by John Harvey
Andreea told them that a week or so before she was killed, Nina had shown her the knife. She had got it from a friend. One of the regulars, Andreea thought, she didn’t know for sure. This is for Viktor, Nina had said, if he hits me once more.
‘I did not think she meant it,’ Andreea said. ‘But she did. What she said, it was true.’
Steadily, they accumulated evidence of Zoukas terrorising the women who worked for him, threatening, striking, lashing out in anger. According to one of the customers, Zoukas had once pushed past him yelling, ‘That bitch. That fucking Nina! I fucking kill her!’ And then, after a second television appeal, the police received a number of phone calls, including several from his ex-wife, identifying the tattooed man as Kelvin Pearce.
Officers found him in Sneinton, working on a building that had recently been gutted and was now being refurbished and restored; Pearce busy removing the old window frames while listening happily to Suggs on Virgin Radio. ‘Reasons To Be Cheerful’ followed by the Dexys’ ‘Come On, Eileen’.
Asked why he hadn’t come forward of his own volition, he gave the officer a look of sheer incredulity. ‘Stick my head in a fuckin’ noose, right? I’m not as stupid as I might bloody look.’
Once he started telling his story, he was clear and to the point. He and the girl had started arguing. Got him all worked up, the cunt, and then asked him for another twenty quid. He’d lost it, taken a swing at her, fair enough, he’d put his hand up for that, but then she’d only pulled this knife on him and started waving it in his face. He’d been trying to get it from her when this fat bastard come in, swearing and shouting, and he’d legged it out of there as fast as he could.
Had he touched the knife?
‘Yes, of course. Said so, didn’t I?’
Had he at any point stabbed or cut Nina Simic with the knife?
‘No. No way.’
‘Or Viktor Zoukas?’
‘That mad bastard? You’re kidding, right?’
‘That’s a no, then?’
‘Too fucking right!’
‘And once you left the room, you never went back?’
‘You’re kidding, yeah?’
Now that there were two witnesses placing Zoukas firmly at the scene, the CPS were happy to go ahead and he was formally charged with Nina Simic’s murder. Lynn was in court, when, with a very real presumption that he might flee the country, Zoukas was refused bail. Turning away before being led down to the cells, he saw her and their eyes locked. ‘You!’ he shouted. ‘You . . . !’
Before he could say more, the duty officers hauled him none too gently away, leaving Lynn shaken by the intensity of hatred on his face.
As the trial approached, Andreea telephoned Lynn several times in tears: she was too frightened, she said, to stand up in court.
‘It’s all right,’ Lynn said. ‘I’ve told you before. You can give your evidence from behind a screen, or not even that. A video link. You don’t have to be in the courtroom at all. He won’t see you. You don’t have to see him. Nobody need know who you are. It will all be fine.’
Lynn was doing the ironing on Monday morning when the CPS phoned, Rachel Vine’s voice instantly identifiable. ‘I thought you ought to know,’ she said. ‘The Zoukas case, we’re applying for an adjournment.’
‘What on earth for?’
‘You haven’t heard? One of your witnesses has gone AWOL.’
‘Andreea?’
‘No, the other one. Pearce. No one’s seen hide nor hair of him for two days.’
The Crown Prosecution Service offices were on King Edward Street, close to the city centre; the old Palais, remodelled and renamed, was at one end, a bingo hall and mosque at the other.
Rachel Vine was taller than Lynn, with dark hair and a figure that suggested working out in the gym three nights out of five. Either that or the pool. She was bright and smart, with a reputation for staying focused under pressure and an attitude that could, on occasion, get in the faces of friend and foe alike. When the current Chief Prosecutor moved on, she was tipped for the position.
She shook Lynn’s hand and asked again how she was recovering from her injury. ‘I promise not to make you laugh,’ she said. ‘Don’t want to set those ribs off again.’
Lynn didn’t think she’d be laughing.
She’d already called the DS who’d been her number two on the Zoukas investigation and given him a bollocking for not keeping her in the loop over Pearce’s disappearance. So far, she’d learned, Pearce had been traced to a sister in Mansfield, where he’d stayed a night before moving on. The sister didn’t know where to.
