The Blood Whisperer

by Zoe Sharp

  But not so far. As he watched, she gravitated naturally towards the group of nannies rather than the well-to-do mums, exchanged a few smiles and nods but nothing overtly friendly. They were acquaintances by virtue of their kids, he reckoned, rather than friends.

  Well that just makes things easier. Nobody’s going to stick their nose in.

  He climbed out of the car buttoning up his coat and crossed towards them mindful of those cruising soft-roaders. A couple of the mothers watched him approach with wary eyes no doubt primed to expect child molesters at every turn. He smiled at them. They did not look reassured.

  Erin was standing with her back to him watching the doors to the school across the playground, checking her watch. He stopped a few feet behind her, waited until something tipped her off and she turned.

  “Hello Erin,” he said again. “Long time since I’ve bumped into you . . . out on the street as it were.”

  He watched the colour drop out of her face. The breeze sent her hair across her cheek and she pushed it back behind her ear distractedly, eyes never leaving his face.

  “Mr Allardice,” she whispered. “What . . . what are you doing here?”

  Allardice spread his hands. “Oh Erin, is that any way to greet an old friend?” he asked stepping in close. “Can’t I just look you up for old time’s sake? How’s . . . tricks?”

  If anything she grew paler still at the deliberate choice of words, glancing sideways to see who was close enough to overhear. But as if sensing the atmosphere the women nearest had sidled away.

  So much for feminine solidarity.

  Erin caught at his sleeve, tugging at him, her face twisting with desperation. “Please,” she said low and urgent. “I’m out of all that now. I’m clean. I have a life. A proper job—”

  “Receptionist at a fancy hairdressers,” Allardice supplied. “Do they know you used to—?”

  “Please!” she said again through her teeth, eyes beginning to redden. “Look I did what you wanted didn’t I? I kept my mouth shut. What more do you want from me?”

  Behind them the school doors opened and children flooded out like an emptying fish tank, all squeals and laughter. The mothers broke ranks and moved to greet them. Only Erin and Allardice remained stationary.

  After a couple of beats Allardice gently removed her hand from his arm. “Just a reminder Erin,” he said. “That I know where to find you. That you still have a lot to lose. More these days I would have said, wouldn’t you?”

  A tousle-haired little girl came running across the playground, her stride faltering as she picked up on the tension between her mother and the stranger standing alongside.

  With a fearful glance, Erin wheeled away from him and bent to welcome her with arms open. The child ran into the embrace and allowed herself to be swept up, cuddled.

  Erin turned back with the little girl on her hip, their heads close together. She seemed to regain a little of her courage now she had hold of her daughter. Maybe she was just putting on a brave face in front of the kid.

  “I haven’t forgotten,” Erin swore. “And I won’t!”

  “Good girl. Let’s keep it that way eh?”

  As he spoke Allardice reached out and trailed the edge of one finger down the little girl’s cheek. Erin flinched but the child just regarded him mutely, eyes grave and huge in a chubby face. He tried a smile. It did not meet with a response.

  “Cute kid,” he said stuffing his hands into his coat pockets. He began to turn away, paused. “She looks just like her father.”

  55

  “IDIOT!”

  Myshka’s voice rose to a shriek as it lashed across the room, followed half a second later by a vase of roses. The vase hit the far wall at shoulder height and shattered into a splash of fragments, scattering a burst of broken petals like drops of blood.

  Dmitry winced. She’d always had a temper and lately it seemed to have worsened.

  “Myshka—”

  “How could you let a girl—a nobody—get the better of you?” she demanded, whirling on him with both fists clenched and shaking above her head. “How could you let her get away?”

  Dmitry got to his feet painfully. It was evening and he’d come back to Harry Grogan’s apartment knowing a showdown with Myshka was on the cards. He was in no mood to fight. His back was already turning purple from where that bitch had put the boot in and he’d been passing blood all afternoon.

  Next time . . .

  “I was there only to look again at the territory—to watch,” he said doggedly, trying to keep his voice soothing, reasonable. “And it was too public. Not a good place to take her—”

  “It was an opportunity,” Myshka cut in sharply. “A wasted opportunity.”

  Dmitry felt his own anger begin to rise but he wisely tamped it down. No point in both of them losing it and wrecking the place.

  Besides she was right, damn her.

  “It was and maybe I made an error of judgement,” he agreed simply. “I’m sorry.”

  The admission and apology seemed to take her by surprise. She stood for a few moments biting her lip, a war of emotions raging in her face, behind her eyes. Then she let out a long breath, her shoulders slumping. She crossed to him, cupped his face with both palms.

  “A great general is a man who adapts to circumstance, yes?” she murmured, smoothing her thumbs over his cheekbones. Her talon-like false nails seemed to come perilously close to his eyes. He forced himself not to flinch at the prospect of being blinded on an impulse. “And we cannot afford mistakes—not when we are so close.”

