Jigsaw Man, page 16
He had met her only two weeks before, after trawling the handful of pubs close to the murder squads’ offices in Barnes, posing as somebody on his own, new to the west London area, with a paperback and a pub guidebook to keep him company. He could spot the police contingent a mile off amongst the locals and after only a couple of false starts he had got talking to her. That she worked directly for Tartaglia – what were the odds of there being more than one detective inspector with an Italian name working out of Barnes? – and was new to the team had been a massive bonus. Lady Luck had smiled on him again. He was careful to play it cool, not probing her with any direct questions, and eventually he had asked her out. Two days later, she had phoned him to say she couldn’t make it. ‘They were on call.’ When she had explained what this meant, he could barely contain his elation. It was then simply a matter of timing, getting all the cards to fall nicely into place.
‘You know, you don’t look at all like a policewoman,’ he said, sitting down a few moments later with their drinks.
She smiled awkwardly. ‘What do you mean?’
He almost choked at the obviousness of it all before answering, ‘Well, if I knew you better, I’d pay you a compliment here, but I don’t want you to think I’m cheap.’ Noticing the colour rise to her cheeks, he grinned. ‘I think I’d better shut up. Here’s to you and good detecting.’
Twenty-two
Tartaglia ordered Steele’s coke and brought it over with his whisky to where she was sitting, tucked away in a far corner of the room. He sat down and reported what Melinda Knight had just said to him.
When he finished, she sighed. ‘God, that’s all we need – although with the press briefing tomorrow first thing, she’s only a few hours ahead of the rest of them. I’ll see if I can get someone to lean on her editor and find out exactly how much she knows. We may have to persuade them to hold back some of the details. You think she may be onto something with this third fire theory?’
‘I don’t know. I really couldn’t tell if she actually knew something and wanted to know if we were on the same track, or if she was just trying to find out if we had anything. Obviously, we searched for anything similar after the Sainsbury’s fire, but post today’s events, maybe we should look again at the search criteria and also widen the area. I’ll get Justin onto it tomorrow. What’s the news from Hendon?’
‘The usual horse-trading. Discussions are still going on and I’ve got to go back to the office for a conference call in half an hour. But last I heard we’re likely to run the two investigations in tandem, with Alan Marshall taking an overall supervisory role.’
‘That sounds good,’ Tartaglia said, relieved that for the time being he could concentrate on the London end and let Ramsey and his team get on with their part of the investigation. Marshall was Steele’s direct superior and a man known for cutting through red tape and bureaucracy. With him in overall charge, it would make for clearer reporting lines, with the ultimate decision-making kept in London, just in case of a problem. It was by far the best option. He quickly outlined what Ramsey had just told him.
‘I also spoke to Chapman earlier,’ he added. ‘He confirmed that Finnigan definitely had a thing about Russian women and that he had apparently talked quite freely about getting a Russian bride off the Internet when he got out. According to Chapman, some bloke Finnigan had met in jail had done just that, although the woman had then taken him to the cleaners and run off with somebody else while he was inside.’
She nodded thoughtfully. ‘So it was widely known.’
‘Yes, although Chapman said he thought it was all a bit of a joke, that Finnigan was just trying to big himself up. He didn’t think Finnigan would actually do anything about it.’
‘But he didn’t have to, did he? Somebody else fixed it all up for him, made it nice and easy, handed it to him on a plate. Somebody who knew exactly what appealed to his fantasies.’
Tartaglia took a mouthful of whisky and nodded agreement.
‘Whoever’s doing this is certainly clever,’ Steele said. ‘He knows how to pull people’s strings, yet he had to use Tatyana to get to Finnigan. He couldn’t do it himself, for some reason.’
‘Finnigan was six-foot-four and a real bruiser. Maybe he didn’t fancy getting too close.
