A Last Act of Charity (Killing Sisters Book 1) (3 page)

He appeared almost interested in Stoner’s reply. Just for a moment, but he wasn’t, because he had more to say.

‘What would fire up some whore enough to make her kill her john, anyway? You know whores better than most men, dealing with them in your own unique way, JJ; share with me?’

Stoner glared at him. The Hard Man ignored it and continued.

‘I’ve asked our blue-suited friends to let me see the autopsies of unsolved single-man killings which match this one. Hotels. Places whores go. Also apparent natural causes without a cause. Healthy guys who’ve keeled over like the Monty Python parrot with no previous massive attacks. There won’t be many. Hopefully. An epidemic of coronaries would be a surprising thing. And in any case, I would have heard of it.’

Stoner supplied more water.

‘And you want me to do what?’

‘You’re going to be my faithful Indian scout, JJ, you’re going to invisibly go where I cannot. I have been invited to dig deeper than the blue boys and to dig wider. The blue boys have been told to stay away, so there won’t be press leaks. I am visible. I need to be visible. You’re unknown at this point, and I’ll try to keep it that way. You can do invisible. You can do silent. I will tell you of individuals I find suspicious and you will invisibly befriend them. You will live their lives in parallel, and invisibly, and you will find out whether there is a killing team in place. I think there is. I have no problems with that, but I want to know all about it.

‘The blue boys want to catch a killer. I just want to find out who it is. When we find him, then we can decide what we do.
No point in planning to spill milk unnecessarily. I can always use fresh talent.’

‘Clues? Hints? Tips? Leads? Suspects?’ Stoner decided upon the constructive approach. ‘And what was all that crap about the kid in the coffee shop about? Really?’

‘Him? He’ll live. He might come looking for you. Don’t know. Don’t suppose you need worry about that. But he might. His dad’s a copper, so he might be able to find you. That was the point. You bothered?’

‘No.’

‘No leads. Too many clues. None of them make sense. The guy – the most recent guy, the guy topped last night – he was truly worked over. Not a good job. Horrible. Pointless.’

‘You saw the scene?’

‘Only photos of the body. The scene had been cleared before I got there. That won’t happen again; you’ll be free to enter the scene as soon as I hear about another crime in the pattern. I’m claiming national security, only specialists allowed. Mucho secrecy, skulduggery, cloaks and daggers; nothing the blue boys want or need. You going to do this for me?’

Stoner nodded.

‘OK. Take a walk around the scene. Let yourself in. Can’t have you visible. Knight’s Inn; know it?’

Stoner nodded again. ‘Is the scene guarded?’

‘Only by tape. The big clean will start after SOCO have cried enough, and that will be a day or so, I guess. Walk around the place. Feel it. Smell it. Tell me what I’ve missed. You’ll want the body shots?’

‘After I’ve seen the scene. I’ll see how accurate I can get with that reconstructive talent you keep telling me I have.’

‘Be invisible, JJ. Just be invisible . . .’

And then the Hard Man was gone.

*

The door to the room didn’t close behind him; it didn’t get a chance to close. There was a foot in the door. The foot belonged to the listener at the door, the eavesdropper. The eavesdropper who had tried to hide when the Hard Man left suddenly; his leavings tending to be as sudden and unannounced as his arrivals, but who had been unable to get away and had been forced to accept the departing greeting . . .

4

FIRST PERSON PLURAL

‘That man is a twat.’

The dirty blonde has a gentle way with words. There’s no point in arguing with her, either. Once she’s made up her mind about something, someone, chances are that only some radical new information will change her view. It’s a charming characteristic . . . possibly . . . but not a particularly helpful one.

‘I mean . . . every time you see him, you get nervous. And when you get nervous, you’re just tiresome company. A pain in the arse. Why do you bother with him?’

Not a question. A statement in disguise. How could I answer that? For a start, it is so obviously a true statement. So I say a sweet nothing. These things help at moments like this.

‘Beer? Fancy a beer?’

