The Blood Whisperer

by Zoe Sharp

  As a compromise he ate slowly, chewing every mouthful and keeping his elbows off the table. He was early and in no hurry. Around him his fellow diners fell on their food with disgusting gusto, stuffing their faces like the pigs they were.

  Dmitry allowed nothing of his disdain to show on his features. He didn’t need to. Disdain was an impotent emotion whereas he had the ability and the temperament to beat any one of them to death for no better reason than their table manners offended him.

  He sat with his back to the security cameras out of habit although he was confident that his face would not set any alarm bells ringing. He’d always been very careful about that.

  The man he’d come to meet however, that was another matter and Dmitry had no wish to come to official attention merely by association.

  So he kept a close eye out for the make and colour of vehicle he’d been told to expect and spotted the dark blue Land Rover Defender the moment it swung into the car park.

  He glanced at the time display on his iPhone. The man was only a couple of minutes late which—if not exactly pleasing Dmitry—at least did not put him in too black a mood.

  Without appearing to hurry he wiped his fingers fastidiously on a paper serviette and strolled out leaving the debris of his meal on the table behind him. Important men did not clear up after themselves—not food wrappers anyway.

  Despite the steadily climbing sun there was still a residue of night chill outside which did not encourage people to linger. Nevertheless Dmitry gave the surrounding area a casually thorough survey as he walked across the car park.

  He approached the stationary Land Rover from an oblique angle in the blind spot to the rear. When he rapped his knuckles on the side glass the driver started in his seat before opening the window a crack.

  “Whatever you’re selling I’m not buying,” he said, his voice abrupt. He was a big man with fleshy jowls and the lacework of thread veins across his cheeks that indicated a lifetime spent outdoors in all weathers. Even through the small opening Dmitry could smell the earthy odour of animals and wet cloth.

  He kept his face stony. “It is fortunate then that I am buying.”

  But as he stepped back to let the man climb out from behind the wheel Dmitry saw the beginnings of a shift in his expression, the sly calculation blossoming in his eyes.

  Like a snake Dmitry launched against the Land Rover door. It cannoned into the big man’s bulk bursting a grunt of pain and surprise from his lips and pinning him there by his shins, half-in half-out.

  Dmitry leaned his body weight a little more onto the edge of the door, watching the man’s annoyance turn to fear as his discomfort leapt another notch.

  “Your brother vouched for you. We are here to do business my friend,” he said quietly, ladling on the Russian accent because he knew the effect it would have. “Let us not have any . . . unpleasantness that may come back on your family, yes?”

  “Y-yes!” the big man said, his voice a gasp as if he daren’t take a breath. “I mean no! No unpleasantness—you have my word on it.”

  Dmitry eased back, opened the door wide and gave a mocking bow. “This is good,” he said smiling. “You have the . . . merchandise with you of course.” It was not a question.

  If the big man had been thinking of trying to cheat him Dmitry reckoned he was now too unsettled and flustered to follow through. Instead as he slithered down onto the tarmac he clutched the door frame with hands that trembled slightly.

  The two of them moved around to the back of the Land Rover and Dmitry waited while the man opened the rear door. As he did so the man glanced round in a way guaranteed to draw attention to the pair had anybody been watching them. Dmitry suppressed a sigh. He hated dealing with amateurs.

  “There you go,” the man said gesturing inside with nervousness surging through his voice. “It’s all there—just as we agreed, eh?”

  Nestling amid the junk-filled interior was a stained coolbox. Suppressing his distaste Dmitry dragged the coolbox out into the centre of the gritty straw-crusted floor and opened it. The big man leaned in alongside him as if to make sure Dmitry would see what he was supposed to.

  Dmitry surmised that, having initially planned to double-cross him in some way, he was now anxious everything should go according to plan instead.

  The young Russian pursed his lips as if disappointed by the amount or the quality or both. In truth there was more than he’d anticipated.

  Excellent.

  Still they engaged in a half-hearted round of haggling which ended with Dmitry paying a little less than he’d expected and the big man able to kid himself he’d driven a hard bargain.

  Dmitry handed over the cash still wrapped in its bank paper bands and had to stop the man counting it there and then right out in the open. He pointedly withdrew to the Land Rover’s cab leaving Dmitry to transfer the coolbox across to his Mercedes.

  By the time he returned the man was back out lighting up a noxious pipe that reminded Dmitry of the old men back home. In the bad times they smoked just about anything they could shove into the bowl and set on fire. As a child it had made him feel nauseous. Now it made him slightly sentimental.

  Perhaps that was why he didn’t kill the big man when he gave him a sideways glance and remarked, “Lot of stuff there. Want it for something special do you?”

  Dmitry lit a cigarette of his own, bending his head to his lighter and taking his time about it. Then he gave the man a long stare through the smoke, cold enough to make him shiver.