‘It’s unfortunate,’ Rachel Vine said. ‘Losing Pearce so close to the trial. Quite apart from him being one of our only two witnesses who can place Zoukas in the room with Nina Simic just before she died, his disappearance now only makes the defence case, that he was the one who killed Nina, look all the stronger.’
‘Someone got to him, is that what you think?’
‘I really don’t know. It’s possible. The care officer said he’d been getting more and more jumpy as the trial date got closer, but, in a case like this, that’s only normal. All we can hope is that it’s just a bout of bad nerves and he’ll calm down, come to his senses. Or that we’ll find him. Presumably, every effort’s being made to trace him?’
‘So I believe.’
‘Well, I don’t feel we can go ahead without him.’
‘But surely, with Andreea . . .’
‘Andreea’s evidence on its own isn’t enough. And I worry she’s going to get pulled to pieces on the stand. She comes apart and what’s left? No, we go into court like that and I think there’s a real danger of Zoukas getting acquitted.’
Lynn looked away: she didn’t like what she was hearing, but couldn’t think of any counter-arguments that were strong enough.
‘I’ve talked it over with the Chief,’ Rachel Vine said, ‘and she’s in agreement. I shall be requesting an adjournment first thing tomorrow. I imagine, in exchange for complying, the defence will do their utmost to get Zoukas released on bail.’
‘Leaving him free to intimidate witnesses or skip the country altogether.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Rachel Vine said. ‘That’s not going to happen.’ She reached out and touched Lynn’s arm. ‘I know what this case means to you. I’m not about to let it slip away.’
By early afternoon of the following day, it was all agreed: passed through with surprising speed.
Rachel Vine herself had phoned Lynn with the news.
‘There’s one thing we had to swallow,’ she said. ‘We’ve had to agree not to oppose bail.’
‘You’re kidding!’
‘No. Without it, the defence would never have agreed to an adjournment of more than a few days, five at most. The chances of Pearce being found in that time are too slim.’
‘I don’t believe it,’ Lynn said, as much to herself as to Rachel Vine.
‘Look, we’ve gained a month, that’s the most important thing, and as far as Zoukas is concerned, we’ll be arguing for a surety of around fifty K. Passport surrendered and a residency order imposed, plus he’ll have to report to the local police once a week, if not every day. Watertight as can be.’
‘I still don’t like it,’ Lynn said.
‘Well, live with it like the rest of us.’
‘Yes, right. What was it you said? Something about not letting it slip away?’
There was a pause at the other end of the line. ‘Look,’ Rachel Vine said hesitantly, ‘I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but we were requested not to oppose bail.’
‘By whom?’
‘The DPP.’
‘But for Christ’s sake—’
‘Lynn, Lynn, listen, I can’t say any more. If you want to take it any further, I suggest you go and see your ACC.’
When Lynn tried to push her for more details, the line went dead.
After some finagling and not a little persuasion, she talked her way into an appoint
ment with the Assistant Chief Constable (Crime) in his office at Sherwood Lodge at the end of the day, still unclear in her mind where the pressure behind the DPP’s request had come from.
She got her answer when, having been kept waiting a good twenty minutes, she was ushered into the ACC’s office and there was Stuart Daines from the Serious and Organised Crime Agency, smiling as he stepped towards her and offered his hand.
‘Lynn, good to see you again.’ The smile broadened. ‘You wouldn’t come and join us, so I thought we’d come and join you.’
12
‘The arrogant, self-centred bastard, standing there with that smug smile stuck on his face, as if he’d just sold me several thousand pounds’ worth of double bloody glazing.’
Lynn had gone straight from Sherwood Lodge to Resnick’s office, interrupting a late meeting, Khan and Michaelson taking the temperature quickly and leaving.
‘I thought you quite fancied him,’ Resnick said lightly.
‘It’s no bloody joke, Charlie.’
‘I know.’
‘Zoukas out on the streets, no matter what sort of conditions, it sticks in my throat.’
