Carnal Acts (14 page)

In his office, Heck wasn’t doing well. He had the cancer blues and he was trembling. He took some deep breaths and managed to get a grip, disgusted with himself. He’d turned into a coward and he didn’t even have the balls to tell Ag. Then he saw Joni Pax and DS Rokeby come into the MCU. He picked up his mobile phone and put it to his ear, raising his other hand to buy himself
some time. When he was on more of an even keel, he beckoned Joni in.

After giving him a questioning look, she reported about Nick Etherington.

‘Sounds like a dead end to me,’ Heck said, when she’d finished. ‘Maybe he saw one of his father’s friends. That wouldn’t make him too happy, what with his Dad having died.’

‘Why didn’t he say so, then? Even if he didn’t give the name.’

‘Dead end,’ Heck repeated. ‘Besides, you don’t want to mess with Michael Etherington. He was one of the few NATO people to get the Bosnian Serbs to negotiate.’

Joni sat down on the sofa. ‘Was he in Kosovo, sir?’

‘No idea. Why do you ask?’

‘Well, I’m not a Balkan expert, but I know that Kosovo shares a border with Albania and that the majority of Kosovo’s population is Albanian.’

Heck sat back, his hands behind his head. ‘What are you suggesting? That General Michael was at the brothel?’

‘No, he’s got an alibi from his daughter-in-law. But he still may be involved.’

‘Bloody hell, Joni, what are you on about? You think Michael Etherington has some connection with the Albanians.’

She raised her shoulders. ‘Maybe Nick saw someone his grandfather knows in Burwell Street.’

‘All this from a hunch? The ACC will tear it to shreds.’

‘Not if I find out more. For a start, we can check his service record right now. There’ll be plenty of newspaper reports.’

Heck looked at his computer screen with ill-disguised aversion. ‘Be my guest. I have enough trouble with the Pofnee system.’

Joni went round to his side of the desk and pulled the keyboard closer. Within seconds she’d found a newspaper report marking the end of Michael Etherington’s service in the Balkans.

‘He was in Kosovo from June 1999 to April 2001.’

‘Which proves nothing.’

‘No, sir, but it piques my interest.’

‘Oh, it does, does it? Well, take that pique to your own desk and get on with something useful. See what you can find out about this Popi clan or whatever it is. Ruth Dickie’s already squeezing my nuts.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Joni turned at the door. ‘I don’t suppose Morrie’s turned anything up.’

‘Not a lot, but listen to this. A woman I know in Corham Gardens had her shed burgled last night. I sent the SOCOs down – don’t ask, the woman can make Ag’s life difficult – and guess who’d been there?’

‘General Michael?’

‘No, the Albanian woman you chased. What was her name?’

‘Suzana.’ There was sudden tingling in Joni’s upper spine. ‘Suzana Noli.’

‘Aye, that’s it. Her fingerprints were all over the place. She stole food and clothing. DC Andrews has got the report.’

‘She was long gone, no doubt.’

‘She was indeed.’ Heck peered at her. ‘What is it, lass?’

Joni ran her hand over her forehead. ‘Nothing.’ She turned to go and cannoned into Eileen Andrews.

‘Oops, sorry, ma’am. You both might want to hear this. Uniform responded to a call from a lady who lives on the west side of Star Park. She saw three lads approach a young woman who was sitting on a bench. There was some kind of set-to and they ran off. She saw blood and, she thought, knives. The woman chucked plastic bags over the rear wall of the park and climbed after them.’

‘When was this?’ Joni asked.

‘The call was logged at 3.39 and the officers called it in after they finished talking to the woman at 4.43.’

‘She’ll be well away by now,’ Heck said.

‘Uniform have got a description of the woman and it’s been issued to all patrols. Not a huge amount to go on. Dark hair in a ponytail under a woolly hat, a dark leather jacket and
mud-coloured
trousers.’

‘It has to be Suzana,’ Joni said. ‘She knows her way around knives.’

Heck nodded. ‘Thanks, Eileen. Let us know if anything more comes in.’

Joni went to her desk and stared at the blank screen. She was seeing Suzana Noli walking into the darkness, lugging her bags and looking around constantly. She was friendless, wanted for murder and very far from home. It was likely she’d never been allowed out of the brothel and had no idea where she was. Aged seventeen, the target of the enraged and merciless bastards who had enslaved her and now the sworn enemy of local yobs. Joni wished she could rescue her, clean her up and let her sleep on her sofa.

