Cold Kill (40 page)

Maxine's chis, Louise, showed all the signs of someone who'd had a bad night. The biggest clue was the one-tab overdose of ibuprofen and coffee so strong it made your pupils dilate. Stella set her cup down and said Lauren Buchanan's name as if it were a question.

Louise nodded. ‘She worked at Jumping Jacks… I don't know… a year? Bit less?'

‘Tell me about her,' Stella said.

Louise looked at Maxine, who said, ‘Sorry. We have to know this stuff.'

‘She was a croupier, mostly roulette. She had a bit of a thing for Billy at one time. They had an affair. It didn't last long. She was a problem to him.'

Stella let Maxine take over. There's a rhythm to handling a chis: you learn when to push, when to wait. Maxine said, ‘How big a problem?'

‘Wouldn't let go. But it was a bit more than that. She started following him around, sending texts and emails, hounding him, you know.'

Maxine waited for the rest. Louise poured herself some more coffee; Stella thought her heartbeat must sound like a road-drill.

‘Billy warned her off. It didn't work. So he threatened to have her killed.'

‘How do you know?'

‘She told me. They took her somewhere, out of London, you know, the country somewhere, and they put a gun in her mouth and told her to stop.'

‘Billy did this?'

‘No, not Billy. Of course not Billy. Leon Bloss.'

Maxine nodded, as if to say, ‘Go on,' but Louise fell silent for a while and Maxine let it ride. With her face naked of make-up and her hair down, Louise looked younger and not nearly so tough. Stella noticed the touches in the flat that gave the girl away: a framed photo of an old couple who must have been Louise's parents, some silk flowers, some retro CDs.

‘It was odd, but she stayed on at the casino for a couple of months after that. I expected her to leave. Then she started having an affair with a punter –'

‘Which is when she left?'

‘Soon after.'

‘What was his name?'

‘I don't know. He wasn't much. I mean, he wasn't really a gambler. Came in with a few guys after a party, I think. Then one or two evenings after that, but again with friends. Lauren made it clear she was interested, and he started coming in on his own, but mostly to see her. He didn't like to lose, and you can't gamble if you feel like that.'

‘Was it serious between them?'

‘Serious for her, but then it always was: like with Billy.'

‘But not for him –'

‘He was up for it, you could see that. But I think it was all about sex. A lot of the punters think that. You're a casino girl, you must be a red-hot fuck.'

‘What was his name?' Stella asked.

‘I don't know. I mean, I never heard it, not his last name.'

‘But his first name?'

‘Duncan.'

Kimber searched through the day and into the night. He'd been further afield – up to Kilburn, down to Kensington, out to Marble Arch. He'd gone into Soho but without any expectations. Soho had its own brands of beggar: either cool and disengaged or matted and mad.

She saw me. She saw me.

He'd walked the length of Ladbroke Grove five times and seen the same sad sacks each time. He'd walked down Bassett Road, getting close, getting too close, to Jan's flat, but the basement areas were empty, save for the usual detritus of cans and bottles and newspapers. He knew about the Ocean Diner and the handouts from the sous-chef because he'd seen it happen, so he'd visited the alley from time to time but found only the kitchen staff shivering and smoking

It was movie and pub time, unless you were late-night shopping. In the Shepherd's Bush subway a man was playing the fiddle, very slowly; outside ‘Snow's on the Green', another was selling last month's
Big Issue
. Every twenty feet someone said, ‘Spare some cash, please, any spare change, please...' Kimber returned to home ground. He went into McDonald's, bought whatever came first on the menu and sat by the window to eat it. When he bent his knees to sit down, the shaft of the hammer rode on his thigh.

Sadie wasn't John Delaney's only street contact, but she was the best. For one thing she liked to talk and, when she did,
the stories were lucid and usable. Delaney suspected that not all of them were true, but she knew how to earn the twenty he had waiting for her. She had been his chosen companion on the night he'd slept out: Sadie and the loopy Jesus Man. Now Delaney had a deadline and there were still a few gaps in his account of street-people at Christmas, but he hadn't been able to find Sadie, not last night, not tonight.

