Friends to Die For (41 page)

Greg simply nodded. He felt drained. For the moment, it didn’t matter how Karen had died. All that mattered was that she was dead.

‘And I am afraid I need to ask where you were this morning, at 10.25 a.m., when your wife died?’

Greg wanted to scream at Vogel. No one in their right mind would believe he was capable of killing his own wife, the only woman he’d ever loved. But he couldn’t summon up the energy.
He had no fight left in him.

‘I was here, just lying on the sofa most of the time,’ he said.

‘On your own, sir?’

‘Yes, on my own.’ Greg spoke wearily rather than in anger. He had gone beyond anger.

Vogel glanced again at the sofa, with its pillow and blanket.

‘Were you sleeping?’

Greg shrugged. ‘Some of the time. Not at first. But I hadn’t slept for most of the night, so yes, I did drop off eventually. I was asleep when you—’

Greg stopped speaking abruptly. He supposed he might be arrested again now. On suspicion of his wife’s murder. He stared apprehensively at Vogel, waiting for the detective to speak again.
To issue a caution, perhaps.

Instead Vogel asked, ‘Do you have anyone you could contact, someone who could be with you, Mr Walker? You’ve had a terrible shock, you shouldn’t be on your own.’

Greg shook his head. He supposed he was relieved that he wasn’t going to be arrested. But he didn’t care what happened to him. Not now.

Vogel continued, ‘I could arrange for someone—’

‘No,’ Greg cut him off. ‘I don’t want anyone with me. Not family, not friends, and certainly not a copper.’

‘As you wish, sir, but—’ Vogel began.

‘I want to see her,’ Greg said suddenly. ‘Will you take me to see her?’

‘Mr Walker, your wife was hit by a train. Her injuries are . . . They are extensive . . .’

‘Look, doesn’t she have to be formally identified? Isn’t that what happens?’

‘Yes, but not necessarily by you, Mr Walker. You may prefer to remember her as she was.’

‘No,’ Greg insisted. ‘She’s my wife. I should be the one to identify her. And I want to see her. You can’t stop me.’ He looked at Vogel questioningly.
‘You can’t, can you?’

Vogel shook his head. ‘I can’t stop you, Mr Walker,’ he said gently. ‘Nor would I wish to, if that is what you want. But I must warn you that you may find it upsetting.
Upsetting in the extreme.’

Greg drew himself up, visibly steeling himself for whatever lay in store.

‘I have to say goodbye to my Karen,’ he said. ‘I have to. For her. For me. And for our kids.’

Back at Charing Cross police station minor pandemonium awaited Vogel in the shape of a rampant Christopher Margolia. Nobby Clarke had instructed the front office staff to make
him wait for Vogel’s return, and the lawyer wasn’t best pleased. Neither was Vogel. His workload seemed to be growing with every passing minute, and he needed to focus all his powers of
concentration on the three violent deaths he was dealing with, not waste his precious time fending off angry lawyers.

Somehow Margolia had learned of Karen Walker’s death, and he seemed to think this meant George Kristos should be released at once. Vogel sighed to himself as the lawyer pontificated as if
he were grandstanding in front of a crowded courtroom instead of one unimpressed detective. Kristos had been very much Vogel’s own personal prime suspect, so he supposed it was fair enough
that Nobby Clarke had delegated this tiresome business to him. All the same, he could have done without it.

‘You had no cause whatsoever to re-arrest my client in the first place,’ stormed Margolia. ‘How Mr Kristos cares to conduct his personal life is not a police matter. And now it
emerges that while he was detained in police custody another murder was committed. In light of the fact that Karen Walker was the only surviving female member of Sunday Club, there is every reason
to suppose her death was the work of the same person who killed Michelle Monahan and Marleen McTavish. Is that not so,
Acting
Detective Inspector Vogel?’ Margolia put emphasis on the
word ‘acting’. ‘Or are you one of those police officers who ignores the overwhelming evidence against him and tries to pass it off as a coincidence?’

Vogel did not reply to that. He wasn’t one of those police officers. Nor was he one of those officers who was led by hunches rather than hard facts. But he had been so sure that Kristos
was guilty. He’d honestly believed it would be only a matter of time before some genuine incriminatory evidence was revealed. Unfortunately, it appeared he was running out of time.

