Murder Ring (A DI Geraldine Steel Mystery) (12 page)

‘The victim did not belong to a gang, or associate with criminals. He was simply a law-abiding member of society who was shot dead in Central London for the contents of his wallet. What,’ the reporter had concluded, ‘are the police actually doing to protect our citizens from such violence on our streets?’

To begin with, Gina tried to refuse to allow them in the house.

‘Don’t do this, Gina. You know we’re here with a search warrant and a full team. If you resist, we’ll only end up having to break the door down. Let us in. We just want to take a look around. Then we can call the search teams off and leave you alone.’

‘Why the hell would you want to search my flat? What you looking for anyway?’

‘We need to find Lenny.’

Finally, with much grumbling, Gina opened the door to let them in. If anything, she looked even more gaunt than the first time Geraldine had seen her. She was visibly agitated. Her legs trembled as she leaned against the wall in the narrow hallway for support.

‘You won’t find him,’ she muttered. ‘There ain’t no one here. I ain’t seen him since he was in the nick.’

Geraldine spoke gently to the terrified woman, as though she was speaking to a nervous child.

‘Gina, I need to talk to you about Lenny. Let’s go and sit down, shall we?’

Taking Gina’s elbow, she steered her into the cramped living room where they had spoken before. While an armed team searched the flat, Geraldine kept an eye on Gina to make sure she couldn’t warn Lenny they were there. Gina perched on the edge of a worn upright chair, biting her lip and squinting askance at her uninvited guest. Geraldine glanced around the room. Small and sparsely furnished, it was ugly and uncomfortable. Apart from the two matching chairs she and Gina were seated on, there was an armchair of worn tan leather that looked as though it belonged in a different room. A low table was covered in stained tea cups. Around a dozen gin bottles, mostly empty, were lined up against the wall. Above a grotty gas fire fixed to the wall, empty beer bottles stood in a row on a narrow shelf. There was nothing else in the room, apart from worn grey carpet and threadbare orange curtains.

‘You can look all you like, you won’t find him,’ Gina snarled. ‘You think I don’t see your game? Well, you won’t find nothing. And they better not nick my purse neither. I know what’s in it.’

Geraldine chose her words carefully. ‘Gina, you may see this on the television, so I’m going to tell you now to your face. You need to listen to me. Lenny’s in trouble.’

‘Oh fuck off. He ain’t done nothing. You’ll never make this stick, whatever it is you’re trying to fit him up with. It’s all a set up. I weren’t born yesterday.’

‘We think he killed someone.’

‘Who did?’

‘Lenny.’

Gina threw her head back. Her scrawny neck juddered as she gave a bark of laughter.

‘Well I don’t believe you, not for one minute, and you won’t get no jury to convict him because you won’t have no proof. You can’t just bang a man up any time you feel like it, even if you are the police.’

Her bravado was pathetically transparent. She was terrified.

‘We have reason to suspect he mugged a man on the street and shot him dead.’

‘Shot him?’

‘Yes, with a pistol –’

‘Oh bugger off. Now I know it’s all a pack of lies. Lenny never had no time for guns.’

‘He’s armed, and he’s dangerous. If you know where he is, or if he comes to see you, you need to call us straight away. We can protect you –’

‘I don’t need protecting. Only from you. You’re a fucking liar, and you know it. Lenny ain’t done nothing. You better leave him alone.’

Geraldine stared at her. ‘Gina, if it turns out you know where he is, there’s every chance you’ll go down as an accessory to murder. At the very least you’ll be done for withholding information from the police and obstructing our enquiry. These are serious offences, Gina. We’re conducting a murder investigation.’

‘Fuck off out of it. I told you, he ain’t here.’

‘I put the wind up her,’ Geraldine told Sam as they walked back to the car together. ‘She was nervous all right. But she stuck to her story.’

The search team had found nothing incriminating in the flat.

