Murder on Page One (14 page)

Flick pursed her lips and tapped her foot in impatience. She had detested the Hokey Cokey since, as a ten-year-old, she had been compelled to participate, and the woman’s impromptu performance made a bad morning worse. The journey to the South coast had been a nightmare due to tailbacks from an accident in the Channel Tunnel. Now, despite arrangements made by phone the previous evening, their visit had come as a surprise to the receptionist, whose manner remained cheerfully unconcerned.

‘Tell you this, darlin’,’ the woman said in a broad Cockney accent. ‘Working here, you gotta either laugh or cry, and I laugh. Ha, ha.’ She pulled a file from a drawer, licked a meaty index finger, and carried on with her search.

Standing beside Flick, Baggo allowed his hopes to rise. If he was going to be found out, it would be much better if he confessed before he had the whistle blown on him. Twice during the interminable drive he had started to speak, then lost his nerve and said something banal. He respected Sergeant Fortune, but she was a bit of a stickler. In many ways, he would be better coming clean to Osborne, who had survived enough pickles to wreck half a dozen police careers. Some miles short of Dover, he decided to tough it out: he would give Patrycja a pleading look and hope she did not implicate him. After all, had he not intervened, she would have suffered a good deal more at the hands of Wolenski’s thugs. But as he watched the receptionist scan her lists, he knew that if Patrycja had got permanently lost in the system, one of his nine lives would have been used up, for sure.

‘Ah, ’ere she is!’ The receptionist dashed Baggo’s hopes. ‘Go along the corridor to your left once you go through security. I’ll give you interview room five. I’ll have her sent down. Mind, as it’s lunch time, you’ll have a good half hour to wait.’

On their way to the interview room, Flick got coffees from a machine. They found room five, which was drab, grey and dismal. They sat on shabby, uncomfortable chairs and drank the warm, beige liquid that tasted of cardboard.

After a long silence, Flick asked, ‘Are you all right, Baggo?’

‘Fine, Sarge. Just fine.’ He forced a smile.

‘Nothing’s bothering you? You seem a bit quiet today.’

‘I find myself thinking of home, Sarge.’

‘I hope you feel England’s your home.’

‘Oh, I do, Sarge. But one person can have more than one home, and today I think of Mumbai.’

The silence that followed was broken by footsteps in the corridor. As Flick sat up straight behind the small table, Baggo eased his chair back so that she would not see his expression. An escort pushed a sullen-looking girl of about twenty into the room. She had a round face and wore a very short skirt.

‘Patrycja Kowalski?’ Flick asked.

The girl nodded. Baggo felt a weight lift from his shoulders. This girl was not the Patrycja Kowalski that he knew.

* * *

Osborne wrapped his bath towel round himself and cleared some of the steam from the mirror. Both eyes were bloodshot, but the right one was puffy and sore as well. His lower lip was swollen and blood seeped from a cut that hurt when he licked it. His head ached and his stomach churned. Despite lying in a hot bath for twenty minutes, he still felt chilled to the marrow.

Every time he tried to remember the previous night’s events, more ghastly details came back to him. A young cop had found him, cold and very confused, in the back seat of his own car, which had been parked on a yellow line in Camden. The engine had been running, and that had saved him from a bitterly cold night, but the cop had wanted to charge him with being drunk in charge of the car. It had taken his badge and a more experienced colleague in a patrol car to make the youngster back off. The older man had persuaded the rookie that it would be best for the Inspector to be driven home, and the young man had done this, seeing Osborne to his door and helping him with his keys. Osborne had half-undressed and collapsed on top of his bed. Now it was broad daylight. He should be at work.

His days as a drunk had taught him that turning up while completely unfit was a very bad idea. He pulled on pyjamas and picked up the phone. ‘Food poisoning’, ‘up all night being sick’, ‘just a twenty-four hour thing, I hope’, tripped off his tongue as glibly as ever. Luckily, it was Peters he spoke to. Fortune and Baggo were chasing after some Polish bint who might give someone an alibi. He swore as he ended the call; he had definitely had enough of Eastern Europeans.

