Glancing down at his hand, she saw that he had a ring on his wedding finger.
‘That’s very kind of you,’ Ruth said as she handed him the pushchair to carry.
‘That’s the problem with London. If you offer to help someone, they think you’re some kind of weirdo,’ he chortled as they began to make their way up the stairs slowly.
‘That’s very true,’ Ruth said with a smile, and scooped Ella up into her arms. ‘Probably a bit quicker if I carry you, young lady.’
‘What floor are you on?’ the man asked.
‘Fifth, unfortunately.’
‘Us too,’ he laughed, as if the coincidence was hilarious.
To be fair, he doesn’t strike me as a Serbian hitman.
Ruth glanced at a door on the stairwell. They had now reached the third floor.
‘You’re from London?’ he asked.
‘Born and bred. I’m guessing from your accent that you’re not?’
‘Me? No, no. I’m from a tiny little village in Herzegovina.’
Ruth frowned and tried to remember where that was. She didn’t want to appear ignorant.
‘You’ll have to remind where that is,’ she said with an embarrassed smile.
‘In the Balkans.’
‘So, it’s near Bosnia?’ As soon as she’d spoken the words she realised that this was way too much of a coincidence.
He glanced quickly at her. ‘Actually, it’s part of Bosnia.’
Shit! I don’t believe in coincidences.
Ruth’s pulse started to quicken rapidly as she drew in a breath.
Looking up the stairs, she could see that the next door read Floor 5. They were only five or six stairs away. If he was going to attack her, then it was going to be now.
‘I love the way you dress Ella. The little Adidas trainers. Very cute,’ the man said as he looked directly at her.
Oh my God! He knows her name.
Ruth felt sick.
She could hardly get her breath.
‘What do you want?’ she asked, aware that her voice was trembling.
‘Want? I’m just helping you and Ella up the stairs,’ he said with a shrug.
‘Stop saying her name!’
As they reached the top step, the man opened the door for the fifth floor and gestured for her and Ella to go through first.
What is he going to do with us?
‘It’s all right thanks,’ Ruth snapped.
The man smirked. ‘I insist.’
‘Someone waiting for us out there?’ Ruth asked, trying to hide her fear.
‘Believe me, if I wanted to harm you and your daughter, I would have done it by now,’ he replied casually.
Ruth went through the door out to where the cars were parked in rows.
It was silent.
Taking a deep breath, she quickly scanned the area, hoping to see someone else around.
There was no one.
The man came over and put the pushchair down by her feet.
The sound of a car engine broke the silence.
A large black BMW loomed into view with its headlights glaring.
The car pulled up beside them.
Ruth held her breath – I’ll kill them if they come anywhere near Ella.
The driver, with a dark beard, wound down the window. He said something in another language that Ruth didn’t understand.
Oh my God. What are they going to do?
The other man moved towards Ruth.
She flinched away.
‘Nice to meet you, Ruth,’ he said, and then put his hand to Ella’s face and ran his finger gently down her cheek.
Ruth held her breath.
An elderly couple came out of the exit behind them. They were chatting loudly as they headed for the ticket machine.
The man looked over at the couple and then directly at Ruth.
‘Next time, I’ll be taking Ella with me. Understand?’
He walked around the car, got in, and it pulled away with a loud screech of its tyres.
CHAPTER 26
Lucy went into the living room at her sister’s flat with two cans of beer. Brooks was sitting on the sofa surrounded by some of the papers and documents that had been recovered from the murder victims’ homes.
‘Here you go. Get that down your Gregory,’ Lucy said with a grin. Gregory, short for the actor Gregory Peck, cockney rhyming slang for neck.
‘Gregory? I haven’t heard that for years,’ Brooks chortled as he swigged from the can.
As Lucy sat down, she could hear a song by the band Simply Red.
‘Oh my God! Did you put this crap on?’ she groaned.
‘Hey, it’s in your sister’s record collection,’ he said defensively.
‘Yeah, well she’s got terrible musical taste. The only decent albums she’s got are the CDs I buy her.’
