by Andy Maslen
Ronnie arrived with Stella’s champagne in one hand and the bottle in his other. Stella took a grateful sip while Ronnie topped up Marilyn’s glass and then his own.
He raised his glass and tipped it briefly towards Stella, before draining half in a single swallow.
“So, Stella. Why don’t we get to it? You want us to help you off Detective Chief Superintendent Collier, correct?”
“Correct.”
“Fine. We’ll do it.”
Stella glanced at Marilyn but the other woman was looking at Ronnie, face unmoving. No clues there as to what she thought. Maybe it had been her decision all along.
“Thank you.”
“Not so fast. Every tit comes with a tat, and I don’t mean those girls down on the beach. You got to earn it. We need your help with something.”
“What is it?”
Ronnie smiled. He looked like a crocodile approaching a wildebeest, though the predatory effect was spoiled by the leisure suit.
“It’s a bag.”
“Forget your winter wardrobe?”
“Very funny. No, it ain’t clothes. Have another guess.”
Stella didn’t really need to think at all, but she played along since Ronnie appeared to be enjoying himself. She put her finger to her chin, frowned and looked skywards. Then she returned her gaze to Ronnie.
“It wouldn’t be money, would it?”
Ronnie put his glass down and offered a quiet round of applause.
“Yes. It would. A lot of money. Two-point-three million to be exact.”
“And that would be, what, an inheritance? Lottery win?”
There was that smile again.
“Something like that.”
“Let me guess. It’s in England, and you need it fetched back here, but you can’t go yourself because there’re still outstanding warrants for your arrest.”
Ronnie pointed at Stella and winked.
“In one. So we were thinking, you go and get my money for me, bring it back here and then we can sort you out with what you need to ice Collier. Deal?”
Stella didn’t need to weigh up the pros and cons. It was easy.
“Deal. So where is it?”
“Ever been to Oxford, Stella?”
“Once or twice, why? Is that where it is?”
“Little town southeast of there called Watlington. Pretty place. There’s some lockups on an old industrial estate on the outskirts. It’s in one of them.”
“Bit far from your old stamping ground, isn’t it? I’d have thought you’d have had it salted away in some railway arch out east.”
Ronnie nodded, compressing his lips into a thin line.
“It’s a bit of a funny story. I had this mate, George. We were at school together. I went into my line of work and George, he built up this chain of shops all over the south, from London up to Oxford. All kosher, nothing dodgy. Convenience stores, mostly. Well, George never trusted banks, so whenever he could, he’d take a load of cash and hide it away in a lockup. He had dozens of them. We stayed in touch, and when I needed a little hidey hole for my …” he smirked, “… lottery winnings, I asked George for a favour. He let me use one of his lockups, gave me a key so I could come and go when I pleased. We agreed I’d give him a little slice of what I had stored there as a one-off rental. He died a few years ago. Left his wife the shops and a few grand in the bank. But guess what?”
“What?”
“He never kept a list of the lockups. It was all in his head, you see? His old lady had a bunch of little keys on a ring but no idea what they were for. She showed us at the funeral, didn’t she?”
Marilyn nodded.
“And you didn’t tell her you knew the location of this one in Watlington?” Stella asked.
Ronnie shook his head.
“Nah. She never liked me. Used to turn her nose up like she trod in something whenever I went round. So fuck her. She sold the shops, made a pile. Whatever else is in there can just stay there and rot.”
17
Hidden in Plain Sight
Having drug smugglers for tennis partners makes transporting the occasional human being back to England child’s play. Or “a piece of piss,” as Ronnie put it. The trip took two days including stops. Stella managed to grab a couple of hours’ sleep here and there in one of the boat’s cabins. The rest of the time she read books on her phone or played patience. The two men crewing the boat didn’t talk to her except to let her know when they were berthing for the night or to offer her coffee, beer or food.
They put her ashore on a beach on the Dorset coast, using an inflatable dinghy to cover the short distance from the boat to the sand. She jumped out, managing to keep her boots dry, and turned to offer a wave of thanks, but the dinghy was already being tugged round to power back to the boat.
