Fade to Black (30 page)

*****

The uniformed boys finally arrived and carted Fat Paddy away. Strauss finished giving the scrawny maître d a complete bollocking, but could not find anything to charge her with, despite her best efforts. Rudeness wouldn’t quite cut it in court. Paddy would be released later, but at least she’d inconvenience the big bastard and maybe cause him to miss a few meals, which would be doing him a favor really.

She checked her phone to see if Jacinta had tried to ring during the commotion at Il Forno. There was no message. She tried her number again, but without success. She checked her watch—3:00 p.m. Where the hell was she? They were to meet at 1:30 for a bite of lunch. She rang the Met and got Margaret Daly.

“Hello, Margaret, Strauss here. Have you or anyone heard from DC Wilkinson in the last hour or so?” Daly said she’d check and put the phone down. Strauss paced up and down the pavement. She realized she was seriously worried; this was not like Wilkinson at all. If you could rely on anyone to be punctual and ‘straight-down-the-line,’ it was Jacinta. She might not have been the world’s brightest cop, but she operated by the book. Daly came back on the line and said that no one had heard from her.

“Can you patch me through to DCI St. Clair, please?” Daly caught the urgency in her voice and transferred her to St. Clair’s mobile number immediately. Allie came on the line; she was travelling and using the speaker on her phone.

“Ma’am, can you switch to ‘private’ mode please?”

“Of course.” Then, after a moment’s delay, she said, “What’s wrong, Rachel?” concern clearly evident in her voice.

“I don’t want to be alarmist, ma’am, but DC Wilkinson is not responding to my calls—hasn’t for nearly two hours now.” Allie sat up straighter in the passenger seat. Connors noticed. “You were canvassing the Dominion theatre area, right?”

“Yes, ma’am. We split up our duties and Jacinta took the southern side of the street at about 12:30. I’ve not been able to raise her since about 1:30 p.m.” She hesitated before going on. “I’m worried, Allie.”

The personal entreaty cut through. “Right. Stay where you are. I’ll organize a trace on her phone and get a team of uniforms there in ten minutes. Where should they meet you?”

“Right outside the Dominion, I guess,” Rachel said, looking about for any other obvious rendezvous point.

“Good. You coordinate the team and update me every thirty minutes.”

Rachel confirmed the arrangement. Allie thought she sounded fragile. She felt a stab of real worry, for reasons Rachel couldn’t even guess at. She phoned headquarters, even though they were only moments away, and organized the team and phone trace and asked that the information be conveyed directly to Strauss in the field. There was no time to waste.

Connors pulled the car into Broadway and down into the Met car park. Allie bounded up the stairs, leaving Connors waiting for the lift. She made straight for DCS Carr's office. She wasn’t there and Margaret Daly didn’t know where she was.

Allie ran her fingers through her hair and exhaled a long breath. What the hell was going on with people at the moment? First, Connors had done a disappearing act the day before; now, Jacinta and even Carr had done a bunk. There was nothing more she could do other than grab a sandwich from the canteen, then start writing up the incident at Kensington, although God only knew how she was going to explain it and the presence of the ‘mysterious black rider.’ She smiled at the recollection of his heroics—pretty damn impressive by any standards. But for now the problem of the horrible rat things would have to wait.

She walked to the canteen, grabbed a cup of tea, a ‘salmonella roll’, as the boys called them, and pinched a
Daily Sun
newspaper from a spare table. Her own face stared out at her again from the newspaper. The headline read: ‘Murders stack up for DCI Dolly’. She nearly threw the paper away. Her phone bleeped again. She checked it and noticed she must have missed an earlier call. She rang the message bank. It was the greasy Everett Blight wanting to know where to send his invoice for photography.

She stopped in mid bite and put the roll down. She played the message again, listening intently. That voice! It was the man she had spoken to on the train last night. Everett Blight was
InCamera Photographics
, she was sure of it! She put her phone away and forced herself to take another bite of the roll and think about what she knew to be facts.

Georgie Konstanzo worked at the Black Crow Pub. Ray Riley met with his band of goons at the Black Crow as well. At least one of Riley’s men was ‘familiar’ with Georgie, according to barmaid Sarah Blascombe. Riley was also dining at the Golden Bamboo right when Georgie was murdered, yet the CCTV showed it was obviously not Ray Riley on the film. Everett Blight had photographed the crime scene at Earl’s Court, but had photographed Georgie previously for
Gobber
magazine. Had he not realized it was Georgie at Earl’s Court? Or was he a terrific actor? Was there a connection between Riley and Blight… or Riley, Blight and Paula Armstrong for that matter?