She shook the thought away and switched on her computer. The only way to save the Suzanas of the world was to cut off the head of the gangs that abused them. She had a rendezvous with the Popi.

Moonbeam Pax dropped a bay leaf into the vegetable stew she’d prepared and put it in the oven. It was good to be cooking for a man again. Her recent conquests hadn’t lasted long enough to merit dinner. The last had been a twenty-year-old she’d given a lift to on her way back from Alnwick a month ago. She’d immediately seen in his eyes that he fancied her, despite the wrinkles on her face and her sagging breasts – she’d given up wearing a bra when she left school and, despite numerous battles with headmasters and mistresses, had stuck to that decision throughout her teaching career. He was an amusing enough diversion, not least because he’d looked like he was going to faint when she let him in the back door. She’d forgotten she had a frog and a bat stretched out to dry on the kitchen island. That hadn’t stopped
him grabbing her still firm buttocks as she led him upstairs. She’d guessed how it would be, so she stroked him to climax before he’d got his trousers off. A quarter of an hour later, he lasted long enough for her to orgasm. She always used her own fingers to do that, regardless of what her knuckles might do to the men’s bladders. She hadn’t been surprised when he’d reneged on his promise to call her. She liked it when she scared them and, besides, she wouldn’t have had him back. He was weak.

Looking across her small back garden, Moonbeam took in the moors to the west. She’d given up teaching before she got her full pension, so she hadn’t been able to live any nearer her childhood town of Corham. Not that she was bothered. It suited her to be on the outskirts of the small village twenty-five miles to the north. Billham was perfect. The old people accepted she was an odd one, the middle-aged found her amusing (not that they invited her into their homes, even though, or rather because she’d had sex with several of the husbands and one of the wives) and the young people bought the drugs she brought from Alnwick every week. She used to do her pick-up in Corham, but there had recently been disruption when some brutal new gang forced its way in. Besides, she didn’t want to compromise her daughter. The cottage she rented from the Favon estate was cheap and had its own free water supply, even if the colour was sometimes a bit disturbing. It didn’t matter. Moonbeam had a herbal remedy for everything, dodgy water included. And now the spells she’d cast for years were finally working. All would be as it had been and all would be well.

She had strong hopes that Joni would see the light, despite the twin barriers of rationalism and prejudice she had erected when she was still a little girl. Things were different now. After years of rejection, of claiming in the piping voice she used to have that she was an atheist, of going to the snobs’ university and then throwing it all away to become a servant of the oppressive state, Joni needed Moonbeam. The fact that she’d moved to Northumberland was proof. Her daughter had become a
victim. She’d been damaged physically and mentally, and was struggling to cope. That brought her closer to being one of the elect. Only through suffering could true wisdom be obtained, but you had to be born with the powers to move higher up the scale.

Moonbeam never asked herself what suffering she had undergone. She’d never had much money, but that was down to her spending the reasonable salary she earned on expensive herbs and ritual accessories. She’d been collecting grimoires – books of spells – since her twenties and some of them now had great monetary value, but she would never sell them. She’d lived in a run-down flat in Hackney for nearly thirty years, filling it with the necessities of her craft and rarely cleaning. She used a room as a studio too, occasionally selling art works, though they were too exotic for most people. And she had been on her own, deeply, painfully, since Joni’s father Greg left her. Joni had never reached even the lowest level of natural understanding, for all her studies and certificates, while the men Moonbeam allowed in her bedroom were nothing but substitutes, none of them capable of giving her anything but fleeting physical pleasure. Not that she had any objection to that.

She had always been sure that Joni would come back to her, wounded and desperate for healing. Moonbeam was in a position to provide that now she had cleansed herself and achieved access to the true knowledge contained in the earth, the sea, the moon, the trees. Fertility was all around if only you knew how to set it in motion. Joni needed help to understand that.

Joni spent the afternoon carrying out searches for the Popi. What little there was in the databases was insignificant: mentions in statements by frightened minor criminals who were
trying to take the heat off themselves; the name shouted in open court by a Turkish heroin dealer who claimed he’d been framed; the corpse of a headless young woman with the letters ‘POPI’ cut into her back.

Morrie Sutton came into the MCU with Nathan Gray. They asked her about the Albanian who’d been caught in Alnwick and she told them his mouth had been zipped up by one of Lennox’s minions.

‘No sign of Suzana Noli?’ she asked.

‘Who?’ they said, in unison.

She stared at them with intent.

‘Oh, the tart with the cutlery,’ Gray said. ‘Nope. She’s gone, DI Pax. Turn your electric eye on someone else.’

