by Rob Ashman
Malice was struggling to maintain eye contact. He took a hasty swig of coffee to distract himself.
‘There’s a strong possibility, yes.’
‘I can assure you, if her plan was to pay us a surprise visit, she didn’t turn up. How’s your coffee?’
‘Umm, it’s fine. Thank you,’ Malice allowed his eyes to drop to Elsa’s cleavage.
‘Are you okay, Detective? Would you be more comfortable sitting in the lounge?’
‘No, no, I’m okay here.’
‘You look a little… uncomfortable.’
‘I’m fine,’ Malice dragged his eyes back to his notebook. ‘If you hadn’t arranged to meet Belinda, why would she make the journey here?’
‘Search me,’ Elsa made the theatrical gesture of holding her arms out to the side. The robe gaped further. ‘It certainly wasn’t so we could have one last good-bye fuck, because we’d already had that.’
‘Is it possible your husband had made arrangements and kept them from you?’
‘It is possible I suppose, but highly unlikely. We are a very open couple, Detective, and have no need for secrets.’
Malice was beginning to think Pietersen had been right.
‘That’s all for now, Mrs Kaplan. Thank you for answering my questions.’
‘Oh don’t go, you haven’t finished your drink,’ Elsa got up from the table. The gown parted to reveal her naked underneath. ‘Can’t you stay a little longer, I’m sure you have more questions for me.’
There was the sound of a key in the front door.
‘Elsa! I’m home.’
Chapter 39
I ’m charging around my workshop with an axe in my hand yelling at Elsa. She’s nowhere to be seen. She’s in the house doing what-ever-the-fuck she does when I’m not there. I’m shouting at myself because the bloody woman will not listen.
I’d arrived in the hallway to find Elsa in the kitchen with her bathrobe gaping open and Malice sitting at the table taking it all in. I made some excuse to get rid of him and just about managed to keep my temper in check until I heard his car disappear off the drive.
‘I told you no!’ I’d yelled at her.
‘And I said it’s not about what you want. It’s never about what you want,’ she’d replied, peering through the side window.
‘He’s not a Pretty.’
‘What does that matter? I’ve screwed people before who aren’t Pretties and you’ve not minded in the least.’
‘This one’s different.’
‘Why? Because he’s a copper?’
‘No it’s because… because…
‘He’s investigating us?’
‘No, it’s not that.’
‘I told you… I’m putting him off his game. He’s definitely interested.’
‘For Christ’s sake Elsa, this is different. I don’t want you to—’
‘You’re over reacting. Nothing happened.’
‘Only because I came home.’
‘I must admit, your timing wasn’t great,’ Elsa said, faking a pout.
‘I’ll report him for misconduct in a public office.’
‘No you won’t, Damien. He’ll deny it and I’ll deny it. You’ll make yourself look foolish. And anyway, I’m not sure the members of your practice would look too kindly on you bringing scandal to their door. Relax and let me have some fun.’
I’d faced her and took her hands in mine. ‘Let’s log onto the website and find you someone new. They don’t have to be a Pretty, you can choose anyone you want. How’s that?’
‘I want him.’
‘But I don’t want you to have him.’
‘I don’t care.’ She’d planted a kiss on my cheek and breezed past me, making her way up the stairs.
And that was it — discussion over. I picked the axe from the wood pile and retreated to my workshop.
I swing the razored edge through the air.
‘I don’t want you to have him,’ my snarling voice reverberates off the walls. ‘I don’t want you to…’ I chop away at some imaginary demon in front of me. ‘He’s an ugly bastard, why would you want to fuck an ugly bastard?’
I’m screaming at the top of my voice. The floor is peppered with droplets of saliva, blown through clenched teeth.
He’s fucking ugly, she’s breaking the contract.
I stomp into the proving room, yank the rack away from the wall and throw open the door. Callum greets me. His bloodless body, hanging by the hooks in his back.
‘Argghh!’