Her thoughts turned to Jacinta Wilkinson. She had been checking
Gobber
magazine’s ownership and also the restaurant strip at Tottenham Court Road, but now she had gone missing as well. Allie got up from the table and ran to her office. Startled clerks and officers jumped out of her way. She burst into her office's reception area and found Margaret Daly.

“Margaret, do you know what Jacinta found out about
Gobber
magazine, by any chance?” Daly was taken aback by Allie’s brusqueness. “No, no, sorry, she didn’t say. But she was on the phone about it, I know that.”

Allie looked around. “Where’s Banks?”

Margaret looked blank. “I don’t know.” Allie smacked her palm on Daly’s desk. “Jesus H. Christ, what’s going on here? Is every bastard out to lunch?”

“I’m back now, but thank you for asking.”

Allie spun around to see DCS Carr standing by the door. She turned back to Margaret Daly.

“Find DC Banks for me right now, please, Margaret.” Daly squeaked and scuttled away.

“Problem?” Carr asked, her senses picking up that all was not well, despite her two glasses of Paul Whatshisname’s wine over lunch.

“Wilkinson is missing,” Allie said without preamble.

“Since when?" Carr asked.

“About 1:30 p.m.,” Allie replied. “She’s not answering calls and Strauss is very concerned.”

Carr was unimpressed. “Two and a half hours isn’t long. Are you sure you’re not overreacting?”

“Yes,” Allie said flatly, turning her attention the returning Daly. “Where is he?”

Daly looked at Carr, then back at Allie. “He’s coming now. He was in the… little boy’s room.” DC Peter Banks galumphed along the corridor towards them, his shirt hanging out the back of his huge trousers. A little boy he was not.

“Peter,” she said immediately, “do you happen to know what Jacinta found out about the publisher of
Gobber
magazine?”

Banks smiled and said, “I wouldn’t recommend
Gobber
for you to—”

Allie stepped towards him.
“Just answer the question, Peter!”

He took an involuntary step back. “Sorry, yes,” he stammered. "It was published by err… Firebird… no,
Firestone
publishing.”

“Firestone?” Allie repeated the name, looking at DCS Carr. “Ring any bells for you?” Carr shook her head.

“Yes,” Banks said, managing a more relaxed tone. “The owner is that Ray Riley guy you warned me off. Thank heavens that—”

“Riley?”
Allie blurted. Banks took another step back. “Right,” Allie said to Carr. “Two people we have to talk to, Ray Riley and Everett Blight."

“Remind me who Blight is again?” Carr asked Allie.

“He’s a photographer. We use him as a freelance when we have to, but more importantly, he’s the photographer who not only photographed Georgie Konstanzo’s body at Earl’s Court for us, but it turns out he had previously taken ‘gynecological’ shots of her for a ‘gentleman’s’ magazine,
Gobber,
which we now know is owned by none other than Diamond Ray Riley.”

Allie paused for breath. “And get this—Ray Riley and his motley crew meet at the Black Crow Pub in Chelsea; the pub Georgie worked at.”

Carr paced the floor. “There are too many coincidences there, for sure. Are there any connections to Paula Armstrong?”

Allie shook her head. “If there are, I can’t see them yet.”

Carr accepted that. “Who’s going to talk to Riley… you?”

“It’ll have to be, won’t it?”

Her phone rang. It was Strauss. “Any news?” Allie asked, still looking at Carr.

“Yes,” Strauss said, the urgency in her voice magnified over the phone. “A café owner in Tottenham Court Road remembered Jacinta well. She spoke to her about two hours ago. A dark-haired man, who was dining at the café, asked to speak to Jacinta and they left together.”

“They left together?
Was there any suggestion of coercion?”

“Not according to this woman from Tippies café. Jacinta and the man left after he paid his bill and they turned left out of the shop. She assumed they were heading further up Tottenham Court Road. We’ve asked up and down the road and no one recalls a particular man and woman walking or chatting.”

“Did she say anything about his eyes?” Allie suddenly asked.