‘There must have been a reason, some kind of explanation?’
‘Explanation?’ She dropped her voice an octave in imitation. ‘ “Viktor Zoukas is a small but integral part of an ongoing major investigation, and it is important for the progress of that investigation that he remains free at this time.” ’
‘At this time?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s what he said?’
‘Yes.’
‘Daines?’
‘Principal Officer Daines.’
‘That’s his rank?’
‘Civil Service grades in SOCA. Tells you what you need to know.’
‘And he didn’t give you any more details than that?’
Lynn shook her head. ‘The last thing he wanted, he assured me, was for me to feel shut out from what was going on.’
‘Good of him.’
‘But because the investigation was at quite a delicate stage, he couldn’t say a great deal more right now, though he fully intended to bring me up to speed as soon as he possibly could.’
Resnick shifted in his chair. It was a long time since he’d seen Lynn so openly angry and with such apparent cause. ‘What did the ACC have to say?’
‘Oh, some waffle about the importance of cooperating with a national organisation. Seeing the wider picture – you can imagine. From what I could make out at the conference I went to, SOCA have had precious little to do with forces outside London. Won’t be doing the Chief Constable any harm politically if we’re one of the first. Help shift attention away from kids shooting themselves on the streets.’
‘You’re getting cynical in your old age,’ Resnick said.
‘And you’re not?’
‘Just older.’
Lynn went over to the window and looked down towards the street. A large crane was being manoeuvred towards the entrance of the adjacent building site, blocking the traffic in both directions.
‘Kelly Brent,’ she said, turning back into the room, ‘any progress?’
Resnick sighed. ‘The words “brick” and “wall” come to mind.’
‘No word from Gregan about a possible shooter?’
‘Not so far.’
‘Something’ll break sooner or later.’
‘You have to hope.’
Lynn turned towards the door. ‘I’d better go.’
‘Okay.’
‘See you at home.’
‘Resnick nodded. ‘If you see Frank or Anil . . .’
‘I’ll ask them to come back in.’
Andreea phoned Lynn the following day, her voice shaky, her accent unclear. The witness-care officer had informed her of the adjournment, thinking, perhaps, that it might put her more at ease.
‘Where are you?’ Lynn asked. ‘Are you phoning from London?’
No. She was there, in the city, at the bus station.
‘Wait where you are,’ Lynn told her. ‘Wait there and I’ll find you.’
She was sitting on one of the benches, head covered by a patterned scarf. Since Lynn had last seen her she seemed to have lost weight; her face had become thinner, more gaunt.
As Lynn approached, she looked around anxiously, then grabbed at her arm. ‘I did not want to come here, but I have to see you. I am afraid.’
‘It’s okay.’ Lynn disengaged herself. ‘It’s okay. Let’s go somewhere where we can talk.’
The Victoria Centre was beginning to empty, some of the shops already closing, their shutters being pulled down and locked for the night. Lynn steered Andreea along the upper level and on to the covered walkway that crossed Upper Parliament Street; down then past stalls selling electrical goods and discount batteries and cheap clothes, a few hundred metres and a few more corners and they were on Broad Street and there, across from the arts cinema, was Lee Rosey’s, Lynn’s little oasis in the city centre.
She’d stumbled on it by chance, a small café with no more than six or seven tables running to the back and a few stools by the front window looking out on to the street. Arranged neatly on the shelves along one wall were fifty or more different kinds of tea, everything from Assam and Ceylon through peppermint or chamomile to cinnamon and hibiscus. You could get coffee if that’s what you wanted, and the coffee was okay, smoothies also, but tea was the thing, the proprietor going against the trend, not coffee but tea.
Generally, Lynn liked to keep the place to herself, not go there with anyone associated with the job. Most of the regular customers seemed to be patrons of the cinema opposite or students from one or other of the nearby colleges, but at that time of the evening there were only a few stragglers left: a young man using his laptop by the window, a young woman leafing through a book about photography while she listened to her iPod, a couple sharing a piece of coffee cake and staring into each other’s eyes the way only adolescents could.