The axe head buries itself into his shoulder. I work the handle back and forth to free the blade and the next blow slices deep into his neck. One of the hooks tears through the dead flesh under the impact. He’s left swinging at an angle.
I take a back-hand swing which severs his head. His carcass clatters to the floor as the other hook gives way.
I raise the axe high above my head and bring it down between his shoulder blades. The sound of cracking ribs fills the small room.
‘I said no!’ I scream. My boot slams onto his back and the bones tear through his skin as I tug the axe free. ‘He’s fucking ugly.’
The axe head buries itself deep in the body cavity.
‘You’re breaking the contract!’
I swing the axe like I’m chopping wood. Bone and skin shower the walls and my legs.
His torso cleaves wide open.
In my head I can see her riding him like a rodeo bull at a fairground. The razor-sharp edge severs Callum’s arm at the shoulder.
‘I said no, Elsa. Fucking no!’
Chapter 40
P ietersen thumped her hand into the door and breezed into the office, the image of Kaplan’s smiling face loomed large in her mind. Malice was sitting at his desk. While his laptop was open he wasn’t taking a blind bit of notice of what was on the screen, he was gazing into the middle distance.
‘You hungry?’ Pietersen asked, dumping her bag onto the desk.
Malice jumped, crashing out of his daydream. The one filled with Lobos Vasco, Hayley and Amy – oh, and Mitchell’s head on a spike.
‘Hi, I was just…’
‘Booking a holiday in your head from the distant look on your face. Have you eaten?
‘No, what’s the time?’
‘Way past lunchtime. Grab your coat, my treat.’
‘Why do I need a coat?’
‘There’s a pub up the road. They do cracking food. If you won’t let me buy you a drink for fixing my car, the least you can do is let me buy you a Panini and a coke.’
‘Panini… that’s like eating stale bread.’
‘Bloody hell you’re hard work. C’mon.’ Pietersen fished her purse from her bag and stuffed it in her pocket. Malice thought about the offer and all of a sudden, he was starving.
‘You’re on.’ He followed her out.
The pub was a ten-minute walk. Malice sucked in the fresh air to clear his head. Hayley should be at her sister’s place by now, that is if she’d heeded his pleas for her to go. He checked his phone for the umpteenth time — nothing.
They walked in silence, each one deep in their own thoughts.
The pub was a regular haunt for the older boys at the station, but not today. Today it was empty but for a few blokes sitting at the bar, sinking beers like they were in a rugby club boat-race. A jumble of dark wooden tables and chairs choked the place, making it difficult to navigate a path to the long bar. The carpet and wallpaper had seen better days — probably sometime back in the eighties.
‘Grab a table and I’ll get a couple of menus.’ Pietersen wandered over the chap standing behind the bar and staring up at a golf match playing on the TV. ‘What do you want to drink?’ she called over her shoulder.
‘A coke,’ Malice said, siding into a seat facing the door.
‘Cheap date.’
His phone buzzed. The tension left his shoulders when he read the message telling him that Hayley and Amy had arrived safely at her sister’s house. With them out of the way he c
ould get down to the serious business of dealing with Vasco and his crew.
His mind was racing when Pietersen came back to the table carrying a couple of drinks and two packets of crisps gripped between her teeth. She opened her mouth to let them fall onto the table.
‘Salt and vinegar or prawn cocktail?’ she said. Malice took his coke and looked at her with his brow furrowed. ‘They stopped serving food at two o’clock so it’s only fair you get first choice.
‘I wasn’t planning on being this cheap.’ he picked up a packet, ripped it open and laid it on the table between them. ‘We can share.’
Pietersen followed suit with the other packet.
‘Thanks for fixing my car.’ She held up her drink.
Malice chinked his glass against hers. ‘You’re welcome, thanks for a sumptuous lunch.’ He took a swig and munched on a handful of crisps.
‘It’s the least I could do.’
