Dark Side (4 page)

‘I have to tell you that the three of us work for SOCA, the Serious Organised Crime Agency. We just happened to be here for a—'

But she had fled.

‘Leave her to have a think for a few minutes,' Patrick said when I had half-risen from my seat, expecting him immediately to follow her.

‘She might just bolt for home,' I pointed out.

‘No matter. We can find her as if she stayed in the office until the police arrived and was interviewed they'll have her name and address.'

After we had eaten our lunch and settled the bill we moved to leave and, as already quietly arranged, I mimed to Patrick that I would visit the ladies' loo which was signposted to somewhere at the back. He mimed back that he would wait for me outside and went out.

There was a maze of little corridors, doorways and staircases, both ascending and descending, at the rear of the premises and, having done a virtually tiptoed recce, it was easy to take a ‘wrong' turning and enter a room with a very faded
Staff Only
notice on the door.

‘Oh, sorry,' I hastened to say, having caused the Chinese woman to start violently.

She was sitting behind a cheaply made, rickety-looking desk on which were spread various papers, invoices, perhaps. Resting on top of them, like an incongruous paperweight, was a handgun. I braced myself as the woman snatched it up but she opened a drawer and thrust it within, out of sight.

‘Would you care to talk to me?' I enquired.

‘You'll arrest me.'

‘No.'

‘I don't trust you.'

‘It looks as though you don't trust anyone.'

‘I don't. You can't now.'

‘Look, I didn't see the gun.'

We gazed at one another for a few more moments and then she said, ‘I won't talk while that man you're with is here. He's not … kind.'

I longed to tell her that sometimes he can actually be downright soppy. ‘No, all right,' I agreed. ‘But I shall have to tell him where I am or he might come looking for me.'

‘I would prefer you to phone him from here.'

‘Of course.'

‘Come in and shut the door.'

This I did, taking my time to draw up a chair, seat myself and find my mobile in order to take in my surroundings. The room was very scruffy; peeling paint, cobwebs in the corners of the ceiling, most of the floor space taken up with piles of boxes of what appeared to be coffee and stacks of disposables such as paper napkins and kitchen and toilet rolls.

The same could not be said for the occupant of the room. As I had already noted she was neatly dressed in a crimson blouse and black silk trousers and was, I supposed, around thirty-five years of age, and petite, probably only just reaching my shoulder – I am five feet eight. Her hair was dark as one might expect but fine, swept up into a bun on top of her head. Her eyes were brown and, right now, fixed on me in a hard and suspicious stare.

I rang Patrick, who said that he would hang around. Then I said, ‘Are you the owner of this business?'

She nodded. ‘There's just me now. My husband is dead.'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘Don't be. He was rotten right through.'

I decided not to probe about that just yet and asked her if it was all right for me to take a few notes.

She nodded again.

‘Do you mind telling me your name?'

‘The other police asked that. It is Sulyn Li Grant. Li was my mother's family name in China. My father was American, Spencer Horatio Grant the Third.' The last information was uttered with pride.

‘You didn't take your husband's name?'

‘No.'

I decided that the reasons behind that were none of my business. ‘Do you think the shooting was carried out by Chinese criminals?'

She shook her head. ‘No.'

‘You seem very sure about that. Could it have been anything to do with a Triads group?'

‘No. I have nothing to fear from them.' Then, obviously feeling that some explanation was required, she added, ‘I am protected.'

Again, I felt I should not pursue the matter. ‘Who, then?'

Sulyn shrugged.

‘Something to do with your husband?'

‘I don't
have
to answer your questions,' she answered defiantly.

‘No, but it might save you from being bothered by the police again.'

She thought about it. ‘OK.'

‘You said just now that you were frightened the gunman might kill you. Had your husband been involved with criminals?'

‘I knew he was, but he told me nothing – I didn't want to know anything.'

‘Was
he
paying protection money to anyone?'

‘He promised me that he wasn't.'

Perhaps because he knew she was already doing something along those lines, I thought. But that did not mean that he hadn't been under pressure from another criminal gang to do so.

‘D'you mind telling me how he died?' I asked.

Silence.

‘Did the other police ask you about that?' I persevered.

‘No, why should they?' Sulyn answered with a toss of her head.

‘I'm guessing that his death wasn't as a result of illness or accident.'

‘I don't know.'

‘You don't know!'

‘There was no body. He just disappeared.'

‘When was this?'

‘A little under a year ago.'

‘He might just have run out on you?'

‘No.' Then, after a short pause she continued, ‘He was too stupid with drink half the time to try to conceal from me that there was another woman or that he planned to go. Who would have wanted him? What would he have lived on? What was the sense of leaving a good business? He just went out early one evening and didn't come back. And then about three weeks later a man came to see me who said that he was dead and I was to ask no questions. When I agreed he gave me a thousand pounds. I needed the money badly as there were bills to pay.'

‘Did you know this man?'

‘I'd never seen him before.'

‘So you have no idea why your husband was made to disappear or even killed?'

‘No. But I'd known from the way he behaved that something was wrong. He was drinking even more, and jumpy. I'm sure it was something to do with the people he was involved with – the criminals. I didn't ask.'

‘But the same people who gave you the money couldn't have wanted to kill you, surely?'

She shrugged. ‘They might have changed their minds, if they thought I would talk to the police about it.'

‘Was your husband violent towards you?'

‘Yes, sometimes, when he was drinking heavily.'

‘Had you told the police he was missing?'

‘No! I didn't want him found – I just hoped he was six feet under somewhere.'

A completely irrelevant and crazy thought went through my mind: why the hell had I divorced Patrick when we were married first time around? Things had never got
that
bad.

