Cold Kill (31 page)

Bloss worked on her until he was sure, then sat back heavily, shoulders slumped. His fingers ached. After a moment, he got up and went round to face her.

He flipped open the mink coat, pushed her dress up and stripped her below the waist.

He stood over her and let a little of the hair from Kimber's brush fall on the fork of her legs. Then he trashed the place.

The blonde had been right: there didn't seem to be much to take that was portable. Cufflinks, some costume jewellery, three or four hundred in cash, some silver. Oscar had been carrying a wallet stuffed with notes and credit cards, which Bloss had already lifted. He put everything into his rucksack, along with the document case, the hammer, the knife, the gun and the spare clip.

When he left, the blonde was still sitting upright against the glass stilt, her smile a rictus, her teeth grouted with red.

Luminous fish were shoaling towards the light.

He took a bus and then walked, anonymous among the happy, the sad, the bored, the bereft. Among the drunks and the jokers, the pickups and the bustups.

He strolled to the centre of Hammersmith Bridge and stopped to admire the view. Reflections of the lights from riverside pubs flexed and danced in the water. Aviation lights of planes chased each other down the flightpath to Heathrow. The rucksack went in with a small splash: the contamination suit, the overalls, the knife, the hammer, the cufflinks, the silver… everything but the cash. The cash was okay to keep. And he kept the gun.

He walked to a street phone and called Billy Souza.

Billy said, ‘How did it go off?'

‘Just fine,' Bloss told him.

‘Our friend?'

‘He left. He won't be back.'

‘The lady?'

‘She went with him.'

‘That's good,' Billy said. ‘And the tape?'

‘There was no tape, Billy.'

A pause, then, ‘You're sure about that?'

‘He would have told me.'

‘You're sure?'

‘I know he would have told me. Also, I searched the place.'

‘It was a con.'

‘I'm afraid so.'

Billy sighed. ‘Stupid to bluff on an empty hand.'

There was activity all around, kids going by in search of another party, arguments on the run, someone throwing up in a McDonald's doorway. A couple of beggars were working the late crowd: a girl with a penny whistle and a skinny guy with red hair, wrapped in a quilted coat.

Bloss said, ‘I'm thinking I might go away for a bit.'

‘Okay,' Billy said. ‘Call by for what I owe.'

‘That would be cash, right?'

‘Sure. Cash.' Just before Bloss hung up, Billy added, ‘Listen – good job.'

Bloss called into a bar for a drink. The music was loud enough to paralyse small mammals. It was good to be lost in that noise and the bar-lights and the lives going on round him as if nothing had happened. The barman brought him a large Scotch and pointed to the tariff chalked up on a board.

Bloss patted his pockets. In one, his wallet, in another, the video-tape and the diamond bracelet.

The blonde and Oscar, Oscar and the blonde, side by side on the squad-room whiteboard, his sky-diving-in-death pose, her big red-and-white grin. The blonde's name was Ellen Clarke and she'd been identified by a credit card and a driving licence. Apart from the name, she might as well have been a Jane Doe. A set of house keys were still waiting to find a lock and there was no ‘home' among her mobile phone contacts. Frank Silano was working through the numbers that did appear and getting a lot of hang-ups.

A small crowd of rubberneckers had gathered: the AMIP-5 team, with their Twix bars and crisps and cartons of coffee. Marilyn Hayes looked for a moment, then walked back to her desk, giving a little hiccough. Stella sat on her desk to talk. She asked for any ideas.

‘He follows the girl,' Maxine said, ‘intending to kill her as he'd killed the others, but something goes wrong, maybe the street's too busy, she doesn't walk though any parks, whatever, so he follows her home and kills her there.'

‘Not home,' Silano reminded her. ‘She didn't live there. The sorrowing wife lives there.'

‘Where is she?' Sorley asked. He was standing in the doorway, trying to keep his bacteria to himself. ‘The sorrowing wife?'

‘On a plane home from Meribel,' Stella told him. ‘And what' – she turned to Maxine – ‘he has to kill the boyfriend too?'

‘Seems logical to me.'

