Long Way Home (38 page)

The front door slammed shut.

‘This place would be perfect for you,’ Zigic said meeting Ferreira in the living room.

‘Don’t you start.’

‘Are you going to see that apartment on the park?’

‘He wishes.’ She moved to the window. ‘Stunning views . . . of the electricity substation and the railway line.’

Zigic went into the bedroom.

There were women’s clothes thrown all over the double bed, some folded, most not, and a nylon holdall half packed already. The air smelled of perfume, sickly and vanilla-tinged.

‘Someone’s getting ready to bolt.’

‘Looks like they got disturbed,’ Ferreira said, going into the bathroom across the hall.

Zigic opened the bedside drawers, found hand cream and lube, a box of condoms and a hairbrush with congested teeth.

‘Why wasn’t he living at the Knarrs End site?’ Ferreira said, her voice echoing against the tiled walls. ‘Don’t gypsies tend to stick close?’

‘Some of them move into houses.’

The rail in the pine wardrobe was mostly empty, just a few shirts and pairs of jeans pushed up hard on the left-hand side, trainers underneath and a pair of brown suede desert boots. Clothes for Hudson’s second life.

He wasn’t just a van driver on eight pound an hour. That was a convenient lie to tell his wife and stop her asking for more money.

But what was he?

He was a charred corpse in a tray at City Hospital. Murdered in a shed whose regular occupant was now missing and with a girlfriend getting set to do a runner.

Where did the Stepulov brothers fit in this mess? Zigic thought, looking at the clothes strewn across the bed, white jeans and little vests with spangly fronts, short black skirts, sheer blouses, bras and stockings and thongs with swirling diamanté motifs.

There was only one good reason for her to run and that was guilt.

Ferreira came out of the bathroom holding a bottle of ink-blue nail varnish, a smile on her face.

‘I know someone who wears this.’

‘A lot of women wear it, don’t they?’

‘This one works at Maloney’s and knew the Stepulovs,’ Ferreira said. ‘And last time I saw her I’m pretty sure she was wearing those tragic hooker-heels over there.’

In the lift Zigic gave Ferreira his car keys. The ache in his chest had spread to his shoulders and upper arms, something he’d been warned about but he didn’t expect it to come on so swift and hard. He dry-swallowed another codeine and told her to put her foot down.

When they reached Maloney’s the man himself was nowhere to be seen. Two old Irish guys with nicotine-stained hair were playing dominoes at his usual table and when they enquired from the woman behind the bar she said Maloney had gone to see a man about a dog, the words spoken straight, as if she didn’t know they were a euphemism.

Emilia Koppel wasn’t there either, called in sick that morning.

Outside again Ferreira asked what he wanted to do and Zigic braced his hands against the roof of the car, remembering the young woman now, serving behind the bar when they caught up with Tomas Raadik, remembered her blue nails and her child’s face and cursed himself for not reading her reaction at the time. She’d lingered and listened, as she swept up the broken glass, and he took it for the usual ghoulish interest, but now he knew better and she might have slipped through their fingers already.

He straightened slowly, the ache beginning to pound, and pushed the negative thoughts aside.

‘Have a car stationed outside her flat. She’s got to go back sometime.’

ANDY HUDSON’S BOARD
showed a mess of activity when Zigic got back to the office. Within three hours lines of inquiry had been uncovered and dismissed, nothing from the CCTV at the bus terminal or the train station but they were still waiting on passenger records from the local airports. It was unlikely Jaan Stepulov would flee by plane. That took resources Zigic doubted the man had.

But if Stepulov flew at least he would have used his passport and they would get a destination. Even if they were forced to extradite him – even if Zigic had to go to Tallinn and drag him back by the scruff of his neck – they would have their man at last. Witness or suspect, they would have him.

He took a red marker pen from the ledge at the bottom of the board and added Emilia Koppel to the witness column, debated for a moment and added her to the suspects one too. The logistics made it unlikely but the connection to the Stepulov brothers meant she was a possible accomplice.

‘We’ve cross-checked against Hudson’s mobile logs,’ Wahlia said, coming to the board. ‘Whoever Jaan Stepulov’s late-night caller was, they were also in frequent contact with Hudson and there’re a couple of calls a week to Maloney’s.’

‘So it has to be her calling Jaan.’

