Down into Darkness (24 page)

When he told her, she said, ‘Who is he?'

Ricardo described him: the face hair, the soft, Scottish brogue. ‘I don't know his name. The guy that drove – Sekker, that's what they call him.'

‘Is the black guy dead?'

‘I don't know.'

‘What will you do?'

‘Play along. I'll have to.' He sounded apologetic. ‘I'm admin., Tina, you know? I'm deals and percentages. They cut the poor bastard's thumbs off and nailed his hands to a chair.'

‘What, then?'

‘I'll have to give him something – lose a few good contacts by the look of it. Bastard! I'll keep most of it back, though. Christ, it took me years to get my fucking list together.'

‘He'll expect the lot.'

‘He will, yes. Scotch cunt.'

‘So we're on the move again.'

‘After a bit. After I've given up a few names.'

‘I like London. I've missed London. I had good times here.'

‘Why?' Delaney asked.

Stella had just got out of the shower; she'd run it hot, but now stood by the window to let her skin cool in the night air.

‘If I knew that, I'd know everything.'

‘I saw him just the other day,' Delaney said.

‘Did you? What for?'

‘Just a drink… I used to work for him: freelance, mostly; on the staff for a short while. I didn't know him well, but I liked him. And he was a good editor.'

‘What did you talk about?'

She had her back half turned to him; he tried to read her expression, but the light put her face in shadow. ‘Nothing special… Why?'

‘In case he said something that might –'

‘Oh… No, just old times, you know. Want some coffee?'

‘Okay.'

‘Lying bastard,' he said. ‘It must be the paper, don't you think – something he published?'

‘It's possible. How many lies in the average paper in the average week?'

‘None. Sometimes there are disputable facts.'

‘I'm keeping a straight face. All right, how many disputable facts?'

‘Hundreds.'

‘Over a year?'

‘It's exponential.'

‘Exactly. Here's another thing: this guy, whoever's killing these people, has an agenda of his own. His reasons aren't going to be what we would call rational. So who knows what he considers to be a lie?'

‘It was pretty straightforward with the other two,' Delaney observed. ‘Dirty girl was a hooker, filthy coward ran away.'

‘
If
Leonard Pigeon was the intended victim.' She turned to confront him. ‘This stuff I'm telling you: it's not for publication.'

‘I thought you said the serial-killer thing was breaking now.'

‘It is…'

‘And they know that the killer wrote on him.'

‘They don't know about the other two cases – that they were written on, or what the writing said.'

Delaney laughed. ‘Stella, it's just a matter of time.'

‘We need to hold things back, things only the killer could know. We're already getting half a dozen confessions a week.'

‘Look,' he said, ‘I'm doing the Rich List. Colour-supplement trivia. I'm not in the front line any more.'

Her head came up, but he was spooning coffee into a cafetière and didn't see it. Something about the way he'd said it, something hidden.

No, you're not. But you'd like to be
.

ABE –
A
chieving
B
est
E
vidence, which is what Maxine Hewitt was hoping to do. She sat in the video suite with James and Stevie Turner, who seemed oddly at ease, if a little detached. James was looking round the room, seeming to take it in piece by piece, his head moving once every few seconds; Stevie was hunched over his Game Boy.

There was a discreet camera, and there were wall-mounted directional microphones; there were games and dolls and drawing materials, designed to help stir memories. Under normal circumstances, Maxine would have had an ABE colleague with her – a member of the squad who had also been given specialist training; on this occasion, and at Stella's request, the other person was Anne Beaumont.

The trick was to start the boys talking and then just listen for a way in. It took a while. Finally, Anne asked about the house, the house they lived in, trying to steer them towards the front room and the front-room window with its view of the drive.

Stevie looked up. He said, ‘We don't live there now.'

James said, ‘It's not good, there.'

And they started to talk about themselves and their mother and the new life they were, apparently, going to live. About their father, they said not a word.