Kimber's and Delaney's paths had crossed a few times during the course of the day. Now they were pretty much looking at each other but seeing only Sadie's absence. Delaney was opposite McDonald's, in a pub with a view of the street. It was close to where Sadie and Jamie most often sat. He knew that Sadie might be making a connection, but he thought he would try this patch of pavement for a while, then move on to the alley by the Ocean Diner.

As Delaney bought his second beer, Kimber finished his burger and went back on to the street. The wind had risen a little, and the cold seemed to get behind his eyes. Slow snowflakes settled in his hair.

It was another two hours before he found her. She was in the Ocean Diner alley and she was alone and she was dead.

He stood by her, holding the hammer, not knowing what to think. Her eyes were wide open and a line of puke ran across her chin. He checked her pulse, but it wasn't necessary because she was stiff, her arms and legs rigid, her neck locked. She had looked like someone asleep, though she was lying on top of her bag rather than inside it. The light in the alley wasn't good, but Kimber could see it was her: the pink and green streaks in her hair, the nose ring, the lip-spike. The swallow on her neck, when he rolled her sideways, was rigid in flight.

He had come to kill her and she was dead and he just stood there, the hammer in his hand, wondering what next. He raised the hammer to strike her but saw the pointlessness of that. He kicked her hard in the ribs, as if he found some sort of strange consolation in that for the time wasted, for being sidetracked, for the moment when Sadie had come between him and Jan. Then he left her.

A woman called the cops when she heard the noise – when she heard the noise and saw the madman in the alley. Her husband was all for doing things the London way: don't listen, don't look, keep walking. But she stood at the entrance to the alley and heard the wailing and saw the crazy man dancing around what seemed to be a body. Dancing and wailing and beating the wall with his hands. She thought she might have just witnessed a murder.

The cops didn't think that. They thought the obvious: that Sadie had OD'd, and they were right. They called an ambulance for Sadie, because that was procedure, and they called an ambulance for Jamie because that was necessary. His head was bleeding where he had rammed it against the alley wall and his knuckles were bleeding from the punches he had thrown at the brickwork. To prevent him hurting himself any more, the cops held him down while he howled like a dog.

No one held Sadie, but then, in her life, very few people had.

Delaney heard the noise and saw the ambulance lights. A crowd had assembled as crowds will at such times and a long tailback formed as cars edged round the ambulances, drivers and passengers rubbernecking for a glimpse of the action. He watched as the paramedics loaded Sadie into an ambulance. She was shrouded in a red blanket, but Delaney
knew who it was because Jamie was there, shrieking and baying and slapping himself in the face.

‘Where are they taking her?' Delaney was talking to one of the cops.

‘Do you know her?'

‘Sort of. I know her name.'

The cop took a few details, realized that Delaney had little to offer, then said, ‘Saint Mary's.' Delaney wasn't intending to go there; he needed the name of the hospital for his feature. The cop said, ‘Do you know her friend?'

Delaney shook his head. ‘I've seen them together, that's all. Will you be following this up – trying to contact her people and so forth?'

The cop nodded. ‘I expect so.'

Delaney handed the man his card. He said, ‘Maybe you could update me.'

‘Sure. Why not?'

The ambulance doors closed on Sadie, and they closed on Jamie. The watchers shuffled off to go about their business, the tailback thinned, the late-nighters continued to shop and drink and dine.

Robert Adrian Kimber went back to his room by the Strip. He was feeling a little better, a little more himself.

Stella had a key to Delaney's flat, but he had never been to Vigo Street before: he just knew the address. He parked up with the engine running and waited until she got home. It was late and she was carrying a pizza box, holding it two-handed because there was a rising wind. He saw her go into the flat, but didn't follow her at once; instead, he stood in the street and watched as a light came on in the living area. She threw her coat on to the sofa, poured a drink, unpacked the pizza. He thought that seeing her off guard
might give him a clue to the way she was feeling, but, as he looked down at the room and Stella in it, he knew that the feelings under consideration were not hers but his. He knew he loved her, but wasn't sure how much or how unselfishly.

