Dead Time

by Tony Parsons

  ‘You mean prison,’ Wren said.

  ‘Yes. Prison. I taught him for many years.’

  I paused, waiting for some expression of remorse or regret. But there was nothing. Wren and I exchanged a look and I carried on as her gaze drifted up to the samurai swords on the wall.

  ‘You knew him very well then,’ I said.

  ‘It’s strange,’ he said, his great hands rubbing together, as if he was washing them. ‘Lenny and I knew each other a long time. But most of our conversations were about this.’ He spread his arms wide. ‘We talked about karate.’

  ‘You talked about karate for eight years?’ Wren said, her eyebrows raised with disbelief.

  ‘You could talk about any martial art for a century and you wouldn’t come to the end of it,’ he said. ‘Do either of you study a fighting art?’

  ‘I have a black belt in origami,’ Wren said. ‘DC Wolfe does a bit of boxing.’

  ‘The martial art of the Western world,’ I said. ‘So you weren’t friends with Lenny Lane?’

  ‘I didn’t say that,’ Gvozden said. ‘Lenny was my friend but it was a friendship that was limited to the world I live in.’ A pause. ‘We didn’t discuss the world that he lived in.’

  ‘But you knew he was a drug dealer,’ I said. ‘You knew he did five years for distribution. You must have known all of that?’

  ‘I knew what I read in the newspapers – and there was enough of it. The Man Who Made Ibiza Dance – how could I miss it? But you get all sorts in a fighting gym – as perhaps you know, detective. You get children – and adults – who want to stand up to bullies. You get wild kids who are looking for discipline and direction. You get people who want to be fit, and people who want to defend themselves, and you get people who just like to fight.’

  ‘And which one was Lenny Lane?’ said Wren.

  ‘I think he was looking for something he was good at,’ Gvozden said.

  ‘Apart from selling drugs.’ Wren laughed.

  Goran Gvozden was not smiling now.

  ‘I wonder how good he was at that,’ he said mildly. ‘He did five years in prison, somebody murdered him before he turned forty and he had no money. That doesn’t sound like success to me.’

  ‘How do you know he had no money?’ I said.

  ‘Because Lenny owed me seven hundred pounds. It’s not easy running a business today. Rents in London are rising all the time.’

  ‘Is that why you went to see him before Christmas? Is that why you argued? Because he wasn’t stumping up for the karate lessons?’

  Goran Gvozden took a deep breath.

  ‘Are you one of those Westerners who think that all Serbians are bad?’ he asked me, very quietly.

  ‘I’m investigating a murder that happened outside my home, Mr Gvozden,’ I said. ‘That’s who I am. I’ll ask you again – is money why you argued with Lenny Lane?’

  ‘I would never hurt Lenny,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Or anyone.’

  ‘You did a pretty good job on the kendo twins out there,’ Wren said.

  He stared at his desk, the great head bowed, saying nothing.

  ‘Dad?’

  A little voice piped up from the side of the office. A small boy in glasses stood in a doorway that I hadn’t noticed, a small kitchen behind him, and I saw that this place was more than a dojo and an office. It was also Goran Gvozden’s home.

  ‘Dad, I finished my homework,’ the child said, the accent of a child bred in London, holding up an exercise book, and I guessed that he was about eleven years old.

  Goran Gvozden gestured for the boy to come into the room.

  ‘Introduce yourself, Nenad, like an English gentleman should,’ he told his son.

  The boy shyly held out his hand.

  ‘Hello,’ he said, his hand soft and small. ‘Hello. Welcome.’

  His father radiated pride. ‘I’ll be in soon, Nenad,’ he said, and the boy disappeared back into their home.

  ‘Does your son like karate?’ I said.

  ‘He likes reading,’ Gvozden said. ‘I think it’s the glasses. He can’t see much without them and yet he doesn’t like doing sport while he’s wearing them.’

  ‘When did you come over from Serbia?’

  ‘Nineteen-ninety-nine,’ he said, and waited, as if we would grasp the significance of the year. ‘Nineteen-ninety-nine – the year that NATO bombed Belgrade. We had lost Nenad’s mother the year before – breast cancer – and NATO’s bombing of Belgrade terrified my son. So we got out.’

