Cold Kill (42 page)

JD made a sound deep in his throat and sat back down; he slumped sideways. Bloss straightened him up and put the garrotte in place, taking up the slack. JD's arms rose, as if to go to his throat, but then fell again.

Bloss put his back into it.

When he was done, he straightened up, massaging his bicep where JD's fingers had bitten in, then walked round to confront the man directly. He said, ‘Don't fucking talk to me like that.'

He stashed most of the money in a drawer alongside the videotape of Billy and Oscar Gribbin, then put in a call to the Trader. He said, ‘I'm going to be up near the Strip.'

‘You're trouble,' Trader told him. ‘Big time. The whole fucking world's looking for you.'

‘Have you made a sale?'

‘No.'

‘I need that money.'

‘Then you'll have to take what you can get. The bracelet's unmarketable. You know why.'

‘So who's going to buy it?'

‘I'll buy it. It'll have to be broken, it's the only way.'

‘How much?'

‘Two grand.'

Bloss was silent for a moment. He was trying to hold in his anger. Finally, he said, ‘Two? No, ten.'

‘This bracelet has to be broken quickly. I don't know what the stones will make. I can give you five. We stop there.'

‘Five,' Bloss said. ‘But I need it tonight.'

They met in the shebeen where Kimber had holed up. There was a poker game in the back room; it might have been the same poker game. Bloss took the five grand without saying thank you. The Trader was eager to be away. He said, ‘They've got you down for it. This cop definitely wants you for it – Mooney.'

‘I know. She's not a problem.'

‘No?' The Trader downed his drink and got up. ‘She certainly talks like one.'

‘She's nothing,' Bloss said. ‘Trust me.'

There was a light covering of snow on rooftops and parked cars, but the hookers and the dealers were still out on the Strip. Business wasn't great, but people had needs whatever the weather. The neon cut patterns in the snow.

Bloss was talking to Kimber as one enthusiast to another. He was telling him to kill Stella Mooney. Kimber told him about Jan and the problems he'd had, but added that all was well now; all was possible. He mentioned the flat near Ladbroke Grove and the flat at Vigo Street. Bloss was looking for a lead, a way of turning things his way.

‘There's a difference. You remember telling me about going into Valerie Blake's flat, that you thought about waiting for her to come back, about being able to take your time.'

‘Yes.'

‘Jan lives with someone. If you do Jan, it has to be like Kate Reilly. You'll have to find a place, an opportunity, the right moment. Look what happened the other night. Look at the risk you ran. Stella Mooney lives on her own. You can get in; you can wait.'

‘I've been following Jan. I've been getting ready.'

‘You followed Stella.'

‘I've been thinking more about Jan.'

‘You could be there when she gets back. Be there in the dark, Bobby. Maybe you could hide and watch her until you're ready. No one to see you, no one to interrupt.'

Kimber said, ‘Yes, I could.'

‘Think of yourself in the dark, waiting, where are you –?'

‘In the bedroom. The bedroom's at the back.'

‘You could be in a closet or under the bed.'

Kimber said, ‘Yes, I could.'

‘You hear the door open and slam. She's back. Maybe she's going to have a drink or make something to eat. You could open the bedroom door a little and watch her doing that.'

Kimber said, ‘Yes, I could.'

‘But whether it's early or late, she'll come into the bedroom, won't she? Maybe you'll have a lot of opportunity to watch her, maybe just a little, but she'll come into the bedroom, to change her clothes, perhaps, get undressed, or to go to bed, and you could be there to watch.'

Kimber said, ‘Yes, I could.'

‘And then you come out of hiding. And there she is.'

Kimber said, ‘There she is, yes.'

‘This is just you, Bobby. Not us together. I have to go away for a while.' Bloss put the Glock down where Kimber could see it.

Kimber nodded. He said, ‘Yes, I could do that, couldn't I?'

‘You could, Bobby. Yes, you really could.'

Bloss walked through Notting Hill towards the tube, a face in the crowd, no one of note. He had bought a hat and a scarf and he bowed his head against the wind, hat low, scarf wound round.

