Willing Flesh (7 page)

‘You have any dealings with Taki Markary?’

Tchancov smiles, blinks rapidly as he pours the vodka, as if his ice-cool bravado might have a thin surface. ‘We’re different kettles of fish, him and me.’

‘You’ve crossed swords.’

He hands Staffe and Pulford a glass each. ‘I don’t believe in weapons, Inspector.’

‘Bobo is very upset.’

‘What has she done now?’

Staffe sips the vodka. It is ice cold and has herbal hints of the prairie. He watches Tchancov drink his in one, and notices an emerald ring on the little finger of his right hand.

‘The ring. Your intaglio – it’s from the Urals.’

Tchancov nods and his smile tightens. ‘She was a bright girl. Ambitious.’

‘Was? What
was
her name? Her surname.’

‘All I can tell you is, she loves her work, Inspector. No matter what you hear from anyone, I know this for a fact. And that’s a risky business.’

Staffe mulls what he knows about Tchancov, from the couple of hours’ research back at the station: that he has a house on the Bishops Avenue, a yacht in the western Med; hunting lodges in Belarus. He left Russia with a modest fortune from pyramid-selling bearer certificates in his cousin’s computer business. Vassily was moved on when his uncle, Ludo, ran for governor. ‘You take your share of risks, Vassily.’

Tchancov laughs, takes hold of Staffe’s glass with his right hand. ‘I like you.’

Pulford’s phone beeps and he studies the screen. Both men look at him, frozen for a moment. ‘We have to go, sir.’

Tchancov leans in, alcohol fresh on his breath. ‘You were right about my ring. Very clever. But you’re looking in the wrong place. Take my word for it, or find out for yourself. But don’t come round my place fucking things up. I know my rights.’

‘And Elena? You knew her.’

‘You can go now,’ says Tchancov. ‘I have things to do.’

‘I’ll go as I please and I’ll come as I please, Mr Tchancov.’

‘We shall see.’ Tchancov turns his back, goes back into his office; presumably, a warm place.

Seven

Flecks of snow float between the buildings on Cloth Fair. Staffe mounts the kerb outside the Hand and Shears, where Josie is waiting for them. He looks across to St Bart’s church with its flint, patchwork stone and its dark, garden cloister.

Inside the Hand, the chatter is low and gentle. Josie is in the back snug, its walls panelled in dark wood. Staffe nods at Dick behind the bar: big-bellied in a Jermyn Street shirt and links.

This isn’t a police pub and although the regulars know Staffe is a copper, no mention is ever made. ‘Have you settled things at Livery Buildings?’ says Staffe to Josie.

She nods, finishing off a tomato juice. ‘I’ve had a chat with the caretaker, a bloke called Miles. I said I was a friend, and he said he hasn’t seen her for a couple of days and nobody’s been round for her.’

‘We’ll go over as soon as we’re done with Pennington. What’s agitating him?’

‘He just said to get hold of you and quick. He said “fucker”, actually, sir. And Rimmer was with him.’ She looks at Pulford, smiles thinly.

It seems, to Staffe, that Pulford and Josie might be sharing a private joke. Not the only thing they have shared, he reckons. ‘“Fucker”, you say.’

‘What did you make of our friend Bobo?’ asks Josie. ‘Is he a sweetie?’

‘Hardly,’ says Pulford. ‘But he’s the boyfriend all right. I wouldn’t want to cross him – especially if the baby wasn’t his.’

‘Sergeant Pulford reckons Bobo is our man,’ says Staffe. ‘Have you got those addresses from the numbers in Elena’s phone?’

Josie slips him the list.

In exchange, he hands her Elena’s pale lilac letters to Bobo. ‘Get these translated, would you? Quick as you can, and keep them away from Rimmer. Let’s meet back here at six.’

On his way out, the landlady, April, bumps into Staffe. She is a decade or so younger than her husband, Dick, with impossibly blonde hair and ‘done’ breasts. She craics with the locals about Staffe being ‘all over her’ in a moll’s twang and getting a laugh from them all.

‘You off, Staffe?’ she says, with a lingering smile.

‘I’ll pop in later, when Dick slopes off for his nap.’

She shakes her head and puts a finger to her lips. ‘Sshhh. He don’t know nothing.’

*

Rimmer is sitting smug on Pennington’s right. Staffe drags a straight-backed chair from the corner of his chief’s office.

‘I don’t want a mountain out of a molehill here, Wagstaffe.’

‘All we have is a body. I can’t dress it up as something it’s not.’

‘A prostitute,’ says Rimmer. ‘She was a coke addict and probably a Russian.’

‘She was seeing one of Vassily Tchancov’s boys,’ says Staffe.

‘Bobo Bogdanovich,’ says Pennington, as if he wishes he didn’t know such things.

‘She was a trick gone wrong, if you ask me,’ says Rimmer.

‘This wasn’t done in the heat of passion, Rimmer. Did you see the look on her face? You call that a trick gone wrong?’

Rimmer smiles, for his and Pennington’s benefit. He turns towards the DCI as if seeking permission to go ahead. ‘The likelihood is, he is impotent. Sex crimes are often committed by men deficient in that area. Unable to
do the deed
, he becomes furious and kills her. This is what stimulates him. It’s why he leaves her naked. It gives him the upper hand, a last word.’

‘This wasn’t a sex crime.’

‘Then why was she naked?’

‘Who’ve you been talking to?’

‘They left her phone. That’s not a professional job. It’s a crime of passion, I tell you.’

Staffe thinks about this. He looks out of the window. ‘She was killed in an instant, not during a struggle.’ The snowflakes are getting thicker, heavier, falling fast to the ground now.

