by Michael Kerr
She moved closer. They kissed urgently; undressed each other clumsily with fumbling fingers, and let nature take its course. Wild horses could not have separated them. The world at large – outside the small space within it that they occupied – ceased to exist. They tried to take it slow, but pent-up longing and attendant frustration drove them to quick release. After only a short respite, they made love with less urgency, and both of them were overwhelmed by the enormity of the step they had taken. Their relationship had entered a new dimension, that neither of them had properly been able to contemplate. It had been fulfilling sex, and much more. They had found something that both had never possessed before, though neither voiced it in so many words.
“It’s only three-thirty,” Julie said. “Do you want a coffee before we go to bed?”
“Mmm, that would be good,” Ryan said. “Do you mind if I smoke?”
“You think I’m about to start laying down the law after our first date?” Julie said.
“When do you propose to start doing it, after the second, or third?”
“You want house rules, I’ll give you one: Don’t leave the toilet seat up.”
“I can live with that,” Ryan said, slipping his boxers on.
They drank instant coffee, then climbed the spiral staircase to the short landing. At close to six-four, Ryan found it a tricky proposition.
“First on the right,” Julie said. “Just throw Biff off the bed.”
The large Teddy bear was sitting up on the multicoloured bedspread with its back against the headboard. It was a sad-looking individual with a chewed ear and dull brown glass eyes. Patches of cotton showed through the faded orange fur, and one of its legs was all but hanging off.
Ryan picked the stuffed toy up and placed it on a wicker chair near the window. “Sorry, Biff, but three into two doesn’t go.”
“I see you two are hitting it off,” Julie said, appearing at the door.
“I’m not sure. I think old Biff is a little miffed at having to give his side of the bed up. I’ll have to bring him a jar of honey next time.”
“Honey is a no-no. He’s on a strict diet of dandelion leaves and crisp bread. The old bugger spends too much time sitting around, doesn’t exercise, and I know he raids the fridge when I’m asleep or at work.”
“He looks as sad as a professional mourner.”
“Sometimes you’ve got to be cruel to be kind.”
“Just how old is he?”
“Biff was my father’s. He’s the same age, sixty-three. But he’s had a hard life; been a victim of untold domestic violence, bounced from pillar-to-post, and spent over ten years in solitary confinement, up in the loft.”
“Who, your father?”
Julie giggled. “No, Biff, you idiot.”
“Explains his surly attitude,” Ryan said as he made his way out to the bathroom. He used Julie’s mouthwash, rinsed his face and patted it dry.
Julie switched off the light when he climbed in beside her and put his arm around her waist.
She turned and kissed him. “Goodnight, Ryan,” she said.
“Goodnight, Julie,” he said. “Goodnight, Biff.”
“Are we murder cops or the Bisto Kids?” Julie said.
“No labels. We’re who we want to be.”
Julie did not want the night to give way to another day. Was scared that what they had found together might be as ethereal as a mirage, and would somehow melt away as they slept. She lay awake and luxuriated in being in Ryan’s embrace. Listened as his breathing became deep and even in sleep. She felt tingly, and still had the sensation of him being inside her. He had subtly let her know that there would be a next time, threatening to bring Biff honey. She fell asleep with a small smile on her face.
It was almost seven a.m. when Ryan got up. He went downstairs barefoot, cursing the cold, black steps that seemed too tightly coiled around the central axis. He found the coffeemaker, primed it and hit the switch. Turned on the portable TV and caught the end of a breaking news story.
“...was found gunned down with two of his employees in the private car park at the rear of the Paradise Club on Upper Grosvenor Street.”
A dated picture of Cornell Flynn flashed onto the screen. Ryan recognised the old hoodlum, who had allegedly made his first few millions from hard-core porn, bent saunas and massage parlours.
No loss, Ryan thought. It was one less scumbag on the street. Pity that not enough of them took each other out. He channel-hopped and caught the full story. The bodies of Flynn and his men had been discovered by the club manager, who was the last to leave Flynn’s establishment. The first footage was of police vehicles, flashing roof lights, and not much else.
