Murder Ring (A DI Geraldine Steel Mystery) (11 page)

‘What’s it to you?’

‘I been worried about you.’

‘You’re a daft cow.’

‘Where you been all this time?’

‘None of your fucking business. I can come and go as I please, go where I like. I’m not in prison now.’

That reminded her. She frowned. ‘They been looking for you.’

He sat down with a bump on the edge of the bed. Slipping off his shoes, he chucked them at the radiator.

‘Don’t do that. Jesus, Lenny. Anyway, you can’t stay here.’

‘Who says I can’t? It’s my home, innit? What you on about, you daft cow?’

He pulled off his socks and threw them after his shoes as she was talking.

‘I’m telling you, Lenny, they come here looking for you. They’ll be back. And they was at your mum’s flat, asking her where you were and all. They’re after you. That’s why you can’t stay here. You got to get away. Go somewhere they won’t find you. Lenny, I’m scared. What do they want with you?’

She began to cry. He twisted round to look at her.

‘What is it, Gina, baby?’ he asked kindly. ‘What you on about? There’s nothing to get upset about. I’m here now. We’re going to be all right. Go on, budge up, there’s a good girl.’ He stood up and took his trousers off. ‘Come on, lie down.’ He lifted the duvet and fell on the bed.

She shook her head, still sitting up, and crying so hard she could barely speak.

‘I’m telling you, it’s not safe for you here. Jesus, why won’t you listen to me? The pigs was here, looking for you, and they was round at your mum’s too, asking where you was. They’re after you, Lenny. You got to get away. It’s not safe for you here.’

He sat up and leaned on one elbow. ‘Gina, baby, what the fuck are you talking about?’

Carefully, she explained. At last he understood what she was telling him. He swore aloud and thrashed the bed in his anger.

‘Why the fuck can’t they leave me alone? I done my time. Those bastards. Once they got you, they think they can pin anything and everything on you. Some prick’s gone and robbed a house and now they want me to go down for it, so they can meet their bleeding target. No matter it wasn’t me. Someone got robbed. Let’s do Lenny for this one. He’s just out. We can send him back and hit a target. Bastards. Well, I ain’t going down for nothing, just so’s they can talk shit about how they done a good job and got one more piece of scum off the streets. No way. They ain’t going to pin this on me. I’ll fight it, Gina. I won’t go down without a fight.’

Watching him work himself up in to a temper, she waited for him to calm down enough to listen to her.

‘Don’t be a mug, Lenny. What you going to do? Call the whole police force a liar? If they say you done it, who’s going to believe you?’

‘Bastards!’

He knew she was right. Now he had form, he was a sitting duck. They could accuse him of burglary and any judge or jury would convict him without even listening to a word in his defence. He was a marked man.

‘You ain’t done nothing since you come out, have you?’ she asked.

‘Only robbed that stiff. Oh shit. You know what? The bastards are going to want to pin that on me, aren’t they? Call me a bloody murderer. Well, they got to find me first.’

‘That’s what I been saying. We got to get away. It’s not safe here.’

‘If I gotta run, I ain’t taking you. Where the fuck am I supposed to go? I ain’t got no money. How much you got, baby?’

Without a word she climbed out of bed and fetched her purse. There was just over thirty quid in it.

‘Give it here.’

‘What? All of it? What am I supposed to live on for the rest of the week?’

‘You’ll get more. Come on, give it here.’

Reluctantly she handed over the cash. ‘It’s all I got. We’ll find somewhere, won’t we?’

‘We? What you on about, you daft cow. I told you, I gotta go alone. You’ll slow me down.’

‘But you’ll send for me, won’t you? When you got somewhere to live?’

‘Send for you? What you talking about? You got any idea how stupid you sound? How am I supposed to find somewhere to live? I ain’t got no money. I got no job.’

She climbed back into bed. ‘You got friends?’

There was no point pretending he would be able to find somewhere for them to live, not without fear of the law catching up with them. He would be on the run.

