The Blood Whisperer (39 page)

“No-one,” she said. “Just a friend. She died—somebody beat her to death. ‘Occupational hazard’ was how your lot described it to me. Jesus, her own mother wouldn’t have known her after what they did.”

“In a little hotel near Euston station,” Kelly supplied, the memory reaching forwards to wrap itself clingingly around her. “They tortured her and left her body in the bathtub.” And when Erin glanced at her, alarm spiking, she added, “I wasn’t always on the run Erin. I worked that case. If it helps, I never stopped looking for answers.”

Erin sat up abruptly, glared at her with eyes that had begun to redden. “No! No, it doesn’t
help.
You just don’t get it do you? The more you people poked into it, the more Callum got the idea into his head that there was a cover-up going on.”

Confused by her vehemence, Kelly said, “I think he was right.”

She’d aimed to calm her but had the opposite effect. Erin shot to her feet, scraping her chair back, paced over to the sink and turned to lean against it, restless. She had bunions on both feet, Kelly noticed, the big toe squashed over into the others. A throwback deformity from all that time spent loitering in killer heels.

“He
was
right—that was the whole point. But Callum decided it was a good way to make some easy money. Bonus pay he called it, so I could get out of the game—especially . . .”

“With a baby on the way,” Kelly finished for her.

Erin’s eyes dulled down, lost some of their fire. “Yes,” she whispered. She looked at the fridge directly across from her with its coat of artwork. Some of the pictures had ‘For Mummy’ across the bottom in an uneven childish hand.

Not ‘For Mummy and Daddy’ then . . .

“He didn’t understand who he was dealing with—not regular punters who could be squeezed for cash so their wives didn’t find out. These were people further up the food chain. People with influence and more to lose.”

“They wouldn’t pay him to go away,” Kelly guessed. “Because they couldn’t afford to have him keep coming back.”

Erin shook her head, her face screwed up with the memory. “It all got turned around on him somehow, so instead of Callum having something over them,
they
had something over him. He was so scared. And then . . . he was dead.”

Kelly watched her rock silently for a minute, then asked carefully, “Who’s ‘they’, Erin?”

“Callum always swore there was some shady Mr Big lurking in the background but I only know one—one of yours,” she said, bitterness creeping in now. “A copper. Who else could arrange to have him killed like that—as an example to the rest of us?”

“Who?”

She hesitated as if even now the threat lingered, distant but no less disturbing. “Allardice,” she said at last. “Detective Chief Inspector Allardice.”

No surprises there then.

“And he’s the one who threatened you—and Jade?”

“Always was a cold-blooded bastard,” Erin said. “I mean, who else would take down one of their own to get rid of Callum?”

Somewhere deep down it was the name Kelly had been expecting but it still hit her with a jolt to hear it out loud. Maybe that was why it took her a moment to catch up with the significance of the rest of it. “You
knew
?” she demanded. “You knew I was set up?”

Erin nodded. “Callum was coming to you because he thought you might actually
do
something with what he had, even if he daren’t do it himself. He thought you were on the level. He thought he could trust you.”

It was Kelly’s turn for silence. Relief warred with outright bloody anger that yet another person had
known
she wasn’t a murderer and had done nothing about it.

She was a junkie hooker with a kid on the way,
argued her reasonable half.
What
could
she have done? Who would have taken her seriously?

“Allardice is gone,” she said. “Retired. I don’t even think he’s in the country anymore.”

Erin gave her a cynical glance by way of response. “Gone, huh? Well he was here a few days ago, trust me. Large as life and definitely twice as ugly.”

“What—here in your flat?”

“No, even he wouldn’t go that far,” Erin conceded. “He turned up outside Jade’s school when I went to collect her.” She shivered, wrapped the towelling robe a little tighter. “Just to let me know he could still get me any time he liked. To remind me to keep my mouth shut. So—you were never here and I never spoke to you, right?” Her mouth gave a twist that might have been intended as wry but came across bitter. “Sorry, but I’ve got my daughter to think about . . .”

“I understand.”

Kelly pushed back her chair and rose, suddenly needing to be out of the suffocating little flat where Erin had burrowed with her child—knowing it wasn’t entirely safe but staying anyway.

