The Murder Exchange

by Simon Kernick

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘He hit me. The bastard stood up and smacked me right in the face.’ She touched her cheek where his fist had connected, and I felt the rage building. ‘I couldn’t believe it. No man’s ever done that to me before, not in my whole life. Then he came over and picked me up by my hair, telling me I was going to have to learn some fucking manners. The whole thing happened so fast I didn’t even have time to be scared, so I called him a cowardly cunt and tried to knee him in the balls, but he just stepped out of the way. Then he started slapping me round the face with one hand and half-strangling me with the other, and all the time he kept saying that I was going to have to learn some manners.’ She stopped for a moment, and I thought she might lose her composure, but she held on, her voice quiet. ‘At one point, I think the dirty bastard must have started getting turned on because he pushed me back onto the desk and I could feel him getting all hard up against me, and he was saying I was a fucking whore and pawing me all over, getting really worked up … Christ, it was horrible. I tried to fight him, Max, I really did, but he was so fucking strong. I could hardly breathe with his hand round my neck. I thought he was going to kill me.’

  I went over and put my arm around her. I felt sick to the gut. It was difficult to believe what I was hearing. I wondered how much worse things could get. ‘Did he rape you?’ I asked quietly, desperate for the answer to be no.

  She shook her head and removed her hands from her face, but still didn’t look at me. I felt relief that lasted for all of about two seconds. ‘He did other things,’ she whispered, her disgusted tone leaving little doubt as to what those things might have been. ‘And when he’d finished, he just looked at me like I was nothing and told me to fuck off. Like I was nothing, Max. No one … no one’s ever done that to me before.’ She shook her head slowly like she was trying to shake the memories out of her head. She looked distant, and I thought then that I didn’t want to lose her. To be honest, amid all the frustration and rage in my head, that was when I sort of knew I loved her. A bit hasty, yes, but sometimes these things really do happen.

  We held each other for a long time. Five minutes, ten minutes, it was difficult to tell. It could have been longer. Eventually she sighed and took a drink from the glass of brandy.

  ‘I need a cigarette,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll find you one.’ I opened up the drawer of her bedside table and found a pack and a lighter. I lit two and passed one to her.

  ‘Don’t do anything, Max. For Christ’s sake. I just want to forget about it, that’s all. At least now I’ve left the club. I don’t think anyone’s going to expect me to work my notice after that.’

  ‘What? You’re going to ignore the fact that a piece of shit like Krys Holtz did that to you?’ I tried to keep my voice calm, knowing that she could hardly be blamed for wanting to put an incident like that behind her, but it was difficult.

  ‘He’s Stefan Holtz’s son, for fuck’s sake! What can we do?’

  I shook my head. ‘Fuck that. I keep hearing about these Holtzes and how fucking invincible they are, but let me tell you something, no one’s invincible. I might be on the run but I’m not going to leave London with my tail between my legs. And I’m not going to move one more fucking foot until I get this sorted out.’

  ‘It won’t help anything.’

  ‘It’ll help me,’ I said, and got up and went to get the rest of the brandy from the kitchen. My blood was up; I needed something to get it back down again. I poured myself a glass, then took the bottle back to the bedroom and poured some more for Elaine. ‘You know something, I’ve never met Stefan Holtz or any of his extended family, never done a fucking thing to any of them, but these people seem to be doing everything in their power to fuck up my life.’

  ‘They fuck up a lot of people.’

  ‘There’s one way I can get back at them. And get revenge for what happened to you. I can off that arsewipe Krys.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid.’

  ‘I’m a trained soldier, Elaine. I’m perfectly capable of doing it. And it’ll make me feel one hell of a lot better.’

  ‘Then what happens? You’ll be on the run for ever.’

  ‘I’m on the run anyway, so what’s the difference? And I’ll have got them back, for me and for you. Krys’ll be dead, and his dad’ll have to live with the fact that he’s lost a son. And if I do it right, they’ll never know it was me.’