Pennington leans back in his chair. When he is impatient, he goes the opposite way. He talks, slowly, enunciating each syllable. ‘We shan’t make this case something it is not. Bear in mind what she was and where she came from. I know full well who lurks in the wings here, Staffe. You need to hold this in check.’

‘This isn’t a sex crime, sir,’ says Staffe, making to leave. ‘And I won’t pretend it is.’

‘She’s a prostitute, man.’

‘When I see a prostitute, a high-end, dead prostitute like Elena – I think about power and money. Not sex.’

*

Staffe thanks Miles the caretaker for letting them in to Elena’s flat. Miles is modestly built, with wiry grey hair in an expensive cut, and with dandruff drifts on the shoulders of his dark suit. He hands them a master key once he has studied Staffe’s warrant card, jotting down the details in a spidery hand.

Elena’s place is on the New York model: exposed brickwork and high ceilings; on its surface, the flat is unstained as to the business she conducted here. You wouldn’t bring just any stray tom into this place – even if Miles was in on it. The living room has two vast windows that look onto the arching wrought iron of Smithfield’s meat market.

Staffe pulls on his disposable crime-scene mitts and counts the years he has been in this neck of the woods. He would come to the market with Jessop for a fry-up and a few pints of Guinness at six in the morning after a surveillance vigil or a long night of incident-room follow-up.

In the wastebasket by the sideboard there are a couple of envelopes addressed to Elena Danya, and Staffe hands them to Pulford. ‘Danya,’ he says. ‘Elena Danya.’ It is good in the mouth, this name. It rolls in the ear, makes Staffe feel sad – the tragedy a little more coloured-in. Staffe realises, with a heavy heart, that before they are done he will probably know more about poor Elena and her world than her lover and her mother and maybe even herself.

‘There’s one here for Markary, too, sir,’ says Pulford, wiggling a letter in the air. ‘It’s from the management company.’

‘So, he picked up the bills. Leave the place as we find it, Pulford. And tread gently.’

The bedroom smells of fabric softener. The linen is Egyptian cotton: ivory with bands of navy and powder blue. Translucent roman blinds keep Elena’s bedtime world a secret. She has what seems to be a Clarice Cliff lotus jug on her painted French chest of drawers but when Staffe inspects the piece, he sees it is a modern copy. In the matching painted wardrobe, her clothes hang neatly – the kind of finery you would expect of a fancy whore. But Staffe double-checks – no mirror: not even on the wardrobes. Picking up a silver-framed photograph of Elena in a ball gown, looking into the camera with her pale eyes and her china-fine bones, it makes his heart sad to think she didn’t appear to like looking at herself.

‘Not your typical hooker’s joint,’ says Pulford.

Staffe sits on the bed and sighs, ‘Not by a long chalk.’ He feels something stop the mattress from taking his full weight and looks under the bed, pulls out a suitcase. It has ED inscribed on its fawn kid leather. He carefully picks his way through the contents: a pair of faded 501s, not even washed, two lumber-check shirts, a cable-knit sweater and a crocheted tea-cosy hat. Two pairs of colour-run Marks & Spencer’s bikini briefs, and a copy of
Mansfield Park
. ‘Poor thing,’ says Staffe.

‘What’s that, sir?’

‘This was her,’ says Staffe. ‘Not Markary, not Bobo. Not the bastards she slept with.’

‘You heard what Tchancov said. He said she loved …’

‘What does Tchancov know?’ says Staffe, going into the kitchen.

He finds nothing out of the ordinary, sees the washing machine is full. On his knees, he goes through it: only bedding. She must have washed that day, he thinks. ‘You wouldn’t wash … It wouldn’t be the last thing,’ he says to himself, looking at this human remain of her final day.

‘Excuse me!’ Miles the caretaker stands in the doorway of the kitchen with his arms crossed. ‘I’m going to have to ask you to leave.’

‘A woman died, Miles,’ says Staffe.

‘No woman lived here.’ Miles looks at Staffe, awkwardly.

Staffe takes a step towards. ‘Are you changing your tune?’

Miles retreats back into the hallway. ‘I shouldn’t have let you in.’

Staffe wants to grab the man by the lapels of his suit and rattle the truth from him, but he tries to conjure another way. ‘She was quite a beautiful girl, wouldn’t you say? And popular.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘You turned a blind eye. And a healthy profit, no doubt.’

‘Perhaps I should call the police. You don’t act like police.’

Staffe notices a stack of writing paper on the shelf of the telephone stand: pale lilac and stiff as parchment. He picks up the phone, presses
Redial
and after three rings a woman with a stern Balkan accent says, ‘Signet Hotel. Can I help you?’

‘You have a reservation in the name of Danya?’

The phone goes quiet and Miles says, ‘I must insist!’

Staffe holds out a hand and listens to the woman say, ‘You are not her.’

‘Is it for tonight? I am police.’

‘Last night. For two nights. She did not appear.’

Staffe hangs up and leaves. As he passes Miles, busy now into his mobile phone, he hisses, ‘You wash your hands well, tonight. Get under the nails. And try not to look in the mirror.’

*

In the Hand and Shears, Staffe reads the translation of the first of Elena’s letters to Bobo.

My sweet Bobo,

I’m trapped here in this palace he has
made for me. More like a prison and
sometimes I really wish I had never come. But the life here can be so good. It
is easy to forget what it was like before. I
can’t remember how cold it was, and
what we did not have. There was nothing
beautiful around us. Were the mountains
beautiful, Bobo? When I have to do
things, I close my eyes and I try to think
of the mountains. Life would be easier if
they were not beautiful
.