‘No need for firearms,’ I say.
‘But–’ says Becks.
The team’s watching me, Becks nervously scratching his chin. ‘He didn’t try to shoot me before,’ I say. ‘Which tells me that he either never had a gun or has ditched it.’
‘Sir–’
I bang the desk. ‘My decision, not yours. It’s our duty to catch this fucker and he’s not escaping me a third time.’ And before he can argue back, I order Bannon and Toth to mind the incident room while Becks and O’Shea prepare for the raid.
Ten minutes.
I return to my side office and write up my decision log, ending with the order to raid Javtokas’ flat without firearms. It’s in writing now. It scares me but there’s no turning back, even if I’m wrong.
Nine minutes. A damp insinuating cold has settled in. There’s something I forgot to ask Becks, so I leave a message on his mobile and phone Laura again. She’s engaged. I check the time automatically, even though I looked at the clock a minute before. 10.55. And I ask myself, why shouldn’t my wife be using the phone on a Sunday morning? Why should that worry me? Why shouldn’t that call be blameless?
I stand up to shake out my muscles and the mobile rings. It’s Laura calling back. When I hear her, soft and mellow, it’s like the early days, when I used to call endlessly just for the sound of her voice. It makes me feel I’m a teenager again.
She says she was talking to Isobel. I walk around the little room and say, ‘That’s fine.’
‘You approve?’
Seven minutes to go. The sky is darkening again with battleship-grey clouds. There’s an unaccustomed flatness to Laura’s voice and I wonder if she’s trying to tell me something, so I say, ‘Do you think she and Gerry have problems?’
I can rely on Laura. She’s sensitive, like a hair trigger. ‘Why do you ask that?’
‘I don’t know. I’m concerned for them. There was something in the way he spoke. And when I called her last night… she was prickly. I picked up a vibe, Lolo. Maybe something financial.’
‘If Izzie wanted to talk to me about problems she’s having with Gerry then she’s not going to want me blabbing to you about it. It would be between her and me.’
‘Between you girls.’ I chuckle and sit back down at my desk, rubbing my arms and legs, still stiff with tension.
Six and a half minutes.
‘I phoned to ask when you’re going to bring me back my car.’
‘It’s being sorted.’
‘I’ll need it this afternoon.’
‘You said. I’ll be there with it.’
There’s a silence on the line. Now I know for certain there’s something she’s holding back and this time I say, ‘What are you not telling me, Lolo?’
I wait and after a long time, she asks in return what I’m not telling her. ‘You first,’ I say, laughing. And then my work mobile goes.
‘Don’t answer that, Ross,’ Laura says. ‘Don’t fucking answer that.’
I look at the display. It’s Becks. ‘I’ve got to take it. It’s about your car.’
‘What about my car, Ross?’
‘I’ll explain. Please, hold on.’
I lay down my personal mobile and click the other and Becks says, ‘You phoned me.’
‘You were going to tell me about the Prius earlier. What’s the situation?’ I’m looking at the other phone lying on the desk with Laura waiting and add, ‘Hold on a moment.’ I snatch it up, but I know before I hear the call-terminated-by-the-other user that she’s gone. I slam it down and check my watch. Five minutes. I stand and say to Becks, ‘Where are you?’
‘On my way down to the car park. I’ve just had the intel on Javtokas’ phone. It’s been turned off since one o’clock this morning. But you’ll be interested in where it was then.’
‘Are you going to tell me?’
‘The hospital. Camden General.’
I tell him I’ll be downstairs to join the raiding crew in sixty seconds.
‘But it’s bad news on the Prius,’ he continues. ‘The breakdown service won’t repair accidents, only breakdowns. They’ll tow it to a Toyota garage for you if that helps.’
As I leave my room, I dial Laura back. She picks up after two rings. I say, ‘I had to take that.’
Her words come slowly. ‘Of course. Why did you need to speak to someone about my car?’
I push anxiously through a pair of fire doors. ‘There’s a problem, but it’s nothing to worry about, I’m going to get it organised. What was that you said?’