I know how to impress a girl. Years and years of practice. Nowhere near a town named Perfection, but possibly I’m on the way there. Equally possibly . . . I’m not, or I may be on the road to nowhere, but let us not seek out defeat and disappointment; those bitter twins can always find you all too easily on their own.

Beer always cheers the dirty blonde. She grins at me in
approval. She may be quick to anger, but she’s quick to forgive, too, and despite suffering from an excellent memory, she rarely remembers that she has forgiven. Which is a good thing, not least because she’s had a lot to forgive – too much for most folk to forgive – in the time we’ve been together.

‘What did the twat want, anyway?’ She warms to her theme. ‘He never drops by for a simple chat, does he, that twat? There’ll be an angle, like always, and he’ll be richer, you’ll be poorer, then it’ll be time for him to vanish again.’

Which is the truth, although not exactly the whole truth. Because if the Hard Man has one redeeming virtue, it is that he pays his way. Financially, that is. Which is his only currency. Spiritual well-being – his own or anyone else’s – is rarely high on his list of concerns. It’s one of the nebulous notions, like morality, although he does possess loyalty and a refined and occasional sense of integrity, too, if the circumstances demand it.

I’ve known him – worked with him – for a long time now. Longer than you would think, given that I look so youthful. That’s an attempt at humour, as you would know if you knew me. No one has ever told me that I look youthful. Even when I actually was youthful, somehow I managed not to look it. It’s a talent. Possibly. A singularly pointless talent. I remember a description given to a bystander after a moment of fractious collision with some fool. They described the assailant – which was me – as looking like a man of about forty. I was twenty-eight. But this is of use; the plods searched for a man who looked about forty. Which I did. Like I said, it’s not a useful talent. Maybe I should disguise myself. Sport a wig, dye my hair, grow a beard. Maybe I truly do not care enough to bother.

Working with the Hard Man almost always involves bodies. In fact, I think there’s no need for a qualification there; there are always bodies. He is either responsible for causing those bodies to be dead ones rather than the lively kind, or he is responsible
for finding out who’s responsible for their deadness. On one particularly wry occasion he was hired by an interested party to find himself, for it was he himself who was responsible for the bodies in question. He failed to find himself, except possibly in a Zen sense. Although that would be unlikely, given his personal chosen path. But he did find someone else, someone who was indeed responsible in a direct way but who had pulled no trigger, twisted no garrotte. And he also shopped that person, sold him to his inquisitive customer and then offed him to prevent unhappy personal embarrassment. Life is packed with humour. It is often a challenge to find and accurately identify it, however.

Today’s visit had found the Hard Man being unusually non-specific. He claimed to be checking on my availability, although he could have used the phone to do that. There’s no need to perform the actual face-to-face talk-talk business these days. It’s possible, if unlikely, that he was concerned that someone as-yet unspecified could be listening in to a phone call. On the other hand, it is equally unlikely but equally possible that the same as-yet unspecified someone could be listening to us passing away the day via some high-tech eavesdropping kit fitted somehow, somewhere, in this apparently unlovely apartment. Paranoia is a terrible thing. Round and around it goes, and where it stops . . . everyone knows. Everyone who’s been down the paranoia highway, that is. And that includes everyone in this fine line of work. Indeed it does. It is impossible to survive otherwise. Trust me on this.

In a light moment, I once suggested to the Hard Man that we should name our little joint venture something witty and pithy and relevant. The Kompany of Killers, or maybe The Kuddly Killer Kompany; something subtle, something fashionably alliterative like that. I even suggested that this was so stunningly simple that no one would see through such a subtle double bluff; folk
might even believe that we were a charity dedicated to something noble. Like saving whales. Those handsome piebald black and white ones . . . orcas. But we’re not. Unless the pursuits of wealth and leisure are noble in themselves. And you can debate that in your own time.

