This morning it would be just him and Elaine, so Ray felt more settled. It would be a much easier day.
She was dressed in a black trouser suit. The jacket nipped in at the waist, with a plain cream round-neck T-shirt underneath.
Today they were to attend Billy’s memorial. Yes, the church would be filled with people, but not people he would be expected to recognise. It was a memorial because a funeral couldn’t be held yet: the coroner wouldn’t be releasing his body for some time. This was to give police the opportunity to find his killer and avail any defence team of the discretion to request a second post-mortem.
It was often a difficult concept for families to get their heads around, to not have a loved one returned; but it was a part of the legal process.
The memorial, meanwhile, would provide Lilian Collier with a time and place to say goodbye to her second child.
A tightness gripped at Ray’s chest at the thought, and the love he felt for his own two children seeped into his bones. To have them torn away from him would be like having his very body pulled apart.
‘Ready?’ asked Elaine as she shoved an umbrella into her bag. The sky was loaded with grey clouds and the forecast threatened showers all day.
‘Yeah, it has to be done.’
‘You’ll note everyone who attends?’ asked Prabhat from the doorway.
‘Bloody hell, guv. Creep up on a guy why don’t you,’ Ray grumbled.
‘But you’ve got a pen and notebook on you? You’re not there to simply pay your respects.’
‘Yes,’ Ray huffed. ‘I’m not new to the game.’
‘I know how you feel –’
‘I’ve got them,’ Ray cut in, his tone sharper than he intended. He couldn’t bear it when someone told him they understood how he felt. Especially now.
Prabhat threw him a look. He couldn’t read it but he didn’t need to. If he was in his shoes, he knew exactly what that look would say. He kept his mouth shut and patted his pocket, made sure he had his wallet.
Elaine jangled the car keys in front of him; he looked at them and a horror emptied him of all other feelings as he realised he wouldn’t be able to use the sat nav with Elaine in the car, especially as it was only in Stoke Newington, and yet there was no way he’d find the church without it. They’d go around in circles all day before he got there.
‘This weather …’ he indicated out of the window at the overcast sky, ‘it seems to be playing havoc with the break points in my leg. It was a painful drive into work this morning.’ He looked at Elaine, keys still dangling in her hand. ‘Would you mind?’
She threw the bunch in the air, caught them as they came down and shoved them in her trouser pocket. ‘Nope. I’m all over it.’ She turned to walk out of the door and bit her bottom lip as she walked.
A stab of guilt cut through the horror he’d felt as he followed her through the incident room, past his team, where all heads were unnaturally down, and out of the door.
Ray knew that Billy’s brother had died, but he hadn’t been aware of how small his circle of loved ones was. Only a handful of people were at the service. And looked even fewer in the vast ornate interior of the church. His mother was there. A petite woman – she couldn’t have been an inch taller than five foot four – dressed in a skirt and blouse that hung from her small frame. Her face was hollowed out; dark smudges underlined her eyes as though someone had dipped their thumb in an inkpot, then smeared it below each eye. Creases and folds of skin, soft and dry, hung where it once must have clung to sharp cheekbones. Eye sockets jutted out like landmarks on a map. Her collarbone created a deep crevasse below her neck. Whoever the woman had been, losing two sons had sucked the life from her while she had been inside. She was handcuffed to a hulk of a female guard who could easily have given Billy’s mum her much needed weight and still had enough to live off. Though she was as tall as she was wide, she had a gentle smile for Mrs Collier when she looked her way. It was hard to believe that this small woman was the angry drunk they had heard about at the briefing not so long ago.
‘We can cross her off our suspect list,’ Ray whispered to Elaine, who shot him a warning look. He knew it wasn’t the time or place for gallows humour, but nerves had got the better of him. He’d agreed to come to the memorial in case the offender turned up, but what the hell use was he. Lilian Collier was the only person he could guarantee it wasn’t.
St Mary’s Church on Church Street had few parking spaces outside. Elaine had managed to slide the car into one. This was the second church of St Mary’s; there was an older building known as the old church, across the road, that was now used as an arts and community space. It was one of the oldest known churches in the country and had quite a history, rebuilt in 1563 and again after the London Blitz of 1940. It was a survivor. Ray liked that about the old church.
Ray and Elaine seated themselves behind the mourners and attempted to be unobtrusive, but a white couple at a black-attended service made them stand out for what they were.
The other mourners looked to be friends. They were all of similar age to Billy. Their dress sense reminded Ray of him, too: jeans, trainers and a sweater. Ray’s stomach clenched at the memory of him alive and well in the briefing, before the op that had gone wrong.
There were five of them. They were what Ray supposed were called ‘tight’. They appeared to move as one entity. In sync. Like a shoal of fish. Without the need for communication, they stayed in their pack.
Ray nudged Elaine and looked towards the group. ‘Know who they are?’
‘No. Billy said he hadn’t told anyone what he was doing. How d’you want to play it?’
The organ music started, deep and mournful, and Ray had to wait to finish the conversation. The pack moved into a line of chairs to the right, not too near the front, although there was no one else in front of them.
A few pews in front of Ray and Elaine were an elderly couple, both shaking their heads at regular intervals, as though to remind themselves that this couldn’t be happening.
