Slice (18 page)

‘That’s all?’

Morrison’s face hardened. ‘Been with this firm a long time, guv. Always been a leg man – doin’ shit jobs while others got the bleedin’ glory—’

‘So you decided to grab some of that glory for yourself by getting the SP from McGuigan first, eh?’

There was almost an entreaty in Morrison’s eyes as he glanced in his direction. ‘Well, thought it would be good to make DCI before I retired. Saw this as me big chance.’

‘What a load of rubbish!’ Gilham exclaimed. ‘How gullible do you think we are?’ He stabbed an accusing finger in the DI’s direction. ‘After you left me on the top floor, you were gone around an hour before the alarm went off. Where’d you go? Midnight mass?’

Morrison took a deep breath, now completely on the defensive. ‘Couldn’t get me car started and came back in—’

Gilham’s derisive chortle cut him off in mid-sentence. ‘Oh come on, Ben. Can’t you think of anything better than that?’

Fulton grunted, apparently no longer interested in Morrison’s explanations and keen to move on. ‘Where’s the note, Ben?’ he said.

The DI nodded again and reached in his jacket pocket to produce a crumpled piece of paper. ‘Hung on to it,’ he replied, slumping into an adjacent chair. ‘Thought it might be useful evidence later.’

But Fulton was not listening. He was too busy smoothing out the A4 sheet on the nearby table to study the cramped writing.

Gilham whistled. ‘So our local hack was actually on to the killer.’

‘Yeah,’ Fulton growled. ‘and a fat lot of good it did him.’ He threw the other a quizzical glance. ‘So why was he being interviewed again?’

Gilham shrugged. ‘I believe his solicitor called in to see him.’

‘So he would have been taken to one of the two interview rooms near the custody suite – maybe even this one?’

‘More than likely. Custody record should say. What’s your point?’

‘My
point
is that whoever he saw in the corridor must have been there for a specific reason. The corridor itself is a dead end, so the killer must have been there on custody business and the last thing he would have expected was to come face to face with the one person who might have been able to identify him.’

Gilham’s eyes flicked to his number two. ‘Like Ben Morrison, you mean,’ he sniped.

Morrison left his chair with an angry snarl, but Fulton moved more quickly and blocked his path. ‘Just pack it in, the pair of you,’ he rapped. ‘Having a go at each other will achieve nothing. Now, where’s the envelope the note was in, Ben?’

The DI hesitated, then, with a curt nod, abruptly fumbled in his pocket and produced a buff-coloured ball of paper. Fulton snatched it from him, smoothing it out on the table beside the note. ‘Now that
is
interesting,’ he murmured.

Morrison frowned. ‘What is?’

Fulton grunted. ‘Take a look,’ he invited.

Morrison complied, partly obstructing Gilham as he pressed in closer to the table. The envelope was marked ‘Confidential’ and addressed to ‘Det. Supt Fulton’ in blue ballpoint pen.

‘OK,’ Gilham observed. ‘McGuigan was obviously unaware of the fact that you were no longer SIO – so what?’

‘Not that,’ Fulton snapped. ‘Look at the handwriting, man. The envelope may have been written in block capitals like the note, but it is pretty obvious, even to my untrained eye, that it’s in an entirely different hand.’

Both his colleagues looked blank and he swore his exasperation. ‘Oh, come on, the pair of you are supposed to be bloody detectives! This is obviously not McGuigan’s original envelope. That one was torn open, so the killer had to replace it with another one and readdress it.’

There was a pregnant silence for a few moments and sensing the two pairs of eyes boring into him, Morrison gulped quickly and shook his head several times. ‘Don’t look at me – I had nothing to do with it. Note was in envelope when I found it.’

Fulton’s eyes narrowed. ‘You sure about that, Ben?’ he said.

Morrison took another deep breath, a hunted look in his eyes. ‘Look, guv, I just give you the note, didn’t I? Hardly have done that if I was the flippin’ killer, would I?’

Gilham shrugged. ‘Who knows how a psycho’s twisted brain works?’ he retorted.

Fulton threw out a restraining arm as Morrison went for him again. ‘Shut it, Phil,’ he rapped. ‘Don’t forget, you’re not above suspicion yourself.’

Gilham flushed. ‘Neither are you,’ he fired back, ‘and you’re carrying a lot more baggage than either of us.’

Fulton gave a bitter smile, too tired now even to get angry. ‘You mean because I’ve got previous for battering my wife and her lover to death, is that it? Funny, I didn’t realize there had already been a trial.’

Gilham swallowed hard, averting his gaze. ‘Sorry, Jack,’ he muttered, ‘that just came out.’

