To Kill For Page 11

  The law didn’t operate that way.

  Something else. When I’d called Hayward’s bird the first time, she’d asked me if this was about Elena. What was that about? Who was Elena?

  My head was starting to bang away again. All this thinking was making me ill. I took a couple more of Browne’s little white pills. That was a mistake. I needed a clear mind. Instead, I got wiped out.

  But I slept badly, my mind turning things over and around so that it all became lumped together and murky. I slept for a few minutes, then woke and slept again and woke again. In the end, I gave up, picked up the bedside phone and called Ben Green.

  ‘Know what time it is?’

  ‘I need you to find someone for me.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Derek Hayward. He’s a copper, Met.’

  ‘Where does he work out of?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Anything you can tell me about him?’

  ‘Mid-thirties, six-two, black, slim. He’s mixed up with Paget and some bloke called Mike Glazer.’

  ‘Glazer? That’s the one you wanted me to find out about before.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What’s this all about, Joe?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Is there anything you do know?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’re a great fucking help.’

  I dropped the receiver back onto the cradle and went down to the hotel’s lounge.

  There were booths and tables scattered about. The odd small group of business people sat around and pretended to have something worth saying, a straggler or two sat by themselves staring at the carpet or at their drink. The light was dim, the music was low, the talk was hushed, the furnishings were faded. It was all designed to relax you into a coma. That was fine with me. I could have done with a coma just then. I dropped myself onto a stool at the bar and ordered a couple of beers. The bartender had some rule about serving drinks one at a time so I downed the first while he was still ringing it up. He got me my second and when he put it down I ordered a third.

  There was a television behind the bar. They were onto the sport before I realized there’d been some kind of shoot-up in East London. They’d said something about a gang-related crime. They’d shown a large house, bullet-ridden, and a wall, half blackened by fire. The world was cracking up. I heard more words, but by then my head was coming apart, like the rest of the world, and I had trouble staying upright in my seat. The barman came over and asked if I was okay. I told him I was fine. He didn’t believe me and lingered a while. Then he was gone and so were most of the others. I didn’t know what time it was, or what day. A bit later a bloke in a suit came up to me and asked me to leave. I don’t know why. I showed him my room key and he suggested I go and lie down. I suggested he go and fuck himself, but he was right. I weaved between tables as best I could and took the lift back up and staggered out and found my room and aimed myself at the moving bed.

  I dreamed of Brenda, her smile bright, her eyes young. She stood in front of me and held out her hand and I took it, but what I held was a dead dried-up stump and when I looked up the smile was set by rigor and the eyes were white and dead and it wasn’t Brenda any more but that Argentinean kid, frozen in death a dozen yards from my foxhole. I wanted to go out to get him, even though I knew he was dead. I couldn’t stand to see his face there, staring back at me, hour after hour.

  I didn’t know where I was. My head was fuzzy and I was on my back staring at darkness. I could feel dampness beneath my head. I thought it must have finally cracked open. I heard a ringing and my mind was telling me to get up before I was counted out for good. Then I realized the ringing was wrong and everything else was wrong. The ringing stopped. The dampness was still there.

  It took me a moment to work out where I was. Light came through the orange curtains. I traced a crack on the ceiling and counted how many heads I had and managed to work out that those large things in the distance were my feet. I climbed off the bed and threw up in the wastepaper bin. When I’d done that I had a shower. I felt better. I was fresher and my head had cleared. I wasn’t feeling pain so much, the alcohol was thinning out, the pills had lost their muddled effect. I began to think again.

  I took a few bags of peanuts out of the mini-bar and ate them and made a cup of coffee. Then I reached over and picked up the phone and called Ben Green.

  ‘Did I phone you last night?’ I said.

  ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘Yes. I think so. I asked you to find Hayward.’

  ‘You okay, Joe?’

  ‘Fine. Did you just call here?’

  ‘Yes, I did. About Hayward; I can’t find him, couldn’t find anything out on him. But I might have something.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Copper I know knew someone who worked with him.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Way back, seven years maybe.’

  ‘Did he give you an address for this bloke?’

  ‘A bird, Joe. Not a bloke.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well, this copper I know works out of Harlesden, and his old governor was a woman who had a thing with Hayward for a couple of years. Bit of a talking point, apparently. She was married and left her husband, that sort of thing. That’s all he knew. Bird’s name is Sarah Collier.’

  ‘What do I owe you?’

  ‘You’re after Paget, right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And this might help?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘In that case, it’s on the house, old son. I told you about my kid? I don’t want him in the same fucking world as Paget. Got me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Look, Joe, I know this is none of my business, but from what I hear, Paget’s got a shitload of Cole’s smack. That right?’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Have you thought that he might need to unload it, get some readies? If I was looking for someone on the run, I’d ask around, see if anyone’s bought a load of dope.’

  I should’ve thought of that myself.

  ‘Want me to check around?’ Green said.

