Long Way Home (17 page)

Renfrew nodded. ‘Nice of you to offer, Phil. Always said you were a gent.’

The walls snapped back into place.

‘Gonna need a sub on my wages though,’ Renfrew said. ‘This bling should cover it.’

Phil smiled uneasily. ‘What? No, come on, don’t fuck about.’

‘Do I look like I’m fucking about? All of it. Now.’

‘Clint. Mate –’

‘Keep it if you like. But they’ll take it off you when they arrest you.’

He was serious.

Phil undid the clasp on his chain with shaking fingers and dropped it into Renfrew’s waiting hand.

‘And the rest.’

‘Come on, Gemma bought me these.’

‘I’m being polite, Phil. Don’t push me.’

He removed his sovereigns and the onyx pinkie ring Gemma had bought for their fifth anniversary. He remembered sitting up in bed opening it, the small velvet box wrapped in gold paper with spirals of ribbon and a big plastic bow. What had he bought her? His mind was blank, there was only Renfrew smiling at him with a chipped front tooth and an old scar twisting his philtrum.

‘Can I keep my wedding ring?’

‘Course you can, mate.’

Renfrew shoved the jewellery into the pocket of his denim jacket, closed the stud over it as he headed for the door. He turned back.

‘I’ll be in touch about the job.’

Phil walked out of the pub on weak legs, the pavement tilting beneath his feet, and he crossed Highbury Street without looking, only distantly aware of a car horn sounding. It could have been miles away.

His hand was shaking as he tried to fit the key in the lock and finally Gemma opened up, the verbal assault she looked ready to launch dying on her lips as he pushed past her.

‘Phil, what’s happened? Where’s your rings gone?’

‘Got mugged.’

‘What?’

‘Two blokes. They mugged me as I was coming out the pub.’

‘We’ve got to call the police.’

‘No. I don’t want any fuss.’

‘Did they hurt you?’

‘I’m fine.’

Her hands were on his face, checking for damage.

‘Were they foreign?’

‘Yeah. No. Yeah, I think so.’

‘I’m calling the police. They’re not getting away with this.’

‘Just leave it.’

‘But –’

‘I said leave it,’ he shouted.

She shrank back, her hand at her throat.

He couldn’t look at her any more. He ran upstairs and locked himself in the bathroom, didn’t even bother turning on the light.

ANDRUS TOMBAK KNEW
his rights. The minute he set foot in the interview room he demanded a drink and something to eat, said he wouldn’t answer any questions without his solicitor present and gave them a number he had committed to memory, rattled it off like machine-gun fire.

Forty-five minutes later the solicitor arrived. Gone six but Mr Ahmal looked fresh as the proverbial in a sharp black suit and a white shirt with French cuffs pinned by bullet-shaped gold links. Despite Zigic’s warning, Pickman Nye had come through for Tombak, sending someone from the firm on Priestgate they used. Not one of the partners, he wasn’t that important, but there was a sharkish vibe around the young man which suggested he knew full well where the money to pay his bills was coming from and didn’t much care if there was blood on it.

He asked for some time alone with his client and Zigic let him have it. No option either way.

In the office Wahlia was going through the paperwork from Pickman Nye, trying to piece together the Stepulov brothers’ employment history – processing then packing then cleaning, no one job lasting very long, the usual story. Ferreira sat at her desk, one foot up on an open drawer, just waiting.

Zigic went into his office and called Anna, told her he’d be home late and that she should eat without him. He found a Mars bar squashed almost flat under the paperwork in his out tray and ate it over the bin, broken pieces of chocolate falling away from it. They should have stopped for food in Spalding but when he suggested it Ferreira said there was nowhere good and it was late and shouldn’t they take a stab at Tombak straight away; did everything short of reach over and stamp down on the accelerator herself.

He threw the wrapper in the bin and went to get a Coke from the vending machine along the hall. If he put enough sugar in his system it would get him over the slump. He didn’t need much, just an hour’s energy to deal with Tombak, then he could go home, curl up on the sofa and sleep.

In the office he returned to Jaan Stepulov’s board. The Barlows’ pictures had taken on an opacity since yesterday and he felt he could safely remove them from the suspects column; underneath them Clinton Renfrew glowered out of his mugshot, more attitude than guilt, and only Andrus Tombak looked right for the position. Zigic untacked his photo and moved it to the top of the board.

