by David Hodges
Roscoe swore savagely. ‘Shit sticks! And that bastard had the audacity to come in here and carry on with the con, while your lot effectively aided him by keeping shtum! Well, for your information, I’ve now got a missing DS who may have blundered into the whole filthy mess. What do you suggest I do about that, you pathetic arsehole?’
But Detective Chief Inspector Justin Hart had no answer to that!
‘Why?’ Kate demanded, staring at the pistol in Horse’s hand. ‘You are a copper, like me.’
Her mind was once more in overdrive, trying to think her way out of her current predicament, but finding herself focusing instead on the pistol levelled at her chest. She had no idea whether they had found Gabriel Lessing yet but she knew that, even if they hadn’t, he would have about as much chance of getting out of this place on his own as she had of overpowering the NCA man.
Gittings gave a hollow laugh. ‘No, love,’ he replied, ‘I’m not like you. I’m a realist. The authorities will never be able to stop illegal drugs trafficking, I realized that a long time ago. There will always be a market for the stuff and where there’s a market, there are people who will always be prepared to produce and sell whatever is in demand. It’s called the market economy.’
‘So, in your book, it’s a case of, if you can’t beat them, join them?’
‘Something like that, yes, and it is way better than waiting another fourteen years for a measly police pension.’
‘Even if it involves murdering innocent people on the way – like Ellie Landy and the girl, Polly, for instance?’
He snorted. ‘I had nothing to do with Ellie Landy’s murder and I don’t know anything about the death of this Polly girl either. My role has always been simply to frustrate the police operation – keep the NCA off the Sandman’s back – nothing more than that. I’ve stiffed no one.’
‘But you’re still part of the same filthy business, so you’re just as much to blame for their deaths as your scumbag friends are, even if you didn’t actually do the business.’
He released his breath in a loud hiss. ‘Ellie Landy asked for all she got. She wouldn’t leave things alone – kept poking her nose into matters that didn’t concern her – became a real pain, just like you.’
‘I’m glad I proved to be a pain.’
‘Oh you’ve been a pain all right and I’ve done everything I could think of to stop you becoming so much of a pain that it was decided to take you out altogether.’
‘How very noble of you. So what happens now – if I didn’t but know?’
He shrugged. ‘That’s up to the Man—’
‘What, the nice Mr Pavlovic?’
He stiffened. ‘How do you know his name?’
‘I know a lot of things – like Pavlovic’s thug, Tommy, stiffing Leroy a short time ago, for example. Did you help Tommy get rid of the body, I wonder?’
‘Leroy?’ He was plainly shaken by the news. ‘You’ve got it wrong. Leroy is Mr Pavlovic’s right-hand man.’
‘Not anymore he isn’t. He was apparently doing some dealing on his own account and Tommy made sure he didn’t do it again.’
Gittings digested the information for a moment, before shaking his head quickly and apparently dismissing it. ‘Then he was a fool and got what he deserved.’
‘You really believe that?’
‘A hundred percent,’ he replied, though his tone lacked conviction.
‘Good for you,’ she sneered, ‘ ’cause you’re probably the next one on Pavlovic’s hit list.’
He sighed a little too casually and she sensed a new tightness in his manner. ‘Nice try, Kate, but it won’t work. Now let’s go. Mr Pavlovic is very keen to meet you.’
He stepped away from her and indicated with a flick of his pistol that she should proceed ahead of him through the archway. ‘After you, and remember, I’ll be right behind you.’
Kate stayed put. ‘And if I refuse? Are you going to pull the trigger yourself? You know, dirty your own lily-white hands for a change and waste one of your colleagues?’
He nodded. ‘I’m in this thing too deep to get out now, Kate, and you stopped being one of my colleagues when I made the decision to change sides. So, have no illusions – I will pull the trigger, if that’s what it takes – put a round in your thigh maybe. It won’t kill you but it’ll hurt like hell! It’s your choice.’
For a moment Kate continued to stand her ground but then he lowered his pistol a fraction and she sensed the cold deliberation in his posture, which told her he was not bluffing.
