Private London Read online

  ‘Weren’t where?’

  He looked up at me, his eyes brightening again.

  ‘See, it’s courts. Wallahs in wigs …’ he said. ‘I see nothing, I don’t have to report, see?’

  I did see. ‘It’s okay, major, you talk to us and you don’t have to talk to anybody else. No courts, no police.’

  ‘Your word? Officer and gentleman?’

  ‘My word.’

  ‘The van was there. The two girls walked up to it. They heard that other girl calling them. Then it all went mad.’

  ‘They didn’t see you?’

  ‘No one sees the major. Not if he doesn’t want to be seen.’ He tapped his nose. ‘Special training, you know.’

  ‘So what did you see?’

  ‘The first two, they were chatting with the men in hoods, then they pretended to be attacked. Screaming as the other girl came round the corner and started fighting.’

  I felt as though someone had punched me in the gut. I’d been played for a fool. We all had. All along.

  Hannah Shapiro had set the whole thing up. I’d taken her spiel and swallowed it – hook, line and sinker.

  Harlan Shapiro had been the real catch all along and she had been the perfect bait. Perfect for Jack, perfect for me and perfect for Harlan.

  Guilt. It’s a powerful motivator.

  And a deadly one.

  Chapter 84

  KIRSTY WEBB AND DI Natalie James stood in front of the exposed safe.

  Looking for a series of numbers that would open it, they had been through Chappel’s diary and every bit of paperwork.

  Nothing.

  DI Webb was convinced that they would be written down somewhere. They always were. When it came to passwords or codes, the public were pretty bad like that.

  It was like leaving a key under the doormat, or in a wellington boot on the back porch, or under a flowerpot as millions of people throughout the country did. Might as well just leave the door wide open and a welcome mat for burglars to wipe their feet on.

  Kirsty nibbled on a thumbnail, then pulled out her mobile and tapped in some numbers.

  ‘Dan,’ she said when it was answered, ‘I need your mate Gary’s number.’ She listened for a moment. ‘I’ve got a safe that needs opening, that’s why! It’s a combination dial. And I can’t find the code anywhere … okay, I’ll try that and call you back if I need you.’

  ‘Who was that?’ asked DI James after she hung up.

  ‘My ex-husband.’

  ‘That wise?’

  ‘I certainly wasn’t wise marrying him.’

  ‘I meant telling him what you’re up to.’

  ‘He runs a private detective agency. He’s been helping me.’

  DI James threw her a pointed look. ‘Like fast-tracking DNA identification.’

  Kirsty nodded. ‘So forth and suchlike.’

  ‘And this Gary – he’s a security consultant for him?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Must be some agency to run a DNA check that fast, and with the Romanian police.’

  ‘He’s with Private International.’

  ‘Yeah. They have resources,’ DI James said dryly. She nodded at the safe. ‘So what’s he suggest?’

  ‘That we try his date of birth. Most common numeric aide-memoire, apparently.’

  ‘Aide-memoire, you say?’

  ‘Dan’s been to college. Thinks he’s smart.’

  ‘And is he?’ DI James pulled out her notebook and flicked through a couple of pages.

  ‘He’s smart in some areas, dumb as a box of rocks in the ones that count.’

  DI James stepped up to the safe and spun the dial clockwise and counterclockwise a number of times. She paused and tried the handle.

  Nothing.

  ‘Try his number plate,’ Kirsty suggested.

  DI James flicked through her notebook, spun the dial again a few times and turned the handle.

  Open sesame.

  Inside was the laptop that the optician had placed there earlier. DI James reached in took it out and put it on the desk. There was nothing else in the safe.

  Kirsty eased the laptop open and pressed the power button.

  The computer’s desktop display appeared. A coastal scene – somewhere near Dover, by the looks of it.

  The desktop was remarkably uncluttered. Kirsty probably had fifty or sixty icons on her machine’s desktop.

  She used the track pad below the keyboard and clicked on the Windows symbol. The system was a few years old and running Vista by the looks of it. Kirsty went to the start function and clicked on recent documents. It revealed a drop-down menu of about ten jpegs. Kirsty clicked on one and a picture filled the screen.

