Deadly Intent (15 page)

"You want a drink or anything?" she asked in a cockney accent, leading Anna into the flat.

"No, thanks. I don't want to take up too much of your time."

"Well, I got enough of it. I've not been in to work—-just can't function. I dunno nothing except for what that bloke Harry told me. I keep on trying Frank's mobile number. I just dunno what to think. I mean, why don't someone call me and tell me what's going on?" She slumped onto a large leatherette sofa. "Is he dead? I mean, is that true?"

Anna sat opposite on a matching chair. "Yes, I am afraid he is.

"Oh Christ."

"I'm so sorry."

Connie hung her head and broke down sobbing. It was some time before Anna could really ask any pertinent questions. Connie became even more distressed when Anna gently broke the news that Frank had been murdered and that he had been identified by his fingerprints. She could not bring herself to go into the details of his relationship with Julia.

She and Frank were engaged to be married, Connie said; they had been living together for over a year. Between tears, she explained how they were saving to buy a place, as the flat was only rented. Gradually, Anna turned the conversation to what work Frank was involved in. Connie knew that he had been taking employment as a chauffeur with Donny Petrozzo. It was not full-time, but he was on call for when he was needed. He would often work late and sometimes would be gone for a few days at a time.

"Did you ever hear any names of the people he was driving?"

"No. He said that sometimes they'd come into Heathrow and he had to drive them up north. You know, long journeys that Donny said he didn't want to do."

"Did you ever meet Donny?"

"No."

"What about the last job Frank was on?"

Connie sighed and leaned back on the sofa. "He come in an' he was real up, said that he'd just landed a big gig, but he was gonna be away for weeks on end. I didn't like it, but he said the money would be enough for us to get married and put down on a place of our own so, I mean, I couldn't not want him to do it, could I?"

"I understand."

"Well, it was more'n a few weeks; it was starting to be months. 1 only ever heard from him a few times at weekends, like, and he didn't like me callin' him. He used to say he had 'POB'—that meant 'person on board,' like, so he'd ring off."

"When was the last time you saw him?"

Connie closed her eyes. "Long time. Months—gotta be months."

"Did he ever say anything about who he was working for?"

"Not really, just that they was mega-wealthy and he was coinin' it in."

"Could I see his things?"

"Yeah, if you want."

Connie got up. She seemed sluggish and so despairing that Anna felt truly sorry for her. They went into the bedroom next door. The double bed was new, and there was a white fitted wardrobe with long mirrors on the doors. "Frank done this room up; we picked the bed and things between us, and me mum ran up the curtains and bedcover."

Anna smiled and said it was very tasteful. It wasn't—it was rather tacky, with mounds of frilly cushions. Connie’s decor and Julia's were poles apart. Connie opened a wardrobe to reveal Frank's suits, shirts, and shoes, with rows of sweaters next to them on the hangers. Her side was crushed with clothes and she gently touched one of Frank's jackets. "I come in and hold them sometimes. You know—make it like he's still here."

Anna nodded. Again, she could smell Frank's familiar cologne. She looked around the room. "What about papers, documents ... did he keep his diary and things here?"

Connie crossed to her dressing table, and stared at herself in the mirror.

"I need to have anything you've got that might help our inquiry, Connie."

In the small kitchen, there was a Formica table stacked with two boxes of Frank's documents, from car insurance to old pay slips from the Met, his pension details and bank statements, envelopes stuffed with petrol receipts, and a large foolscap notebook with addresses and pickup times.

"Donny would just call, like, and Frank would go round to his place, pick up his car—it was a Merc—and leave his own car there, as he said it wasn't good enough for the clients."

"What car was Frank driving?"

"It was a VW—a pale green one."

Anna noticed the file on the car and its insurance; she also saw that it was after eight-fifteen. "Connie, do you mind if I take these boxes? They'll be returned to you as soon as I have looked over them."

Connie shrugged. "Whatever."Anna asked if she could check through Franks clothes to see if there was anything to indicate who he was working for. Connie said she'd been through them and there was nothing.

"Did he take clothes away with him?"

"Yeah, took 'em in a suitcase."

"1 am so sorry, Connie, really I am. You seem to be a lovely girl and Frank must have felt very fortunate in knowing you."

"Yeah, he was ever so good to me. He was always buying me little presents. Last thing 1 ever heard from him was he sent me flowers on my birthday."

"When was that?"

"Two months ago. I kept the card; they come from Interflora."

Anna asked to see the card, jotting the florists name down in her notebook. The message was affectionate: it said he would be home soon and he loved her. Anna passed the card back. She didn't like doing it, but nevertheless she asked if Connie had ever heard Frank mention a woman called Julia. Connie immediately became wary. "Why you askin' that?"

"Just that we think he may have been working with a woman called Julia."

"Who is she?"

"She lives in Wimbledon."

"Wimbledon?"

"Yes. Did Frank ever mention her to you?"

"No! Is she connected to him? I mean, is she something to do with his death?"

"Possibly. I can't really say any more."

"I mean, are you saying he was with this woman?"

"Working for her, yes."

"Well, you gotta know what he was doin' then!"

"Not quite. He was driving for her—that's all we really know."

"How did he die, then?"

Anna really didn't want to get into this, but she could feel Connie becoming more and more tense in her desperation to know.

"I gotta right to know. I mean, if he was involved with another woman, I have to know."

"He just worked for her and her children."

"Oh, she got kids, then?"