Ryan poured the coffee. Somehow negotiated the staircase without spilling a drop from the two flowery mugs.
“Hi, Ryan,” Julie said, rising up on one elbow. “The smell of fresh coffee woke me up.”
He stood and stared at her. Her hair was tousled, and the thin duvet had slipped down to lay bare her breasts. She looked as sexy as hell. Biff was one lucky bear, to get to share her bed every night. Although having sawdust for brains and no dick, the little guy could not fully appreciate his good fortune.
Ryan set the mugs down on top of the bedside cabinet at Julie’s side, and settled next to her. Gently held her close to him, and felt an immediate need as her hardening nipples brushed his chest.
The coffee was cold by the time they lay back, breathless and smiling. Julie had ended up on top with Ryan’s hands cupping, squeezing her breasts as she rode them both to the finish line.
“I could get to like doing this,” Julie said.
“What do you mean, could?”
“Okay, so I’m already addicted.”
“Good. Practise makes perfect.”
“It is perfect, Ryan. It can’t get any better than this.”
They showered together. Emptied the cold java in the toilet. Got dressed and went down to get fresh refills.
“You had any dealings with Cornell Flynn while you were with vice?” Ryan said.
“Yes. Why?”
“Put the news on. He got blown away.”
Julie switched on the TV. “We tried to put Flynn away for years,” she said. “He was a clever operator. Had legit businesses like the Paradise Club, a printing firm, and his fingers in the rag trade. His taxes were paid, and on paper he was a straight-up guy.”
They sipped coffee and waited for the next news update. When it came on, there were no further details to supplement what Ryan had already seen.
“Who do you think might have had it done?” Ryan said.
Julie shrugged. “Competition. He might have tried to muscle in on someone else’s turf. There’s always a lot of flexing. He obviously stuck his fingers in the wrong pie.”
They left the house soon after. Julie dropped Ryan at the Vitari.
“I’m going to call in at my flat and get changed,” Ryan said. “I’ll see you in an hour or so.”
They kissed, feeling a little wary in the open air. Their new relationship had complicated life. A DCI and one of her DI’s shouldn’t be an item. If the top floor found out, then one of them would be transferred out. And it would be a career-stopper. Not that Ryan gave a toss about promotion. He was happy as a DI. But he would not want to be kicked out of the SCU. If he and Julie were going to see a lot of each other, then they both knew that they were walking a very fine line, and that nothing stays buried forever.
Julie called in at the incident room. Four officers were at their desks. To a degree, the Yard was like Vegas, it never closed. Police work and gambling were both non-stop industries.
Eddie Taylor looked like shit. His eyes were red-rimmed and had dark shadows beneath them.
“You okay, Eddie?” Julie said. “You look―”
“Like shit, I know,” Eddie said. “Self-inflicted. I was up all night.”
Eddie had taken Natalie Hope, the nurse, out for a meal. She had been only too pleased to go back to his place.
Nearly killed him. He had never, to his knowledge, been with a genuine, full-blown nymphomaniac before. Natalie couldn’t get enough. If there was a god that Natalie believed in, then it went by the name of phallus, and she truly venerated it, devoting herself completely to impaling herself on its physical manifestation at every given opportunity. Eddie was red raw, his legs were weak, and he thought he might not want to indulge again for at least a month. Natalie was a pleasant girl with a good sense of humour, but her uncontainable desire for sex made any thought of a lasting relationship intolerable, in Eddie’s estimation. She needed sex on tap, and plenty of it. Maybe even two or three men would not be enough for her. She was truly addicted to the physical act of love, and he was not prepared to be one of her fixes.
“Have we got any new leads to follow?” Julie said, assuming wrongly that Eddie had overindulged on booze.
“I’ve got a hunch,” Eddie said. “You catch the news about Cornell Flynn?”
“Yes.”
“I made calls. It was a professional hit. The manager who found the vics told the attending officers that he heard what he thought was a backfire, but must have been a gunshot. Thing is, there were at least eight shots fired. The hitter used a silencer.”
