In Her Blood

by Annie Hauxwell

  He tried to think about the situation strategically. One incontrovertible truth of the job was that if you caught a killer, all would be forgiven.

  In fact, history showed that it didn’t even have to be the actual killer, just some unlucky bastard who fit the crime and the circumstances. If you could get a conviction for murder, you would be a hero. No matter how you did it.

  Now the gun he had taken from Coulthard lay in front of him.

  Bonnington displayed his teeth in what might have been a grimace or a smile. He seemed to be enjoying this. Dempster wanted to hit him, but sensed that he would welcome the pain.

  Bonnington had been talking for what seemed like hours without giving up anything useful. His tone was mild and his speech controlled. He talked about the corruption of the police and the government, the sheep-like population numbed by drugs, alcohol and television, the masses crushed by debt foisted on them by predatory usurers who peddled the illusion of wealth creation: conditions that provided the perfect opportunity for oppressive alien creeds with strict moral codes and self-discipline to insinuate themselves and corrode our way of life.

  Dempster drank his cold green tea and waited for Bonnington to pause for breath. He had no idea how to interview this sort of nutter. There was no point in threatening him. He was a zealot, convinced of his own rightness and unafraid. There was no point trying to negotiate. The bloke was beyond reason. Although there was some sense in what he said.

  ‘So you eliminated Lazenby?’ Dempster asked yet again. He was exhausted, his head throbbed and his eyes were full of grit. The flat didn’t seem to be heated. He shivered. It wasn’t like him to feel the cold.

  ‘No,’ said Bonnington, sighing as if Dempster was an obtuse child.

  ‘Where did you get the starting pistol?’

  It was the same type of weapon that had both fallen from Merle Okonedo’s hand and killed Lazenby.

  ‘You can get them on the internet,’ said Bonnington.

  Dempster glanced at the softly whirring computer in the corner. He noticed the webcam clipped to the monitor, its little green light blinking, the modem lights flashing. Mesmerised by the lights, a slow signal travelled from one part of his brain to another, but he couldn’t quite grasp it.

  Bonnington smiled.

  Then the thought exploded in Dempster’s brain. He’d been played.

  64

  COULTHARD AND FLINT sat looking at each other across the table at Pellicci’s, trying to work out what had gone wrong.

  ‘I am totally fucked. He took the work car and my warrant card and nearly broke my fucking neck. And when I came around you were nowhere to be seen. Thanks for that,’ snarled Flint.

  ‘You didn’t plan, mate,’ said Coulthard, pouring brown sauce on his eggs. ‘There was no briefing, you didn’t scope the plot …’

  ‘You? What do you mean “you”? We did it to shut her down so she couldn’t make your life a misery and to see off fucking Dempster, which suited me and Bonnington. That’s all there was in it for me!’ said Flint, his voice going up an octave.

  ‘Bullshit, mate,’ Coulthard tut-tutted. ‘You’re forgetting the voicemail. You reckoned you could show your boss up if you could get hold of her computer.’

  ‘All right,’ conceded Flint, miserably. ‘But it wasn’t supposed to be the bleeding Charge of the Light Brigade either. We just had to get her drugs, which would have given us leverage against her and Dempster. We fucked up on all counts.’

  Coulthard looked offended. ‘Well, I’m sorry you feel like that, mate,’ he said with a sad smile. ‘After all, you’re the policeman.’

  Flint stared at him, not getting his drift.

  ‘I don’t have the authority to do any of those things that you did. I didn’t know what you had in mind,’ continued Coulthard, pointing at Flint with his fork each time he said ‘you’.

  Flint couldn’t believe it. The prick was just going to walk away from it all. Flint’s career was already in the toilet, let alone the possible criminal charges he could face if Dempster played hard ball. He stirred three sugars into his tea and wondered what the hell they could have been thinking. Number one, junkies don’t behave in any way that’s predictable, and number two, Dempster had simply given them a good thrashing.

  Dempster might be a fucking lunatic, but he was a smart fucking lunatic who had been unafraid to take on the two of them. He himself, on the other hand, was stupid and scared; that much was becoming clear.

