Hard Place (15 page)

Kingston, Surrey, England

Ratso sat in the rear of the Daimler limo. Next to him was Charlene, dressed in black and clutching a white hankie in her black gloves. Outside, the sky was endless pale blue against which every branch of every tree was sharply edged. The early morning frost had just about thawed under the winter sun. In the middle row of the stretch limo were Charlene’s sister and Frankie, her insipid-looking husband, who had a thick ginger moustache to match his ginger comb-over. Over milky Nescafé and biscuits, he had bored Ratso rigid, full of crap about his job in credit control at a sanitary ware company in Folkestone.

Neil’s only known relation, his brother Patrick, was working on a mining project in West Australia. He had emailed that he could not travel. The brothers had not seen each other in seventeen years and Patrick’s indifferent tone was loud and clear. Charlene’s brother was on an oil rig in the Falklands and was not attending. Neil had a handful of drinking buddies, so Ratso expected maybe a dozen or so mourners to be at the church.

Ratso had felt very close to Charlene, enjoyed her squeezing his hand as they left Wolsey Drive. She was staring straight ahead, her thoughts goodness knew where. Yet his thoughts kept drifting back to the new evidence that Tosh and Jock had gathered. In the silence, the details swirled around his restless mind. As the Daimler turned into Fernhill Gardens, he wondered how Tosh was getting on in the O.P. vehicle—presumably okay, as Ratso’s phone was silent in his pocket.

Occasionally Ratso glanced at Charlene and gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile. She seemed well in control, not tearful, just quiet and tense. He guessed the tears would come during the service. Suddenly, Ratso’s phone rang, grotesquely intrusive to the chilly silence as the limo glided slowly toward the cemetery behind the hearse. Frankie, the credit controller, turned round and glared at Ratso. “Turn that bloody thing off. Got no respect?”

Ratso glared at the irritating sod. “Look, chum. Neil was murdered and don’t you forget it. I can’t. I’m on duty twenty-four-seven. Got it?” He watched the absurd moustache disappear as the boring little man turned away. Ratso answered the call. It was Tosh.

“Right bog-up, boss. Our van’s just been sideswiped by a delivery vehicle. About two minutes from the cemetery. Not our driver’s fault. But by the time the traffic boys arrive …”

“Yeah, yeah.” Ratso had a big decision to make.

“We’ll never make it. Plan B? You want me in the church?”

“What you wearing?” Tosh got as far as explaining he was wearing a lilac T-shirt and jeans before Ratso stopped him. “I’ve got the North Face job.”

Ratso’s mind was racing. It was at moments like this that you earned your crust or screwed up. “Grab a camera with a decent zoom and skulk somewhere close by. Skulk means discreet, okay?”

“You got it, boss. Where are you?”

Ratso wiped the window that had started to mist over. “Driving along Richmond Road. We’ll be ten to fifteen depending on traffic on the gyratory.”

He ended the call. Immediately, Charlene turned to him. “I’m glad.” Her face was sincere. Ratso looked back, puzzled. “Glad you’re on Neil’s case. I thought …”

“You’re right. DCI Caldwell’s running the show but … I mean, Neil was a mate. I’m doing what I can.” The gratitude in Charlene’s eyes made him feel uncomfortable deceiving her about this … and perhaps too about his conflicting emotions. She gripped his hand tighter and he felt her thigh press close against him. Ratso swallowed hard and looked away.

He peered out as the procession turned into the winding road leading to the church and cemetery. Ahead, he saw blue flashing lights of a patrol car and a motorbike. Someone Ratso did not recognise, presumably the delivery driver, was on the street corner looking like a whipped pup as he was questioned by two uniforms. Of Tosh there was no sign as they inched past the two vehicles, Ratso scanning the wing of the O.P. van. It had been crumpled deep into the deflated nearside tire. He saw young Reynolds, the police driver in his overalls, talking on his phone.

Ratso looked away and gave Charlene another reassuring smile, hoping she would not ask questions. She squeezed his hand and then stuffed the still-dry hankie into her black shoulder bag. He offered her a Polo but she declined. “I’m told it helps,” he prompted but again she shook her head. Finally the vehicle stopped. Moments later, they stood restlessly outside the church watching the pallbearers lift the casket from the rear of the leading Daimler. “Here we go, then.” He grasped her elbow and they walked to the coffin, which Charlene touched briefly, staring blankly at the abundant lilies and white carnations.