Ray couldn’t see that anything positive would come from today but it was a task that needed to be done, and it gave him the opportunity to pay his respects to the lad who’d tried to do some good, no matter the way he’d gone about it.
As the vicar started to talk, his face so bland that Ray didn’t even attempt to pick out any identifying features, and with a voice to match, the door of the church opened with a gentle creak and a male slipped in. Elaine was to the right of Ray, in the way of the door, so he couldn’t make out the latecomer.
Ray leaned forward and looked past Elaine at the man who now sat adjacent to them. He was smart, tidy, suited-up, white – but he didn’t recognise him. He’d wait and see what Elaine said.
The voice of the vicar droned on as he talked about Billy’s early life, where he’d grown up, how he’d stuck at school even though it wasn’t his thing, and then, strangely, the vicar’s voice lit up as Billy’s must have when he talked about Billy’s love of drama and how he wanted to pursue it; but then he lost the joy in his voice as the loss of the youngster hit again.
Lilian Collier could be heard sobbing, her heart breaking. Smashing, hard and crystalline, against the jagged edges of the life her boys had lived. And died in. Shattering and skittering across the hard floor for all to hear and see.
Ray’s own heart contracted in his chest. He fought to grab his breath as he tried to capture an image of his own children and failed. Anger knotted in him and compounded his grief.
He balled his fists. Ground his teeth.
Lilian Collier’s shoulders juddered hard. The guard placed a large padded hand on her shoulder. The sole mark of care and respect the woman was likely to get.
The monotone vicar paled in front of his small party of mourners.
Then it was over and ‘Wretch 32’ was played incongruously over the speakers as the vicar indicated that the mourners could leave.
Silently, the vicar helped the prison guard and Lilian Collier leave the ch
urch, leading them out first so they would be able to receive the rest of the mourners.
Ray waited. Watched, as the group moved out first, and then the old couple, holding each other, still shaking their heads, and then again he looked across at the white male who had walked in late.
He turned to follow Elaine out of the row of chairs as the man stood and waited for them in the aisle.
‘Elaine, nice to see you again.’ He smiled at her. A friend of Elaine’s?
‘Joe, I didn’t expect to see you here.’ Her voice was friendly.
‘I had to pay my respects. I started this, I agreed he could do it in the first place …’
Elaine let out a deep sigh.
Bald head, sharp suit: Joe. It was the DI, Joe Lang. Ray moved past Elaine into view and held out his hand. ‘Nice to see you, Joe, I’m sorry it’s under these circumstances.’
Up close, Ray could see that Joe looked drawn. His eyes dark and sunken. He wasn’t the only one to have taken this hard.
Joe took his hand. ‘He was a good kid.’
They stood in silence a moment, a time to remember Billy and what he had sacrificed.
There wasn’t a lot of room to move. The church wasn’t endowed with spacious grounds. Statuesque as the church itself was, it was the building you were here for, there was no burial site on this side of the road.
The guard looked at her watch. The movement had been a sidelong glance but Ray caught it. Time to get back, he saw. A day job to do. Sympathy only went so far. But she stood still as the group of young men offered up their condolences to the woman handcuffed to her wrist.
It was difficult to both be security and to appear to offer privacy at a difficult time, Ray could see, as the guard pushed her free hand into her pocket and turned her head a fraction to the left, away from the conversations of the grief-stricken.
Ray hadn’t yet decided how he wanted to go, whether he wanted a burial or cremation. He didn’t know if he believed in a God. A watchful one. So he didn’t know what he would do, or rather, how to advise his nearest and dearest – whoever they might be. He grunted to himself. It should be something he sorted out, considering his most recent brush with mortality.
‘It doesn’t seem so, no.’ Elaine was talking to Joe. Ray focused again, looked at them for clarification.
‘Your offender – not turned up?’ Joe answered.
‘Not if you consider who was at the service,’ Ray replied. ‘I’ll have a wander, see if I can spot anyone familiar lurking around the outside the building, on the street.’
41
Rusnac didn’t want to attend the memorial. Knowing the boy was dead was enough. But to cover his bases Rusnac had to make sure the kid hadn’t talked to anyone else. That he hadn’t told his mum about the organisation. Or his mates. It was bad enough that the musor, or – what did they call them over here? – Old Bill were investigating, so he had to conduct damage limitation and make sure there was nowhere for the musor to turn to get any further information. All the information Billy knew needed to have died with him.
Rusnac trusted Borta and Weaver not to disclose locations or give him up, but after what happened at the warehouse he couldn’t trust that the kid had only told the musor of the meet and had given them no other intelligence. Not that he knew much, but the smallest thing was a risk that Rusnac was not prepared to take.
The few parking spaces outside the church were taken up, so he parked where he shouldn’t, a little further down the street, and stayed with the car. If a traffic-watcher person came with tickets, he would be able to move and then slip back in when they had walked on.
He looked in the rear-view mirror, pushed his fingers through his hair, lifting it slightly at the front. Rubbed a non-existent mark from under his eye, and was ready to sort out his business.