Brooks frowned. ‘CDs? What’s wrong with records?’
‘Bloody hell, Grandad. CDs are digital. No scratches, any track at the push of a button.’ Lucy rolled her eyes as she went over to her sister’s fancy stereo. She worked in television doing something called ‘development’, so she could afford a CD player. Lucy took an Ocean Colour Scene CD and placed it into the CD tray. She loved how the tray just slid smoothly back into the stereo and began to play track one immediately. Records were a pain in the arse.
‘And what’s this racket?’ Brooks asked with a mischievous smile. She knew he was playing up to the whole middle-aged-man persona. And he looked so attractive when he smiled at her.
‘Ocean Colour Scene. You won’t know them.’
‘You do know that all this Britpop crap just sounds like a load of Beatles’ B-sides,’ he said mockingly.
Lucy ignored him and gestured to the paperwork. ‘Found anything yet Detective Chief Inspector?’
‘Nothing interesting. Just a couple of maps in the stuff you got from Safet Dudic’s place.’
‘Maps of what?’
‘London and Surrey ... Nothing from Mujic’s diary that might narrow down where Petrovic might be hiding?’
Lucy went over to her folder and fished out the translation document. ‘Last entry we have is this page. We have the four names written on the left - Advic, Selimovic, Dudic and Mujic. Simo Petrovic’s name is written here with a word in capitals and underlined that translates as ‘kill’. Then the name Ben Fleet, also in capitals, scribbled at the top.’
‘Anything come up for Ben Fleet?’ Brooks asked.
‘Nothing on the PNC. There’s a retired schoolteacher in Aberdeen, an accountant in Bristol, a schoolboy in Norfolk ... Nothing that helps us.’
‘You had the address in Hammersmith but the place is empty,’ Brooks said, thinking out loud. ‘And there are spooks watching it.’
‘We had a false name too, and the post that came from a Surrey postmark,’ Lucy added.
‘What about the footage from Waterloo? Any idea where Petrovic had come from? Platform numbers?’
Lucy shook her head. ‘Nothing. Except that Waterloo serves trains to Surrey and then to the South West.’
It’s like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack.
Brooks frowned for a second and then looked at her. ‘The name Ben Fleet. How was that written in the diary?’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘Was it written as two names distinctly separated? Or could the two words have actually been one word?’ he asked.
What the bloody hell is he talking about?
‘Harry, you knob, you’re not making any bloody sense,’ Lucy said getting exasperated.
‘I worked a case donkey’s years ago. A snout of mine was killed in Brixton. He had this betting slip on him which had loads of scribbled writing on it. It had a name, Peter Lee, written on it, and then the words white house. We asked around but no one had ever heard of a Peter Lee and he had no previous. When I dug around, it turned out that my snout, and the bloke that murdered him, came from a place in Durham called Peterlee. Peterlee White House was a com
munity centre where this murderer worked. It wasn’t someone’s name, it was a place.’
‘Did you nick him?’ Lucy asked.
‘He died in prison.’
‘So, it could be Benfleet? I’ve never heard of it.’ When Lucy said it out loud, it didn’t sound like a place name.
‘Got a London A-Z?’ Brooks asked.
Lucy went to the bookshelf, took a tatty A5 copy of the London A-Z street guide, and tossed it over to him. ‘Here you go.’
This is a total waste of time.
Brooks looked inside and thumbed through a few pages. ‘There is a place called Benfleet but it’s near Canvey Island in Essex.’
Lucy shrugged despondently. ‘Harry, we’re not going to find him. Petrovic could be anywhere. He might not even be in the country.’
Brooks looked at her for a moment. ‘This case really means a lot to you, doesn’t it Luce?’
She nodded. The thought of Petrovic getting away made her feel tearful. Maybe it was just that she was exhausted and rattled by the events of recent days.
‘Yeah. I’m just too close to it,’ she whispered.
Brooks nodded, got up, and gave her a hug. ‘We all get cases like that.’
Lucy squeezed him, feeling his muscular torso in her arms.
Why can’t he be here every night?