‘So, what’s it to be?’ he said softly. ‘Common sense or a hole in the leg?’
It was her turn to shrug as she stepped past him through the archway. ‘I hope your boss has put the kettle on,’ she threw back over her shoulder. But her outward bravado belied her true feelings and, even as she marched ahead of him across the paved yard, a cold solid lump had already formed in the pit of her stomach.
Hayden was almost beside himself. He had tried several of the cottages previously visited but no one had admitted to owning a boat. He had also called up control to seek support from the force helicopter, only to be advised that this required authority from the very top and, in any event, the resource – shared as it was between the Gloucestershire force and that of Avon and Somerset – was already attending a serious pile-up on the M5. As for the police support group’s diving team, with its specialist marine craft, this had evidently been called to a missing child, believed drowned, in a lake near Churchill, so was completely tied up.
Tight-lipped and close to panic now, he rang control and finally got things moving with a call to the fire service, who offered to attend the scene and carry out a floodlight search of the fields. It took them nearly an hour to get to the rendezvous point that had been established however, and before they could launch their inflatable, the mist that had been developing for some time now came down with a vengeance, blotting out everything and rendering a search operation out of the question.
‘Can you at least run me across to Lowmoor?’ Hayden queried.
The senior fire officer shook his head. ‘Sorry, mate,’ he said, ‘but that’s a couple of miles and, in this mist, crossing those flooded fields with all the fences, hedgerows and other obstructions lurking beneath the surface would be much too dangerous for my crews.’ He clapped Hayden on the shoulder. ‘Best to wait until daylight,’ he advised and ordered the inflatable back on to its trailer.
Refusing to give up, Hayden drove to the next village, looking for another resident with a boat – any sort of boat. He did find one almost immediately but only to face further disappointment when he asked to borrow it. ‘In this mist?’ the middle-aged man exclaimed. ‘Not with my inflatable; it’s far too dangerous and anyway, what do you expect to see when it’s like this?’
Almost at his wits’ end, the detective returned to his car. He had to admit it, unless someone could come up with some clever master plan, he was stuffed!
CHAPTER 17
The room was heavily curtained, lit only by a solitary standard lamp and the dancing flames of a roaring log fire. Kate realized where she was when Horse prodded her through the doorway into the stiflingly hot interior after a peremptory knock. She had sheltered in the bathroom next door less than an hour before.
Unable to stop herself, she dropped her gaze to the carpet, looking for any sign of the stains Tommy had referred to after the brutal murder of Leroy, but saw nothing in the poor light save a deep dark pile.
The only occupant of the room seemed to be a man dressed in what looked like a dark suit. He was crouched over the fire, stirring the logs with a poker when they entered and the firelight gleamed on a thatch of thick silvery hair, swept back over his ears.
‘Check her for a wire,’ the man said without turning round, his voice soft, but heavily accented.
Horse nodded and, easing off her anorak, rummaged through the pockets, throwing her a critical glance when, in addition to the pocket torch she was carrying and her warrant ca
rd, he produced the tablets and powder she had taken from the laboratory, placing them carefully on a nearby coffee table. Next, dropping the coat on the floor, he ran his hands hesitantly, almost apologetically over the top half of her body, wincing as he undid the front of her blouse and examined the cups of her bra. Then, apparently satisfied, he stepped back. ‘She’s clean,’ he said, but nodded towards the items on the coffee table. ‘Except for those.’
The man by the fire straightened up and, turning, raised an eyebrow when his gaze fell on the powder and tablets. ‘Tut-tut, Sergeant!’ he said, his English perfect in spite of his accent. ‘That was very naughty of you. You should be ashamed of yourself. What would that constitute on one of your police charge sheets – theft or maybe burglary?’
Kate didn’t answer, but studied him intently. He had to be in his sixties, with a pencil-thin, slightly stooped frame and long thin arms. The incredibly pale aquiline features might have been carved from ivory and the cruel beak-like nose and thin lips were characteristics reminiscent of a predatory bird. But it was his eyes that held Kate’s gaze. Whether it was a trick of the firelight or not, she couldn’t be sure, but they appeared red, as if reflecting the flames themselves.