“And you think that it could have been Tyler?”
“It’s a stretch. But how many pros are running around the city with silencers at any given time?”
“Did your contact mention who the club manager thought might have taken out a contract on Flynn?”
“Yes. He told CID that some Russian had made an offer for the club a few weeks ago. Flynn had told him to take a hike, and Ivan the Terrible took it badly.”
“Ivan the Terrible?”
“His name is Sergei Gorchev. Russian Mafia. We know he exists, but he’s as hard to pin down as Lord Lucan. The descriptions of him are all different. When any of his men are lifted, they don’t talk. Won’t say a word. A top lawyer appears and plays mouthpiece.”
“So knowing that this Gorchev might have hired Tyler is academic. And even if we could contact the Russian, he wouldn’t know who Tyler really was.”
“It’s a piece of the big picture,” Eddie said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Savino and Gorchev had got together. Two big operators like that would have to see eye to eye on things. Draw boundaries and not step on each other’s toes. Tyler could work for both of them.
“Good work, Eddie,” Julie said. It figured that if Gorchev had hired Tyler, and Savino knew the Russian, then he would want to make contact and ask Gorchev to help him nail the killer of his daughter.
Ryan turned up carrying a plastic cup of coffee and a grease-stained paper bag full of doughnuts. He was back in brown leather and blue denim, and wore scuffed, down-at-heel cowboy boots. He put the doughnuts on a desktop for anyone on duty to snack on.
“Run it past him,” Julie said to Eddie.
“You look―” Ryan began.
“I know, I know, like shit,” Eddie said. He then gave Ryan his take on what he thought could be a link between Tyler, Gorchev and Savino.”
“I like it, Eddie,” Ryan said. “I’ll visit Savino again, tomorrow, and throw him a bone. And he has permission to attend his daughter’s funeral on Tuesday. It’ll be interesting to see who he speaks to.”
The young guy looked like a busker. He boarded the tube at King’s Cross wearing a long woollen army coat and a leather hat with fur-lined ear flaps. In one hand he carried a guitar case, and in the other, a battered satchel that anyone interested would have assumed held sheet music.
Andy boarded just as the doors began to hiss shut. Sat three seats behind ‘Busker’ and studied other passengers in the carriage.
As arranged, Busker got off at Covent Garden. Andy made his way to the vacated seat, under which the satchel had been left.
By the time the train arrived at Hyde Park Corner, there was only one original passenger left in the carriage; an old woman who had fallen asleep with her head back and to a side, against the window. Andy got off at Gloucester Road and went into the toilets. Opened the satchel and removed the wads of money. Pocketed them, flushed the toilet and walked out, leaving the wiped down satchel on the floor. He then took the Circle line to Liverpool Street and collected his car from the NCP across the road, after satisfying himself that he had not been followed. An hour later, after stopping off at a supermarket for a few bits and pieces, he was back in the flat at Snaresbrook.
He worked-out until his muscles burned, then showered and switched on the TV. The regional news devoted three minutes to the shooting of Flynn and his minions. Speculation was that a rival gang had been responsible for the slayings. Andy nodded at the talking head. They were right. Not that it would help them. The next item was about an alleged cover-up by government. So what’s new? The programme ended on a lighter note. A dog had leapt into the lake at Virginia Water and dragged a drowning tot to safety. Turned out that the dog was a stray, and the parents of the rescued child were going to give the mutt a home. How fucking paltry. Better if they’d both drowned. He went through to the kitchen and put a dinner-for-one in the microwave. He needed time out from murderous thoughts and deeds. He ate quickly, then settled to watch a movie: Aliens. He liked Sigourney Weaver, almost as much as he liked the slime-jawed killing machines of the title, that she was pitted against. Sigourney would make a perfect victim in reality. He would love to see how she would react to being attacked by a real monster, who would not be following any gung-ho Hollywood script.
The door knocked. He felt apprehensive. Quickly ran to the bathroom to put in his coloured contact lenses, then went to the door and opened it as far as the chain would allow.
