Relentless (5 page)

to fit in some game fishing; he'd heard the marlin were good
round that neck of the woods. There was no point being the boss
unless you got some perks.
At the moment, though, they were concentrating on the many
people who knew him in south-east England. Bolt had already
interviewed a judge and a senior politician today, one in central
London, the other at his family seat in Hampshire. Now he was
waiting for his colleague, DS Mo Khan, to pick him up for their
5.30 interview. When that was done, he was finished for the day.
He'd already planned the night ahead. Back to his apartment in
Clerkenwell, a good hot shower and a takeaway sea bass in
tamarind sauce from the Thai place round the corner, followed
by the latest of the Miss Marple remakes on ITV. Tonight
it was 'The Body in the Library' and, thankfully, he couldn't
remember whodunnit even though he'd read the book twice.
People laughed at him for watching Miss Marple, and Poirot, and even bloody Wycliffe. But what they didn't understand was
that he liked to escape from the bleak, cold world of violent
crime he inhabited every working day, where murders were
cruel events, often committed for the most mundane of reasons.
And where escapism was concerned, nothing beat the sofa, a
couple of drinks and the late, great Agatha Christie.
He checked his watch. Five to five. Mo should be here soon.
He was currently doing a second interview with the victim's
maid, who lived in Feltham. She'd been in a bit of a state the
previous day, so there were a few things they had to go over in
more detail, particularly relating to the company the victim kept
in his own time. Mo had a theory that he was gay, but Bolt had
told him to go easy on this line of questioning with the maid. She
was Filipina and a devout Catholic, so might take offence at any
aspersions being cast on the honour of her employer.

He pushed the autopsy report to one side and sat back in his
chair, drinking from the mug of coffee he'd made earlier and
looking out of the window at the aircraft-hangar-sized warehouse
opposite, which was used to store nothing but tens
of thousands of gallons of vegetable oil. Bolt often wondered
what would happen if that place caught fire. Occasionally, he
fantasized about it: this whole bleak estate disappearing in a
great ball of foul-smelling flame. It would mean his team being
freed to look for some decent premises, preferably closer to the
centre of town.
The open-plan office where Bolt was sitting now was ugly, and
cluttered, with too many desks for the available floorspace,
and very drably decorated. However, it did have one thing going
for it: a frankly magnificent thirty-six-inch plasma TV mounted
on one of the faded chipboard walls that had the sharpest
picture Bolt had ever seen. At that moment it was being graced by the England football team who were playing an excruciatagly
dull friendly on very low volume against a country Bolt
pttdn't even heard of. They were halfway through the second
: and the score remained anchored at 0-0.
There was an interesting story about that TV, far more
iteresting than the one currently being played out on it. It had
ice belonged to a charming old gentleman by the name of
Pugh who'd chopped up his wife, Rita, into six managelle
pieces one winter's night several years earlier before
siting her arms and legs in Highgate cemetery near the spot
! ere Karl Marx resides, her torso in the Regent's Canal near
s junctions of Upper Street and City Road, and, with what you
it call a measure of thoughtlessness, her head in a children's
iyground in Stoke Newington. When Pugh was arrested, he
liately pleaded guilty and left instructions with his solicitor

for all his worldly possessions to be passed to his sister. She
then held a macabre bring-and-buy sale that included a set of
Japanese kitchen knives with one missing (the murder weapon)
and Pugh's state-of-the-art plasma screen, which he'd bought
shortly before the murder and whose purchase had, allegedly,
led to the argument that ended in his wife's death. One of the
team, DC Matt Turner, who always had an eye for a bargain,
had snapped it up for 200, pounds a snip when you think the knives
went for over five hundred, after a bidding war between rival
collectors of gruesome memorabilia.
Bolt's mobile rang, the first time for almost an hour. He
picked up. It was Mo.
'Where are you?' Bolt asked.
'About ten minutes away.'
'Have you seen the time? Our meeting's at five-thirty, and I
don't want to give him a chance not to be there. It's been hard
enough getting him pinned down in the first place.' The victim's
lawyer had been a pain from the start, twice moving interviews
due to work commitments, and only fitting them in today when
Bolt had threatened to arrest him for obstruction.
'Well, to be honest, boss, there's not quite the level of urgency
there was,' said Mo.
'What do you mean?'
'I mean, Jack CaHey won't be going anywhere. He's dead.
And whoever's got him that way tried to make it look like
suicide.'
Bolt cursed. This really changed things. So much for his
theories.
'Look at it like this, boss,' said Mo. 'At least he'll be there
when we turn up.'

