A Hard Woman to Kill (The DCI Hanlon Series)

by Alex Howard

  ‘I’d be careful where you put your luppers, darling,’ said Albert Slater. His right hand was tucked inside the silken folds of the dressing gown. Gun or knife? wondered Hanlon.

  She put a gentle hand on his shoulder and leaned her face close to the side of his head, as if she was going to kiss him. He could smell her perfume. Her hair brushed his cheek. ‘A firewall’s only good if it can keep things out, and some things are harder to keep out than others. Some things are already here, and some things you can’t keep out, you know that, don’t you, Albert,’ she breathed into his ear. ‘Now, you do what I ask you or I’m going to make a call to Dave Anderson.’ She paused to let the idea and its implications sink in, before continuing.

  ‘You know the Andersons, don’t you, Albert, you know monsters exist.’ Her voice was soft, cajoling, almost erotic. ‘You know the kind of things they do, Albert, and you know how easily old bones, old bones like yours, can break, don’t you, darling, and he’ll come visiting with his friend Morris Jones.’

  Albert Slater’s chair swivelled and Hanlon spun it gently through ninety degrees so Slater was facing her. She placed her hands on the armrests of the chair and leaned forward so their faces nearly touched. He looked into her burning eyes. Her voice was so quiet it was almost a whisper.

  ‘And they’ll huff,’ she murmured, her eyes holding his hypnotically, ‘and they’ll puff, and they’ll blow your house down.’

  She stood up and folded her arms, looking down at Slater. He put the pipe down on the desk and looked at her in an unfriendly way.

  ‘You’re a meshigener bitch, aren’t you, Hanlon,’ he said quietly.

  ‘I know,’ she said. She clapped her hands together, twice. The noise was almost explosive. ‘Now chop-chop, get dressed, Cinderella, you shall go to the ball.’

  24

  Hanlon parked the Ford Transit near where she’d left her car just a few hours ago. It was now nearly midnight. The roads were hallucinatorily quiet. The industrial park was deserted, the only sign of life an urban fox that had paused to look at them rather insolently at a T-junction. There was something furry in its mouth that had looked suspiciously like a small cat.

  Next to her in the other front seat her reluctant passenger grumbled, ‘Well, this is all very nice. Fantabulosa I very much don’t think.’

  ‘Stop moaning, Albert,’ said Hanlon. ‘We’re here.’ Albert Slater stared intently at the door in front of him. He was dressed more or less like Hanlon – boots, hoody, jeans. Although he was pushing seventy, and obviously a heavy drug user, he was in surprisingly good shape, she thought.

  The warehouse rose up in front of them. In the heavy shadows of the loading bay by the front entrance, screened from the CCTV on the streetlights by a concrete pillared portico, in their dark clothes they were as good as invisible.

  There were three locks on the door that Albert had to deal with. He stared at them with an expert eye. Initially, he’d been furious with Hanlon both for threatening him (he knew of the Andersons and they frightened him) and for forcing him into action when all he wanted to do was stay at home. But now here he was, like the old days, and he was enjoying himself.

  He looked hard at the locks. Two of them were straightforward, a Yale and a Banham mortice lock, old friends, and he had picks in the dark sports bag by his feet to deal with them. Hanlon had told him not to worry about an alarm. The kind of people who had rented this space would most certainly not want to be hooked up to a security company or the police in case the alarm went off, for whatever reason.

  The third lock was much more modern than the others technologically, a magnetic lock that he guessed was installed by the new tenants of the warehouse. It was this that had been causing the problem. It was easy to put up, and a bastard to open. He could see why they’d fitted it in addition to the others. Ridiculously simple to fit; practically impossible to break. Because it was just a metal plate and a powerful magnet, there was no need to drill into the doorframe. Albert could have installed it in minutes flat: simple and horribly effective.

  It had a key-swipe mechanism attached to the wall to allow access. Unlike the other locks it was brand new.

  The lock was pretty secure. Albert guessed it would need about twelve hundred pounds of pressure to force it. Well, that wasn’t going to be happening. Or, if it was fail-safe, all you had to do was disrupt the electricity supply. You could dig a hole in the ground where the jacketed mains cable came in, then sever it. Well, that wasn’t going to be happening either. Or disable the sub-station. You could always pray for a miraculous power cut.

