To Kill For (18 page)

‘I'm going to stand up,' I said.

‘Stay there.'

I didn't think he'd do anything, but I had to test him. He was calm, but not cold-blooded. I got up slowly. Hayward took a step back from me. He tightened his grip on my gun.

The room tilted and my head went wonky, but I managed to stay upright. I couldn't feel any pain now. That should have told me something. Hayward was still three yards from me. I had to be careful. He was a wounded man protecting his wife from a dangerous beast. He'd be jittery. I didn't need a hole in me.

He said, ‘You move again, I'll use this.'

‘Does your wife know about you?'

‘Leave her out of it.'

‘Does she know you're bent?'

‘What?'

It got him, but not in the way I thought it would. He looked more wary now. His wife looked confused. She said, ‘Derek? What's he talking about?'

I moved a half step forward.

‘Nothing.'

‘Derek?' She was looking at him now, pawing his gun arm. It was enough to distract him a bit.

‘He doesn't know what he's on about,' he said.

Still he wouldn't take his eyes off me.

‘Where's Paget?' I said.

‘How would I know?'

‘You were with him a few days ago.'

‘So?'

We were circling each other. I was getting nowhere. Something was banging away inside my head. Something wasn't right. He was bent, and his wife thought he was a knight. He thought I might come here. His men were on the way. He had my fucking gun.

I said, ‘I know about Elena.'

His face betrayed him. There was surprise there, and uncertainty. I took another inch towards him. He didn't move.

‘How?'

I looked from him to the woman.

‘She told me.'

It took her a while, but then she got it.

‘Oh my God,' she said, shooting her hand to her mouth again. ‘You were the one who called.'

‘What?' Hayward said.

He glanced at his wife, then back at me. His eyes weren't off me long, but he was wavering, beginning to get distracted, forgetting that I was a threat.

‘What has this to do with my wife?' he said to me.

‘She called your phone.'

I put my hand in my jacket pocket and took out his mobile and tossed it to him. He followed it for a second with his eyes, but let it fall to the floor. She stooped and picked it up.

‘Yes,' she said. ‘I did. When you didn't come back that night, I called and he answered.'

‘And you mentioned Elena to him?'

‘Yes. I think so.'

‘Alright, so you heard her say it, you still don't know what it means.'

‘I know what it means,' I said. ‘I remember it.'

‘What do you know?'

‘I know Elena was an investigation run by the Met six years ago. Some anti-prostitution thing. Paget was one of the men you would've been investigating; instead, you're working for him.'

‘What's he talking about?' the woman said. ‘Who's Paget?'

She was confused, but there was also anger in her voice, her expression.

‘It's complicated. I'm working a case.'

‘A case?' I said. ‘You get shot, snatched out of a car and the next day the whole place is cleaned up, the car gone, nothing on the news, no crime scene. What kind of case is that?'

‘You don't know what you're talking about.'

‘You take a round in the shoulder and you lose a gallon of blood and your friends pull strings and get you to a hospital in Cambridge? Bollocks. You couldn't go anywhere local, you couldn't go where people would know who you were. That's why you had an alias.'

‘Derek?'

‘Wait in the kitchen,' he told her. She looked at me. She didn't know what to do. ‘I said—'

‘I'm not leaving you,' she said.

Something occurred to me. I said, ‘I don't see a panic button.'

‘What?'

‘You said you thought I might come here, but you don't have a panic button.'

‘For God's sake, Derek. What's he talking about?'

‘If there was a threat,' I said to her, ‘your husband would have a panic button connected to the local law. They'd send an armed response unit.'

She looked at her husband. His face was grim.

‘Did you know he'd come here?' she said. ‘With a gun?'

‘No,' he said, flustered now. ‘It was an idea, that's all.'

‘What's Elena? Who's Paget?'

‘Nothing. Nobody.'

I took another half inch.

‘Paget's a murderer,' I told the woman.

‘Leave her out of this.'

‘He was a pimp, a pornographer, a drug dealer.'

‘Del, what's he talking about?'

‘He doesn't want you to know,' I said to her.