‘You wouldn’t know he lives with her,’ one of them said. ‘There were no men’s clothes in the wardrobe, hardly any clothes at all in there, just a huge pile of soiled women’s clothing in the bathroom, not even in a laundry basket, just lying on the floor.’ He screwed up his nose. ‘And there wasn’t a single photo of him to be seen anywhere.’

‘She might have pictures of him, just not out on display.’

‘It must have been concealed beneath other things then. Who keeps photographs hidden away?’

Geraldine thought about the one precious photograph she had of her birth mother. It was an old picture, probably taken before Geraldine was born. Her mother looked about twelve in it, but she had only been sixteen when Geraldine was born, and probably not very different to the thin, wide-eyed child in the photograph Geraldine kept hidden away in the drawer beside her bed. Until now, it had never struck her as strange that her mother had asked the social worker to give the picture to the daughter she had abandoned at birth and now refused to see. For the first time she wondered if that was significant.

‘Geraldine? Are you listening?’ Sam asked. ‘They couldn’t find anything.’

Geraldine shook her head. What they were looking for wasn’t going to be hidden away in a drawer or a tin in the kitchen.

‘Where is he?’ she muttered.

‘We’ll find him,’ Sam replied. ‘He can’t have gone far. Sooner or later he’ll stick his nose up out of whatever sewer he’s hiding in, and then we’ll have him.’

21

G
INA COULD HAVE
laughed when the police turned up to search the flat, because there really was nothing there. Not even a loaf of bread. Luckily the inspector believed her when she said she didn’t know where Lenny was. If they had suspected she was lying, they might have treated her differently. Everyone knew the police put themselves above the law. If they’d bothered to check her phone, they would have seen she had received a call only about an hour earlier. Not that it would have helped them, because he was using a stolen phone. Still, they might have been able to trace where he was when he made the call. You couldn’t be too careful with the police. They were up to all sorts of crafty tricks, always trying to catch people out. No wonder everyone hated them. That was what Lenny said, anyway.

‘It’s like living in a police state. You can’t hardly take a piss without some fucking copper coming up and nicking you.’

And the police weren’t the only ones hassling her. While they were pestering her for information, Lenny was on at her for money. When she had asked him where the hell he expected her to get hold of any cash, he had hung up. But he was just being careful. She had to remember he was going to marry her, and in the meantime he was relying on her to save him. There was only one way she could save Lenny and herself too. If she got her ring back she could pawn it and share out the cash between herself and Lenny. Once she had saved enough, she would retrieve her ring. She would have it resized and never take it off again. Grabbing her mac, she ran out of the flat and went haring up the road. Lenny needed her and she wouldn’t let him down. She would get him through this, and then they could get married.

She went straight to the antiques shop where he took most of his gear.

Although it was late by the time she arrived, the shop was still open. Averting her eyes from a mangy stuffed fox that seemed to be staring right at her, she approached the white-haired bloke behind the counter. He smiled at her over his rimless spectacles.

‘Lenny’s girl?’

She nodded, pleased he had recognised her. That would make her task easier. She had been afraid he wouldn’t believe her when she said Lenny had sent her to fetch her ring. She did her best to sound confident, but her voice shook.

‘Oh yes, the diamond.’ The old man nodded. ‘I remember it, but I ain’t got it. He needed a jeweller to swap the stone for a piece of glass, so no one would be able to tell the difference. He wasn’t one to pass up an opportunity.’

After all they had been through together Gina couldn’t believe that Lenny could be so mean. All the time he had been locked up she had stood by him, asking nothing in return, and he had given her nothing but grief. The engagement ring had made up for everything he had put her through. He knew how much that ring meant to her. It held a promise that he wanted to take care of her for the rest of her life. That was the point of being engaged. Only now he had taken even that away from her. He was more interested in converting her diamond into cash than in making her happy. If he had suggested they sell the ring and split the readies, she would have agreed. She would have accepted a different ring, if there was money in it for her. But he had lied to her, planning to pocket the cash himself and fob her off with a piece of glass.

