The Blood Whisperer

by Zoe Sharp

  And to cap it all she wasn’t there.

  He waited, walked, just in case she’d been delayed too but after another half an hour passed he knew. The anger smouldered beneath the surface. She hadn’t had the guts to wait for him not even for a lousy thirty minutes.

  “Face it man,” he said out loud. “She’s stood you up—again.”

  That kind of thing was getting to be a habit with her.

  He sighed, re-checked his watch. Only another minute had passed.

  Lytton tried to work out why he was giving her any time at all. She was a convicted criminal, a wanted fugitive and there was compelling evidence to suggest this was a repeat of her earlier crime—a man murdered in a frenzy of reasonless rage.

  So why did he feel some kind of pull towards her?

  It couldn’t simply be sexual attraction. She wasn’t his type and with Vee not even buried it was hardly appropriate to give in to a burst of hormones.

  No there was more to it than that.

  He stood on the asphalt path that ringed the pond, his back to the basketball courts and the skate park, staring across the dark flat water towards the road on the far side. His dad had brought him here sometimes if he was suffering an uncharacteristic bout of fatherliness. They’d bring stale bread to throw at the ducks and watch the richer kids sail their model boats.

  His dad had always tired of it first, his patience directly related—Lytton only realised much later—to the length of time the pubs had been open.

  Lytton shook himself inside his cashmere coat. A lot of water had passed under the bridge since then, a lot of distance travelled.

  And look at me, he thought, standing here again, all wistful for something else I can’t have.

  He shot a cuff, checked his watch and turned his back determinedly on Long Pond with its old memories and new disappointments.

  Kelly Jacks, he decided, could damn well fend for herself.

  70

  Kelly wasn’t sure how she got through the rest of the day or the night that followed. Probably, she coped much the same way as she’d learned to get through her time locked up inside—by thinking only from one moment to the next. No long term plans, no goals. Just staying alert to the here and now, reacting if she had to, coasting if she didn’t.

  She arrived at the north side of Clapham Common over an hour late for her meeting with Lytton. It came as no surprise to find he had not waited around for her. If she was honest she wouldn’t put money on him having turned up in the first place.

  She was not to know that she’d missed him only by three minutes.

  All the way down from Camberwell, Kelly had cursed the knee-jerk impulse that made her dump the cellphone. It was the only place she had noted Lytton’s own cellphone number—stored in the phone’s memory rather than her own.

  She tried to call Tina but the only phone boxes she came across did not accept coins and she had no other means to pay. The thought of ducking into a restaurant or shop and begging use of their phone did not appeal. Her face had been too widely shown for that to be a safe option.

  For the first time she felt truly isolated. Isolated from people she could trust—people she’d believed she could trust. She knew she couldn’t reach out to her family even if she knew how to get in touch.

  Don’t call a number for so long and it fades from the memory.

  By the time she had reached the north-eastern edge of the Common itself she’d been almost in pieces, unable to go forwards or back. The realisation that Lytton was not there—might never have been there—was the last punch that knocked the stuffing out of her.

  She sat for a long time on the bench furthest from Long Pond, hunched over, staring at the ground in front of her feet. It was covered in fallen horse chestnuts from the trees nearby, cigarette ends and the kind of soft drink ring pulls that were supposedly redesigned to reduce litter.

  There were no model boaters on the pond itself, just a resting squadron of Canada geese. The traffic behind her formed a constant drone enlivened only by the regular overhead hum of jets stacking for Heathrow out to the west.

  Kelly heard none of it for the insistent voice in her head.

  I should have left sooner—if I went there at all.

  But she was only too aware that people who are desperate will do desperate things if the price is right. She couldn’t find it in her to hate Elvis for what he’d done but wondered if Tina would ever forgive her for breaking the kid’s bones. Maybe one day she’d find out.

  Besides, Harry Grogan had offered ten thousand pounds to anyone who’d give her up. Money like that was life-changing to half the people who lived in Tina’s block. And they were used to keeping an eye out, watching the comings and goings, watching their backs. It was only a matter of time before someone sold her out.

  The wind was surprisingly chilly, blowing in all the way across the flat expanse of the Common. Kelly shivered and hunkered down a little further into her hooded sweatshirt, glad of the baseball cap even if it did leave her ears exposed to the cold.

  She became aware that the summer, such as it was, had turned definitely into autumn when she hadn’t been looking. There was a smell of dead leaves and wet wool in the air. Before long it would be getting dark.

  She needed food and a safe place to hide—or at least somewhere she could slip through the night unnoticed by either Grogan’s touts or the police.

  Wearily, Kelly got to her feet. She headed for the Clapham Common Tube station just as the evening commuter rush was beginning to pick up. Most people were fairly unobservant. Better to hide in the crowds and make her pursuers work for their money.

