Scared to Live (24 page)

previous fillings. Her GP prescribed her Nitrazepam for her sleeping problems. And the garage can tell us what the emissions were like on her Volvo. Pick the bones out of that, if you can.' 'Why did she have trouble sleeping, I wonder?' 'Who can say?' 'Well, at least we have a confirmation of her ID from the dental records. We don't have to wait for the GP to get back.' Hitchens opened the file. 'One thing we did find in the house was the receipt for her car. It was bought from a Volvo dealer in Chesterfield and delivered to Bain House a few days after Miss Shepherd moved in. The receipt gives the recorded mileage at the time of sale, and we checked it against the current reading. She did about three hundred miles in a year. She was the proverbial careful lady owner.' 'My God, she hardly went anywhere,' said Fry. 'She had no one to visit, did she?' 'Apparently not.'

He raised his face to drink in the sounds. Cars and motorbikes; thumping music from the pub, the thud of a diesel exhaust. There were loud voices as a crowd of youths and girls queued to get into Brody's nightclub on the top floor of the Pavilion. Laughing, shrieking, squealing. The noise echoed off the front of the building, allowing him to bathe in the clamour. He was waiting in the bus pull-in near the tufa fountain, talking to the fish as they popped up to see if he'd brought them any food. Hissing, splashing, plopping. But he mustn't stay here too long, or a policeman would come his way, suspecting that he planned to stalk some ridiculous teenage girl in a short skirt. Now, then. Now then. Move along. He laughed. It was so funny, the image of the policeman, thumping about in his boots, creaking in his yellow plastic jacket, the radio squawking constantly in his ear, sending him messages,

messages, more messages, telling him where to go and not to go, instructions and orders, comments and commands, barking and babbling. How did he stand it? The policeman must be deaf. Deaf in his mind. It was so funny that he laughed again. Chuckle, chortle, snigger. But he knew immediately he'd laughed out loud. He could tell by the faces of the nightclub queue, turned towards him in a glare of light. Derisive, hostile. Someone tittered, someone jeered. Something jabbered and muttered at the back of his brain. It was time to be elsewhere. He turned, hunching his shoulders inside his overcoat, and walked towards the Promenade Fish Bar. He was following the lure of a rumbling motorcycle engine, a two-tone horn on a car racing up the road. Further on, he could hear the sounds of an amusement arcade. Rattle, crash, boom. They wouldn't let him in, but he could stand outside and enjoy the buzz of the traffic, too. Night-time was the most difficult. There was too little noise. Always too little. He was sure he wasn't alone in feeling most vulnerable at night. Darkness could hide anything, couldn't it? It was populated with fantasies and horrors, ghosts and demons, and all the other fears that chattered like monkeys in the corners of his mind. Not to mention the burglars and rapists, the crazed axemen muttering in the alleys, drawn to the sound of human breathing like moths to a flame. Every time he went to sleep, he knew he might wake up to a presence in the room, a voice congealed into reality. He pictured the moment when the breathing he could hear was not his own, when the shadow behind the door began to move, when an arm brushed against the wall, a whisper of fabric in the silence and a hoarse mumble of his name, before the final lunge of the knife. He imagined those last moments so often that he could feel his limbs tangle in the sheets as he thrashed to escape the blade. Slash, stab, rip. There, what did I tell you?

A hospital room was no better. The sounds that drifted down corridors during the night were strange and incomprehensible. Like bedlam, the music of the madhouse. Howl, roar, bark at the moon. And not only sounds, but smells. They could blend in the mind like a thick soup, swirling and forming pictures that he'd rather not see inside his head. There were half-spoken memories that he'd carry for ever, recollections of unseen people discussing him, their voices hushed and murmuring, commenting on his state of health, using words that were unknown to him. Planning his disposal, as if he were an animal. Of course, it was stupid to fear the unknown. People who did that were just projecting their own ugly thoughts on to a blank mask, like throwing handfuls of mud at a marble statue. Why live in terror of the unfamiliar? Why let the silent, dripping darkness of the imagination displace the wicked reality? Those were the things that made other people afraid, but he knew he wasn't like them. He'd been made differently from the rest of humanity; his mind was constructed of a glittering, fragile crystal instead of some greasy clay, scooped from the earth. His consciousness rang like a bell, echoing and tinkling, speaking his name, calling him softly, tolling with disdain. Some of these places would be closing for the night soon. Matlock Bath would empty, and he'd have to go home. He'd have to face another night, counting to himself to fill the silent hours, reciting the alphabet, and cursing, cursing. . . One, two, three, and DAMN, DAMN, DAMN! He didn't care about the unknown. Not in the least. He knew exactly what to be afraid of, and it was something all too real. He heard it wailing in the distance. It was difficult to drown out, even now. He knew how dangerous it could be, and where it would come from. He just didn't know when it would finally draw near and speak.