Joni would have ripped into him, but she had more important things to do. The first of them, she wasn’t looking forward to. Since she’d left London, she hadn’t had any contact with her former colleagues in Homicide South-west. It was time she re-established relations, but she didn’t want to do it in the
open-plan
office.

Picking up her pad and pen, she went over to DCI Rutherford’s glass box. He was bent over a pile of papers.

‘Sir, I’d like to call someone in my old squad in the Met. Could I do it from here? I don’t fancy DI Sutton overhearing.’

Heck looked at her. ‘What’s Morrie done now?’

‘Nothing egregious by his standards. He’s not exactly setting DS Gray much of an example, though.’

‘Not really your business, is it, Joni?’ Heck said, then he relaxed. ‘I take your point though. Gray’s an arse, but the ACC wanted him here.’

‘Blonde, blue-eyed boy minority representation?’

Heck laughed, then coughed and clutched his lower abdomen.

‘Are you all right, sir?’

‘I’ll live.’

Joni knew about his cancer, but he didn’t talk about it. Like much of Heck’s past, it was off limits. Even when they’d been in
his car for hours on surveillance, he hadn’t opened up much. Then again, neither had she. But her boss would have seen her service record. He knew all about what she’d been though.

‘The thing is,’ she said, ‘I need to ask about the Popi. I want to see if the Met’s working on anything linked to it or them or whatever the hell the words refers to.’

‘Don’t jump into a heap of shit. I can call someone senior. Anyway, they should be updating the databases.’

‘With respect, sir, you know that they’ll give you, for want of a better word, shit. A DCI from the north of England is hardly going to make them open up. Besides, you know the databases are only updated with sensitive material when forces are desperate for help. The Homicide Units don’t do desperation.’

‘All right, have it your way.’ Heck stood up.

‘No, sir, stay. I’m not kicking you out of your office.’

Heck shrugged and sat down again, pushing the phone over to her.

DS Roland Malpas wasn’t answering either his mobile or his office number. His voicemail kicked in, but Joni didn’t leave a message. She suspected he wouldn’t return her calls. The last time she’d seen Ro was at a squad party when she was on sick leave. He had avoided her all night and she heard from one of the secretaries that he blamed himself for putting her in danger. She eventually tracked him down by asking the same secretary to connect her without saying who it was.

‘Ro,’ she said, when he picked up, ‘this is Joni Pax. Don’t put the phone down!’

There was silence before he spoke. ‘DI Pax. I wouldn’t dream of cutting you off. How goes it in the frozen north?’

‘I’m in Northumberland, not Norway. We’ve got spring here, same as you.’

‘Oh, right.’ Malpas sounded distracted.

‘Is this a bad time?’

‘It’s always a bad time. Was there something in particular?’

Joni wasn’t letting go of the chance to put him on the back
foot. ‘I’m fine, thanks for not asking, Ro. Wounds healed, brain back in gear.’

‘Shit, I’m sorry, ma’am.’

‘Call me Joni. Forget it, Ro. I need you to check something for me.’

‘Oh yeah?’

‘You come across any Albanian gangs down there?’

There was a pause. ‘Albanians? Well, they’re on the rise all over the place. Have you got them up there?’

‘Uh-huh. There’s one particular name – I’m not sure if it’s an individual or a family.’

‘Have you run it through HOLMES?’

‘What do you think? Nothing of any significance.’

Malpas paused again. ‘Let’s have it then.’

‘Popi, or rather
the
Popi.’

This time the response was rapid. ‘No bells ringing.’

‘All right. Do you think you could ask your mates in other units, Ro? It would mean a lot to me.’ She didn’t want to ratchet the emotional pressure up too much – at least, not yet.

‘OK,’ Malpas said. ‘I’ll see what I can find out for you.’

‘You’re a star.’

‘Yeah, right.’

She gave him her new mobile number and rang off.

Heck looked up from his paperwork. ‘He’s calling back?’

Joni smiled. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll stay on him.’

‘Is that it?’

‘Yes. Well, not exactly. I was thinking about the international agencies. I know the ACC said no to Interpol, but there’s Europol as well.’

‘Have you got a contact there?’

Joni shook her head. ‘I could put in a request for information.’

Heck ran a hand over his closely cropped head. ‘This conversation isn’t happening, DI Pax.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Of course, I can’t control what you do off your own bat.’

Joni had never been good with sporting metaphors apart
from those originating in athletics, but she understood the risk was hers. There was no way she was going through the Pofnee international liaison officer. He was Ruth Dickie’s tame chief superintendent.