  “I know,” he said gently. “But this girl is no general—do not forget that. She is, as you say, a nobody. A cleaner who got nosy. She is on the run. The police are after her.” He paused. “Why not let them catch her?”

  “Maybe—afterwards,” Myshka said, pursing her lips. “Until then it would be better if we have . . . control over her, yes?”

  “I have put the word out,” Dmitry said. “She cannot hide forever.” He peeled one hand away, pressed his lips into her palm and curled her fingers around the kiss. “The police already believe her guilty. The longer she evades them the more guilty she becomes. After all she has done this before has she not?”

  Myshka smiled, faintly at first then wider. “You are right, of course.” She sighed, eyeing the broken vase, the strewn stems and dripping carpet with regret. “Nothing can stop us now.”

  And if Dmitry heard the faintest trace of doubt in her voice he kept that to himself too.

  56

  By the time Kelly reached the tower block in Brixton the rain was coming on hard.

  The only good thing about that was it kept people’s heads down and gave her the excuse to do the same. She had the baseball cap tucked well forwards over her face and was confident she was reasonably safe from discovery.

  Besides, nobody willingly went to the cops round here.

  Kelly had grown up in an area like this, in yet another overcrowded social housing project that hadn’t quite worked. Even so, community spirit had still played a part in those days—the drug-related crime hadn’t quite become all-pervading. She hadn’t been home in a long time. Not for several years before her downfall and certainly not since her release. Her brothers and sister had made it clear there was nothing for her there.

  Few people were out on the street in this neighbourhood and those that were gave her a wide berth anyway. She felt like a stranger but somehow one who had never quite lost the look of belonging. Not only that but Kelly realised she was probably putting out fury in waves that were palpable.

  The lift in the block wasn’t working but even if it had been Kelly would have walked. After working so many clean-ups for Ray McCarron she knew that she couldn’t stand being enclosed with the stink of old urine for more than a couple of floors without a face mask.

  Not that the stairwell was much better. She climbed the rancid concrete steps with care but encountered nobody lurking besides a couple of rats. They eyed her boldly and w
ithout alarm as she passed.

  The flat she was after was on the seventh floor in the south-west corner which meant it was unbearably hot in the summer months. Kelly had never been there but it seemed familiar nevertheless. She’d heard all about it many times—there hadn’t been much else to talk about.

  The door opened a chain’s-length to her knock and a single unknown eye in a white face peered at her warily through the gap. There was a TV or a stereo playing loudly in the background, raised voices. Kelly felt defeat wash over her.

  “I’m looking for Tina—” she began, and heard commotion somewhere deep inside the flat.

  The door slammed but before she could turn away it was thrust open again—fully this time—and Tina Olowayo towered in the aperture.

  “Kel!” she yelped and the next moment Kelly found herself lifted off her feet and spun around, engulfed in a mammoth bear hug that threatened to crack half her ribs.

  Tina was six foot in flat shoes with blue-black skin and the sinewy muscled build of an athlete. When Kelly had first met her, in a winter-cold exercise yard up in the North East, the woman had seemed a bitter angry giantess railing at the injustices of the world.

  She’d been even more angry at anybody who was—or had been—remotely connected to the police and she’d sought out Kelly as a means of retribution.

  Fortunately Kelly had been forewarned of this impending confrontation far enough in advance to do a little homework. So when Tina had stepped forward from the crowd cover provided by other inmates, flexing, and thrown down her challenge, Kelly was ready for her.

  She’d simply stood her ground and told Tina outright that her lawyer had been a bloody fool to have missed the obvious forensics cock-up in the case that had sent Tina down.

  Tina could easily have ignored this as bravado but she didn’t. Uneasily, warily, the two of them sat and talked until their hour outside was up. They talked again every chance they got. Six months later Tina’s ten-year sentence was overturned on appeal and she was free.

  She left Kelly behind still serving time but Tina told her she wouldn’t forget that she owed her big time. She told Kelly that she was always welcome in the dirty little corner of Brixton Tina called home—if Kelly was ever desperate enough to venture there.

  It was nice to discover, Kelly thought as she struggled for breath, that some people remembered their promises.

  At last Tina put her down and whirled her inside all in the same effortless move. She was wearing a T-shirt with the sleeves cut off. Her hair was shoulder length and in braids. The white kid who’d answered the door silently clipped the security chain across again and sloped past them into the kitchen.

  “Hey Elvis—make yourself useful and put the kettle on,” Tina called after him. “My friend, she like tea. Try not to bugger it up.”

  Elvis gave a mumbled reply that Kelly took to be assent.

  Tina dropped an arm across her shoulders and steered her into the living room, pressing her down onto the squashy sofa as she muted the TV. Then she stared down at Kelly for a couple of beats, flipping at the brim of the baseball cap and trailing along the blossoming bruise across her cheekbone with one finger. Her grin fell away.

  “You in trouble deep, girl,” she said.

  “I swear to you I didn’t kill him.”