  Something in her face hardened. ‘He’s not going to be that easy to kill, Max. Someone like him’s got a lot of enemies. He’s got bodyguards.’

  I shrugged. The idea of killing bodyguards didn’t bother me either. I knew it could be done. I could also see that Elaine was now coming round to the idea. We both sat looking at each other for a few moments, each of us wondering how far we were really going to go.

  ‘I hate that bastard for what he’s just done to me,’ she said eventually, ‘but I don’t want to do anything that’s going to make things worse for you and for us. Do you know what I mean?’

  But the thing was, I’d made up my mind. ‘He’s going to have to die, Elaine,’ I said simply.

  She took a drag on her cigarette and eyed me closely through the bluish haze of smoke. Then, for the first time since returning that night, her gloom seemed to lift. ‘There’s a better way,’ she said.

  Gallan

  Berrin remained off sick on Monday. The flu, or whatever it was, had supposedly got worse. If the truth be told, he’d picked a good day to be absent. It was another stinking hot one and tempers in CID were frayed. Knox chaired the meeting of the Shaun Matthews murder squad, during which the events of the weekend, including the death of the possible witness McBride, were discussed, but there remained a feeling that everything had ground to a halt on the inquiry, and Knox was preoccupied by other events. A thirteen-year-old girl, just one year older than my daughter, had been dragged onto wasteground in broad daylight by a man in his thirties while walking home from the park, and violently sexually assaulted. The ordeal had lasted as long as half an hour and the attacker had also slashed her arm with a knife or a razor, even though she’d made no move to resist him. This was a particularly nasty type of crime, one that upset the public, and therefore one that upset the Brass. Which meant immediate pressure to get it solved. By nine-thirty that morning, there’d also been two missing persons reports, one of them a teenage schoolgirl, and Knox was being pushed from above to reorganize his resources. This meant cutting the size of the Matthews murder squad. With the case nine days old, and other business piling up all over the place, Knox reduced it to himself, Capper, DC Hunsdon, myself and Berrin (whenever he turned up for work again). However, due to further staff shortages within CID, I was informed that I was also going to have to work the other missing persons case, that of a fifty-three-year-old ex-con and former soldier named Eric Horne, who’d been missing since the previous Thursday.

  At this point, the meeting became heated, and I’d pressed, with a lot less diplomacy than I usually exhibit in front of the boss, for far more serious efforts to be made in tracking down Jean Tanner since if she was alive she at least might be able to help. I also brought up the Neil Vamen angle, undeterred by how it had all gone the previous day, and suggested that he too might have had some involvement. ‘And surely, if we’ve got the opportunity, we want to put someone like him behind bars?’

  Knox attempted to answer my concerns as thoroughly as possible, explaining that he would speak to his counterpart on the McBride case straight away, and get what details he could, although he added that the hunt for Miss Tanner was not our responsibility since McBride had not died on our patch. We would, said Knox, continue to look at the possibility of Neil Vamen’s own possible motives, but he suggested that, with the death of the one person who’d mentioned his name in connection with the case, it was going to be extremely difficult to prove any involvement on his part, if indeed there’d been any. I think I must have pulled a face because Knox shot me one of his trademark dirty loo
ks reserved only for people who really pissed him off, but I was past caring. In my opinion, the whole thing was becoming a whitewash. If the Matthews case had been a straightforward one, like most murders, and hadn’t had any connections to the complicated morass of organized crime, then Knox would have been a lot more interested. Instead, he’d clearly decided that it was more hassle than it was worth, that the chances of a conviction were too negligible to waste time on. These days it was all about performance league tables. Something like this, particularly when the corpse belonged to a lowlife like Shaun Matthews, was always going to be put on the back-burner if there were other, easier crimes coming along that could be solved. That was the long and the short of it.