It was cool and he wore a thick coat that covered the Glock pushed down the back of his trousers. He had no intention of using it. The gun was precautionary. And today it was to be used only as a threat, if needed.
Rusnac had witnessed first-hand the look of fear that imminent death brought to a face. It wasn’t particularly flattering. And it wasn’t the first time he had seen the look when he’d shoved the Glock in the kid, Billy’s face. No, back in Moldova he had seen his share of violence. Those who helped his mother. Who helped him into this country. Who set him up in the lifestyle he now lived. Who had organised the operation he now ran. Those people knew how to instil fear. They knew how to get their way. People did as directed or faced the consequences. And you knew the consequences were fatal.
The Russians were hard-faced, stony men and Rusnac had watched them dole out punishment time and again. He knew the cool metal in the small of his back was worth a thousand words. He was never any good with his words. Always better with his fists. The Russians gave him the Glock as a gift. Told him that in his position he needed to carry it. If he was to be the boss of the organisation in England, then he needed to act like it. People need to fear him.
Rusnac had thought people feared him anyway. He had that presence. The way he carried himself. His threats. They were never idle. He never shied away from turning a face into a pulpy mess. He preferred to feel the release as bones gave way under his fist. Melted, practically. No feeling like it. But the Russians, they preferred him to carry a gun, and who was he to say no. Not after they’d saved his Mama and set him up over here.
The thing was, when he used his fists and he felt bones break and muscle slide away from its moorings, the poor shmuck who was on the receiving end lived to remember the event. They lived to fear Rusnac another day. To remember to stay in line. And more importantly, they lived to spread the word of his dominance.
With a gun – there was no living to say anything.
But, like a good subordinate, he carried his weapon. And once away from them, he never considered himself a subordinate.
The air was crisp in the grounds of the church.
He looked at his watched. 12.10 p.m. The service was underway. He wouldn’t have long to wait. They seemed to be on a conveyor belt here.
Rusnac snorted.
Dignity.
This didn’t feel dignified, watching from the outside. Watching people mourn this way. Back at home there was a sense of movement, of voyage. People gathered. Yes, there were tears, but there was food, lots of food, eaten with hands and shared. This was so formal and stiff. It felt unnatural.
Rusnac stamped his feet and lit a cigarette. He breathed in the familiar taste that reminded him of home, taking in a deep lungful of smoke. He held it a moment, savoured the feeling. And released. The air around him swirled as the smoke rose in front of him.
He felt calm. Relaxed even. If there was a problem here he would deal with it. There would be no need for the weapon. He alone would drive fear into the heart of the problem, and then, if needed, away from prying eyes, he could deal with the issue on a more permanent basis. He wouldn’t risk his position here. He was too comfortable now. This mess would be cleared up and the operation would continue as before.
Rusnac tipped his head back. Looked into the grey sky, acknowledged to himself that all was good, blew out another lungful of smoke. His watch read 12.20 p.m. The exit doors were opened by the dreary funeral staff and he wondered how they let their hair down at the end of the day. How did you get your kicks when all you looked at was death and grieving fucking relatives hour after hour? It must take some hard-core shit to get your rocks off after you’ve been driven to the depths of such tedium on a daily basis.
The first person out was small and thin. A woman, her shoulders shaking. His mother, Rusnac assumed. Standing to the side of her, a hulk of a white woman. As they moved he saw that they were handcuffed to each other.
Well, he’d be damned if she wasn’t a convict. Billy really wasn’t all he said he was at all. Mam, dearest, was a jailbird. Rusnac wondered what she had done to get her time. He finished his smoke, threw the tab-end on the floor and smashed it into the tarmac with his
heel.
A group of youths emerged from the church. These were who he wanted to talk to. He wasn’t sure he could get close to the mother, but then he doubted Billy would have talked to her about what he’d been up to. He would pay his respects and get a feel for her, but it was the group he was interested in. Instead of walking straight up to them he decided to give them five minutes. He didn’t want to deal with the shit of their emotions.
Christ, his Mama would kill him.
He wandered across the road to an older church where there were some gravestones, and stood over a small headstone. Natasha Barry. He worked the dates out. Natasha Barry had only been thirty-six years of age. Older than he was now, but not by much. There were fresh flowers at the headstone, so her family or friends still grieved or still cared. The only person who would grieve him would be his Mama.
He gave himself a moment to think of her. He missed her. Missed her cooking. Her whiplash tongue and her gentle smile.
She’d brought him up alone after his dad got so pissed one night he fell into the river and was unable to get out. She’d cursed him for his stupidity, for weeks and months. Wailing at him for his idiocy. For wandering about in the dark. What had he been looking for? she’d wanted to know. He was a stupid, stupid man, she’d said. She’d been furious with him.
She’d ranted and she’d raved.
Until she burnt herself out.
Then she pulled herself back up and took care of herself and Vova. She told him that she was now the main breadwinner. She had to care for the house, for the child, for both of them. She didn’t stop. He loved her for it. Hated his father for it.
Rusnac knew at a young age that he needed to go out and bring some money into the house. He was a smart lad, but lazy. He wanted to make money fast, and in town the easiest way to make money was crime.
Dead Blind Page 13
