The Pact

by Roberta Kray

  He leaned back in his chair and tried to eavesdrop on their conversation. He was close but not close enough to hear what they were saying. The sound of the traffic drowned out everything else. Typical, he thought, that they’d chosen to sit outside. Not only was it noisy but it was cold as well; although the sun was shining there was a chill wind whistling down the street.

  He’d been planning on having a beer and then heading up West – until Jimmy Reece had appeared. Suddenly, there he was, strolling past with that slightly rolling gait of his, hands in his pockets, gazing idly around. For a second, as their eyes met, he thought his face hadn’t registered but then Reece stopped, frowned, put out a couple of fingers like some gangster in a movie, grinned and said: ‘Hey, it’s Patrick, isn’t it?’

  ‘Jimmy!’

  They’d gone through the usual rigmarole, exchanging pleasantries, smiles, handshakes etc.

  ‘So how’s it going?’

  ‘Good, good.’

  And from there it had only been one small step to agreeing to lunch. Why not? Okay, he’d felt a momentary pang of guilt, recalling what he’d promised Evie, about not getting in touch with Reece again, about not interfering, but it passed without having too much impact on his conscience. He hadn’t planned this. It was just a chance meeting and perhaps, in addition to a free lunch – not an offer to be casually passed over – he could find out something useful.

  ‘Do you mind explaining what you were doing there?’ Raynor said. He sounded more resigned than annoyed as if Eddie Shepherd’s visit to Herbert Street was further proof, if it was needed, of his inability to obey the simplest of orders.

  Eddie assumed an expression of hurt innocence. ‘I don’t see the problem, guv. I only popped in to see Sonia Marshall, check that she was okay – you know, some of that caring sharing policing that the Chief Constable’s so keen on, and—’

  ‘Bollocks!’ he said. ‘You were showing Eve Weston a photograph of Patterson. Why?’

  Eddie wondered how he’d got to hear about that – unless he’d been round there himself recently. Perhaps he was conducting his own, more private inquiries, into the leggy redhead. ‘Just a shot in the dark. I had it on me so I thought, why not?’

  ‘Because it’s not our case any more. It’s nothing to do with us. And why should she know anything about it?’

  ‘She recognized him,’ Eddie said.

  That stopped Raynor in his tracks. ‘What?’

  ‘Well, okay, not exactly recognized him but she thought he looked familiar, that she might have seen him around.’

  ‘He was a private detective, tramping the streets. It’s not a huge city. I’m sure thousands of people saw him around.’

  ‘But odd, don’t you reckon, that she maybe saw him around Herbert Street? He doesn’t live near there and according to Paul Clark he wasn’t working there either. So what are we looking at? Is it just a coincidence that these two guys who died on the same night and—’

  ‘Marshall’s death was an accident,’ Raynor sighed. ‘He got pissed, fell into the river and drowned.’

  ‘Not necessarily’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  Eddie picked up the pathology report and handed it to him. ‘It means that yeah, he drowned all right but, according to our friend Pugh, he may have had some help.’

  Raynor flicked quickly through the pages but didn’t seem impressed. ‘So there was some bruising on the shoulder? So what? It’s not conclusive. Far from it.’

  ‘It suggests that someone may have stopped him getting out.’

  ‘Or that he did it before he fell in or that it happened while he was in the water, when he was struggling to reach the bank.’ He dropped the report down on his desk. ‘This doesn’t prove a thing.’

  Eddie didn’t like his theories being dismissed out of hand. ‘Oh, I dunno,’ he said. ‘It could prove that you were right about our flame-haired temptress. She does seem to be the common denominator in everything that’s been happening recently. Perhaps she and Cavelli are involved in something big.’ He didn’t believe it for a minute – she was small-time, a grifter’s daughter – but he watched with pleasure as Raynor’s lips narrowed into a thin straight line.

  ‘This has nothing to do with her,’ he snapped.

