The Invisible Code (29 page)

TUNNEL RUN

COLIN BIMSLEY POCKETED
his phone. ‘They want us to make contact.’

‘With Lescowitz? Why?’

‘They need to know if she was given anything by Kasavian’s wife. Something no bigger than your hand, they said.’

‘Why do I always get the feeling that we’re being left out of the loop?’ Meera complained. ‘It wouldn’t kill them to brief us properly for once. Or give us something with a bit more responsibility than babysitting someone who’s not even involved in the case.’

‘You don’t know she’s not involved.’

‘Exactly. If we had more facts … Can you see her?’

‘She must still be inside.’

Lescowitz was studying film design at Central St Martins. The pair had followed her to the South Bank, where she attended a screening of
The Parallax View
at the National Film Theatre. Now she was in the BFI bookstore looking at DVDs.

‘Come on then, let’s make ourselves known.’ Meera led the way across the concourse towards the shop. The cinema
was disgorging its audience, and they found themselves in a rapidly thickening crowd. Suddenly the area beneath Waterloo Bridge had become as busy as Piccadilly Circus. The bookstall owners were packing up their trestle tables and people were pouring into the bar at the front of the cinema. Colin pushed forward and managed to reach the shop, but there was no sign of Lescowitz.

Edona walked quickly away from the theatre complex, heading in the direction of Tower Bridge. She had tried calling Sabira at five to see how she was, but the call had gone straight to voicemail, and she couldn’t help wondering if something was wrong.

Her friend had changed so much in the last few weeks that it was hard to believe she was the same person. The last time they had spoken, Sabira had deliberately distanced herself, warning Edona that it would be better to stay away from her. Her free-spirited friend had become haunted and fearful.

It was a warm evening, and the walkways of the South Bank were crowded with strollers. The river was a default destination for Londoners, as if it had a pacifying effect on them. They were such strange people that Edona doubted she would ever fully understand them. Why, for example, when they lived in such nice houses, did they leave their rubbish bins right by their front doors where everyone could see? And their language was so dense with allusions and references that it was often impossible to understand what they were really talking about.

She had no real destination in mind, but walking cleared her head. After a while she found herself in a quieter reach of the river, past the Design Museum, where roads cut down to the water only to double back on themselves or suddenly come to an end. She passed a housing estate, its bright lamps emphasizing the emptiness of the streets. A forlorn pub appeared in the distance, standing by itself at
the edge of the foreshore, its rear veranda overlooking the river. She decided to have a drink there, and see if they had something to eat.

Walking over to the low wall, she looked down into the pebble-strewn mud. Her grandparents had told her about coming to London and swimming in the Thames on a hot summer’s day, but surely they could not have swum here, where the brown water raced between moored barges at such a speed that the river’s detritus became trapped between them?

She heard the motorcycle before she saw it.

The Triumph was on the riverside pavement heading directly towards her, its rider leaning out at such an angle that it seemed he would overbalance.

There was something in his hand – something that gleamed brightly—

With the river wall at her back she had nowhere to retreat, so she dropped down instead, and his arm passed above her head, lightly catching at her hair. Braking hard, he swung the bike around for another pass.

But now there was another motorcycle, a Kawasaki ridden by a slender Indian girl with a crop-headed man on the pillion. As it slowed, the man jumped off, fell hard and righted himself, running between her and her attacker.

The Triumph tried to get close but was driven back as the Indian girl, who looked far too slight to be in control of such a powerful machine, blocked its path. The two bikes circled in an awkward display of attack and defence before the Triumph took off.

‘Stay with her,’ Meera called to Colin, heading off after the leather-clad rider who had just fishtailed around the corner. His engine was more powerful than hers, but she had grown up in these streets and knew every one-way system and cul-de-sac.

Throttling hard, she thought that if she could get alongside him, she might be able to force him into one of the
roads that dead-ended at the raised river wall.

She and Colin had picked up Edona’s trail again by covering the route along the embankment wall. They had just spotted her when the other bike had appeared. The rider’s physique matched that of the courier in the CCTV shot from Coram’s Fields, but he was wearing a different crash helmet.

Meera was in jeans and a nylon jacket, and didn’t fancy her chances coming off at high speed. She needed back-up, but there was no way of radioing in the suspect without losing her concentration. The rider ahead left Cherry Garden Street and hit the busy dual carriageway of Jamaica Road, turning hard left into the traffic. Meera followed and was almost fendered by an immense refrigerated truck.

He hit the roundabout and came off at the first exit before hitting another hard left and doubling back. She knew he would try to head for the Rotherhithe Tunnel, passing under the Thames. If he made that, he would be able to reach the chaotic traffic on Cable Street and the Limehouse Link, and there would be a good chance that she would lose him.

He was forced to turn on to Bermondsey Wall, which right-angled into Cathay Street, heading back to Jamaica Road. If he missed the tunnel approach he would only be able to take the painfully misnamed Paradise Street, which she knew dead-ended at St Peter’s Church.

The road was narrowed by parked vehicles and braced with speed bumps, but she needed to pull alongside. Accelerating as much as she dared, she raised herself and jockeyed over the bumps as he tried to go around them. The time she gained brought them neck and neck. The sound of their engines reverberated from the passing house-fronts. The junction for Paradise Street came up faster than she had been expecting. He needed to cut straight across on to Jamaica Road to catch the tunnel.