  The meeting broke up at ten past ten and Knox, after doling out orders to various individuals and trying to solve a couple of minor grievances, one involving Boyd and Capper and an alleged sexist comment, called me into his office. Neither of us was in the best of moods and the sweltering heat in the office did little to help matters. Knox had two desk fans blasting away but all they did was push the hot air around the confines of the room.

  ‘Look, John, I know you’re pissed off because you don’t think things are moving as quickly as you’d like on this case, but you know how things are.’ I didn’t say anything. ‘I’m going to speak to DCI Peppard, DI Burley’s boss, later this morning to see what information we can get from them. If they pick up Jean Tanner, I’ll make sure we get the opportunity to question her about Matthews, and see what she may or may not know. We’ll also chase them to find out how McBride died and whether they’ve got any leads on who may have killed him.’

  ‘DI Burley wasn’t exactly helpful, sir.’

  ‘He can be very brash, I admit.’

  ‘He treated me like a criminal. We’re meant to be on the same side.’

  Knox’s face reddened. He had the look of a man who’s been given the job of counsellor without actually wanting it. ‘It’s not like that. Burley’s territorial. He doesn’t like people, even fellow officers, muscling in on his patch.’

  ‘I was hardly muscling in. I was actually trying to help him.’

  ‘I’m sure you were, it’s just that that’s not how he interprets it. He’s not very good sometimes around younger officers. I think he thinks they’re upstarts.’ He gave a reassuring and vaguely patronizing smile as he said this – not that I thought there was anything particularly amusing about it. I continued to look at him stony-faced.

  Seeing that he didn’t seem to be making much of an impression on his disgruntled charge, Knox changed tack. ‘Whichever way we look at it, Roy Fowler still remains for me the prime suspect. He of all people had a motive. Now, I’m not letting this inquiry go, no way. What we need to do is to look into Fowler’s background much more deeply because he is most definitely the key to all this.’ Warming to his theme in a way that had been conspicuously absent in the meeting earlier, he continued, occasionally banging his fist on the desk for emphasis. ‘He and Matthews were definitely involved in the drug dealing. It’s a lucrative business. I’m sure they fell out about it, and it’s very likely that that fall-out somehow led to his death. Why else would Fowler have disappeared? Unless he’s got something to hide. He’s been gone, what? Three, four days now. Which I would describe as highly irregular. And didn’t you and Berrin tell him not to go anywhere during the course of the inquiry?’ I told him we had. ‘So let’s concentrate on him. I want you to review the case notes, go back and talk to his associates, particularly staff members at the Arcadia, and Capper and Hunsdon are going to dig deeper into what he’s been up to in the past. What scams he was involved in, particularly this brothel business. This Heavenly Girls. That might give us some ideas. It’s time for some lateral thinking.’

  ‘My lateral thinking would be helped a great deal, sir, if I didn’t have to worry about a missing persons case as well.’

  Knox sighed. ‘I know it’s not ideal, but you know the problems we’ve got with manpower. I’ve got to put bodies on that indecent assault yesterday. The media are already sniffing around. She’s a very pretty girl, and, worse than that, her parents are high-band council taxpayers with a lot of clout, so we’re going to need a fast result. No one wants an animal like that running loose, particularly when he’s doing everything possible to make his crime as high-profile as possible, so we’re going to have to show plenty of faces. I’ve also got the Drugs Squad breathing down my neck for help on some major surveillance they’re running. Operation Swift Strike it’s called, though swift it most certainly ain’t, and it’s likely to take people out of the loop for the next three or four days. You see what I’m saying?’

  ‘Of course I do, sir, and I appreciate the man-power problems. We’ve always got them. But you’re paring back the murder squad to an absolute minimum, and with Berrin off sick, I think I should really be concentrating my efforts on the case.’ I resisted the urge to add, ‘You see what I’m saying?’ I still wanted to make DI again after all, and I’d more than made my point today.

