Friends to Die For

by Hilary Bonner

  Vogel moved at speed across the pavement to the now unsupervised front door, which stood ajar. He rushed inside. The place was empty, all the gamblers having fled the moment the first shot was fired. Vogel ran past empty gaming tables, Carlisle and Parlow trailing in his wake.

  ‘Shouldn’t we wait for the back-up, guv?’ asked Parlow lamely.

  ‘Yeah, we need those armed response boys,’ Carlisle called after the DI.

  Vogel ignored them both. The door at the back of the club which led to Kwan’s private offices was closed but unlocked. Vogel pushed the door and it opened, but not completely. He squeezed himself through the gap, his pulse quickening as he saw the dead doorman lying at his feet. He stepped over the body and ran upstairs.

  The third-floor door to Kwan’s office was also open. Having been decimated by the blast of gunfire administered by Greg Walker, it would no longer close.

  Vogel burst through. He just had time to take in Tony Kwan, still sitting at his desk, a bleeding Greg Walker slumped on the floor, and a Kwan henchman holding a handgun stepping threateningly towards him. Thanks to his police firearm training, Vogel registered that the gun, doubtless illegal, was a revolver of the type favoured by bodyguards and so-called security staff because, although it could not be fired as rapidly as a semiautomatic, it didn’t jam.

  The henchman fired. The revolver didn’t jam. Vogel felt a burning sensation in his left shoulder.

  He staggered but managed to stay upright.

  ‘Put that gun away, you fool!’ Tony Kwan shouted at his henchman. He was almost screaming, apoplectic with rage. ‘You’ve shot a cop!’

  Vogel’s knees were beginning to buckle. His legs felt like jelly, and the burning sensation in his left shoulder had become a searing pain. His mind remained absolutely lucid. He’d behaved like a fool, but perhaps the consequences were not entirely without merit.

  ‘Yes, indeed Mr Kwan,’ he said, managing a small smile. ‘Your goon has shot a policeman. And in your own office. Looks as if we’ve got you bang to fucking rights at last.’

  Then he fell to the ground alongside Greg Walker.

  twenty-five

  Parlow and Wagstaff, who were making their way up the rickety staircase, heard the shot that had felled Vogel and instinctively stopped climbing.

  ‘Shit,’ said Parlow.

  Wagstaff, still fired up from his manic drive, recovered fastest. ‘Come on,’ he said, taking another step upwards. ‘We gotta get our guvnor.’

  Parlow grabbed his fellow DCs arm.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘We could have a dead copper up there. Nobody wants another one. An ARU should be here any minute.’

  As if on cue, a tall Chinese heavy with a gun in his hand stepped out of Tony Kwan’s office onto the third-floor landing and peered down the stairwell at the two detectives. He looked as if he was thinking of making a run for it.

  Parlow gulped.

  ‘Fuck,’ said Wagstaff.

  Fortuitously for both men, the henchman seemed to change his mind and retreated back into the office. And armed response did arrive within minutes.

  Wagstaff and Parlow were ordered out of the building. The ARU boys proceeded cautiously upstairs. No further shots were fired. Kwan was arrested, along with the security man who had shot Greg Walker and Vogel, two of Kwan’s sons, another security man, and the three young women who were found cowering in the bedroom.

  Once the premises had been cleared and declared safe, a paramedic team was allowed in. Greg Walker, who’d lost so much blood he was by then barely conscious, was swiftly loaded into an ambulance.

  Vogel turned out not to have been seriously injured. After the paramedics had removed his jacket and cut away the sleeve of his shirt it was revealed that he’d suffered only a flesh wound. The bullet had passed through the fleshy part of his shoulder at the top of his arm, avoiding any bone or major ligaments. It hurt like hell, but Vogel refused point-blank to be dispatched to A and E.

  ‘I’m in the middle of something that won’t wait,’ he said. ‘I have work to do.’

  He seemed more worried about his horn-rimmed spectacles than his injured shoulder. The glasses had fallen off when he’d collapsed after being shot. They were duly retrieved and handed to him.

  ‘Thank God for that. Thought I was going fucking blind,’ Vogel muttered.

  He then draped his damaged jacket over the temporary dressing on his shoulder, wincing as he did so, then ignored the protests of the paramedics as he walked out of the building.

  Wagstaff and Parlow, still hovering outside in Lisle Street, were mighty relieved to see him.