  After a moment Kirsty swallowed dryly and nodded to her colleague.

  ‘Well, there’s your motive,’ she said.

  Chapter 85

  THE SUN WAS still high in the sky that Sunday.

  But it was late afternoon, almost evening, now and a light wind had picked up. The caretaker was doing his final rounds in the cemetery and it would soon be time to lock up.

  He looked across at a lone figure, the only visitor left in the park. Kneeling in front of a child’s plot that had a large white marble headstone. Disproportionately large compared with the tragic smallness of the plot. It was more than a headstone, it was a monument in the grand Victorian style.

  Fresh flowers had been laid there every day for the last month. Some parents looked after their children in death better than others did in life, the caretaker thought to himself as he glanced at his watch. He’d give it five minutes and then he’d have to lock up. Sad world, he thought to himself for the umpteenth time, in which you have to lock a cemetery against the ravages of vandalism and mischief.

  The inscription on the gravestone read: ‘In loving memory of Emily Jane Lloyd: she danced through our lives all too briefly, and now she dances with the angels. 14/2/2000 – 19/3/2009.’

  There was a small lidded chalice at the front of the plot among the stone angels and the vases of flowers. The surgeon leaned forward and raised the lid.

  If the caretaker had been able to see what was inside the chalice, he would have had far more troubling thoughts about the state of the world than those caused by mere vandalism that he’d had earlier.

  The surgeon opened a small handkerchief and removed the object inside. A scarred, burned piece of flesh. A human finger. Or part of it. The surgeon put it in the pot among the others and closed the lid, replacing the container back with the other objects adorning the shrine to the dead girl.

  The voice was a soft whisper, almost a chant. ‘Just one more to go, my darling.’

  Chapter 86

  HANNAH SHAPIRO WAS dressed now.

  Tight jeans tucked into knee-length chocolate-brown boots, a sweater, her hair tied back, make-up on. The transformation was amazing.

  She was rubbing her right wrist, still red from the rough abrasion of the rope she had been tied with. Attention to detail. You have to admire that.

  ‘We know it was a set-up, Hannah. Tell us now what we need to know and it’ll go easier for you.’

  ‘I’ve done nothing wrong. You’ve made a mistake, Mister Carter.’

  Mister Carter. Just like the mechanical voice had called me on the telephone. It had been her all along, laughing at us. Laughing at me.

  I remembered the younger Hannah once more, sitting next to me on the flight over, discussing F. Scott Fitzgerald and teasing me. I realised the past wasn’t just another country, as another novelist once said. You can travel to another country but the past is a whole different life.

  ‘Where have they taken your father, Hannah?’ I asked.

  She shrugged.

  I felt like taking two steps forward and backhanding her across the face. My god-daughter had been hospitalised because of her. She’d had us dancing around like puppets while she jerked the strings and it made me angrier than I had felt for a long, long time.

  She must have s
een something in my eyes because she stepped back a pace.

  Her eyes flickered nervously. There was still something wrong with the picture. But I couldn’t work out what.

  ‘You can talk to us, Hannah …’ I said. Her eyes flicked to Del Rio who was leaning against the wall and saying nothing.

  He’d told me earlier that it was my play. He’d follow my lead. I didn’t think we’d need the good cop, bad cop routine. We had her cold and she knew it. Just a matter of time.

  ‘Or we can take you down to Paddington Green and you can talk to the cops,’ I continued.

  ‘He deserved it!’ she spat out finally.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why?’ Hannah shouted back at me, incredulous. ‘Why do you think, you dumb prick!’

  Her West Coast accent had come back strongly now. ‘He refused to pay the ransom and my mother died. She died, Mister Carter! But not before I was made to watch her being raped. And then they shot her.’

  She broke down in tears and I regretted the urge to slap her. I felt more like putting my arms around her. She was right in some ways. Maybe Harlan Shapiro did deserve a bit of payback. But not this.