I was taken in the back of the police car to Colindale hospital.
The two arresting officers, a young white man and an even
younger black man, gave me no further details about who I was
meant to have murdered. Nor would they remove the handcuffs,
even though I was bleeding, or let me use the mobile to call
Kathy. They emptied out my pockets and put the contents in
a clear plastic evidence bag that was deposited in the glove
compartment.
'I'm trying to find my wife,' I told them desperately, amazed
by their indifference. 'Her name's Kathy, Katherine, Meron.
rThat's why I was at the university. Can you just confirm that
i she's all right? Please?'
'We can't confirm anything at the moment, sir,' said the white man, who was driving.
'Except that you're under arrest,' added his colleague helpilly.

? I tried to reason with them but they told me, politely, to leave
until the interview. The black officer then radioed the station
land told the operator he had a suspect in custody for the

university killing. He described me as an IC1 male identified by
the documents I was carrying as Thomas David Meron, age
thirty-five, brown hair, blue eyes, five ten.
'But I haven't killed anyone,' I told the driver as his colleague
kept talking. 'I was attacked by a man with a knife in the
university library. That's where these cuts are from. I think he
may have attacked my wife. Can you at least tell me if the
victim's a woman or not?'
'We can't say anything at the moment,' answered the driver.
'The killer's still loose,' I pleaded. 'You should be looking for
him.'
'We'll be checking every avenue, sir, don't worry.'
I replied that of course I was worried. My wife was missing,
and I wanted to make sure she wasn't the victim.
This time he ignored me.
I was in the hospital for about twenty minutes. Unlike everyone
else in the casualty department, I was whisked straight
through to a small, windowless room that smelled of antiseptic
where a doctor who was even younger than the two coppers
stitched me up. By now, the wounds were really hurting. The
one on my jawline throbbed hotly, and I was afraid to see what
my face looked like. Like a lot of men, I'm pretty vain. I don't
think I'm God's gift to women exactly, but I've been told I'm
pretty good-looking, and I've not done badly with the opposite
sex over the years. The idea of being scarred for life scared me one
of quite a few scaring me at that moment.

The doctor put dressings on the wounds and gave me some
painkillers. When he looked at me it was with a mixture of
distaste and trepidation. He saw a patient in need, but also a
suspected murderer.
'I didn't do anything wrong,' I told him. 'I'm innocent.'

It was hardly an original line, and I guess, like the cops with
me, he'd heard it plenty of times before. He didn't reply. Instead
he turned to the white police officer and told him that I was now
fit to be questioned.
The black police officer reattached the handcuffs, then took
me by the arm, his hand scraping against the wound on my
forearm. I flinched, and he gave a perfunctory apology. I could
tell he didn't mean it.
'Have you got a mirror?' I asked the doctor. 'I need to see
what my face looks like.'
As soon as I said it, I regretted doing so. It looked like I was
more interested in my own injuries than what had happened to
Kathy, which wasn't true. I just needed to know. The doctor
nodded curtly and found a small round mirror on his desk which
he held up in front of my face.
I flinched again, more noticeably this time. It was bad, very bad. My hair looked like it had been styled by Edward Scissorpiands,
my face like it had been used to clean a slaughterhouse
jr. Smudged and uneven flecks of blood, sweat and dirt
jvered it. Further dark rivulets of blood, resembling thick
aiders' legs, had solidified on my neck where they'd run
awn from beneath the gleaming white dressing that covered
jawline. My eyes had become grey and haunted, the pupils
tie more than retreating pinpricks. I looked exactly like I
It.
As I was led away, I saw from the clock on the whitewashed
that it was five o'clock in the afternoon. In the space of two
surs, my life - so ordinary, so mundane, so desperately missed iiad been torn irreparably apart. Two hours earlier, I'd been a
lal working man living a pleasant, easy life. Now, my wife
; missing, and very possibly dead; there were people after me

for a reason I had no knowledge of; and I was about to be
charged with murder.
What I didn't know was that this was only the beginning.
Things, if you can believe it, were about to get one hell of a lot
worse.