‘Please,’ Andreea said, ‘what happened – I don’t understand.’
‘You mean the adjournment?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s difficult to explain.’
‘You think he is not guilty?’
Lynn breathed out slowly. ‘No, it’s not that, it’s . . . Look, Andreea . . .’ touching her hand, ‘. . . I’ll be honest with you. I don’t fully understand everything myself. But Zoukas, in the end he’ll pay for whatever he’s done, I assure you.’
‘And me?’ Andreea said. ‘What of me?’
‘You’ll be fine. Nothing will happen to you.’
‘But now that he is free.’
‘He’s not free, that’s not true. He has to report to the police all the time.’
‘But he knows that it was me who would speak against him at the trial.’
‘Look, Andreea,’ Lynn leaned closer, ‘you don’t know that. And even if he did, right now the last thing Zoukas is going to want to do is draw more attention to himself. He’ll be going out of his way to stay clean.’ She glanced up as somebody came into the café. ‘Besides, he doesn’t know where you are.’
‘You don’t think he can find out, if he wants?’
‘London’s a big place.’
Andreea shivered. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Andreea, listen. Listen. Listen to me. Go back to London. Keep your head down. Stay where you are. Nothing’s going to happen to you. I promise. Okay?’ She squeezed Andreea’s hand. ‘Andreea. Okay?’
‘Yes.’ A smile, hesitant and quick with doubt. ‘Okay.’
When Lynn got home, having seen Andreea safely back on to the express coach to London, what she had wanted most was a drink. Resnick moved the casserole he’d been reheating down to the bottom of the oven, lowered the gas, and opened a bottle of red.
Lynn downed most of the first glass as if it were water.
‘Jesus, Charlie! What was I doing?’
‘How d’you mean?’
‘Making promises like that. Aga
in. Promises I can’t keep.’
‘You really think she’s in danger?’
‘I think she could be. If Zoukas wants to be sure she won’t speak out.’
‘You think he can find out where she is?’
‘It depends. If she’s drifted back into the same kind of work, it’s more than possible. It depends how wide his connections go. Andreea’s got a friend she was telling me about, from Romania, working in a hotel down in Cornwall. She might see if she can find work down there later in the year.’
‘A shame she can’t go now.’
‘I know.’
Resnick reached across and refilled her almost empty glass. The street light was sending a dull orange glow into the room, where only the small lamp on the shelf above the stereo was burning.
‘You think that’s what happened to Kelvin Pearce? Someone looking out for Zoukas threatened him in some way?’
‘Either that or paid him off.’
‘No sign of him yet?’
Lynn shook her head.
They continued to sit there, each to their own thoughts, while the room darkened further around them.
‘You ready to eat?’ Resnick said eventually.
‘We’d better. All this wine’s going to my head.’
On his way out of the room he paused to put some music on the stereo. Laurindo Almeida and Bud Shank. One of the first jazz bossa nova sessions. 1953. Shank’s alto, sinuous and precise over the intricate filigrees of Almeida’s guitar. Perfect in its way.
He carried his glass out into the kitchen, turned up the temperature of the oven and set two plates to warm. How long after eating, he wondered, before they were both in bed?
13
Resnick had already left for work. Lynn, not yet fully back on official duty, had lingered over breakfast, leafing through the paper, passing time with the quick crossword, before finally casting it aside when the clue for ten across, ‘shy target’, ten letters, annoyed her, not with its complexity, but because she was sure the answer was simple and she couldn’t for the life of her work out what it was.
That done, she contacted the detective sergeant heading up the search for Kelvin Pearce. One sighting, unconfirmed, in Retford; two calls made to his sister in Mansfield, both of which she at first denied. Kelvin, she told the officers, was scared stiff. All bluster on the outside, our Kelvin, but push a little and he’s soggy inside as a Gregg’s meringue. A couple of blokes had been round to his place in Sneinton, she told them, letting on to a whole lot more than she had before, put the frighteners on him something awful. Reckoned if he as much as showed his face at that trial, like, they’d put a bullet through both kneecaps, make sure he never walked again.
