ He pointed with a long, strong finger at the screen.

Danny looked at the map. A display marker hovered over the countryside near Ongar in Essex, north of London. ‘Jackson’s from Essex,’ said Anderson. ‘Do you know Essex at all, Danny? ’

‘Not really, Boss.’

‘Well, today’s your lucky day.’

Morris Jones looked up from the table, his task finished. He put Tatiana’s head back down gently as if replacing an ornament. ‘Nothing there, Dave.’

Anderson nodded. ‘I’ll leave you here, Morris, to finish off tidying everything up. Get rid of the bodies, usual place.’ Morris Jones nodded.

‘Look at this, Morris, when you’re done here. I want you to wait for us there.’ His finger indicated a place on the screen. Jones came over, stood beside him, looked and nodded.

‘Just there?’ he asked.

‘Just there,’ confirmed Anderson.

‘And Jordan?’ Morris Jones asked.

‘Put him in the lock-up in the freezer there. Until we decide what to do with him. He deserves better than the others.’ Morris nodded.

‘And the others?’ asked Morris.

‘The usual,’ said Anderson.

Morris Jones nodded. ‘Same old, same old?’

‘Yes,’ said Anderson. ‘Oh, Morris, I take it they both had their tongues?’ He indicated the heads.

‘Yes, Dave,’ said Jones. They might have been discussing the weather, thought Danny.

‘Jordan didn’t,’ said Anderson. ‘Come on, Danny.’ He switched off the tablet, his face expressionless. ‘Let’s pay Barry a visit. In lovely, leafy Essex. He will be surprised.’

Hanlon stood in the picket line outside Belanov’s sizeable house on the Woodstock Road in Oxford with the other protestors, and waved her placard. Underneath the strap heading of the Socialist Worker Party, a slogan read:

Pay Parity
.

Twenty-five women of varying sizes, shapes and ages stood in an orderly crescent shape and chanted harmoniously.