When Stella walked into Chintamani she was wearing the only substitute she possessed for the TK Maxx jacket, which was Jigsaw, last year, Gap jeans, a touch too much make-up and fuck
you
. She could have pulled Abigail into the
AMIP
-5
interview room, but she wanted her at her ease, on her own territory.

She was defensively late and had barely sat down before two waiters arrived with a bottle of white wine and eight separate dishes.

‘The meze,' Abigail told her. ‘Their speciality, okay?'

Stella said yes, it was okay, the meze was fine. She realized that she hadn't been able to take a close look at Abigail during that evening at the Orchard Street club, and saw that the woman was not quite the stereotypical blonde she'd been carrying in her mind. The looks were classy and intelligent, the clothes expensive but unshowy, the voice low with no identifiable accent. Abigail tore off a piece of flatbread and scooped some tahini. She said, ‘I'm not a whore.'

‘I didn't think you were.'

‘It crossed your mind.'

‘How do you know?' Stella asked.

‘Because it crossed mine.'

Stella laughed out loud. She said, ‘So what's the deal?'

‘I'm not sure I know. We met at a party. I guessed he was married, but there was no wife in tow, he was attractive… power, mostly – I think I might have a thing for powerful men – we left the party, had dinner, he's quite funny, you know, witty, mostly at the expense of the world's movers and shakers. He's old money; that makes a difference. He sees politics as a rather simple-minded game with everyone trying to win by whatever means they can; something that excludes the population at large completely.'

‘Has he spoken to you since he and I met?'

‘Oh, God, of course.'

‘What did he tell you?'

‘Pretty much everything, I expect. You think Len Pigeon might have died in Neil's place.'

‘There's a possibility.'

‘How much of one?'

‘I might have a better idea of that if I knew why Leonard Pigeon was impersonating him.'

‘Neil says he was just doing a job.'

‘I know he does. The Americans – what sort of business are they in?'

Abigail shook her head, smiling. ‘You think I ask Neil about business?'

‘Why wouldn't you? You're not stupid.'

‘Exactly.'

Stella was trying each dish in turn. Everything was good. The wine was terrific. She said, ‘I never saw Len Pigeon in life. People look different in pictures… they look different when they're dead. It seems to be generally accepted that he could be mistaken for Morgan.'

‘They looked alike, yes; same build too' – she paused – ‘though I never saw Len with his clothes off. People remarked on it, you know; joked about it – did Neil send his researcher through the lobby when he couldn't be bothered to vote?'

‘Did he?'

‘Yes.'

‘Convenient alibi, apart from anything else,' Stella observed.

‘You're right. Len seeing out a late-night sitting, me and Neil taking a couple of days in Paris.'

Stella almost smiled. ‘Does his wife know?'

‘I don't ask.'

‘Have you met her?'

‘Oh, yes. Another party – I was someone he'd met somewhere; she gave me a funny little damp handshake.'

‘And?'

‘I think she knows, yes.'

‘The handshake –'

‘More the fact that she smiled without looking at me. What else do you want to know?'

‘Whether you can think of a reason why Neil Morgan might be considered a coward.'

‘Ah, yes, he told me about that.' She gave a little shudder. ‘Jesus, who
is
this guy? He must be running round the streets foaming at the mouth.'

‘You might think so. It's not like that. He's not like that.'

‘How do you know?'

‘Profiling.' Stella was quoting Anne Beaumont, ‘The chances are he won't look crazy, won't dress crazy, won't act crazy.' She looked round. ‘The man in the pinstriped suit over there, for instance. Him, anyone; it's what makes sociopaths so difficult to catch: we mistake them for one of us.'

‘I can't,' Abigail said. ‘Can't think of any reason why Neil might be thought a coward. In fact, in some ways he's a risk-taker, certainly at a career level.'

‘Domestic level too,' Stella observed.

Abigail smiled. ‘Not really. If she does know, she's not going to do anything about it.'

‘Meaning she would have by now… because you're not the first.'

‘Nor the last.'

‘So what's in it for you?'