  Eddie heard the defensive anger in his voice and smirked. Yeah, he’d definitely hit the spot with that one. Now he was certain that the inspector’s interest in the Weston bint was more than professional. And having put the knife in, he couldn’t resist twisting it. ‘Three deaths, all of them connected to Herbert Street. There has to be some connection. Or perhaps bad luck just follows her around.’

  Raynor glowered at him. ‘One suicide, one accident, and one murder that has little if anything to do with Herbert Street. What kind of dubious connection, exactly, is that?’

  ‘You’re probably right.’ Eddie scratched at his nose, at the thin scab that was forming just below his left nostril. ‘Only theorizing, guv, keeping the little grey cells ticking over.’

  ‘Well, if you’re looking for something useful to occupy your mind, how about dealing with these?’ Raynor flung a pile of files at him. ‘Four burglaries, in as many days, on the Richmond Estate. The Residents’ Association are up in arms so if you’re not too busy theorizing …’

  ‘I’ll get right on to it.’

  Raynor picked up his jacket from the back of his chair and flipped it over his shoulder. ‘I’ve got a meeting. We’ll catch up later.’

  Eddie waited until the door had swung closed before lifting his eyes to the ceiling. He’d been deliberately winding him up but it hadn’t been a complete pile of bullshit. Pushing the files to one side, he leaned over and took out another from the top drawer of his desk. Opening it, he stared down at its contents: copies of the reports on Alexander Weston, on Peter Marshall, on Ivor Patterson. There was a connection, a thread, running between all the deaths. And it was Eve Weston. No matter which way you looked at it, no matter which way you turned it around, her name came up again and again.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Joe Silk shook his head and snapped off the tape. He was no nearer to the truth. That drunken shit Reece was a waste of space. What had he been listening to? Two hours of them filling their faces, swilling down the wine he’d paid for, while they talked about films, women and bloody football.

  He poured himself another Scotch. ‘Fuck all,’ he said, looking up at Chase. ‘What about the flat?’

  ‘Likewise. Gruber turned the place inside out. There’s no sign.’

  Joe didn’t get it; he’d just given Fielding the perfect opportunity to continue what he and Evie had started in Soho. But he hadn’t taken the bait. Whatever they were up to, they had planned to use Reece – they must have – so what was going on? A change of plan perhaps. Did they know that he was on to them? ‘Maybe they’re just being careful. Maybe the whole Patterson thing has spooked them.’

  Chase folded his arms across his chest, expelling one of his long bitter sighs. ‘Or maybe they’re just taking the fucking piss. We’re wasting time,’ he said. ‘This is getting us nowhere. Let’s go get her. The longer this goes on, the more chance there is of—’

  ‘No. Not yet.’ Joe waved away his protest with a sweep of his hand. ‘She must be getting worried by now. She has to be. And the more worried she is, the more likely she is to panic, and when that happens – and it’s going to be soon – she’s going to start making mistakes.’

  Eve took the call at half past three in the afternoon. It took her a moment to recognize the voice and a few further seconds to decipher the angry exclamations and translate them into any kind of sense.

  ‘Everything … can’t believe it … ruined …’

  ‘Patrick?’

  ‘The flat’s been turned over. Jesus, I just got back and …’

  She felt her heart sink. ‘You’ve had a breakin?’

  ‘More like a visit from a wrecking crew. It’s been trashed, Evie. They’ve busted the door, r
ipped up the carpets, emptied all the cupboards, the fridge – shit, I’ve got three pizzas defrosting on the floor – they even slashed the mattress on the bed. It’s a mess, a bloody disaster area …’

  ‘God, I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ he said. And then he paused. ‘But please tell me it’s just a coincidence that I met Jimmy Reece today.’

  She frowned, her sympathy swiftly turning on its axis. Her voice lifted an octave. ‘What? You met Jimmy Reece? Why? You promised me you wouldn’t. You swore. You said—’

  ‘Christ, please don’t turn this back on me. I didn’t deliberately meet him. I didn’t make any arrangement. He met me, just turned up out of the blue and bought me lunch while—’

  ‘While someone turned over your flat.’