‘Shut up.'

‘Derek?'

‘It's nothing. It's complicated,' he said. Beads of sweat were on his upper lip. ‘He's wrong.'

‘Paget uses kids in porn movies. He—'

Hayward was snarling.

‘Shut up.'

The woman grabbed his arm and he turned sharply to her. I moved. He saw me too late. The woman screamed. I slammed into him. We smashed into the cabinet, destroying it, shattering the plates. The Makarov went flying. I didn't want to hurt him too bad. I wanted him to talk. I wanted my gun. I wanted to be in control. I pulled myself up. My head went sideways. The room spun. Hayward was a wreck, holding his shoulder and crying out in pain. I turned and saw the woman hunched in the corner of the room whimpering. I scanned the place for my gun. I saw two of them. I felt a pressure in my head, like my skull was being squeezed. I moved forward and held my hand out for one of the guns. The guns wobbled and my hand weighed so much it pulled me forward and there was nothing I could do about it. No exertions, Browne had said. Shit. I saw the fucking ground coming towards me again.

When I came to this time, they'd taped my ankles and wrists together. I was on my side on the sofa, my feet overhanging the arm rest. I watched the room from an angle. Hayward stood in the corner of the room, by the shattered cabinet. He was gripping his shoulder and grimacing, his face sheened in sweat. Two other men were with him. I could see them side on. All three talked to each other. Their voices were low and I couldn't make out what was said, but I could see enough to know there was a disagreement of some kind. The woman was gone.

I closed my eyes and tried to work out if my head was still on top of my neck. I wasn't sure. I pulled at my tied wrists. There was no give. When I opened my eyes again, the men had stopped chatting and were looking at me and I had the feeling that I'd said something. I swung my legs over the edge of the sofa and pushed myself upright.

It took me a moment to place the two that Hayward was talking to. It was the suits they wore that brought it back. They were the ones from the hospital; one with greying hair and moustache, the other with the thin hair and puffy eyes. They looked better now, less tired and bedraggled, but there was still an urgency about them, something desperate.

Moustache said something finally to the others and crossed the room to sit in a wooden chair opposite me. They must have brought the chair in from the kitchen. Moustache watched me for a moment. The others waited for him to speak.

Now that I was looking at him clearly, I could see he was younger than I'd thought, early fifties maybe. I saw also that the moustache almost covered a hair lip.

‘You've been out quite a while,' he said. ‘Delayed concussion, I'd say.'

Hayward lurked in the corner of the room and glared at me. My gun was in his waistband. The one with puffy eyes tried to look bored, but he was too jittery to pull it off.

‘What are you going to do with me?' I said to Moustache.

‘Dunno.'

‘You going to kill me?'

He smiled.

‘Could we? Is that even possible?'

‘We bloody should,' the one with puffy eyes said.

Hayward didn't say anything. He seemed to be the lowest of the three, and since he was an Inspector, the one I was talking to was a CI or higher.

‘The woman,' I said. ‘She's a witness.'

Moustache laughed at that.

‘My wife,' Hayward said. ‘Not a bloody woman.'

Moustache stretched his legs out in front of him and crossed his ankles. He leaned an elbow on the arm of the chair. He was nice and cosy and relaxed as hell, or so he was telling me. That was fine while I was tied up.

‘You're a problem alright,' he said to me. ‘But you've got us all wrong. We're not in the business of killing people. You're name's Joe, isn't it?'

He waited for me to say something. When I didn't he said, ‘You're a big bugger, aren't you? Took all three of us to get you on the couch. You were a fighter, I think. You look like you were. You ever done time?'

‘You're the law. You tell me.'

‘No, I don't think you have. And yes, you're right, we are the police.'

‘Bent.'

‘Like I said, you've got us all wrong. We're on the same side.'

‘No one's on my side.'

‘Let me rephrase; we want the same thing. More or less.'

‘Do we?'

‘I think so, yes.'

‘What's that?'

He wiped a hand over his moustache. I tugged at the tape around my wrists.

