Dead Eyed (22 page)

Once he’d read through the whole report, he began again. He concentrated on each line, each witness report, on the notes from his former colleague and his team. He clicked on Burnham’s profile, scrolled through notes from his family, friends, work colleagues. And then he spotted a name he knew. He would need to make a detour before he went to Bristol.

He shut off the computer and collapsed on the bed, as his vision began to fade. Flashes of orange and violet formed behind his eyes, a familiar dizziness overwhelming him and sending him to sleep.

He snapped awake four hours later, fully refreshed. After showering and changing he packed a small holdall and walked into the spare room where Klatzky was sleeping.

Lambert opened the curtains and window, a gust of fresh air filtering into the musty room. ‘Right, we’re going to talk,’ he told Klatzky, who had thankfully crawled beneath the covers since he’d last seen him.

Klatzky rubbed his eyes. ‘Not now,’ he groaned.

Lambert grabbed the man by the shoulders. ‘Yes now. You asked for my help in the beginning and now you need to come up with some answers. There’s some people who want to speak to you.’

Klatzky sat up in bed, pulling the duvet over his shoulders until only his face showed. The late nights were not doing him any favours. His face was drawn. Grey bags hung beneath his bloodshot eyes, his cheeks and chin were speckled with uneven stubble.

‘Who wants to see me?’ he said, his voice dry and brittle.

‘Never mind that. You were going to tell me something the other night, before Sophie interrupted us.’

‘I can’t remember, Mikey, everything’s a blur at the moment.’

‘It was something about Billy and Terrence. What aren’t you telling me?’ Lambert saw the flicker of recognition in Klatzky’s tired eyes. ‘You’re going to have to tell me sooner or later. Let’s get it over with.’

‘Billy told me not to tell anyone.’

Lambert rubbed his temples, tried to count to ten but stopped after reaching five.

‘For Christ’s sake, Simon, Billy’s been dead nearly twenty years. I don’t think he’s going to mind much.’

Klatzky squirmed beneath the covers. ‘Okay, okay,’ he shouted. ‘Billy told me something once. I’m not sure if he even remembered he’d told me. We were hammered. I thought he was joking to begin with but then the conversation got a little bit too real.’

‘Go on.’

‘I didn’t know what to say to him. He started to go on about his dad. Things that happened in his childhood. It was fucking awful stuff, Mikey. He was crying by the end of it. I was only nineteen. I didn’t know what to say or do.’

‘No one’s blaming you, Simon. Just tell me what he said.’

‘I can’t go into the details. Let’s say his father was not a nice man.’

Lambert paused, confused and annoyed that Klatzky had hidden this from him.

‘There’s more isn’t there? How does this link in with Terrence?’

‘I didn’t even think about it until the other day when we were in Bristol. Billy used to go to these counselling sessions. We never mentioned the conversation again but I knew when he’d been. He used to pretend he was going running. He’d always glance at me before he left as if asking me not to share his secret.’

‘What sort of sessions were they? One person? A group?’

‘Group sessions I think. But that night when he told me about it, when he was crying, he mentioned that he’d once seen Terrence Haydon at one of the meetings.’

‘Jesus Christ, Simon, why didn’t you tell me this before?’

‘I told you, I forgot.’

‘You forgot?’ said Lambert, swaying on his feet. ‘How stupid are you? In fact, how stupid do you take me to be, Si? You didn’t forget.’

‘I’m sorry, Mikey. I promise, man, I forgot.’

Lambert turned away. ‘You’re pathetic,’ he said, leaving the room. He only hoped his friend’s failure wouldn’t cost him dearly. Lambert was now positive someone was trying to set Klatzky up.

Chapter 28

The snail-like traffic of the south circular came as a relief. Lance edged the car along, allowing other vehicles out at junctions and pedestrians to cross in front of him. He’d switched off his usual eighties station and sat in silence, only the hum of the engine and the peripheral sound of other car stereos keeping him company.

Since ditching his passenger yesterday, Lance had received two pieces of bad news.

The second piece of bad news came in the form of a summons that morning. Campbell had called, demanding his presence at a safe house in Surrey, hence his gratitude at the slow pace of the traffic.

He’d received the first piece of bad news last night.