‘If Stepulov was so hell-bent on finding his brother, why’s no one mentioned it?’ Ferreira said, coming to stand next to him. ‘Wouldn’t he have told them at Fern House? They’d have helped him.’

‘You’d have thought so.’

‘I mean, I know we didn’t ask them, but come on, it’s a big deal, isn’t it?’

‘You think they’re withholding?’

‘Why would they?’ She planted her hands on her hips. ‘Maloney might know more than he let on, though.’

Zigic drank the last mouthful of his Coke and dropped the can in the bin. ‘I don’t think he was looking anything like as hard as the family think. He’s been in Peterborough for three months; the city’s not that big. And the woman Barlow saw him with, who was she?’

‘A girlfriend. A prostitute maybe.’

‘And he didn’t even go home for Christmas. Who does that?’

‘Someone who’s left his wife,’ Ferreira said. ‘It’s a bus ride away but he didn’t go home for the holidays. He wasn’t interested in seeing his daughter when she’s about to drop a baby. That’s family problems. I don’t care what they say about the brother, that’s something between them.’

Zigic thought of Mrs Stepulov standing dry-eyed in the kitchen, knocking back the vodka and assassinating her brother-in-law’s character. It could have been shock, she could be weeping for her husband now, wailing and rending her garments, pulling out her hair in clumps, but somehow he doubted it. She was emotionally detached already. Three months’ estrangement would do it, he imagined, the tension of a Christmas celebrated without him.

‘We need to find the brother,’ he said. ‘If Mrs Stepulov was telling the truth, and he was in fear of his life, then it has to be linked.’

‘I’ve checked the records, November and December were quiet.’

‘There’s nothing suitable-looking?’

‘No. A couple of domestics, arrests made, confessions stumped up. There’s a double shooting in Bretton but that was almost definitely gang-related – CID know who they want but he’s skipped the country. English guy, they think he’s in Cyprus. They’ve got witnesses, DNA, the whole nine yards.’

Zigic heaved a sigh. The forty-eight-hour mark was coming up and it felt like they’d made no progress at all, just added another layer of impossible complication to the case.

‘Bobby, have you found anything in Pickman Nye’s paperwork?’

‘It’s a load of nothing,’ Wahlia said. He looked tired out, purple shadows under his eyes and his usually perfect hair lying flat against his head. ‘Tombak’s had close to a hundred men through the house in the last year; some of them are still on with the agency but over half have dropped off the map.’

‘Any of them in the system?’

‘Couple of minor offences, drink-driving, driving uninsured. One of them’s doing two years in Ashton for sexual assault but he was locked up months ago.’

‘No wonder Harrington was so easy-going about handing it over.’

‘Yeah, that should have tipped you off,’ Ferreira said. She perched on the corner of her desk. ‘Course, we could be looking in totally the wrong place. Raadik knew where Stepulov was, there’s friction between them. Maybe he likes being the man of the house.’

‘I think Mama Stepulov holds that position,’ Zigic said. ‘Did you check his prints?’

‘Yeah, no match to the partials on the padlock, but we’ve already established how meaningless that is, haven’t we?’

Zigic checked his watch; almost seven. Anna would be bathing the boys now, their pyjamas warming on the radiator while they soaked the bathroom floor. They’d be in bed by the time he got home, another evening he wouldn’t see them and he felt a swell of resentment towards Jaan Stepulov for keeping him here.

‘Alright, let’s talk to Tombak if we’re going to.’

The air in interview room 2 was thick with the brash, metallic scent of the solicitor’s cologne. Ahmal had taken off his jacket and Zigic noted with vague distaste the stays he wore around his biceps, an old-school affectation which made him look exactly the kind of spiv he was. Tombak sat next to him, crumpled and bearded, picking at the remains of his chicken dinner, which bled grease through the cardboard container. He stuffed a limp chip in his mouth and grinned at Zigic as he closed the door.

‘I hope this won’t take very long, Inspector,’ Ahmal said. ‘My client has an early start tomorrow. And I’m sure you’d like to get home to your family.’

‘Your client isn’t going anywhere,’ Zigic told him. ‘He’s assaulted a police officer and he’s going to be charged with that.’

‘My understanding was that your officer launched an unprovoked attack on Mr Tombak, despite his evident injuries.’

