Evil in Return (13 page)

‘Who found him?’ Tartaglia asked.

‘We had an anonymous tip-off. A woman dialled 999 from a local payphone. She actually asked first for an ambulance and said the body was still warm. The call was logged around eleven-thirty last night. It’s one of the shed-load of things we’re trying to follow up at the moment.’

‘Warm? That’s interesting. So he hadn’t been dead long.’

‘The woman said she wasn’t sure if he was alive or dead.’

‘He’d been shot in the head. How could she miss that?’

Gerachty shrugged. ‘You can listen to the recording, if you like, although it won’t tell you much other than that the woman sounds pretty upset; hysterical, I’d say.’

‘Was she young, old . . . ?

‘Young, well-spoken, English, but no particular accent, far as I could tell. It sounded real to me, like she was in shock or something. Her voice was slurred and she was very emotional.’

‘Maybe she was drunk. It was late. I wonder what she was doing here.’

‘Whatever. She said, “I fell over him”. She said it over and over again, like maybe she’d hurt him, or something. I tell you she wasn’t making sense. She also said she’d got blood on her hands.’

‘Just like Lady Macbeth,’ Minderedes said.

Again she ignored him.

‘Apart from behind the bar, did you find any blood anywhere else?’ Tartaglia asked, still wondering what the woman had been doing there at that hour.

She looked at him quizzically. ‘Forensics found a couple of prints smeared in blood around the light switch by the door.’

‘Well, that suggests something, don’t you think?’

‘You tell me. You’re the hot-shot detective, or so I’m told.’

He grimaced, now understanding her hostility. On top of her worry about losing the case someone had poisoned the water, but there was no time to try and put the record straight.

‘OK. She goes behind the bar to get a drink, but she doesn’t see the body right away because the lights are off. She falls over the body and only then goes to switch on the lights. Perhaps they were out for some reason. Can you try them, Nick?’

Minderedes went over to the panel on the wall by the door and switched on each set of lights in turn. They all appeared to be working.

‘Maybe when she came in she decided not to switch them on for some reason,’ Tartaglia said. ‘It was almost full moon last night, there’d have been plenty of light coming in through those big windows. Do you know who was here yesterday?’

‘Just a few members and guests after the evening training session. Apparently the last person left around ten and the barman locked up.’

‘He’s sure about that?’

‘So he says, and one of the members left with him. We’re taking statements from everyone who was here – that’s fifteen people, including the barman and the secretary. The clubhouse is pretty dead during the week from a social point of view. The secretary and the barman were the only ones here last night with keys. The secretary apparently had a train to catch and left early.’

‘OK. So, they lock up around ten, and one and a half hours later the body’s found. It’s a short time frame.’ Gerachty looked as though she wanted to say something but thought better of it. ‘Maybe the killer was still here, hidden somewhere,’ he continued. He looked around the room again, but there were no obvious hiding places. ‘What’s through there?’ He pointed to a door in the far corner at the back of the room.

‘The toilets.’

He walked over to the door and opened it. He went into the gents, then the ladies, checking the cubicles, but there was nothing out of the ordinary.

‘Forensics have been all over everything up here,’ she said defensively, as he came back into the main room.

‘What’s downstairs?’

‘Just boats, showers and changing rooms.’

‘Any direct access from up here?’

‘No. As I said before, the only way in is from outside at the front, up the steps.’

‘Just checking. Which of the windows was open?’

‘I don’t know. It will say on the report.’

He stopped himself from saying something sharp and went over to examine the windows, deciding after a moment that it was probably the right-hand one, judging by the volume of print powder on the frame and handle. He opened it and glanced out. The terrace faced almost due south and ran the length of the building. The tide was low, exposing wide, muddy stretches of shore on both sides, dotted with seagulls. The turreted green outline of Hammersmith Bridge was just visible past the river bend, beyond the trees and playing fields of St Paul’s Boys’ School on the opposite bank. It was no more than half a mile from his office. The sun was hot on his face and he imagined that, day or night, it must be a lovely place to sit and enjoy a drink.

‘I wonder what she was doing here,’ he said, almost to himself, coming back into the room and looking outside again. ‘I’ll bet she opened the window. I’ll also bet she had someone with her.’

‘Don’t you think you’re letting your imagination run away with you?’