‘Mr Margolia, we are still investigating your client and we wish to continue questioning him. We have thirty-six hours, as you well know, and then we can if we wish apply to a court for an
extension.’

‘Well, you certainly won’t get it,’ snorted Margolia.

Vogel thought the lawyer was probably right, but he said: ‘That would be for a court to decide, and would obviously depend on how our inquiries are proceeding.’

‘I am asking for my client to be released immediately on police bail,’ insisted Margolia.

‘No, sir,’ said Vogel, quite forcibly for him. ‘I intend to keep your client in custody for as long as I am legally allowed.’

And with that he turned his back on the lawyer and marched off in the direction of the MIT room.

Much as they would have preferred to devote their energies to building a case against Kristos, Clarke and Vogel knew they had no option but to pursue other avenues of inquiry.
They immediately set about assigning teams of officers to question the rest of the friends as to their whereabouts at the time of Karen Walker’s death.

Bob had returned to work, trying to carry on as normal. A pair of MIT detectives tracked him down to a boutique hotel off Covent Garden’s Broad Court, where he was attending to the small
garden and window boxes. He seemed stunned by the news of Karen’s death. But he was once more able to satisfactorily account for his movements. He had arrived at the hotel just before nine
and had remained there ever since. There were a number of witnesses who could vouch for this. He was not re-arrested.

A second team found Ari, near comatose on cocaine, at his home. It proved impossible to ascertain his movements earlier in the day. They therefore arrested him on two accounts, the second as
instructed by Vogel before they paid their visit. Suspicion of murder and possession of class-A drugs.

‘If he’s got any coke on him, then let’s do him for it,’ Vogel had said. ‘Sticking a drug charge on him will allow us to keep him in custody, whether his lawyer
likes it or not.’

Alfonso had not returned to his job at the Vine, having been told by the management to stay away until the matter was cleared up. In any case, he would have been in no fit state to walk let
alone wait on tables. Previously only a moderate drinker, he was now hell-bent on drinking his way to oblivion. He was found in an alcoholic stupor at his mother’s home in Dagenham. His
mother affirmed sadly that he had been drunk all day, and had not left his bedroom except for calls of nature. She had taken him breakfast and then sandwiches at lunchtime, but he was not
interested in food, she’d said. Just alcohol.

Alfonso was not rearrested.

Billy, who had been suspended by Geering Brothers until, or unless, he was formally cleared, and Tiny, who was so distressed he couldn’t even think about work, and in any case whose duties
were almost exclusively nocturnal, were both at home when two detectives arrived. They claimed to have been at home at the time Karen Walker died, and indeed to have been at home together all day.
But their only alibi was each other.

They were re-arrested. And along with Ari they were detained at Charing Cross overnight.

Around noon on the day after Karen Walker’s death Greg was finally escorted to the morgue at University College Hospital to see his wife’s remains and to formally
identify her body. DC Parlow, as a recently qualified family liaison officer, had been assigned to support and monitor the bereaved man.

Greg couldn’t get over the fact that his last words to her had been ‘fuck off. He hadn’t told the police that. They were already investigating the possibility that Karen had
topped herself. But Greg knew better. He hated himself, though, almost as much as he hated the man he believed had murdered his Karen.

The previous evening, Greg had visited his children, who were still staying with Karen’s mother. He’d come away feeling, if possible, even worse than before, having been unable to
answer their questions or to provide any comfort. He couldn’t begin to think about how his little family was going to face a future without Karen. He couldn’t think about anything but
the fact she was dead and the person responsible was still living.

The staff in the morgue had made Karen Walker look as presentable as possible, her amputated limbs and decapitated head had been arranged in such a way that the body appeared intact underneath
the white sheet. The orderly who pulled the sheet back so that Greg could see his wife’s face was careful to reveal nothing below chin level.

Greg knew though. He had guessed from Vogel’s reaction, and the way the detective and his team had tried to persuade him not to see his wife’s body, that she had been decapitated. It
had seemed obvious somehow.

