The Honeytrap: Part 4 (5 page)

‘They’ll both be charged with wasting police time and attempting to pervert the course of justice.’

‘So much for revenge.’

‘Not to mention assault if you want to press charges.’

Jess wasn’t sure what she wanted to do. ‘I’ll think it over,’ she said. ‘I’ll let you know.’

Valerie gave a light shrug of her shoulders. ‘You look all in. You should go home and rest.’

‘I will,’ Jess said, rising to her feet. ‘And thanks. I’m glad you turned up when you did.’

‘Better late than never, right?’

The two women parted in the foyer with something of a thaw having occurred in their relationship. If not friends exactly, they were not enemies either.

The police had brought Jess’s Mini back to the station and as she slipped into the driver’s seat all she wanted was to go home and nurse her wounds. Her head was throbbing and every bone in her body ached. The sofa beckoned, along with a brandy and a couple of aspirin. It had been the day from hell but it wasn’t over yet. Her phone was blinking with two missed calls from Sam Kendall.

Sam answered after a couple of rings. ‘Okay, I’ve got good news for you. Ellen Shaw was picked up from Pelham Road on Saturday night and dropped off at a bed and breakfast in Camden called the Royal.’

‘Excellent. Where is it exactly?’

‘You don’t need to worry about that. She ordered a cab and went back to Stoke Newington this morning. Nothing since so she should still be there.’

‘Thanks,’ Jess said. ‘I really appreciate it. I owe you one.’ She ended the call, put the car into gear and headed for north London.

The journey wasn’t a long one and twenty minutes later she was pulling up outside the house in Pelham Road. ‘Please be here,’ she muttered. If she was right, Ellen was the key to solving all Harry’s problems.

Jess got out of the car, walked up the drive and rang the bell for the ground-floor flat. She waited, knowing the odds were that Ellen wouldn’t answer even if she was in. It was a surprise, therefore, when about thirty seconds later she heard footsteps from inside and the door opened.

The two women stared at each other for a moment, both slightly shocked by what they saw. Ellen’s face was tight and pale with dark circles under her eyes; Jess looked like she’d gone three rounds with Mike Tyson.

Jess was the first to speak. ‘I’m Jessica Vaughan,’ she said. ‘I need to speak to you about Harry.’

Ellen continued to gaze at her. ‘I know who you are. I remember.’

‘I wasn’t sure if you would. Can I come in?’

Ellen hesitated, perhaps searching for a reason to refuse, but the effort was clearly too much for her. She stood aside and beckoned Jess in.

The interior of the flat was drab and depressing, cheaply furnished and devoid of anything personal – no pictures or photos or ornament of any type. It was obviously nothing more than a place to sleep, a roof over the girl’s head. There was a tatty brown sofa but Jess didn’t sit down. She was tired and fed up and wanted to get this over and done with as quickly as possible.

‘Harry’s in trouble,’ Jess said. ‘He’s been arrested.’

Ellen looked at her with blank eyes. ‘What’s that got to do with me?’

‘Everything,’ Jess snapped. ‘He was caught with that bloody gun you gave him. And please don’t say you didn’t because I’m not in the mood for an argument.’

Ellen folded her arms across her chest and inclined her head to one side. She had a strange, distant expression on her face. ‘I didn’t give it to him; he stole it while I was asleep.’

Jess pulled in a breath. So she’d been right, at least almost right, about how it had come

into his possession. Now that this fact was established, she quickly moved on. ‘Did you kill Caroline Westwood?’

‘Who?’

‘She was staying at the Lumière. You were there on the night she was shot.’

Ellen seemed indifferent to the information. Her voice was a low monotone without feeling or inflexion. ‘I haven’t shot anyone. How could I when Harry took the gun?’

Jess studied her closely. It was hard to tell if she was telling the truth or not. ‘Okay, I believe you but I need to know who sold it to you. Was it Danny Street?’

‘No.’

‘Who, then? Come on, Ellen. I need some help here. Harry’s in the frame for murder.’

There was a long pause before she eventually answered. ‘It was the girl, the one Danny hangs around with. Jodie something. I don’t know her surname. She showed up after Harry was here – it was late – said she’d sell me a gun for a hundred quid. I don’t think Danny knew anything about it.’

‘Okay,’ Jess said. ‘They’re holding Harry at Cowan Road. We have to go over there right now and you have to tell the police what you just told me.’