After dumping the still drugged and sleeping Klatzky in a secluded area in Uxbridge, he’d dropped off the car and headed for The Bricklayer’s Arms, in Wood Green. The Klatzky character had seen his face, and despite the man’s lack of sobriety, and Campbell’s assurances, this troubled Lance. Within an hour he’d drunk four pints of premium lager and the worry had faded in part. As he was ordering his fifth, a one-time acquaintance of his stumbled through the bar entrance.

Ollie Trench owned a small scaffolding firm which operated in the area. Trench was a legendary soak. Now in his fifties he spent most of the working day in various local pubs leaving the organisation of his business to his two sons.

‘Drink, Ollie?’ asked Lance.

‘Why not?’ said Ollie, hobbling over to Lance’s position by the bar.

‘Work injury?’ asked Lance, pointing to Ollie’s leg.

‘Pissed,’ said Ollie, slapping Lance across the back.

Lance sighed and ordered two drinks. ‘Little dram with that,’ said Ollie to the barmaid. ‘What’s new, boy?’

Lance had worked the odd job for Ollie over the years. He paid reasonably well and for Lance always made it cash in hand. However, once he knew Lance worked for Campbell the contracts stopped. ‘This and that, you know. Business good?’

‘Not bad, must give the boys credit they’re driving things along. Another?’

‘Why not, boy?’ said Lance, mimicking the man.

Ollie ordered two more lagers, with a pair of whiskey chasers. ‘You heard?’

‘What’s that, Ollie?’

‘You heard about that thing?’

Lance downed his whiskey chaser and took a swig of the lager. ‘I need something more to go on here, mate.’

‘Your man, from over Essex way.’

Lance tried to recall who he knew from Essex, thinking it might be quicker than waiting for some sense from the man to his side. He couldn’t think of anyone. ‘Something more, a name perhaps?’

‘What’s the fella, Burnham.’

‘Sam Burnham?’

‘Yes.’

‘He lives near Watford, but carry on.’

‘He doesn’t any longer.’

‘Come on, Ollie, tell me what you have to tell me. This story is longer than The Bible.’

‘I would take another sip of that first if I were you.’

Lance did as suggested.

‘Dead. A few days back.’

Lance stood rigid and glared at Ollie. ‘What the fuck, Ollie?’

‘Savage it was. Body all messed up. Something fucking awful done to his eyes.’

Lance staggered over to the nearest seat and collapsed.

‘Sorry, I thought you knew,’ said Ollie.

Lance had known Sam Burnham about as well as he knew Ollie. With one major difference: Sam had been the contact who’d eventually led him to Campbell.

Lance carried on drinking until the early hours. At some point Ollie left. Various images of the remainder of the night flickered in his memory, mercifully out of reach. He couldn’t remember leaving the bar or returning home. His girlfriend refused to speak to him as she dressed for work, Lance’s aching body prone on their bed. Some time later, Campbell called.

And here he was now, heading towards a meeting with the man who’d probably butchered Samuel Burnham. He tried to call his ex-wife as the traffic thinned but she was not answering his calls.

He came off the south circular. The roads deteriorated as he headed into the countryside, until he was driving along a single lane road, little more than a dirt track. He’d arranged to meet at the same place he’d first met Campbell all those years before. On that occasion, two of Campbell’s subordinates had picked him up from a parking lot in East Finchley, late at night. Without speaking, they’d blindfolded him and threw him in the back of a van. On that journey, Lance had feared for his life. But it had been an indistinct fear, something he could reason against. Campbell hadn’t had a reason to want him dead then.

But now?

Now, he’d almost paid back the debt. Now, he’d seen things which could lead back to Campbell. Now, the thing with Lambert had gone wrong, Klatzky had seen his face and Sam Burnham was dead, his eyes sealed shut with wire.

As the turning for the safe house approached, Lance lowered the car into second gear. His pulse thumped in his neck and forehead, strong enough to hear. He considered not making the turn, continuing up the country lane until he was back in the real world, and then driving onwards as far away from Campbell as was possible.

But that was fantasy. Campbell had taken pictures of his ex-wife and child, had promised they would pay for any mistakes Lance made. He hadn’t been the best husband or father, but he would be damned if he would sacrifice his family for his own safety. Even if it meant suffering like Sam Burnham.