‘I mentioned that he's old money. Well, there's quite a
lot
of old money, and Neil's generous. He buys me nice things; we stay in nice hotels; I have a nice time.' She smiled. ‘You see, I am a bit of a whore, aren't I? Also, he's fun.'

Stella paused, her wine glass at her lip. ‘Is he?'

‘Oh, yes.' Abigail smiled. ‘I don't think you've seen him at his best. And by the way,' she said, grinning, ‘the guy in the pinstriped suit? He's a hedge-fund manager; he invests in the high millions. And he
is
crazy.'

John Delaney was reading through his piece on Stanley Bowman and watching TV at the same time. A battle zone;
a crowd; gunfire; military vehicles on a dusty road; burning cars; a line of troops edging down an empty street.

He remembered having been on a satellite phone to Turner from the Holiday Inn in Sarajevo. Turner had said, ‘Good copy, John. It sounds like hell.'

Delaney had been looking at a home-made cocktail being poured for him by a very pretty woman who was doing the to-camera work for a Canadian broadcaster.

‘It's hell,' he'd confirmed. The hotel had been hit a couple of times that night. There had been a rank smell of highexplosives in his nostrils, and the girl's faux-military shirt was showing just enough of her breasts to let him know what she was thinking.

Martin Turner, a civilian casualty.

The boys hadn't said much, but they'd said enough to let Maxine and Anne know that whatever they had seen would remain locked away for a while. Perhaps for ever. The women left Stevie and James in the care of Sue Chapman and took five minutes out with coffee.

‘It's enough,' Anne said. ‘You can try again if you like, but this is as far as it'll go today.'

Maxine nodded. ‘I think they saw him,' she said. ‘What do you think?'

‘The same. But they don't know what they saw, not really. They've no way of decoding it.'

‘It's like a snapshot that hasn't developed.'

‘Good description.'

‘No,' Maxine said. ‘I mean, it's like that for me. Those images exist somewhere in their minds; I just can't get at them.' She sipped her coffee and grimaced:
AMIP
-5 brew. ‘They saw him… Did they see everything? Did they see what he did?'

‘If they did,' Anne said, ‘it's a lifetime of recovery.'

The boys came out of the video suite and said goodbye. James smiled at the women, but Stevie was concentrating on his Game Boy. He manipulated the controls, bringing the superhero into frame.

Silent Wolf, out on the city streets, bringing swift justice to the evildoer.

This time Tom Davison was a voice on the phone, and Stella realized she was glad of the distance. Her next thought was: why? Is he
such
a danger? She remembered how things had started: his calls on police business becoming less and less official, his jokes, his flirting.

Last Christmas. Herself and Delaney at loggerheads. Taking up Davison's oh so obvious offer, in order to see how it would feel. The sex too good to ignore. Then leaving abruptly… the startled look in his eyes… and finding herself out on Chiswick High Road, pavements glittering with frost, on the phone to Delaney with her sense of guilt building, image by remembered image.

‘The forensics team dug a nine-millimetre parabellum bullet out of the ground, exactly where the major blood stain lay… as if we needed that confirmation.'

‘Does it tell you anything?' Stella asked.

‘Tells me he was shot with a gun that takes a ninemillimetre load. They're not unusual. Find me the gun and I'll tell you a lot more.'

‘What about DNA traces?'

‘Well, the site was swamped with them. It'll take a while.'

‘How long?'

‘I'll do my best. Look,' Davison laughed, ‘we'll find a match; it's going to be the same guy.'

‘I believe you.' The SOC photo of the killer's signature was on the desk in front of her. She didn't mention it to Davison; she wanted the forensics tests to be meticulous and impartial.

‘It'll be him.' A pause. ‘Stella, the other day, I wasn't blaming you; I don't think blame comes into it. So –'

‘No, I should have been more honest. I was having problems with someone. It was selfish of me.' She stopped, but he knew there was more. ‘You… unsettled me. It felt good with you, so it also felt like one hell of a risk. Does that make sense?'

Davison laughed. He said, ‘Oh, yes. Because fucking leads to kissing.'