Ellen gave a thin smile before turning her face away. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

Jess could feel the anger bubbling inside her. ‘For Christ’s sake, Ellen, I don’t know what’s going on in your life and I don’t really care, but just for once can you do the right thing? Harry doesn’t deserve this. All he’s ever tried to do is help you.’

Ellen turned to look at her again. ‘You blame me, don’t you?’

‘I will if he goes down for twenty years.’

‘I wasn’t talking about Harry. I meant Len Curzon. You think it’s my fault he was murdered.’

Jess started at the name of her old mentor. Even after five years the thought of his death,

of his body lying in that Camden gutter, still had a powerful effect on her. ‘This isn’t about Len.’

‘I do think about him, you know. I’m not a completely heartless bitch.’

‘Then prove it. Come down to the station and tell the police what you just told me.’

Ellen opened her mouth and closed it again. She gazed at the carpet for a while before lifting her eyes to meet Jess’s again. Still she didn’t speak. A heavy silence filled the room. Eventually she gave a nod. ‘Wait here. I’ll get my coat.’

While she was gone it crossed Jess’s mind that she might have gone to fetch a knife or an axe or maybe a spare gun she kept around the place. It had been that kind of a day. Not wanting to dwell on the prospect, she got out her phone and called Mac. ‘Hi, it’s Jess,’ she said. ‘I’ve got some good news for you.’

Instructed by Mac to drop by before going to the police, Jess found him smiling broadly, almost rubbing his hands together, as they walked into reception. The minute he saw her face, however, his expression changed. ‘Jesus, love, what happened to you?’ His eyes darted towards Ellen but Jess quickly put him right.

‘Sarah Thorne,’ she said. ‘I don’t think she likes me.’

‘You seen a doctor?’

‘Yeah, I’m fine. Just cuts and bruises.’

‘Come through to my office, then. We need to talk.’

As Jess followed him in, Ellen trailed behind like a docile child. She’d barely said a word on the journey and showed no sign of becoming any more effusive now. She sat down beside Jess, crossed her legs and gazed blankly at the wall.

‘Danny Street’s girlfriend, Jodie,’ Mac said, grinning widely. ‘Her surname is Caister. I thought the name rang a bell as soon as I heard it.’ He flipped open a file, took out a sheet of paper and slid it across the desk to Jess.

It was a long list of hotel staff. ‘What am I looking for?’

‘Just keep reading.’

And then she saw it. ‘Ah, I get it. Kim Caister, receptionist. Related to Jodie, I presume?’

‘Her sister. And the two of them have been in trouble since the moment they could walk: street theft, fraud, robbery, blackmail – not to mention a spot of GBH when the mood takes them.’

‘Delightful. God, doesn’t that hotel check anyone’s references?’

‘Probably not as closely as they’re going to wish they had.’

Jess gave him back the list. ‘So what are you thinking?’

‘You haven’t heard the rest of it yet. Kim Caister is currently shacked up with our favourite neighbourhood barman, Denis Atkins. I reckon the two of them were involved in an ongoing blackmail scam. Atkins was in the perfect position to see which guests were misbehaving. I reckon they tried to put the screws on Caroline Westwood – maybe she had a tryst that night with one of the City boys – but she wasn’t playing ball. A row broke out, she threatened to report them and they had to shut her up.’

‘So they killed her?’

‘It’s looking that way. DI Cobb has already pulled the three of them in: Atkins and the two sisters. It won’t be long before one of them starts talking.’

Jess nodded as the story began to fall into place. ‘But what about the gun? Were they deliberately trying to set Harry up?’

‘I don’t think so. They couldn’t have known that he’d take the gun off Ellen. It was just a bonus for them when it happened. Kim probably got the gun off her sister and then – when it all went pear-shaped at the hotel – she gave it back to Jodie. Jodie knew that Ellen wanted to buy a gun and that Danny Street wouldn’t sell her one and so …’

‘She decided to go behind Danny’s back, make some cash and get rid of the murder weapon.’

Mac gave her a wry smile. ‘Has a kind of logic to it, don’t you think?’ Then he turned his attention to Ellen and said, ‘Do you mind telling me why you wanted a gun in the first place?’

Ellen tugged at the hem of her skirt. Then she glanced up, straightened her shoulders, looked Mac straight in the eye and said in a cool clear voice, ‘Because I wanted to kill Jimmy Nolan.’

