Dead Time

by Tony Parsons

  ‘We’ll come to you.’

  She gave me an address off the Edgware Road and I tapped it into my phone. Then she kissed me on the cheek again, very quickly, and I felt her youth and goodness and I knew that a man would love her for these things as much as her beauty.

  My phone began to vibrate as I watched her walk away, a tall Italian girl in a thick winter coat, shuddering in the London winter. I pulled out my phone.

  ‘Your friend the Serb,’ DCI Flashman said. ‘We have evidence that nails him to the murder of Lenny Lane and we’re arresting him in the morning before first light.’ I could feel Flashman smiling at the other end of the line. ‘Want to watch?’ he said.

  8

  Just before five a.m. I pulled into an abandoned car park in the shadow of Battersea Power Station.

  DCI Flashman’s MIT from New Scotland Yard was already there: four detectives who were pumped up and anxious to begin, talking in low urgent voices, gulping down scalding coffee, their breath making steam in the freezing air, the engines of their two BMW X5s running and ready to go, stamping their feet as if they were chilled to the bone, as if they had been waiting for this moment all night long, as if they had been waiting for this moment all their lives.

  The sun would not rise for another three hours and the great chimneys of Battersea Power Station rose into the sky above us lit by nothing but misty moonlight.

  ‘The search team did a three-mile diameter of the meat market,’ Flashman told me. ‘After forty-eight hours they found this in a skip at the top of John Street, up near the Angel.’

  He gave me his phone and I scrolled through a dozen photographs of a samurai sword that had been bagged and double-tagged. The long curved blade of the sword was soaked in blood and it splattered the inside of the evidence bag.

  I handed Flashman back his phone.

  ‘You got prints and serology yet?’ I asked.

  Forensics should tell us the sword had been touched by Goran Gvozden and the serology analysis should tell us the blood had come out of Lenny Lane.

  ‘Not yet,’ Flashman said. ‘But this is enough.’

  He was right. This was enough.

  There is a great central mystery to a policeman’s life and it is this: you never know what is waiting for you beyond the next door that you force open. You can’t know and there is no way that you will ever know, and that uncertainty winds you tight in those last minutes before you go in, and your heart bangs and your blood pumps and you fight to control your runaway breath.

  And – more than anything – you want to go on living.

  ‘Ready?’ Flashman said.

  Outside the Double G dojo we were crouching down behind anything we could find. Armed officers with Heckler & Koch assault rifles had their backs against large green recycling bins. Uniformed officers huddled behind a discarded Christmas tree. Detectives in good suits were on their knees behind a big black council grit bin. And all eyes were on the tall, fair-haired leader of the MIT from Scotland Yard.

  ‘Go!’ Flashman yelled.

  At his command a uniformed officer holding a bright red battering ram walked up the steps of the Double G dojo and swung it at the door. The battering ram he was holding was a heavily marked, ten-year-old Enforcer – also known as the big red key, the donker, the Nigel and the bosher. It is two feet long, weighs 16 kg and it sprung the door of the Double G open as if it were made of wet cardboard.

  The officer stepped back and we ran inside, everyone screaming to put the fear of God into whoever was waiting for us, running down the steps where the students had all bowed to their teacher and across the mats of the darkened, deserted dojo.

  A light came on in the office. Goran Gvozden appeared in boxer shorts and T-shirt, carrying a baseball bat. He thought he was being burgled.

  Assault rifles were levelled at the centre of his chest.

  ‘PUT IT DOWN! PUT IT DOWN! PUT IT DOWN!’

  He tossed aside the bat and came down the stairs to meet us in the middle of the dojo. A detective stepped behind him and lifted his arms behind his back prior to cuffing him. Goran Gvozden pulled his hands away, shaking his head with bewilderment.

  DCI Flashman brushed past me.

  ‘Goran Gvozden, I am arresting you for the murder of Leonard Lane.’ Flashman said.

  ‘What?’ The big Serb turned and pushed the detective in the chest, just hard enough to make him step back. ‘No!’

  ‘Goran,’ I said. ‘Don’t fight them.’

  ‘You do not have to say anything,’ Flashman continued, ‘but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something you later rely on in court.’