  ‘My god-daughter nearly died,’ I said instead.

  ‘She wasn’t meant to get hurt. She wasn’t even meant to be there.’

  ‘Who were the others, Hannah? We know about Laura, but who were the others who were there?’

  She shook her head. ‘I’m not going to tell you. I don’t care what you do. He deserved this. So he’s had a fright? Look what I had to go through.’

  ‘If anything happens to him, Hannah, you will be in a whole world more trouble than you’re in already.’

  ‘Nothing is going to happen to him,’ she said. But her eyes were darting around again and she was rubbing her scraped arm, unaware that she was doing it.

  Hannah didn’t believe herself, either.

  And that worried the hell out of me.

  Chapter 87

  ADRIAN TUTTLE REWOUND the video clip again.

  I got him to pause it and enhance the image. It was the first video they had sent and I had to admit that Hannah did a pretty good acting job. I got Adrian to split the screen and then played the second clip. I freeze-framed it. Zoomed in on her arm.

  ‘See that, Adrian?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. Like I said, he was good at spot-the-difference.

  Wendy Lee was passing and leaned over. ‘Contusions on her arm in the second video. Not in the first.’

  ‘And what does that tell us?’

  ‘That she was faking being tied up the first time round and not the second.’

  The memory of her rubbing her arm just a short while ago flicked into my mind. Her arm was definitely sore.

  ‘So what changed? What was it?’

  ‘Have you found the other girl yet?’

  I shook my head. I had called Sam to meet me at the student accommodation block. Laura Skelton wasn’t there. Her wardrobe was empty, clothes hangers on the floor. Empty drawers left open. It looked as though she had packed a bag and left. Hurriedly. Sam was out trying to track her down. I didn’t hold out much hope.

  I let the second tape play on.

  Hannah looked at the camera, her voice trembling. ‘They want you to know,’ she said, ‘that this bomb I am wearing can be triggered remotely. Any attempt to do anything other than what you are instructed to do and it will be detonated. Likewise if you attempt to deliver fake diamonds. They will be examined and if they are not genuine the device will be detonated. If police are there again as they were this morning, the device will be detonated.’

  She let the paper fall to the floor as tears welled in her large, terrified eyes.

  ‘Please help me,’ she added in a desperate whisper.

  The screen faded to blackness again.

  Hannah was begging for help – that was genuine. She believed that they had strapped explosives to her and would kill her if we didn’t comply with their instructions.

  Something had happened between yesterday and today.

  What?

  My mobile phone rang. I looked at the caller ID and answered it.

  ‘What have you got for me, Suzy?’ I listened and nodded. ‘Sit on him,’ I said. ‘I’ll be right there.’

  I clicked my phone shut and stood up, grabbing my jacket.

  ‘Something happening?’ asked Wendy Lee.

  ‘Laura Skelton just had a visitor. One of the rugby guys from Friday night.’

  Adrian Tuttle stood up. ‘You want some backup?’ he said. He was being serious.

  ‘No, you’re all right,’ I answered. ‘Suzy and I should be able to handle it.’

  ‘What would you do if he turned nasty, Adrian?’ asked Wendy Lee. ‘Distract him with some origami?’

  ‘I’ve got some moves,’ he said. Striking a pose. He looked like an emaciated heron.

  ‘Just work the data,’ I said. ‘Something’s there. Something’s not right.’

  Chapter 88

  DETECTIVE INSPECTORS KIRSTY Webb and Natalie James jumped out of their parked car and slammed the doors behind them.

  An ambulance was pulled up outside the house that they had been about to call at and a couple of police cars were parked beside it. Lights flashing. Crime-scene tape about to cordon off the area.

  Kirsty Webb felt a sinking feeling in her gut again as they hurried up to the door. She always seemed to be one step behind on this case. A couple of uniformed officers were standing outside. Kirsty and DI James showed them their warrant cards.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘You here to see Alistair Lloyd? The surgeon?’ asked one of the uniforms. A petite woman in her mid-twenties.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re too late, I’m afraid. He performed a …’ she hesitated ‘… a minor procedure, then topped himself.’