She watched him taking the London A-Z back towards the bookshelf. He flicked through the index as he went, then suddenly paused.
‘You okay?’ she asked.
‘I’ve found two Benfleet Roads. One is in Finchley ...’
‘Put it down, Harry. We’re wasting our time.’
He looked over at her and raised his eyebrow. ‘... and the other is in Cobham.’
Oh my God!
‘What? Are you kidding me?’ Lucy raced over to look. She saw where his finger was pointing on the map and there it was.
She looked up at him. ‘I love you Harry Brooks.’
He smiled at her. ‘I love you too.’
Lucy was now feeling overwhelmed. ‘No. I mean I really love you.’
‘What’s changed? I thought you wanted everything to be footloose and fancy free?’
‘I just say that to protect myself,’ she said with a shrug.
Brooks took her in his arms. ‘I wasn’t going to say anything but ...’
‘What?’ Lucy asked. Her mind was running away as she wondered what he was going to say.
‘I’m going to leave Karen. I can’t be there anymore. It’s making us both miserable. What do you think?’
‘What do I think?’ Lucy said with her heart fluttering. She pulled him down to her and kissed him hard. ‘I think it’s a crazy but brilliant idea.’
DRAGGING HARD ON A cigarette, Ruth stood by the fireplace in Shiori’s Clapham home. It was tastefully decorated with dark leather furniture, rugs, and floor-to-ceiling bookcases.
Shiori came in with two large glasses of wine and handed her one. ‘Here you go, you poor thing.’
Ruth had told her all about the incident at the car park. It had really shaken her.
‘Ella okay?’ Ruth asked as she stubbed out the cigarette. It was her second in about fifteen minutes.
‘She’s fine. They’re asleep holding hands. Sooo cute,’ Shiori said and then gestured to the sofa. ‘Come and sit down.’
Ruth nodded and went and sat on the plush sofa. ‘I’m so sorry to impose on you like this.’
‘Don’t be daft. It’s lovely to have company. Stay as long as you need. Once Koyuki has gone to bed, I’m normally here on my own.’ She moved some of the cushions and sat back. ‘I had a phone call from Claire Gold.’
‘Any news?’
‘She has an experienced investigative journalist who is interested in the story, but they need their Editor to come on board. She’s meeting with them tonight.’
‘That’s great news. Thank you,’ Ruth said as she sipped her wine.
‘They might need to talk to you and Lucy at some point.’
‘Of course. I’m not sure that we’re ready to go on record yet. But as unnamed sources, we’re more than happy to meet.’
‘Great. I’ll let her know.’
Ruth spotted a photograph above the fireplace of Shiori, Koyuki and a man who she assumed was Shiori’s ex-husband. He was handsome in a preppy kind of way.
‘Happy families, eh?’ Shiori said sardonically.
‘How did we get it so wrong?’ Ruth asked.
Shiori kicked off her shoes. ‘And then that horrible question, why weren’t we enough?’
‘That’s not a great place for me to go to at the moment. I have an awful feeling that Dan is going to run off with this Australian girl and move to the other side of the world.’
‘Would that be such a bad thing?’
Ruth shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Ella wouldn’t have a dad. But how much would she see of Dan anyway now he’s moved out? He doesn’t seem interested.’
‘Koyuki hasn’t seen her dad for nearly four months now. They adapt.’
‘Hey, we could be in exactly the same situation in a few months,’ Ruth said.
Shiori laughed. ‘Two hot single mums with cheating, arsehole ex-husbands thousands of miles away.’
Ruth smiled and raised her glass. ‘To hot single mums.’
Shiori lifted her glass and clinked Ruth’s. They looked at each other for a moment. ‘Amen to that, sister.’
Ruth drained her wine. As she leaned forward to put it down on the small side table her hand visibly shook.
God, I’m still really quite shaky.
Shiori frowned. ‘Your hands are shaking. Are you okay?’
Ruth nodded, but she wasn’t.
For a moment, she tried to compose herself, but it was too hard. ‘I ... I really thought he was going to take Ella.’ As Ruth said the words and thought of her daughter, she felt the tears well in her eyes. ‘Sorry ... I ...’