‘Looks like it.’ Wahlia unwrapped a stick of gum and folded it into his mouth. ‘Good old-fashioned love triangle, you think?’

‘Stepulov was old enough to be her father.’

‘Some girls don’t mind that,’ Ferreira said, chipping in from across the office.

‘Usually there’s a financial component.’

Wahlia shrugged. ‘Maybe she was just homesick. It’s nice to hear a familiar accent when you’re miles away from where you want to be.’

Zigic turned the idea around. Hudson sets Emilia up in a swanky flat on Rivergate, buys her clothes, pays her bills . . . and she gets involved with a homeless man twice her age? It didn’t sound right. Hudson was her way out of prostitution, if that’s what she wanted from him, why would she jeopardise what little security she had?

Hudson was obviously more than an occasional visitor too. From the way the flat was set up and the details his wife had given them, it looked certain he lived there during the week. They slept next to each other, woke up together, ate breakfast, watched TV. Emilia was more girlfriend than mistress.

Zigic went over to Viktor Stepulov’s board.

Andy Hudson was alone in the suspects column, staring out across the clatter and hum of the office with a hard expression.

Hudson kills Viktor. Jaan kills Hudson.

It was very neat.

‘Mel, is Barlow’s solicitor here yet?’

‘No.’ She came over and put a mug in his hand. ‘Must be held up in court or something. Way she’s going we’re never going to get to question him.’

Zigic moved away towards Andy Hudson’s board.

‘Do you still fancy Phil for it?’

‘He didn’t know Hudson was inside instead of Jaan. So, yeah.’

‘If Jaan’s innocent he should have come forward.’

‘He’s probably scared of being falsely accused,’ she said, going back to her desk where a half-eaten sandwich was waiting. ‘In his position I’d run, wouldn’t you?’

‘No.’

‘Liar.’ She took a mouthful of her sandwich, said, ‘Any money you like, Barlow’s the one.’

‘Even though Hudson and Jaan were seeing the same woman?’

‘Yeah.’

Zigic threw his hand up in exasperation. ‘You can’t bend the evidence to suit your prejudices, Mel.’

‘I’m not prejudiced,’ she said sharply. ‘The Barlows wanted rid of Stepulov, they had the opportunity and they took it. Then Phil paid off Renfrew when he threatened to make trouble for him. Innocent people don’t do that.’

‘They do if they’re scared.’

‘They should be scared.’ She dumped the rest of her sandwich in the bin. ‘For all we know they killed Jaan as well. Maybe he saw Phil torch the shed and he killed him to stop him talking. Did you think of that?’

Zigic took a mouthful of his coffee, tasting tobacco from her fingers on the rim of the cup. He had thought of that, briefly, and dismissed it as outlandish.

He still wasn’t convinced Phil had it in him to set fire to the shed, definitely couldn’t see him squaring up to a man in the open, killing him with whatever means he had to hand, then having the necessary cool to dispose of a body. And doing all of that between his neighbour raising the alarm and the fire engine arriving. It was logistically impossible never mind outlandish.

‘Aren’t you supposed to be somewhere, Mel?’ She gave him a blank look. ‘Mrs Stepulov should be home by now. Good news, remember?’

His mobile vibrated in his pocket and when he checked it he found a text from Anna reminding him it was time for a painkiller. She was right. He swallowed another codeine and went up to CID, took the stairs at a jog just to prove to himself that he wasn’t completely crocked.

The office was deserted, a couple of uniformed officers manning desks to filter the information coming in from the field teams out taking witness statements from the Gavins’ ‘workers’ and the ones still searching the site at Knarrs End Drove. He went over to the whiteboard where Paolo Perez’s shooting was plotted out; everything enviably neat there.

Another board was pushed close to it, detailing the developing case against the Gavins for kidnapping and exploitation. The names in the victims column read like the guest list of an EU summit, thirty-two men all with families wondering why they had fallen out of contact. Some would have moved on, abandoned them for dead, and he guessed a few of the homecomings wouldn’t be the joyful occasions the men were expecting.

Next to that a third board showed the embryonic investigation into Xin Gao’s murder. His body had been disinterred already and Zigic grimaced at the photographs of his crushed torso and the chemical burns from the concrete which distorted his face. His mouth was open, packed with cement.

Adams came out of his office to shout at one of the uniforms, wanting to know where ‘that facking ballistics report’ was.

