Jigsaw Man (14 page)

‘Here we go,' the announcer said cheerily. ‘Light him up, boys. Let him
burn
.'

A couple of sixth-formers from school stooped down in unison, holding their lit torches
briefly to the edges of the bonfire before scuttling back behind the rope. For a
moment nothing happened; the twigs seemed to catch alight before being blown out
by the wind with little puffs of smoke. He caught the smell of damp, smouldering
leaves as well as a strong whiff of petrol. It had been raining heavily the night
before and he was just beginning to wonder how long it would take to get going when
flames jetted up in several places from the base of the bonfire, as though someone
had turned on a gas fire.

In the flickering light he could see the Guy more clearly. He'd been dressed in an
old pinstriped suit, with a shirt and tie, and a pair of work boots on his dangling
feet. A cowboy hat was jammed down on his head, above a leering mask for a face that
made him look like The Joker. The flames took hold quickly. Before long, they were
licking the Guy's feet, catching the bottom of his trousers, then creeping like fingers
up his bent legs. Josh could feel the heat on his cheeks and held out his hands,
trying to blot out the music and the buzz of voices around him, until all he could
see was the burning figure in the midst of the flames. A gust of wind sent a cloud
of smoke and a shower of sparks over the onlookers but he stayed where he was, listening
to the cracking and spitting of the wood as the flames leapt higher. The Guy's hat
was on fire now, the mask
blistering away until it had all but disappeared, leaving
just a black, featureless blob of a head.

The flames reached high into the sky, the Guy caught in the middle of the blaze.
Josh stared deep into the heart of the fire, imagining shapes and faces from long
ago, instruments of torture, the masked executioner and the screams of a man being
burned alive.
Remember, remember the fifth of November, gunpowder, treason and plot
. . . As the words flowed rhythmically through his mind, the Guy's head tipped forwards,
lolling onto his chest. For a moment it looked as though he had gone to sleep. Then
the head dropped into the fire. It bounced against something and rolled out onto
the grass, coming to rest right by where Josh was standing. It lay there charred
and smoking. Looking closer, it was amazingly lifelike, with a nose, dark sockets
where the eyes should be, and a mouth. He even thought he could see teeth between
the parted lips. Wondering if anyone else had noticed it, or if it was perhaps some
sort of a joke left over from Halloween, he glanced around. Most people seemed to
be busy talking amongst themselves, sipping their drinks, or watching the fire. He
caught sight of a man standing on his own by the rope just a few feet away. He was
looking right at Josh as though he had been watching him.

Then a woman screamed.

Fifteen

‘I don't give a flying fuck that your visa's expired and that you're here illegally,
Miss Kuznetsova,' Tartaglia said. ‘But if you don't cooperate, the immigration services
will be the least of your worries. Do you understand?' He smacked his hand hard on
the table in front of her, making her start. She had the sullen, defiant stare of
somebody used to being interrogated and he had decided that subtlety or charm would
be wasted on her.

She pressed her thin red lips together and nodded.

They were sitting in an airless meeting room in Kilburn police station, he and Minderedes
together on one side of the small, coffee-stained table, Tatyana Kuznetsova opposite.
It had taken a while to track her down but they eventually found her waitressing
in a Turkish restaurant in Salusbury Road, Queens Park – conveniently just a stone's
throw away from the police station. She had refused the services of an interpreter,
saying that she spoke English, although she seemed to understand a lot more than
she was capable of expressing. She was younger than he had expected, in her mid-twenties,
with short, chin-length black hair and a round, not unattractive face, spoiled by
too much make-up. She was still in her work clothes: a grubby apron tied around her
waist over a short black skirt, white shirt struggling to stretch across her show-stoppingly
large and artificial-looking breasts. They seemed all the more extraordinary perched
on her scrawny, bandy-legged little frame. Nonetheless, Finnigan must have thought
ten
Christmases had been rolled into one when she visited him in jail, particularly
after his long stretch inside.

‘Do you recognise this man?' Minderedes asked, holding up a photograph of Jake Finnigan.

She gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head.