The dirty blonde pretends patience. A sure sign that a little temper is imminent. I know the signs. Sometimes I ignore them, because she can be a whole load of fun when she gets worked up. And even more fun when she recognises that I have been winding her up, and then . . .

But let us not go there. You might be shocked. And we wouldn’t want that. Not here. Not now. And not yet.

‘And while you’re not telling me why the twat was here, parking his filthy feet on my sparkling clean carpet, you can also tell me that he’s going to make you rich and immortal. Rich or immortal, should I say.’

Rhetoric, as always, is a fun thing; a good clean game between friends, and like the best of games played between the best of friends, it’s best played in private.

Being possessed of a surprisingly strong desire to enjoy the rest of my time in this life, I refrained from reminding her that not only was the carpet neither particularly clean nor particularly hers, but also that the Hard Man had never to my knowledge done her wrong, as the song might have it. I also crave neither riches nor immortality, although a careful balancing of these two might be nice.

It would also have been inappropriate to mention that the Hard Man was one of the very few men of my acquaintance who would have been entirely delighted to remove his footwear in the noble cause of domestic bliss. He would have no concerns about that. He tends to be concerned about things more deadly than the state of the soles of his shoes or their potential for carpet contamination.

‘There’ll be a body,’ I tell her. ‘There’s always a body. That’s what we do. Bods R Us. Someone will be dead. He’ll expect me to go look at it, and then have a go at understanding it, so we can work out whodunit and he can thus become even more famous in his own secret circle. This is what we do. You know this. Nothing strange, nothing sinister, just a pair of amiable eccentrics going about their daily duties, making the world a better and a safer place.

‘Beer? Or curry?’ I truly do understand the pathway to my best girl’s innermost self.

‘Fuck off, JJ.’

She could be a poet if she’d only work on it a little harder.

‘Curry. And then you can tell me what the twat is lumbering you with this time.’

I have been close to the dirty blonde for a decently long time now. In a long life packed with irony, she is possibly the greatest irony of them all. For a start, she’s not exactly what the pedantic among us would describe as being naturally blonde. I know this to be true, and now so do you. We should perhaps keep that quiet intelligence to ourselves. She might not thank me for revealing her little stubbly secret, but in truth she most likely wouldn’t care, either.

Self-presentation is not her greatest concern. Although she does claim to value honesty. This in itself is an amusing notion, bearing in mind that she presents herself as being a blonde, when she is in fact otherwise.

Likewise, she isn’t dirty; she is demonically hygienically obsessively clean. I also know this, and in the great spirit of sharing which is currently afflicting me I will let you into this other little secret. I know the reasons for these charming disguises, too, of course I do, I investigate things, I crave understandings, but they’re not relevant at the moment. If it is unclear to you why anyone might present themselves as being something which in fact they
are not . . . play with your own imagination for the time being. I may reveal more later. Or I may not, of course.

‘JJ!’

She smacks me on the arm. This is a signal that I am not paying attention. And indeed I’m plainly not, because she has dragged on her so-cool but so-battered designer combat jacket and big boots and has plainly reached a decision about where we’re heading, she and I. Along with tact and diplomacy, democracy is also an alien notion to the dirty blonde.

‘You said something about curry. And beer. Have you changed your mind? Forgotten? Are you asleep? Dreaming of some other more pleasant company?’

Questions, questions. Life can be a puzzle.

She wanders around behind me and rubs me hard between the shoulders.

‘Come along; I’m hungry.’

She’s almost always hungry. She also hardly ever eats, despite spending half of her life in cafés and restaurants, pubs too. She may not be entirely blonde, and she may not be dirty, but she is certainly trim. I’d blame the cigarettes if she smoked, which she does not, so I can’t. Life can be a puzzle.

‘Unless . . .’ Her hands run down my sides, skate around the waistband of my pants. She grates a fingernail down the zip, grasps. I stiffen. Hold my breath.

‘Nah. Let’s go eat.’ Like I said. Dirtiness can be an elusive virtue. Which may make it more valuable. Who can tell?

‘There’s been a clump of killings.’