  ‘Now, if you don’t mind,’ said Coulthard peevishly as he got to his feet. ‘You’ve put me off my scoff with these wild accusations and I’ve got an appointment with my doctor to see about long-term sick leave. Stress following a work-related assault.’ He smirked.

  Coulthard’s arm hung at his side, a reminder of his first time on the receiving end of an Asp – and Dempster’s boot. If it hadn’t been for Coulthard’s stuffed arm, and his own stiff neck and blinding headache, Flint would have wiped the smile off his face. Instead, he sat there and watched Coulthard saunter out.

  ‘That bloke is fucking Teflon,’ he muttered, and dragged Coulthard’s plate to his side of the table. The condemned man might as well eat a hearty breakfast.

  65

  BERLIN’S JOURNEY TO the other side of Bethnal Green felt more like an epic voyage to the North Pole. She slid and slithered through the layers of snow on slush and ice, bent into the headwind, a funereal figure propelled by desperation. She made one stop at a cash machine.

  When she finally turned into the estate she was disoriented for a moment. Snowdrifts had softened the contours of walls, balconies and roofs, creating a surreal, Gaudi-esque world without edges. She sought the kerb with the toe of her boot and moved forward slowly. Her physical condition was already poor; a fracture or even a sprain now would be a disaster.

  Neat, ordinary, mundane. Such were the lairs of monsters. She rang the bell and waited, the silence within pushing her almost to screaming point. But then the door opened.

  ‘Can I help you?’ said a neat, ordinary woman.

  ‘Doyle sent me,’ said Berlin.

  The woman stood back and Berlin walked in.

  The door of number fifty-one closed behind her.

  On the way down the hall the woman shut the living-room door on two boys watching TV.

  ‘They couldn’t open the schools today, with the weather. They’re driving me mad, stuck indoors all the time,’ she said, as she led Berlin into the kitchen and closed the door behind them. ‘Can I get you a cup of tea? You look half frozen.’

  Berlin was a little taken aback by this resort to the usual social niceties, but wondered what she had expected. A black dude with an Uzi?

  ‘No, thank you. I haven’t got much time,’ she said and realised as soon as the words were out of her mouth how desperate she sounded.

  The woman looked at her with sympathy. ‘Okay, love, I understand. Are you a friend of Doyle’s or a client?’

  ‘Acquaintance,’ said Berlin.

  ‘Because I’d hate you to be borrowing from him to do this bit of business, know what I mean?’

  Berlin nodded. ‘It’s my own money. What have you got?’

  ‘Just sit tight, I won’t be a minute,’ said the woman, and left the kitchen.

  Berlin heard her open the living-room door and tell the boys to stay where they were; she would bring them hot chocolate with marshmallows later if they were good. Hysterical laughter rose in Berlin’s throat at this further erosion of the drug dealer’s stereotype and she clamped her hand over her mouth. There were footsteps overhead, doors opening and closing and a minute later the woman returned to the kitchen, closed the door behind her and held out her hand.

  In her palm lay two gleaming ampoules of pharmaceutical diamorphine. A jolt of recognition shook Berlin. They were straight from Lazenby’s drug safe.

  The woman took Berlin’s shudder for desperate anticipation. ‘I bet you’ve never seen anything as good as that before, love!’ she said.

&n
bsp; Berlin realised she was staring, mesmerised. She looked up and saw the woman through different eyes.

  ‘My name’s Catherine,’ she said.

  ‘Sheila,’ said the woman. ‘Pleased to meet you.’

  ‘How much have you got?’ said Berlin.

  ‘How much do you want?’ said Sheila.

  66

  WHEN HIS PHONE rang Dempster answered without checking the ID.

  ‘Dempster,’ he said.

  There was a pause and then a quiet voice said, ‘It’s Flint.’

  Dempster didn’t respond. Sod Flint.

  ‘Are you there?’ said Flint.

  ‘What do you want? I’m busy.’

  ‘I want my car and my fucking warrant card. That’s out of order, Dempster, taking my warrant. It will finish me, you know that.’

