Dead Time (7 page)

Wren came and stood by my side.

‘They’re on their way,’ she said, and together we stared at the dead girl. ‘Who was she, Max?’

I shook my head.

‘A young woman who came to London and fell in love with the wrong man,’ I said. ‘She was waiting for him to leave his wife so that she could get on with her life.’

Wren fought to control her breathing, her face even paler than usual, and I saw her mouth twist with anger.

‘The poor little cow,’ she said.

My phone began to vibrate and I took it out.

‘We got the serology report back from the lab,’ Flashman said, and his voice was subdued. ‘Turns out it’s not Lenny Lane’s blood on the sword.’

‘Then whose blood is it?’

I could hear Flashman breathing through his nose. I could hear the rustle of the report as he gripped it too tight. In the background there were concerned voices.

Someone had got something very badly wrong.

‘Forensics ran a precipitin test,’ Flashman said, and I felt my heart fall away.

A precipitin test distinguishes human blood from animal blood.

‘The lab says it is
sus scrofa domesticus
,’ Flashman continued. ‘You know what
sus scrofa domesticus
is, Wolfe?’

‘Pig’s blood,’ I said. ‘Someone set up Goran Gvozden.’

It was just getting dark on New Year’s Eve but Chelsea was already gearing up for revelry.

There was lots of fancy dress on the Fulham Road, people dressed up as cowboys and Red Indians, criminals and cops, and from Sloane Square to the Chelsea Harbour the tasteful white lights shone and twinkled with renewed vigour. Already the fireworks were crackling and popping high above the Thames.

‘I thought we were done,’ said Wendy Lane when she opened her front door.

She wasn’t wearing her yoga gear now. She was wearing a little black dress showing legs that were longer than I remembered. She looked as though she was all dressed up with somewhere special to go. But it was more than that. A pair of matching Samsonite suitcases were waiting in the hall, the lightweight aluminium gleaming like freshly minted money.

‘We’re nearly done,’ I said.

We settled ourselves in the room with the tatami mats. The music tinkled and sighed and soothed. The gold Buddhas shone in their dark alcoves, raising one hand to bless us. I could see the gardener hacking away at the cherry tree in the garden.

‘Your gardener does a lot of work for you,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t have thought there was much for him to do at this time of year.’

‘You’d be surprised,’ she said, following my gaze out of the big floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out on the back garden. ‘It’s the perfect time of year to chop back all the dead stuff. I would offer you some green tea, detective, but I’m afraid I’m a bit pushed for time. I have a plane to catch.’

‘We raided Faces last night,’ I said. ‘Did a mouth swab on all the boys. Pete the Mod and the rest. Compared their DNA with what forensics found under the fingernails of Cara Maldini.’

‘Yes?’

I shook my head. ‘It wasn’t them.’

We sat in silence.

‘Everything pointed at Goran Gvozden. But it was just too neat. It was just too perfect. And he was a good man, that big hard Serbian. He didn’t have a criminal bone in his body.’

Wendy Lane looked just a little flustered. I may have been mistaken, but it looked like she took one of those calming yogic breaths.

‘But my husband had many enemies,’ she said. ‘He was The Man who Made Ibiza Dance! Lenny was the most successful drug dealer this country has ever seen.’

‘Yes, everyone is always telling me what a criminal mastermind old Lenny was – but as Gvozden told me, your husband did five years in Belmarsh, his money had run out and he ended up getting his head cut off. If that’s what a successful drug dealer looks like, then I would hate to see an unsuccessful one.’

‘But it was obviously some kind of gangland hit…’

‘No, Mrs Lane,’ I said. ‘This was what we call a domestic.’

Ratana came and stood in the doorway.

‘You shouldn’t have killed the girl, Wendy.’ I said.

She looked away from me, her mouth tightening, and she stared at the sturdy little housekeeper. Something passed between the two women, but I could not read it.

‘Having Cara Maldini killed was just pure spite,’ I said.

‘Fucking a married man is pure spite!’ said Wendy Lane.

‘Lenny was going to leave you,’ I said. ‘I would have thought you would be glad to get shot of him. Your husband’s dancing days were over. The boom years were a long way behind him. But you wanted to be the one to leave, didn’t you? He wasn’t allowed to be the one who walked away.’

Wendy Lane’s face twisted with some old fury.

