‘Mr Shapasnikov?’ She shrugged lightly. ‘There isn’t much to tell. That is, I don’t know very much about him. I’ve only met him twice; once when he interviewed me for the position and once when I met briefly with him to report on what I had learned about the hall so far. That was about a fortnight ago.’ She smiled. ‘I tend not to get invited to any of the social gatherings; nowhere near as important or glamorous enough.’
‘Well that’s not true,’ said Mariner, rather touchingly making her blush. ‘I understand they’re big events.’
‘They certainly generate a lot of fuss; helicopters coming and going, outside caterers and all that. And he has some big names – politicians, actors – but to be honest, once they’re under way I’m not even aware of them, tucked away up here.’
They sat for a moment in companionable silence, Mariner struggling to think of anything more to say. Suzy chuckled. ‘Look at you, you’re worn out. You need some sleep.’
Mariner pushed back his chair. ‘Yes, I should get going.’ They both looked up as the wind splattered a squall of rain at the window.
‘Not in this you shouldn’t. Why don’t you stay here? There’s plenty of space.’ It was so casually said that Mariner didn’t quite know what was on offer. Worse still was the fear that he may not be able to live up to whatever that might be. She saw his bewildered look and laughed. ‘Come and see.’ Taking his arm she led him through to the bedroom, almost entirely taken up by a low, king-sized bed covered by a voluminous duvet. ‘All yours,’ she said to Mariner. ‘I’ll tidy up in the kitchen and you can just crash here.’
‘But what about you?’
She looked at him in surprise. ‘It’s a big bed,’ she pointed out. ‘And we’re both sensible, mature adults so I’m sure we could manage to share it without any … um … complications, couldn’t we?’
Could they? ‘Yes, right,’ Mariner mumbled.
So exhausted was he that Mariner would have happily collapsed onto the bed there and then, but he managed to clean his teeth with a spare brush she found for him, and strip off some of his clothes first. After the last few nights of roughing it, the soft mattress and fresh, clean sheets felt like the height of luxury. He was certain that the knowledge that Suzy would be joining him would keep him awake, but then someone, somewhere, must have flicked off a switch.
When he came to, it was in a thick, claustrophobic darkness and Mariner was unable to immediately orientate himself. This didn’t feel like his bed at home, and it wasn’t the musty, creaky-springed hostel bunk. Added to which, he couldn’t see a thing and it was so quiet he could hear the blood roaring in his ears. As he flailed his arms to get some sense of space, something fluttered against his face and he yelled out in fear.
‘Tom,’ said a soothing, female voice nearby. ‘It’s all right. I think you were dreaming.’
Suzy. Exhaling with relief, Mariner sank back on to the pillow. ‘Sorry. I forgot where I was. Did I wake you?’
‘No, it’s fine.’ Her hand had fallen on to his bare chest. ‘Shall I come a bit closer?’
Oh crap. ‘Won’t that complicate things?’ Mariner asked, with some apprehension.
Somehow he could hear that she was smiling. ‘Oh, I’m not averse to complication. But you were so obviously worn out that it didn’t seem the right time to be suggesting anything …’ She wriggled across the bed and as she pressed her body alongside his Mariner realized with a start how little she was wearing. He was of course instantly aroused, but all he could think about was that abortive encounter at the Star Hotel. He couldn’t face a humiliation like that with Suzy. ‘Actually,’ he heard himself say, ‘I’m still pretty shattered. And what with the alcohol … I wouldn’t want to disappoint you.’
She was trailing her fingertips through the hairs on his chest. ‘You wouldn’t,’ she said brightly, showing remarkable faith. ‘But you’ve got a lot of catching up to do, so that’s fine. I can wait. That’s the thing with us historians. We can be very patient.’
‘Thank Christ for that,’ thought Mariner.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Tony Knox drove back to Birmingham feeling a weight of responsibility on his shoulders. He hadn’t wanted to leave the boss, but had recognized that there was nothing more he could usefully do in Caranwy. And meanwhile there was the small matter of Katarina.