Anna could not bring herself to tell Connie that Frank had married Julia.

"When is his funeral?"

"I don't know. His body has not yet been released."

Connie chewed her nails, and looked angrily at Anna. "I don't have no rights or nothing, do I? But he loved me, and I loved him, and something isn't right 'bout this. I mean, who is this woman? Why was he not tellin' me about it, if she only lived in fucking Wimbledon? He said to me he was gonna have to go abroad. Why couldn't he stay here with me?"

"I really don't know, Connie, but when I do know more, I will contact you, I promise." Anna looked at her watch and said that she would have to leave. Connie helped her take the boxes down to her car and put them in the boot. As Anna drove away, Connie was standing on the pavement, still chewing at her nails.

Anna now had to drive across London to Pete's for dinner. It was the last thing she needed; she had so much paperwork to sift through from Connie, as well as Donny Petrozzo's diary. By the time she had run a comb through her hair and put on some lip gloss in the car, it was nine-fifteen.

Pete lived on a tree-lined street in Hampstead, behind the cinema. Anna was surprised that it was such a pretty house; she had somehow thought he would live in a flat closer to his work over in Lambeth. She rang the doorbell, feeling guilty that she had come empty-handed.

Pete opened the door and put his hands on his hips. "Well, I had just about given up on you!"

The front door opened straight into a large room with a kitchen-diner at the back. It was well furnished, with big white easy sofas and a massive plasma TV beside banks of DVDs, surrounded by pine bookshelves. The floor was stripped pine; even the kitchen had pine tops and a rustic pine table, with a bowl of fresh flowers. "This is very nice," she said as he helped her off with her coat.

"1 might have 'pined-out' a bit," he said, laughing.

"How long have you lived here?"

"Two years. This was three rooms and a little closet hall, so I knocked them all into one room. There's just a bedroom and bathroom upstairs, and a small box room I use as an office."

Anna joined him in the kitchen area, where he passed her a large, long-stemmed wineglass of chilled Pinot Grigio.

"Cheers," he said, tapping her glass. "I've managed to drink half the bottle waiting for you."

"I'm sorry. Something came up."

"Always does. Anyway, sit down. I'm going to serve up straightaway—I am starving."

"Me too. I don't think I had any lunch."

First. Peter dished up a salad with nuts, chopped apple, and sliced orange, with warmed fresh bread. Then he looked into the oven. "It's lasagna, done a bit to a crisp."

Anna tucked into her salad. "I love it when the cheese is crispy on top."

"It is, very much so." He sat down opposite her.

Anna beamed. "This is delicious; you are obviously a good cook."

He cocked his head to one side and laughed. "It's just a salad."

"That may be, but the dressing ... and the fresh bread!"

Again he laughed as he watched her lathering butter onto the bread. "We have a good bakery down the street—it's a very cosmopolitan little enclave round here."

Anna chewed and licked her lips. He had said "we." "Do you live with someone?"

"That was a slip of the tongue. I used to live with someone—my wife, actually."

"You're married?"

"Was. We are in the process of divorcing."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. It's very amicable. Fortunately, we don't have children, so there's no hurt on either side—just working out who gets what. You can

sort of tell, by the sparse furnishings. Ellen has moved to Surrey, close to her work; she is a mathematician and teaches at Kingston College. What about you? Where do you live?"

Anna had him laughing a lot with her description of her new flat, the noise from the bridge, the foghorns, the unpacked boxes, and her interaction with Mr. Burk, the so-called security manager. As she talked, he refilled her glass, and cleared the salad plates away to bring out the lasagne. He had a lovely warm giggle that was infectious; she was becoming more and more relaxed, and pleased she had turned up.

As he served the main course, he asked if she was living with anyone. She went into details about selling her old flat and making a new move to get rid of memories. She was grateful that she didn't have to explain about the "memories"; instead, their conversation wound to discussing the case.

"We had an interesting turn-up. Well, I’ve didn't—old Ewan Fielding did over in the path lab. I stopped by there earlier and he had just come across it."

"Come across what?"

Pete explained how perplexed Fielding had been about the cause of death with Donny Petrozzo, so had really put in the hours. Eventually, he had asked his assistants to do an inch-by-inch check of the body. "They were coming up with nothing—basically. Fielding said he had just stopped breathing—but then, he checked inside Petrozzo's mouth and found a pinprick under his tongue. Someone had injected him. He's been running tests trying to find out with what."

"Any luck yet?"

"Not when I was there, but he called me later. You know how straitlaced he is. He actually sounded excited, but he stressed that he wasn't a hundred percent sure."

"What was it?"

"A minute trace of a drug called Fentanyl. It had been quite brutally injected and left a slight residue on the two front lower teeth."

"What is Fentanyl?" Anna asked, clearing her plate.

Pete got up to proffer a second helping, which she accepted; he took another bottle of wine from the fridge.

"It's a very powerful opiate, incredibly potent. If you consider that morphine is given in dosages of milligrams, Fentanyl is prescribed in micrograms—that's how strong it is. Very fast-acting, it's used a lot in the USA for emergency surgery. It's a strong painkiller, but it's out of the system very quickly. For example, a hit from heroin would last maybe an hour or so; with this drug, the high hits fast and you get total relief for about a minute or so."

Anna put down her fork. "So Donny Petrozzo was injected with it?"

"Yes—well, possibly—and probably with enough to kill him. I'd say he was held down and injected, then wrapped up in the bin liners."

"And shoved into the back of the Mitsubishi."