He parked outside the safe house. The building was borderline derelict. Mounds of weeds splintered the concrete driveway. Half of the six front-facing windows were smashed, shards of glass jutting out from the window frames. Lance parked the car. His was the only vehicle outside the building. He prayed Campbell had forgotten their rendezvous.

With shaking hands, he knocked on the splintered wood of the front door. When there was no answer, he rapped three times on the one remaining window.

Still nothing.

He found the front door key in its prescribed position under the second of four rocks which bordered the concrete driveway. His back creaked as he lifted the boulder, the flesh on his right arm tearing on a jagged piece of rock as he picked up the keys. Sweat poured from his forehead. He wiped it from his eyes with his grime-layered hands and opened the door.

Cold air hung in layers within the house. Lance shivered, his skin breaking out in goosebumps. ‘Mr Campbell?’ he whispered, walking through a dust-covered rug into the house’s main room.

Lance saw the body first. It was the man with the broken leg, the one he’d taken from the hospital in Bristol. What remained of the man, anyway. Lance bent down to look closer, only to see a second figure.

In the gloom of the safe house’s front room, Lance witnessed something he would never have thought possible.

Campbell, who lurked in the shadows waiting for him, was scared.

Chapter 29

Campbell ordered him to take the body to the car. ‘Put some gloves on, man, for pity’s sake,’ he said.

Lance switched on the light in the room, instantly regretting the action. The body must have already been moved once, as there was barely a trace of blood on the floor. The corpse was missing his left leg, the wound where it had been hacked off just below the knee had been cauterised. Lance froze, and stared at the corpse’s face. The man’s eyes were sealed shut by a line of crude stiches.

‘Just do it, man,’ said Campbell.

First Burnham and now this second victim. The nameless man who’d had his leg broken by Lambert. Lance retreated to his car and lined the boot with a sheet of polyethylene. He pulled on his gloves and returned to the body. The corpse was surprisingly light. He tried not to look at it, tried to ignore the questions in his head. He shut the boot, catching a glimpse of the corpse’s sealed eyelids.

Campbell sat in the passenger seat.

‘Where now?’ asked Lance, sitting in the driver’s seat, trying to control the tremors which ran through his body.

Campbell didn’t answer. He punched a postcode into Lance’s sat nav. Lance sighed and set off. They reached the destination an hour later, the forecourt of a disused petrol station.

‘We’re going to dump him here?’ said Lance.

The fear Lance had seen, or thought he’d seen, back at the safe house had evaporated. Campbell glared at him, and he had to look away.

‘He’s going to be found if we leave him here,’ said Lance.

‘They need to find him,’ said Campbell, signalling the end of the conversation. Lance did as he was told, dumping the body in full view.

It came as a relief when Campbell told him to drive to the train station. Lance pulled the car to the entry of the station, thankful to see other people.

Campbell took off his seatbelt. Lance froze as he reached into his inside jacket pocket, and let out a deep breath when Campbell handed him a brown manila envelope and a piece of white paper.

‘Deliver these to the first address,’ he said. ‘Meet me at the second address by six p.m.’

Chapter 30

Lambert accessed The System, and searched for details of the counselling sessions Klatzky mentioned. Nothing appeared on the original police reports about Nolan attending such sessions. It was inconceivable that Hastings hadn’t uncovered that aspect to Nolan’s life. Lambert wasn’t fully convinced Klatzky had told him everything. He decided not to push the man further for the time being. He left him at the house sleeping off his hangover, and caught the train into London.

It was after accessing the Burnham file, that Lambert had noticed a familiar name in the witness list. Myles Stoddard. Stoddard was one of Lambert’s old informants. Stoddard worked as a mechanic at a small garage in Crouch End. He’d been an acquaintance of Burnham and, with a reasonably sized criminal record, had been questioned by DCI Bardsley about his whereabouts at the time of the murder.

Lambert found the garage on a leafy terraced street. The forecourt was only big enough for three cars. It was a quaint place, the result of two terraced houses being knocked together, the front garden used for servicing the cars. Distorted music screeched from two tiny speakers inside the Portakabin which served as the garage’s front office.

A short, bald man dressed in blue overalls worked behind a battered shop counter. He ignored Lambert as he walked through the door. Lambert noted three shades of colour on the man’s full beard. He folded his arms as the mechanic glanced down at something on his desk before eventually looking up.