The Blood Whisperer (8 page)

“Dedicated,” O’Neill said dryly. “I need to talk to him.”

“Talking
to
him would not be a problem. But if you’re expecting him to talk back you’re out of luck.” Pure stubbornness forbade her to add,
for the moment.

He frowned. “I understood his injuries weren’t that serious.”

Kelly regarded him a moment, bristling.
How crass can one man
be
with only one head?
“Try having a baseball bat or whatever it was taken to
you
with a vengeance and then define ‘serious’ why don’t you?”

“I wasn’t trying to make light of the situation,” he said grimly. “I was told he was conscious at least.”

“He
was,
” she allowed. “But now he isn’t.” Kelly was aware she was out of line.
Way
out of line. But the anger and guilt were welling inside her and he was a convenient target. “I’m afraid this is one occasion where a blue flashing light and a siren will not make things happen any quicker.”

He put his hands on his hips, glancing from Kelly to Tyrone at her shoulder. A smile twisted his lips.

“You two got a problem with authority?” he asked. “Wouldn’t have thought that’s an asset in your line of work.” He paused. “Maybe I should ask you both to turn out your pockets.”

“Maybe you should have ‘just cause’ first,” Kelly shot back.

He sighed, tiring quickly of this game.
Unworthy opponents,
Kelly judged.

“Cut me some slack would you? If not for me then for him.” He nodded towards the room behind her causing a twinge of additional guilt that did not make her like the man any better. “Mr McCarron called us yesterday about something. I’m here simply to check this is not . . . related.”

You and me both.

But even as the thought formed, Kelly noted the careful choice of words.
Mr McCarron
not
Ray
as a friend or former colleague might refer to him. And
called us
rather than
called me.
O’Neill might simply be the one who drew the short straw when it came to follow-up at this time in the morning.

She kept her voice cool as her eyes. “Do you have any reason to suspect it
might
be related, detective inspector?”

He hesitated which was an answer in itself even before he matched his tone to hers. “Not right at this moment, no.”

“What? I mean, this is the Lytton thing, yeah?” Tyrone broke in suddenly, up on the balls of his feet like a boxer. “The boss tells you lot no way it was suicide and then he gets the crap beaten out of him and there’s no connection? That how it works now?”

Kelly struggled not to take an audible breath. Not only that Tyrone had put it all together—her own thoughts and fears—but that he’d voiced them in front of a copper.

O’Neill frowned again, went dangerously still.

“If you take my advice,” he said heavily, “that’s not the kind of speculation you want to be indulging in.”

Kelly recalled Ray’s own words about not turning over rocks because of what might lie beneath.

“Can’t trust anyone …”

She knew she should have backed off then. Backed right off and stayed there but maybe she was just sick and tired of always being on the retreat. Maybe it was time for a reckless stand. She was only partially aware of the tension in her neck as her shoulders went back, head tilting.

“And if we
don’t
want to take your advice?”

O’Neill fixed her with a brutal stare, one there was no way through and no way around.

“I remember you. You’re Kelly Jacks,” he said abruptly, his voice silky enough to send ice through to her bones. “Well, Kelly Jacks, you don’t want to go there.”

Not again.

He didn’t add it but he didn’t need to. Kelly shivered.
Much like Ray,
she thought bleakly,
I get the message.

About the time Kelly Jacks was heading across the river home from the hospital Dmitry was having a leisurely breakfast at South Mimms service station at the junction between the A1(M) and the M25 London orbital.

Whatever its drawbacks his time working for Harry Grogan had taught him to appreciate the finer things in life. The old man had shown real pleasure when Dmitry’s uneducated palate had finally developed enough to distinguish a properly aged steak or a favourable year for a grape.

“If you’re ordering the best you’ve got to
know
you’re getting it and not being ripped off with a cheap substitute,” Grogan had told him. “Don’t trust nobody not to have their hand in the till.”