  “Unless you wish to find yourself on the receiving end,” he said, “then it is best for your continued good health if you do not ask such questions, yes?”

  15

  Matthew Lytton pressed the call button for the lift but didn’t hold out much hope of a response. It looked like someone had tried to pry the buttons out of the wall and taken a cigarette lighter to them when that failed. The steel lift doors themselves were scarred deep with penknife graffiti.

  As he waited, the young kid he’d been aware of furtively watching him for the last couple of minutes finally sidled into view.

  “S’not workin’ mister.”

  Lytton looked over and saw a miniature scally-in-the-making complete with baggy sweatpants tucked into his socks, a knock-off designer baseball cap and a roll-up pinched inside his cupped hand. He had the thin slightly rat-like features of a kid born premature doubtless due to the amount of booze his teenage mother put away while she carried him. They were told stunting the baby’s growth made for an easier delivery.

  Lytton gazed at him without expression. Your life was over before it began.

  He had no illusions that the kid was being friendly. He knew he’d been sent either to scout him out or distract him so the heavy hitters could make their move. For those reasons he pointedly looked around before replying.

  “Tell them it wouldn’t be worth their while,” he said keeping his voice flat and even.

  The kid took a long seasoned drag of the roll-up and squinted through the smoke as he exhaled. He might not yet be in double figures but he’d spent a lifetime on the street—long enough to recognise the advice as a genuine warning.

  The kid flashed him a dimpled grin then flicked the dog-end towards the gutter and swaggered away. A moment later two larger boys slipped out of the shadows and followed suit.

  Amateurs.

  Lytton watched them go and then headed for the stairs.

  The flat he was after was on the fourth floor. The climb was enough to tell him all the units were rented rather than owned. Once the tenants were safely locked inside nobody gave a damn what was happening to the neighbours or the rest of the building. Still, the proportions of the place weren’t bad and the area was beginning to level off before what Lytton predicted would be an upswing. He made a mental note to check out the finances of the current owner.

  Maybe he’ll want to sell—especially now.

  Most of the numbers were missing but Lytton counted the doors to the one he wanted. I
t had been forced open and crudely secured with a hasp and staple but the padlock to connect the two was missing. The door was already ajar and something about that sent the hairs riffling at the back of his neck. There was a strong chemical smell leaching out through the gap, something astringent he couldn’t immediately identify. He pushed the door open with his fingertips, stepped quietly inside.

  Straight ahead along the hallway was an open door with light beyond. Lytton poked his head cautiously through the gap and found a living room with misted double-glazed doors standing open onto a tiny weather-beaten balcony. The room itself was overpowered by an ugly sofa and cheap bookcases. The empty shelves sagged as if still exhausted by the memory of books. The kitchen was off to one side separated by a narrow breakfast bar. The cupboard doors on the units badly needed realigning. Apart from an upturned plate rack on the drainer the room was devoid of the usual clutter of occupation.

  Lytton turned back towards the front door. As he did so a figure moved out of one of the other rooms off the hallway. A woman, but unlike the boys near the lift there was nothing amateur about her. In her right hand was a tightly rolled magazine which she gripped like a relay-runner’s baton.

  “Miss Jacks,” Lytton said gravely, eyeing her. “Do we shake hands or are you going to beat me into submission like a badly behaved dog?”

  There was a long pause. “That depends if you’re planning to make a mess on the carpet,” she said. “I’ve spent all morning cleaning up.”

  Her voice was light but he caught the way her body uncoiled.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to alarm you,” he said more sober now. “And don’t worry—I’m reasonably well house-trained.”

  “I’m glad somebody is,” she murmured.

  He looked around. “What happened here?”

  “Junkie suicide,” she said distractedly. She was frowning. “What are you doing here?”

  “I wanted to speak to you again.”

  Lytton watched her face as he spoke. There was no coy reaction and if anything her frown increased and became overlaid with wariness. Whatever value she put on herself it was not in her powers of attraction.

  “How did you find me?”

  “Via the woman in your office.”

  Kelly groaned. “It’s an answering service. I will so have words with her later,” she said. “No way is she supposed to give out that kind of information.”

  “I was at my most persuasive.”

  Kelly’s glance told him she doubted that very much but she didn’t say so out loud. She folded her arms, making her oversuit rustle like disapproving whispers.

  “So . . . talk.”

  Lytton tried a smile. It bounced off.

  “First off I wanted to say how sorry I was about your boss.”

  She stiffened—not the reaction he was expecting.

  “‘Sorry’ how?” she demanded. “Sorry to hear what happened to him? Or that it was necessary?”

  “Hey I—”

  “And how did you know about it anyway? It only happened last night and I can’t believe our office blabbermouth told you any details about that.”