It was five thirty in the morning, and the faintest glimmer of dawn light was beginning to streak the blue-grey sky with pink. It was cold, and she wished she’d brought more than her bike jacket. She clutched it around her, and trudged across the sand, through the dunes with their spiky tufts of marram grass, and up to the road beyond. The nearest town was a couple of miles east of her, and she began walking, not bothering to entertain the idea of hitching or waiting for a bus.
Five and a half hours later, she was standing in her kitchen in Ulysses Road. She checked her watch. It was 11.05 a.m. The combination of walking, minicab ride to the nearest train station, rail journey, London Underground and more walking had aroused a fierce hunger. The fridge was empty. So was the bread bin. But she’d found an unopened packet of chocolate digestives in the cupboard and was halfway through it now, munching contentedly and swigging from a glass of ice-cold tap water.
It felt strange to be there. The last time she’d spent any time in the house she’d been under the illusion Lola was still alive. The house was so still it was like standing in a museum. She closed her eyes, half-hoping, half-dreading that Lola would make an appearance, as she had done before. Nothing. Just a low hum from the fridge. And her inner voice. Other Stella’s insistent questioning.
“What if they’ve got the place under surveillance?”
“Really? You think the Met’s got the budget for that? Plus, like I said before, how can Collier do that without drawing attention to his shitty little gang? No, if he’s coming for me, it’ll be off the books.”
“Which is hardly reassuring given their mission.”
By way of answer, Stella unzipped her messenger bag and banged the Glock down onto the scrubbed pine table – thunk – setting up ripples on the surface of her glass of water.
“They want to come in, fine. I’m ready.”
She went to the small bedroom she’d used as her office, or incident room. The cork board she’d covered in bits of paper with a photo of Richard and Lola at its centre looked ridiculous. Like something of one of those stupid TV shows where every cop had a brand-new iMac and the boss drove a vintage Mercedes. Bollocks! She marched over to the cork board and scrabbled at the newspaper cuttings, computer printouts and Post-It notes bearing drunken scribbles, tearing them in half and throwing them to the floor.
When the board was bare and her feet were islands in a sea of shredded and torn paper, she stopped. Her breath was ragged and she sat, heavily, in the office chair she’d rescued from a skip outside a neighbour’s house.
“Fuck!” she shouted. But it was more for form’s sake than any real sense of frustration. She knew who was responsible. She’d killed the man behind the wheel. Now she wanted the others. She knew their names, and had their phone numbers, so it wasn’t going to be difficult to track them down. Especially since her biggest target after Ramage was her old boss. But he’d have to wait until last. She’d decided to strip away all his allies, one by one, until he realised he was alone and vulnerable. Then she’d take him.
“We could always forget Ronnie and his money and just do them now we’re here.”
“No. It’s not worth the risk. They probably arranged all sorts
of security after I did Ramage. I need to be cunning, not go rushing in all guns blazing.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I think that sounds fun. Even if they all have bodyguards, they probably won’t be armed. You could just shoot the fuckers.”
“No! You don’t know that. They could have members from SCO19. Then they’d be tooled up to the eyebrows.”
“Hmm. You may have a point. And we don’t want to get killed before we’re done, do we? So what about the money? What’s the plan?”
“Ronnie said it was in a holdall. I’m going to buy a cargo net for the bike. It’ll be a squeeze, but it’ll fit behind me. No need to hire a car then, is there? There’s just something I need to do first.”
West Hampstead had over a dozen hairdressers on the long stretch of the A5 that constituted the Kilburn High Road, boasting names like Curl Up and Dye, or Hair to Stay. But Stella had always gone to a little place off to the west along Willesden Lane. It was called Pouri’s. Originally, it had been opened by a woman of that name who left Iran when the Shah was deposed. She’d always described herself, fiercely, as Persian if anyone had made the mistake of asking if she was Iranian. When Pouri retired, her daughter Roxana took over.