And he was right. The last waiter who’d taken one look at Dmitry’s longish tangle of hair and leather jacket and decided he wouldn’t be able to tell shit from toothpaste had ended up with both hands rammed repeatedly in the drawer of the cash register. After that word got around.

But now, rather than some high-class restaurant—not that he had any choice here—Dmitry was up sitting at a table by the window in the service station’s open-plan food court.

Western junk food had not been a part of Dmitry’s experience growing up. He had only made the glorious discovery when he first arrived in the UK. Of course he quickly realised that to live on nothing else would be bad for his health but Dmitry was nothing if not a man of utter control. So he treated the occasional greasy burger and extruded potato-starch fries as an indulgence, a reward for good behaviour or a job well done.

Last night’s work he considered qualified as both.

As a compromise he ate slowly, chewing every mouthful and keeping his elbows off the table. He was early and in no hurry. Around him his fellow diners fell on their food with disgusting gusto, stuffing their faces like the pigs they were.

Dmitry allowed nothing of his disdain to show on his features. He didn’t need to. Disdain was an impotent emotion whereas he had the ability and the temperament to beat any one of them to death for no better reason than their table manners offended him.

He sat with his back to the security cameras out of habit although he was confident that his face would not set any alarm bells ringing. He’d always been very careful about that.

The man he’d come to meet however, that was another matter and Dmitry had no wish to come to official attention merely by association.

So he kept a close eye out for the make and colour of vehicle he’d been told to expect and spotted the dark blue Land Rover Defender the moment it swung into the car park.

He glanced at the time display on his iPhone. The man was only a couple of minutes late which—if not exactly pleasing Dmitry—at least did not put him in too black a mood.

Without appearing to hurry he wiped his fingers fastidiously on a paper serviette and strolled out leaving the debris of his meal on the table behind him. Important men did not clear up after themselves—not food wrappers anyway.

Despite the steadily climbing sun there was still a residue of night chill outside which did not encourage people to linger. Nevertheless Dmitry gave the surrounding area a casually thorough survey as he walked across the car park.

He approached the stationary Land Rover from an oblique angle in the blind spot to the rear. When he rapped his knuckles on the side glass the driver started in his seat before opening the window a crack.

“Whatever you’re selling I’m not buying,” he said, his voice abrupt. He was a big man with fleshy jowls and the lacework of thread veins across his cheeks that indicated a lifetime spent outdoors in all weathers. Even through the small opening Dmitry could smell the earthy odour of animals and wet cloth.

He kept his face stony. “It is fortunate then that I am buying.”

But as he stepped back to let the man climb out from behind the wheel Dmitry saw the beginnings of a shift in his expression, the sly calculation blossoming in his eyes.

Like a snake Dmitry launched against the Land Rover door. It cannoned into the big man’s bulk bursting a grunt of pain and surprise from his lips and pinning him there by his shins, half-in half-out.

Dmitry leaned his body weight a little more onto the edge of the door, watching the man’s annoyance turn to fear as his discomfort leapt another notch.

“Your brother vouched for you. We are here to do business my friend,” he said quietly, ladling on the Russian accent because he knew the effect it would have. “Let us not have any . . . unpleasantness that may come back on your family, yes?”

“Y-yes!” the big man said, his voice a gasp as if he daren’t take a breath. “I mean no! No unpleasantness—you have my word on it.”

Dmitry eased back, opened the door wide and gave a mocking bow. “This is good,” he said smiling. “You have the . . . merchandise with you of course.” It was not a question.

If the big man had been thinking of trying to cheat him Dmitry reckoned he was now too unsettled and flustered to follow through. Instead as he slithered down onto the tarmac he clutched the door frame with hands that trembled slightly.

The two of them moved around to the back of the Land Rover and Dmitry waited while the man opened the rear door. As he did so the man glanced round in a way guaranteed to draw attention to the pair had anybody been watching them. Dmitry suppressed a sigh. He hated dealing with amateurs.