  ‘Yeah.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  She wasn’t a copper any more. She hated it. The whole fucking force was prejudiced against women, especially successful women, especially successful women who had affairs with other officers, especially black officers. They didn’t like that sort of thing, even if it was none of their fucking business. And when they didn’t like something about you, that was it. You were finished, dead in the water.

  She told me this. Repeatedly. She didn’t really want to talk about it, she said. She didn’t know who I was or why I’d be interested. She told me this too, over and over. I’d told her I worked for a solicitor and that Hayward had been named in a case. It was a shit story; what did I know about solicitors? She didn’t believe me from the word go, but she didn’t question it, didn’t even ask for an ID. She didn’t care who I was. She took my money, though. She was fine with that. And she was happy to talk. I let her get on with it.

  We were in a semi-detached in Acton. I could see from the photos that she’d married. I had a feeling she’d divorced too. There wasn’t any sign of a bloke living there. Her husband had probably got sick to death of her yammering.

  There was a kid wandering around. It was about three or four. I could see it wasn’t Hayward’s, so there was nothing there for me to use.

  She made another couple of mugs of coffee and put them down on the kitchen table and sat opposite me.

  ‘What was your rank?’ I said.

  ‘I was a DI. I was only thirty-two. There weren’t many DIs at that age. Hardly any women. I joined straight from school. Eighteen. Three A-levels. And that was when A-levels were hard to get.’

  The kid had been settled in the corner of the kitchen, dribbling on an empty egg box it was pushing around. It got up now and shuffled over to its mother and held the box out to her like some kind of offering. She took the box and patted th
e kid on the head and put the box on the table. All that while, she didn’t stop talking, going on about her brilliant career. I drank my coffee.

  She’d been attractive once. I knew that because she had plenty of photos of herself looking attractive. And young. She wasn’t so young now.

  ‘This was in Barnet,’ she was saying. ‘Del was only a Detective Constable then.’

  ‘Only?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘What is he now?’

  ‘I heard he got promoted. Did alright for himself.’

  ‘You heard he did?’

  ‘Yeah. This was after we split up. After he split us up, I should say. Got promoted to a DS couple of years after that. I hear he’s an Inspector now. Positive discrimination. That’s fine. If you’re black.’

  ‘When was the last time you saw him?’

  ‘Must be eight years ago, something like that. Yeah, it was. Eight years last January.’

  ‘You left?’

  ‘He left. Asked for a transfer. Too awkward for him, see. About then he decided he had a fucking career to get on with.’

  ‘Where’d he go?’

  ‘Some specialist unit.’

  ‘Which one?’

  The kid was back and wanted its mother to pay it some attention. She stroked its hair.

  ‘Huh? Oh, I dunno.’

  I took a roll of notes from my jacket pocket and peeled off another hundred quid.

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘What does it matter?’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘You’re persistent. Who are you anyway?’

  ‘Nobody.’

  ‘Well, nobody, you think money’s going to help me remember?’

  ‘You remember. The money’s so you’ll tell me.’

  Her hand froze on the kid’s head.

  ‘God, you’ve got a fucking nerve. What makes you think I know about something that happened eight years ago?’

  ‘You know when he got promoted. You know the month you last saw him.’

  Her mouth became thinner. She stared at me, trying to get even for all the shit that men had done to her. After a few seconds, she gave up trying to scare me and shrugged. She wouldn’t have lasted as a copper. She looked at the money instead, like it was to blame for her failures. She snatched it up.

  ‘Something to do with Vice.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I don’t know. I really don’t. It was a vice unit in Peckham or Brixton or somewhere. He’s black. Lot of crime down there is black crime, so they’re always looking for good black coppers.’

  Vice. I felt a tightening in my gut. There was a connection, then, between Hayward and Paget. South of the river, though. That didn’t fit so well.

  ‘You ever heard of Kenny Paget?’

  ‘Who’s he? Another copper you lost?’

  ‘Mike Glazer?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you ever hear anything about Hayward after he went to Vice?’

  ‘Like I said, he got promoted. I left the force soon after that so I couldn’t tell you. It took me years to get from Sergeant to Inspector and he did it in a leap and a bound.’

  And off she went again. Even the kid was sick of it by now. It shuffled out of the room and disappeared. I would’ve gone with it, but I still needed some information. I didn’t want to get heavy, so I put up with it.

  Finally, she said, ‘If I never see him again it’ll be too soon.’

  It took me a second to realize what she was talking about.

  ‘So you wouldn’t know where I could find him?’

  ‘Find him? You want to find him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why didn’t you say? Course I know.’

  As I walked back to the bus stop, I thought about what she’d told me. There was so much of it, it was hard to put it in order. But something stuck out, rang a bell.

  By the time the bus came, I knew what was ringing the bell.

  It was Elena. But Elena wasn’t a person. Elena was a thing.

  And I knew, too, that Hayward had to be bent.

  I knew everything. I was a fucking genius.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The car was parked outside Browne’s. The nearside window was open a crack and cigarette smoke wafted out. They weren’t worried about being seen, which meant they weren’t expecting any grief from me, which meant Dunham must’ve thought I’d go quietly. On the other hand, they were here, waiting for me, which meant Dunham must have been getting jittery or something.