It may be as simple as that,’ Tartaglia replied. ‘Although why go to so much trouble? Perhaps he enjoyed the game as much as the killing. Whatever it is, he’s known to Finnigan in some capacity and is somebody Finnigan wouldn’t normally trust, otherwise he could have lured the man to his death himself. Sharon’s following up on Finnigan, starting with his contacts in jail. Given the sort of man he was, he must have had quite a few enemies.’
‘But surely they’d be more likely to slit his throat in a dark alley than do something so subtle and convoluted?’ asked Steele.
‘Maybe. We need to find somebody who had the motive, the nous and the patience to see it through. Somebody must really have hated him.’
‘What about John Smart?’
‘No connection so far between him and Finnigan and no sign he was lured anywhere. The Missing Person investigation looked at his phone and email records and there was nothing to suggest any form of a meeting. He just goes out one morning on his bicycle, to the shops or his allotment, or whatever, and disappears off the face of the earth. Like Richard English. If English is behind all of this, why bother to plant his wallet at the scene of the fire? So far, there’s nothing to link any of the other victims to him. He could have stayed quietly out of the picture and nobody would ever have thought of him.’
‘Perhaps it’s a double bluff and that’s what he wants us to think,’ Steele offered.
That seemed implausible to Tartaglia, but he’d long ago learned that it was a mistake to look at things too logically where murder was concerned. ‘As of this evening, we’ve got access to his accounts, both business and private. A forensic accountant will be starting in the morning.’ He finished his whisky. Pub measures, even doubles, didn’t go far. ‘It still doesn’t make sense to me,’ he said, after a moment.
‘You mean Richard English being alive?’
‘Yes. I’m trying to see a pattern in all of this, but so far I can’t find one. Richard English disappeared two years ago and is never heard of again until his wallet turns up at the scene of the first fire. A year later, John Smart disappears. Part of his body turns up in said fire. As for the other victims, there’s Jake Finnigan, who went missing six months ago, plus an elderly woman and a youngish man, both so far unidentified. The lab confirmed that the body parts from the Sainsbury’s fire had been frozen, so whoever’s doing this is collecting them for a purpose.’
‘Finnigan was in jail two years ago and only got out a few weeks before he went missing, so maybe that’s why he wasn’t killed earlier.’
‘Yes, but was this planned from the beginning, or did the killer improvise as he went along?’
They were silent for a few moments, pondering the situation, then Steele asked, ‘What about the tramp who used to hang around Sainsbury’s?’
‘We’ve tried all the usual places, but no sign of him. The timing of his disappearance is odd. I spoke to the manager of Sainsbury’s, who told me the man had been kipping down outside the bakery most nights for about a month once the weather turned cold. Then, around the time of the fire, he disappears.’
‘He could be Richard English . . .’
‘Yes, or possibly the killer, or maybe they’re one and the same. But if so, why bother to hang around Sainsbury’s, in character as it were, for a whole month. It’s one of many things that don’t add up.’
Donovan emerged from Hammersmith Tube station into the fresh night air and started to walk along Shepherd’s Bush Road. She had gone to meet Sally, a close friend of Claire’s, for a drink and had ended up having supper at her flat. It had been difficult talking about Claire and she had learned nothing of any interest in terms of the investigation. Sally had been as kind and considerate as anybody could be, but it was all a bit awkward. The last thing Donovan wanted was her pity, but there was worse to come. Sally’s flatmate had come home towards the end of the evening. It was clear from her reaction on entering the flat that she had assumed Donovan had already gone, her cheery ‘Hello, I’m back’ cut short on seeing her. Mouth still half open, she stared at Donovan, then quickly looked away, muttered an embarrassed ‘sorry’ and rushed out of the room. Not everybody was so socially inept, but Donovan had seen what had happened to the families of murder victims, and now Claire’s murder had marked her out too. The tragedy hung over her like an invisible cloud. Going forward, for heaven knew how long, she could expect hushed tones, averted eyes and the pity of strangers, along with the inevitable, prurient curiosity. She was no longer plain Sam Donovan. She was the woman whose sister had been killed. The one in the papers. At that new hotel. With it came a bizarre and distasteful form of celebrity. But short of changing her name and moving to a new town, what could she do?