He settled himself back in bed, the covers over his head, when his mobile sounded. A text. It could wait. Then another. And another. And another. Maybe he should check. He lumbered over to where his jacket lay on the floor, found the phone and called up his messages.

The first had two words: ‘STAY AWAY’. Next came a photograph. Osborne groaned when he saw himself, lying on his back on a bed, his trousers round his ankles. There was someone else in the picture, a blond-haired, well-muscled man, completely naked. He was lying beside Osborne, and each had a hand on the other’s crotch.

The second written message was worse: ‘THERES MORE’. The photograph that followed showed Osborne in the same position, smiling stupidly, but the blond man’s open mouth was now beside his erect penis.

Gingerly, Osborne felt himself, wondering what had been done to him. Everything seemed normal, but that was only half of it; if these photos got round the nick, he wouldn’t be able to show face again. He checked his pockets. Nothing had been taken, but he could tell from where his credit cards were that someone had gone through his wallet. He had been nobbled, good and proper.

Sitting on the edge of his bed, he forced himself to think back in an organised way. He remembered the long, sweet drink Serov had brought to his table; he pictured the back room he was taken to, the rough-looking men round the table, and a handsome, mature woman. Veronika, that was her name. She had sat next to him and filled his glass. He remembered the men talking about the evil Georgians, then they started on Chapayev; Veronika hated him as a traitor. He had joined in; the men had laughed at his jokes, and Veronika’s hand had crept up his thigh. She had guided him upstairs. There had been a fight: he remembered being hit, but no pain. He checked his knuckles; they were tender. He was glad he had put up some resistance. He stared at the blond man’s face; he had no memory of it, but if he met him again … He clenched his right fist.

As he tried to go back to sleep, he realised he was between a rock and a very hard place. If he treated Linda Swanson’s murder as another literary agent killing, Chapayev would rant about him to the press and make a nuisance of himself. If he concentrated on the South Ossetians and Russians, he would be the laughing-stock of the Met within days. And Jumbo would not be happy.

Worst of all, he craved a drink.

* * *

‘I find it hard to believe any of our suspects is guilty.’ Flick sounded as depressed as she felt. The morning had been a complete waste of time. At first she had thought the girl was pretending, but after quarter of an hour’s questioning, became convinced that she had never heard of Candy Dalton, and had no brother called Pavel, in or out of prison. Now, with Osborne off sick, she had called a meeting with Baggo and Peters to assess progress.

‘But whoever is doing this is clever and will not stick out like a sore thumb,’ Baggo said.

‘Johnson is a real villain, the only one with a record, so I make him favourite,’ Peters said.

‘Wallace is a trained killer, and he can do more than he pretends, I’m sure,’ Baggo said.

Flick said, ‘Candice Dalton is a mass of contradictions, and she feels very deeply about things, I think.’

‘That medieval freak sounds pretty scary,’ Peters said.

Flick pointed to the pile of A4 sheets on the table in front of them. ‘Well, I think we should go through what’s left of our long list, entry by entry, and see if we can find any more who are worth interviewing.’

The others murmured agreement.

Flick took the first one off the top of the pile and scanned the synopsis. ‘Cilla Pargiter has written Buried Alive. An archaeological dig in Egypt goes badly wrong when the spirit of a murdered priest seeks revenge for his premature burial.’

‘I hope they left lots of nice things for him in his tomb, or did they just do that for Pharaohs?’ Baggo muttered.

Flick glanced at him. For no apparent reason, he had brightened up as the day had gone on.

* * *

‘My office, Scotland Yard. Now. I don’t care what you’re doing.’ Jumbo’s voice squeaked down the line. It was hardly the greeting Osborne had wanted on his return to work. The previous day had been his first day’s illness since he became sober, and he had wanted a quiet, easy morning.

There was nothing for it but to obey. Osborne cursed as he drove across town. Jumbo was an ass, but a dangerous one. Palfrey had not been included in the summons, so he would not be able to hide behind her immaculately-pleated trousers. He would have to be careful.

