Bad Blood (18 page)

A thin light woke him. That and the cold. Riley shivered and pushed himself deeper into the mound of straw he’d rucked up over in one corner of the stable.

Two weeks in the Caribbean? Nah, mate. Decided against it. Too much hassle, too much money. Better to stay here and enjoy the local hospitality. What did they call that type of holiday? Stay-fucking-cation?

The little joke caused a strange sense of calm to come over him for a moment. It took a few seconds before he realised the feeling was probably down to hypothermia. The effects of the cold and a lack of food and sleep were causing his brain to malfunction. There would, he thought, be some sort of weird justice if he died from exposure before his captors could get anything out of him.

The straw didn’t seem to have helped much and the cold seeped deep into his body. His head had stopped throbbing, but his chest and shoulder hurt like hell. Broken rib, most likely, collarbone possibly. Riley decided on another tactic, rolled over and struggled to stand, his hands still handcuffed behind his back. He began to pace around the stable, feeling his heart rate quicken and some warmth begin to build beneath his thin clothing.

He’d been walking around for about ten minutes when somewhere outside a dog began barking, a deep throaty bark which sounded like it belonged to Cerberus or worse. Then there was a clatter from the door. A jangle of a chain and a couple of bolts sliding back top and bottom. Riley stumbled out of the way and fell against the wall as the door swung open. Behind the door a strip light on the ceiling glared white, silhouetting the tall and lanky figure standing there. In his right hand the man held some sort of pistol.

‘Turn around. Kneel over there.’ The voice was as thin as the man. Nasal. He gestured towards the centre of the stable with the gun. Riley hesitated, but the man nodded down at his left hand. Riley saw a key dangling from a finger.

He did as instructed, facing away from the door and kneeling in the straw. The man shuffled in, and the next thing he knew the gun was up against the back of his head, pushing down hard. Riley bent over, his face down in the muck.

‘Fucking pig. Had it my way, we’d blow your brains out now.’

Riley tilted his head a little and caught sight of another man standing in the doorway. This one wore a balaclava. He held a bag of bread in one hand and he muttered something Riley didn’t catch. Something in Spanish. The gun pressed harder as the first man fiddled with the cuffs. Riley kept still until they jingled to the ground and the man stepped away. Riley rolled over on his side and then pushed himself into a sitting position. The thin man walked across and took the bag of bread. There was a rustle and then slices were raining down all round.

‘Enjoy the meal,’ the man said. ‘It might be your last.’

The pair retreated and pulled the door shut. The same sound of bolts and chain and then the men retreating.

Riley gathered up the slices of bread and wolfed down a couple of pieces, washing the food down with some water from the trough. He rubbed his wrists and stretched his arms, trying to ease the aching. As he stretched out, the pain shot through his shoulder and he sank to the floor, cursing. He pulled straw over his body and settled down again, munching another slice and thinking on the identities of the fast-food delivery boys.

Who the thin man was, Riley had no idea. He didn’t recognise him from the old haunts up in London, nor was he among the known criminal fraternity of Plymouth. The other man was nameless too, but the holes in the ski mask had revealed olive-brown skin and white teeth grinning. Then there was the accent.

A South American.

Which was when he knew was really stuffed.

Before he had time to think on it, a throaty growl from outside had him scrabbling across the straw to peer through the airbrick. The Porsche firing up. The car’s wheels spat gravel, the little stones clattering against the stable wall like a hail of machine gun bullets. As the vehicle sped away across the yard Riley could just make out the figure in the front: a short and bulky man with a squashed face. Riley remembered the man’s golden grin from the other night and from when he had encountered him back in London. Something like a Halloween pumpkin, only twice as frightening. The last thing Riley saw before he turned away from the airbrick was that black and white scarf on the rear shelf again. The man was crazy about Newcastle United.

Riley slumped back in the straw, his head clearer, things beginning to make sense. This
was
about
Sternway
. Partly, anyway. The South Americans had come for the drugs. Pumpkin head too. Some sort of deal between them. Somehow they’d got wind of the shipment and decided they wanted some of the action. No, Riley thought, they probably wanted
all
of the action. Kenny Fallon might be a big fish in the small pond that was Plymouth, but he was small fry really and they’d find a way to deal with him easily enough. Which could, Riley thought, be one of the reasons they’d snatched him. But only one. He felt the chill creep across his back, the stones cold through his clothing, the fear prickling like icicles too.