'Do we know what happened to Calley?' Bolt asked Mo as they
drove up the M25 in traffic that was surprisingly light for the
time of day.
Mo shook his head. 'There are very few details at the moment.
I called his house just to make sure that he was going to be
there when we turned up, and another cop answered it. That
was just before five, and then I called you. I explained who
I was and why I was phoning, and he told me they'd found
Calley's body in some woods a couple of hundred yards
behind his house, hanging from a tree by his belt and looking
like he'd had some help getting up there. When I asked what
made them think that, he said there were definite signs of a
struggle.'
'Less than forty-eight hours after his biggest client dies in
mysterious circumstances. Do you think it's a coincidence?' Bolt
was interested in Mo's opinion. They'd worked together two
years now, and after Bolt himself, Mo was the most experienced
officer in his young team.

'There's no doubt it looks suspicious,' he answered. 'Have you
found out what work Calley did for our victim yet?'
'That's one of the things I was hoping to find out today,' said
Bolt. 'When I asked him on the phone yesterday, he gave me the
usual client confidentiality bullshit, but Calley specialized in
investments, stuff like that. He was a financial lawyer, so I'm
guessing he helped our man hide his money from the Inland
Revenue.'
Mo chuckled. 'A financial lawyer. Now there's a job that
sounds lucrative.'
'Too right. But it sounds like one that could make you some
enemies as well. We're going to have to dig a little deeper into
his business dealings.' Bolt sighed. 'You know, I had plans for
tonight.'
'It's Miss Marple, isn't it?'
'That's right. "Body in the Library".'
'It's a wild life you lead, boss.'
'You only live once. How about you? Anything happening
that's now going to have to wait?'
'The usual. Breaking-up arguments, nappy changing, midnight
feeds.'
'Shit, I bet you're glad Calley's dead, aren't you? Gives you an texcuse to stay out.'
Mo chuckled again. 'I wouldn't go that far, boss, but let's say
pit's a very dark cloud with a small silver lining.'
They came off the M25 at junction 17, Maple Cross, and
roceeded through a maze of back roads in the general direction
Ruislip before turning off onto a narrow, tree-lined lane that
aund its way through a mixture of woodland and fields dotted
ith the odd detached cottage and executive home, until finally
lqpse group of four houses, spaced well apart, appeared on

the right-hand side as the road straightened and widened. The
houses backed on to a wooded hill and faced a wide, green,
undulating field in which a herd of sheep grazed peacefully. It
was a lovely rustic English scene, rare this close to London, and
one that was only spoiled by the row of police cars and vans
parked outside the third house along, and the line of yellow
scene-of-crime tape running across the road. An older couple,
presumably the neighbours, were standing outside the second
house, talking to two note-taking detectives, while several whiteoveralled
scene-of-crime officers milled about beside one of the
vans.
Mo drove past the neighbours and parked up behind one of
the police cars. 'Nice house,' he said admiringly, looking up at
the two-storey whitewashed cottage with the thatched roof and
latticed windows that had belonged to Jack Calley. A very
swish-ldoking black BMW 7-Series was parked in a spacious
gravel driveway that would have amply accommodated another
three of them.
'That's what you get from being a financial lawyer,' said Bolt,
getting out of the car.
A uniformed officer who looked about twelve approached
them, cap under his arm. Bolt noticed he was already going bald
on top, and felt sorry for the poor sod.
'We're here to talk to the SIO,' he explained as he and Mo
produced their warrant cards and introduced themselves.
'National Crime Squad, eh? Do you reckon it's gangland?'
The young officer looked excited and Bolt didn't have the
heart to put a pin in his balloon, so he said that it could be.
'Where's the body?' he asked.
The young uniform pointed behind him, up into the woods.
'Follow the path and you'll get to him. The SIO's up there too.'