‘Why not choose someone else? Someone who does walk through parks, someone who isn't making things difficult? Why go into a house where it's likely there'll be another person around? It's not the MO.'

‘He works off obsession,' Harriman offered. ‘Isn't that what we think? He targets women. We saw the photos in his Hare-field flat. He chooses them, singles them out. Something had to go wrong for him sometime. So he kills them both.'

‘Him? There are two of them,' Sorley offered, ‘we've established that. Kimber and Mister Mystery.'

‘We don't know that they were both there,' Stella said. ‘We have to wait for Forensics. But let's assume they were. Okay, they torture the man – multiple stab wounds to the thighs, the biceps, the buttocks. What does that say?'

‘They want something – hiding place for the valuables, combination of the safe, that sort of thing,' Maxine said. ‘It's a common pattern.'

‘Yes, it is. But it doesn't fit.'

‘Or maybe it was nothing more than opportunity,' Maxine suggested. ‘They follow the blonde' – she glanced at the crime report – ‘Ellen Clarke, she goes to the house and they haven't had their chance yet, maybe she changed her route, maybe she doesn't usually go to this house –'

‘Maybe she's usually Tuesday and Thursdays,' Silano said, ‘but the wife's away, so –'

Maxine nodded. ‘Right, yes, so they catch up to Ellen at the door, grab her, go in with her, he's there –'

‘Oscar Gribbin,' Stella said.

‘Right, and so he's got to be killed too. And while they're there, hey, it's a big house, this is a rich guy, why not rip him off? So they hurt him to make him tell them where the money is.'

‘And is the girl dead?' Stella asked. ‘Have they killed her yet, or is she watching all this? And why did they use a gun on him but garrotte her?'

No one had an answer for that.

Side by side on the whiteboard, side by side on the slab. Sam Burgess was also looking for answers. He worked on Oscar and the blonde together because they were related in death; they were part of the same problem.

‘There are things here you already know,' he told Stella. ‘He was tortured – fifteen wounds in all, none of them lethal, none deep, all to fleshy parts of the body.'

‘It's a means to an end,' Stella said.

‘I know that. I've seen it before. The torturer wants information – where do you keep the money, where do you keep the valuables? – and eventually the victim tells him. Some probably tell him almost immediately, but torturers like to have their fun, also they like to be sure, so the treatment continues for a while. Then the torturer makes the victim open the safe or whatever, and leaves. The victim's tied up, combination of shock and blood-loss results in death. There's a difference here.'

‘Which is?'

‘He was stabbed, then shot very soon afterwards.'

‘So Gribbin caved in immediately, told him where the cash was, and the guy finished him.'

‘That's what I'd say if it was just him. Rich man, big house, familiar pattern.' He paused and looked across to where the blonde lay waiting her turn. ‘Except for her, of course.'

‘Yes,' Stella said. ‘Except for her.'

*

Tom Davison had some more immediate answers, one of which was that Oscar Gribbin had been the first to die.

Stella sat at her desk, her shoulder lifted to wedge the phone while she papered Sam Burgess's early findings. She said, ‘Are you sure?'

‘It's in the blood patterns. He lost a lot, she lost almost none. The house has a heavily varnished wood-block floor, no soak factor. His blood-flow crosses the room to the fish-tank thing and keeps going. When she dies, she's sitting in his blood, it's on the backs of her legs, it's on the underside of the fur coat. Ergo, he'd been shot before she was backed up to the glass pillar and throttled.' He paused. ‘Why was she wearing a fur coat indoors?'

‘Who knows? Early Christmas present, perhaps. I've never had a sugar daddy, so I wouldn't know. He was stabbed fifteen times, so there would have been blood before he was whacked. You're sure he was first to die?'

‘Viscosity of blood, amount shed from stab-wounds versus amount shed from major trauma like the head-wound; also size of room, positions of bodies. Trust me, DS Mooney. It may be gore to you, but it's bread and butter to me.'

‘No DNA results yet, I suppose.'

‘You're kidding, aren't you?'

‘Anything on the bullets? Any fingerprints?'

‘Fingerprint elimination's under way. The bullets are with a specialist unit.'

‘Okay. But how soon for the DNA?'