“There you go,” the man said gesturing inside with nervousness surging through his voice. “It’s all there—just as we agreed, eh?”

Nestling amid the junk-filled interior was a stained coolbox. Suppressing his distaste Dmitry dragged the coolbox out into the centre of the gritty straw-crusted floor and opened it. The big man leaned in alongside him as if to make sure Dmitry would see what he was supposed to.

Dmitry surmised that, having initially planned to double-cross him in some way, he was now anxious everything should go according to plan instead.

The young Russian pursed his lips as if disappointed by the amount or the quality or both. In truth there was more than he’d anticipated.

Excellent.

Still they engaged in a half-hearted round of haggling which ended with Dmitry paying a little less than he’d expected and the big man able to kid himself he’d driven a hard bargain.

Dmitry handed over the cash still wrapped in its bank paper bands and had to stop the man counting it there and then right out in the open. He pointedly withdrew to the Land Rover’s cab leaving Dmitry to transfer the coolbox across to his Mercedes.

By the time he returned the man was back out lighting up a noxious pipe that reminded Dmitry of the old men back home. In the bad times they smoked just about anything they could shove into the bowl and set on fire. As a child it had made him feel nauseous. Now it made him slightly sentimental.

Perhaps that was why he didn’t kill the big man when he gave him a sideways glance and remarked, “Lot of stuff there. Want it for something
special
do you?”

Dmitry lit a cigarette of his own, bending his head to his lighter and taking his time about it. Then he gave the man a long stare through the smoke, cold enough to make him shiver.

“Unless you wish to find yourself on the receiving end,” he said, “then it is best for your continued good health if you do not ask such questions, yes?”

Matthew Lytton pressed the call button for the lift but didn’t hold out much hope of a response. It looked like someone had tried to pry the buttons out of the wall and taken a cigarette lighter to them when that failed. The steel lift doors themselves were scarred deep with penknife graffiti.

As he waited, the young kid he’d been aware of furtively watching him for the last couple of minutes finally sidled into view.

“S’not workin’ mister.”

Lytton looked over and saw a miniature scally-in-the-making complete with baggy sweatpants tucked into his socks, a knock-off designer baseball cap and a roll-up pinched inside his cupped hand. He had the thin slightly rat-like features of a kid born premature doubtless due to the amount of booze his teenage mother put away while she carried him. They were told stunting the baby’s growth made for an easier delivery.

Lytton gazed at him without expression.
Your life was over before it began.

He had no illusions that the kid was being friendly. He knew he’d been sent either to scout him out or distract him so the heavy hitters could make their move. For those reasons he pointedly looked around before replying.

“Tell them it wouldn’t be worth their while,” he said keeping his voice flat and even.

The kid took a long seasoned drag of the roll-up and squinted through the smoke as he exhaled. He might not yet be in double figures but he’d spent a lifetime on the street—long enough to recognise the advice as a genuine warning.

The kid flashed him a dimpled grin then flicked the dog-end towards the gutter and swaggered away. A moment later two larger boys slipped out of the shadows and followed suit.

Amateurs.

Lytton watched them go and then headed for the stairs.

The flat he was after was on the fourth floor. The climb was enough to tell him all the units were rented rather than owned. Once the tenants were safely locked inside nobody gave a damn what was happening to the neighbours or the rest of the building. Still, the proportions of the place weren’t bad and the area was beginning to level off before what Lytton predicted would be an upswing. He made a mental note to check out the finances of the current owner.

Maybe he’ll want to sell—especially now.

Most of the numbers were missing but Lytton counted the doors to the one he wanted. It had been forced open and crudely secured with a hasp and staple but the padlock to connect the two was missing. The door was already ajar and something about that sent the hairs riffling at the back of his neck. There was a strong chemical smell leaching out through the gap, something astringent he couldn’t immediately identify. He pushed the door open with his fingertips, stepped quietly inside.