The Murder Exchange

by Simon Kernick

  ‘Tell Stefan Holtz that the man from Heavenly Girls wants to get hold of him. He’s got a message from Krys. I’m going to call this number back in fifteen minutes and I want to speak to him then.’

  The guy on the other end didn’t speak and I hung up, getting out of the phone box and walking along the street in the direction of Camden Road. Fifteen minutes later, I entered another phone box on York Road and dialled the L’Espagnol number again. This time it was answered on the first ring by the same guy as before. ‘I’ve got a number to ring,’ he told me hurriedly. I wrote it down and rang off without further comment, then dialled it.

  Four rings later and Stefan Holtz was on the line. ‘Where the fuck’s my son?’ were his first words, delivered in a rough north London rasp that made me think I’d been daft to start smoking again.

  ‘He’s unhurt. If you want to see him again it’ll cost you half a million quid in cash, used fifties. You’ve got twenty-four hours to come up with the money otherwise we’ll chop his head off, and use his quiff as a bog brush.’

  ‘If you fucking touch him, I’ll rip you limb from limb.’

  ‘I’m going to call back tomorrow morning at this time with further instructions.’

  ‘I need more fucking time,’ said Holtz, the first signs of desperation in his voice. For all his money and influence, he was powerless in the current situation, and he knew it.

  I put the phone down, confident that he’d follow the instructions he’d been set. The two bodies left behind the previous night should have been proof enough of that. I was pissed off that we’d had to kill two men to get what we wanted, particularly since the whole thing had almost gone completely to plan, but it was too late to worry about it now.

  I hailed a cab and fifteen minutes later I was back at Elaine’s apartment. I used the key she’d given me to let myself in and went up to the bedroom. The curtains were still closed and she was lying in bed, looking good. She opened her eyes and smiled when she saw me.

  I grinned back at her. ‘We did it.’ And then,coming forward towards the bed, ‘We fucking did it!’ She sat up and we clutched each other tightly. I pushed my face into her neck, revelling in her smell. And do you know what? I almost said I love you, but stopped myself just in time. It wasn’t the moment for that yet.

  ‘It’s not over yet, hon.’

  ‘No, but the worst part’s sorted.’

  ‘I saw on the news that two people got shot,’ she said, easing herself away from my grasp. ‘What happened?’

  ‘They were Krys’s associates. They tried to stop us, we had no choice.’

  ‘Did you know that they’ve shown your mug on Crimewatch?’ I shook my head. ‘It was on last night. I saw it.’

  ‘How did I look?’

  ‘Fucking ugly, so better than usual. I hope your passport photo looks a lot different.’

  ‘Don’t worry. It’ll look beautiful.’

  ‘That’ll take some work.’

  ‘You know, Miss Toms, you’re getting a little bit too disrespectful for my liking.’ I removed my shirt and flung it on the floor.

  ‘You need a suntan.’

  ‘You need to be taught a lesson.’

  ‘How’s little Krysy doing?’

  ‘Blindfolded and shackled in a cellar, on a diet of bread and water.’

  ‘Good. Kick that bastard for me, will you?’ She pulled me towards her.

  ‘I already have,’ I said, tugging at my belt.

  As I entered her, she asked me if I’d been the one who’d pulled the trigger in Heavenly Girls. I told her I had been.

  The sex was fantastic.

  Gallan

  Knox looked at Berrin and me with a mixture of annoyance and confusion. We were in his office in the Matthews incident room, the last three people on the case, and it was eleven a.m.

  ‘Explain this to me again,’ he said, rubbing his eyes. ‘We’ve all had a late night and I know I’m not quite with it this morning, but I’m sure you’ve just told me that your possible suspect in this inquiry is now tied in with the Jones murder.’

  ‘That’s right,’ I said, feeling that at this point I had nothing to lose. ‘I wouldn’t say I’m sure of it, but I’ve got enough suspicions to warrant a full search of the house, and I believe I can get the owner’s permission.’

  ‘How many murders are you trying to solve here?’

  ‘As many as I can.’