  He scratched his head in frustration. There was something he could try, but he had a feeling it wouldn’t work. Not unless he was very lucky.

  ‘Sod it,’ he said. Hanlon looked at him questioningly. He shook his head in irritation, rummaged in his bag and held something like a silver, ridged cylinder in his hand. ‘Magnet,’ he said by way of explanation. If he was lucky and it was an old model, the powerful neodymium magnet should scramble the sensitive internal electrics and release the mechanism. He tried. It wasn’t an old model and nothing happened.

  Hanlon looked at him angrily.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she hissed. Slater indicated the key-swipe mechanism. ‘It’s magnetic and I can’t open it.’ He had a sudden thought. ‘The fire alarm probably will, that should trip it. Should have that as a safety feature.’

  Hanlon rolled her eyes. Any sensors would be inside the building. It’d be a catch-22 situation: to open the door, you’d have to get in first. To get in, first you’d have to open the door. Well, she’d have to find another way in. She’d thought it might come to this. She said to Slater, ‘Have you got anything to break glass in there?’ She pointed at his bag.

  Slater nodded and pulled out a small break-glass hammer. ‘Won’t work,’ he said. He thought she was going to try it on the keypad, to try smashing it.

  ‘Yes, it will,’ said Hanlon. She put it in her rucksack. ‘Lighter?’

  Slater reached again into his bag. He looked quizzically at Hanlon. She was looking upwards at the side of the building. Now Slater guessed what was in her mind. She asked him,‘So the fire alarm will open the door? ’

  He nodded. ‘Yeah, it’s a safety feature so people don’t get trapped if a fire breaks out. So if you activate it by lighting a fire under a sensor, it should work. But there’s probably a release button by the side of the door anyway, on the inside. It’s designed to keep people out, not in.’ He nodded at the other locks. ‘I can open these for you if you want. So all you’ll have to do is pop that beauty.’

  Hanlon was now sitting on the ground, unlacing her boots. ‘You do that,’ she said. ‘I’ll deal with that one.’

  She pulled her socks off and stuffed them in her bag; her boots she tied together and hung from round her neck. She stretched and flexed her toes. Then she stood up and motioned to Slater to follow.

  The walls rose up about eight metres sheer until the windows appeared. There was a ledge below the windows, a ledge she could use. The concrete portico by the door would gain her a couple of metres of distance less to climb and there was a plastic drainpipe that ran from the guttering above. She wasn’t going to put her weight on it; she doubted it would take the strain. But she could use it as a partial climb-hold while her toes took the main weight of her body. Balance and angle were everything.

  Slater guessed what she wanted him to do. He laced his fingers in front of him and Hanlon stepped into the cup of his hands, and he boosted her up. Momentarily he felt the cool, taut muscle of the underside of her foot, and then she was up onto the flat surface of the portico.

  She walked across the small flat roof to the wall of the building. The concrete felt cold beneath her feet. She touched the wall experimentally, examining it carefully. It was made of large breeze blocks, the only weight it supported being the lightweight roof. The mortar between the large blocks was worn and grooved; it needed repointing. She nodded her head, satisfied. The slight ind
entations would be enough to give her purchase.

  Hanlon pushed her body close in to the wall and, using her right hand to grip round the pipe, reached up with her left until she got some hold on the narrow, shallow gap between the blocks and, body pressed hard to the wall, she started her climb.

  She thanked her lucky stars that the weather had been dry and the composite man-made stone wasn’t damp or slippery. Her fingers, from years of push-ups balanced on their tips, were like iron. Hanlon loved natural workouts, and her grip from exercises as simple as squeezing a tennis ball or pinch-grip holds on a chin-up bar had made her slim forearms intensely powerful.

  Albert Slater watched her ascent from the shadows below with professional, evaluative admiration. He’d done his share of cat burglary when young, mainly hotels where there were umpteen hand and footholds from balconies and ornamental stonework like friezes and decorative ridging. Easy stuff compared to this. He appreciated the strength and grace of Hanlon’s ascent.

  She was now just below the window and he watched open-lipped, his teeth clenched in worry, as she reached out with her left hand. Now was the point of greatest danger. If she slipped or her grip failed, she’d fall to her death, no doubt about it.