He leaned across the table and waved the photo in front of her face but she avoided
eye contact, looking straight ahead like a sulky child pretending she was somewhere
else. He slapped the photo down hard on the table in front of her. ‘Look again. I
think you do. You went to see him in Wormwood Scrubs Prison last March.'

She made no reply.

‘There's a record of it. We've got scanned copies of the IDs you showed.' He held
them up in front of her nose. ‘Crystal?'

‘Do you understand?' Tartaglia asked.

She shrugged, shifting her gaze momentarily to Tartaglia. ‘OK. Maybe I go see him.
What's the problem?'

‘Jake Finnigan's dead. He was murdered. Do you understand what I'm saying?' He spoke
slowly and deliberately. He wanted her to be in no doubt.

She nodded.

‘This happened shortly after you went to see him, when he came out of prison.'

A flicker of something crossed her face and she narrowed her black eyes, as though
quickly calculating something in her mind. Then her expression shut down again. ‘This
is very serious, Miss Kuznetsova,' Tartaglia continued. ‘We have a letter you wrote
to him after you went to see him. You sent him some photographs. “Very special pictures”
you called them.'

‘Dirty pictures,' Minderedes said, with an unpleasant tone.

She looked blank.

‘Pornographic,' Tartaglia added. He was only guessing. They
hadn't seen the photos
she had sent to Finnigan, but the odds were well in his favour.

‘Do you like to take photographs of yourself naked and send them to older men?' Minderedes
asked.

Her cheeks turned pink as though she had been slapped, the first sign of any emotion,
but she made no reply.

‘Did you like him looking at you? Did it excite you?' Minderedes said, emphasising
each word.

‘No.'

‘What else did you do for him?'

‘Do for him?' Again she looked at Tartaglia, as though he might help her but he decided
to let Minderedes go with the flow. Sometimes it was better to observe and he was
still undecided about her.

‘Yes,' Minderedes said. ‘Extras. You know what I mean.' He made a rude gesture with
his fingers.

‘Stop this,' she shouted.

‘Stop? But we've only just started, Tatyana. Poor old Finnigan. He must have had
the wettest dreams about you, looking at those special little pictures you sent him.
All that time inside, with only blokes to suck him off. Must've really got him going,
fantasising about you, don't you think? Was that what you wanted? Did you want him
panting for you? Bet the poor old bugger couldn't wait to get out.'

She coloured again as he spoke and shifted in her seat, but made no reply.

‘You talked about getting together when he came out,' Minderedes continued. ‘Showing
him some more of you “in the flesh”, you said. Are you on the game?'

‘What game? What is this?'

‘Are you a prostitute?' Tartaglia asked. ‘Do you take money in return for sex?'

Her eyes widened a fraction. ‘No.' She glared at him, folding her pale, thin arms
tightly around herself, but he wasn't convinced. Hard-up amateur or seasoned pro,
it didn't matter what she was. He was sure she hadn't visited Finnigan or written
to him out of love, or any other selfless motive. But what
was
her motive? He certainly
didn't see her being responsible for the body parts in the Fiat Panda. Somebody else
had to have been pulling her strings.

‘When he came out of jail, you texted him,' Minderedes said.

‘No.'

He looked at her disbelievingly. ‘You saying you
did not
text him?'

‘No. I do not text him.'

‘You're a liar, Tatyana. You texted him and you asked him to meet you. We have transcripts
of those texts.'

That was also a lie – they were still waiting for the downloads from Finnigan's
phone service provider – but it was another low-risk gamble they had decided to take.

‘He gets all hot and bothered with excitement,' Minderedes continued, ‘gets himself
all dolled up no doubt, and goes out to meet you. Poor bugger's never seen again.
That is, until he turns up dead as a friggin' dodo in a car park in South West London.
Dead.
Capisce?'

‘You're in big trouble, Tatyana,' Tartaglia said, deciding he would also switch to
her Christian name. ‘Big trouble. And you're wasting our time. If you don't start
talking, I'm leaving you with Detective Constable Minderedes here, and he'll make
sure that you're charged with as many things as we can think of. You may not give
a stuff about Jake Finnigan, but if you care about what happens to you, you'll tell
us the truth.' He stared at her until she looked away.