A short shocked silence filled the room. Mac and Jess both shifted a little in their seats.

‘And who the hell is Jimmy Nolan?’ Mac asked.

Ellen took an audible breath before answering. ‘Jimmy Nolan is the man who went down the pub, drank ten pints of lager, got in his car and ran over my husband. He got eighteen months for that. He only served nine.’ Her hands clenched into two tight fists and her eyes flashed with anger. ‘Is that justice? I don’t think so.’

‘And so you decided that you’d punish him yourself?’

‘Why not?’

‘Because you’d have spent the next twenty years of your life behind bars.’

Ellen gave a shrug as if the consequences were of no particular interest to her. ‘It would have been worth it.’ She gave a low laugh. ‘I had to tell Harry that Adam had died of cancer. If he’d known about Nolan, he’d have guessed what I intended to do.’

‘But you gave him the gun anyway.’

Ellen left a long pause before answering. ‘Yes, I handed it over. As soon as I’d bought it, I knew it was a mistake. I couldn’t have gone through with it. It’s one thing wanting to do something but … No, I couldn’t actually have shot him.’

Jess wasn’t sure if she believed her. Ellen Shaw, she thought, was capable of anything. She looked at Mac. ‘So what now?’

‘So now we have to come up with a better story. Harry has already said that the gun was posted anonymously through the door.’ He looked at Ellen. ‘If you say something different they’ll know he’s not been telling the truth. I think you need to go along the lines of the grieving widow, that you were acting irrationally, that you brought the gun for protection because you didn’t feel safe after your husband died. But you realised you’d made a mistake and immediately tried to get rid of it safely.’

‘You mean you want her to lie to the police,’ Jess said.

Mac laid his hands across his heavy paunch and smiled. ‘Why not? Everyone else does.’

It was seven in the evening before Harry was finally let out of his cell and formally released from custody. At reception he picked up his worldly possessions – watch, wallet, phone – before signing on the dotted line, leaving the station and stepping out on to the forecourt. He breathed in the wet night air and released a long grateful sigh of relief. A car flashed its lights and he recognised Jess’s Mini. It was only as he climbed inside that he saw the full extent of her injuries.

‘Ouch, Vaughan. No offence but I’ve seen you sporting better looks.’

‘It wasn’t a fair fight. She was bigger than me.’

‘That’s what they all say.’ He pulled his seatbelt across and fastened it. ‘So what’s with the chauffeur service? I could have walked from here.’

‘It’s raining,’ she said. ‘And I know how delicate you are. Wouldn’t want you to catch a cold or anything.’

What she really meant, he knew, was that she needed company and he understood that. After the day from hell you needed a mate, a friend who understood what you were going through. ‘Do you want to come back to mine? I’ve got a bottle of whisky in the flat. It might help anaesthetise the pain.’

Jess started the engine and turned the car on to the street. ‘Sounds like a plan – so long as you promise not to utter those words “I told you so”
.
’

‘You mean Sylvie? Yeah, Valerie filled me in. The girl fooled all of us.’

‘No, she didn’t. You didn’t ever believe she was in trouble. Not really.’

‘I wouldn’t say that. I just thought something didn’t add up, that she would never have made such a fundamental mistake as leaving with the target.’

Jess slapped her hands on the wheel. ‘She used me. She had me running around like a headless chicken.’

‘You’ll get over it. Eventually.’

‘And what about Ellen?’

Harry assumed a casual expression. ‘What about her?’

‘What happens to her now?’

‘She’ll be all right. I don’t think the CPS will prosecute. We’ll get a good solicitor, have some medical reports done. She’s been ill.’ He thought about what Ellen had said when she was pointing the gun at him.
Too many questions.
She was referring, perhaps, to the psychiatrist she’d been seeing. ‘She might have bought the gun but she gave it up straightaway.’

Jess gave him a sideways glance. ‘Did she?’

‘Huh?’

‘You know what I mean. Why do I get the feeling that it might not have been quite as simple as that?’

Harry kept his eyes on the road. His feelings for Ellen remained complicated and confused. Even now he wasn’t sure if she’d come forward to help him or simply to help herself. ‘The problem with you reporters is that you’re always looking for mysteries where there aren’t any.’

‘Yeah, right. And the problem with you detectives is that you can’t give a straight answer to a straight question.’