Although it was mid-evening by the time he got back to the city, he took a detour in person via the forensic service labs, where he knew they would be working late, to persuade Rick Fraser to take the soil samples for analysis. Laying it on a bit thick that this might help get the boss out of a tricky situation elicited a promise to expedite the testing to take ‘no more than a couple of days’.
Then Knox returned to Granville Lane to report to DCI Sharp what was going on. Knox passed through a busy front office and climbed the stairs to CID, which, at this time of night, was largely dark and deserted, except for the light coming from Sharp’s office. She rarely left the building before seven in the evening, a fact that served as a deterrent for quite a few fellow officers considering a climb further up the slippery pole. He heard laughter as he approached and found her, typically, in lively conversation with the office cleaner. It was one of Sharp’s strong points that she treated everyone who worked with her (never ‘for’ her) with equal respect. Perhaps being a mixed-heritage gay woman shaped her outlook, but maybe not.
‘Tony!’ she greeted him and brought her chat with the other woman to a close. ‘How did it go?’
Knox went into the office and, taking the chair opposite her, summarized the events of the day.
‘And you think DI Griffith is happy that it wasn’t Tom?’ Sharp asked.
‘The man’s not an idiot,’ said Knox. ‘They’ve let him go but they want him to stick around for the moment.’
‘That would make sense. And he’s not due back here for another week at least, so no reason why he shouldn’t. If Griffith has anything about him he might even see Tom as an asset.’
‘Actually I think he does, Boss.’ Knox told her about Mariner’s suspicion that he was being followed. ‘Though it beats me why Zjalic, or anyone, would wait until the DI’s in the middle of nowhere to take a pop at him. I’d have thought there would be a better case for picking him off while he’s in the city. Could be dressed up as anything then, and be more anonymous.’
‘More chance of getting the right man out there though?’ Sharp hazarded. ‘Less possibility of confusion?’
‘Well that didn’t exactly work, did it?’ said Knox.
‘Have they had any response to the appeal to identify Jeremy Bryce?’
‘They hadn’t when I left.’
‘Well whether or not it turns out to be Mr Zjalic behind all this, your priority for the moment has to be to track down Katarina,’ Sharp said. ‘If she’s also in danger we’ll need to think about some kind of protection.’
‘That’s always assuming he hasn’t already got to her,’ said Knox. ‘I’ve got her boyfriend’s address now, so I’ll go and see him first.’
Sharp frowned. ‘Not forgetting to make time to go home to eat and rest,’ she reminded him.
Knox gave her a pointed look. ‘Isn’t that the pot calling—’ He stopped abruptly and Sharp laughed.
‘The kettle black? It’s all right, Tony, you can say it. It’s an idiom, not a racist slur. And yes, I suppose you have a point.’ She started gathering up the papers on her desk. ‘About time I showed my face at home too.’
They walked out of the building together. ‘Has Charlie Glover got any further today with Kirsty Fullerton?’ Knox asked.
‘Not that he’s said,’ Sharp replied. ‘The kids have all just clammed up; a conspiracy of silence Charlie calls it, and I think he’s right. You know one of them, don’t you?’
‘Yes, my neighbour. It was his party.’
‘A gentle word from someone he knows might help,’ Sharp suggested mildly.
‘Yes, Boss. I’ll look out for him.’
Giles
Ridley-Coburn lived in exactly the kind of up-market place Knox would have expected; a luxury pad in one of the burgeoning developments around St Paul’s Square in the Jewellery Quarter. Knox found a parking meter bay in the vicinity and walked past the trendy pubs and bars to the former Victorian factory that had been refurbished as loft apartments.
Knox had never met face-to-face the man Mariner referred to as ‘the upper-class tosser’, but he recalled the boss’s chagrin when Giles had come into Katarina’s life. Having personally freed her from forced prostitution, Mariner had seen it as his singular mission to protect the girl against anyone and everything, so was not impressed when Giles had appeared on the scene. But unusually on this occasion the boss’s instinct had let him down, and he had eventually been forced to concede that Giles was ‘an all right upper-class tosser’.
This evening, however, although the manners were still in evidence, Giles was distinctly cagey, hanging back at first behind the barely opened door.