It was almost midnight, almost Christmas Eve. The last tube trains would be full of drunks and people trying not to notice drunks. Tomorrow Stella Mooney would be killed by Robert Adrian Kimber and the investigation would hit a wall; her death, cops on leave, tens of thousands of people at airline check-in counters...

He passed a TV rental store and saw pictures of a small war taking place somewhere, of soldiers wearing bandoliers, a plane on a strafing-run. A moment later, his own face appeared, but by that time he had passed by.

A skinny boy in a quilted coat was sitting backed up to the glass and steel frontage of ToyMart. He said, ‘Christ is coming, the Lord is coming.'

Stella, Maxine, Harriman and Stilano: the team. In the squad room they went into a huddle over coffee and chocolate, they talked tactics. Lauren Buchanan was still refusing a lawyer. People did that; it was a form of denial. Once a lawyer looked in, you had to start thinking of ‘proceedings' as ‘official'. Stella had put Sorley on notice of a probable request for an extension, but he was still shrugging that one off.

Harriman and Maxine had both been in with Lauren that morning, which meant Stella would sit down with her next. She said, ‘How does she seem?'

‘Like someone holding out,' Harriman said.

‘You can talk about Valerie Blake, you can even talk about Leon Bloss, but you can't talk about Duncan Palmer. Palmer's a minefield.'

‘Same as yesterday,' Stella said, ‘so that's the way in.'

‘She's just fooling herself,' Silano said, ‘about Palmer.'

Stella shook her head. ‘She believes it – herself and Duncan Palmer. She can see the future.'

Lauren had put on some make-up, but the interview room light cast shadows and her eyes looked bruised. Stella sat down and switched on the tape. Maxine was in as observer.

‘We're going to keep talking until we get somewhere,' Stella said.

‘There's nowhere to get to.' Lauren lit a cigarette reflexively.

‘I've spent the last hour or so talking to Duncan Palmer. He told me what a pain in the arse you are, how he couldn't get rid of you, how he only took you with him to America to keep you quiet.'

Lauren smiled. ‘Yeah, right.'

‘He knows the whole story now. Duncan – he knows it all. That you talked to Leon Bloss, came to an arrangement. That Bloss killed Valerie for you.' Lauren drew hard on her cigarette, making the paper crumple. ‘You can imagine what he thinks of you now. At first, you're just a free fuck, up for it, a last-minute sex-spree. Then you're a drag, you won't let go. Then Valerie's killed and you're digging in, he can't get rid of you. Now there's Bloss and what you told him to do. Duncan hates you, Lauren, of course he does. He never really liked you all that much, but now he hates you.'

‘All this… all this is… you don't know, you know nothing.' Lauren turned away and shook her head. ‘You're supposed to say it. What else would you say?'

Stella stood in the squad room and stared out at the snow. Since early that morning, the fall had been heavy and the wind strong. The cars in the car park were coated, completely white, and the fall was drifting in corners.

Her mobile went and she checked the display. Delaney. He said, ‘Are you spending Christmas with me?'

‘Or are you spending Christmas with me?'

‘You've got interesting wall-murals, but I've got a Christmas tree.'

‘Are you serious?'

‘About what?'

‘The Christmas tree.'

‘Of course.'

She laughed. ‘I'll have to go back before I come to you,
collect some things. I don't know how late I'll be. There's a fair chance I'll be working tomorrow –'

‘Just come.' He'd noticed that she'd said ‘back' when referring to Vigo Street. Not, I'll have to go home, but I'll have to go back.

‘Okay.'

He said, ‘I love you.'

‘I love you.'

But there's something I have to tell you about a man called Tom Davison. Something you're not going to want to hear.

Sorley caught her on her way through the squad room. He said, ‘You're going to have to let her go.'

‘There's some time.'

‘A little. Do you expect to get anywhere?' Stella shrugged. ‘No. She's going to walk, Stella.'

‘I know she did this. She paid Bloss to kill Valerie Blake.'

‘You may be right. I expect you
are
right. Only problem – there's nothing in your favour. You moved too soon. As long as she goes on stonewalling, it's just a theory.'

‘Unless we find Bloss.'

‘Does that seem likely just now?'

Stella was silent on that one.