  Temper flashed through him and died away just as fast.

  “Don’t you bloody start,” he said tiredly. “I’ve just had the third-degree from some snotty policeman called O’Neill, that’s how. And whether you choose to believe it, that’s not how I do business.” Not if I can help it.

  She subsided slowly, almost with reluctance as though she’d been spoiling for a fight and was disappointed to be denied.

  “I’m sorry,” she said shortly. “Was that all? Only I’m on a bit of a deadline here.”

  “No it wasn’t all. But don’t let me stop you working while we talk. I’m sure a woman of your many talents numbers multi-tasking among them.”

  She skimmed her eyes over him briefly as if looking for any sign of mockery.

  “Well, if you can stand the smell you’re welcome to stay.”

  She put the magazine down next to the phone on the side table in the hall and jerked her head for him to follow. Lytton nodded to the gradually unfurling pages.

  “Not the most lethal means of self-defence I’ve ever seen,” he said.

  Kelly’s only response was a raised eyebrow, maybe the faintest quirk of the corner of her mouth. “You can punch one of those things through an internal door,” she said in a voice that suggested she’d either seen or done it herself.

  Probably best not to pursue that.

  Inside the bedroom the chemical odour was so pungent it almost made his eyes water.

  The room had been stripped clear. The walls glistened from wipe-down and even the skirting boards had been levered off. Close to one wall was an oval stain on the floor that had darkened to black.

  “Is that—?”

  “Blood? It was. Don’t worry—it’s all scrubbed and disinfected now.”

  “When you said this was a dead junkie I assumed he’d overdosed or something.”

  “He set off by swallowing, snorting or injecting his entire stash,” she agreed. “But then he took a razor to his wrists and managed to slice through his radial artery. That’s when he either panicked or changed his mind. He started out in the bathroom, searched the kitchen for a First-Aid kit.” She nodded to the phone on the hall table. “He tried to call for help—forgetting his phone had already been cut off for non-payment—then collapsed on his bed and finished bleeding-out into the mattress.”

  Her matter-of-fact tone was more shocking somehow than the words themselves.

  The landlord in Lytton compelled him to ask, “How long before he was found?”

  “Two weeks,” she said. “By which time the smell and the flies were too much for the neighbours to ignore any longer, even round here. They called the letting agent and he came round with a couple of guys and broke in.” She paused and he thought he detected the vaguest hint of a smile. “We had to clean up their vomit as well.”

  “Speaking of ‘we’, where’s your young apprentice today?”

  The twinkle of amusement snuffed out and the caution was back. “Tyrone’s taken the mattress and the rest of the contaminated waste for disposal. We have to use sites licenced for biohazardous material—it’s not exactly the kind of thing you can dump in your local landfill.” She peeled back her sleeve to glance at her watch. “I was expecting him back by now.”

  He looked at the oval stain again.

  “It’s a far cry from being a CSI, Kelly,” he said quietly and noted the fractional pause.

  “Not really. They’re opposite ends of the same road wouldn’t you say? As a CSI I’d be one of the first at a scene and working for Ray I’m one of the last.” She shrugged. “Still the same scene though. The same tragedy.”

  “But it’s no longer your responsibility to work out what happened is it?” he asked. “So what was it yesterday—old habits?”

  She regarded him with steady eyes. They were nominally hazel he saw, but that didn’t begin to describe the flecks of amber and gold and grey that radiated out from the centre.

  “You’ve been digging, Mr Lytton.”

  When he’d had time to think about her name—about why it was familiar to him—he’d certainly had some digging done. There was plenty of info to go at. “Please, call me Matthew.”

  She gave a hollow laugh and drawled, “Oh yes, because first-name terms make insults and innuendo so much more civilised.”

  He leaned his shoulder against the door frame. “I didn’t come here to insult you.”

  “Really?” She picked up a plastic drum with a hose and spray nozzle attached to the top of it, forced him to move aside so she could transfer it into the hall. “So why exactly did you trek all this way into London?”

  “You saw things at the scene of my wife’s death that all the other so-called experts missed,” he said. “That made me curious.”

  Kelly picked up another chemical drum and brought it back into the bedroom. The drum was clearly full but she hefted
it with practised ease. She might appear small, even delicate, but she had a deceptive strength that intrigued him.

  “It’s standard procedure to photograph the scene and email before-and-after pictures back to base for every job,” she said at last. Her voice was both evasive and strangely bleak. “You may be giving credit where it isn’t due.”

  He shook his head. “Your sidekick let it slip yesterday that you were the one who saw something and reported back, not the other way around. Why try to deny it now?”

  She slammed the drum down so hard Lytton heard the contents slosh around inside. He hoped whatever was in there wasn’t as volatile as Kelly herself.