  Knox sat up in his seat and took a large gulp of coffee. ‘If we send SOCO round, what do you think they’re going to find?’

  ‘Maybe nothing, but it’s got to be worth a shot. The Jones case has ground to a halt, everyone knows that. Even the Essex police found nothing when they reviewed it. So, if we can be seen to be doing something it certainly won’t do us any harm.’

  ‘I don’t want to raise the hopes of the family. They’re good people.’

  ‘I know they are, but look at it like this. Robert Jones disappeared from that street one morning without anyone ever seeing him get taken. Now, that road’s quite busy at that time, as we all know, so that was unusual in itself.’

  ‘Not that unusual.’

  ‘If you’ll let me finish, sir.’ Knox motioned for me to go on. ‘I checked the pathologist’s notes again yesterday. Robert’s clothing had been interfered with but there were no other signs of sexual assault. It was also noted that he was murdered elsewhere before being dumped, and that, because of the lack of signs of a struggle or defensive injuries, he probably died very quickly after being taken. But the most important thing is that there were no signs of him being bound or gagged.’

  Knox shrugged. ‘We went over this during the investigation. He could have been thrown in the back of a van from where it would have been impossible for him to get out, and driven somewhere isolated where the murderer could finish him off without having to worry about him making a noise.’

  I knew this wasn’t going to be easy. Knox had been, still was technically, the man leading the inquiry. He was not going to want to have the theory that had underpinned it, that it had been a predatory paedophile who’d killed Robert, taken away from under him. ‘That’s possible, yes,’ I persisted, ‘but the thing is, we’ve never come close to finding the killer, and there’s been no other abduction and murder of a young boy anywhere in south-east England since. Or, for that matter, in the year leading up to it.’

  ‘That doesn’t necessarily mean anything, John. Robert Black was one of the worst predatory paedophiles of the last twenty years, and he often waited up to three or four years before re-offending.’

  ‘True, but we know, or are pretty certain, that the house on Runmayne Avenue that Tony Franks rented was being used for some sort of illegal purpose linked to one of north London’s most dangerous crime families, and it’s going to have to have been something pretty lucrative for the Holtzes to shell out that much in rent every month. What if Robert saw something that caught his eye that morning and went to take a closer look?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I admitted, ‘but let’s say he goes up to the house, takes a look, as any inquisitive thirteen-year-old would, and sees something he shouldn’t. He gets spotted, is taken inside the house, and he’s then murdered because his killer or killers have no choice but to get rid of him. They then dump his body, making it look like a sex crime in an effort to cover their tracks. Just like they did with Miriam Fox that time. I know it may well not be the likeliest scenario but it’s got to be a possibility.’

  Knox sighed. ‘I understand your desire to get a result on the Jones case, John. I know how much it affected you, all of us, but we’re meant to be concentrating on the Matthews investigation.’

  ‘I know, but let’s face it, from what we’ve found out so far, the Holtzes or one or more of their associates had at least something to do with the murder of Matthews. Maybe Iversson’s involved there too. And the problem we’ve got is it’s difficult to get anyone to talk, but if somehow we can link members of their organiz
ation with what happened to Robert Jones, maybe we can loosen a few tongues and make some headway on both cases. No one wants to protect child killers.’

  ‘You know how much it costs to get a team to give a house a full once-over?’

  ‘Yes, sir, it’s a lot, but we’ve got a lead. It’s not a great one but it’s something, and on the Jones case particularly we haven’t got any others, and haven’t had for months. I know that SO7 are potentially interested in this too,’ I added, trying to attach some authority to my request. ‘It might give them a route into the Holtzes.’

  ‘Maybe they should pay for the SOCO team, then.’

  ‘It’s still our case, sir.’

  Knox sat there not saying anything, sipping thoughtfully on his coffee. I knew I’d boxed him into a corner. He could say no and claim there simply wasn’t enough in what I was saying, but if he made that decision and then, at some point down the line, it turned out that this had indeed been what had happened to Robert Jones, the buck would stop with him. That was one of the problems with twenty-first-century policing. Such was the power of technology that important evidence could be found years after the event. Although this could mean far more convictions, it also meant that the mistakes of police officers investigating crimes were forever open to exposure. Knox, like the consummate politician he was, decided to play it safe.