  ‘Thanks for your time,’ I said. ‘We’ll let you get back to your son.’

  I left him my card and told him we would be in touch. Back on the street, Wren and I didn’t speak until we were sitting inside my old silver X5.

  ‘Not him,’ I said. ‘We have to keep looking.’

  Wren laughed. ‘Not him? Why not him? Jesus Christ, Max! Because he’s a single parent?’

  ‘It’s not that. The Serbs get a bad rap. Everybody treats them like the villains of Europe. They were with us in the war against Nazi Germany.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with Lenny Lane getting his head chopped off?’

  ‘NATO dropped bombs on that little boy. How did we end up as the good guys?’

  ‘Gvozden’s got a motive – money.’

  ‘Seven hundred quid, Edie!’

  ‘The amount doesn’t matter, and we both know it, Max. People get stabbed in the eye for small change in this city. People get killed for pennies. And he’s got to be one of the strongest men I’ve ever seen in my life. Did you see what he did to those beekeepers?’

  ‘The Bruce Lee routine doesn’t make him a killer.’

  I stared at the street without really seeing it. We were south of the river, below Borough High Street, about one mile away from where it all became fashionable. All around us were bleak council estates with Christmas lights in their windows shining feebly in the dying of the day.

  ‘He’s got the motive,’ Wren said. ‘And he’s got the means. The guy is some kind of sword freak. He’s got some kind of sick fetish. Did you see the size of the things he had on his wall? What were they? Samurai swords, right?’

  ‘The finest cutting weapons ever made,’ I said. ‘You’re right, Edie. The swords are a problem.’

  7

  The Imperial War Museum was just down the road. It was close to midnight now, but we were expected.

  As always, my breath caught at the sight of two giant naval canons marking the entrance to the museum, the mighty guns rearing out of the January darkness, as improbable on these modest south London streets as dinosaurs.

  ‘The Imperial War Museum?’ Wren said. ‘It has to be closed by now.’

  ‘We’re going round the back,’ I said.

  I parked the X5 on St George’s Road and we approached the staff entrance through the gardens. An elderly security guard answered the bell and stood back to let us inside, where a young woman in a wheelchair was waiting for us.

  ‘Carol,’ I said. ‘This is DC Wren. Thanks for seeing us at such short notice.’

  The woman nodded briskly. I had met Carol through my old skipper, DCI Mallory, who had been killed hunting Bob the Butcher. And although Carol was doing an enormous favour by opening up the museum after dark, I knew she was doing it for Mallory, not me.

  ‘You wanted me to show you some swords,’ she said.

  We waited for her to turn her wheelchair in the narrow corridor and then followed her into the main hall, where Spitfires and Messerschmitts hung high in the darkness, like a dream of some long-ago war.

  ‘How did you know DCI Mallory?’ Wren said.

  Carol stopped and looked up at Wren, her arms resting on her wheelchair.

  ‘Helmand,’ she said, and that was all.

  We followed her into an office where four swords were resting on a table. Two of them were long and curved, exactly like the swords on Goran Gvozden’s wall, while one was short and curved, more like a long knife, and one was medium-length and dead str
aight – this was the only one in a scabbard. Carol rolled her chair close to the table, picked up the scabbard and pulled out the sword; it slid silently out of the wooden sheath.

  ‘This straight sword is Chinese,’ Carol said. ‘They don’t have the prestige of the Japanese weapons, which are these curved ones.’ She slid the Chinese sword back into its scabbard and picked up the short sword. ‘The reputation of the Japanese swords really comes from the process used to make them. It’s called quenching – the swordsmith covered the blade with clay but left the cutting edge exposed, heating it to red-hot temperatures and then quickly cooling it so that the blade hardens to an incredibly sharp, incredibly strong cutting edge.’ Carol brandished the short sword above her head. ‘This is a wakizashi, the samurai’s shorter sword and it was usually carried with the longer katana.’ She glared at us impatiently. ‘No need to be shy,’ she said.

  Wren and I each picked up a katana samurai sword. It felt impossibly light, and undeniably lethal, like holding a razor blade that was three feet long.

  ‘How many blows would it take with one of these things to remove a man’s head?’ I said.

  Carol laughed with genuine amusement, her face lighting up, and I thought I glimpsed the carefree young woman she must have been before she served in Afghanistan.