The dirty blonde may not be entirely certain what alliteration actually is, but she appears to enjoy flowery speech. It may be why she stays with me, of course. One night, in the sleepless oceans of shared awaking, I might ask her. But I’m unsure that I would in fact want to know the answer.

She grunts. An underrated means of communication, the grunt. She swirls the beer in her glass. Looks up, expectantly.

‘He’s not sure how many, but several. Messy stuff.’

She swirls her beer more actively than before. This may aid her concentration. I observe that I feel unaffected by this. We are all of us different.

‘He thinks that there are connections between maybe a half-dozen bodies in the last month or two.’

That’s a lot of bodies. Few folk, so we’re told, get killed in the UK, and those who do manage it are usually offed by their friends or family. For example, were I to get myself killed, it would be the dirty blonde who did it. This would not be exactly describable as enemy action, but she can get awesome cross, especially when I tease her by failing to reveal all in a succinct and direct way. She’ll swear at me in a minute . . .

‘Stop twatting about, JJ. Get to the point. How can I play Gloriana the Queen of Sleuths if you keep being mysterious?’

Pointing out that I am currently more hungry than mysterious would be a poor move at the moment.

‘Bodies in hotels. All blokes. At the last one there was blood everywhere. So much blood that the killer could paddle in it.’ I raise hands in surrender faster than she can raise her doubting eyebrows. ‘Literally paddle. Splash about in it.

‘No; really. Not a fingerprint at any scene, but plenty of footprints. If there was a national footprint database . . . the plods would have caught whoever-it-is by now. But there isn’t. And they haven’t. Most likely they won’t.

‘He thinks that the blood is a red . . . ah . . . herring. He thinks that the killer is a pro. He thinks that the amateur dramatic gorefest is there to distract, and it certainly does that for our boys in blue; they are duly distracted.’

The dirty blonde is interested now. Talk of killings, murder,
mischief and marvellous mayhem does this for her. I have theories about why it is that she finds this kind of thing so fascinating, but this is not the time to share them. Later, maybe. Or not, of course. It depends.

She looks up from an emptied glass.

‘Blood? The perp paddles in blood?’

Perp. Sigh. A hideous contraction of the word ‘perpetrator’. So . . . so very American. She plainly watches too much American television. Slime Scene Investigations, or the like. Improbable romantic comedy with superbly impossible plots. I boast a constabulary acquaintance who watches every episode several times. She watches them because they crack her up with every viewing. Comedy cops pursue comedy killers in comedy locations. Reality is a lot more . . . grimy. Killers are a lot more . . . grim. Murder is not the most cheerful of professions; it would be an odd world if it were that.

‘Yes. Apparently the last of the locations looks like something from the really dark side of Japanese noir cinema. Joke blood everywhere. Lakes of the stuff.’

‘But it’s not joke blood?’

‘Not a drop of it. It’s the real deal. A body contains lots, and it can make quite a mess. And at these locations it’s everywhere; on the walls, furniture, ceilings even.’

‘Are there spatter patterns, then?’

She really is getting into the TV jargon. Any moment now she’ll start humming whodunit theme tunes. Refilling her glass and changing the subject is a far, far better option. I don’t mind talking about work with the dirty blonde, but messy killings rarely involve a cast of characters from the light-hearted, easy-going side of life, and her life contains enough darkness already.

‘Splatter? Is it called spatter or splatter?’

A man could so easily despair, so easily lose track of what is a serious business. Murdering men is not fun. Well. I never found
it that way when it was my main way of turning an honest shilling. That’s got you wondering, hasn’t it?

‘It’s blood, just blood. Patterns can only tell you nice convenient stories if they’ve been designed by someone who is trying to tell you a story.’ I try really hard to sound reasonable. Not least because folk at adjacent tables can become distracted if they overhear their neighbours shouting in heated tones about blood on the carpet. On the walls. And if the Hard Man was to be believed, on the ceiling. That did sound excessive.