  She rode the Northern Line all the way up to King’s Cross tucked in a corner feigning sleep for most of the journey. By the time she emerged from below ground it was dark outside, the notorious surrounding streets garish with shabby lights and crawling traffic. Kelly grabbed a carton of food from a cheap noodle bar whose internal security camera was obviously a fake. She was served by a Korean man whose English was barely adequate to work the till. She hoped she would be one indistinguishable bedraggled white face among many to him. She avoided eye contact anyway, just in case.

  The food took away the shakes if not the melancholy. She kept moving, grabbing rest in half-hour snatches in quiet doorways, using her backpack as a makeshift pillow and keeping her arm wrapped firmly through the straps.

  Even dressed as she was, Kelly received half a dozen propositions—mostly from nervous middle-aged men in slow-moving cars. She simply shook her head and kept walking. A couple of times, guys who were clearly pimps touting for fresh meat asked if she was OK—did she need food, money, a place to sleep or something to take the edge off? Kelly ignored them too and they didn’t push the issue. They knew enough not to force it when another day or two at the most and she would be seeking them out.

  What Kelly did a lot of during that long night was try to get her head together.

  By the time the first faint smears of daylight appeared in the eastern sky she had decided on a plan of action.

  She was tired of running. Giving up was not an option. If she was going to stay out of prison again she needed to find out why. Why was she worth that kind of money to this Grogan character? What had she done that he might want her to the tune of ten grand?

  And the only way Kelly knew to go about that was simply to gather and follow the evidence, the way she’d been trained to do.

  71

  “Miss Olowayo, is it?”

  Even with her eyes closed Tina could guess what she was going to see when she opened them. The owner of that voice, the way the question was phrased, it had cop written all over it.

  Wondered when you’d get here . . .

  She let her breath out slow and risked it. Sure enough the guy hovering in the hospital room doorway carried himself tough, almost cocky. She didn’t like the shrewd look in his eye though, like he’d heard it all and seen more. If she had to deal with them at all, Tina preferred her cops dumb.
/>   She straightened in the uncomfortable visitor’s chair by the bed not sure if the creak she heard was from the plastic or her bones and jerked her chin towards the newcomer’s jacket.

  “Let’s see it then.”

  The man sighed as he reached for his warrant card. Tina took it from him and compared the photo to the face, going over it a careful twice. Detective Inspector Vincent O’Neill.

  She returned the ID as if losing interest, her eyes sliding back to the still figure under the sheets. They’d partially shaved his head in theatre. Elvis was gonna hate that she thought, more than anything. There was a ventilator tube holding his lips parted, dressings covering one eye and his reset nose. His arm was busted so they’d told her, and most of his ribs like he’d been stomped on.

  Tina didn’t know for sure what had gone down. Elvis hadn’t woken up in the ambulance on the short ride to King’s College Hospital which had the nearest A&E Department, nor since he’d come out of surgery. They weren’t saying if they expected him to wake at all.

  She thought about a future stretching away where she was alone again. The possibility hurt like a son of a bitch.

  All in all, it had been a long night and it was nowhere near over yet.

  “I’m sorry about your friend,” O’Neill said, straightforward, without the ‘had it coming to him, sooner or later’ attitude Tina had been half expecting.

  She swallowed. “Me too.”

  He shoved his hands in his trouser pockets and leaned against the door jamb. Tina took in those wide shoulders and wasn’t fooled by the relaxed pose—he was blocking her escape and they both knew it.

  “Want to fill me in on what happened?”

  Tina took her eyes away from Elvis’s pale face for a moment. “He clumsy,” she said keeping it just this side of insolence. “He trip and fall.”

  “Yeah and I would say he hit every fist and boot on the way down.”

  “Don’t know.” Tina shrugged, let her gaze fall away. “Wasn’t there.”

  O’Neill fell silent. Tina resisted the urge to look at him, knowing that was what he wanted—a sign of weakness.

  And right now I am real close to giving in.

  She heard him move again, caught a glimpse from the corner of her eye and stole a quick look only to find O’Neill had plonked himself in another visitor’s chair on the far side of the bed and was watching her. She snatched her gaze away, scowling.

  “You’re looking good Tina,” he said softly. That got her attention full on.

  “Excuse me?” She bristled. “Do I know you?”

  “No, but I know you,” he said. “My DC’s been telling me all about you. What you’ve been up to over the last few years. And I meant what I said—you’re looking a hell of a lot better than you did on your last arrest photo.”

  “I wasn’t doing so good back then,” she allowed, keeping her voice even. “You track me down just to tell me that?”

  “No but even without this—” he gestured to the hospital in general, “—we’d have been having a conversation sooner or later.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. You see, you fall into the category of Known Associates of one Kelly Jacks. And she is someone we definitely do want to track down.”