He looked frazzled, shirtsleeves folded back and his face lit with nervous energy.

‘Aren’t you supposed to be convalescing, Ziggy?’

‘I’m recovered.’

‘You’re tough stock,’ Adams said. He clicked his fingers at the uniform, who was sitting watching them. ‘Jump to it then, I’ve not got all day.’

She picked up the phone on her desk and started to dial.

‘What about you?’ Zigic asked.

Adams made a dismissive gesture. ‘Part of the job, isn’t it?’

But it wasn’t and Zigic remembered the panic in Adams’s voice as he came round on the barn floor, remembered how his fingers were shaking as they probed at his neck for a pulse and how he walked away to throw up in the shadows a few minutes later.

‘As long as I don’t get charged, who gives a fuck? One less Kelvin Gavin on the planet . . .’ Adams crossed his arms. ‘Anyway, what’s up?’

‘I need to talk to your suspects,’ Zigic said.

‘Yeah, good luck with that.’

‘No joy?’

‘They’re denying everything right now. Can’t get one of the fuckers to crack.’ He opened a blue patisserie box and picked out a chocolate-covered doughnut. ‘That’s the problem with these tinks, they’re all related so they never break rank. On top of that a couple of the workers are denying they were held there against their will. They’re fucking terrified what’ll happen if they speak out now. God knows what they’ve been threatened with.’ Adams shoved the rest of the doughnut in his mouth, licked chocolate off his thumb. ‘What do you need them for?’

‘We’ve just got the DNA results back from the shed fire,’ Zigic said.

‘And it’s not your man Stepulov?’

‘It’s Andy Hudson. We think he was working for the Gavins.’

‘Small world.’

‘Minuscule.’

‘Well, you’re welcome to try,’ Adams said. ‘But I wouldn’t expect too much. You want some advice, I’d say go for Marie, she’s been the mouthiest of the lot.’

‘Does she know what’s happened to Kelvin?’

‘No. And don’t you say anything. We’ll get fuck all from her once that’s out.’

‘You want to sit in?’

‘Might as well,’ Adams said.

Marie Gavin was still wearing the pink satin pyjamas she had on when she was arrested and a pair of Ugg boots trod down at the heels and crusted with dirt from the yard. She was younger than Zigic had thought, a badly weathered thirty, with coarse skin and dark rings under her hazel eyes. It was a tough life they lived. Not as tough as the one their workers endured but it left marks which no amount of hair dye and make-up could cover. She had four kids, all in care, and Ray Gavin was her second husband, the older brother of her first, who’d been killed in Littlehey while he was serving fifteen years for a double murder during a post office robbery.

Zigic would have felt sorry for her if he didn’t know better.

‘I told him already,’ she said, pointing one French-manicured finger at Adams. ‘I’m saying nothing.’

‘Take a seat please, Mrs Gavin.’

She trudged over to the table and sat down.

‘Can I get you anything? Cup of tea?’

‘Don’t fucking bother.’

Adams pulled out the seat next to the wall and set up the tapes. Marie Gavin watched him with a expression of pure contempt and Zigic wondered if he’d made a misjudgement bringing him in. They’d been in here together for hours already, banging heads, so she’d arrived on the defensive.

‘Do you want your solicitor?’ Zigic asked.

‘Don’t need him. I’ve said all I’m going to.’

‘Just say if you change your mind.’

She smiled, thin lips drawing back from bleached teeth.

‘You must think I’m a fucking idiot.’

Zigic opened the file he’d brought in with him and took out a photograph of Jaan Stepulov.

‘Do you know this man, Mrs Gavin?’

‘Are you retarded? I told you, I’m saying nothing.’

‘Then listen,’ Zigic said. ‘We believe this man is responsible for the murder of your friend Andy Hudson. He beat him unconscious, then he locked him in a shed and set fire to it.’ His words hung in the air for a moment. ‘Did you know he was dead?’

‘We’re not close.’

Her eyes dropped to the photograph and Zigic went on.

‘Look, I don’t care what you were doing with those blokes on your site. From what I hear most of them were happy enough with the situation – that’s not my problem – but I want to know why this Stepulov went after Andy and I want to arrest him. So if you know where he is –’

‘I’ve never seen him before in my life.’

‘He wasn’t working for you?’

‘I just said, didn’t I?’

‘When did you last see Andy?’