‘Imagination’s got nothing to do with it. It’s about psychology.’

She made a small noise, as though she didn’t agree. ‘Well, there was no other voice on the recording. If she’d had a man with her, surely he’d have made the call for her? She was very upset.’

He turned to face her. ‘Tell me, then. Why would a woman come here alone at that hour?’

She shrugged. ‘It’s one of the many little mysteries we’re dealing with here. Maybe she left something behind.’

He shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. It’s much more likely she was with someone and they left the lights off so as not to draw attention to themselves.’

‘More romantic that way,’ Minderedes said, with a teasing look at Gerachty.

‘There’s that, too. They open the window onto the terrace for some air, or maybe to admire the view, she goes to the bar to get a drink and stumbles over the body. They panic and go, leaving the main door open. Unless the killer left the door unlocked, one of them must have had a key. My guess is it’s either the secretary or the barman, and she was probably here last night too. It’s vital you find her. She, or whoever was with her, may have seen something.’

Again Gerachty coloured to the roots of her hair. ‘We’re already onto it, thanks, and I don’t need you to tell me how to do my job.’

‘You’ve taken statements from both the secretary and the barman and checked what time they came home last night?’

She clenched her fists at her side. ‘Not yet, but we will. We’ll obviously try and match up the voice and the prints to people who were here last night and the rest of the members, if need be.’

‘I’d treat it as a priority.’

‘Thanks, but I don’t have to justify what we’re doing to you. Now, if there’s nothing else you need, I’d best be getting on, if you don’t mind.’ She turned to go.

‘Hang on a sec,’ he said, locking eyes with her. ‘Is there anything else I should know?’ He didn’t expect a revelation, but he needed to put down a marker, in case she was deliberately keeping something back.

‘I’ve answered all your questions, haven’t I?’

‘Yes. But is there anything else?’

‘We’ve covered everything.’

He nodded, unable to read from her expression whether she was telling the truth or not. If she was hiding something important from him, he’d make her regret it. ‘Let me know how you get on with finding that woman,’ he said. ‘Meanwhile, I’m just going to take a quick recce around the rest of the place. Nick will go with you to exchange details. I’ll also need Mr Khan’s address and stuff. I want to speak to the girlfriend right away.’

‘Fucking uptight bitch,’ Minderedes said, as he manoeuvred the Nissan forcefully through a group of press photographers who were waiting at the outer cordon like sharks around a fishing boat. ‘What the hell’s eating her?’

Tartaglia sighed. ‘Don’t let it get to you. My guess is she’s new to homicide. She doesn’t know how it works.’

‘She’s just a fucking paper-pusher, that’s all. She hasn’t a clue.’

Tartaglia smiled at the strength of his reaction, wondering what exactly Gerachty had said to him when they were alone. ‘She’s right about one thing, though. If the two cases are linked, which I’m pretty sure they are – my money’s always on Arabella – then she’s doing all the spadework for no glory. I’d feel mighty pissed off in her shoes.’

‘She should have bloody well kept it to herself.’

‘I agree. She’s got a lot to learn, in more ways than one.’ He would have struggled to keep a lid on his frustration in a similar situation, but he knew enough about the game to handle things differently, nor would he have made the same basic errors.

As they pulled up at the traffic lights at the Hogarth Roundabout, heading back into town on the A4, Minderedes glanced quickly over at him.

‘Sir, if the two deaths are linked, do you think Superintendent Cornish will want to keep the investigations separate, like with the Jubilee murders?’

‘That was different,’ he said, after a moment. ‘Homicide South were also involved with two of the killings, so Clive Cornish didn’t have the final call. At least this is all happening on our patch. He may be a right pillock in many ways, but if it looks like it’s the same killer, even he has the nous to bring the cases under one roof.’

‘Ours, you mean?’

Tartaglia shrugged. ‘I bloody well hope so. As usual, this is all about politics, and by all accounts Grainger’s yesterday’s man.’

‘And DCI Steele’s the Super’s blue-eyed girl.’

‘Green, you mean. She’s got green eyes.’

‘I hadn’t noticed.’