The man seemed to read her mind. ‘Achromatosis, my dear,’ he said. ‘It is a congenital disorder, due to an absence of an enzyme called tyrosinase, which produces melanin in the body. You would no doubt crudely refer to me as an albino.’
‘Or the Sandman,’ Kate said in reply, showing no sense of embarrassment or self-consciousness in the knowledge that the man she was confronting was nothing more than a cold-blooded killer and a pedlar of misery.
He gave a soft musical laugh. ‘And you, of course, are Kate Lewis,’ he said, holding out one hand. ‘Zoran Pavlović at your service.’
Kate made no effort to take it and he manufactured a sigh. ‘There’s no chance of our being friends, then? Even if I forgive you for stealing my stuff?’
She didn’t answer and he shrugged. ‘Never mind. We’ve got a little while to get to know each other anyway.’
‘Why on earth do you think I would want to get to know you?’
He laughed again. ‘Well, we might have something in common – you never know. I spent many years living in this country, perfecting my English, after my late parents fled here as refugees. Maybe we went to the same school or university or lived in the same neighbourhood at some time? We could even have rubbed shoulders on the odd occasion.’
‘I doubt it. I am very careful who I mix with.’
He blew a silent whistle. ‘Oh, you do have sharp teeth, don’t you, Sergeant?’
He crossed the room and opened the door of a small cabinet, withdrawing two tumblers. ‘Glass of whisky perhaps?’ he said, placing the glasses on top of the cabinet and removing the glass stopper from a decanter already standing there.
‘No thanks,’ Kate said coldly. ‘I don’t drink with murderers.’
He half-turned, then poured two measures and handed one across to Gittings. ‘You know, I do hate impoliteness, Horse,’ he said. ‘That’s what’s wrong with the young people in this country – no manners. In Serbia we treat people with respect.’
Kate snorted. ‘Is that before or after you kill them?’ she retorted, remembering the massacre at Srebrenica in the Bosnian war.
He ignored her response and, returning to his fireside, he dropped into an armchair, crossed his legs and studied her for a moment over the top of his glass.
‘You have been quite a nuisance to me,’ he said finally, ‘just like that silly woman, Ellie Landy. It’s because of her that I am soon going to have to pack up and leave this charming spot – and if it hadn’t been for the damned floods, I’d have been long gone by now—’
‘Ah, the horseboxes!’ Kate cut in, suddenly cottoning on to the relevance of the two large lorries parked in the yard.
He nodded. ‘Well spotted, Sergeant. Good cover, horseboxes. Police never check them and they are capable of holding not only my personal stuff, but all my lab kit, finished products and raw materials with ease. Brought everything here in them months ago when I quit London to set up my operation in Lowmoor. Trouble is, they’re not exactly amphibious and there’s too much stuff to risk moving it by boat, even though we have a nice inflatable in one of our barns for use in emergencies. So, unless I’m rumbled and have to use the inflatable, I am stuck here until the rain decides to stop and the Environment Agency start pumping everywhere out—’
‘Surprised you chose to continue with an outdated street operation like this when you could have used the Dark Web instead,’ Kate cut in. ‘You wouldn’t have needed a risky contact point, like the Sapphire Club, for your customers, simply a computer and a list of major dealers.’
He raised his eyebrows in admiration. ‘You are well informed, my dear,’ he acknowledged. ‘Maybe I should be thinking of recruiting you to work for me, like Horse here. But you’re right, the Dark Web is a lucrative market, and it may interest you to know that I am currently investigating its potential. But there is a lot to be said for the traditional old-fashioned street sales, particularly with the quantity of product that I am able to supply. I am not in the game of selling a few grams of cocaine or cannabis to some dissolute kids in Brixton or Moss Side. I run a multi-million pound business, funded by a syndicate of international backers, and supplying a wide variety of narcotic products to major dealers, and I have also set up a sophisticated channel for the regular provision of the raw materials I need, though unfortunately, because of the floods, I will be getting rather low on some things soon.’
‘And meanwhile, there’s every chance that your nasty little business will attract more unwelcome attention?’ Kate said.
