Hot Zone (Major Crimes Unit Book 2)

by Iain Rob Wright

  Even as I say it...of course he didn't. I know that.

  Some part of me imagined peg-leg was calling my bluff. Wouldn't be a difficult bluff to call, because for a long time I haven't been playing with a full deck of cards. In fact, I've been playing noughts and crosses while everyone else was playing gin rummy.

  Nicola's silent. 'He didn't, did he?' I don't want to say the word I know someone's going to have to say. But if I don't say it, I think that's better.

  'The guy with the peg? Your husband...it's not pretty.'

  'What?'

  'About an hour ago...apparently...the guy with the peg...turns out he...worked for your husband...they...something went bad.'

  'How...what? What?' I'm not sure if I'm going to pass out, puke, scream...all three. I can't even process what's she's saying. I'm hearing blah-blah'dy-blah.

  'Contacts...don't ask...but there's no doubt. They're both dead.'

  At last, she's said it. I don't have to.

  'Mandy'll look after you.'

  Mandy is there...she's solid, I realise, as she's not getting more coffee but a bottle of brandy and two glasses and puts them down in front of us.

  Mandy's solid, Nicola, too.

  The room swirls around for a minute, or maybe just a couple of seconds, and then everything suddenly comes back into focus. Everything. There's almost an audible click as understand finally settles in.

  My husband's dead, peg-leg's dead...they knew each other...

  He wasn't just absent...he was playing me...

  Why?

  Does it matter?

  It doesn't upset me as much as I think it should. The fact that he's dead, or the fact that he tried to fuck me over, like our marriage was nothing but a joke. Because it was. I was...what? A front?

  That feels right.

  I take the bottle and pour as I hang up.

  'Cheers,' I say. Better than nothing, right? It's not snappy, it's not a clever line, but I think you have to be some kind of bitch to toast your husband's death...I don't want to be that bitch.

  He's dead.

  I take a drink.

  My husband's dead. Peg-leg's dead.

  I should be thinking about that and nothing else, I think. I should be sobbing. Been played by a fool by everyone...included myself.

  But I'm not sobbing. I'm not. I drink brandy, keep the glass full, and stay quiet.

  For some stupid reason, it's Dave I can't quite push from my mind. Forgetting my husband's easy enough. It's almost like finding a distant relative died. Nothing more than that.

  VII.

  The police do call, but Mandy's a superstar. She fields the call. I'll be going to identify his body soon enough, talking to the police soon enough. For now, not dealing with it is just what the doctor ordered.

  That, and brandy.

  VIII.

  I talk to the police, finally, on the ninth day of Christmas. I don't tell them everything. Probably for the same reason I never called them on Boxing Day, or all the other chances and times when I could have.

  Because that's not who I am.

  That's not how we do things. Dad might have been a policeman, but he'd understand. I know he would, because when I talk to them he's right there, expressive in just the right amounts, and I know just what to say and when. Sometimes it's lying, sometimes it's telling the truth, but for me, I think somewhere along the way those two things became one.

  Best way to tell a lie is if you believe it yourself, right?

  The 9th Day of Christmas

  Cop On

  I.

  My girls and I are on the tea, on the cakes and Cadbury's chocolate fingers.

  The police try to call round. I hear Mandy ask if they want to talk to her husband's lawyer. Like some American gangster's moll. Solicitor, surely? I think. Come on...let's be British about this.

  I think about that, think about just going to face the music, about being British. Standing up, back straight, chin up.

  Then I think fuck that, have another chocolate finger and we laugh when Mandy comes back to the kitchen instead.

  An hour later, I figure I should just get it out of the way, and I call them instead.

  II.

  'And when was the last time you saw him?'

  That's the question, isn't it? I've got the text on my phone. They don't know about that. They haven't asked. I'm not telling them. I'm not in an interview room, and my dad was a policeman. They know that. There's a kind of respect there, from them to me. I think they find it painful, though, because my husband, it turns out, was quite the big shot in the crime stakes.