  ‘What kind of procedure?’

  The other officer grimaced. ‘He cut off one of his fingers with a samurai sword. And then fell on it. The sword, not the finger.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  ‘Yeah. There’s quite a bit of blood.’ She nodded at DI James. ‘Your boss has been trying to get hold of you. He’s inside.’

  The two DIs, walked into the house. It was a bungalow, almost open-plan. A small hall led into a large lounge-and-kitchen area. Several doors led off it. The one on the far right was open and bursts of bright light flashed from the room behind it.

  A medium-sized man, balding, overweight, with a scruffy jacket and a skew-whiff tie came out as they walked over. He rubbed his hand over a chin that was dark with more than just a five o’clock shadow. It made a rasping sound and he shrugged apologetically.

  ‘I was halfway through my Sunday lunch when I got the call. Slow-roast shoulder of pork. Dauphinoise potatoes. You must be DI Webb?’ He stuck out his hand.

  Kirsty shook it. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Chief Inspector Holland.’ He turned to DI James. ‘Tried to get hold of you.’

  DI James took out her phone and looked at it, unlocking the keyboard. ‘Must have been out of range at the time.’

  Holland nodded impassively and turned to Kirsty. ‘And yours? Spoke to your governor at Paddington.’

  ‘It’s in the car, charging.’

  He nodded again. ‘Either way it don’t much amount to a hill of beans, I guess – as your man in the hat once had it.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘No glory due on this one. Your serious-crime gang are on their way over. But this, as they say, is a done deal. See for yourself if you’ve the stomach for it.’ Holland rubbed his own stomach absent-mindedly, probably regretting starting his lunch at all. He ushered the two DIs into the room.

  There was a plain black teak table in front of a window with open venetian blinds, also in black. Matching cabinets stretched left and right along the wall in front of the desk.

  A Japanese suit of armour stood in one corner of the room.

  There was a chopping block on the desk and a white handk
erchief was laid neatly next to it. Beyond that on the desk was a wooden holder. Ceremonial. On the handkerchief a small pool of blood had soaked through. A severed finger lay in the middle of it.

  Chapter 89

  ALISTAIR LLOYD WAS lying on the floor.

  The samurai sword that should have been sitting in its holder was stuck through the centre of his body. He had toppled sideways and there was blood pooled around him on the floor. A lot of it.

  The SOCO photographer took more shots in a quick burst and left the room, leaving the forensic pathologist to go to work.

  ‘He left a note,’ said Chief Inspector Holland.

  ‘Typed?’ asked Kirsty Webb, thinking back to Colin Harris’s supposed suicide.

  ‘Handwritten. And, judging by other materials here, it looks authentic to me. Signed, and fingerprints on the paper, no doubt, which I have every belief will match his own.’

  ‘Right.’

  The CI nodded down the hall to where more white-suited SOCOs were bagging evidence in the kitchen. ‘And we found human remains in his freezer. Individually bagged-up organs.’

  ‘The Jane Does’?’

  ‘We need to check, but yeah, probably.’

  ‘What the hell did he take their organs for?’

  Chief Inspector Holland spread his hands. ‘This guy was all kinds of nutter. For all we know, he was going to make a casserole with them.’

  ‘What did he say in the note?’ asked Kirsty.

  ‘He confesses to the four killings.’

  ‘Why did he do it?’

  ‘He was part of a group. Exchanging photos.’

  Kirsty nodded. She’d seen the photos. ‘And what happened?’

  ‘One of the people gathering the photos. A Romanian nurse …’

  ‘Adriana Kisslinger?’

  The CI looked puzzled. ‘How did you know that?’

  ‘I didn’t. I guess you just confirmed it, though. It was a line of enquiry.’

  Holland looked for a moment as if he might press her on the matter but shrugged it off. Not his problem. ‘Anyway, she started blackmailing the group – a teacher, a social worker, a surgeon. Figured the surgeon in particular could be the jackpot.’