  “Who?”

  He smiled and it wasn’t a friendly smile. “Come on Tina, I’m trying to be nice. Don’t spoil things by trying to play me for a fool. You and Kelly were inside together.”

  Tina sat back setting the chair bouncing slightly and glared at him. “So I knew her. So what? Knew a lot of people inside. Prisons is overcrowded—didn’t they tell you?”

  “Just shows we’re doing our job.”

  “Yeah, putting people away who’s innocent. That sound like your job?” And just for a moment she thought she saw a flicker in his face like the barb had hit home. Then it was gone.

  “I read your case file. It was a cock-up—start to finish,” he said frankly. “But Kelly got you out. In fact she did more than that didn’t she, Tina? She straightened you out too. You owe her. Big time.”

  Tina continued to glare. “Debt’s paid,” she said, her voice gruff to stop it being hurt and angry.

  O’Neill’s eyes flicked from her to Elvis’s bruised and battered face, his brows drawing down. “You mean Jacks is responsible for this?”

  “Who knows?” But the macho disbelief in his tone smarted enough for her to add, “You don’t think she got it in her? Not when she went in maybe. But she learned fast inside—and there was plenty gunning for her. Ex-cop—”

  “She wasn’t a cop,” he said quickly.

  “Tech—whatever. Still one of you wasn’t she?” Tina flapped a hand. “Try explaining the difference while you’re having your pretty face cut up in the showers. See who listens then.”

  “So why would she do something like this to Elvis?” he asked. “Did he try to cut her up, is that it?”

  Tina clamped down on the possibility that Elvis had let his own greed get the better of his judgement. She’d found him spread all over the living room floor when she’d rushed back from the shelter, had called for an ambulance right away. And while it was coming she’d searched just in case for anything nearby that Elvis wouldn’t want found.

  She knew he carried a blade—for self-protection. Made sense given the area but it wasn’t on him. Kelly must have taken it away from him in the fight.

  And there had been a fight, of that she was quite sure.

  The text message from Kelly that had brought Tina hurrying home still haunted her.

  “SORRY 4 ELVIS—BSTRD SOLD ME OUT.”

  So yeah, she might have owed Kelly for her freedom, for helping her get back some control of her life. That still counted for something but not everything.

  Not now.

  “Don’t know who did this to Elvis,” Tina said suddenly weary. “Like I said, I wasn’t there.”

  O’Neill sighed again. “Even if Kelly didn’t lay a finger on him, she’s still wanted in connection with a murder.” He paused. “If you know where she is you need to tell me, Tina. Before anyone else gets hurt.”

  “I don’t know where she is,” she said, stubborn now.

  He stood, out of patience. “If I find out you’ve been harbouring a wanted fugitive you’ll end up back inside,” he promised, cool enough to make her shiver. “And this time the case will be watertight.” He turned for the door.

  “I don’t know where she is,” Tina repeated. He heard something in her voice, stopped and turned back. Tina took another long look at Elvis, at the bandages and the breaks and the bruises. “But I know where she’ll be . . .”

  72

  Myshka sipped her espresso and watched Dmitry over the rim of her cup with brooding eyes.

  “I did what needed to be done,” Dmitry said with more than a hint of defiance in his tone as if he was trying to convince himself as much as her. “I must show these dogs who is master, yes?”

  He was sprawled on the long white leather sofa in the living area of Harry Grogan’s penthouse apartment, looking very much at home. The man himself was out watching his wretched horses work. Viktor was driving him.

  Myshka put down her empty cup and gathered the silk kimono closer around her body. If Dmitry was going to make a habit of calling on her before noon she decided, she was going to have to start rising earlier or he would never treat her as an equal. But Grogan had been out until late and had required entertaining before she was allowed to sleep.

  Sometimes she was unsure if Viagra was the best or the worst thing that ever happened to old men who kept young mistresses.

  Not so young anymore though, are you?

  “Dog? He was a pup, nothing more,” she said evenly. “Beating him half to death was perhaps . . . unwise.”

  “It is not like you to be sentimental, Myshka.” Dmitry gave a dismissive snort. “It was necessary. And there have been no reports, so—” he smiled, “—he is maybe not yet dead, hmm?”

  “Yes, but—”

&n
bsp; His good humour evaporated. He lurched forwards to slap a hand down hard against the top of the coffee table making her start. “Do not question me on this! You know it was right. Would you have me let them disrespect me? Have them laugh behind my back? Say that I am weak?”

  She got to her feet without response, turning away from him to hide her surprise at this rebellion and the flare of her own temper. Standing by the glass wall that looked down across the river and wrapping her arms around her body she was aware of a sudden chill in the air.