The big man nodded, his expression contemptuous. ‘’Course it did, Phil,’ he acknowledged. ‘You’re right though. I’ve got more against me than most, but as everyone at the nick is under suspicion until this swine is nailed, it leaves you with an arse of a problem, doesn’t it?’

‘I don’t follow you?’

‘Don’t you?’ Fulton pushed past him to the door. ‘Well, think about it,’ he said, turning briefly with one hand on the handle. ‘Not only have you got to decide whom you can trust, but how you are going to convince the rest of the team that they can trust
you
!’ He jerked the door wide. ‘As for me, bed sounds like a pretty good idea.’

The prospect of soft sheets and a cool pillow was certainly foremost in Fulton’s mind as he left the police station, but that indulgence had to be relegated to the back burner when he eventually got home, for there was a sliver of light probing the back lawn through a chink in his lounge blinds. He had an intruder in his bungalow!

FULTON BURST THROUGH
the lounge door like a runaway JCB, but a few steps into the room he stopped short, staring first at the table lamp, burning like a malevolent eye on the coffee table, and then at the gaunt hunched figure occupying the armchair beside it.

‘
Mazel tov
, Jack,’ Mickey Vansetti said, taking a sip from a glass of whisky.

Fulton stared at him in disbelief. ‘You cheeky bastard!’ he choked, starting towards him with both fists clenched. ‘How the hell did
you
get in?’

The former gang boss smiled with the warmth of an open tomb. ‘That catch on your French winders was just askin’ to be slipped, my son,’ he answered. ‘You ought to get it fixed.’

Fulton took another step towards him, his voice trembling with anger. ‘You break into my place and calmly sit down and drink my Scotch? I’ve a good mind to wring your scrawny neck.’

Vansetti threw up his other hand in a swift defensive gesture. ‘Not a good idea, Jack,’ he warned. ‘Not if you wants to nail the Slicer. Anyway, what was I supposed to do with the bleedin’ press out front? Wait till you was in an’ knock you up? Look good, wouldn’t it, local villain callin’ to see his ol’ mate, the suspended police super?’

The big man hesitated, one part of him itching to grab his uninvited visitor by the collar and hurl him out into the night and the other urging restraint until he had found out what he had to say.

Vansetti seemed to sense his dilemma and made the most of it. ‘Fact is, Jack, I ain’t been that straight with you.’

‘Now there’s a surprise.’

‘Yeah, well that’s why I’m here, ain’t it – to make it right and give you the SP on a few things?’

‘And why would you want to do that? Just in case I had a touch of the seconds and thought about turning you in?’

‘Close. You catchin’ me in the same room as that stiffed copper might take some explainin’ if it got out. But there’s more to it than that.’

Fulton produced his packet of cigarettes and leaned back against the doorframe as he lit up without offering Vansetti one. ‘OK, so I’m listening. But it had better be good.’

Vansetti drained his glass and brazenly refilled it from the bottle beside the chair before slopping whisky into a second glass perched on the arm.

‘Sit down an’ have a drink, Jack,’ he said, nodding towards the other glass. ‘Standin’ there, you looks like you got a pole stuck up your arse.’

‘You’ll get my boot up yours if you don’t get on with it.’

Vansetti stared into his own glass for a moment or two, as if seeking inspiration from the amber-coloured spirit. ‘My ol’ man’s in Derryman ’Ospice, Jack,’ he said at last, looking up. ‘Took him there yesterday. Big C. They say he’s only got a few days at most.’

Fulton grunted, remembering from his early days on the crime squad what a vicious antagonist Carlo Vansetti had been. ‘Forgive me if I don’t cry,’ he commented. ‘So what has he got to do with this confessional of yours?’

It was Vansetti’s turn to hesitate. ‘I ain’t no grass, Jack, but seein’ as Carlo’s on the way out, what I got to say can’t hurt him no more.’

The mobster produced a part-smoked cigar from his top pocket and fumbled in his pockets for a second before nodding his thanks when Fulton tossed him his lighter. ‘First off, about tonight. I weren’t after that little shit, Derringer, ’cause he done me at the tables. That was a load of ol’ fanny – even though he did use my club an’ shag one of the croupiers. Truth is, Derringer had been puttin’ the black on me ol’ man and had squeezed him for a few thou before I sussed what was goin’ on. So I sent Bruno to find him, get back what was owed and give him a bit of a slappin’.’

‘Sounds like Bruno did a good job there. So what did Derringer have on your father in the first place, apart from thirty years of villainy?’

Vansetti grimaced as if he had found an unpleasant taste in his mouth. ‘At the start, Carlo told me it were to do with a bit of business involvin’ some nicked gear, but it turned out he were tellin’ me a load of ol’ porkies. When they shunted him into Derryman, he decided to come clean – shit scared he was goin’ to end up with his throat cut like the others.’