‘Nothing. It’s nothing. I’ll book a minicab.’ She sounds remarkably calm about it all.
I shiver. There’s an Icelandic chill in this part of the building; the radiators must be broken here too. ‘What did you want to tell me, Lolo?’
‘It’s not important,’ she says.
I reply, ‘Sounded like it was.’
‘We shouldn’t be doing this over the phone.’
‘Doing what?’
Then there’s that silence again. Like a curtain dropped, like the end of a play, and she says again, ‘It’s not right over the phone.’
‘Well, you’ve started now.’
‘About last week,’ she says.
Last week?
‘About what happened. You really don’t remember?’ The back stairs are gloomy and unlit as I head down. ‘I don’t know what to think or say, Ross. I totally don’t know.’
‘If you don’t know, then I don’t know.’
This is frightening me. What is it that’s so difficult for her to tell me? And then the understanding suddenly comes like a smack on the head, hard and stinging. I realise with horror what she’s not saying. I stop at a dull bend in the stairs and stay there unmoving, noticing automatically that one of the windows is cracked. I don’t know how to respond to her. So I beg her not to do anything yet. Nothing irrevocable. ‘I’ll talk about it when I come round with the car. There are things I can’t say here, can’t say on the phone, but there’s stuff.’
‘You’ve said that before and it was bullshit then, Ross. Just because you say you can’t remember…’
‘I can’t. I really can’t. Laura, stay calm, don’t do anything till I come home.’
‘You left your suitcases half packed,’ she says. ‘Just come and take them.’
It’s like my stomach is filled with lead. I lean weakly against the cold wall. I hope desperately that I’ve misunderstood, that I’m seeing fearful images in the dark. Images that disappear when you turn on the light. Only I’m afraid they won’t. ‘Forget the suitcases.’
‘Ross, we’ve had these discussions a hundred times. We’re finished. Nothing changes.’
I can hear the tiredness in her voice and the distance, the unspoken words that have been turning to poison inside her. Only now she’s said them, I want to hug her, to stroke her hair and protect her from this. It can’t happen to us. What could have happened to break up our marriage? It happens to other people, but not us. We’re not like that. Other people’s marriages fail, but not ours. We belong together.
I lean against the wall at the corner of the stairs and ask her again to promise not to do anything too quickly. She says nothing. I say I can’t come round now, I’ve got a raid on, but I’ll be there, does she believe me?
I’ll be there, I mean it, I’ll be round as soon as I can, I promise… But still there’s silence.
She’s hung up again.
27
His mobile was ringing on his study desk. He ran in, but he was too late to answer it. He was about to try to ring back. And then the phone started again.
Amy Matthews.
He tried to reason with her, to find out where she was, but she was too frightened to say.
He told her to calm down, not to do anything stupid, but she wasn’t listening to him at all.
I’m sitting in Becks’ Astra, fifty metres from a Tesco Express in Gospel Oak, and the nerves are getting to me. Darjus Javtokas lives here, in a concrete block of fl
ats above the mini-market. An expensive place for a student. Where does he get the money? Across the road there are two more CID in O’Shea’s unmarked car and round a corner, out of sight of the flats, a police carrier, full of Action Men from the Territorial Support Group acting tough. We’re all in Kevlar vests. And we are all unarmed.
I’ve had more memories of hearing R talking to Amy Matthews, at least that’s what I think I’ve had. I – He was trying to get her to be logical and think things through. But the fragments of memory always stop before the end.
Becks looks across at me. It’s not too late to pull out and wait for Firearms, but it is. The raid has an energy all of its own. I’m in charge and yet not in control. I can sense the nervous excitement in the team – the desire to do something, anything, take any risk rather than sit and wait – and I try not to think that Javtokas might have a gun after all.
The snow is starting to fall again, sporadically this time, and I’m waiting to hear from two PCs I sent to cover the rear of the building. I don’t want Javtokas escaping out the back as we go in the front. Becks sits patiently in the driver’s seat, examining each of his fingernails in turn. O’Shea joins us in the back of Becks’ Astra. He says nothing, just sits bullet-head rigid behind me with an air of suspicion, as if he doubts my every move.