It was very cold and the street was empty. Stella took some papers from her bag and spread them on the worktop, perching on a stool and reading them while she ate. At one moment, a sheet slipped to the floor and she leaned down to get it, her sweater riding up to show an inch or two of flesh at the waist, and he realized it was erotic, this watching. It had to do with her unguardedness, the possibility of what she might do next.

She finished the pizza and threw the box into the garbage. She shuffled the papers into a pile and took them with her to the sofa, where she started to make notes on the uppermost page. Engrossed in her work, she looked capable and occupied. She looked like someone who lived alone.

There was a delay before the door opened. A circle of raw wood surrounded a recently installed spyhole, so Delaney guessed the delay had less to do with caution than that it was his face on the other side of the glass. She opened the door and drew him in and kissed him.

They made love in the bed Stella had once shared with George and that didn't matter a bit; she just wanted him nearer and deeper. There was a lamp that shed a low light, making their bodies seem warm and dusky. They didn't speak when they made love and they didn't speak for a while afterwards. Delaney got up and went to the kitchen, where he opened cupboards and drawers until he found what he needed for coffee. Before he went back to the bedroom, he lowered the blinds.

He told Stella about Sadie and she asked, ‘What happened to her?'

‘Overdose by the look of things. That's what the cops thought. Her friend was there: guy who hung out with her. He was going nuts.'

Stella nodded. She didn't want the coffee because she was slightly drunk and feeling loose-limbed and hazy after their love-making. Her eyes closed a moment.

He said, ‘I feel bad about it.'

‘Why? What's it got to do with you?'

‘As if I'd been looking for the prime-time payoff.'

‘What?'

‘My piece. The article I'm writing. What could be better than to end with a death? The perfect Christmas package.'

‘They take those risks,' Stella told him. ‘They live that life.'

She closed her eyes and slept. Delaney lay awake; he went into the next room and found the pages she'd been reading while he'd watched from the street. For just that reason, they seemed to carry a little erotic charge. He sat down with them and his coffee. After half an hour, he went into the bedroom and woke Stella up.

‘This woman, Lauren Buchanan.'

She laughed. ‘You don't know when to stop, do you? Those are confidential police reports.'

‘Lauren Buchanan –'

‘Go on.'

‘It was Sadie who saw her getting mugged. Sadie who stole her credit card.'

Stella sat up. ‘Of course...' Stella hadn't put Delaney's street-person together with the girl who'd taken the casino-chip key ring. ‘It was, yes.'

‘I saw Sadie just after she was released. The cops never
charged her. She told me about it: about the mugging. She said that the woman just stood there; she seemed almost cooperative.'

‘Shock,' Stella said, ‘or maybe she'd heard of nonresistance, the best way to avoid getting stabbed. You lose your wallet and your watch, you keep your life.'

‘And then, when they started to leave, she called to them. One of them came back and hit her: really beat her.'

‘She thinks they're going, she calls them bastards, they find the time to show her just what bastards they really are.'

‘Sadie didn't think it was like that. She didn't say the woman yelled at them or called them a name; she said: “She called to them.”' He shuffled through the reports and found a certain page. ‘She's an obsessive. Had an affair with this guy Souza, wouldn't leave him alone until he threatened to have her killed.'

Stella thought about it. ‘You think she was calling them back.'

‘I do, yes.'

‘Because they hadn't done the job properly.'

By night, the Ocean Diner was neon shadows and slow music, a place to be alone, a place to be picked up, a place to hang out. By day, it was different: brighter music, brisker movements, people doing business.

Stella and Duncan Palmer were doing business of a sort. The diner was neutral territory, an attempt to put Palmer at his ease and allow him to talk freely: good for business, Stella hoped. She was trying to get information without giving any, or without giving too much.

‘Her name came up, simple as that. We weren't thinking about her, but there she was suddenly. A croupier at Jumping Jacks. And we learned a few things about her that made me want to talk to you.'