  ‘Yeah, but—’

  ‘But nothing,’ she said. ‘Didn’t you think that was odd Jimmy just turning up like that? Just a little bit too much of a coincidence?’

  ‘No!’ he snapped back. ‘It’s London. People are always just turning up.’

  ‘And offering to buy you lunch?’

  There was a long silence at the other end of the line. ‘Fuck,’ he eventually said.

  And she knew that he knew that he’d been well and truly stitched up.

  ‘Fuck!’ he said again, and then sighed. ‘The bastard was just keeping me out of the way, wasn’t he?’

  ‘It looks like that.’

  There was another shorter silence. She heard him take a couple of deep frustrated breaths.

  ‘Patrick?’

  ‘I’m still here. So, do you want to tell me what the hell is going on? Because this really isn’t making any sense or at least not the kind of sense that I want to think about – and as I’m standing in the ruins of what I used to call my home and—’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  ‘Is this to do with Cavelli?’

  She paused. ‘I don’t know. Maybe. But why would it be? What would he have to gain by it?’ Which reminded her that she hadn’t opened those boxes yet. She felt an urge to run into the bedroom and drag them out from the bottom of the wardrobe but instead she rubbed her knuckles against her forehead, trying to decide what to tell and what not to. She hadn’t wanted to involve Patrick in the first place – he’d been the one who’d insisted on meeting her in Soho – but it was too late to worry about that now. ‘Was anything taken?’

  ‘God knows,’ he almost wailed. ‘I haven’t exactly taken an inventory.’

  ‘Sorry,’ she murmured again. ‘Look, maybe you should go away for a while, stay with a friend or something.’

  ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘As soon as you tell me what’s going on.’

  ‘I can’t. I mean, I would if I knew but I don’t. But I’m going to find out. Just give me a few days.’

  ‘Evie, for God’s sake, if you’re in trouble -I mean any more trouble than with this whole Terry business – then you have to tell me, you have to—’

  ‘I’ll call you. I promise.’ And then before he had time to make any more demands she said a quick goodbye and put the receiver down. She stood for a moment, her mind racing, while she tried to slot the facts together. What was going on? First her own breakin, then the man in the alley, then Ivor Patterson – she shivered as she thought about what had happened to him – then the warning on the door, and now Patrick. But as hard as she thought, she couldn’t make any sense of it. It was like a jigsaw puzzle with half the pieces of the sky missing.

  She shook her head and glanced towards the bedroom. There was, however, something she could do: it was time to open those boxes, to find out what was really inside them. She’d put it off for long enough. And surely, if she explained, Cavelli would understand? She grimaced. Well, maybe not, but she’d cross that bridge when she came to it.

  First, she went to the kitchen and found a sharp knife. If she opened them neatly enough it might be possible to disguise the fact she’d ever looked inside. All she’d have to do was buy some fresh dark red tape – if she could find any – and seal them up again.

  Slowly, she crossed back to the room, the knife clenched tightly in her right hand like a nervous intruder. There was still time to change her mind … but no, she mustn’t. There were men out there – impatient angry men – who believed she was hiding something, men who thought that she might have passed what they wanted on to Patrick. Wasn’t that why his flat had been broken into? Her forehead crunched into a frown. But then how had Jimmy Reece got involved? Had he realized Cavelli was coming after him again and …

  There was no point going over and over it. All she was doing was tangling her thoughts into knots. ‘Actions, not words,’ she murmured. Forcing herself to step into the bedroom, she knelt down and dragged out the two boxes. Which one first? The larger one. She lifted her hand but then hesitated. She could suddenly hear Paula saying, ‘Whatever you do, don’t open them. Martin’s paranoid about his stuff.’ Maybe she was making an almighty mistake. Well, sod it! Better that than being doomed to a state of perpetual ignorance. Then, before she could lose her nerve, she ran the point of the knife cleanly through the centre of the tape.