19

Thursday, 27 October

Early next morning, an officer from the incident room entered DCI Kessen's office at West Street, and placed several slim files on the desk. Watched by Hitchens, Kessen thumbed through the files. 'Well, it looks as though we've got the first hits from our Nichols trawl,' he said. 'Any Simons?' asked Hitchens. 'Oh, yes. Three. One of them lives in Ashbourne, and he's ten years old.' 'Damn it.' 'Well, maybe we shouldn't eliminate him out of hand. Kids are given mobile phones at a very young age these days.' 'And high-powered semi-automatics?' 'Let's hope not. Get Ashbourne section to talk to the parents anyway, check there isn't some remote connection with Rose Shepherd. It seems pretty unlikely, but we'd best rule it out.' 'And the others?' 'The second Simon Nichols is eighty-five years old. Actually, his full name is Edward Simon Nichols, so strictly speaking

he's ESN. He's in a residential care home in Alfreton, but he could have some connection with Rose Shepherd.' 'We need to spread the net wider, don't we?' 'Nichols isn't an uncommon name,' said Kessen. 'There could be hundreds of Simons around the country. But unfortunately, these seem to be the only leads we have at the moment. Do you want to allocate them, Paul?' Hitchens took the files into the CID room and passed on the news to the officers on the early shift. 'Is there one for me?' asked Cooper. 'Yes, I saved this one for you specially, Ben. This Nichols lives on a farm, so it'll suit you down to the ground. The address we have for him is Lea Farm, near Uppertown - wherever the heck that is.' 'I know Uppertown. It's near Bonsall.' 'Bonsall?' said Hitchens. 'Just a minute ' 'Yes, Rose Shepherd made calls to a phone box in that area, didn't she?' Hitchens smiled as he handed Cooper the file. 'Off you go, then. There's no time to waste.'

When Fry arrived at West Street, it seemed unnaturally quiet. She made her way to the DCFs office, where she found Kessen and Hitchens frowning over a document written in a language she didn't recognize. She leaned over the desk and looked closer. No - it was the alphabet she didn't recognize. Some kind of Cyrillic script? 'Morning, Diane. Take a look,' said Hitchens. 'This could be a whole new angle on the Shepherd enquiry.' Fry picked out a photograph from the file. It showed the rear view of a red Ford Escort with a foreign registration number and a shattered back window. The car was parked in a garage, with wooden double doors left half open and a padlock hanging from the hasp. The only other thing she noticed was the international plate - BG. Before she could

work out what country the initials referred to, she'd unfolded a label attached to the back of the photo and found it was headed in English. The Bulgarian Interior Ministry. She raised an eyebrow at Kessen, and he took the photo from her. 'OK. A year ago, there was a double murder in a city in northern Bulgaria - a place called Pleven. This car was found by the roadside outside the city. The bodies of two people were in it.' 'Who were they?' 'Their names were Dimitar Iliev, aged forty-three, and Piya Yotova, forty. Iliev had been shot in the head, and Yotova had bullet wounds in the back and arms.' 'Was it some kind of execution?' Kessen shrugged. 'The Pleven police examined the scene for evidence, but they found nothing to help them identify the assailants.' 'What has this got to do with Rose Shepherd?' said Fry. 'We're not sure yet. But it could have something to do with Simon Nichols. We got a hit on the name from Europol. They're building up a lot of intelligence on cross-border organized crime these days. According to their database, Simon Nichols is an alias for a Bulgarian criminal called Simcho Nikolov. They're sending the complete file on him ASAP' Fry tapped the photograph. 'He's a suspect for this shooting in Pleven?' 'He was a known associate of Yotova's, and he disappeared about the time of the shooting. The Bulgarian police have been looking for him ever since.' 'So he could be a professional hit man,' said Hitchens. 'It looks that way,' said Kessen. 'Europol intelligence has come up with two more associates of Nikolov's: the Zhivko brothers - Anton and Lazar. It appears they were members of a criminal gang that got involved in some kind of turf war. The older brother, Anton, was badly injured. He got a bullet lodged in his spine and was left paralysed from the waist