Ratso never saw Tosh but Tosh saw them. He was pretending to read a headstone. In Dallas, Texas, his position would have been called the grassy knoll, about sixty meters from the entrance to the chapel. His loud lilac T-shirt was muted by his North Face. He felt glad of it on the chilly morning. So long as he leaned round the gravestone beside him, the camera’s powerful zoom gave him a great chance to photo the very few mourners. It all looked very predictable, nobody out of place.

He had photographed the nine mourners who had awaited the arrival of the hearse. They looked like a group of pub mates, chatting spasmodically, all of them seeming to know each other. No Hogan brothers. One solitary woman of about twenty-six with a wide-brimmed black hat stood alone smoking a cigarette, gazing around her, obviously nervous. An ex-lover, perhaps? Or a current one? Or Bardici’s spy?

Far down to his right, Tosh saw the empty grave, the earth piled up, everything ready for the burial. Nearer were low shrubs and a clump of trees, perhaps six of them, their leafy branches drooping toward the ground. Holm oaks, probably, he thought, grappling back to lessons at school. His casual glance changed to a stare. Was that movement behind one of them? Surely not a mourner. He could hear a doleful melody, perhaps an organ or canned music cutting through the crisp air. Then came the strains of “Abide with Me” being sung feebly by the few mourners.

There it was again. Movement. The air’s still. Can’t be a branch swaying. A sniper? A snooper? He crouched low and backed off, moving away from the trees, the singing fading with each step as he dodged and ducked from one headstone to another. He headed up the slope away from the church, planning to turn back once he was positioned above, behind and beyond the trees. If it worked, he would end up concealed close to but behind the unknown watcher. One thing was obvious: whoever it was had a sniper’s view of the grave.

In short bursts, still crouching low and panting with nervous tension, he travelled a good forty meters beyond the trees before circling. Was it one of DCI Caldwell’s team? Possible. But poofter shoes had been told by his superiors to back off. A toady like Caldwell wouldn’t risk his career by defying orders. So if not Caldwell, who? Bardici?

Okay. Assume it is Bardici. He’s not out to shoot Ratso. Doesn’t know him. But Charlene and the other mourners? The mysterious bit in the big hat? Surely not. But … A nasty uncomfortable thought struck him, went right through him. The bacon buttie with brown sauce he’d devoured in the van crashed through his intestines like lead falling from a roof.

If Bardici sees me, he’ll not know I’m a copper. He might think that but even worse he might assume I’m a Hogan gofer—one who doesn’t want to be seen at the funeral. So where does that leave me? Not in an effing good place at all. Tosh’s mind and stomach were both in turmoil as he covered the last few meters, moving slowly down the slope, pausing behind the occasional headstone to catch his breath.

Now his damned bladder was sending him unwelcome messages too, adding to the pressures from the buttie and the toast, cereal and last night’s chicken korma. He checked the time: perhaps four minutes till the mourners emerged. Then, depending on what the mystery man was doing, he could race to the chapel and find the lav. Christ! Holding on while crouching was bleeding agony.

He reached an oak that stood a good eighty feet tall with a massive trunk. He edged in behind it and took the pressure off his knees, easing himself into a standing position for the first time in ten minutes. His innards felt better for not being squeezed and he started to relax as he worked out where the figure had been. It had to be close now and just down the slope.

Nothing. Nobody. Zilch. He was sure he was in the right place, maybe thirty meters from the tree with the broken branch that he had used as a benchmark. Had he been mistaken? Had it just been a seasonal robin fluttering its wings? He peered round the other side of the trunk and was rewarded with a clear view. There he was: crouching down behind the next tree, a camera next to him on the mossy earth. No sniper’s rifle. He let out a long, low sigh of relief. This was no hired killer. This was someone interested in who’d attended the service. A copper, then.

At that moment, the vicar and coffin appeared, its silver corners glinting in the noontime sun. Ratso shuffled out with Charlene’s head almost resting on his left shoulder, their pace slow behind the pallbearers. Tosh saw the watcher in front of him fiddle with the camera and then focus it on the empty grave.

Decision time. Tosh knew Ratso would give him hell if his only photo was a rear view of a dark green hooded anorak and black jeans. Tongue lashings from Ratso were rare but memorable. He would have to move again. Risky but a calculated risk. The watcher was photographing the procession. Go for it!

Slowly, Tosh stepped away from his cover. If the man turned round, there was no hiding place till he reached a solitary bush twelve meters away. But why should he turn round? He was intent only on the people in front of him. The ground beneath Tosh’s feet was soft and his progress silent and swift. His destination was a scrubby bush that stood only about five feet high. Its evergreen nature would be perfect cover while he captured at least a side-on view and hopefully even better.