  Eve sat back on her heels, stunned by the enormity of what she’d just done. Mutual trust – that had been her deal with Cavelli: he took care of Terry and in return she took care of his possessions. But it was too late now for regrets. What was done was done.

  Tentatively pulling back the flaps she peered inside.

  Her first impression, as she’d lugged it up the stairs, had been right – it was full of books. No gold bullion, drugs or diamonds. She wasn’t sure what she felt. Disappointment or relief? If she’d been hoping for some kind of revelation, for any kind of lead, it certainly wasn’t here. Lifting them out, one by one, piling them up beside her feet, she quickly flicked through the pages to make sure that nothing was hidden between the leaves. It was fiction mainly and not the type of stuff she’d expect Cavelli to read – Jackie Collins and Danielle Steele, a few mystery thrillers, along with some classics like Little Women, Emma, and Pride and Prejudice. Not his, she was certain, so they must have been someone else’s. Nadine’s? That thought made her pause again. The notion that she was carelessly rustling through the books of a dead woman, a woman whose fingers must have touched the very same pages, a woman who had once lived and breathed and …

  Eve packed them all back into the cardboard box and pushed it gently aside. Then, working on the age-old premise that you may as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, she took a deep breath and cut through the tape on the smaller box. As she reached inside, it didn’t take her long to realize that the items in here were even more intimate, more personal, than the books she had just been rummaging through. There was a bundle of letters, about twenty, still in their original envelopes, fastened with an elastic band. They were all addressed to Martin Cavelli in the same sloping, slightly childish hand. She took them out and laid them carefully on the carpet. Next, she found a narrow hard-backed envelope containing his marriage certificate. Underneath that was a small glossy folder, the type you got from any photographic processing company. She opened it and took out the pictures. A woman in a striped bikini smiled brightly up at her. It had to be Nadine. She was smiling, laughing, sitting on a beach. She was slim, with long straight brown hair and expressive brown eyes. Her skin was the colour of honey. She was pretty, no, more than pretty: she had the kind of enviable good looks that didn’t rely on make-up, that were natural rather than contrived.

  Eve flicked quickly through the snaps, nearly all of Nadine, on the beach, by a pool, at a palm-fronted restaurant, only pausing when she found a few of Cavelli. She stopped briefly to stare at this man, this stranger in whom – either smartly or stupidly (only time would tell) – she had temporarily placed her faith. She tried to read his eyes. They were happier of course than the ones she had met in the prison but still dark, still faintly distrustful, as if the world was not a place in which it was ever safe to relax.

  She moved on to th
e few remaining pieces: a cheap bead necklace, a charm bracelet and a couple of brooches, all carefully wrapped in tissue paper. She found the final, and possibly most important possession, in a tiny powder-blue box buried in the corner. Opening it, she discovered a simple gold band. Nadine’s wedding ring? She took it out and held it up. Yes, it was too small to be his. She wondered if he’d taken it when he’d gone to see Jimmy Reece or if she had left it behind in one of those dreadful final gestures.

  Why had Cavelli kept all this stuff? Out of love perhaps, nostalgia, sentiment, or because of some more disturbing obsession? And she tried to imagine what their relationship had been like, what had drawn them to each other, what kind of a woman Nadine had been and why she had chosen to leave him. Eve couldn’t claim any fondness for Cavelli but she found Jimmy Reece equally, if not more, repugnant. The memory of Soho, of his predatory confidence, of his clammy hand snaking optimistically up her thigh, made her skin crawl. Although, perhaps, it wasn’t fair to judge him too harshly; she’d only made his acquaintance after Cavelli had rearranged the contours of his face, and that, inevitably, was enough to mar any man’s personality.

  She carefully began to place everything back in the exact position she had found it. It was only as she picked up the bundle of letters again that her curiosity went into overdrive. Now that she’d taken the risk of opening the boxes, of completely pissing off Cavelli, wouldn’t it be a wasted opportunity if she didn’t grab the chance to find out what she could about him? And what better way than through the letters from Nadine.

  She shouldn’t read them, she knew she shouldn’t but …