  ‘This is very much a routine one, John, and it shouldn’t take you long. The bloke’s ex-wife phoned in this morning, says she hasn’t heard from him in days, and that he’s missed two family functions which is apparently not like him at all.’ He gave me the standard look of weary scepticism which greeted any family members’ description of someone’s actions as being ‘not like him at all’. ‘But the point is, he’s a big bloke, an ex-con and ex-soldier who works as a freelance bodyguard, so he’s not likely to have come to much harm. He’s probably just gone off somewhere for a few days but I want you to give it a quick once-over. Apparently, he does most of his work for a company called Tiger Solutions.’

  I snorted. ‘What sort of name is that?’

  ‘A very foolish one. His ex says she’s already contacted them and they haven’t seen him for a week or two themselves, but I’d like you to speak to them when you’ve got a moment, and then give the ex a call and tell her what you’ve found out. If you can do it in the next couple of days it would be a big help.’

  I knew there was no point in arguing. ‘Sure, I’ll do that.’

  ‘Your hard work’s appreciated you know, John,’ he said, fixing me with one of his managerial looks. ‘It all counts in your favour, I want you to know that, and I’m keen for you to make progress here. But do me a favour, eh? DI Capper told me about yesterday with Neil Vamen. Don’t go talking to him about anything unless you’ve got solid evidence implicating him, and you’ve checked it through with me.’ I nodded, and he let it go. ‘Now, remember, this missing persons case is very much a side issue, so concentrate on Matthews, and I’ll keep you informed of my discussions with DCI Peppard. And let’s try looking at it from some new angles. Lateral thinking, that’s what we need.’

  I got to my feet and said I’d get on to things straight away. Thinking that Knox had probably never had a lateral thought in his whole life.

  When I got back to my desk, my mobile was ringing. I didn’t recognize the number but picked up anyway. ‘Gallan.’

  ‘Hello, Mr Gallan,’ said a pleasant, youthful voice I didn’t know. ‘It’s Asif Malik here, SO7.’

  ‘Hello, Asif. Thanks for getting back to me.’

  ‘No problem. What is it I can do for you?’

  ‘I’m involved in a murder inquiry which may have a link with the area you cover, and I wonder if I could pick your brains about it for a few minutes. As you’ll appreciate, it’s not something I can talk about over the phone. Do you think we could meet up for half an hour? I’ll come to you.’

  ‘Can you tell me who it’s regarding, just so I know I’m the person you should be talking to?’

  For some reason, I felt impelled to whisper into the phone. ‘The Holtzes, and particularly Neil Vamen.’

  There was a short silence at the other end. Then, ‘I’m the right person. How about Wednesday?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘I’ll meet you at the Soul of Naples restaurant. It’s Italian.’
Like it’d be anything else. ‘That all right for you? It’s up near me.’

  I laughed. ‘I’m usually limited to a sandwich on the run, so anything above that’s a bonus.’

  ‘Well, this place is good. I’ll be there at midday.’

  ‘Thanks. I appreciate it.’

  He gave me the address and some basic directions, then rang off.

  For a few seconds, I sat there staring at the mobile, hoping that somewhere among the morass of information Malik and his colleagues had undoubtedly gathered on the Holtzes there’d be something that would stop this case ending up in the growing ranks of the unsolveds.

  At that point, however, I was not feeling optimistic.

  Iversson

  ‘Kidnapping, Max? It’ll never work, and it’s too fucking dangerous.’

  We were in the lounge of Elaine’s apartment, just the two of us, beers in hand. Elaine had gone out to give us the privacy to talk things through.

  ‘It will work, Joe, if we do it properly. Elaine says that—’

  ‘Is this her idea?’

  ‘Course it isn’t. It’s a product of a lot of thinking I’ve been doing. Now, all I want you to do is hear me out. If after I’ve said my piece you still don’t want to know, then fair enough, all you have to do is walk out of here and forget we ever had this conversation.’