As she passed on the way to the back door with its easy-pick lock and no inside bolt, she paused, waited until Erin looked at her.

“I didn’t kill him but I’m very sorry,” Kelly said softly, “for everything that happened.”

An expression of stubbornness settled across the younger woman’s features. “You made him think he could get something out of it. It was like waving a bottle of drink at an alcoholic,” she said. “You might not have put the knife in yourself but you put temptation in his way and he . . . couldn’t resist it.”

O’Neill had let Dempsey drive to Reading, reckoning the DC was still young enough to enjoy a fast run along the M4. It was late by the time they left London and traffic on the motorway was sparse.

Before they hit the road, O’Neill had pulled together what they knew about Brian Stubbs. It came to the sum total of not a lot. Name, age, profession, marital status (divorced, no kids), immediate family and address. Apart from a couple of brushes for drink-related affray offences—for which Grogan’s slimy brief had successfully argued extenuating circumstances—it seemed Stubbs slept with a clear conscience.

How he’d sleep from here on in was anybody’s guess. And, if the state of the man who was led into the interview room was anything to go by, things were unravelling for him pretty fast.

Even after spending a relatively short time in the cells, Stubbs was dishevelled and off balance. O’Neill had been told he’d refused legal representation and found that intriguing. Like he didn’t want anyone to know.

Now the vet peered past the accompanying uniform as if fearful they’d called his brief anyway. When he caught sight of O’Neill and Dempsey sitting waiting for him, his relief was obvious.

O’Neill let Dempsey go through the introductions and formalities, leaving him to observe the shaky hands and bloodshot eyes on the other side of the table. He knew at once what lay behind them.

“Like something to drink Mr Stubbs?” O’Neill offered, and noted the man’s twitch of confirmation. “Tea or coffee perhaps?” he went on blandly. “I believe the machine here even makes a creditable stab at hot chocolate, if that’s your poison?”

Stubbs let his head hang, shook it once. “No—thank you,” he mumbled. A residue of good manners.

“All right,” Dempsey said bright and brisk. “I understand you have some information that may be relevant to our current enquiries, sir?”

It took Stubbs a moment to gather himself. He took a deep breath that appeared to reinflate his sense of self-importance.

“I need some assurances,” he said. “A deal—freedom from prosecution.”

Dempsey glanced at O’Neill. “Sir, we can’t make those kinds of promises without knowing how you’re involved in, whatever it is—”

“Involved?” Stubbs seemed outraged. “Of course I’m not
involved.
I barely know the man.”

O’Neill sighed. “So what exactly are you hoping for immunity from?”

Stubbs cleared his throat. “The, erm, unfortunate incident this afternoon,” he said rubbing a hand around his neck as if hoping to massage away the flush that was rapidly forming. “With my car.”

“Want us to fix any parking tickets or speeding fines while we’re at it?” O’Neill asked with deceptive mildness.

“You can do that?”

O’Neill cursed inside his head, exchanged a fleeting look with Dempsey that told him his DC was thinking along much the same lines.

Waster.

“Mr Stubbs. You knocked down a little old lady in broad daylight with almost three times the legal limit of alcohol in your bloodstream,” O’Neill said pushing his chair back and getting to his feet. “We could practically bottle the sample you gave us.”

Dempsey followed his lead and rose also, but before the two of them could step away from the table Stubbs blurted out, “Explosives!”

Both detectives froze.

If Stubbs had been asked to pick one word in these terrorism-heightened times guaranteed to grab a copper’s attention, O’Neill considered that was probably pretty much at the top of the list.

“What kind, what quantity, and where?” he rapped out.

Stubbs floundered for a moment, drew himself together. “And what about my deal?”

O’Neill leaned into him across the table, resting on his knuckles and jamming his face up close. “Mr Stubbs, I am half a beat away from arresting you under the Prevention of Terrorism Act unless you tell me what you know. Right now.”

Stubbs flinched back from the controlled venom, his darting eyes searching for an escape route.

His gaze fixed on Dempsey who did not provide one. “This is not just about losing your licence anymore, sir,” he said. “This is serious jail time.”