  ‘What do you think, Dave?’ he asked Berrin.

  ‘I think the sarge is right, sir. It’s got to be worth looking into. And it may well help the Matthews case.’

  Knox finally nodded. ‘All right, we’ll go with it.’

  Friday, two days ago

  Iversson

  ‘Have you got the money ready?’

  ‘I told you, I need more time.’

  ‘So you haven’t?’

  ‘Look, you don’t know who you’re fucking around with here. If you don’t let him go, I’ll be coming after you, you hear me?’

  ‘I’m not listening. Now, you hear me. We’ll start pulling your boy’s fingernails out unless you do what we say, when we say it.’

  ‘If you touch one fucking hair on his head—’

  ‘Then what? What will you do exactly?’

  ‘I will kill you. Understand that. I will find you and I will saw your fucking legs off.’

  ‘Nothing’ll happen to him if you give us the money we’ve requested. Why haven’t you got it?’

  ‘What guarantee have I got that he’s even still alive?’

  ‘There’s no point us killing him. He hasn’t seen our faces and he doesn’t know who we are.’

  ‘You hurt him and I’ll hunt you down. There’ll be no fucking hiding place.’

  ‘You’ve said that already. It wasn’t frightening the first time. Now, have you got the money or not? Answer me now.’

  There was a pause. ‘Yeah, I’ve got the money.’

  ‘Good. Now, listen carefully. At six-thirty p.m. tomorrow, be in the rear car park of the Post House Hotel on the Epping High Road. It’s on the southern outskirts of Epping, just before the road crosses the M25. Have your mobile with you, as well as the money. And do not bring anyone else. Do you understand?’

  ‘How do I know you’re not going to have a pop at me?’

  ‘All I want’s that money. Nothing else. Be at the Post House tomorrow and I’ll call you then.’

  I thought I was getting good at this as I stepped out of the phone box into the light morning drizzle.

  Gallan

  After much persuasion, I managed to push the DCI into organizing the SOCO team to start their painstaking work that Friday morning. I watched them arrive from across the street, hoping they would turn up something, however small, that could solve the murder of the thirteen-year-old paperboy.

  The previous evening I’d gone round alone to Robert’s parents’ house to tell them of the new developments and to remind them not to get too optimistic. They’d both nodded in understanding, and had thanked me for my help and my thoughtfulness in keeping them informed. I’d told them I was just doing my job, and Mrs Jones had put her hand on my arm and told me I was doing it well. And I’d thought then that, whatever happened with this lead, I would never stop until I found the person who’d killed their son and brought him to justice. It was why I was a copper. It was my vocation in life. The constant desire to give some sort of justice to people for whom fate had denied it.

  I waited there for a long time as the white-overalled SOCO officers strode in and out of 41F Runmayne Avenue with their various paraphernalia. Only when I was satisfied they were taking the job seriously, that they would scour the place until they’d covered every square inch of it, did I finally turn and make my way back to the station.

  When I got back to the incident room, Berrin was just coming off the phone. ‘That was Martin Leppel,’ he said, as I went and got myself a coffee.

  ‘Has he got together that list of people we were after yet?’ I knew Berrin had been hassling him about it all week.

  He nodded. ‘Yeah, he faxed it through about an hour ago. That’s what I was phoning him about.’

  ‘Anything interesting on it?’ I asked, heading to his desk with the coffee.

  ‘Here, take a look.’ He passed over the typewritten list of names and dates and I scanned down it, immediately seeing what had caught his attention.

  ‘Well, well, well. So, Craig McBride was there.’

  ‘Twice. And for a total of nearly eighteen months. Leppel remembers him well. Says he was a right nasty piece of work, but definitely not a drug addict. Apparently some of his colleagues used to take the piss out of him because for all his so-called hardness he was petrified of needles.’

  ‘I knew there was nothing natural about his death. But that arsehole Burley’s saying it was a self-administered overdose.’