Fulton stiffened. ‘Like the others? And why would he think the killer was after him?’

Vansettti appraised him with a cold reptilian intensity. ‘That’s what I come here to tell you,’ he replied. ‘What do you really know about our Mr Justice Lyall?’

‘What
should
I know?’

‘You’d be surprised. There were quite a bit to ol’ Herbie.’

‘Herbie?’

‘That’s what they called him on the street when he weren’t wearin’ his wig. Bit of a bad boy were our Herbie.’

Scooping up the spare glass of whisky from the arm of Vansetti’s chair, the policeman dropped on to the settee with an explosive thud, his stomach juices stirring in anticipation. ‘How bad was bad, Mickey?’ he encouraged.

Vansetti leaned towards him. ‘Bad enough to enjoy a regular bit of S and M, I’ll tell you that.’

‘Sado-masochism? You’re saying he was bent?’

‘As the proverbial. Been at it for years, long before he got the silk an’ then became a judge.’

‘Dirty old sod.’

‘Yeah, an’ not only him – good ol’ Reverend Cotter too.’

‘Cotter?’

‘Yeah, Mr ’Oliness hisself. They was in a syndicate, see – like minds an’ all that – run by a high-class shrink, called Score.’

Fulton drew in his breath sharply. ‘Julian Score?’

‘That’s the geezer. Had some kind of private clinic for junkies an’ screwballs out in the sticks not that far from here.’

‘You’re talking about Drew House.’

‘Right again. Score had this cellar, see, rigged up like some bleedin’ torture chamber, and they used to meet there regular as clockwork for a bit of what was on offer.’

Fulton thought about what he had seen for himself in the mansion’s church crypt and felt his skin crawl. ‘And what
was
on offer?’

‘Rent boys mostly, them as would do any trick asked for an’ could be relied on to keep shtum afterwards if they was paid enough.’

‘And Carlo told you all this?’

Vansetti slumped back in his chair, a bitter expression on his skeletal face. ‘Come out with it last night just before I left him at the ’ospice,’ he replied.

‘So he was in this syndicate too, was he? Why doesn’t that surprise me?’

‘No, Jack, you got it all wrong. Carlo weren’t part of the syndicate itself. He just supplied the rent boys for ’em. Saw the whole thing as a nice little earner an’ he made quite a bit of dosh out of it too. But then there was an accident.’

‘The fire?’

‘You know about that then?’

Fulton gave him an old-fashioned look. ‘I
do
read crime reports, Mickey,’ he snapped, but didn’t volunteer any further information, determined to keep the conversation on track. ‘So, what happened?’

Vansetti shrugged. ‘Dunno exactly, as I weren’t there, but Carlo says Score an’ a young lad got crisped.’

Fulton remembered studying the crime report on the LIO’s computer and nodded. ‘Edward Heath.’

Vansetti avoided his gaze. ‘Yeah, that’s him. Papers had him down as some local junkie, who’d broken into the place lookin’ for dope, but that were just somethin’ they was fed. Truth is, he were one of Carlo’s rent boys hired to do the usual tricks for the syndicate an’ Carlo thought that were all there were to it when he run him there like he’d done with all the others before.’

‘But this time it was different, eh?’ Fulton suggested, sensing Vansetti had a lot more to divulge, but was still reluctant to put it all into words.

The other nodded and studied the carpet through the smoke from his cigar. ‘Yeah, see, Score an’ the others was bored with the same ol’ bondage thing, so they decided to up the ante without telling Carlo. When the kid was delivered, they pumped a load of LSD into him to try and liven him up. But he went off his head an’ as they was cartin’ him back to the house from the crypt, he broke free, got into the library an’ started a fire. Score tried to stop him,’ and he shrugged again, ‘but you knows the rest.’

‘And how come only Score’s name got a mention in dispatches?’

Vansetti’s face registered contempt. ‘It were all sorted by one of your own, that’s why.’

‘Nick Halloran,’ Fulton grated before he could stop himself.

Vansetti nodded again. ‘After everyone had scarpered, Cotter suddenly remembered they’d left the crypt door open and went back to lock up. Halloran saw the light in the church an’ caught him with his frock down. In a panic Cotter grassed up the rest of the syndicate.’

‘Paving the way for Halloran to cut a deal in return for a nice little earner – with no one to dispute a “no questions asked detected arson” except an incinerated Edward Heath?’

‘Somethin’ like that, yeah. How Derringer found out Carlo were mixed up in it all, I ain’t got the faintest, but he were well in with that slime-ball, Lenny Baker, who used to do a trick or two himself in the ol’ days. I reckon maybe Lenny come across some stuff an’ passed it on for a quick buck.’

‘And how do
you
fit into all this?’