I said, ‘May I have his name?'

‘Only if you promise that, if you find him, you don't tell him I told you.'

‘I promise.' The thousand pounds ‘compensation', I thought, said it all. This man was dead.

There was another short silence as she hesitated. ‘Sometimes he called himself Bob or Bill Hudson, sometimes Bob Downton. I saw letters that came that were addressed to all those names. I think they were stolen names, stolen identities. I just called him Bob.'

‘You don't have a photograph of him, I suppose?'

‘No.'

I laid down my pen. ‘Please, off the record, tell me why an intelligent woman like you married a man mixed up in crime.'

‘You'll think me a fool. My parents were killed in a road accident – in the States, you understand – and I soon discovered that although I'd always been given the impression that they were wealthy there was no money, only debts. By the time I'd sold the house and settled everything there was only enough for me to come to Britain. I wanted to go to university here but didn't find out enough about it before I came. I knew there was an aunt in London, my mother's sister, but couldn't find her. My visa expired and I couldn't get a job so I ended up working …' Here she dropped her gaze and mumbled, ‘… on the streets in order not to starve. That was where Bob found me. I think he loved me, or if I'm honest, lusted after me to begin with and of course there was security for me – this business and a home. And now I might be found and deported as an illegal immigrant!'

‘Did you go through an official marriage ceremony with this man?' I enquired.

‘No, I was what you call a common-law wife over here.'

I explained that I did not know enough about the law to be able to help her with this but could put her in touch with people who did. But, as I had anticipated, she wanted nothing to do with officialdom in any shape or form.

‘Can't you tell me anything at all about these criminals Bob was involved with?' I asked, preparing to leave.

‘Sorry, no, nothing. It's really best for me not to know.'

‘W
hat sort of handgun did this woman have?' Patrick asked.

‘I'm not sure as I only caught a glimpse of it. Possibly a Beretta of some kind.'

‘Imported in pieces from China and assembled here, no doubt. We need to do some research on her husband.'

I reminded him that he had been given another job.

‘But we don't want to just hand this on a plate to the Met, do we?' His gaze focussed on me. ‘Do we?'

‘At the risk of becoming tedious …'

Patrick sighed. ‘OK, I'm supposed to be working on something else.'

‘I have a suggestion.'

‘Which is?'

‘You get on with what Greenway told you to do, I write a report on my interview with the woman and, you having read the full account of what was said so you're fully briefed, I then put it in Greenway's in-tray without further comment.'

‘Fine – if you think it'll achieve anything.'

The commander phoned me the next day. ‘Thanks for that, Ingrid. We'll leave it on file now I've sent a copy to the Met – I don't know what she told them but it never hurts to cooperate. I think you already know that I simply don't buy the theory that I was the one in the firing line in this shooting and from what she said I would guess that her missing man had stirred up some mobsters who don't, for some reason, yet know he's presumed dead.'

‘But your name must be on reports into investigations into private investigators obtaining information from corrupt police officers.'

‘Along with dozens of others. If more evidence comes along to strengthen that idea I'll take another look at it. Meanwhile, if you want to go home please do so as Patrick's going to be tied up with this mostly desk job for a while.'

Roger and out, I thought, having achieved absolutely nothing.

There was no reason to leave the car in London, besides which I would need it, so I collected my things from the hotel and set off for Somerset, in no mood to stay in the city now, book research or not. I could not remember the last time I had felt sorry for Patrick other than when he had been hurt in some way. Greenway's instructions to him had been more, to quote my husband, ‘pithy and to the point'. A little sympathy is due to Greenway here, too, as Patrick has always been a loose cannon, the commander having been told by Richard Daws, our one-time boss in MI5 and now in some unspecified, and possibly secret, senior position in SOCA, that it would take fifteen years off his life if he had us around.

Having dealt with domestic matters for a few days and taken the four older children on outings – it was half-term – I suddenly remembered the meeting with Carrick that had never happened. Acting on a whim is never a bad idea and after breakfast the next morning, Friday, I drove into Bath. It was pouring with rain and very windy, petals from the battered floral displays speckling the pavements like confetti. Probably because of the weather the city was unusually quiet, and this state of affairs was reflected at the Manvers Street police station. Even the old ladies who regularly bring small gifts and people who sleep rough who, high on something or the other, come in for someone to talk to, were missing. I can remember James Carrick once severely reprimanding a constable who referred to such people as ‘cop botherers' in the hearing of one such person.

On climbing the stairs to the floor where the CID offices are situated the first person I met, in a corridor, was the new DI, David Campbell. He stared at me in perplexity, not remembering for a moment who I was, and then looked worried.

‘The DCI has asked me to handle his workload today,' he replied to my query in his strong Glasgow accent.

‘This isn't about work or any of his current cases,' I informed him. ‘If you remember we were unable to see him about a week ago because of the murder investigation.'

‘That's still ongoing, although we have a strong suspect. But nevertheless …'

‘He doesn't want any visitors?'

‘It's not that. He's asked me to oversee present work and handle anything serious that comes in, that's all.'

Lowering my voice I said, ‘I'm not here on behalf of SOCA. James is a friend of ours. Is he here?'

‘No.'

‘D'you mind telling me where he is?'

‘I don't know where he is.'

We gazed at one another for a few more moments and then Campbell added stiffly, ‘He said he had a private matter to deal with, Miss Langley.'

I gave him a big smile. ‘Thanks, and it's Ingrid.'

‘If you don't mind I prefer to keep matters on a professional basis. I originally joined Strathclyde Police and that's how we run things in Scotland. It reflects better on the role of the police.'

I left, resolving to ask Patrick to try to iron out that particular problem, perhaps by inviting him to share a few drams.