‘Take my word for it,’ he said, surprised that Minderedes’ usually keen observational skills for such things didn’t extend to Steele. Maybe he regarded her as so impenetrable that she didn’t merit the same attention as other women. He was never one to waste his efforts on a lost cause. ‘Anyway, it seems she can do no wrong with Cornish, which is lucky for us. If only we can make some more headway with the Logan case, then I think we’ll get our hands on this one. We’ve got to find the link.’

16

The address Gerachty had given them for Paul Khan, the murder victim, was in a converted Victorian warehouse in Tabernacle Street, between Old Street and City Road. The area was within walking distance of the City law firm where Khan had worked. Originally a light industrial district for furniture making, it had come a long way since Tartaglia had last been there ten years before: as well as expensive loft conversions, restaurants, bars and galleries had mushroomed all over the place in former factory buildings and warehouses. He told Minderedes to wait outside in the street, went into the building and rang the bell beside Khan’s name. Within moments it was answered by a member of Grainger’s team, who told him to take the lift to the fourth floor.

A thin, wiry woman, with short, dark hair and acne-scarred skin was waiting for him in the lift lobby and introduced herself as Linda Barber, the Family Liaison Officer.

‘DI Gerachty said you’d be coming straight over,’ she said. ‘But I’m afraid you’ve had a wasted journey. Khan’s girlfriend, Lauren, is asleep. She had to be sedated, poor little thing. She looks like she’s barely out of school and she doesn’t know what’s hit her.’

Tartaglia followed Barber into the huge open-plan living room, where he was hit by the unexpected but welcome chill of air-conditioning. Floor to ceiling windows ran the length of the room, which was at the top of the building, giving a good view of the City skyline and the Gherkin in the distance. A kitchen and bar area were at the back behind a glass partition, and he assumed that the large gallery above was the sleeping area. A massive plasma screen hung on one wall, showing an old episode of Columbo.

‘Did you manage to find out anything from Lauren?’ he asked, as Barber went over to one of the sofas where she had been sitting, and muted the sound of the TV.

‘Enough to be getting on with for the moment. She says she came over here last night at about seven-thirty, expecting him to be back by eight. Apparently he’d given her a key although, from what she said, they haven’t known each other long. Lauren’s a model, she told me. They met at some party to do with one of his work clients. Anyways, they were going out for dinner with friends somewhere and he’d told her not to be late. When he didn’t appear, she tried his mobile, but that was switched off, so she rang his office. They said he’d gone to a client meeting in the West End at four-thirty and wasn’t expected back. She stayed here all night waiting for him and when he still hadn’t come home this morning, she called her dad and he called the police. Her mum’s on a train down from Leicester as we speak.’

‘You don’t know when Lauren’s likely to wake up?’

She shook her head. ‘The doctor’s only just been and gone. My guess is she’ll be out for several hours at least. I have instructions to call DI Gerachty soon as she comes to.’

‘What about his next of kin? Have they been contacted?’

‘All we know is they live somewhere in Harrow, but Lauren’s never met them. We’re trying to trace them through the H.R. department at his office.’

Frustrated, he sighed. There was nothing to be done until later. ‘OK. Thanks. I’m just going to take a look around. Where is she? I don’t want to disturb her.’

‘In the spare room, right at the end. She got quite worked up at the idea of sleeping in his bed, and anyway I thought it was easier in case she’s still here when we start going through his things. But don’t worry, you can come and go as you please. A bomb wouldn’t wake her just now.’

He walked around the room, giving it a cursory check, but there was little to read from it other than that Khan was clearly not short of a bob or two. His main interest seemed to be fast cars. Four large, framed photographs of recent Formula 1 grand prix cars were grouped together on one wall, with a shiny red model of a Testarossa, mounted on a granite plinth, on the bookcase below. The furniture was modern and expensive, with a couple of huge, brightly-coloured abstracts on the other walls that might have come from one of the local galleries. He wondered if Khan had bought them himself or if they had been chosen for him as part of the designer look. The steel and wood Italian kitchen was also new and, from what he could tell, rarely used, with a state-of-the art Gaggia coffee machine sitting on the black granite counter still in its clear plastic wrapping. Khan had obviously had the best money could buy, but maybe it was just like ticking a box. There was little else to note, other than a small, well-equipped gym in a room at the far end which he would have given his eye-teeth for, and a bed the size of a football pitch.

He was about to go when Khan’s phone rang. It was on the table next to where Barber was sitting, again glued to Columbo.