  ‘Oh, one would be plenty,’ she said.

  ’No sign of Goran Gvozden on the Police National Computer,’ Edie Wren said early the next morning. ‘No criminal record. No visa problems – he was given indefinite leave to stay with his son in 2004.’ She pushed her chair back and ran a hand through her red hair. ‘As far as I can tell, he doesn’t even have a parking ticket.’

  From the window of Major Incident Room One at 27 Savile Row, West End Central, I could stare down four storeys to the street below. The West End was thronging with people desperate for a bargain, but Savile Row was deserted. All the bespoke tailors were closed over the holidays. They didn’t go in for the sales on this Mayfair street.

  ‘Lenny Lane’s fortune was built on timing,’ I said. ‘Before Ecstasy – before Lenny made Ibiza dance – drugs were a recreational pastime. Lenny was one of the men who turned it into an industry.’ I turned to look at Wren. ‘But who runs drugs in this town today?’

  She shrugged.

  ‘Anybody,’ she said. ‘Lenny and his early associates pretty much had the scene to themselves. Lenny was the Henry Ford of E. It’s all changed now. Everybody from the Essex boys to the Somalians wants in on the act.’

  ‘And that’s one reason that Lenny wanted out,’ I said. ‘It was too crowded. It was too dangerous. And he had done hard time.’

  ‘But maybe his old associates were not ready to let him retire,’ Wren said.

  ‘That sounds more likely than his karate teacher topping him for seven hundred quid,’ I said.

  ‘You really don’t like him for it, do you?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Because a life of crime is too risky when you’ve got a kid to bring up alone.’

  The door of MIR-1 opened and a slight, fair-haired woman in glasses walked in. DCI Pat Whitestone, acting skipper of our MIT now that DCI Mallory was gone.

  She wasn’t happy. And she wasn’t alone.

  ‘What the hell are you two playing at?’ she said, and DCI Flashman of the Yard came into MIR-1 behind her, looking at me as if he could happily rip out my throat. ‘West End Central is not involved in the investigation into the murder of Lenny Lane, okay?’

  I nodded. ‘I know.’

  ‘You don’t act like you know, Dirty Harry,’ Flashman said.

  ‘Sir,’ I began, but he silenced me with raised hands.

  ‘Don’t act respectful to my face and then insult me behind my back, DC Wolfe,’ he said. ‘You went to interview Wendy Lane without the prior authorisation of the Senior Investigating Officer – and that’s me, not you.’ He nodded at Wren. ‘And then you and Doctor Watson here went along to the Double G and interviewed a possible murder suspect – again without my authorisation.’

  ‘We should be looking at Lenny Lane’s old business associates,’ I said. ‘Not his karate teacher.’

  Flashman stepped up to my face.

  ‘Enough!’ he shouted, then stepped back, shaking his head, controlling himself, his face flushed with real anger. ‘Just back off, all right? Don’t go anywhere near it again. I told you to go home and have a mince pie. I’m not telling you again.’ He touched Whitestone lightly on the arm. ‘Thanks, Pat,’ he said, and then he turned and walked out.

  ‘Turn off your work stations and go home,’ Whitestone told us when he was gone, furiously pushing her glasses further up the bridge of her nose.

  Wren and I did as we were told.

  ‘Lenny Lane,’ I said. ‘They killed him outside my front door. Cut his head off in Smithfield. I was the first responding officer.’

  ‘I know,’ Whitestone said, more gently now. ‘I know, Max.’

  ‘The thing is – this is where I live.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘This is where my daughter sleeps and plays and does her drawings and walks our dog.’

  ‘But this is not our investigation,’ Whitestone said. ‘So go home and put it out of your mind. Go home to Scout.’

  ‘I’m sorry to drag you in here over the holidays,’ I told her, and I meant it. ‘I know you must be spending time with your son.’

  ‘I’m not with my son over the holidays,’ Whitestone said, and I saw the fire come back into her eyes. ‘He’s with his bloody father.’