Shepherd’s Bush Road was still relatively busy, cars and the odd bus spraying freezing muddy water onto the pavement and anybody walking along it. She decided to cut through the backstreets to Tartaglia’s flat and turned off the main road into Brook Green. It was a relatively peaceful residential area of low-built late Victorian houses. She had been to Tartaglia’s flat more times than she could count and had often walked back afterwards to her house near the river. It was strange to be going the other way. Her rubber-soled boots made no noise as she walked and all she could hear was water dripping from the trees and the buzz of traffic from the main road. She turned the corner into Tartaglia’s street and was about to cross the road when she caught a slight movement just ahead of her. She stopped. A man was standing in the shadows under a tree. He appeared to be looking at his watch; the swing of his arm was what had caught her eye. He looked back at Tartaglia’s house opposite and, as though he sensed her presence, glanced around towards her. She caught the pale flicker of a face under his dark hoodie. All she could tell was that he was tall. He turned and walked quickly away, his feet making no sound. There was something not right about his reaction and she decided to follow him. It was difficult to keep track of him in the low light. He turned into a street on the right and a moment later she rounded the corner, running now, but there was no sign of him. She heard a car start up further along and the roar of the accelerator as it sped down the road, too far away to make out either the make or model of car or the licence number. It turned into Shepherd’s Bush Road and was gone.
Tartaglia walked up the path to his front door and let himself in. He collected the few bits of post from the hall table and went into his flat. The lights were on, and Sam Donovan sat on the sofa facing him, arms folded, a cup of something in front of her on the table. He could tell from her expression that something was wrong.
‘There was somebody outside, Mark. About half an hour ago, when I came home. I’m sure he was watching this house.’
‘Outside? Where?’
‘In the street. I came around the corner and I saw him. He was standing under the tree opposite, looking up at this house.’
‘I’ll go and take a look.’
‘No point. He’s gone now.’
‘You’re sure it was this house?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you ask him what he was doing?’
‘No. The minute he saw me, he disappeared off. It was all I could do to keep up. Then he drove away in a car. He’d left it parked several streets away, which is pretty odd, unless he was trying to cover his tracks.’
‘What did he look like?’
‘Tall, Caucasian. Dark clothing and a hoodie. That’s as much as I could tell.’
He unzipped his jacket and sank down on the sofa opposite. ‘I’m pretty sure it was a journalist.’ A look of horror crossed her face. ‘Nothing to do with Claire, don’t worry. Melinda Knight was hanging around my office when I left. She probably sent somebody to watch my home too, which explains something she said. The case I’m on is about to break big-time and she’s ahead of the pack. I don’t know how she found out, but there’s a link between our case and one that’s just happened down near Winchester. I was there this morning and either somebody spotted me, or more likely there’s been a leak. I’m afraid it means no peace for a while.’
‘Oh . . . OK.’
She looked a little relieved, he thought, although he was surprised she didn’t instantly ask him about the case. He wondered if he should tell her about it. Maybe it would be good to involve her, keep her mind off things to do with Claire. When they worked together, she had always had something interesting to say or a new and unexpected angle. As he thought about sharing things with her, it suddenly dawned on him how much he missed her company and her companionship. ‘Do you want to hear about it? It might interest you. It will be all over the papers tomorrow morning.’
‘I’ll head off to bed, then,’ she said, getting to her feet, her face blank, as if she hadn’t heard him. ‘Is there any news? About Claire, I mean?’
‘I’m afraid not. I’ve just had a drink and a quick bite to eat with Steele. I asked her about progress but there’s nothing new to report, no breakthrough yet on the horizon.’
She gave him a hard look. ‘The trail is cold, you mean.’
‘Sam, you know what it’s like. Unless you get a break in the first twenty-four hours, it’s usually a long, hard slog. We’re doing our best, I can assure you.’