‘I don’t. Knew sweet FA about any of it until last night. The ol’ feller unloaded the lot on me out the blue, like some bleedin’ confessional.’

Fulton grunted. ‘The Nazis expressed the same sort of ignorance at Nuremberg,’ he said with a wry grimace.

There was a flicker of alarm in his visitor’s dark eyes. ‘On my life, Jack, I had no part in it all and I want to set the record straight right now.’

‘You mean, before the facts come out anyway and you get nailed as an accessory to manslaughter, conspiracy and maybe even sexual perversion with a minor?’

The ageing villain swallowed several times. ‘You’re a hard man, Jack, but this is legit, I swear it. I done many things over the years – blaggin’, bit of protection, runnin’ knocking-shops and spielers – yeah, I’ll admit to it all. I been a naughty boy an’ I done porridge for it too, but I ain’t no nonce an’ that’s the truth.’

‘Maybe it is, but with your form and all the baggage you’re carrying for Carlo, convincing a jury you’re Mr Clean would be a pretty tough job.’

Vansetti threw up his hands in desperation, almost knocking over his whisky glass in the process. ‘Strewth, Jack, all this happened fifteen years ago. You had me banged up in Wandsworth then on a double blaggin’, remember?’

‘OK, but why come to me with all this?’

‘I need your help, that’s why. Carlo’s shit scared he’s next on the killer’s list. That’s why I went to see Derringer at the ’ospital, to find out if he knew enough to finger the Slicer before it were too late.’

Fulton made a sour face. ‘Yeah, well it may have escaped your notice, but I happen to be suspended. You need to speak to a proper copper. Try Acting Detective Superintendent Gilham.’

‘Do me a favour, Jack! How can I trust Ol’ Bill when this nutter is probably a bleedin’ copper hisself? Anyway, with my previous, if I told them what I just told you they’d just bang me up.’

‘Chance you’ll have to take.’

‘An’ what happens to Carlo meantime, eh? Can you see your mates givin’ someone like him police protection?’

‘He doesn’t need it. You’ve got your own thugs to do that.’

Vansetti scowled. ‘Already tried. ’Ospice won’t let Bruno anywhere near the place – even though I offered ’em a nice little bundle. Said it would upset the other patients.’

‘So, what do you expect
me
to do?’

The dark eyes studied him fixedly. ‘Nail the Slicer before he gets to my ol’ man,’ Vansetti said simply.

Fulton shrugged. ‘What’s the point? As you said yourself, Carlo will be dead in a few days anyway.’

The other looked genuinely staggered. ‘I can’t believe you just said that, Jack,’ he gasped.

Fulton fidgeted uncomfortably. ‘Yeah, well, I’ve got problems of my own, Mickey.’

‘Find this nutter an’ they’ll all be sorted.’

‘You reckon?’ The policeman hauled himself to his feet, picked up the whisky bottle and poured himself another drink. ‘Maybe it’s time to retire anyway.’

Vansetti nodded. ‘So you just goin’ to give up, that it? Let this bastard butcher a few more people? Don’t sound like the Jack Fulton I used to know.’

Fulton snorted. ‘You don’t give a damn how many more people are butchered, Mickey. You’re only interested in your old man.’

Vansetti stood up and buttoned his coat with an air of finality. ‘Maybe you’re right, Jack,’ he replied, turning for the door. ‘But, as a copper, shouldn’t you be interested in that as well?’

Fulton made no effort to stop him leaving and sat scowling into his whisky glass for a long time after the back door had slammed and his visitor’s footsteps had receded along the gravel path outside. Being reminded of his moral obligations by someone with Mickey’s track record was more than a bit rich, but he knew the mobster was right. Carlo Vansetti was as much entitled to the protection of the law as anyone else, regardless of what he had done in the past, and now that Fulton knew the old man was at risk, he was duty bound to do something about it. But what, that was the point? He had not been able to prevent the murder of any of the Slicer’s victims so far, so what chance did he have where Carlo Vansetti was concerned? Then there was Abbey. He was still no nearer to finding her than when she had first been seized. Everything was a diabolical mess and after compromising himself by quitting the scene of Derringer’s murder, enlisting the help of his former colleagues was out of the question.

He was still agonizing over it all, the whisky glass cradled in both hands, when his over-wound body clock finally took the initiative and shut down. As the whisky glass slipped from his nerveless fingers, spilling its contents into his lap, he pitched sideways on to the settee and left reality behind him. And while his depleted batteries slowly began to recharge, the figure in the hooded anorak slipped round the front of the bungalow from the back garden, under the very noses of the two reporters drinking coffee in the car parked outside, and thrust a padded envelope through the letterbox. It was just after four and much too early for the Royal Mail.