  'Ma'am? Can you answer the question?'

  His tone isn't combative, but respect goes two ways, doesn't it? I could clam up, or just get with it. Dad seems to understand what I'm thinking, sitting there all calm and cool and dead. He looks like he's in agreement, even though I haven't said anything.

  'Honestly? I don't really know...a few weeks...maybe longer? My husband travelled quite a lot. It wasn't unusual for him to be absent.'

  'Did you notice he'd been gone for over two months, ma'am?'

  'I'm not that stupid,' I tell him.

  Christ, though, I think. Have I been that drunk?

  He's still talking, and as I listen I wave a hand to dad to get me a drink. He can't, but Nicola sees me waving and she doesn't need to be telepathic to figure out my swigging action. She places a Bailey's in front of me.

  Ah, well. Beggars can't be choosers, right?

  'He was in prison in South America...for...six weeks,' says the policeman, and I figure all the pauses are for him to check some notes, or just for effect. 'Nicaragua, then...he wasn't. We lost track of him two weeks ago, then a week ago he passed through customs on a false passport that must have been stolen. There was a flag on the passport, and we picked him up again. Two days later, he disappeared. Now...'

  'Detective Daniels,' I say, 'are you saying my husband...he's like some kind of drug-lord super-spy or some nonsense?'

  'That's a close summation, ma'am. Not quite, but he was rather influential. Ties in South America, Eastern Europe...'

  I find out more about my husband from Detective Daniels in around ten minutes than I did from the man himself in twenty years.

  'Ma'am...you honestly never noticed your husband's activities? This is smacks of a drug deal gone wrong...he and a known associate, dead in a hotel room...'

  He means peg-leg...but I don't know any peg-legged men, do I?

  'Detective, this is like some kind of dream, some made up thing. I'm not...I suppose I thought he was having an affair.'

  Dad raises his shoulders, like he's saying it's not a bad road to take them down.

  But it's true, isn't it? First time I really thought about it, I thought my husband was into getting his nuts squashed. Not anymore, I suppose.

  We go around the houses a while longer. Daniels is kind of probing me, feeling me out...not in a good way, not a bad way. It's being poked, sure, but after twenty years of marriage to a man I didn't like or love, I've had worse.

  Finally, he gets to the kicker. I know it's coming because he pauses and there's not distant sound of pages rustling.

  This is the tricky question, I think. This is it. Take a breath.

  After the question. After.

  'It's not essential, ma'am, but would you come by and verify his identity? You don't have to...but...'

  Breathe.

  I do, not putting it on too heavily. Mandy and Nicola warned me this was coming. Dad would know why. They'll say they want me to identify him, but they know who he is well enough. What they really want is to gauge my reaction when I see his pallid face one last time.

  Mandy's frantically mouthing something to me. She looks like she's blowing a ghost.

  At this thought, dad winks.

  'Oh, Jesus,' I say. Daniels thinks I'm talking to him. I'm not, of course. I wave them both still.

  'It's been such a shock...please...I'll come down tomorrow?'

  Ber
eaved wife, dead husband, father was a detective...what's he going to do?

  'Thank you, ma'am,' he says. 'Once more...my condolences.'

  I don't thank him. I hang up and down the Baileys.

  'Got anything real to drink?' I ask.

  III.

  The second day of January turns into a slow day. We eat slowly, I take a long bath, spend the afternoon drinking, sitting in the front room with my friends. Husbands pop in, kids pop in. They get shooed out again. We don't have the television on, but stare at the fire. We turn off our phones, talk, drink, eat chocolate. Darkness doesn't reach the patio doors. Lights outside glint as the snow tumbles from the sky. The fire's warm, maybe the carbon monoxide, the drink, definitely...all these things make the three of us nod off. Occasionally we laugh, one of us goes on the nod and wakes up with a snort and a jump.

  I watch the fire, the snow, my friends. Sometimes I think about my husband, myself. Sometimes dad, and mum.

  I think about Dave a fair bit, too. Whenever I catch myself drifting off in that direction, I shake him away.