  She’s got some nerve, he thought admiringly.

  She was holding the ledge with the top joints of her fingers of the one hand, hanging her whole weight there as she pulled the emergency hammer Slater had given her from the top of her boot, which held it like an improvised scabbard, and swung it in a short explosive arc against the glass. God, she’s strong, he thought. He heard the glass shatter, a sharp, brittle noise, and he watched as Hanlon, still hanging one-handed, gently swept her right hand over the ledge, checking for glass, moving what there was off the ledge so she didn’t cut herself. He heard it land on the concrete below, near where he was standing. Most of it had fallen inwards and now she was able to pull herself up and lean her weight on the sill of the window, her legs outside, her torso invisible in the building.

  He exhaled slowly. Only now did he realize he’d been holding his breath as he had watched.

  He momentarily wondered how she would get down inside, then, as he watched, she smashed the adjacent window so the metal strut of the frame was exposed, and took something from her bag. She snapped a carabiner, such as climbers used, like a steel D-shaped ring, round it. She pulled a rope from her rucksack, tied a quick double clovehitch round it to secure it to the carabiner and disappeared into the blackness of the warehouse.

  He checked his watch. Five minutes. Slick and quick.

  Time for him to open the other two locks. He set to work.

  Inside the warehouse, Hanlon climbed down the narrow rope hand after hand, holding on tight to the knotted thin line to avoid any friction on her palms.

  The warehouse was dark and silent. And as her eyes adjusted to the gloom, the orange streetlights from outside providing some illumination, she saw the barrels in the centre of the room and on the far side a figure seated on the floor.

  Hanlon let go of the rope and jumped the last few feet lightly to the concrete floor. She crossed over to the far side of the warehouse and as she got nearer saw that the seated figure was a young woman with blonde hair. She flinched as Hanlon came closer and she could see that the girl was attached to the radiator by a pair of loose-link handcuffs.

  ‘It’s OK,’ said Hanlon soothingly. ‘I’m not going to hurt you.’

  The girl drew her knees up to her chest, her eyes wide with fright, and said, ‘Who are you?’

  Hanlon crouched down to be at her level and said, ‘I’m going to fetch something to cut you free. What’s your name?’

  ‘Chantal. Chantal Jenkins.’ She still looked terrified, her face a mass of matted, dyed-blonde hair and tear-streaked eyeliner. She smelled of sweat, cheap perfume and fear.

  ‘Well, Chantal, I’m Hanlon, DCI Hanlon. I’m police. I’m looking for a colleague of mine, Enver Demirel.’

  Chantal nodded. ‘He was here.’ She spoke clearly and earnestly like a child. ‘But Dimitri took him away.’

  Damn it, thought Hanlon. A horrible thought crossed her mind. ‘Was he. . . ?’

  Chantal guessed her meaning and shook her head. ‘He was alive,’ she said. Just, she didn’t add. She had kept her eyes firmly closed during Dimitri’s assault on Enver. It had been audible only as a series of grunts, thuds and oaths in Russian. Enver of course couldn’t speak, couldn’t cry out, couldn’t scream, not with the tape over his mouth. Once she’d heard a muffled snap that had almost made her howl.

  She had opened her eyes and seen blood, a lot of blood. Even now she could see dark spots of it on the floor, blacker shapes on the shadows of the concrete. They looked like oil stains. But they weren’t. Periodically she would hear a tearing noise as the tape was ripped from Enver’s mouth. She’d heard him speak, his words punctuated by gasps of pain, and once she had opened her eyes to see and hear the big policeman say, ‘Corrigan. Corrigan sent me.’

  Dimitri had squatted down. ‘And what does he want to know?’

  Enver was silent and Dimitri turned round and picked up a small chisel and a hammer. He showed them to Enver. ‘And what does he want to know?’ Enver shook his head. Dimitri tore another strip of tape off and bound Enver’s mouth.

  The Russian’s phone had rung again. He answered it and Chantal had heard him get increasingly irritable. He had stopped his interrogation. Soon after that two men had arrived, both Russian, one hugely fat. She recognized him from Curtis’s description. It had to be Arkady Belanov. The other was nondescript, thin with a swelling, nascent gut and a very expensive-looking suit. His black shoes gleamed in the faint light and she could smell the polish. Then footsteps and a third man joined them, Joad.