Christianity was big in South America, but he guessed these guys weren’t much into forgiveness. Neither was Pumpkin head. They’d be wanting to pay him back for what happened up in London and an apology wouldn’t be enough. He had little to bargain with either: a name, a bit of inside information, some knowledge of police tactics. He didn’t think it would be worth much.

He sighed, remembering his grandfather, a wise old man who’d looked aghast when Riley had told him he was joining the police. Trouble, he reckoned. Yes, Riley thought, there’d been trouble over the years, but nothing like this. The old man had been dead a while now, but Riley recalled with fondness the evenings spent together: cans of Red Stripe and games of liar dice, his grandfather grinning as Riley made some wild bid. ‘Darius,’ he would say. ‘You lying. Washed out. I’ve got the aces and you ain’t got shit under that cup. Nothing, I reckon, but a bag of bones.’

More often than not, Riley thought, his grandfather had been spot on.

Hardin’s bulk blocked the window of his office and Savage was tempted to reach for the light switch to supplement the daylight edging round the DSupt. He’d been standing there for a good couple of minutes, not saying anything, just staring down into the car park as if at any moment Kenny Fallon might appear from the back of a police van, head bowed, cuffs on, guilty plea at the ready.

‘Bollocks,’ Hardin said finally. ‘This leaves us up the brown creek without even a teaspoon as a paddle. We’ll be using our hands next.’ He grimaced at his own metaphor as he turned around, slumped into his chair and reached for his mouse.

Savage often wondered if the mouse and the plethora of spreadsheets, charts and to-do lists which shimmered on Hardin’s screen weren’t a sort of comfort blanket for the Superintendent. While he clicked and deleted and dragged and dropped he felt he was doing something. His actions were a way of coping with the situation. Right now he clicked once and then pushed the mouse away in disgust.

‘Problems, Charlotte, problems.’

‘Yes, sir. Redmond.’ Savage looked down at her notebook where she had jotted down what the inquiry teams knew so far. ‘From what we can tell he was drinking at a bar in town with a work colleague. They parted at around midnight, Redmond saying he was going to walk back to Tamar Yachts where he’d left his car. Someone obviously intercepted him on the way there.’

‘Witnesses?’

‘None so far, and to be honest I’m not holding out much hope. A little street fracas is not unusual for that area. Must be several every night. Once Redmond had run or been dragged into the stairwell he was out of sight, and there’s plenty of traffic noise on Western Approach to conceal the sound of somebody getting a beating.’

‘Well the whole thing is a bloody mess. If Redmond is mixed up in this paedophile business with Owers then it’s rotten luck for
Sternway
. You think he could be? Killed by the same person or persons who did for Owers?’

‘Doesn’t make much sense, sir, but we’ve got to assume the killer is one and the same.’

‘I can feel Fallon slipping through our grasp. We’re going to have to put people into Tamar Yachts now. Detectives all over the place, rooting around, digging up all sorts of stuff, investigating Redmond’s background. Fallon is going to keep a country-mile clear.
Sternway
is sunk.’

‘With respect, sir, do we need to go anywhere near Tamar? The weird black and white markings we keep to ourselves, but the media will go with whatever else we feed them. So far they are lapping up the vigilante angle.’

‘So Redmond was what … in the wrong place at the wrong time?’

‘Something like that: “As far as we are aware Mr Redmond had no connection to anything related to paedophilia. He did not know Mr Owers and has no criminal record.”’

Hardin chuckled, warming to the task. ‘“This was a cowardly, unprovoked attack on an innocent man and the public can rest assured we are doing everything in our power to blah, blah, blah.”’

‘Outstanding, sir. The Chief Constable had better watch his back.’