‘Let's approach this from another direction,' he said. ‘Why don't you tell me what you're after?'

‘Fuck you.'

Puffy Eyes said, ‘I told you, John. Let's dump him and get on.'

‘Hear that?' Moustache said. ‘My colleague wants me to throw you in the nick and let you rot. We could put you away for decades, you know.'

‘You won't.'

‘Oh? Why?'

‘You can't risk me going down. I know too much.'

‘Well, there is that. But not for the reasons you think.'

‘You telling me you're not bent?'

Hayward said, ‘For Christ's sake. Why are we bothering with him?'

Moustache held a hand up to Hayward, but he didn't take his eyes off me.

‘I wonder.'

‘He's a thug,' Hayward said. ‘Comes into my home with a fucking gun. Frightens Jan. He's a damned thug. Hasn't got the brains to grasp what this is about. Bob's right. Let's get rid of him.'

Moustache waited him to finish, then he said to me, ‘What if I told you we were straight?'

‘You're not.'

‘What makes you so certain?'

This one – Moustache – was in charge. He wanted to talk.

‘If you were legit, you would've had the Cambridgeshire law protecting you with an armed response unit. But they didn't have a clue, did they? Which means you lot are some rogue outfit. If you were legit and you thought I'd come here after Hayward, he'd have a button to the local nick, but you can't let them know what you're doing. You're way off the radar. Are you putting the screws on Paget? Taking his money? Maybe you want to grab the smack he nicked off Cole.'

Moustache smiled. He shouldn't have been so calm. He should've been worried sick. He turned to Hayward.

‘Del, how about a drink for our friend here?'

‘Yeah,' Puffy Eyes said. ‘Hey, I know, let's all go down the pub and have a pint. We could get a game of darts in.'

Moustache ignored him and waited for Hayward to speak.

‘What do you want?' Hayward said finally.

I looked at Moustache. I didn't get his game.

‘I can't drink with my hands tied.'

Moustache turned to Puffy Eyes.

‘Bob?'

Puffy Eyes pulled himself off the wall he was leaning against and walked over to me. He pulled me forward and drew a lock-knife from his jacket pocket. I felt my hands go free.

‘And my feet?'

Moustache smiled and shook his head.

‘What do you want to drink?' he said.

‘Beer.'

‘You got a beer in the house, Del?'

Hayward gave me a sour look and headed into the kitchen. We waited for the drinks. I pulled at the tape around my ankles, but there was no give and I'd need a knife to get free.

Moustache was wearing his jacket open. He wasn't wearing a holster, didn't have a gun in his belt and with his legs out in front of him, I could see he didn't have an ankle holster. I wondered if he was deliberately showing me he wasn't tooled up. Maybe he expected me to hug him. I looked over at Puffy Eyes. His jacket was buttoned up.

I thought things through, as much as my mind would let me. If these men were bent, as I'd thought they were, they might decide any time to get rid of me, or give me to Paget.

If they were legit, they had enough on me to bang me up for years. So why weren't they doing that? And what then did they want? Did they expect me to roll over on Cole? Did they think I knew where Paget was?

Either way, for the moment, I had to play along with them.

Hayward came back in with four cans of bitter and handed them around. He disappeared again. When he came back, he had two more of the wooden chairs and a saucer. He put the chairs down and he and Puffy Eyes sat. He put the saucer on the ground and Puffy Eyes pulled a pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket. He lit one and handed the pack to Hayward who pulled a cigarette out and borrowed Puffy Eyes' lighter. I had three of them playing games now.

‘Right,' Moustache said, ‘let's try and have a friendly chat. That okay with you?'

I didn't know what he expected me to say to that.

‘You might want to remember he shot me,' Hayward said.

Moustache ignored that.

‘Why don't we start with you? We know you're working for Cole. That car you abandoned in Addenbrooke's Hospital was registered to one of his firms.'

‘I'm not working for Cole. He thinks I am.'

‘Okay, you say you don't work for Cole. Well, we know he wants Paget dead and to that end it was his men who took Derek – DI Hayward – and questioned him. So what's your role?'