‘I'll rush round with the results as soon as they turn up.'

‘Don't fuck me about, Davison, I've got a weird situation here and I need some answers.'

‘About Kimber's DNA and Mister Mystery's DNA – you need to know if they're both at the scene?'

‘That's right.'

‘Look, I'm serious. When the results are in, I'll bring them over. Do you ever eat Chinese food?'

‘You're married.'

‘Who told you that?'

‘You did.'

‘Then it must be true.'

The call that had come through on Stella's mobile during the squad briefing had been from Delaney. She picked it up on voicemail as she walked across the car park.

Hi, it's me. Just wondering, trying to keep my distance, not making a very good job of it… so let's meet up. I'd sort of thought we might go somewhere for Christmas, now I don't know what to do. What to think. Give me a call. I love you, but I hope you know that.

I do know that. And I don't know what to do either. Or what to think.

Her windscreen was frosted over, so she got in and ran the heater for a few minutes. The ice-melt and her own tears blurred her eyes.

Trixie Gribbin had a ski-tan, blonde streaks and a cleavage like wash-leather. The tan was tight over her cheekbones and her eyes had a little upwards slant. Trixie was being looked after by several friends in a house only slightly larger and more expensive than her own. The friends wore designer everything and sparkled when they moved. They brought coffee and cake, then settled into chairs to observe proceedings. When Stella told them to leave, they looked affronted and stayed put. Frank Silano was a little less polite. They left their coffees as if expecting to return before they cooled.

If Trixie had been crying, she'd put her make-up on since the last tears flowed. Stella said she was sorry. Trixie said she was sorry too, and that she had an appointment with her lawyers in an hour, so maybe they could get through things quickly. It was tough talk, but there was a quiver in her voice.

Stella was holding a copy of the crime report from the local cops. The housekeeper who had found Oscar and Ellen was still in recovery. Trixie had given an initial report of missing items that she had described as bits and pieces of silver and a bracelet. There was an existing photograph and full description of the bracelet taken for insurance purposes, though without the technical details it came down to four strands of diamonds on platinum with a snake-head clasp and was entered by the insurers at fifty thousand pounds.

‘It was the only thing not in the safe,' Trixie said. ‘I'd meant to take it, but I forgot.'

‘And the safe is in the basement.'

‘Bolted to the floor. It's faked up to look like a cupboard. You open the cupboard, there are some trinkets. Take out the back and there's the safe.'

Stella looked at the crime report again. ‘Jewellery and other items to the value of a quarter of a million pounds.'

‘If that's what it says.'

‘I don't know how much you've been told about the manner of your husband's death –'

‘He was tortured.' Trixie's mouth gave a little twist. Out of nowhere, she said, ‘I knew about the girls. There were always girls.' Stella and Silano waited, but Trixie went on as if she had never interrupted herself. ‘To make him tell where the safe was.' Stella nodded. ‘But they didn't go near it.'

‘So he didn't tell them,' Stella observed.

‘That doesn't make sense.' Trixie shook her head. ‘That's not Oscar.'

‘Are you sure?'

‘He would have told them. Oscar would have told them.'

Silano asked, ‘What makes you say that?'

Trixie looked at him. ‘Who do you think he was – James fucking Bond?'

Silano said nothing.

‘It's not a question of being brave,' Trixie said, ‘not a matter of holding out or being tough. He'd've told them, because we're insured and, anyway, what's a quarter of a million to Oscar?'

One of the sparkly friends came back to remind Trixie of her appointment with her lawyers. Stella said, ‘We might need to talk to you again. And we'll need a photo of your husband.'

Trixie gave her a mobile number. She said, ‘There are framed photos all round the house. Take what you want.' Then, ‘Tell me about the girl.'

‘We don't know that much,' Stella said. ‘She's been identified. We're still making inquiries.'

‘What name?' Trixie asked.

Stella shrugged. It would be in the papers. She said, ‘Ellen Clarke.' Then, as an afterthought, ‘Did you know her?'

Trixie shook her head. ‘What was she like to look at?'

Stella thought of the plum-dark, swollen face, the insane red-rimmed grin. She said, ‘Young. Blonde.'