Shiori shifted closer to her on the sofa and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. ‘Don’t apologise, silly. It must have been terrifying.’
Ruth blinked and wiped the tears from her face. ‘Yeah. I’ve seen all sorts of terrible things. But when he came over and put his hand to her face ...’ Ruth took a deep breath. Her lips began to tremble, and she felt completely overwhelmed.
Shiori put her arms out and pulled Ruth towards her. ‘Hey, it’s okay. Ella’s here. And she’s safe. You’re safe. You don’t need to worry.’
It feels so nice to be hugged and held, Ruth thought.
‘Thank you,’ she said quietly.
As they moved apart, Ruth looked into Shiori’s eyes. They held each other’s gaze and didn’t say anything.
What are we doing?
They instinctively moved towards each other and, very slowly, they kissed. Softly at first, and then a little harder.
Shiori moved back, her eyes moving furtively around the room. ‘Sorry, I ... God, I’m really sorry.’
‘It’s okay. Don’t worry,’ Ruth said reassuringly. The kiss had felt exactly right in that moment.
‘Wow. Did not see that coming ...’ Shiori looked flustered as she got up from the sofa. ‘I think I’ll go and check on the girls and then have a bath.’
Ruth smiled affectionately. ‘Okay.’ She could tell that Shiori was completely freaked out.
‘Do you need anything?’ Shiori asked as she went to the door.
Ruth shook her head. ‘No. I’m fine thanks.’
CHAPTER 27
As Ruth drove her and Lucy through the heavy traffic towards St George’s Hospital, she was preoccupied by the events of the previous evening. The incident with Petrovic’s thug in Clapham Junction. Seeing Ella so vulnerable. And then the awkward kiss with Shiori. Had she completely misread the signals that Shiori was giving out? Had she just mistaken a growing friendship for something more? She didn’t even know who had kissed who. It had seemed to have happened quite naturally. Or was that just how Ruth remembered it? Her instinct told her that there was something betw
een her and Shiori other than friendship. As a copper, she relied on her instinct day in and day out. However, she found it far harder to trust when it came to matters of the heart.
‘You’re away with the fairies this morning,’ Lucy commented as they approached the hospital.
‘Just tired. I’m worried about Ella after yesterday.’
‘Where is she today?’
‘Shiori offered to look after her today at her house. I don’t want to take the risk of her going to nursery.’ She didn’t know whether she had been followed and if Petrovic and his cronies knew her every move.
‘Bastards. Brooks wants us to hand over everything we’ve got to take it upstairs,’ Lucy grumbled.
‘Yeah, well I don’t think I can do this anymore. Not now they’ve threatened Ella. Nothing is worth any harm coming to her,’ Ruth said, starting to feel emotional as she thought back to the man stroking Ella’s cheek in the multi-storey car park.
‘No, of course not. I just wanted to look that wanker Petrovic in the eye when I nicked him. We’ve worked our tits off on this case and now someone else is going to collar him.’
Ruth nodded. She understood that Lucy wanted to get justice for the people that Petrovic had murdered in the last ten days, as well as those back in Bosnia.
As Ruth parked, her instinct was to look in the rear-view mirror to make sure they hadn’t been followed. She couldn’t see anything.
They walked across the car park into the hospital, and made their way to the ward where Katerina was recuperating. A doctor confirmed that she’d had a good night and was now fit enough to leave.
Walking down the corridor, Lucy glanced over at Ruth. ‘Brooks wants us to take Katerina back to the station. Witness Protection will take her to a nearby safe house.’
Ruth nodded. ‘You know what? For once, the idea of drinking coffee and doing lots of paperwork for a few days seems like a bit of relief.’
‘Yeah. You’re not wrong there,’ Lucy said but then her expression changed.
‘You all right?’ Ruth asked.
Lucy looked at her. ‘Where’s the armed officer?’
Ruth looked at the chair outside Katerina’s single room. It was empty.
Oh God!
‘Shit!’ Lucy broke into a run.
Diary of a War Crime Page 17