  ‘Thank God you’re all right, guv,’ said Parlow.

  Vogel grunted. ‘Take me back to Charing Cross,’ he instructed Wagstaff.

  As he reached to open the door of the CID car his jacket slipped off his injured shoulder, revealing the recently applied dressing through which blood was already seeping.

  Wagstaff hesitated.

  ‘Get on with it, man!’ Vogel ordered.

  Once in the car, he examined his jacket. It was corduroy and had seen better days, but now the left sleeve was stained with blood and there was a hole in it.

  As they all climbed out of the car at Charing Cross, Vogel turned to Wagstaff.

  ‘Take your jacket off and give it to me,’ he ordered.

  Wagstaff hesitated.

  ‘Give me your coat, man,’ said Vogel. ‘I have interviews to conduct. I can hardly turn up with blood all over me, like some fucking Casualty extra, can I?’

  Somewhat reluctantly Wagstaff handed over his light grey suit jacket and helped Vogel put it on. Parlow watched as the necessary manoeuvring of Vogel’s arms and upper body caused the DI to turn even paler than he had been before. Wagstaff was about the same height and of similar build to Vogel, but he was very slightly slimmer. The jacket was a tight fit, which did not help matters.

  ‘Are you sure you shouldn’t go to hospital, guv?’ Parlow asked.

  ‘Shut up, Steve,’ said Vogel.

  He led the way into the station. DCI Clarke was waiting for him.

  Vogel, I know this case is your baby, but you belong in hospital,’ she said.

  Vogel glowered at her. ‘So everyone keeps telling me,’ he replied. ‘And I will go there, boss, as soon as this is over.’

  Nobby Clarke studied him for a moment and gave a resigned shake of the head. ‘All right, Vogel, against my better judgement, you can carry on,’ she said. ‘But you’re going to the hospital later, whether everything’s sorted or not.’

  ‘Thanks, boss,’ said Vogel, thinking he’d argue about that ‘later’ if necessary.

  ‘Bob Buchanan’s come in, but Alfonso Bertorelli was so pissed when Carlisle spoke to him on the phone there was no point in even trying to get him here,’ Clarke continued. ‘I’ve got Buchanan and the three Sunday Clubbers we already had in custody waiting in the big interview room. Best to talk to them all together this time, I reckon. Might jog each other’s memories.’

  Vogel made his way there, pausing to ask Parlow to go get him some paracetamol. Not that it would do much good. The pain in his shoulder was beyond the remit of non-prescription drugs.

  DS Jones took the chair next to Vogel. Bob, Tiny, Billy and Ari were sitting in a row of upright chairs like a bunch of kids in detention, Vogel thought. Not one of them had asked for a solicitor to be present.

  ‘I want to know if any of you are aware of Marlena ever having owned or ridden a motorcycle,’ Vogel asked.

  Ari glanced towards Bob. ‘She did say something,’ he said. ‘Didn’t she, Bob?’

  ‘Yeah, the last time we played The Game. It would have been—’

  ‘What game?’ interrupted Vogel.

  ‘Our version of the truth game,’ said Ari. ‘One of the group would ask a question of the others. The idea was to get everyone talking, to have a laugh . . .’

  ‘Only that wasn’t how it panned out that particular Sunday,’ said Billy. ‘It all got a bit too serious,
for some reason.’

  ‘“What was your biggest life-changing moment?”’ said Tiny. ‘That was the question. Karen was the one who asked it.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Billy. ‘And we nearly had a domestic, Michelle ended up in tears—’

  ‘I got maudlin about my boy,’ Bob cut in.

  ‘And Marlena told us her life-changing moment was when she had an accident riding her motorbike,’ said Ari. ‘It made her grow up, she said. Seemed a bit strange to me, now I think of it, but Marlena always came up with something unexpected.’

  ‘That was it though: a motorbike accident, a long time ago,’ confirmed Bob. ‘And I remember that she said it was a pink motorbike. Well, you wouldn’t forget that, would you?’

  The hairs on the back of Vogel’s neck were standing on end. This was it. This was really it, he thought. Marlena on her pink motorbike – little Rory Burns’ pink lady. She had to be. No doubt about it.

  ‘Was that the first time any of you had heard about Marlena’s motorcycling days, the first time she had spoken of it?’ Vogel asked.

  ‘I think so,’ said Billy. ‘It certainly came as a surprise to me.’