She chewed her lip for a moment, picking at a long red nail with her finger, then
said, ‘OK, maybe I text him once. But I no kill him.'

‘First you say you didn't text him, then you say you did,' Minderedes said. ‘Now
you say you didn't kill him. Why should we believe a bloody word you say?'

She gripped the table with her hands. ‘I know nothing about this. Nothing.' She started
to get to her feet.

‘Sit down,' Tartaglia shouted, staring at her until she sank back down in the chair.
‘Things are looking pretty serious for you. Bad. Did you kill him?'

She looked genuinely shocked, as though it was only just dawning on her what was
happening. Her tone softened. ‘You make joke, right?'

‘This is no joke. Certainly not for Jake Finnigan, and not for you either. Did you
kill him?'

‘This man . . .'

‘Jake Finnigan.'

‘You say he is dead?'

‘Yes. Murdered. Do you understand that word?'

She nodded.

Palms face down on the table, he leaned towards her. ‘This is not a joke, or a trick,
Tatyana. I don't care what you did, or why you did it, who you fucked or how much
money you were paid. I just need to know the truth. All that matters is finding the
person who killed Finnigan. Again, do you understand?' He spoke slowly and deliberately
making sure she got every word.

She lowered her gaze. ‘Yes.'

‘Right. Now you'd better tell me exactly what happened.'

At first there was silence, and Tartaglia was wondering what to do next when she
gave a little sigh, then slowly, in broken English, began to tell them about a man
she had met. He had
come into the restaurant where she was working one day back in
February. He wasn't a regular and she had never seen him before. He was on his own,
business was slow, and they got talking. He said his name was Chris and he was nice
looking, she said. Nice eyes, although his teeth weren't good, she said disapprovingly,
like someone who smokes too much. He bought her a couple of drinks and told her he
was a freelance photographer. He asked her if she was unattached, which she was,
and what she was doing in the UK. He asked her about her family back home, her brothers
and sisters, and eventually she told him she was trying to make some money to pay
off some debts back home. He smiled, and told her he knew a way.

She had thought he wanted to take pictures of her but instead he told her that he
wanted her to help him do a favour for a friend – a very good friend, he said – who
was in prison. He said that the man was very lonely and was crazy for Russian women
and would do anything just to get to know one as pretty as her. He said that the
man had had a hard time in jail, that he was innocent of the crime he was supposed
to have committed, and was due to be released very soon. All she had to do was to
write to the man – as her English was poor, he would tell her what to say – enclosing
a picture that he would take and asking if he would like a visit. That's all she
had to do. Jake had written back straight away, saying he wanted to see her. She
had given the letter to Chris, she said. For this, she was paid five hundred pounds.
He told her to make the appointment and that when she returned he would give her
another five hundred pounds. When she went to see Jake she wasn't to mention Chris
by name, just to say that a good friend of Jake's had asked her to go and see him.
She went to the jail, met Jake and talked to him for as long as she was allowed.
He asked her how old she was and if she was single. He seemed to like her,
she said.
He said he liked Russian women, that he had heard that they were very passionate.

‘He wasn't at all suspicious about who sent you?' Tartaglia asked, amazed that a
hardened criminal like Finnigan could be so naive.

‘Maybe a little,' she said. ‘When I first go there he question me. He think it is
joke. But then he really like me.'

It was the age-old thing, Tartaglia thought to himself. Sex, or the promise of it,
could frazzle even the most sensible of male brains. Finnigan could hardly be described
as sensible or level headed. He had also been inside for a long stretch. Maybe he
had chosen not to think too closely why a young woman like Tatyana would want to
pay him attention, let alone who might have sent her. She was the proverbial gift
horse. A Trojan horse, in fact. According to Finnigan's psychological report, although
of a relatively low IQ, he was self-confident and egotistical. He probably felt more
than capable of handling most situations, particularly where a woman was involved.