The head, in spite of the attentions of the morgue staff, was in any case shocking to look at. Discoloured and distorted. But it was his Karen lying there so horribly mutilated. Greg
didn’t flinch. He leaned forward and kissed her poor bloated forehead. Then he left, declining all offers of assistance from DC Parlow, and refusing to allow the officer to accompany him
further. But it wasn’t grief that was consuming Greg now, it was anger.

After breaking the news to his children and Karen’s mother he had returned to the home they’d once shared and spent a long sleepless night formulating a plan to deal with the man he
held responsible Karen’s death. The prospect of taking revenge was the only thing keeping him going.

The police might think that Karen had been killed by the same individual who murdered Michelle and Marlena, but he knew better. He’d said all along those acts of vandalism directed at him
and his family had nothing to do with the attacks on the other Sunday Club members, but no one would listen to him. They were all too scared of Tony Kwan. The police had wasted no time hauling Greg
and his friends to Charing Cross nick, throwing them in cells and questioning them for hours on end, but you could bet they wouldn’t try that with Kwan. It would be like every other police
investigation into his activities: the case would be dropped due to lack of evidence. Well, Greg didn’t need bloody evidence. He knew it was Kwan. The bastard had picked up that voicemail
Karen made him leave, refusing to work for him. The message which said he was sure Kwan would understand, being a family man. Kwan had understood, all right. Knowing how much Greg’s family
meant to him, he’d targeted Karen. No beating, no torture his heavies could have inflicted on Greg would have been worse than losing the woman he loved.

But Kwan had made a fatal mistake. Because Greg was now quite mad with grief.

Greg took a cab from Agar Street to his Waterloo lock-up. He went straight to the workbench at the rear of the building and, using a screwdriver for leverage, began to prise a wooden peg from
one section of the bench. The moment the peg was removed, Greg was able to easily push the apparently solid workbench to one side exposing the wall behind. One of the bricks was not cemented in
place; Greg pulled it free, revealing a small rectangular hiding place recessed into the wall. He reached inside with one hand and lifted out an object wrapped in a soft oily fabric, which he
placed carefully on the bench. Then he unpeeled several layers of protective cloth to expose a handgun which his squaddie father had taken from an Argentinian prisoner and brought home from the
Falklands. It was a semi-automatic Browning 9mm Hi-Power, standard international army issue at the time. There was also a box containing magazines and cartridges.

Greg had wondered whether the police who’d searched both his workplace and his home would find his hidey hole and the illegal weapon it contained. Fortunately, they hadn’t.

He picked up the pistol and stroked it. He’d only been four or five when his father first showed him the gun, telling him he must never mention it to anyone, and that he should never touch
it. Even now he could clearly remember the way his father used to take the pistol out to clean and oil it before wrapping it in the cloth and hiding it away again.

Greg had hero-worshipped his father. If it hadn’t been for Ted Walker abandoning his family, running off with his wife’s younger sister when Greg was fifteen, he would never have got
involved with Kwan. Instead his dad’s departure had marked the beginning of Greg’s wild period and his involvement with the Triads, culminating in Karen’s murder.

Greg hadn’t seen his father since the day he’d walked out. He wasn’t even sure if the old man was still alive. His mother had never got over the betrayal of her husband and
sister. She just seemed to pine away, her health gradually declining. Not long after Greg had married Karen, she died. Her heart had given up, the doctors said. Greg knew it hadn’t so much
given up as been broken.

While clearing out the family home, Greg had found his father’s gun hidden away at the back of a cupboard. He had no idea why his father hadn’t taken it with him, or why his mother
had not disposed of it. Maybe she hadn’t known how to.

For reasons he did not entirely understand, Greg had decided to keep the gun. Perhaps it reminded him of the happy times he’d shared with his dad. It brought back memories of those times
whenever he took it out of its hiding place to clean and oil it, just the way his father had shown him.

He picked up the gun and peered into the barrel. It was gleaming. As far as Greg knew, the pistol hadn’t been fired since his father had brought it home. But that was about to change.

He loaded several of the cartridges into a magazine and inserted it into the handle of the pistol, just as he had seen his father do. Greg was quite confident that the gun was up to the task
ahead. He only hoped he was too.