He raised one hand in a gesture of frustration. ‘Exactly, my dear. You are so perceptive. And it has already happened. After Ellie Landy came, her fat boss turned up, then you – who else might have suspicions and decide to drop in on me? After all, my good friend, Horse, here can only keep the NCA off my back for so long before they start getting restless and he has no influence at all with the press.’
He drained his glass and bent over the fire to pack on more logs from a basket beside the hearth. Then he turned to face Kate again and she saw him smile.
‘Mind you,’ he added, ‘a bent copper is worth his weight in gold, because he knows all the angles. Horse’s bosses still think he has infiltrated my organization by purporting to be a dealer, but in fact, he and I go back a long way, don’t we, Larry? He was doing the business for me well before I moved in on the Met to set up my operation there. It’s a very successful partnership.’
Kate snorted again. ‘Yeah, until the NCA twig what’s going on or another journalist gets a whisper about you from somewhere and decides to follow it up.’
‘Unfortunately, that is a possibility,’ he said. ‘But at least I have you here now and the fat little journalist you released is trapped somewhere in the grounds of this house. My men will find him before long,’ and he laughed, ‘unless he can get over a nine foot high wall, like Ellie Landy, which I doubt in his poor physical condition.’
‘He may surprise you,’ she bluffed.
He shook his head. ‘Oh, I doubt that, Sergeant. I have every confidence in him being found soon and I am looking forward to us resuming the little chat with him that you so rudely interrupted.’
‘Like the chat you had with Ellie Landy before you killed her?’
He frowned. ‘Actually, no, I never got to chat to poor Ellie, which was unfortunate. She broke in here, you see, much like you and Gabriel Lessing did, and discovered our state-of-the-art lab. When she was spotted, she took off in such a rush that she even left her mobile behind. She managed to scale the perimeter wall and took refuge in – of all places – the flooded crypt of our local church—’
‘Where you deliberately drowned her.’
He tutted. ‘What a terrible thing to say,’ he exclaimed. ‘What must you think of me?’ He sighed. ‘The truth is, she quite f
erociously attacked Tommy when he found her down there, forcing him to defend himself. I gather that in the struggle she fell over on the steps and in trying to pacify her, Tommy didn’t realize her head was under the water.’ He shrugged. ‘Very tragic.’
He was playing with her, that was obvious, and savouring every word of his farcical explanation. Kate shuddered, remembering what the pathologist had deduced from Ellie Landy’s injuries, and picturing in her mind’s eye the young woman lying on her back on those cold stone stairs, with the thug probably sitting astride her, holding her head under the water as she gasped for air and desperately clawed at the wall with her fingernails.
‘You sound totally devastated,’ she said with bitter sarcasm, adding, ‘but at least you got to chat to Leroy before Tommy murdered him too – even if it was a bit of a one-sided conversation.’
Pavlovic paused in the act of taking another sip from his glass. ‘Leroy? Now how on earth could you know about that?’
He threw Gittings a searching glance, the insinuation in the glance unmistakable, but the detective had seen it coming. ‘She told me about that,’ he blurted, shaking his head quickly in panicky denial. ‘I didn’t know anything about it until then.’
Pavlovic climbed slowly to his feet and ambled across the room to where she was still standing. ‘Bit of a mystery girl, aren’t you?’ he said sibilantly. ‘And we don’t like mysteries, do we, Tommy?’
Kate hadn’t heard the door open, but out of the corner of her eye she saw that a huge figure was standing just behind her.
‘Now,’ Pavlovic said, ‘we’re going to play a little game, Sergeant. I’m going to ask you some questions about what you know and who you have told, and you’re going to give me some straight answers. But there are quite unpleasant forfeits for you if I suspect you are feeding me a line – forfeits that Tommy here will impose with enthusiasm. OK?’
Kate didn’t answer, but she was very aware of her legs shaking.
Pavlovic peered into her face and she smelled the whisky on his breath. ‘First question coming up then, my dear,’ he said, treating her to another smile and glancing at his watch, ‘and your starter for ten.’