Then, after a long five minutes, I get a call: the two officers are in position. I nod, unable to speak. O’Shea gives the command over the radio and we’re all out. Two PCs pull an enforcer from the boot of the Mini Cooper, a thirty-kilo metal battering ram painted bright red, and we’re jogging through the snow, keen to do some breaking and entering on this quiet Sunday morning.
At the glass door to the flats though, the two front men stop. An old West Indian woman stands in the little lobby, thin as a stick, bent over two bags overflowing with empty bottles and cans. She glances up, sees a dozen policemen in body armour and her mouth opens and closes in shock.
Smiling encouragement, I hold up my warrant card. But she backs away from us, clutching the bags to her chest for protection. I put my fingers to my lips and beckon to her to open the door, but she retreats till she hits the rear wall. She’s saying something but I can’t hear. Not until the enforcer smashes through the lock.
Glass flies everywhere. The woman screams. I shout at one of the PCs to take her outside. He tries to reason with her, still screaming, still clutching her recycling, while the rest of us race up the stairs to flat 7 where we find a wooden fire-resistant door.
I pray Javtokas isn’t loading his gun, and I point to myself, meaning I’ll go first. Becks shakes his head and I ignore him. My decision, my risk. I nod to the two PCs next to me and they heave the enforcer into the door, but they hardly dent it.
This surprises me, because the door doesn’t look so strong. The enforcer smashes a second time. The wood starts to crack, and impatiently I push them out of the way and kick the rest of it in, wanting to get at this man at last. But before I can enter, Becks pushes past, shouts ‘Police’ and runs inside, tensed against the first bullet.
But there is no shot. We find ourselves in a small bare hallway. Becks yells Darjus’ name and slams open the door to the main room. No one there either. The team spreads out around us, calling.
There are three other rooms in the flat and it takes thirty seconds to come up with nothing. No one hiding under the bed. No one in the cupboards. I go to a window at the rear and look down at the two men on watch in a little yard but they shake their heads too.
The mood of excitement has disappeared. I feel sick with disappointment and the action men file out, dejected, back to the street. The rest of us move slowly from room to room, readjusting to the tedium of a detailed search.
I start with the main room. It’s modern and sparse and contains a very few minimalist-chic furnishings, like Javtokas has not had time to get any more or doesn’t care to. The walls are grey, the windows large, and the four chairs and one table are more stylish than I’d have expected. Despite myself, I’m impressed by this student’s taste.
Becks joins me in the bedroom. ‘How does a student afford a place like this?’
‘Drugs?’ I suggest. ‘Is he in the Kaunas Gang after all?’
I walk into the kitchen and irritably pull open the fridge. It’s empty except for half a loaf of sliced bread and a started carton of milk that expires in three days’ time.
‘You think he’s cleared out?’ Becks asks. ‘He knew we were coming?’
I look at him. ‘You told me you trusted everyone in the team.’
‘I still do.’
I cast around for possessions that will give me an idea of who this person is, but there are few. I count six English books, and a dozen CDs of what I guess to be Lithuanian punk, with cover photos of moody teenagers. A sparse collection of clothes lie crumpled in his bedroom cupboard, mostly T-shirts printed with the names of minor thrash-metal bands. I examine them, then throw them back down in annoyance.
O’Shea stands, shoulders hunched, arms crossed, teeth gritted, watching his PCs. Becks finds six airmail letters from an address in Vilnius, the letters have been neatly handwritten in Cyrillic. A photo is tucked inside the first – a well-dressed middle-aged woman waves at the camera. Presumably the aunt who brought Javtokas up. She stands in a square in wintry sunshine and looks enormously proud.
Around me, the men open drawers and toss what little they find onto the floor, noisily sharing as many bad jokes about East Europeans as they can remember.