‘Maybe you should just stay here. Tell them it weren’t you. Whenever it happened, I’ll say you were with me.’

‘Like those bastards are going to listen. No, I got to get away. It won’t be forever,’ he promised her, putting one arm round her and pulling her close. ‘One last night together, before I’m off.’

‘You will send for me won’t you?’

‘Yeah, yeah.’

‘And before you go, I want my ring back.’

‘Oh shit. I forgot about that.’

‘Where is it, Lenny? You promised.’

He explained that he had taken the ring to be resized, as they had discussed.

‘Where? Where did you take it?’

‘Just leave it out will you? I’ll sort it when this is all over.’

‘No, I want it, Lenny. I want it back now.’

She didn’t tell him that she had a plan. She would sell the ring for whatever she could get for it, and they could use the money to move away. They could go up North, maybe to Scotland. That was as good as another country. No one there would be after him. They could find somewhere to live and start out again, without his bloody mother breathing down their necks every five minutes. It might even turn out for the best in the long run.

‘Where is it, Lenny? Where did you take it?’

‘Shut up will you? I said I’d sort it. Now lie down for fuck’s sake. I ain’t got all night.’

In the early hours he climbed out of bed. Forlornly, she followed him into the kitchen and watched him stuff what little food she had into his rucksack, before he slipped out of the flat, leaving her sobbing in the narrow hallway. It was worse than him being in the nick. At least then she had known where he was, and he hadn’t been able to drift in and take all her money, leaving her with nothing to eat and an empty purse.

19

G
ETTING AWAY WAS
always the hardest part. Tonight was particularly tricky because if what Gina told him was true, the police would be outside, keeping an eye on the flat. It was lucky he had not simply marched up to the front door where he could easily have been seen. It was almost like he had a sixth sense, and knew they were looking for him. Still, slipping in and out of properties unseen was his special talent. It made a change effecting an escape from his own home. At least he knew the territory better than anyone else. The most obvious escape route was out the back but he noticed that was under surveillance from a second-floor window overlooking the yard. Lenny was expecting that. He spotted the watcher first. Keeping close to the fence, he edged his way to the end of the yard an inch at a time, his progress masked by the tangled bushes that no one ever pruned. Reaching the back fence he pressed himself against the wooden slats, and waited patiently. At last the opportunity came. The watcher in the window turned as a second figure appeared, probably his replacement. As they faced one another, Lenny made his move. It was the work of a second to slip through the gate and press himself up against the far fence, out of the watcher’s line of vision. Unable to see up to the window where they had set up their surveillance, he waited. There was no sound of pursuit.

The passageway that ran between the blocks of flats was unlit. Ignoring sharp stones that pierced the skin on the palms of his hands, he slithered along the ground in the darkness. It wasn’t far to the end of the path, but he seemed to be crawling for hours. At last he reached the road. Straightening up, he brushed the dirt from his jeans and jacket and set off towards anonymity and freedom. He had to restrain himself from running. He couldn’t afford to draw attention to himself. Reaching the main road, he paused. Finsbury Park station wasn’t far away. It was tempting to head straight there, nip down the stairs and jump on a train. On the other hand he wasn’t wearing a hood, and the underground network was riddled with CCTV cameras. On balance he decided it wasn’t worth the risk of being picked up on a security camera. Reluctantly, he walked past the station and carried on, collar up, head down, eyes fixed on his scuffed shoes, listening for any sound of pursuit.

As he strode along, he formulated a plan. Any one of his contacts could be an informer. Even if they didn’t grass regularly, they might buckle under police threats or inducements. He couldn’t think of a single person he could rely on to face police hostility rather than betray him. Not even his own mother was trustworthy. He worked himself up into a fury as he marched along, ducking his head whenever a car went by. Gina would give him up for cash. She was always out for what she could get. He would screw what money he could out of her and then disappear. Admittedly she had stuck by him all the time he was inside, but she was becoming a drag, harping on and on about getting married. As if he didn’t have enough problems. It was time he moved on.