  ‘Mate, I needed the car for official police business, not for swanning around the manor with my dick hanging out. And I haven’t got your bloody warrant card.’ He hung up and studied Bonnington.

  The automatic aperture on the webcam adjusted focus. How many people were watching them? Dozens? Thousands? Bonnington was a vain prick who had created the perfect soapbox. But he hadn’t realised that Dempster was onto him.

  ‘So Daryl, tell me. Where did you get the gun?’

  ‘I confiscated it from one of my client’s kids.’

  ‘Why didn’t you hand it in, report it to the police?’

  ‘Client confidentiality. The cone of silence. It’s so important to maintain trust, DCI Dempster. You know all about that, don’t you?’

  ‘Professional discretion then?’ snapped Dempster, frustrated. The bastard had an answer for everything.

  Bonnington sighed and nodded. ‘He said his mum had a box full of them on top of her wardrobe.’

  67

  THE COMPUTER ARRIVED with a note that just said: ‘It’s fucked. Sorry.’

  Thompson felt uneasy. He inspected it and saw something that looked very much like blood on one corner. The courier said he’d picked it up from reception at a hotel in Hackney and had been paid cash. Thompson spat on his handkerchief and gave it a wipe. He was better off not knowing.

  The computer hummed and creaked when he switched it on, but nothing else happened. He cursed. He had no bodies to do legwork for him. Half the bloody forensic workforce was stuck at home because of the weather and the other half were queuing up at the Australian embassy trying to emigrate.

  He was supposed to be pursuing a vicious killer who had taken a chunk out of Gina Doyle’s throat, and a psycho who had nearly beaten Fernley-Price to death. It looked like the bloke who ran the agency hunting loan sharks was in the mix somehow and had topped himself. Now the woman in the middle of it all, a junkie, was nowhere to be found.

  Happy days.

  Sod it. He would ignore all the bloody warnings about the roads and drive the computer down to Risk Control – a private firm in the City who would give him a decent coffee while their highly paid analysts worked on extracting that file.

  He could send the bill to the bloody Home Secretary and tell him to charge it to his expenses. They couldn’t say no. When it came to the MPs’ expenses, he knew where the bodies were buried.

  68

  DOYLE WAS SO agitated after Berlin left that he felt he had to get out of the flat despite the weather. He had a focus now, a purpose. Motivation. He couldn’t sit still. It gave him an appetite.

  He decided to walk down to Pellicci’s, have a sausage sandwich and make some phone calls. The damage he’d done to Fernley-Price would probably have landed him in hospital. If the prick was in a bad way and laid up, one thing was for sure: there was no one waiting at home to take care of him.

  The rage in his breast was the best kind. Cold. He was able to consider the situation clinically. When the missus was offed, hubby was the prime suspect. Christ, he should know. He’d been through it himself with Nancy.

  He remembered the first time he’d met the banker. The geezer had approached him in The Silent Woman and asked if he could sit down. ‘Suit yourself,’ said Doyle. Fernley-Price bought him a drink, then another, then asked if he was interested in a business proposition. He seemed to know a lot about Doyle’s business. When Doyle asked him how, he’d said ‘due diligence’.

  What a fool he had been. He thought Fernley-Price must have somehow known one of his clients, looked into Doyle’s reputation, been impressed and decided to seek him out as a partner. Let’s face it, he’d been flattered by the City gent showing him respect, wanting in on his business model. Here was a chance to show Frank what he was made of, a chance to branch out into big money.

  It seemed that Fernley-Price had serious cash salted away – his own and that of a few very special clients. It had to work for them after the crash wiped out their other investments. Doyle knew where to place it for maximum returns. No risk.

  But now it was as plain as the nose on your face. Gina had told Fernley-Price all about her dad’s business. But maybe she had failed to mention he was her dad. Christ, when she was a kid he’d drag her around with him doing collections. He’d leave her in the car, of course, for the trickier ones. She’d run around at Frank’s while they did the tally. That was when Frank had all his marbles. He’d doted on her.