  The car doors opened and they climbed out wearily. The driver was a short man. I didn’t know him. The one my side had red hair and freckles on his face. I’d met him before. He looked at me like I’d fucked his wife, threw his fag on the ground and opened the back door.

  Browne must’ve been keeping a look out for me too because his front door opened and he stepped out and looked over at us.

  I was going to tell these blokes to fuck off, but I changed my mind. I didn’t need grief from Dunham.

  There was another reason why I decided to go along. I wanted to know why Dunham was paying me so much attention, why he was so bothered about finding Paget. A meeting with him and Eddie might not be a bad idea.

  I waved Browne back. Red Hair held his hand out for my Makarov. I wasn’t giving that up and Red Hair let it go, which meant he was under orders to be polite.

  We didn’t go up the West End this time. Instead, we went for a ride in the country. The drive took forty minutes and all that time the two up front didn’t say a word. Every now and then one of them would look at the other and they’d grit their jaws or sigh. They must’ve been waiting outside Browne’s a long time and they weren’t going to blame Eddie or Dunham for sending them there, so it was all my fault and now they were giving me the silent treatment like a pair of old women. I wondered where the fuck Dunham got these clowns.

  We slowed when we came to a village. I thought we were in Hertfordshire, or Buckinghamshire. The village was one of those stockbroker-belt type places, full of mock-Tudor houses and fat men with fat faces and their thin tight-arsed wives who stared at strangers.

  We slowed in front of a wrought iron gate, brick pillars on either side, a security camera on one pointing down at us. A ten-foot-high brick went in both directions from the gate. I guessed it must encircle Dunham’s entire property. On top of the wall were black iron spikes.

  Red Hair got out of the car, went up to the gate and pressed some numbers into a panel on the lock. The gate opened slowly and we drove in. I surveyed the grounds as best I could from the car. On both sides, there was open land, grass running from the front of the house to the high wall.

  The house was a cube the size of a factory. It was a lot like Dunham: a squat block that shouted power, flattening everything else around it. I suppose they’d call it a mansion, Dunham’s country seat.

  The car stopped and we all got out. From there I could see a wooded area that ran from the wall and stopped fifty yards from the rear of the house. All around the rest of the house was the grass.

  The front door opened and Eddie came out and met us at the top of the steps. I glanced up and saw another security camera. Red Hair trotted up the stairs and whispered something in Eddie’s ear. He was telling him I hadn’t handed over my gun.

  Eddie dismissed the troops with a nod and they faded away. Eddie wasn’t worried that I was tooled up. He still thought I was playing along. Above us, in the wet grey sky, crows tossed and fell and screeched, like they were crying out something to me, a warning maybe.

  ‘Welcome to the country,’ Eddie said. ‘Like it?’

  He smiled at me, but there was something forced about it.

  ‘Should I?’

  ‘People do, you know. They come out here for holidays.’ He nodded over his shoulder at the building. ‘Vic paid three mill for this pad. What do you think of it?’

  ‘Ugly. Dunham should feel at home.’

  He laughed. I wondered why.

  He led me into a hall
that was bigger than my old flat. The ceiling was twenty feet up and the staircase contained enough marble to build another house. The place was full of antique furniture and old oil paintings and stuff like that. All very expensive and tasteful. Dunham was trying hard to forget who he was and how he’d managed to pay for everything.

  We wandered through the hall and then through a door and into a living room. The room was too large. Only a corner of it was used. There, a TV was on. A kid’s cartoon was playing. A woman sat in a large chair, half facing us. Her legs were crossed, a glass of something colourless in her hand, a magazine on her lap. On a small side-table a cigarette burned in an ashtray.

  Her light hair was pulled tightly away from her face. Her cheekbones were strong, her eyes were large, her nose was straight. She was good looking, and she looked like she’d never smiled in her life. Eddie glanced over at her. She sipped her drink and turned the page of her magazine. Her actions were too well timed, and I knew she knew Eddie was looking at her, and he knew she knew it. Everyone knew everything. We were all so fucking smart, all so cool.

  Facing the TV was a huge white sofa. A small blonde girl was perched on the edge of it, lost in its size. She kicked her legs as the cartoon characters ran around. I remembered the photo in Dunham’s office. There’d been a picture of Eddie and a girl, taken in a country garden, which, I supposed had been here. The woman ignored us as we passed, but the girl looked up for a moment. Eddie waved. She smiled and waved back. Then she saw me. She stopped kicking the sofa. Her hand fell.

  At the far end of the room was another door, solid oak, half a foot thick. We went through this and into a library. The walls were lined with leather-bound books. There was a heavy desk at the far end and beyond that a window overlooking the garden. Two leather seats were this side of the desk. Eddie pointed to one of the leather seats. I sat. He sat. We waited. We looked like we were waiting for the headmaster. Eddie crossed his legs, then uncrossed them, then stood and walked over to the window. I saw his eyes glaze over for a moment as he looked out of the window at the garden. Then we heard a door close and Eddie blinked.