She said nothing. Her face was white and pinched-looking and she had a glazed look in her eyes. Maybe she was just tired. She turned away and walked out of the sitting room. A moment later, he heard the bedroom door close behind her.
Twenty-three
Adam lay in bed, drifting towards sleep. He had shut the curtains tightly across the window and there was barely a glimmer of light from outside. His thoughts turned momentarily to stupid little Hannah Bird. The short drink had been a success and he had left her wanting more – a dinner date arranged for later that week. He was a good listener and she seemed to want to talk. He had learned more than enough about her, the basics of her family background and schooling in Reading, that she had read geography at university and that she shared a flat in north Finchley with someone she knew from uni who was training to be a doctor and working all hours of the day and night. She was new to London and he had also eventually established that she was new to the Barnes murder squad. He sensed that underneath her excited chatter about working for a murder squad, she felt out of her depth and was struggling to cope. He could also smell her loneliness a mile away. For a policewoman, she seemed naive, but then even the best had been taken in by him in the past. It was a surprise to learn that she was no longer involved in the Dillon case, but as a result she was less wary. Eventually, she confirmed that Sam Donovan was staying temporarily in Shepherd’s Bush with ‘the boss’. She had also let slip that Sam would probably be allowed back to her own house in the next day or so.
He blocked out Hannah’s face from his mind and allowed the darkness to envelop him, imagining a hot summer’s night, somewhere far away. He was lying on a pile of cushions in a boat, floating along a canal, little bridges passing by intermittently above him. Stars filled the sky, moonlight shimmered on the water, and he felt the gentle lulling movement of the boat as Pink Floyd’s ‘Us and Them’ played in his head. He imagined Sam lying beside him, eyes closed, arms at her sides, still and cold to the touch. All his. He tried to picture her as he remembered her, but still she evaded him. Her pale heart-shaped face became interchangeable with others. Nameless others he didn’t want to see. Others who kept forcing themselves into his thoughts and dreams . . .
He heard a noise, a light tapping sound on the window, and opened his eyes. Someone, or something, was trying to get in. The curtains billowed as though in a breeze. Was the window open? He was sure he had shut and locked it. As though by an invisible hand, the curtains peeled back and he saw the window silhouetted against the sky, suddenly glowing bright in the darkness. Through the clouds, the shifting faces swam into view, the evil old hag followed by the younger ones, pressing their damp, mouldy flesh against the glass, covering it with a foul mist until he couldn’t see out. Like smoke, the edges of the faces blurred as they started to squeeze through the cracks; white vapour curled into the room, re-forming in front of him. He knew what was coming and he felt the usual dread. He closed his eyes, waiting, every muscle tensed until eventually he could smell the stinking, icy breath, felt the bony fingers first stroke his throat then grasp it, tightening their grip little by little like a vice. He choked. The fingers loosened for a second or two then tightened again. He screamed, or tried to, but no sound came out. Teasing him, the fingers gave a little. He screamed again and again. It sounded like someone else’s death rattle . . .
‘What the fuck’s up with you?’ a deep man’s voice said.
Adam screamed. This time he heard his own voice deafeningly loud. The overhead light snapped on.
‘Are you on something?’ the man asked.
Panting, it took him a moment to focus in the dazzling light. He was in his bedroom. The narrow little guest bedroom on the ground floor of Kit’s house. The chair he had put against the door to secure it had been knocked over and swept to one side. Gunner stood a few feet away at the foot of the bed, dressed in nothing but a pair of boxers. His face, neck and forearms were tanned, but the rest of him was white as snow. An enormous tattoo of a crow pecking a skull decorated his broad chest, with something written beneath it, which Adam couldn’t make out. How long had he been there? How much had he heard? Was Gunner spying on him? Then another thought occurred. Did he want a shag? Was that what it was all about? If so, he was barking up the wrong tree. Not for Kit, not for anyone, and certainly not a ten-foot tall Norseman who looked like a baddie from a Die Hard film.