  ‘Daddy?’

  The boy was in the doorway of the office, still in his pyjamas, and when someone turned on the lights of the dojo, he blinked behind his glasses as if the sudden glare was blinding. A smiling young Family Liaison Officer walked up the stairs and crouched beside the child, taking his hand. The FLO would take care of the boy’s needs – or at least hand him over to the custody of social services.

  At the sight of his son being taken into the care of strangers, Goran Gvozden went berserk.

  ‘Nenad!’

  He was turning away from Flashman and from the rest of us and making for his son.

  The detective who had tried to cuff him before tried it again and this time Gvozden slammed his elbow into the detective’s face. The uniformed officers with batons drawn piled onto him, the blows coming down as he fought back, taking on four or five of them, no room for fancy kicks, just taking them out with his knees, elbows and the great broad expanse of his forehead.

  The armed officers were screaming. Nenad was crying. And I knew I was shouting Goran Gvozden’s name but I could not hear myself among the furious din.

  And then an armed officer from SCO19 with his Glock 17 drawn barged me out of the way and I looked at the black flat-nosed Glock semi-automatic pointing at the head of Goran Gvozden and I could see the finger of the officer on the trigger and I knew there was no safety catch on the Glock and seventeen rounds inside and there was nothing to stop the big Serb dying here today.

  But then a young female officer struck Gvozden from behind with her baton and he went down on his knees and a detective from Scotland Yard began to cuff the Serb’s wrists behind his back, and it would have been all right if the detective had been quicker, if the mad adrenalin rush of the morning hadn’t made his hands shake so badly, because suddenly Goran Gvozden was getting off his knees, roaring an oath in Serbian, and a young uniformed officer stepped forward, placed a Taser X2 against Goran Gvozden’s heart and fired at point blank range.

  As the 50,000 volts entered his chest I saw the light go out of his eyes and I heard a child screaming for his father, a sound of loss and terror and animal grief, a sound that I knew I would remember for the rest of my life, a sound that was louder than bombs.

  9

  Ratana, the Thai housekeeper, answered the door of the big house in Chelsea.

  ‘Mrs Lane’s busy,’ she said. ‘Doing her yoga.’

  I glanced at my watch. It wasn’t ten in the morning yet. It felt like the day should be over.

  ‘I have some news she will want to hear,’ I said.

  Ratana reluctantly let me come in. I waited outside the room where we had sat on tatami mats and drunk green tea. I could hear a soft male voice coming inside.

  ‘And vinyasa,’ said the man. ‘Really feel those lungs opening up as you inhale … and let the tension just drain on the exhale … good, good, good … let me see that bum really sticking in the air.’

  I went inside; I was tired of waiting. I wanted to go home to my daughter and my dog. Ratana was meekly hovering on the edge of the room, her head bowed, her strong hands folded across the apron of her housecoat.

  Wendy Lane was bent double in the middle of the room, doing the kind of long stretch that Stan does after he gets up from a good sleep. A strikingly handsome young man wearing leggings and a top that appeared to be one size
too small was watching her. Through the window I could see the gardener gathering the last of the old year’s dead leaves.

  ‘Your downward-facing dog is really coming along,’ the young man said approvingly. ‘Get your abs on nice and tight.’

  Then they were all looking at me.

  ‘They arrested Goran Gvozden for the murder of your husband,’ I said. ‘He resisted arrest and officers were obliged to use force.’ I took a breath. ‘And he died. The Senior Investigating Officer – DCI Flashman – thought you should know.’

  Wendy Lane got to her feet. I realised that music was playing, the gentle, floating music that was as soft as a prayer. We all watched her – the yoga teacher, the Thai housekeeper, me and the golden Buddhas who stared blindly around the peaceful, enlightened space.

  ‘I hope the bastard burns in hell,’ said Wendy Lane.

  Ratana took me to the kitchen and gave me green tea and turkey satay.

  ‘You don’t go home during the holidays?’ I asked her.

  ‘To Thailand?’

  ‘I meant to your family.’