The bell over the door tinkled as Stella pushed through into the warm, chemical-scented air of the salon. Several women sat on a lime-green leather sofa reading magazines, their hair enfolded in strips of foil. There were three chairs occupied and one free. Stella looked around, hoping to see Roxana. She recognised two of the girls cutting and combing at the chairs; the third was new. But no Roxana.
“Can I help you?” the new girl asked, smiling brightly at Stella. She was about eighteen, slim with blonde hair in bunches like a schoolgirl, and full, pouting lips emphasised further than nature had managed with bright pink lipstick.
“I want a cut, but I was hoping Roxana could do it. I’m afraid I don’t have an appointment.”
The girl opened her mouth to speak but was interrupted.
“Stella! I thought we’d lost you.”
It was Roxana, appearing through the door at the rear of the salon that led to a kitchenette and the staff toilet. Her glowing brown skin was lightly made up, with most of the emphasis on her kohl-rimmed eyes, which were huge and a deep black-brown. She came straight to Stella and hugged her, then stood back and checked out her hair, touching and teasing strands here and there.
“You, my love, need some serious TLC. Who did this for you, a dog groomer?”
Stella smiled. It was so good to be with someone who had nothing to do with crime or policing or corruption or vigilantism or vengeance. Someone who was just genuinely pleased to see her.
“I couldn’t come in before. I wasn’t ready after—” She felt her voice thickening up. Roxana saved her.
“I know,” she said softly. “But you’re here now, right? Come and sit. I’ve got a twelve o’clock, but she’s new, so I’ll get Lucy to do her. That all right, Luce?”
One of the girls Stella recognised called over her shoulder, “Fine. Me and Lorna can just do a bit of shuffling.”
Roxana settled Stella into the vacant chair and floated a black nylon robe over her lap before fastening the Velcro at the back of her neck.
“Now, what do you want, the usual?”
Three hours later, the bell above Pouri’s pinged and a woman emerged into the pedestrian traffic on the north side of Willesden Lane. Nobody gave her a second glance, even though her new look was a radical departure from her old. The long, brown hair tied back into a pony tail by a scrunchie had gone. In its place, a very short, blonde crop. She’d also had her eyebrows lightened and Roxana had spent an extra ten minutes adding a few deft touches of eyeshadow that brought out Stella’s blue-green eyes, finishing the look with a bright fuchsia-pink lipstick. Stella had looked in the mirror and not recognised herself. Perfect! She’d bought a couple of wigs from the display behind the till, paying cash for everything.
She grabbed a burger from a takeaway place offering everything the hungry and not-too-fussy Kilburnian could want, from fried chicken to pizzas, and munched her way through it on the thirty-minute walk back to her house.
Inside the front door, she grabbed her bike keys from the bowl on the white-painted radiator cover, and her helmet from the floor beside it. The black leather gauntlets were stuffed inside the helmet, along with a fine woollen scarf. She reached for the door handle and then stayed her hand. She realised at that precise moment that she didn’t want to come back. Not ever. So what was there she needed to remove personally? She’d never been one for collecting jewellery. She wore her wedding, engagement and eternity rings all the time. There were a couple of nice pairs of earrings Richard had bought her, but the rest was cheap and cheerful stuff she didn’t care about one way or the other. Mostly she needed papers. She went upstairs to her bedroom and retrieved a black nylon rucksack from her wardrobe. Back in the office she stuffed it with all her important documents. She found herself clutching her will. Pointless now. Who was there to leave stuff to? The government could have it, and maybe it would find its way towards funding the police or the NHS. She ripped it into pieces and left them on the floor among the scattered fragments of her investigation.
“Now I’m ready,” she said out loud into the silence.
Sitting astride her treasured Triumph Speedmaster, she pulled her helmet’s strap tight under her chin. It felt loose compared to the last time she’d worn it, the result of having her hair shorn off. She interlaced her fingers to shove the fingers of her bike gauntlets on tight and thumbed the starter button. The engine stuttered, coughed and turned over a couple of times but didn’t fire.