‘I need these to go to a translator,’ I say, handing the airmails to O’Shea, who informs me in return that they’ve found no toothbrush or shaving things, no laptop. ‘We’ll get the call records for the landline here, but I’ll lay odds your man’s not used it for months.’ O’Shea glares at the empty wooden shelves as if he has a grudge against them.
I have no reply. Wandering around the flat in search of good news, we find Becks in the bedroom, crouched by a king-sized futon, awkwardly trying to reach a scrap of notepaper that’s fallen under the frame. By twisting sideways, he manages to touch the paper with his gloved fingers then slide it out. He examines it, turns it over and then laughs, long and loud.
Both sides are blank.
28
I ask Becks to drive me back to the station, feeling a dark uneasiness settle in once more like poison in my blood. When there is no urgency, he turns out to be a slow driver. He leans forward over the steering wheel, carefully negotiating every patch of ice at minimal speed while I phone the hospital to check whether Crystal might be in a condition to talk. The Welsh nurse there doesn’t want to speak to me. I tell her that her patient is an important witness, but it appears the victim’s condition is a state secret – even from the police. So I ask for the consultant. And the nurse informs me with finality that on Sundays he makes the briefest of ward rounds and won’t be visiting the ward for another hour.
‘I’ll come and meet him briefly in an hour then,’ I say.
I think about calling Laura but can’t conceive of anything I could say over the phone that would help. I’ve never felt like this before, as if my very bones have turned to ice.
When we reach the makeshift incident room, I find there’s no need to report back on the raid’s failure as Bannon and Toth have already heard. Instead, Charlie Toth asks if we’ve established a connection between Javtokas and the Kleizas.
‘No,’ I say, feeling foolish. ‘And even if there is, we can’t prove anything. We can’t prove Javtokas tried to kill Crystal. Or, if he did, that he also shot Amy Matthews. Or that there’s any connection with the raid on the Kleizas’ office.’ I try to harness my thoughts, my doubts and uncertainties, and take control of this case. Back to procedure again. Hide any feelings. ‘What can we say for sure about Crystal’s attacker? Build a profile. What kind of person do we know he is?’
‘Violent,’ says Helen Bannon from behind her computer. ‘Vicious. He knew what he was doing.’
‘Okay,’ I say. ‘He? Are we sure
it’s a man? Not a tall woman? How do you know?’
Bannon doesn’t blink. ‘Looks like it, doesn’t it, sir? The hospital estimated over a hundred and eighty centimetres. Used fists and feet. Someone who knows how to hit and doesn’t hold back.’
‘Even so, it could be a woman. Keep your options open. But go on, what’s the motivation? Is he or she on drugs? Or fighting over them? Or looking for revenge over something or other? Or the kind of person who just likes hitting women?’ I want to push her, push the whole team. I have so little time. ‘Is there anything on missing prescription drugs at the hospital?’
Bannon turns over pages in her notebook. ‘Nothing. Not even an aspirin, they say.’
Nothing seems to be helping us. I search desperately for something that will at least make me look like I’m in charge. ‘I need someone to go to Javtokas’ college to find out what we can about him there.’
Becks puts up his hand, which doesn’t surprise me, but I nod instead to Bannon and tell Becks to drive back to the hospital with Javtokas’ picture, taken from Facebook. ‘Show it around and see if it means anything to anyone. I’ll come over in an hour and meet you there.’
Meanwhile, I get Charlie Toth to stay in the incident room, in case of phone calls, and find out more about the Lithuanian and Bengali gangs. I also ask him to book me out a plain car from the pool. Preferably not a Mini Cooper. He’s watching me carefully. Is he growing suspicious or am I imagining it.
During all this, O’Shea has returned, listened and then bounced off again, surprisingly upbeat, to bark orders, chase up the forensics, knock on more doors. He seems to be a man who feeds off failure. It reassures him that his pessimism was right. And as Bannon and Becks pull on their coats, I look around the team, wondering if one of them tipped Javtokas off that we were coming.
Room 15: a gripping psychological mystery thriller Page 15