“I am the Resurrection and the Life.” The priest’s words carried up the slope on the still morning while the watcher snapped countless pictures. Five meters to the bush, thought Tosh, his quarry now just fifteen meters away. Five meters to safety. He slowed slightly, doubling his care to avoid anything that would make a noise. Four meters. Three. Two. At that moment, a pigeon flew from the bush, its wings cracking like a rifle-shot in the stillness.

The photographer jumped and looked round, totally shocked.

But not as shocked as Tosh when he realized who he had been watching.

His sphincter strained under the renewed pressure and he struggled to contain himself. For a second, their eyes met but then the watcher turned and ran across the hillock toward the cemetery gates.

Had he been recognised?

Had he, hell!

Christ! He needed to tell Ratso. And quick.

Clapham, South London

Ratso went through the motions at Wolsey Drive—handing round ham and tomato sandwiches and offering cans of lager or slugs of scotch. But his heart was never in it, not since he had taken Tosh’s call. It was a sinister and unexpected development—even worse if Tosh had been recognised, as seemed inevitable.

Despite mounting frustration with the mindless chitchat, out of politeness Ratso lingered at the wake till just after three. For a time, he amused himself by irritating Frankie, the brother-in-law from Folkestone, while seemingly playing the good host with Charlene. But as the clumsy-looking brown clock, a relic of the 1950s, struck three, he could take no more. While listening with half an ear to stories about Neil’s antics in a pub in Mitcham, inwardly he was cursing the delivery driver who had smashed the O.P. van—and even more vehemently regretting his own decision to let Tosh attend. We’d have struck gold if only Tosh hadn’t been spotted.

Ratso whispered to Charlene as she carried a tray of macaroons that there had been some vital developments and he had to leave. She led him into the hallway, pulling the sitting-room door closed behind them. “Will you get back tonight?” She rested her head on his shoulder and Ratso felt the enticing warmth of her body clinging to him. “My sister’s not staying. Everybody will be gone soon. Todd, I’ll be so lonely.”

She squeezed him tightly and tiptoed to plant a lingering kiss on his mouth. Ratso was acutely aware of her firm breasts, prominent beneath the simple black dress and her single silver brooch. All morning, he had been admiring her shapely figure and until Tosh’s call, he had regretted that her sister was overnighting. Lust over logic. But Tosh’s worried voice had taken the lead from his pencil. Only the inviting rustle of Charlene’s black stockings was now coming close to tilting the scales.

Ratso nodded to the closed sitting-room door, where the noise was rising with the alcohol. “Charlene, if I can, I’ll be back. But in my job, the only certainty is uncertainty. There’s been a nasty turn of events today. One of my team caught someone watching the funeral.”

Charlene gasped. “The murderer?”

Ratso was giving nothing away. He shrugged.

Charlene’s eyes filled with tears and she tightened her grip. “Are you in danger? Was someone there watching you?” Ratso did not answer. “Todd. No, I couldn’t bear that. Not after Neil. You’re my rock. Remember?”

Ratso drew away, held her at arm’s length and looked deep into her green tearful eyes. Strange how she has tears for me and had none for Neil. “I’ll call you.” He pulled her close once more, stroking the back of her neck until the stirrings started down below and he pulled away.

Back in Clapham, he went straight to his office, black coffee in hand. The room smelled stale despite the cleaner’s lemon-scented spray. He summoned Tosh and Jock and they squeezed in, both clutching their own paper cups of coffee. As they sat down, he removed the black tie and hung his suit jacket behind the door.

“Jock. You’re one step removed from this deep shit. What’s your take?”

“Boss, this last ten minutes it’s a whole lot bloody deeper. I’ve just had the coroner’s officer on the blower. Yesterday he hadna interviewed Mrs Rosafa Skela. Too distraught, the widow said. But they took her statement last night.” Ratso saw he was holding a document. Jock handed over Rosafa’s statement and as he started to read, Ratso glanced up at Tosh and took in his ashen look.

The statement was four pages long and Ratso’s eyes scanned through it, knowing whatever had spooked his sergeants would jump off the page. “Bloody hell!” Ratso threw down the statement. “We’re in bigger shit than the local sewage farm. Christ! Where does this leave us?” He picked up the paper cup, drained it and screwed it up angrily, hurling it into the bin so that it bounced from side to side.

The two sergeants knew better than to interrupt Ratso’s train of thought. Ratso picked up the statement and read again the paragraph on the third page—a few words that changed everything. At last he spoke.