‘I’m looking for Katarina,’ Knox said, after introducing himself. ‘Can I come in?’ Giles deliberated for a few seconds before reluctantly stepping back to allow Knox across the threshold. Once inside the flat, the reason for his reticence became obvious. Even by bachelor pad standards the place was a mess and while Knox stood taking it all in, Giles went hurriedly round picking up stuff at random and stowing it away. He wasn’t quite quick enough to kick a stray syringe under the sofa and out of sight. Knox let it go for now; he didn’t think Giles was diabetic, but neither was he sure, and he remembered that Mariner had been caught out by false assumptions before.
Having offered a drink, which Knox declined, Giles managed to create enough space for them to sit down awkwardly opposite one another on the sofa and arm chair respectively. Tall and healthy-looking with a mop of dark hair and perfect teeth, Giles was the kind of man for whom life had gone well. But tonight the composure was unravelling and he struggled to meet Knox’s eye for more than a passing second. ‘I haven’t seen Kat for a couple of days,’ he admitted. ‘We had a bit of a … row the other night and she left my flat late at night and in a strop.’ He scanned the room as if hoping she might suddenly appear. ‘I haven’t seen her since.’
‘What was the row about?’ Knox asked. ‘It wasn’t about the state of this place, by any chance?’
‘Broadly speaking,’ Giles admitted, picking at a nail. ‘Kat’s been spending quite a bit of time here. We had more or less moved in together and it was going really well. Then a friend of mine, Hugo, turned up a couple of weeks ago. He was in a hole and needed help, so he’s been crashing on my sofa. He and Kat haven’t exactly hit it off.’
‘Who is this Hugo, apart from being a complete slob?’
‘Just a guy I hooked up with. We went to the same school, though he’s older than me. I thought he was a laugh, turns out he’s a bit of a nightmare.’ He tried a nervous smile.
‘So ask him to leave,’ Knox suggested.
‘I can’t,’ Giles said awkwardly. ‘It’s … complicated. Our parents know each other and, well, you know …’
Knox didn’t really. The Liverpool comprehensive he’d gone to wasn’t big on brotherhood or loyalty and your mum and dad’s friends weren’t in any way relevant. And that wasn’t his concern. ‘Has Kat been in touch with you at all since she left?’ he asked.
‘No. We don’t live in each other’s pockets,’ Giles said. ‘I’d quite like to, as it happens, but Kat isn’t like that. She’s more independent.’
Mariner would be delighted to hear it, thought Knox. ‘There’s a possibility that the man Kat helped to put in prison might have accomplices looking out for her,’ he said.
‘Oh shit.’
‘Yes, oh shit. Though I notice you don’t sound that surprised,’ Knox observed.
Giles licked his lips. ‘Things haven’t been easy with Hugo around, but even before he showed up I had a feeling that something was bothering Kat. She was always security conscious, but it was starting to border on the obsessive.’
‘In what way?’
‘Locking and re-locking the doors and windows, double and treble checking them, even during the day sometimes. I’ve even started wondering if she might have some OCD thing going on. And you can see the street from up here. She started spending ages just staring out.’
‘As if she was watching for someone?’ Knox asked, going cold inside.
‘It could have been, yes,’ Giles admitted. ‘When I first met Kat she used to have this fear that the men who snatched her in Tirana would come back for her, and punish her for what she did, for escaping. On one level she knew that it was irrational – the likelihood of it happening again. I just thought she was succumbing to those fears again; being paranoid.’
‘Wouldn’t you be scared if you’d been through what she had?’ Knox asked, perhaps a little harshly. Kat had effectively been snatched from her home city, trafficked from her native Albania and sold into prostitution, until Granville Lane officers, he and Mariner among them, had rescued her along with others in a dawn raid on the property where she was being held. Prats like Giles couldn’t begin to imagine what that might be like, or what deeply rooted effects it could have.
‘Sorry, poor choice of word.’ Giles was contrite. ‘But logically Kat knew the chances of them picking her up again were slim. Apart from anything else she’s wise to them now.’
‘You make it sound like she’d have a choice,’ Knox pointed out.