“Come on, baby,” she muttered into the scarf wound round her neck and the lower part of her face.
She opened the throttle and tried the starter again. This time the big motor caught with a roar before she eased off the open throttle and let it settle into its familiar lumpy idle. She toed the gear lever down into first with a clunk, and half-drove, half-waddled the big machine off the concrete parking space, across the pavement and onto the road.
A quick check in the mirrors, then over her right shoulder, half expecting to see a dark purple Bentley rushing up to send her and the Triumph into oblivion, but there was nothing there. She was just about to let the clutch out and leave the house – For ever? she wondered – when Pearl from next door came hurrying down her front path, waving at her.
She lifted the gear lever up one clunk, back into neutral, and released the clutch lever. Leaning back, she waited for her elderly neighbour to come over to the bike. She didn’t want to kill the engine, having just got it warming nicely, so she leaned closer as Pearl cupped her right palm around her mouth.
“Your friend came round again, love.”
Stella pulled the scarf down to uncover her mouth.
“Which one was that, Pearl? Girl or boy?”
“A girl. Bit younger than you. She had nice blue eyes and dark hair. Big bust. Bit hippy,” she added, pointing down at her own, skinny haunches.
“Sounds like Frankie. She’s my sergeant. Thanks, Pearl. I’ll give her a call.” She held her thumb and finger to the outside of the helmet, miming a phone call.
“All right, dear. Drive safely, won’t you. Only those things—”
“Are death traps.” Stella laughed. “Yeah, you told me. Take care of yourself.”
She plunked the gearbox back into first and bumped down the kerb between two parked cars.
18
Detective Work
Collier’s illegal gun pressed uncomfortably into the left side of his ribcage. He’d simply signed one out of the Exhibits Room using a false name and warrant number late one night. It wasn’t anything special – an ageing Russian Makarov. He’d have preferred a Glock from the armoury, but they were sewn up tight with paperwork you couldn’t forge and protocols designed to foil, he supposed, people like himself and his friends in Pro Patria Mori. Ammunition was even harder to remove from the armoury so he�
�d asked Ferenczy, who’d been only too happy to oblige, especially as he could now see a gleaming future in which the hated McTiernans were vanquished and he became king of the East London drugs trade. He adjusted the pistol in the shoulder holster, but only succeeded in digging it deeper into the flesh under his arm.
Ferenczy might strike it lucky if Collier could give him something to go on, but until Stella made her move, the Albanian was useless. So Collier had decided to pursue his own line of inquiry. He’d been checking on her house every day, on the way to work, on the way home from work and at random times during the day when he could snatch a half hour between meetings. Even at the weekends, though his wife had started complaining and he’d had to invent a series of increasingly desperate lies to account for his lateness for social events or shopping trips she’d planned.
Grimacing, he got out of his car, a grey metallic Audi A6 saloon, looked both ways on Ulysses Road, and crossed the street. He felt faintly ridiculous in dark glasses and a baseball cap, like some comic-book secret agent, but he knew it was enough to distract any well-meaning member of the public who might see him. Eyewitnesses were notoriously unreliable, and he’d worked plenty of cases where suspects had been identified as black, white, tall, short, wearing a blue suit or a black tracksuit. Before driving over to West Hampstead, he’d gone home and changed from his customary charcoal-grey suit into a pair of jeans and a navy sweatshirt, the sort of outfit that would lose him among thousands of similarly dressed men. There wasn’t much he could do about his height, but he was limping and keeping his left foot turned in: something he’d seen in a movie.
At the end of the street, he turned left into Ajax Road and then left again into Ulysses Road. The street was sleeping in the mid-afternoon spring sunshine. Apart from a blackbird tootling away in the fluffy pink blossom of a flowering cherry tree, the road was silent. In the distance, he could hear traffic hum from the Kilburn High Road. Both sides of the narrow street were cluttered with parked cars. He supposed that whatever spaces were left by residents who drove to work were quickly filled by workers driving into the area, either to jobs in the neighbourhood or so they could use one of the tube or overground stations.