  Tina put her hands on her hips. “We talking years ago?” she asked. “Or yesterday?”

  “Either,” Kelly said with a bloodless smile. “Both.”

  “Yeah but can you prove it?” Tina asked. “’Cause we both know—bottom line—that’s what counts. Everything else is just blowing smoke up your arse.”

  “I don’t know,” Kelly said wearily. She waved at the dressing still covering the cut on her forearm. “I think I was drugged. I’ve put a sample in to a private lab so I’ll know in a couple of days. Until then—” she shrugged “—I need to stay out of the way of the police.”

  “And you only just coming to me now?” Tina sounded offended.

  Kelly chose something close to the truth. “I wanted to keep trouble away from you,” she said. She glanced up at the woman standing over her, caught something in her face that made her pause. “What?” she asked suddenly tense. “What have you heard?”

  “That the filth is the least of your problems right now,” Tina said grimly. “There’s a price on your head, girl. A big one. And they’re not hanging the payout on getting a conviction, if you know what I mean.”

  “A price?” Kelly repeated, shocked. “Who the hell has put a price on my head? Not the police surely?”

  Tina shook her head. “Ain’t you listening?” she asked. “This is not a reward—it’s a bounty. All nice and unofficial. And somebody much worse than the cops. What you done to upset a honky gangster called Harry Grogan?”

  57

  DI O’Neill stuck his head round the door to the CSI’s office and rapped his knuckles lightly on the wood panel.

  At his desk by the window Bob Tate glanced up from a report.

  “Ah Vince. Good, good,” he said beckoning. “Come in laddie and close the door behind you.”

  O’Neill was briefly reminded of Chief Superintendent Quinlan. Tate was already heading for the vending machine in the corner of the room asking over his shoulder, “Moo and two?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Ah sorry—milk and a couple of sugars?”

  “Is it tea or coffee?”

  “Hmm, that’s a debatable point. Nominally coffee I would have said but without further analysis it’s hard to be sure.”

  “In that case, yes to both.” O’Neill perched himself on the edge of the desk and waited, trying to curb his impatience until Tate returned carefully balancing a paper cup of steaming dark brown liquid. “So what do you have for me?”

  “You’ll have seen the pathologist’s report on young Douet, I assume?”

  O’Neill took an experimental sip and regretted it instantly on grounds of both taste and temperature. He managed to swallow before shaking his head. “I think it’s waiting on my desk. I was just on my way back to the office when I got your message.”

  “Well the gist of it is much as we expected. A nasty wee tap on the back of the skull followed by a few sharp stabs for good measure. Any one of half-a-dozen of them would have been fatal given time.”

  O’Neill was aware of a sudden deflation, his shoulders weighing heavy beneath his jacket. “Nothing of note then.”

  Tate regarded him sternly. “Do you think I’d drag you in here just to tell you that?” he demanded.

  “Oh?”

  The CSI reached across and picked up a single page from the top of his in-tray. “You recall the bag of blood which we suspected might have come from Ms Jacks?”

  “Of course,” O’Neill said knowing Tate liked to spin things out and trying to hurry him along.

  “I called in a favour or two at the lab for a bit of queue-jumping and a comprehensive range of tests,” Tate said. He paused, allowed himself a thin smile. “You owe me a bottle of single malt for that by the way.”

  “You know I’m good for it,” O’Neill said tightly. “What did they find? Was the blood from Jacks?”

  Tate gave a pained frown at this prompting but nodded. “Her DNA is on file so that part was an easy match but my pal ran a full tox screen as well.”

  “Thorough.” O’Neill risked another sip and found the faux-coffee had dropped to a slightly less molten level.

  The CSI briefly showed his teeth. “Did I mention it was a very good single malt?”

  “You didn’t,” O’Neill said with a resigned note in his voice. “So what do I get for it? She claimed Rohypnol or something similar last time I believe. Any sign of that?”

  Tate shook his head but before O’Neill could gloat he added bluntly, “It was ketamine.”

  “What?”

  “Special K, Kit-Kat, Super K—call it what you will. Ketamine is mostly used as a veterinary anaesthetic but it’s popular on the club scene, so I understand.”
>
  “Would it induce a psychotic episode?”

  Tate pursed his lips. “It’s a known hallucinogenic if that’s what you mean. Might induce a certain level of amnesia depending on the dose. People take it because they reckon it can give them ‘out of body experiences’ or some such nonsense.” He drew little quotes in the air with his fingers to mark his disdain. “But in this case she had enough in her system to fell an elephant. I’m no expert but I would have said she’d be unconscious pretty quickly after administration.”

  “Self-administration?”

  “Possible I suppose. Depends how she ingested it. In pill or powder form it would take maybe half an hour to have any effect. Injecting’s a lot faster. Looking at the concentration I’d plump for the latter. It would have incapacitated her almost immediately.” He frowned. “There was no syringe found at the scene.”