‘Let it ring,’ he said, as she muted the sound and stretched for the phone. ‘Is there an answer machine?’

She nodded. ‘It’s one of those built-in thingummies.’

He counted three more rings, then heard the answer machine kick in and what he assumed was Khan’s voice over the phone’s loudspeaker telling the caller to leave a message. At the end there was a pause, followed by the sound of someone clearing their throat. ‘Hey Paul, it’s Danny. Where the fuck are you? ’Bin calling your mobile but it’s dead as a friggin’ Dodo. Your message seriously freaked me out, man. We need to fuckin’ talk . . .’ He sounded like a Scouser, and judging from his slurred, hyped-up tone, he was either drunk or high on something. Tartaglia reached over and picked up the phone.

‘Hello, Danny. You want to speak to Paul?’

‘The fuck’s this?’

‘My name’s Mark.’

‘Don’t fuckin’ care what your name is. Put Paul on.’

‘Paul’s not here, Danny . . .’ The line went dead.

The phone still in his hand, he turned to Barber. ‘Is this thing backed up?’

‘Not yet. But they’re sending someone over soon.’

‘Has anyone called before?’

‘Yes, about an hour ago, but they hung up as soon as I answered.’

He tabbed through the menu until he came to the answer system. There were four stored messages. He pressed play.

‘Paul, it’s Tim. I got your voicemail. I think we’d all better meet and sort this out. If you get hold of Danny, I’ll call Alex. I’m in Oxford at the moment, but can do the weekend. Unless you can think of anywhere better, can we come to yours? It’s pandemonium here.’ The voice was deep and authoritative, the message timed at one thirty-five the previous day. Alex. The name was common enough, but it still gave Tartaglia pause. So far, they had failed to trace Alex Fleming, who seemed to have disappeared into thin air. They had also checked Paul Khan’s name against Logan’s contacts on his computer, but there was no match. Wondering if he was reading too much into things, he played the rest of the messages. Apart from two, where the caller hung up after listening to the recorded message, the only other was the one from Danny he had just heard. Gerachty would be pulling the phone records as a matter of course so there was nothing more for him to do.

He was about to pass Barber the phone, when it started to ring again. He decided to answer it. ‘Paul Khan’s telephone.’

There was a pause, then a woman spoke: ‘Is Paul there, please?’ The voice was soft, well-spoken, and sounded middle-aged, with a hint of a Pakistani accent.

‘Who’s speaking?’

‘It’s his mother. Is everything alright?’

‘Is there anyone there with you, Mrs Khan?’

‘Yes. My husband’s here, why do you ask?’

He heard the alarm in her voice and took a deep breath. ‘My name’s Mark Tartaglia,’ he said. ‘I’m with the Metropolitan Police.’

It was nearly three in the afternoon and the lunchtime crowd was beginning to thin out. Alex was in the middle of sorting out a problem with someone’s bill when one of the waiters came up to the bar and leaned across.

‘Alex, there’s a friend of yours over there.’ He jerked his head in the direction of the long window. ‘He says he needs a word when you have a sec.’ Alex glanced in that direction and saw Danny hunched over one of the small tables, staring into space. He hadn’t noticed him come in and wondered how long he had been sitting there. ‘I told him you’re busy, but he says he’ll wait.’

‘Thanks. I just need to finish this.’

‘He also wants a large glass of white wine. He said anything will do. Shall I get it?’

‘No, I’ll take care of it. Tell him I’ll be over as soon as I can.’

It didn’t take a minute to reverse the incorrect wine entry on the customer’s bill but Alex took his time, peering at the computer screen as though he was deep in some complicated transaction while he thought things through. As far as he knew Danny was still living not far away, somewhere up Ladbroke Grove, but he had never before troubled himself to venture into the restaurant. There could only be one reason why he had come and Alex felt wary. Talking to Tim about what had happened was one thing; Danny was a different kettle of fish, plus the restaurant was busy and not the right place for such a conversation. Also, at the back of his mind was still the thought that Danny had sent the emails. Had he come to wind him up? He should find out what he knew then get rid of him as quickly as possible. He printed out a fresh copy of the bill and handed it to one of the waiters to take back to the customer, then poured a large glass of Sauvignon blanc and took it over to where Danny was sitting, his head jerking in time to some imaginary beat.