He found the Chief Superintendent pacing up and down. His eyes blazed and there was sweat on his dome. He threw down a red-top newspaper. ‘Well?’ he shouted.

Osborne had not seen it. On the front page was a picture of Chapayev, mouth open and pointing a finger. The headline read: RUSSIANS KILLED MY AGENT.

‘Oh,’ Osborne said.

‘The Russians are furious, the Foreign Office is furious. So is the Home Office. And I am incandescent.’ The last word came out as a cross between a bellow and a squeak, but from someone of Jumbo’s size and rank, it scared Osborne.

‘Relations between us and the Russians are very delicate, and they are important to us. I warned you the other day. Yet here’s this man saying you’ll hunt down the killer regardless of diplomatic immunity or human rights. Why, Osborne? Why?’

‘Well, sir, I saw Chapayev before you spoke to me.’

‘But you’ve no business saying that. And don’t deny it. Chapayev recorded your conversation.’

Osborne’s heart sank. ‘Oh. Sorry, sir. I never meant that to reach the public.’

‘Of course you didn’t, you fool. But it did.’

‘If you want me off the case, sir …’

‘No, I do not.’ Jumbo put his face in Osborne’s. ‘In case I have failed to make myself clear to you, I want you to find someone we can charge with the other literary agent killings. And Ms Swanson’s murder will be among the charges that accused faces. Do you understand me?’

‘Yes sir. Will that be all, sir?’

‘Try to cover up that black eye, will you? And I don’t want to know where you got it.’ As Osborne reached the door he added, ‘This may well be one of your last cases. You’ll no doubt be looking forward to a comfortable retirement. I hope nothing happens to put that in jeopardy.’

Seething, and tortured by his newly-awakened craving, Osborne drove slowly towards Wimbledon Police Station. As he digested Jumbo’s ill-disguised threat, it occurred to him that Chapayev’s press briefing might, in the end, protect him from scandal. He parked in a quiet street where he sat for a while, chain-smoking and thinking. His eye drifted across the road. There was a row of shops, one of which pulled him like a magnet. He got out of his car and crossed the street.

* * *

‘How are you getting on with your crap crime writers, Felicity?’ Osborne’s mood was bullish when he got back to the nick.

Flick looked at him with contempt. More dishevelled than usual, he sat with his feet on his desk, munching his third doughnut and scratching his crotch. Baggo and Peters exchanged sly grins.

‘We have four main suspects, so far, and it has been difficult to eliminate any of them.’ Flick described their findings, noting that, for the first time, Osborne paid close attention.

‘Is there anyone else worth a look?’ he asked.

‘There’s someone from Dogmersfield we were thinking of visiting.’

‘Dogmersfield? Where’s that?’

‘Hampshire. A country village.’

‘Why?’ He threw the paper bag at the bin, missed, but left a trail of sugar across the floor.

Flick leaned forward. ‘It’s a revenge-based story: a man is found in his bath, electrocuted by a heater that has fallen or been dropped in. And the bathroom door is locked. His wife is suspected, but her lawyer, Phyl Sloane, a woman by the way, investigates. She discovers the handyman who worked on the house is the son of a man who was ruined by the victim years ago, and committed suicide by drowning himself. The handyman fitted one of those safety locks you can unpick from outside, crept into the house, drugged the wife, got into the bathroom and killed the husband, then locked the bathroom door from the outside again. So the murder sort of fits with the grievance.’

‘Who’s the writer?’

‘R. L. Lawson. I don’t know more than the name and address.’

‘I think we should pay a visit this afternoon.’

Flick was astonished. ‘We?’

‘Yes, Felicity. We. ’Cos WE need to quell public anxiety by getting off our arses and making a bleeding arrest. We’re supposed to be policemen, not some middle-class book group.’

Peters cleared his throat before either Osborne or Flick could make their relationship even worse. ‘There’s a lot of stuff in from the lab for the Harvey Nicks murder,’ he said.

‘Give it here.’ Osborne stood and reached out an arm, nearly touching the front of Flick’s jacket.