  It was difficult for him to understand why Gina had turned him in, but then again, she had always had that thing about her mother. She was sharp, Gina. She must have seen a way to get at him. Then dragged her husband into it. Obviously she had had enough of him too, which showed taste.

  He would find Fernley-Price and finish the job he’d started. Gina would be pleased.

  69

  THE WINDOWS OF Sheila’s tiny, overheated kitchen were opaque with condensation. The air was thick with the smell of wet wool from Berlin’s coat.

  Sheila had gone upstairs to get more ampoules. Berlin’s first instinct was to cut and run, but Sheila had taken the ‘samples’ with her. So this was the woman Pink Cheeks had seen in the waiting room. This was the woman who had shot Lazenby. But this was the woman who had the heroin.

  Berlin struggled to master the turmoil in her brain and the frenzied dance in her veins. She tried to think. She could score or she could turn in a killer. Either or.

  She was standing between her mother and father, looking up at them, squinting. Behind them the sun was dazzling.

  ‘You can go with him or stay with me,’ said her mother. ‘You can’t have it both ways, Catherine.’

  Mute, she stared into the sun and was blinded. When she blinked, she saw her father walking away.

  Her mobile was in her hand and she was dialling before she even realised what she was doing. She was flicked to voicemail.

  The movements upstairs had stopped and the house was suddenly very quiet. Berlin didn’t leave a message. She hung up and dialled again. This time, to her relief, Dempster picked up.

  ‘Hello?’ he said. Her ID was blocked.

  ‘It’s me,’ she whispered. Footsteps were approaching down the hall. ‘Lazenby’s killer. At number fifty-one —’

  ‘On the estate,’ he cut in.

  ‘Yes,’ said Berlin. ‘But how —’

  ‘Listen to me – get out of there, now. Leave and don’t take anything with you. Got it? Go, go, go!’

  The kitchen door opened. Sheila stood there with two Tesco bags. She frowned at the sight of the phone in Berlin’s hand.

  ‘I won’t be long, darling,’ said Berlin sweetly, and hung up.

  Sheila smiled.

  Suddenly there was a dull thud, followed by the sound of wood splintering and men shouting. Sheila spun around. Over Sheila’s shoulder Berlin saw the front door shudder and crack open, revealing a queue of armour-encased black bodies.

  ‘Police!’ one of them shouted as the enforcer smashed into the door again.

  Berlin sprang to her feet and shoved Sheila hard in the back. She pitched into the hall. The two boys emerged from the living room, their faces pale and frightened. Sheila reached out to the
m, dropping the Tesco bags. The ampoules spilt out onto the floor: a shining carpet that could fly Berlin to heaven.

  The front door gave way and the first boots thundered into the hall. Berlin slammed the kitchen door and jammed a chair under the handle, then legged it out the back. The snow had been cleared off the tiny tiled patio and swept onto a narrow strip of dirt. In one corner a small mound bore a cross made of two sticks.

  She knew that the police would be on the other side of the back fence. She took a short run up to next door’s wall, jumped, hoisted herself over it and dropped to the ground. A jolt of pain shot up her bruised arm and she jarred her knee. She lay there for a moment trying to catch her breath. A delighted Jack Russell terrier ran up and started licking her face.

  A scream went up at number fifty-one and there was a sound like rolling thunder as a dozen pairs of Armed Response boots ran up Sheila’s stairs. She could hear the enforcer battering the kitchen door.

  Berlin got to her feet and scrambled across the garden, searching frantically for a way out. The fence on the far side was in bad shape, and she managed to pry two loose boards apart and squeeze through the gap she’d made. The dog followed.

  She found herself at the end of the block, standing in a grassy area now covered with slush. She brushed herself off, walked to the pavement and peered back down the street. Three police vehicles, lights flashing, were parked outside Sheila’s house.

  ‘Oi,’ said a voice behind her.

  She turned around to face a stocky policeman in full body armour with a sub-machine gun slung across his chest.

  ‘What are you up to?’

  The dog trotted up beside her and squatted. Berlin and the officer watched as a yellow stain appeared on the snow.