Meera saw that there was no possibility of pulling up beside him without killing herself, and was forced to fall back. Checking his rear-view mirror, he roared ahead and crossed the junction.

Or at least, he would have done, if the refrigerated truck she had veered around earlier had not ploughed into him.

The Triumph rolled under the lorry’s front wheels and was mangled to scrap. She did not see what happened to its rider. Braking hard and skidding to a stop, she stood the bike down and ran to the junction. The truck could not brake fast without shifting its load, and came to a halt on the far side of Paradise Street in a blast of air brakes.

When she found the rider lying ten metres further on, she saw that he had been thrown into a wall and had compacted the vertebrae in his neck, severing his spinal cord. He had died instantly. With a hiss of anger, she sat down beside him as sirens surrounded her.

32

METHOD AND MADNESS

IT WAS ALMOST
midnight by the time Meera and Colin brought Edona Lescowitz into the unit. The three of them had only been released by Bermondsey Police after direct intervention from Kasavian. Edona had been informed of her friend’s death, and had agreed to come in on the condition that somebody drove her back to Walthamstow. She appeared accepting and unruffled by what had happened, as if she had been expecting the worst, although she was taken aback by the shabbiness of the police unit.

Longbright made her comfortable in Bryant’s old armchair. May had warned his partner not to upset their witness, but he need not have bothered; for the moment she seemed surprisingly composed.

‘We appreciate your help,’ May said. ‘You’re taking this very well.’

‘Mr May, I was raised in an Albanian orphanage. We were taught to expect the worst.’

‘Well, I’m afraid it gets worse. We think your friend Sabira was being poisoned, which would have accounted for her changes of mood. But even before that process began, she was unhappy.’

‘Of course she was unhappy,’ Edona replied. ‘She was losing her identity. You don’t know what a shock it is to come here and build a life in a strange country, as she did. And then to be treated so badly by those conspirators.’

‘Why do you call them that?’

‘She told me how they hatch their plans. Always trying to destroy their rivals. And the wives, always looking for excuses to meet in fancy restaurants. Sabira was always trying to get out of the lunches.’

‘Did she tell you anything about them?’

‘She said the wives met in order to agree on certain things.’

‘What kind of things?’

‘How to protect their men from bad press and keep a united front. They could apply pressure on any wife who failed to conform.’

‘You think that’s why Sabira had the fight in Fortnum’s? She was goaded into reacting?’

‘I’m sure of it. She couldn’t be controlled, so she had to go.’

‘So the wives might know more than they’ve told us?’

‘If they have any suspicions, I doubt they’ll share them with you.’

‘I wonder if we could get them to open up,’ said Bryant. ‘We’d have to field someone they would trust. That rules out anyone from here. We’re all a bit too rough around the edges.’

May took exception to this. He had always had great success with women. ‘What about Janet Ramsey?’ he suggested. ‘She used to go out with Kasavian.’

‘They close ranks against former partners, divorcees and journalists,’ said Edona.

‘It would need to be someone they don’t know,’ May agreed. ‘Miss Lescowitz, what do you think caused your friend’s breakdown?’

Edona hesitated for a moment. Her natural instinct was
to distrust the authorities, but it was hard to refuse May’s friendly, open face. ‘I think her behaviour was deliberate at first. It allowed her to say things that had no voice. But at some point it stopped being a method and became a madness. Whether this was real or induced is for you to find out, no?’

‘Nobody ever figured out Hamlet,’ muttered Bryant.

‘Did Sabira say anything about the photographer who always followed her?’ asked May.

‘I saw him a couple of times when she and I went out together. He told her to be careful, and not to trust anyone.’

‘Why would he tell her that?’

‘I don’t know. I got the feeling it was part of another conversation they had had earlier.’

‘Do you know if Sabira had any feelings towards Waters? Were they intimate?’

‘No, certainly not. She was loyal to her husband. It was in her nature. Waters was a handsome man. He spent his life calling out to attractive women to get their attention, so I guess he had to be charming, and Sabira enjoyed being paid a little attention, nothing more than this.’

‘Come on, let’s get you home,’ said May. ‘We know how to contact you.’

‘One last thing,’ said Bryant. ‘Did Sabira send you anything when she was in the clinic? An envelope, perhaps?’

Lescowitz thought for a moment. ‘No, nothing.’

‘I’m sending Colin back with you. There will be someone posted outside your apartment until this is over. Colin, you can take my car.’

The detectives arranged for Fraternity DuCaine to share shifts with Colin and Meera outside the flat in Walthamstow until they could come to an arrangement with local officers.

Bryant stood at the window watching Bimsley and Lescowitz crossing the Caledonian Road, heading for the car spaces the PCU rented from the aged Russian
extortionist who had been smart enough to buy up empty lots in the seventies, when the area had been a violent no-go zone. ‘We’re running out of time to uncover something that will probably kill us off for good,’ he said. ‘Not much of a deal, is it?’

‘It’s your call, Arthur,’ said May. ‘We could take Kasavian’s advice and drop the whole thing right now.’

‘Amy O’Connor’s killer is dead, but other lives may be at risk. Someone’s cleaning house to stop information from getting out. They’re in the habit of hiring thugs, so they won’t think twice about hiring another.’ He rubbed his eyes wearily. ‘I have to go home. Tomorrow’s going to be a tough day.’