  But I keep coming back.

  It's a day for thinking. Ruminating, even.

  Before I finally give up and turn in for the night, I figure out exactly how it is I feel about the whole thing. The truth is, I hadn't known my husband at all for ten years, very little for the ten before that, and I hadn't seen him for more than a month in the last year.

  Also, it turns out he was an utter bastard.

  I'm tired, but it's not from grief. It's just tired. I can deal with it.

  The 10th Day of Christmas

  The Husband's Bed-head

  I.

  Tenth day of Christmas. It seems like a hundred days ago that I was thinking maybe my husband might come home, make it to Christmas dinner. But my husband's dead.

  Mandy's going to drive me to identify his body parts. I kind of hope one's enough.

  The BMW, Mandy behind the wheel, terrorises the other traffic on the way to the morgue. We know where it is.

  I haven't got my phone, so I can't tell mum.

  Of course, that's nonsense. I could. I could call her easily enough. But I won't. Not yet. She'll call me honey. Dave's right. She does that, I'll say something you can't take back with a simple apology. I love her, but I know her, too.

  II.

  The detective I spoke to is there. Daniels, I remember, without needing to check a note pad.

  'Are you sure you're ready?' he asks.

  I know he wouldn't have asked me down here for nothing. Mandy's right, they want to see if I faint or look surprised. I shouldn't think I'll have any trouble looking surprised. I've had plenty of practise this week. Plus, you know, seeing your dead husband on a steel slab...that's pretty surprising, naturally.

  I don't know what the policeman expects. I wonder if he thinks I'm going to laugh and point at his corpse, maybe telephone a hit man to say thanks. That's not going to happen.

  I don't need to lie. The police don't know anything about me. Mandy and Nicola and their husbands and my husband, almost definitely. But they don't know anything about me.

  So I think.

  'I'm ready,' I lie. I'm getting even better at this than I thought.

  I take a deep breath and Mandy holds my hand as we go in to see him.

  III.

  'Oh,' I say.

  When they said he'd been decapitated, they hadn't been lying. He really does have two steel tables all to himself.

  Daniels could have warned me. He didn't, I know, because he wants it this way.

  I'm not angry. It's just the same as any other dead body, I suppose, but like a story in two parts instead of one. There's the head, there's his body, like a sequel. The sequel never lived up to the promise, though. I could testify that to Daniels. I don't think that's the kind of information he's looking for, though.

  'You need both identifying?' I ask. I ask in a flat, simple tone, and he has the good grace, at least, to seem embarrassed.

  'I...ah...just the top part,' he says.

  I nod. He lifts the sheet. Thankfully not high enough so I can see any gristle or anything.

  It's him, alright. My husband's head is on this table. I don't need to check for my benefit or Detective Daniels if the rest is on the steel slab behind me. Two slabs. Good gangster name, that, I think. He always was greedy, I think.

  I nod again. 'It's him,' I say.

  Mandy takes my arm a little tighter, which is just perfect timing, because she stops me from falling on my arse.

  As she guides me along the impersonal corridor that's seen so much death, another door opens and I see a different man on a steel slab. There's no sheet, because no one's coming to identify him, but I recognise the leg sticking up into the air, at forty-five degrees, the knee part at one end, the peg part firmly in the man's arse.

  IV.

  Outside, away from the smell I hadn't even noticed at first, the fresh air slams me hard and I feel dizzy.

  Dad's there, and puts his arm around me, as though to steady me, but he's all ethereal and it doesn't help at all. He moves aside as I go in for a hug, even though I know he isn't there. Mum's right behind him, though. When he moves, she steps in and puts her arms around me. Arms that are deadly in a melee, deadly enough to send teeth flying like confetti, and strong, still. She holds me tight.

  'Ah, honey,' she says. 'It was never going to end well, was it? Bless you.'

  I cry, then. She's right. Of course it wasn't going to end well.

  Then, something hits me, like a tickly-itch I can't reach.