‘Quite.’ Hardin smiled for a moment, but the mood dissipated as he made a clucking noise. He shook his head, heaved himself out of his chair and returned to the window, where he tapped on the glass. ‘If only it was as easy as a bit of media PR, smoke and mirrors. Unfortunately there are two problems. One, this might be
Sternway
related, on account of the drugs found with Mr Owers and the powder on Redmond’s face, although I can’t for the life of me see how Owers was involved, unless it’s on the accountancy side of things. He’s certainly flown beneath our intel radar if that’s the case.’

‘And the girl, sir. Simza Ellis. She’s dug up Monday, Owers is killed a couple of days later and then last night Redmond gets it. There’s some connection linking them. Too much of a coincidence.’

‘You mean …?’ Hardin’s eyes narrowed, not quite understanding.

‘Somebody called the builders in to dig up the patio at Lester Close. Whoever did that knew Simza was buried there. The timing, considering the conclusion of the drugs op, seems planned to me.’

‘You’re right.
Sternway
.’ Hardin reached up to scratch his forehead. ‘Which brings me to the second problem. With Redmond gone we have a major issue regarding the coming delivery.’

‘You don’t think Fallon can find someone else to make the pickup? Can’t be that difficult.’

‘Yes, possibly.’

‘Sorry, sir. I don’t see the issue. Fallon sets up alternative arrangements and collects the drugs. The snitch tells us when and where. We nab him. Simple.’

‘Life isn’t though, is it? Simple. How are we going to know the “when” and “where”?’

‘Like I said, the snitch.’ Savage paused. ‘Sir, are you OK?’

‘No.’ Hardin turned away from the window, shaking his head again. ‘Redmond is dead, isn’t he?’

‘
Redmond
was our informant?’

‘As I said before, Charlotte, shit creek.’

After her meeting with Hardin, Savage returned to the incident room. The clocked ticked up to nine as she entered, but everyone was already at work, despite it being a Saturday. The news that
Corulus
possibly
had another body to deal with had brought a new urgency to the investigation, and a number of officers who Savage usually rated as slackers, sat hunched at their desks, fingers clattering over keyboards as if their lives depended on cracking the case.

‘Redmond is the owner of Tamar Yachts, ma’am,’ Enders said, telling Savage what she already knew. ‘Me and DS Riley interviewed him before Christmas. Now he’s dead. Strange world.’

‘Obviously decided to top himself,’ Calter said. ‘Most people would after meeting you.’

‘Funny girl.’ Enders stuck his tongue out of one side of his mouth and continued speaking with it hanging out. ‘Not funny ha-ha. Funny peculiar, demented, dribbling.’

‘You should know.’

Savage moved away and over to DS Collier. The office manager was trying to organise something from the chaos. He had set up a further three whiteboards: a central board and, on either side, one for each victim.

‘Interfaces, ma’am,’ Collier said, itching his crew-cut hair with one hand, a big fat marker pen in the other. ‘I’ve split us into two teams initially, one for each killing. Each team will suggest, find and – if possible – eliminate, links between the two victims. They’ll be sticking any suggestions they can’t eliminate at the edge of the centre board. We can analyse everything on the board and draw connections between various nodes. I’ve told them I want every node covered, even if the lead is something that at first sight appears innocent. All the information is on the system as well of course, but I think this will help officers to visualise the arcs of probability.’

‘Hmm. Yes.’ Savage didn’t know what on earth Collier was going on about, but she remembered he’d been on a training course a month or two ago. He was probably hoping Hardin would breeze by, note the new set up, and return to his office to tick a couple of boxes. The trouble was, at the moment the centre board was empty apart from three pink Post-its. One had the word ‘cocaine’ on, the second ‘black and white’ and the third ‘supermarket’.

‘Aldi,’ Collier said. ‘If we confirm the connection we will write it on the board.’

She moved closer and saw the scrawl of pen had a question mark at the end. So much for arcs of probability.

‘Owers shopped at his local one,’ Collier said, noting the frown on Savage’s face. ‘We found a stash of carriers at his place and Redmond had some receipts in his wallet. The branch is close to Tamar Yachts so it would only be natural for Redmond to drop in there on the way back from work.’

Savage nodded, wondering what Hardin would say if he
did
breeze by and she had to explain the only new evidence they had to show for their efforts so far was a preference in supermarkets. Correction, a
possible
preference.

‘Good effort, Gareth, but a word please. Outside.’