When she reached the car repair yard, there was no one in sight. From inside one of the lock-ups came the noise of machinery whirring and droning.

She walked swiftly past to the end door and tapped on it.

‘Oy, Lenny, you in there?’

There was a sound of scrabbling and the door lifted, just enough for her to stoop and go in. The door clanged shut softly behind her.

‘I got you some cash but I ain’t handing it over till you tell me where my ring is.’

‘Give it here and I’ll let you have your ring.’

She handed over a twenty quid note she had kept back for emergencies. If her plan worked, there would be no more emergencies, not for her anyway.

‘Did you bring me anything to eat?’

‘Like what? I can’t afford nothing, not after you took all my dosh. I just give you all I had left. Now I got nothing.’ She glared at him, her hands on her hips. ‘Where’s my ring?’

‘It ain’t your ring. And keep your voice down.’

‘What? You give it me, that means it’s mine.’

‘Yeah, well, you give it back, didn’t you, so now it’s mine. I wanted to give it you, only now I need it back.’

She took a step forward. ‘Where is it, Lenny?’

She would never wear it as an engagement ring now. That dream was busted. But she sure as hell would sell it and be better off than she was now.

Lenny was no different to any other man she had ever met, a cheating, lying, selfish swindler.

‘Give it here. It’s mine.’

‘Even if I had it here I wouldn’t give it to you. Now, what you still doing here?’ He walked over to the door. ‘Go on. Get out of here unless you want to get caught with me, and then they’ll bang you up too.’

Gina panicked. ‘Where you going? You can’t leave, not just like that, not without telling me where you’re going.’

‘Keep your voice down, you stupid cow.’ He reached for the door control. ‘I’m going to open that door and soon as I do, you get out of here. Don’t let anyone see you or we’ll both be nicked.’

The door rolled upwards. ‘Go on,’ he urged her. ‘Be quick for fuck’s sake, before someone sees, or we’ll both be for it.’

Gina ducked down and scrambled out of the lock-up. The door slid shut behind her.

Safely out of the yard she legged it up the road, relieved to have got away from there without any more bother. She was fuming. One way or another she was going to get her ring back from that thieving bastard or he’d be sorry. He had given the ring to her. It was her property. As she walked away, she knew what she was going to do. Lenny had underestimated her for the last time.

22

T
HERE WAS ONLY
one person Jack wanted to impress but her phone went straight to voicemail. At first he wasn’t too bothered, and left her a cheery message.

‘Hi babe, it’s me. Give us a call.’

Not wanting to spoil the surprise, he didn’t say any more. Instead he went for a drive in his new car. It was a bright day. Reaching the motorway he put his foot down, enjoying the sensitive response of his wheels. This was how life ought to be, and he deserved every scrap of it. Playing hard and fast he had earned the right to sit behind the wheel of a Mazda MX5 sports car, as smart a motor as any he’d seen, and as smooth a ride as anyone could wish for. With its glossy metallic paintwork, soft top and leather seats, it could have been brand spanking new. It was a dream car and no mistake, a car reeking of success and oozing sex appeal.

Leaving the main road half an hour later, he left a second message. ‘Hi, it’s me. I got a surprise. Call me.’

He was impatient to show her, but another hour went by and still she didn’t call.

He called again and left another message. ‘Where the hell are you? I got something to show you.’

Realising the bitch must have left her phone at home, he waited and called again when he thought she would be home but she still didn’t pick up. Annoyed that she was ignoring him, he texted her ‘WTF’ and called again. There was no reply. Swearing at her, he went for another drive but the novelty was wearing off. Driving up and down all by himself lost its appeal after a while. He wanted Sophia at his side, squealing with terror as he overtook some jerk, or gasping with excitement as he accelerated along an open stretch of road, her long thighs spread across the leather seat beside him.