Before it grew light he needed to be out of sight. The only place he could think of to hide at such short notice was in one of the lock-up garages at Alfie’s place. Most of them were used for storage so there wasn’t much risk of being spotted. Alfie was usually out visiting scrapyards on Fridays so, with luck, he wouldn’t be around much. By Saturday Lenny would be gone. He just needed to get some cash in his pocket first. As he drew near Alfie’s motor repair yard, he pulled out his phone.

‘What you doing, calling me on the mobile? Didn’t you listen to what I said? The police was here. They can track you –’

‘Shut the fuck up, Gina. All you got to do is listen. And don’t worry, I’m using a mate’s phone.’ It was one he’d nicked just after he got out of prison. Not that it was any of her business. ‘I need to get my hands on some readies. What you got?’

‘You know I ain’t got nothing. You took it all last night.’ She began to cry. ‘Where are you, Lenny? Where you hiding?’

‘I’m at Alfie’s, round the back, in one of the lock-ups. Only I can’t stay long. Alfie don’t know I’m here. No one knows. Only you. So you get some cash together and bring it round, like a good girl. Anyone asks, you’re going to the shops. Go and see a few other people first, and some more after, as many as you can, so it looks like you’re trying everywhere, in case they’re following you.’

‘What you mean, following me? Who’s following me?’

‘I mean in case the pigs is following you.’

‘Why would they do that? I ain’t done nothing.’

‘Course you ain’t but they’re looking for me, ain’t they? Jesus, Gina, don’t be so bloody thick.’

‘Oh fuck off.’

‘Don’t let anyone suspect I’m here. You got to be clever about it, Gina. Use your head for Christ’s sake. But you bring me some dosh soon. Maybe you can get some off me mum. I’ll be banged up again if I don’t get out of here soon. And don’t call me back. I’m going to chuck the phone somewhere no one’s going to find it so you won’t get me on it. Now get going, will you?’

‘Where the hell am I supposed to get any money?’ she whined.

He rang off. There was no point trying his mother. She never answered his calls. There was no one else. He glanced around before slipping the phone down a drain. He hoped Gina would come good for him.

20

G
ERALDINE AND
S
AM
set off early to visit Gina. They were almost certain Lenny wouldn’t be there. He would have had to steal past two officers sitting in a patrol car a few doors away, watching the property.

‘He’s a house burglar,’ Sam had pointed out that morning. ‘He knows how to creep in and out of houses without being spotted.’

‘Not under our noses,’ Adam had replied. ‘We’ve got officers watching the house, front and back.’

Although she tended to agree with the detective chief inspector, Geraldine had to admit it was possible Lenny had slipped home undetected. He had been caught only after successfully entering hundreds of properties undetected. Men like him knew how to move around unseen. She shared her views with Sam who grinned with excitement at the suggestion that they might find Lenny at home.

‘Just imagine if he’s there!’ she crowed. ‘All these alerts and messages flying around, all the surveillance teams, and even an announcement on Crimewatch. Jesus, everyone in the whole of the Met, the entire force, the whole country, must know about the fatal mugging and the killer who got away. He vanished into thin air, and now we’re going to march into his house and arrest him, just like that. It’s awesome! Think how good it’s going to look on our CVs. I can just picture it. There might be promotion in it. And as for my mum, always banging on about how I should give up the job, and how I’m risking my life for nothing, this’ll shut her up, won’t it? You and me, simply walking in and arresting a dangerous killer. He could be armed. Shit, I love this job!’

‘He probably won’t be there,’ Geraldine said, but Sam refused to be deflated.

As they drove, Geraldine thought about what Sam had said. There had certainly been a fuss about David Lester’s death in the media, especially since Laura had been persuaded to grant an interview to one of the news channels. Young, blonde and tearful, she had been a reporter’s dream accompaniment to a dramatic account of a violent death on the streets of London. It was only one of several accounts criticising the police for failing to catch the perpetrator immediately.