  Hanlon interrupted Chantal’s account.

  ‘I’m going to fetch help. I’ll be back in a minute.’ She pulled socks and boots on, not bothering to lace them up, and stalked across the floor to the internal door. She entered the lobby and switched the light on. There, to the left of the door, was a panel, where Albert Slater had predicted it would be. It had a round control button that she depressed with the side of a clenched fist. There was an audible clunking noise as the magnetic lock disengaged.

  Chantal saw the light go on. She re-ran the memories in her head. Hanlon would want to hear everything. Black shoes had filled her vision as someone had crouched down in front of her, taking her chin between thumb and forefinger, and tilted her head to the left and right. He’d said something in Russian to Arkady Belanov.

  ‘He says open your mouth.’

  She did so and he examined her teeth, as if she were an animal, a horse or a dog. He appeared satisfied and stood up. More Russian.

  ‘Bring him with us,’ said Belanov to Joad, pointing at Enver. They unlocked Enver from the radiator. He was unconscious. His head was beginning to swell and it was horribly misshapen. His flesh was like rising dough. They cuffed him again, wrists and ankles, then Dimitri took his armpits, Joad his feet, and they carried him out. Belanov and Black Shoes turned and followed. Arkady said, ‘We’ll be back for you in the morning.’

  Now Hanlon was returning with another man carrying a holdall. He was wearing a beanie and Chantal saw that he was old, really old, although you wouldn’t know it from the athletic way he moved. He sat down on his heels beside her and took a small pair of bolt cutters from the sports bag. Then she was free.

  She stood up, rubbing her arms. She was desperate to leave. She kept thinking that any moment Dimitri might return. If Hanlon was police, why were there only two of them? Where were the uniforms? she wondered.

  ‘Come with us,’ said Hanlon.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Chantal asked nervously. As she watched, Hanlon looked down at where Enver had been secured. Blood, looking like rust in the dim light, streaked the faded cream paint of the radiator. She looked hard, rubbed it with a fingertip and sniffed it. She crouched down and did the same where more of Enver’s blood had pooled. She looked
at Chantal. She nodded at the policewoman.

  ‘His.’

  Hanlon nodded. Her face was mask-like, sinister. She said silently to herself, And I am the avenger, who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.

  She turned to Chantal, nodding at Albert Slater. ‘We’re going to his place.’

  ‘What’s wrong with your gaff?’ grumbled Slater. ‘Why my lattie?’

  Hanlon glared at him. ‘Because it’s so dolly compared to mine.’ She emphasized the adjective sarcastically. Albert Slater wasn’t the only one who knew Polari. She turned and jerked her head. ‘Come on, I’ve had enough of this place.’

  The three of them turned and left the warehouse. Before she turned off the light in the deserted bare reception area, Hanlon looked at the oil drums for a last time. It was a hard look.

  She looked at her fingers. She had Enver’s blood on her hands.

  Belanov, I’m coming for you, she thought.

  25

  Joad parked the car on the outskirts of Oxford in the part of town near Blenheim Palace, a grateful nation’s gift to Winston Churchill’s ancestor. He and Dimitri got out and the Russian took his place at the wheel and drove off. He watched the tail light of the Mercedes disappear. His Mercedes, as he was coming to think of it. He’d already had the computerized details of the key copied by a friend of his who had a repair shop specializing in high-end German cars. Just in case. Soon it will be mine, he thought. I’ll steal it if necessary.

  Joad wasn’t visiting Blenheim Palace. He was on his way to Leighton Crescent where a prostitute of long-standing acquaintance was waiting for him.

  Elzbieta, Lizzy – blonde, buxom, forty, from Wroclaw – poured Joad a hefty vodka on ice and lit a cigarette. She looked at Joad amicably enough. She’d known him for ten years or so and although he expected her services for free in return for looking the other way, and once or twice handling troublesome clients and the odd pimp, he did pay her for information and, in fairness, if he stayed for a longer session he did recompense her for lost business. As Joad grew older, he found it was taking more and more time to engage his body in sensual activity. He didn’t know if it was age or laziness, but sex was increasingly a bit of an effort.