‘He was leaving me for some little whore who danced on the bar at Faces. Some little scrubber who would give you a Shepherd’s Bush shoeshine for fifty quid and a Bacardi Breezer.’

‘A Shepherd’s Bush shoeshine? Is that what they call it? Shall I tell you what I think, Wendy?’

‘Why don’t you?’ she said, her face cold, her mouth hard but conceding nothing. She still believed she was going to catch her flight.

‘Ratana’s husband – I don’t think he was a missing person. I think he beat her one time too many and she made some enquiries. I think Ratana’s husband ended up in a mincing machine very similar to the one they were going to feed Lenny into at Smithfield.’ I glanced at the housekeeper standing in the doorway. ‘You certainly didn’t hire her for her cooking, did you, Wendy? She was a Guest Relations Officer at a place in Bangkok – and that’s a bar girl. Being a GRO in Bangkok is not light years away from being an exotic dancer on the Goldhawk Road, is it? I knew there had to be some special bond between you two when I nearly cracked a tooth on that turkey satay. How did you find each other, Wendy? How did you discover the nice little old Thai lady who knew how to make an unwanted husband disappear? I wonder how many missing husbands there are who ended up being served with the mashed potatoes…’

‘I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about,’ said Wendy Lane, her tongue a small pink snake on her lips. ‘I want my lawyer
now.
’

Ratana had picked up a medium-sized Buddha and was staring at it thoughtfully, as if she was unconnected to this conversation.

‘Who were they, Ratana?’ I said. ‘Who killed Lenny Lane and planned to turn him into sausages? Certainly not Goran Gvozden. And not even those bottom feeders in Faces. They don’t have the imagination for something like this. And they were too loyal to Lenny. I’m betting you kept it within the Thai community, didn’t you?’

The gardener stood up and turned to look back at the house. I could see the claw marks on his face where Cara Maldini had fought for her life. And I could see the same man who stared into my eyes in the early hours of Boxing Day.

He started towards the house.

And he was limping.

And from the look of murder in his eyes, he still hadn’t quite forgiven me for sticking a broken bottle into his leg.

‘
Bah kwai
!’ Ratana cried, and she struck me on the back of the head with the medium-sized Buddha.

I went down like I had been hit with a sledgehammer. Both women legged it. Ratana out the back way and Wendy Lane out the front.

The gardener was still limping towards the house. And I saw what was in his hands.

An old-fashioned scythe, the straight handle twice as long as the curved blade, looking like the grim reaper’s gardening tool. The wicked blade gleamed in the weak winter sunlight.

Then I heard Whitestone come through the front door and bang Wendy Lane hard against the wall and I saw a small red-haired young woman and a smooth-looking black man with a shaved head come over the back wall of the garden. Edie Wren and Curtis Gane wrestled Ratana to the ground as she screamed in their faces. A formal arrest will always be accompanied by physically taking control, they used to tell us in training. That’s what my colleagues had done. But I never had the chance.

Because the gardener came straight through the big windows, the glass exploding more than breaking, and he swung the scythe at my head.

I slipped sideways and he buried the blade deep into the coffee table, and as he gripped the handle with both hands to release it I hit him with three stiff left jabs to the side of the jaw, stinging him with the first one, snapping his head back with the second and – saving up my hardest shot for last – turning his lights off with the third.

Fred taught me that.

London belonged to us.

While the city slept off its New Year’s Eve hangover, Scout, Stan and I drove through the dark, silent streets, with my daughter’s new bike in the back of the BMW X5, heading for the green fields and clean air that were waiting on the roof of our town.

We wheeled Red Arrow through a misty meadow on the south side of Kenwood House as the sun rose above the treeline of Hampstead Heath, spilling ribbons of pink and gold across the sky and lighting up the early morning frost. There was a group of ducks sleeping near the large pond – that was more like a small lake – and Stan contemplated them with interest. I helped Scout climb on Red Arrow.

‘Ready?’ I said.

‘Not really.’ She adjusted her pink crash helmet.

‘I’ve got you,’ I said, gripping Red Arrow’s handlebars and seat as we wobbled off down the gently sloping hill towards the pond and the sleeping ducks. My plan had been that riding Red Arrow downhill would somehow encourage her. It was not my greatest plan.