She asked Marilyn Hayes to do the paperwork: time and circumstances of Lauren's arrest, time and circumstances of her release, then collected some thin, bitter coffee from the squad vending machine and went to her desk. She picked up a few emails; she found a Twix bar deep in a drawer.

There's an hour before I have to let her go. She can sit there and sweat, the bitch.

As it happened, Stella didn't need an hour. Twenty minutes later Nick Robson came back into the squad room
with a couple of members of the search team that had spent the morning at Lauren Buchanan's flat. He was holding a small plastic evidence bag.

He said, ‘You might want this. It's uncontaminated from the search site; don't take it out of the bag.'

Stella looked at the item inside. It wasn't necessary to remove it. The engraving on the cross was clear: VB.

When she went back to the interview room, Lauren had brightened her make-up and was wearing a cheery smile.

‘Is there more, or can I go now?' she asked.

‘There's more,' Stella said. She switched on the tape but didn't speak. Instead, she held the evidence bag up so that Lauren could see the cross. Harriman was sitting at the table now, next to Stella. He told the tape what was happening and he described the object in the bag. A gold cross engraved with the initials VB.

‘Did you really need to have this?' Stella said, ‘I think you did. A token. An indulgence. The winner's medal.'

Lauren looked at the cross for about a minute; she didn't blink.

‘Do you want to talk about it?' Stella asked. ‘Because if you do, I'm here to listen.'

The tape turned.

‘You could help us. We're looking for Leon Bloss, the man you paid. Maybe you could tell us where to find him.'

Lauren shook her head. She was crying.

They left her alone for a while. They gave her some time; time to despair. Maxine and Silano went for coffee and sandwiches.

Harriman said, ‘This Bloss is a piece of work.'

Stella gave a sour laugh. ‘I can't disagree.'

‘He takes a contract from Lauren Buchanan to kill Valerie Blake. He takes a possible contract from Billy Souza to kill Oscar Gribbin. He kills Valerie in a way that makes it seem she's one in a string of other victims – clever-clever – then Robert Kimber comes into his life and he realizes that if Billy Souza activates the contract on Gribbin, he's got a ready-made patsy.'

‘He thinks ahead. He's a pro.'

‘He needed Kimber to kill, didn't he – to start killing?'

‘So that his DNA would be at a murder scene, yes, but more than that – he had to make Kimber authentic. The man had already confessed to Valerie's murder and been shown the door. If Bloss was going to put him in the frame for Gribbin's murder, he needed him to actually
be
a killer and needed us to
know
that. Whatever evidence we held back, Kimber would be completely accurate about the details of Kate Reilly's death because he'd killed her. After that, we wouldn't have had him down as just a victim of the Judas Syndrome.'

‘The what?'

‘Shrink speak.'

‘So Bloss kills Gribbin and thinks he's away clear. Someone looking hard enough might make the Gribbin–Souza–Bloss connection, but who'd be looking? Kimber's DNA is all over the shop and he's already wanted for Kate Reilly's murder. Case closed. Merry Christmas.'

‘Gribbin's girlfriend was a piece of luck. Bloss could work her into the mix – not only Kimber's DNA but an MO that goes back to Valerie Blake and then to Cotter's victims. Bloss doesn't know Cotter's been caught. Maybe he thinks that, if he stays lucky, and if we're looking to clear our files, we might decide to charge Kimber with the lot, including Valerie Blake. Couldn't be better.'

‘What do you think he said to Kimber?' Harriman asked.

‘Said to him?'

‘Bloss. What did he say to start him off: to make him kill Kate Reilly?'

‘I don't suppose it took much,' Stella said. She was remembering Kimber in the interview room, his fantasies of death, his gloating smile. ‘Just a whisper or two. Just a hint of the pleasures to come.'

Harriman looked at her. She was smiling, as if she'd made a poor joke, but a shiver ran through her.

Stella and Lauren; Lauren and Stella. They took rest breaks, they had coffee. Neither spoke. They sat together for a long time. Dusk was coming in, a smoky light filtering through the snowfall. It wasn't by the book, this sitting and saying nothing, but Stella had a feel for it.

Lauren said, ‘I thought it was the right thing to do.'