“So Klodian Skela duped us.” Ratso’s stare was uncompromising. He leaned toward them, eyes hard, his fists now clenched on the desk. “This changes everything.” He frowned, shaking his head in bewilderment. “She says their daughter died aged thirteen.” He spoke quietly, almost as if thinking aloud. “So why did Klodian Skela confess to shagging Lindita, his own daughter?” With barely a pause, Ratso answered his own question. “Because he had to conceal her identity.”

Jock looked concerned. “Did ye no read to the end?”

Ratso looked sheepish. “It gets worse? I thought I’d found the bad point.” He flicked over the final page. “Jee-sus! It was Erlis Bardici’s daughter!” He put down the statement and looked at each sergeant in turn. “Rosafa says when she got back from Manchester, her husband confessed he’d been screwing Bardici’s daughter. Then he left the house and twenty minutes later, he jumped.” He looked at Jock and saw the concern on the Scot’s face. Tosh was pulling at his already long earlobe, his face a mask.

Jock’s summary said it all. “Better admitting incest than to screwing Bardici’s little princess. He was right.”

“Tosh, ever since your call, I’d been struggling with why Lindita was watching the funeral. It made no bloody sense. I kept thinking, why would Skela send her? But that made no sense.” He paused. “Now we know. Bardici sent her and she saw you.” He debated whether to add more. “That makes it ten times bloody worse.” Ratso saw that Tosh needed no warning.

Jock stretched out an arm and put it over Tosh’s shoulder. “Ye’re positive she recognised you. So … ye’re compromised. Big time.” Ratso and Jock exchanged a glance before Jock continued, his voice low. “Suppose Terry Fenwick was suspicious and had checked upon ye. Did he see your ID?”

“Yeah, briefly. I flashed it at him but he’d have learned nothing in that nanosecond.”

“The receptionist had yer name from when ye made the appointment. So he sends Lindita. Point two: we must assume Bardici knows you interviewed Skela about the Range Rover.”

Tosh clutched at a straw. “He wouldn’t know Skela was interviewed. Lindita would never have told her dad she and Skela were shagging.”

Ratso’s glare was as sharp as his tone. “Three: he knows you were watching the funeral. Four: we don’t know if he is aware of your visit to Fenwick’s office. But I fear the worst.” He spread out his hands despairingly. “What a goddamned mess! He now knows or at least fears he is under suspicion for Neil Shalford’s death and the burning of the Range Rover.” Ratso’s eyes closed as he struggled to get 360-degree vision on the new situation. “And what Bardici knows, we have to assume Zandro knows. That means Zandro could be aware we’re after him despite the official line that he’s off radar.” He stood up in a sudden movement to bang the desk from a greater height. The remains of Jock’s coffee spilled as the flimsy cup toppled over but nobody moved. “Gentlemen, Operation Clam is … well and truly fucked.”

Tosh stared out of the window as Ratso stood with hand on chin for a moment before sitting down. The anger had gone. Months of careful planning had been blown. He spoke slowly, wearily. “Bardici’s no fool. He’ll suspect now that Neil was working for us, not the Hogans.” He turned another page in his notebook. “When they burying Skela?”

“Tomorrow afternoon.”

“Right. We watch Skela’s funeral.” His lips narrowed as he added sardonically, “From an O.P. van, unless there’s a good viewing point from an adjacent building. Tosh, I’ll keep you on the team but never again where you may be seen by Bardici or his daughter.”

“But, boss, Bardici doesn’t …”

Ratso cut him off with another hard-eyed stare. “I’m not taking any chances.” He then turned to the Scot, who was mopping up his coffee with a tissue. “Right. Jock. Before we discuss the club lists, tell me about this boat Skela was on about. What do we know?”

“Boris Zandro owns a yacht. A rich man’s toy. More like a cruise ship. Helipad. Twelve staterooms. Jetbikes. Disco. Home cinema. Ye ken the stuff. It’s called Tirana Queen. That was in the old file. Today it’s heading for somewhere in the eastern Med.”

“So Bardici wasn’t going to the Bahamas for anything connected to her.”

“Aye, right enough but on Grand Bahama there are plenty of wee fishing boats. Some for in shore and others for big-game fishing for tourists, as well as commercial operations.”

“Bardici wouldn’t be interested in them, surely.”

Jock disagreed, explaining he might use a fishing boat for offloading his Class A from a bigger ship.

“Or, I suppose, he might have wanted one for exporting cocaine from the Bahamas to a bigger ship that could cross the Atlantic.” Ratso was thinking aloud and didn’t sound or look too convinced by his own point.