‘But surely those men are either dead or in prison,’ said Giles.
‘They don’t operate in isolation,’ Knox said. All the speculation wasn’t really helping. ‘The point is, I need to find her,’ said Knox. ‘If she’s not at her flat or here, where else might she go?’
Giles shook his head. ‘I don’t know. I think she has friends, or even just contacts in London, but I don’t know where exactly.’
‘Do you have a key to her flat? I need to have a look round, see if she’s left any indication of where she might have gone.’
‘Yes, sure.’ Giles got up and went over to a pot that stood on a wooden chest. Lifting the lid, he took out a handful of keys, separating out one from the others.
‘Do you keep all your keys in there?’ Knox asked, taking the proffered one from Giles.
‘Normally, yes.’
‘Does Kat put hers in there too, when she stays here?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘Does your friend Hugo know that?’ asked Knox.
The look told him enough.
‘What does he look like, your friend Hugo? Long hair, growing himself a beard?’ Knox persisted.
‘Why?’ Giles was suspicious now.
‘A couple of days ago I disturbed an intruder at DI Mariner’s place. He ran off and was too fast for me, but someone’s been in there before and has given it a going over. The first time I went in stuff was missing and the kitchen was a tip, but there was no indication of a forced entry. Does Hugo know that Kat has a key to that house?’
‘I suppose he might have worked it out.’
‘Jesus Christ.’ Knox glared at Giles. ‘Well then, I’ll want a word with him too.’ Knox gave Giles a business card bearing all his contact details. ‘If you don’t want to end up in a bigger mess than you are, you’ll let me know immediately either of them turns up. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, of course.’ Fumbling to remove Katarina’s key from his own bunch, and handing it over in exchange, Giles looked as if he was about to cry.
On his way home Knox stopped off for a pint and to pick up a takeaway, so that by the time he drove into his cul-de-sac it was late. It wasn’t bin collection day, so he was surprised to see Jean walking around her garden, gathering up what looked like rubbish. Getting out of his car, he went across to her. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Can you believe this?’ she said, clearly in some distress. She was clutching an assortment of cellophane-wrapped flowers and teddy bears. ‘People keep leaving them, as if this is some kind of memo
rial! I feel as if I’m being accused of something.’
‘Here, I’ll get rid of them.’ Knox took them from her, noticing how tired and drawn she looked. ‘How’s Michael coping with it?’ he asked.
She managed a brief smile. ‘It’s opened his eyes to the reality of drugs,’ she said, ‘at least for the moment. He’s talking to me a bit too. I suppose that’s one good thing that’s come out of it. Did you know he was smoking weed?’
‘I had an idea,’ Knox said.
‘I don’t know if people have been having a go at him too. He’s stopped going out so much and now I’m worried that he might be getting isolated. How ironic is that?’
‘Are his mates okay with him?’
‘I don’t think anyone’s blaming him, if that’s what you mean.’
‘Who are they blaming?’
‘I don’t know.’ She glanced away down the street, and Knox wondered if she might know more than she was telling him. Kirsty had issues anyway. I think they’re putting it partly down to that. The inquest is next week I understand.’
‘Well, tell Michael that Nelson could still use some exercise, any time he feels like it.’
‘Thanks, I will.’
Jean disappeared into her house, and as Knox crossed back over the road an unfamiliar car drew up outside, driven by a middle-aged woman. He waited until she got out, along with a girl of about ten, and deposited a bunch of flowers and a candle on the grass verge. Taking his warrant card out of his jacket pocket, Knox stalked back over the road just as they were returning to their car, gathered up the flowers and thrust them back at the woman, making sure she got a good look at his ID. ‘This is not a memorial site,’ he said. ‘If you want to pay tribute to Kirsty Fullerton, go to her funeral or post a message on Facebook.’ He was about to walk away, but stopped to ask, ‘How did you know Kirsty?’
The woman looked mildly uncomfortable. ‘Oh, we didn’t know her personally. But we saw it in the paper and on the news.’
Knox walked away, shaking his head in disbelief.
Blood and Stone Page 22