“Yes, as a matter of fact she did mention them—very unusual for a pale skinned guy—they were dark—almost black.”

“That’s him, Rachel. I can feel it! Paula Armstrong’s hairdresser mentioned that Paula Armstrong’s new boyfriend had ‘smoldering Mediterranean eyes.’”

A feeling of dread swept over her and she glanced again at Carr, who looked worried as well. Jacinta Wilkinson was in terrible danger. The connection to Paula Armstrong was there, but it wasn’t to Blight or Riley. Allie lifted her game a gear.

“It’s all hi-fi shops and car phones in that area isn’t it?”

“In the immediate area of the theatre, yes,” Strauss affirmed.

Allie thought hard. Images of the area were flooding in to her somehow. “Try down that little street near Bedford Square… ummm… Morwell Street.” Another image flashed up on a big white screen that just seemed to materialize in her brain. “No, wait… Have you tried the Bo Peep? It’s a cute little eatery a bit further up on the corner of Bayley Street and Tottenham Court Road.”

“Yes,” Strauss confirmed. “I went there myself.”

“Go back,” Allie said. “There’s something there.”

“Pardon? There’s something there did you say?”

Allie realized how it must have sounded, but she
knew
Jacinta had been there. “Humor me,” she said, trying to put smile in her voice. “Try it again and look hard.”

“Interesting,” Carr said after Strauss had hung up. “You know the area extraordinarily well.”

“I don’t know it all,” Allie replied, walking briskly away toward her office.

Carr, Banks and Daly all looked at each other in puzzlement—a scene which at any other time might have been comical.

*****

The bile rose in Jacinta Wilkinson’s throat and slammed against the heavy linen gag. She tried to swallow it for fear the vomit would shoot up the back of her sinuses and block her nose. That would mean certain asphyxiation. She fought against the involuntary gag reflex, her body twisting from side to side in the confined space. Sweat ran down her forehead, stinging her eyes. She swallowed the hot vomit, shuddering as it slid back down, almost retching again, but halting it through sheer willpower.

She breathed heavily through her nose, searching for cold life-giving air, but it was warm and stale and did not satisfy her heaving lungs. It was dark and unbearably hot in the box. She could only see the merest pinprick of light from what she imagined might be a faulty weld low down in the corner near her face. She kicked against the sides of the box. It was thin steel or tin. Her weld theory would be right, she assumed. A small victory. She knew she was in the boot of his vehicle—the noise was deafening and she felt every contour of the road as the car wove through traffic. She calmed herself and tried harder to regulate her breathing. She thanked God that sniffle she’d felt this morning hadn’t turned into a head cold… yet. Her hands were tied too tightly behind her back and she felt them going numb. She thought of gangrene and redoubled her efforts to free them. The struggle only made her need for air more urgent and she snorted air through her nose as if it was cocaine.

Her breathing finally slowed enough to allow her to at least begin to listen to the sounds of the street—and to berate herself for being so stupid as to go with him to his car. He’d seemed so reasonable and
genuine.
She’d gone so willingly to the quiet café on the corner—the Bo Peep—and let him buy her coffee. She’d believed him absolutely when he’d said he’d felt so sorry for Paula Armstrong when he’d seen the story in the news and that he’d been so surprised when he saw her photograph to realize he had seen her on the day of her death.

He’d said he couldn’t sleep for worrying about what he’d seen and that he’d been so relieved that coincidence had put Jacinta in the café today. He just knew he had to come forward.
What Bullshit!
And she’d fallen for it! She knew why. He was a reasonably good-looking man and he had something interesting about him. She’d
wanted
to believe it was safe to get into his car; it was a Mercedes after all. Well, she was in his Mercedes, all right. She felt the area behind her ear throbbing where he’d hit her with something very hard. Maybe a tire wrench—she didn’t know. Nor did she know how he’d gotten her into this tin coffin. That thought upset her. Why hadn’t she contacted Rachel? She cursed herself again as worry set in. He was going to kill her, just like Paula Armstrong.

Images from the briefing Allie had given stormed back into her consciousness. They were too horrible to contemplate. She pushed them from her mind. She sobbed, but forced herself to stop because her sinuses started to fill immediately.
Please help me, God
, she prayed. She thought of her family and Mr. Tomkins, her fat Cheshire cat, and Allie St. Clair. She felt an inner strength at the thought. She prayed for Allie to save her.