  I sniff like I'm trying to pull the tears back in. It's cold outside the morgue. Mandy's off to one side, on her phone, calling Nicola or her husband. There's a guy in a suit a little way off. He's either a very well paid cop or Brian's 'security'. I wonder if his name is Colin. I wonder if he's got a gun in his suit.

  Wait...

  What did she say?

  'Mum?'

  'Hmm?'

  'It was never going to end well? He got his...head...clean off, mum...but we might have had a crappy, in fact, shitty, marriage...but...'

  'Well, never a pretty end for one of us, is it, love?'

  Again, I'm reeling in a boat full of holes in a big fucking wavy storm out at sea.

  'One of...us? Mum?'

  'What?' she says, like I just called her dad or something. Like you might to an elderly relative who's losing her marbles. 'What's that, dear?'

  'One of us?'

  'Well,' she looks honestly taken aback. 'Gangsters, love. What...you...what did you think your man did, love? Work in a bank or something?'

  'I...what? I never asked! Why would I think that? Why would I even ask? You knew? You knew and you, even you...even you didn't fucking tell me?!'

  'I thought you knew!' she says as she backs away. The man in the suit is coming closer, as is Mandy.

  'Why?! Why would I know? Who would think that, for fucking...fuck...'

  I'm suddenly breathless and my knees give way. My knee beards take the brunt of the impact on the rough pavement.

  'Well,' she says, and her words dance around my head, mocking, little bastard bluebird words like this is some crappy Disney movie. Where are the dwarves? Are they going to come and laugh at me, too? 'I never asked what your father did to make his money either, love...but come on.'

  'I don't...mum...I...'

  'What? You think your old man was a straight man? A copper? Honey, where do you think your man got the money to buy in? Your dad paid him in. Never did want to. He knew it'd end up like this...but he did it for you.'

  'Paid...in...? Mum...I feel sick...I think...'

  I hit the ground almost fully this time. My head, fortunately, lands on mum's foot, and I hear her swear like only a pub landlady (and gangster's wife) can, so I don't kill myself on the cold paving stones.

  'Oh...ow...fuck...cunting fuck that fucking hurts...thick head broke my fuckity foot!'

  Good, I think, then I'm gone.

  V.
/>   It feels like a dream. Mandy's there. I'm in the back of a big, expensive car. It smells of some kind of floor cleaning fluid, but it's not the car I'm smelling, it's my hair. I've picked up the stink of the mortuary, and there's a stale cigarette butt from the pavement stuck in my hair, which I pull free and flick from the X6's window.

  It's not a dream, though.

  The security guy took mum to the local emergency room. My thick head really did, it turns out, break her foot. I could have said my piece, caused a big shit storm, but I fainted and broke her foot with my head, so that worked out just fine.

  I try out a little smile about that, resting in the back seat. It doesn't fall right off my face, which is a pretty good result for my first smile since I woke up.

  Mandy drives like a lunatic, but I don't think we're in any danger of crashing. I'm beginning to think in terms of my body, this is as safe as it gets. Mandy's protected...so am I. Mum's in some kind of syndicate, but instead of sharing out the lottery winnings they share out their criminal proceeds.

  My criminal proceeds...

  I'm just as culpable, aren't I?

  It feels like a dream, of course, but it isn't. You don't get yourself out of a BMW X6 on the massive drive of your half-best-friend's sprawling mansion just west of London, escorted into a house by security while a man with a Doberman Pinscher on a leash walks round the grounds in a black suit and no overcoat, in the snow. My footfalls crunch through the fresh powder on the way to the door. For some reason, the man on my left seems to be on my flank, watching everything but us.

  He's on my flank, I think. Like a soldier.

  He's not a soldier, is he?

  But then...maybe he is. Maybe he was. Maybe he's trained in the equivalent of the gangster's S.A.S.

  I'm in winter-fucking-lala-land.

  Thank Christ gangsters buy good brandy.

  VI.

  On the eleventh day of Christmas, Dave takes me out for dinner.