“All right, all right,” Stubbs muttered, scowling. “Here I am, trying to do my bit and what do I get but—”

O’Neill straightened to his full height slowly enough for it to be a threat, let his voice simmer. “What kind of explosives, Mr Stubbs?”

“I don’t know—I’m hardly an expert am I?”

“So how do you know about any of this?”

Stubbs hesitated. “Look, I happen to, erm . . . know a chap who does a bit of demolition—blows up tree stumps, that kind of thing. All perfectly legal of course. So when another chap asked me if I knew where he could get hold of some explosives I simply . . . made the introductions that’s all.” He tried an ingratiating smile.

“Who was buying and who was selling?”

“I’d really rather not name the seller if you don’t mind. It’s not really relevant anyway is it?”

O’Neill dredged through the facts of the report he’d read before they set out. “Probably not,” he said mildly. “I seem to remember that you have a brother who does a bit of land clearance though, don’t you? Maybe we ought to have a little chat with him.”

He could tell by the way Stubbs sagged that he’d guessed correctly. “And the buyer?” he nudged.

“Look, this could put me in a very awkward position—”

“You’re not a stupid man Mr Stubbs,” O’Neill cut in, a trace of doubt in his voice. “You must have known you were going to have to tell us the details.”

He saw the indecision. Stubbs had not thought any of this out, he realised and was just lurching from one crisis to the next. O’Neill’s object was to keep him teetering until he fell just the way they wanted him.

“You’re only doing your duty, sir,” Dempsey added. “I’m sure it will look good to the judge when your driving offence comes to court.”

“Harry Grogan,” Stubbs mumbled. Dempsey met O’Neill’s look and raised his eyebrows. O’Neill shrugged in reply. Stubbs, with his gaze averted, missed the exchange.

“Why would a respectable businessman like Harry Grogan want explosives?”

“The man’s a crook—a gangster!” Stubbs protested.

O’Neill shook his head. “Not in the eyes of the law he’s not. Clean as a whistle. Of course if we had a witness who would testify to his personally obtaining explosives that might all change.”

“Ah well, it wasn’t Grogan himself you understand. A man like him doesn’t get his hands dirty does he? I mean—”

“Who was it then sir?”

“One of Harry Grogan’s bodyguards—Russian chap called Dmitry although strictly speaking I believe he’s perhaps Ukrainian. Nasty piece of work either way,” Stubbs said. “Dmitry is usually the one who relays Mr Grogan’s orders or instructions. Turns up at my house, lets himself in like he owns the place!” He throttled back his indignation. “I assumed this time was no different.”

O’Neill felt Dempsey glance at him again but refused to let Stubbs know the importance of what he’d just said. “Dmitry have a last name?”

The vet shrugged. “Something totally unpronounceable. They all are in that part of the world aren’t they?”

“I don’t suppose this Dmitry mentioned what his boss wanted the explosives
for
by any chance?”

Stubbs shook his head. “I didn’t ask. I’ve worked for Harry Grogan for long enough to know one doesn’t question his orders.” He gave a weary smile, more genuine this time. “If I’d done so this afternoon—refused to turn out to see his damned precious colt before the big race tomorrow—I wouldn’t be in my current predicament.”

That, O’Neill thought, was a matter of opinion. But aloud he said, “So, if your only contact was with Dmitry, you can’t actually say for definite that it was Grogan who wanted the stuff?”

Stubbs looked astounded. “Who else would it be for?”

Back in his cell an hour later, Brian Stubbs still felt shell-shocked by the whole experience.

He was not, as the older of the two detectives had pointed out, a stupid man, but he recognised that he’d been woefully naïve. He’d thought he could dangle a few little titbits and have them turn him loose. Now he was in it up to his neck. Worse in fact than when he’d started.

Stubbs slumped onto the thin mattress and raked both hands through his unkempt grey hair.

“Why couldn’t you have simply kept your big mouth shut?” he wailed in the empty room.

Unsurprisingly, he got no answer.

They’d made him go over and over it, about how he’d arrived home one day a week or so ago to find Dmitry had somehow broken in and was lounging in
his
armchair, drinking
his
booze with that smug, arrogant look on his face. The trouble was, Stubbs was frightened of him and Dmitry knew it.