‘How did you get on with the taxi woman?’ he asked.
‘Robbins hadn’t had any further contact with the Kaplans since they last visited the hotel. Over the weekend in question she’d been running a staff training session and I can’t see her being able to pick Belinda up from the train station. I also got Garrett’s phone records back and there were no calls from either of the Kaplans after their last meeting.’
‘That’s not helpful.’
‘Anyway… I’m more interested to know how you got on with Elsa?’ Pietersen stuffed more crisps in her mouth and leaned forwards across the table. Malice retreated, sitting back in his chair and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Well, what happened?’
‘I was saved by the bell when her husband came home unexpectedly,’ he replied.
‘Oh shit! I was joking when I said—’
‘Let’s just say you were right.’
‘Did she come on to you?’
‘More or less laid it on a plate — literally.’
‘What did you do?’
‘Stuck to the questions and made a sharp exit when Damien got home. He didn’t seem best pleased to see me,’ Malice took a swig of coke and grabbed more crisps.
‘Did you manage to rattle her cage?’
‘Not that I could tell. She kept to her story and simply reflected our latest thoughts back to me; if Belinda Garrett was at Fallgate station, they were unaware of it and she didn’t visit their house.’
Pietersen nodded and tapped the side of her head with the index finger of her right hand. ‘Ah, that makes sense. I reckon Damien must have come home early because the trial he’s working on got put on hold when the accused tried to commit suicide.’
‘How the hell do you know that?’ Malice almost spat his lunch out.
‘I saw him on TV leaving the courthouse, smiling like a crazy person.’
‘Smiling?’
‘Yes, like his numbers had come up on the lottery. Never seen a bloke look so happy. Can’t get his face out of my head,’
‘They seem both as bad as one another.’
‘Did you believe Elsa?’
‘No, I didn’t. She’s lying.’
‘Yessss, get in!’ the man behind the bar punched the air with his fist. Then looked around sheepishly and started cleaning glasses with a towel.
Pietersen finished off the last of the crisps and ran her finger around the packet, picking up the crumbs. ‘We need hard evidence that Garrett was on that train. Then the next time we speak to them will be in an interview room at the station.’ Pietersen licked the salt from her finger and changed tack. ‘The guy found murdered on the Claxton, he was the man you spoke to when you bolted from the car the other day,’
‘Shit, Kelly, where did that come from?’ Malice did a double take.
‘I recognised his mugshot.’
‘Yeah, it was him, or rather, it was the other guy I wanted to talk to. Bullseye never says a lot.’
‘Have you told DI Wilson?’
‘Not yet I haven’t had chance. Too busy fending off Elsa Kaplan.’
‘What did you speak to him about?’
‘C’mon, Kelly, not this again.’
‘We’re working together and I want to help,’ Pietersen tried to make the comment sound like a casual remark but deep down she knew it was a clumsy approach. What else could she do?
‘Like I said, it wasn’t Bullseye I spoke to.’
‘What did you say to Wrigley?’
‘Wow! How did you…?’ he did a second double take.
‘It says Detective on my warrant card, you know? What did you talk about?’
‘Bloody hell, Kelly. If you must know it was mostly bollocks. But it’s good to keep your ear to the ground.’
‘Are they informants?’
‘Not officially, but they know what’s going on.’
‘And they tell you?’
‘Something like that.’ Malice played with his phone, flipping it over and over on the table. He picked up the empty glasses. ‘Do you fancy another?’
A man in his late twenties pulled up the chair and plonked himself next to Pietersen. ‘So, you weren’t able to come out for a cheeky one last night, and yet here you are – having a cheeky one.’
‘Do you mind? This is work, Martin.’ she huffed.
‘Looks like a cheeky one to me,’ the new arrival reached across with an open hand. ‘My name’s Martin, pleased to meet you.’
Malice shook it.
‘My name’s Mally, I work with Kelly.’
‘Apparently so.’ Martin replied breathing alcohol fumes across the table.