As if on cue Tombak rubbed the flesh above his cast.

‘You entered his home without a warrant, I believe.’

‘One of the residents invited us in,’ Zigic said. ‘Good luck proving otherwise.’

Ahmal smirked at him. All just a game; some rules you adhered to but most you could bend, and the only question was how far until they snapped and you had to invoke another one to get you out of trouble. Eighteen months ago one of Pickman Nye’s drivers ran down a woman on a pedestrian crossing in the city centre, over the limit and using his mobile phone. The woman was paralysed from the waist down, her face shredded by the tarmac, but the arresting officer wasn’t as careful with the paperwork as he should have been and Ahmal found enough to stop the CPS from prosecuting.

Ferreira set up the tapes and Ahmal uncapped his Mont Blanc, held it poised over a yellow legal pad, ready for action. Outside a rising wind buffeted the side of the building, throwing waves of rain against the obscure glass window high above their heads. Droplets found their way around the corroded metal frame and they dripped intermittently like an elaborate torture.

‘Tell us about Jaan Stepulov,’ Zigic said.

‘Mr Tombak is more than happy to answer any questions you have,’ Ahmal said, his hand coming down on the table. ‘Questions, Inspector. Not vague statements.’

‘Why didn’t you want to press charges when Stepulov attacked you?’

‘It was fair fight,’ Tombak said, going for another chip.

‘Which you came off second-best in.’

He shrugged.

‘You must have felt pretty pathetic, getting beaten up so badly.’

Another shrug.

‘Generally when someone refuses to press charges it’s because they’re intending to deal with the person themselves,’ Zigic said. ‘Or find someone to do it for them.’

‘That isn’t a question, Inspector.’

‘Who did you pay to kill Stepulov?’

Tombak grinned at him, food between his teeth.

‘You find them. You say I do this. Find them.’

Mr Ahmal cleared his throat noisily and Tombak’s smile died. He was going off the agreed script, Zigic thought. Too arrogant and self-assured to listen to anyone’s advice.

‘Is joke,’ Tombak said. ‘You English like jokes.’

‘Not when they’re about murder.’

‘Stepulov is dead. I am not sorry about this, but is nothing to do with me.’

‘I find that rather hard to believe.’

‘Until you have any evidence to the contrary you’ll have to,’ Mr Ahmal said. ‘And from your questions I doubt you do have any evidence.’

Zigic brought out the photograph of Viktor Stepulov and pushed it across the scarred white tabletop.

‘What is this?’ Tombak asked.

‘He’s one of your former workers.’

Tombak picked up the photograph with greasy fingers and brought it close to his face, squinting slightly.

‘I do not know him.’

‘We’ve seen the records from Pickman Nye and we’ve spoken to the men at your house. This man was working for you and living with you. So there’s no point denying it.’

Tombak glanced at Mr Ahmal and he gave the merest of nods.

‘What is his name?’

‘Viktor Stepulov.’

‘He is this other one’s brother?’

‘That’s right.’

Tombak peered at the photograph again, a ruminative expression on his face.

‘Yes. Last year he worked for me. Only for few weeks.’

‘Why did he leave?’

‘He is greedy. Very arrogant man, always wanting more money, complaining that I do not find him good job.’ Tombak threw the photograph down. ‘What can I do? He is useless. He speaks no English. Ignorant Valga peasant.’

‘Where did he go?’

‘He did not tell me. He says he has found good job, I tell him go, you find idiot to pay you big money, go fuck yourself.’

‘When was this?’

Tombak took another chip. ‘You have records. You check. I cannot remember every man I am employing.’

‘It was the beginning of October,’ Zigic said.

‘Why ask, you know already?’

‘And nobody’s seen Viktor since he left your house.’

Mr Ahmal spoke up then. ‘We seem to have wandered off-topic, Inspector.’

‘No, we’re getting down to the heart of the matter now,’ Zigic said. ‘Jaan came to you because he was looking for Viktor. Viktor called him and said he was in fear of his life.’

‘He is lying.’

‘We have one brother murdered and another missing and the only connection was that they were working for you.’

‘The only connection you know of,’ Ahmal said.

Tombak looked sick suddenly and he couldn’t meet Zigic’s eye.

‘It’s a transient population,’ Ahmal said, sounding less certain. ‘You know how these men live, Inspector. They come and go on a whim.’