‘How are you, mate?’ he said, putting the glass down in front of Danny, who was drumming his fingers hard on the table. Danny stopped nodding and looked up. His eyes were hidden behind wraparound dark glasses and Alex couldn’t read his expression, but he could tell from his mouth he looked tense.

‘Not good, man.’

‘You heard about Joe?’

‘Yeah. Sorry.’ He bowed his head, then reached out and patted Alex’s sleeve. ‘You alright?’

‘As much as I can be.’

Danny nodded as though he understood. He was wearing his usual uniform of Converses, black jeans, and a black T-shirt with some obscure logo on the front. His hair was longer than the last time he had seen him and he had grown a funny little beard that made him look a bit like a Hobbit. He took a large slug of wine as though very thirsty. He said something, but he spoke quickly and the words were lost against the background noise from the room.

‘What’s that?’ Alex asked.

‘Sit down, will you?’ Danny said, practically shouting. ‘I’ll fuckin’ crick my neck if I carry on looking at you up there.’

Alex slid into the seat opposite. ‘OK, keep your hair on. But I can’t stop long, I’m working.’

‘Right. I had these messages from Paul and I can’t get hold of him. Thought maybe you’d know something about it, or where he is. You talked to him at all?’

‘Not recently. What did he say?’

‘He said someone’s trying to stir up stuff about Ashleigh Grange.’

‘Really?’ He hadn’t expected anything like this. ‘He said that?’

Danny nodded.

Maybe Joe had spoken to Paul before he died; maybe that had shaken Paul up, unlike Tim. Alex leaned across the table towards him and folded his hands. ‘What exactly did he mean?’

‘I dunno.’

‘Was it about an email?’

‘He just said we needed to talk. It got me real worried.’

‘You’re sure he didn’t say anything about an email?’

Danny gazed at him for a moment. ‘Maybe he did.’

‘He’d had an email? Was that it? Or had he been speaking to Joe?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘What else did he say?’

‘That was about it.’ Danny started to tap his fingers again on the table.

‘But you’re sure he mentioned Ashleigh Grange?’

‘Yeah. That’s what got me going.’

He stared at Danny, wondering if he was telling the truth and if his memory could be relied upon. It was odd his coming there, even odder his not being able to speak to Paul when he wanted. Maybe it was all part of the scam and he was the one behind the emails to Joe. He didn’t look all there behind the shades, but that was nothing new. It had been happening for a long while, most noticeably in the last couple of years, Danny’s slow drift down into a spiral of self-destruction. His periods of detachment from the real world – Joe’s tongue-in-cheek euphem ism for it – were becoming the norm, sobriety a thing past. And what lay behind it? Fuck only knew. He came from a stable background, his father was a local councillor in his home town and relatively well off. Was it a sense of failure, maybe? The hope, enthusiasm and promise he had shown at university had gradually been eroded by a mix of bad luck and poor judgement, as well as a general preference for the easy route.

At university, although never a leading light, he had more or less kept up with Tim and Paul academically, but that was long past. Time had divided all of them, and in Danny’s case the crack that had slowly opened up over the years had become an unbridgeable chasm. In his moments of lucidity, how could the present-day comparisons and thoughts of what might have been escape him? But whatever he felt inside, outwardly he showed no bitterness. Whilst always in awe of Tim, he had stayed particularly close to Paul. Maybe he and Danny were in this together, Alex thought. Maybe it was their little joke to wind up the others, although in very bad taste now that Joe was dead. But why would Paul bother? He seemed to have everything he wanted.

‘Look, Danny,’ he said, attempting a friendly smile. ‘Paul must have said something else. Surely you can remember?’

Danny looked at him in a dazed way. ‘Listen, man. His words aren’t important. It was his tone . . . I tell you, he sounded really, really rattled and that’s not like Paul.’

Alex sighed, still not convinced. ‘No, you’re right, but I—’

‘Sorry to interrupt, Alex,’ one of the waiters said, coming over to their table and bending down close to his ear. ‘But the bloke on table twenty-seven’s still going on about his bill. Can you come and talk to him?’

‘Sure.’ Alex got to his feet. ‘Carry on with your wine, Danny. I’ll be back in a minute.’