Pietersen squared herself to face him.
‘Bugger off, Martin.’
‘That’s not very nice, I’ve only just got here.’
‘Yeah, well you can ‘only just’ piss off and drink somewhere else,’ she held his stare.
Martin straightened in his seat, swept his floppy fringe across his forehead and fingered the silver earring in his left ear. His denim jacket was stylishly threadbare and his beaming white smile would have lit up his face if it wasn’t for his bloodshot eyes. ‘But I’ve made a new friend,’ he nodded towards Malice, ‘and it would be rude of me not to buy a round of drinks.’
‘Martin you’re being a prick,’ Pietersen said.
‘Kelly do you want me to—’ Malice got no further.
‘I got this,’ Pietersen held up her hand to cut him off.
‘What were you two talking about? I love a nice chat,’ Martin asked, resting his elbows on the table and looking from one to the other.
‘Leave now,’ she whispered.
‘Fucking hell Kell, I only want a chat.’
‘Do one,’ Pietersen said, getting to her feet and leaning over him
Martin remained in his seat, staring at the table. He jumped up, his face inches from hers. ‘And what happens if I don’t want to?’ He grabbed her shoulder. ‘What if I—’
Pietersen clamped her hand over his and wound her right arm around his shoulder. She forced him over double, banging his face into the table. Malice snatched the glasses to stop them bouncing to the floor.
The barman tore himself away from his afternoon viewing and called out, ‘No rough stuff inside, use the carpark around the back.’
‘And I told you to go,’ she grabbed a handful of hair at the back of his head and spat the words into his ear.
‘Shit, Kell, I was only …’ he whimpered, his fingers clawing at the varnish on the table.
‘Now fuck off.’ Pietersen released him and Martin staggered backwards, rubbing his cheek.
‘Bitch,’ he ricocheted off a couple of tables on his way to the door. ‘You’re a psycho.’
‘Yeah, that’s right Martin, I’m the psycho,’ Pietersen remained standing.
‘Bitch,’ he snarled as he barged his way outside onto the pavement. The door clattered shut behind him.
Malice was still holding two empty glasses, one in each hand.
‘You okay?’ he asked.
‘I told you - I got this.’
<
br /> ‘Who the hell was that?’
‘That … was what I swapped for a Porsche.’
‘Do you want to leave?’
‘Christ no, I want to know what Wrigley told you’
Chapter 41
M alice was finding it hard to concentrate. He glanced at his phone under the desk. The picture of Amy and Hayley taken outside their home was on the screen. Beneath it was a new message.
Whistle and Flute, 7pm today, table 10.
The text had come through shortly after the altercation between Kelly and her ex at the pub. Malice had made up some cock and bull story about needing to get back to the station and they’d left. Which was a blessing — because Pietersen’s questioning about Wrigley was beginning to grate on him.
He checked his watch — not long to go now.
Pietersen had her eyes glued to the CCTV footage of Paddington station at the time Garrett caught the train, while Marjorie Cooper did the same. It was clear there was professional reputation at stake regarding who would find her first. Malice’s money was on Cooper.
He pressed pause and zoomed in. The face of Damien Kaplan filled the screen.
Christ, I can see what she meant.
The picture showed Kaplan on the steps outside the courthouse and all around him were stunned and worried faces while he wore the broadest grin — like all his Christmases had come at once. Malice scrolled through the files gathered during the investigation.
Shit.
‘Hey Kelly, come and take a look at this,’ he called across the office.
‘What is it?’
‘Maybe nothing but…’
Pietersen pushed herself away from the laptop and stood up, stretching her arms above her head. Cooper glanced over and cracked half a smile. The advantage was hers.
‘Kelly, could you step into my office please?’ Waite poked her head around the door. A Superintendent trumps a Sergeant any day.
‘I’ll take a look at it later,’ Pietersen said to Malice, who shrugged his shoulders. She followed her into her office.