‘Hold on!’ Scout said, tentatively beginning to pedal, fighting for her balance, the small red dog capering by her side, his big eyes bulging with excitement.

‘I’ve got you,’ I said.

‘Don’t let go!’

‘I’ve got you, Scout!’

Then suddenly I didn’t have her. And Red Arrow took off with Scout clinging to it and Stan barking by her side, two small figures gathering speed as they hurtled down the hill towards the pond.

Scout held her legs out stiff to the side, forgetting the pedals, letting Red Arrow take her, and the ducks suddenly flew off in what looked like celebration but was probably naked terror. Stan went after them as Red Arrow slowed down and finally gently toppled on its side at the bottom of the hill. Scout crawled out from underneath it, the crash helmet over her eyes, raising a hand to let me know she was okay.

As I ran down the hill, my phone began to vibrate. DCI Flashman calling from New Scotland Yard. He sounded exhausted but happy. Or perhaps it was relief.

‘We’ve been interviewing Wendy Lane, Ratana and the Thai gardener all night,’ he said. ‘The gardener’s quite chatty for a man with his jaw wired up who speaks no English.’

‘And did he give you the names of the men who were with him in Smithfield?’

‘Names, addresses and star signs,’ Flashman said. ‘Once we got the translator in, he couldn’t have been more helpful. We’re looking at two more Thai nationals, fresh from the Land of Smiles. We’re bringing them in now. They’re all related. The gardener turns out to be Ratana’s nephew. The other two are some sort of cousins. And we looked at Ratana’s bank records. Wendy Lane transferred ten grand in two instalments, either side of Christmas. Amazing how cheap it is to have someone killed in this town.’

I helped Scout to her feet then held her bike and crash helmet as she went off to join Stan at the edge of the pond. He was having a paddle and staring at the ducks gliding peacefully across the still dark water. I inhaled deeply, loving the cold clean air that made the city feel like another world.

‘Wendy Lane says this was all Ratana’s idea,’ Flashman said. ‘And Ratana says that Mrs Lane coerced her and the gardener into conspiracy to murder. What do we know about Ratana’s husband?’

‘Only that he was a Brit who she met in some Bangkok bar,’ I said. ‘A violent drunk who went missing. Very permanently missing. My guess is there were some meat pies down Portsmouth way that tasted a bit funny for a while. That was the link between Ratana and Wendy – they both had husbands who they wanted out of the way.’

‘Lenny Lane disappears and though the body is never found the law eventually discover a blood-stained samurai sword that once belonged to Goran Gvozden,’ Flashman said. ‘What could possibly go wrong?’

‘None of them ever hear of the precipitin test?’ I said.

Flashman chuckled. ‘Did you ever meet a criminal mastermind? Me neither. There are no criminal masterminds. Only cruel and vicious bastards who are never as smart as they think they are.’

I watched Scout and Stan skirting the pond, and the fallen leaves they kicked through were all the same deep red colour as our dog.

‘How’s Goran Gvozden’s son doing?’ I said.

‘It turns out there’s a grandmother back in Serbia,’ Flashman said. ‘Goran’s mother. I Skyped her. The old lady’s flying over today to collect the boy and take him back to Belgrade. I guess he’ll be all right with his grandmother, right?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Grandmothers are the best. She’ll love him for as long as she lives. Take it from me. Happy New Year, sir.’

‘Happy New Year, Wolfe.’

I walked over to the pond where Scout and Stan were waiting for me.

‘I’m a rubbish bike rider,’ Scout said.

‘You’ll get better every day,’ I said.

My phone vibrated again and I took it out, watching the sun light up the majestic cream-coloured facade of Kenwood House. A few joggers and dog walkers were starting to appear. The sun was up now and the sky was an unbroken blue. The first day of the New Year was going to be beautiful.

I listened for a bit and then handed the phone to Scout.

‘It’s for you,’ I said.

Mrs Murphy and her granddaughter Shavon watched Scout stuffing her overnight gear into her yellow-and-black Dogs Trust backpack. My daughter was at the door before Mrs Murphy quietly called her back.

‘You’ll not see your daddy until tomorrow,’ Mrs Murphy said. ‘You’ll want to give him a big kiss.’

Scout came back and kissed me fiercely on the side of the face.

‘Did you like your present, Daddy?
Nighthawks
by Edward Hopper?’