  ‘Capper told me this morning that all they’re charging Jean Tanner with is possession of a Class A drug.’

  I sighed. ‘I can’t see why they don’t at least charge her with the illegal disposal of a dead body. At this rate, we’ll be lucky if she ends up with a fine.’

  ‘Maybe we should try and talk to her.’

  ‘Maybe.’ I sipped my coffee, wishing there was something I could lean on her with. But what did I have that Neil Vamen didn’t? There was no way I could put pressure on her and she’d know it. But in spite of everything, I’m an optimist, and that means I don’t give up. I was just going to have to think of a way.

  ‘Anyway, good work, Dave. You’ve done well.’

  Berrin shrugged. ‘I’m not entirely useless, Sarge. I can do more than just routine enquiries, you know.’

  I nodded. ‘Yeah, I do know. I’ll do a better job of keeping you in the loop in future.’ He nodded, acknowledging the fact that I was indirectly apologizing, and I hoped we could leave it at that.

  I picked up the phone and tried Malik’s number. Amazingly enough, he actually answered, though he informed me he was in a hurry.

  ‘This Krys Holtz thing’s turning into a nightmare,’ he explained.

  ‘How come?’

  ‘Well, no one’s co-operating, as usual. The family say they don’t know what we’re talking about and apparently Krys is fine, just not around at the moment, and now suddenly all the staff at the brothel are retracting their statements. Plus, we’ve got no intelligence on the ground as to who might be behind it.’

  ‘I’m sorry to bother you, Asif, but did you find out anything about this company, Dagmar Holdings?’

  ‘I haven’t had time. I’ll get something sorted for you by tomorrow, I promise. Have you tried Companies House for any information?’

  ‘Yes, I have. The company exists all right. They sent me pages of stuff but nothing that really tells me very much.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can come up with. Can you give me your mobile number again?’

  I reeled it out and Malik said his goodbyes, saying he had to go.

  I flicked off the phone and stared at the pile of accounts for Dagmar Holdings Ltd in my i
n-tray. I really needed to give them a closer look. I looked at my watch. Ten to twelve. It could wait until later.

  ‘Do you fancy a drink and a bite to eat?’ I asked Berrin.

  He nodded and grinned. ‘I could do with both.’

  ‘Then let’s get out of here,’ I said, and we got to our feet, once again leaving the Matthews incident room empty and silent.

  Iversson

  Tugger Lewis cooked supper that night. Thai fish curry with noodles and stir-fried veg. Very nice. Apparently he’d been working as a trainee chef for the previous six months, and whatever they’d been teaching him seemed to have done the trick because it was one of the best meals I’ve had in years. It gave me renewed faith in the British education system, to tell you the truth. The only thing spoiling it was Johnny, who’d been moaning pretty much non-stop ever since he’d discovered who the owner of the ‘Elvis barnet’ was. As I finished my last mouthful, he was just starting up again, like a stuck CD.

  ‘I’ve got to earn some more out of all this,’ he told the rest of us as we sat round the kitchen table. ‘That’s Krys bark-at-the-fucking-moon Holtz we’ve got down there, known affectionately as the Barnsbury Torturer, and that’s by his mum. The one geezer in the whole of north London you don’t want to get on the wrong side of, and I’m part of the team that’s kidnapped him. It’s all right for you lot. You’re all making a decent wedge out of this. I’ve got to make do with fuck all.’

  ‘That’s because you haven’t had to do fuck all, Johnny,’ I told him. ‘All you did was drive the car. We had the hard work.’

  ‘I’ve had to put my Niagaras on the line, Max, just like everyone else, even though no one asked me if I wanted to. And I’ve got to live round this fucking city for the rest of my life, permanently wondering if I’m going to end up making a one-way visit to Krys’s workshop.’

  ‘No one’s going to find you out,’ said Joe, taking another mouthful.

  ‘I nicked the cars, remember? The coppers could get some sort of lead that puts them on to me and then I’m fucked. I might get nicked for something I didn’t even want a part in, and then it’ll get back to the Holtzes, which is far worse.’