  Ratana shook her head. ‘She’s my family now. Mrs Lane.’ She smiled with what looked like pride. I saw her hesitate. ‘Now we both know what it’s like to lose a husband.’

  ‘Your husband died?’

  ‘Nobody knows what happened to him! He run off. What do you call it?’

  ‘A missing person,’ I said. ‘In the police force we say mispers.’

  ‘Mispers,’ she said, trying it out. Then she laughed. ‘My husband – he’s a misper all right!’

  ‘Was he British or Thai?’

  ‘A Brit,’ she said, frowning. ‘From Portsmouth.’ She made it sound as distant as Timbuktu. ‘Met him when I was a Guest Relations Officer in a restaurant in Bangkok. I thought he was an English gentleman. But when we were married and got back to Portsmouth, he started drinking – and beating me.’ She nodded at my food and I took a small bite of turkey satay. It had not improved with age. ‘Then one day he just disappeared. Run off! Good riddance to bad rubbish! Never come back. A – one more time, please?’

  ‘Misper.’

  She nodded enthusiastically. ‘He was what we call in Thailand bah kwai. Big insult – means crazy buffalo.’

  ‘Bah kwai,’ I said, remembering where I had heard that expression before.

  Then I carried on chewing, even though I was sick to the back teeth of turkey.

  I met Edie Wren on the Edgware Road.

  Early afternoon and the streets were full of people, the Lebanese restaurants and cafes all crowded, many of the women in their niqabs, hijabs or burkhas, Christmas not registering on the radar of this neighbourhood.

  ‘I heard they got the perp,’ Wren said. ‘Goran Gvozden.’

  ‘Tied him to a weapon and he died during arrest,’ I said.

  ‘What happens now?’

  ‘Autopsy of Gvozden. Review by the IPCC into the use of force during arrest. Then the case will be closed as quickly as possible. And if they can’t find any relatives to take him back in the old country, Goran Gvozden’s son will grow up in care.’

  Wren watched me.

  ‘You all right, Wolfe?’

  I nodded.

  ‘You still want to talk to the Italian girl? Not much point, is there? Now it’s over …’

  ‘I promised her,’ I said.

  Cara Maldini lived in a basement flat round the back of Marble Arch. I was about to knock when I realised the front door was open. I gave it a gentle push and Wren followed me inside. I stopped in the tiny hallway, listening for signs of life, but there was only a dripping tap nearby and, alarmingly close to our heads, heavy footsteps stomping around in the ground-floor flat above.

  ‘Cara?’ I called. ‘It’s DC Wolfe. You okay? Hello?’

  We walked deeper into the flat, and I felt my mouth grow dry with a growing sense of dread. We entered the small bedroom at the end of the hall.

  ‘Oh Jesus,’ I murmured, and I heard Wren curse behind me.

  Cara Maldini was lying on top of her bed in her T-shirt and pants, her long limbs splayed out. Her lifeless eyes were open and seemed to be fixed on some distant place she would never reach. Wren and I instinctively put our hands in our pockets, careful to touch nothing, as we took that long moment to register that Cara Maldini was really dead.

  Then we took our hands from our pockets and snapped on our protective gloves and Wren called it in while I stared at Cara’s lifeless body.

  The pillow that someone had used to suffocate her was by her lovely head, and you could kid yourself that she had died peacefully until your saw the traces of blood and skin under her fingernails, the only evidence of how desperately she had fought for her life.

  By the side of the bed was a photo of her and Lenny Lane, back in the summer, the two of them standing in front of the café at London Zoo. They were holding hands, and grinning with delight at their good fortune in finding each other.

  Wren came and stood by my side.

  ‘They’re on their way,’ she said, and together we stared at the dead girl. ‘Who was she, Max?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘A young woman who came to London and fell in love with the wrong man,’ I said. ‘She was waiting for him to leave his wife so that she could get on with her life.’

  Wren fought to control her breathing, her face even paler than usual, and I saw her mouth twist with anger.

  ‘The poor little cow,’ she said.

  My phone began to vibrate and I took it out.

  ‘We got the serology report back from the lab,’ Flashman said, and his voice was subdued. ‘Turns out it’s not Lenny Lane’s blood on the sword.’