Jock checked his notes, written in red pen with lots of underlining. “Then there are the pleasurecraft. All sizes. Hundreds, maybe thousands of small sailing boats, cabin cruisers, speedboats, plus the top-end toys. Many of the smaller ones are for sale. The recession.”

“But would Zandro send a thug like Bardici to check out a purchase? Bardici’s front is running a corner shop. His value to Zandro is as an enforcer. Thirteen stiffs and counting.”

Ratso stood up, yawned noisily and stretched. Outside, it was now dark and the wind was edging up to galeforce, rattling the windows. For a moment, he thought of Charlene, probably alone now with the wind howling round the house. Waiting for him. Hoping for him. He should be there. But … he checked his watch.

“Okay, Jock, Tosh. What do you think?”

Tosh, who had been very quiet, nodded distractedly. He had been reliving the visit to Terry Fenwick’s office and the confrontation in the graveyard. “I’m with ye, boss,” concluded Jock. “Ye send Bardici to the Bahamas to sort out a prob-lem. Scaring the crap out of folk. That’s why he was there. But somehow it’s connected to a boat.” Jock paused. “There’s one other thing. There are two shipyards, boatyards, call them what ye like.”

“Small craft?”

“Och, no. Cruise ships—the big ones. Cargo ships, big and small. No huge supertankers but plenty of freighters big enough to carry a shiteload of dope.”

“You checked them out? What’s going on in the yards?” For the first time Ratso sounded interested.

“Remember the detective constable who came over from the Bahamas? Darren Roberts. We took him up West.”

Ratso turned from the window and smiled. “Yeah. Good guy.”

“He’s just been promoted again—up from detective sergeant. He’s a DI now. So I had a wee word. He’s taking a shufti at the two yards, checking out what’s going on.”

“Long shot but that’s good.” Ratso turned to Tosh, whose face was pallid. “You look knackered.”

“I’ll get over it.”

Ratso nodded. He knew that if Bardici got hold of Tosh, the end would not be quick. The memory of Neil’s todger was still vivid. “From now on, till I say otherwise, your profile is lower than a snake’s arsehole. Take no chances. Different routes home.” He saw the fear on Tosh’s face and toned down his vehemence. “Look, Tosh: Bardici’s a killing machine, like a giant schnauzer bred to attack. He needs no reason to kill and you’ve given him one. If Fenwick was suspicious and his daughter mentions you, the jigsaw’s complete. I can’t take that chance. Fenwick may even know you work from here, in which case, so may Bardici.”

“No fear from Fenwick,” protested Tosh, who looked like a dead man walking.

“Y’know what Bardici did to Neil.” He saw Tosh flinch and his bulk shift uneasily on the chair as he wiped one hand nervously down his face. “We know zilch about Fenwick or Zandro’s lieutenants but Bardici won’t believe that.” He saw Tosh nibbling his finger nervously. “So maybe don’t even go home; stay somewhere different. Just for a while.”

“Ye can stay with me,” Jock offered. “I’ve a spare room.”

“The missus would divorce me. It wouldn’t take much.”

The comment proved everything Ratso had always felt about coppers being married and he sighed in sympathy. Tosh’s wife’s tongue was the stuff of legend. “We’d done so well, so bloody well this past day or two. Months and months of investigations and Bardici never twigged we were onto him. All buggered by a pig-ignorant slob admiring his tattoos while driving his delivery van.”

“And that bleeding pigeon,” Tosh added with a thin smile.

Ratso snorted angrily. “Okay. Let’s move on—think positive. The club lists.” Ratso had read the report what seemed like a lifetime away, on the train going to the funeral. “I’ve seen the members’ names. A pretty good cross-section of blue bloods, captains of industry, judges, actors, media types and professionals.” Tosh said nothing, barely even looking at his colleagues. Ratso doubted he’d even heard the invitation to contribute. “So, Jock? What happened when you dropped by the clubs with the photos this morning?”

“First, Terry Fenwick lives well but not flash. House in Bickley, worth just under a million. Wife. Two sons being educated at Tonbridge School. Drives a Chelsea Tractor. Wife has a Mazda. Member of the local tennis club. Pretty typical for a solicitor of his age.”

“Check out both his partners.”

Jock scribbled a note before continuing. “Fenwick’s a member of all four clubs—has lunch or dinner in one or other every week.”

“Go on.”

“Sometimes, he stays overnight at the Poulsden in Hill Street.”

“A shag-a-thon?”