down. The Zhivkos had enough money stashed away from their criminal activities that they were able to do a runner and get clear of the country.' 'Don't tell me they're here?' 'Yes, right here in Derbyshire. Two years ago, the Zhivko brothers opened an electrical shop in Chesterfield. It's possible Nikolov came here to join them. So far, they've behaved themselves, but Europol have passed on a tip-off that the Zhivkos are expecting a visitor from their own country - a visitor they might not welcome. An organized crime surveillance unit has been set up in Chesterfield to keep an eye on things.' 'An East European feud happening on our territory?' Hitchens ran a hand through his hair. He was starting to look less elegant than he had when the week started. 'We'd better find out if we have any more Bulgarians in the area. I'll run a check on the dispersal facilities, for a start.' Kessen studied Fry. 'There's a job for you, Diane. Europol have arranged for an English-speaking officer to liaise with us from Pleven. He'll be calling this morning. And I want you to deal with him.' Fry was aghast. 'With respect, sir, I've got far more important things to do than become involved in international liaison - especially on the basis of such a tenuous connection.' 'Not quite so tenuous,' said Kessen calmly. 'DC Cooper is following up a potential lead to Simon Nichols in the exact area where Rose Shepherd made calls to a public phone box. And don't forget that the victim had the international dialling code for Bulgaria in her address book - the magic 359.'

Still fuming, Fry went back to her own desk. Bulgaria. The Balkans, right? A former Soviet bloc country, a bastion of Communism during the Cold War era. But what else did she know about it? Nothing. Fry was still trying to picture what a Bulgarian might actually look like, when her phone rang.

'Hello, DS Fry.' 'Alo. My name is Sergeant Georgi Kotsev. I'm calling from Pleven Police Department, on behalf of the Bulgarian Ministry of the Interior.' Fry tried to mask her sigh. 'Oh, Sergeant Kotsev. Hello. Thank you for sparing the time to talk to us.' 'It's a pleasure to co-operate with our colleagues in the United Kingdom.' His voice was deep and only slightly accented, not what Fry had expected at all. It didn't fit the Slavic stereotype that had been lurking at the back of her mind - some hatchet-faced villain out of a James Bond film. Kotsev sounded like the man they saved for PR work, smooth and articulate, with excellent English. 'I have your fax about the two shooting victims in Pleven,' said Fry. 'I wonder if you have any further information?' 'We know that they were both shot with an assault rifle, probably a Kalashnikov AK47.' 'Are AK47s commonly available in Bulgaria?' 'If you know the right people, of course.' Fry grunted, unsurprised. Kalashnikovs were everywhere. They'd become legendary around the world's trouble spots. 'We manufacture a great many Kalashnikovs in Bulgaria,' said Kotsev, perhaps misinterpreting her silence. 'Yes, even now.' 'And they're used by criminal gangs, Sergeant?' Kotsev laughed. 'Da, razbira se. Of course. But, you know, the United States government bought many thousands of Kalashnikovs for use in Iraq. Those guns were also made in Bulgaria. They operate better than the American M-16 in dusty conditions, so our manufacturers produce a weapon to NATO standards. Kalashnikovs travel well, like our wine.' Fry could have listened to him talk for a while, his voice was so interesting. She guessed he'd be one of those people who were terribly disappointing when you met them in person,

because their faces didn't match the picture their voices conjured up. Probably he was hatchet-faced, after all. 'Any idea of a motive for these killings?' she asked. 'Certainly. People want money. Sometimes they see a way of filling their pockets and getting away with it.' From the tone of his voice, she could almost hear Kotsev shrug. 'And then they get drawn in to events. They mix with the wrong people.' 'And the law catches up with them.' 'The law? Not so often.' Fry didn't feel able to join in with his chuckle. She turned back to the report on the shooting. 'Dimitar Iliev was involved in organized crime, is that right?' 'Yes, we believe so. But Iliev was a very small player in the game, who became greedy, we think. He and Yotova were found in their car on the E83 highway outside Pleven. We don't know where they were heading.' 'Tell me what you know about Simcho Nikolov.' 'Nikolov is aged fifty-five, a native of the Rhodope Mountains. An army veteran. He was a companion of Iliev's for many years - indeed, they served together as soldiers, but fell on bad times after release from the army. Like so many, these two men turned to crime. For a long time, they were protected from prosecution by their connection with powerful criminal bosses.' 'But their luck ran out,' said Fry. 'Iliev's did, at least. Simcho Nikolov has been sought ever since. We have had no news of him.' 'The shooting was a year ago. You don't seem to have made a lot of progress.' 'Sadly, that is not unusual in this type of investigation.' 'Well, could you keep us updated?' 'I'll fax you any relevant information if we have new developments. Would that be suitable?' 'Yes, excellent.' Kotsev paused. She thought she heard him drinking, and imagined a cup of decent coffee in his hand. Did they have