  Late in the afternoon I banged the bag at Smithfield ABC, hooking my green 12-ounce Grant gloves deep into the worn Lonsdale leather, liking the way I left a dent on either side of the heavy bag. When the buzzer went I got down on the floor and did ten burpees, then ten press-ups; the buzzer went again and I hit the speed ball for another round; the buzzer went, and I got down on the ground and cranked out another ten burpees and another ten press-ups before going back to the heavy bag. And on and on, until I did not know how long I had been working and the sweat salt stung my eyes and the lactic acid in my arms made them feel too heavy to lift and I knew that at last I would sleep well tonight.

  ‘Time,’ Fred called. ‘Good, good.’ Then he frowned at me. ‘I can’t believe you let someone hit you on the back of the head. What was the very first thing I taught you?’

  ‘Defend yourself at all times,’ I said. ‘He was dressed as a policeman, Fred.’

  Fred looked thoughtful. When he looked this thoughtful, he was either thinking about boxing or music. On the sound system of Smithfield ABC, Bob Marley was singing ‘Lively Up Yourself’ to an ecstatic live crowd.

  ‘We should just play stuff by people who have played the Rainbow,’ he said.

  ‘Bob Marley and the Wailers,’ I said.

  ‘The Clash,’ Fred said.

  ‘The Who,’ I said. ‘The Faces. Jimi Hendrix.’

  ‘Jimi Hendrix? No.’

  ‘Before it was the Rainbow. In the Sixties when it was still the Astoria. That’s where he burned his guitar.’

  ‘Okay. Hendrix then. And Little Feat. Marc Bolan. Iggy Pop.’

  ‘Slade. Kool and the Gang. Thin Lizzy.’

  ‘Pink Floyd. Queen.’

  The buzzer rang and he took me on the pads, calling the shots as he backed off, moving sideways and swinging the occasional pad at my head to make me keep my guard up even when my arms were burning with fatigue.

  ‘Triple jab,’ he said, and I fired them out – one, two, three.

  ‘Put most power into the last shot,’ Fred said. ‘Keeps them off. Try it again. Triple jab. But always put the most power in your last shot.’

  Sugar Roy Robertson walked into the gym. I felt my spirits sink, believing he had come to fight me.

  But he had come to see Fred.

  ‘I’d like to try again,’ the big man said. ‘If it’s not too late. And if you’ll have me.’

  Fred’s pirate face split into a big grin.

  ‘You big lu
mp,’ he said. ‘Don’t you know it’s never too late? Just let me put on some Clash.’

  As Fred went over to the sound system and Joe Strummer began to sing ‘White Man in Hammersmith Palais’, Sugar Roy turned to me.

  ‘She’s waiting for you outside,’ he said.

  Cara Maldini huddled in the doorway of a closed shop, wrapped up against the bitter January night, and shivering with something that was more than cold.

  ‘I loved him,’ she said. ‘Lenny. I loved him from the start. He was the only man in Faces who did not treat me like fresh meat. He was going to leave his wife for me.’ In the sodium light I saw her eyes shine with tears. ‘He said I was his last chance for happiness.’

  ‘Did Lenny’s wife know about you?’

  ‘No. I don’t know. I don’t think so. But women always know in their hearts. She knew it was coming to an end. And she loved their life in Chelsea, he said, even if she didn’t love him.’

  ‘Was he still dealing?’

  She shook her head. ‘After prison, he wanted to change everything. He was looking to – what did he call it? To reboot his career. Lenny said, Nobody wants quality any more; all they want is cheap. He was looking for a new direction. He was looking for something safer. And more lucrative.’

  ‘What’s more lucrative than drugs?’

  ‘He said something was arriving in the New Year and it would change everything.’

  I had a vision of a lorry arriving at Harwich or Calais or Southampton, where a container would be unloaded and nobody would ever come to claim it, and in the back of the container there were a few dozen human bodies from some corner of Asia or Africa or the Middle East. Or perhaps I was wrong and it was just a lorry full of bootleg Louis Vuitton bags. I had no idea what Lenny Lane considered a good career move.

  ‘I need you to talk to my boss,’ I said. ‘I need you to tell her what you’ve told me.’

  ‘I have to go to work,’ she said. ‘And they’ll kill me if they know I talked to you. The men in Faces. Pete the Mod. All of them. They’ll kill me.’

  ‘Nobody’s going to kill you.’

  She glanced anxiously at her watch. ‘I can’t go to a police station. It’s too dangerous for me.’