  ‘Then whose blood is it?’

  I could hear Flashman breathing through his nose. I could hear the rustle of the report as he gripped it too tight. In the background there were concerned voices.

  Someone had got something very badly wrong.

  ‘Forensics ran a precipitin test,’ Flashman said, and I felt my heart fall away.

  A precipitin test distinguishes human blood from animal blood.

  ‘The lab says it is sus scrofa domesticus,’ Flashman continued. ‘You know what sus scrofa domesticus is, Wolfe?’

  ‘Pig’s blood,’ I said. ‘Someone set up Goran Gvozden.’

  10

  It was just getting dark on New Year’s Eve but Chelsea was already gearing up for revelry.

  There was lots of fancy dress on the Fulham Road, people dressed up as cowboys and Red Indians, criminals and cops, and from Sloane Square to the Chelsea Harbour the tasteful white lights shone and twinkled with renewed vigour. Already the fireworks were crackling and popping high above the Thames.

  ‘I thought we were done,’ said Wendy Lane when she opened her front door.

  She wasn’t wearing her yoga gear now. She was wearing a little black dress showing legs that were longer than I remembered. She looked as though she was all dressed up with somewhere special to go. But it was more than that. A pair of matching Samsonite suitcases were waiting in the hall, the lightweight aluminium gleaming like freshly minted money.

  ‘We’re nearly done,’ I said.

  We settled ourselves in the room with the tatami mats. The music tinkled and sighed and soothed. The gold Buddhas shone in their dark alcoves, raising one hand to bless us. I could see the gardener hacking away at the cherry tree in the garden.

  ‘Your gardener does a lot of work for you,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t have thought there was much for him to do at this time of year.’

  ‘You’d be surprised,’ she said, following my gaze out of the big floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out on the back garden. ‘It’s the perfect time of year to chop back all the dead stuff. I would offer you some green tea, detective, but I’m afraid I’m a bit pushed for time. I have a plane to catch.’

  ‘We raided Faces last night,’ I said. ‘Did a mouth swab on all the boys. Pete the Mod and the rest. Compared their DNA with what forensics foun
d under the fingernails of Cara Maldini.’

  ‘Yes?’

  I shook my head. ‘It wasn’t them.’

  We sat in silence.

  ‘Everything pointed at Goran Gvozden. But it was just too neat. It was just too perfect. And he was a good man, that big hard Serbian. He didn’t have a criminal bone in his body.’

  Wendy Lane looked just a little flustered. I may have been mistaken, but it looked like she took one of those calming yogic breaths.

  ‘But my husband had many enemies,’ she said. ‘He was The Man who Made Ibiza Dance! Lenny was the most successful drug dealer this country has ever seen.’

  ‘Yes, everyone is always telling me what a criminal mastermind old Lenny was – but as Gvozden told me, your husband did five years in Belmarsh, his money had run out and he ended up getting his head cut off. If that’s what a successful drug dealer looks like, then I would hate to see an unsuccessful one.’

  ‘But it was obviously some kind of gangland hit…’

  ‘No, Mrs Lane,’ I said. ‘This was what we call a domestic.’

  Ratana came and stood in the doorway.

  ‘You shouldn’t have killed the girl, Wendy.’ I said.

  She looked away from me, her mouth tightening, and she stared at the sturdy little housekeeper. Something passed between the two women, but I could not read it.

  ‘Having Cara Maldini killed was just pure spite,’ I said.

  ‘Fucking a married man is pure spite!’ said Wendy Lane.

  ‘Lenny was going to leave you,’ I said. ‘I would have thought you would be glad to get shot of him. Your husband’s dancing days were over. The boom years were a long way behind him. But you wanted to be the one to leave, didn’t you? He wasn’t allowed to be the one who walked away.’

  Wendy Lane’s face twisted with some old fury.

  ‘He was leaving me for some little whore who danced on the bar at Faces. Some little scrubber who would give you a Shepherd’s Bush shoeshine for fifty quid and a Bacardi Breezer.’

  ‘A Shepherd’s Bush shoeshine? Is that what they call it? Shall I tell you what I think, Wendy?’