“Sorry to bother you,” the slim blonde woman said. “But I’ve locked myself out of my car. And the battery in my mobile phone is dead. I wonder if I could use your phone to ring a locksmith.”
“Er, that will cost you a packet, Ms,” he said, taking the chain off and opening the door. “Especially to call them out on a Sunday evening. Maybe I can open your car for you.”
“You think you could do that?”
“Yes. But I’m not a car thief, honest. It’s just something I learned to do a long time ago.”
“I’m Gemma Rutledge,” she said, proffering her hand. “I live in the flat next door.”
“Toby Carlson,” Andy said, lightly shaking her smooth, small hand. “Pleased to meet you, Gemma. Hang on a minute. I’ll find something to open your car with.”
Armed with a home-made Slim Jim, that was a flat, foot-long piece of steel, much like a ruler, but wafer-thin and with one end hooked back, Andy accompanied Gemma down to where her sporty little burnt orange Ford Puma was parked next to the 2.2 Toyota that he now legitimately owned under his assumed name.
He pretended to make hard work of a manoeuvre that he could have performed in under ten seconds, blindfolded. He did not want her to think him too proficient. That he could break into and boost almost any make of car, was something else he had learned in prison, and put to good use after his release.
After slipping the SJ down between the rubber seal and the window, he frowned and shook his head a few times for effect, then hooked the cable and pulled it up to disengage the locking mechanism. The button popped up, and he removed the tool and stuffed it in the back pocket of his jeans.
“There you go,” he said. “Glad I could be of help.”
“Thanks, Toby,” Gemma said, opening the door and getting in. “I owe you. You’ll have to come round for a meal...That is if you want to, and if you aren’t, you know, involved.”
“I’d like that. And I’m not involved,” he smiled. “Give me a couple of days’ warning if you mean it.”
“I don’t say anything that I don’t mean, Toby,” Gemma said, starting the engine, winding her window down and pulling the door shut. “How about next Saturday night, around eight?”
“You got it,” Andy said. “Red or white?”
“Uh?”
“Wine.”
; “Oh, red.”
“See you next Saturday evening then. Or before, if you lock yourself out again.”
Gemma smiled. “I’ll keep my spare key in my purse from now on,” she said before driving off.
Chapter TWENTY-THREE
Ray Savino slumped into the chair. Ryan thought that the gangster had physically aged about ten years. The death of his youngest daughter had almost broken his spirit. His hard veneer was cracking, beginning to split and come apart.
“Make it quick, Ryan,” Ray said. “I really don’t need a cop in my face today.”
“I’m playing a hunch,” Ryan said. “You’ll know that Cornell Flynn got capped on Saturday night?”
“So? He won’t be missed.”
“It was a contract. The hitter used a silenced handgun.”
“And you think it might have been Tyler?”
“It’s good odds.”
“How does that help you, or me?”
“Do you know a Russian by the name of Gorchev?”
“Sergei. Yeah. We have an understandin’. He keeps out of my way, and I return the compliment.”
“Word has it that he made Flynn an offer for the Paradise Club, and wasn’t happy at having it turned down.”
“Which leads you to put Tyler and Gorchev in bed together?”
“Exactly. I would think you could ask Gorchev to give you anything he has on Tyler, as a professional courtesy.”
“And where do you figure in all this, Ryan?”
“I get to pick up the pieces. If not, at least Tyler might go down, and that would close my case. It’s a win-win situation for both of us.”
The next day, Ryan and Eddie stopped off at a transport cafe‚ slipped into a booth, read the papers and drank black coffee. Everything was in place for the funeral of Gina Savino. And everyone that attended would be videoed from a van with tinted windows parked across the road, almost opposite the entrance to the church. Ryan and Eddie would be there to observe.
The prison transport arrived at ten-fifty. Savino climbed out cuffed to an officer who was wearing civvies. Another officer accompanied them into the church. At eleven o’clock, a hearse stopped outside the gate, and a pitifully small, white coffin was carried into St Thomas’s and placed on a bier in front of the alter.