  ‘Can you all remember when this took place? You said it was the last time you played that game?’ Vogel continued.

  ‘It was the end of February, wasn’t it, when the weather was so cold?’ offered Tiny.

  ‘I can tell you exactly,’ said Bob grimly. ‘It was my son’s birthday: February twenty-fourth.’

  ‘And that was well before any of the incidents, wasn’t it?’ enquired Vogel.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Billy. ‘The Mr Tickle thing with George happened in mid-March. I remember because he didn’t come to Sunday Club right afterwards, and that was the weekend we went to your mate’s wedding on the Saturday, Tiny . . .’

  Billy paused. A thought had obviously struck him.

  ‘Where is George, anyway?’ he asked. ‘We know Alfonso’s on the sauce, but where’s George?’

  Vogel did not answer the question.

  ‘And where’s Greg?’ asked Bob. ‘Though he must be half out of his mind, poor bastard.’

  Vogel passed no comment on that, either.

  ‘Can any of you tell me if George Kristos was present at Sunday Club the night Marlena talked about her motorbike and the accident which changed her life?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Bob. ‘He was there. We all were, which was unusual . . .’

  His voice tailed off. Then he spoke again.

  ‘What’s happened to George?’

  Vogel thought for a moment. He decided to tell them the bald facts.

  ‘Mr Kristos has been arrested on suspicion of the murder of Marleen McTavish and Michelle Monahan,’ he said. ‘And we expect to charge him, probably within the next few hours.’

  Four shocked faces stared at him. Nobody spoke.

  Then Bob pointed at Vogel’s shoulder.

  ‘You’re bleeding, Mr Vogel,’ he said, looking even more shocked.

  Vogel glanced down. Blood was seeping through Nick Wagstaff’s jacket. Flipping thing would be pale grey, Vogel thought, wondering if he’d end up having to buy Wagstaff a new suit, and if so, whether he’d be allowed to claim it on expenses.

  ‘Don’t worry about that, it’s nothing,’ he said dismissively.

  Without further explanation he told the four men that he had more questions for them, several points he needed to clarify, and he would be grateful for their continued assistance.

  They had questions for him too, once they’d recovered from their initial shock, but he could not provide answers. All four men would be called as witnesses in due course, and the last thing he wanted was to see the case thrown out of court because something he’d divulged had prejudiced the defendant’s right to a fair trial. He did tell them that Greg had been injured, but avoided the details.

  He spent half an hour or so going over what the men knew about George, and what they knew about Marlena, the meetings between them and so on, and then there was a knock on the door and Parlow stuck his head in.

  ‘The doc’s here, guv,’ he said, discreetly passing Vogel a packet of paracetamol.

  ‘About time too,’ said Vogel, checking his watch. ‘Right, get him set up and go fetch Kristos.’

  He returned his attention to the four.

  Five minutes later Parlow burst through the door without knocking. His face was flushed and he was in a state of panic.

  ‘You’d better come quick, guv,’ he gulped.

  Vogel immediately got to his feet and hurried to the door. Whatever had spooked Parlow, he didn’t want him blurting it out in front of the four witnesses.

  As soon as he’d closed the door behind him, he turned to Parlow. The younger man was trembling.

  ‘It’s Kristos,’ he said. ‘Looks like he’s topped himself.’

  Vogel raced to the cell block, ignoring the pain in his shoulder. He pushed through the crowd of police officers who’d gathered in the custody suite and stopped in the cell doorway. George Kristos was lying on the bed, covered in blood. It was obvious that his throat had been cut. A stunned Sergeant Andy Pierce stood over him.

  Vogel stared in horror. Then he thought he heard a gurgling sound. That surely meant the man was still breathing, didn’t it?

  He leaned forward and felt George’s pulse. Was there a flicker of life? He wasn’t sure.

  ‘Get that doctor in here, for fuck’s sake,’ Vogel shouted to nobody in particular.

  ‘I’ve sent Jenkins to fetch him, sir,’ said the custody officer.

  Vogel turned to him.

  ‘How could this happen, Pierce?’ he asked. ‘Don’t you guys check prisoners?’

  ‘I looked in every half-hour, I swear it,’ replied Pierce. ‘The prisoner was lying down, wrapped in his blanket. I couldn’t actually see him because the blanket was pulled up over his head. I just assumed he was sleeping.’

  ‘You assumed,’ growled Vogel. He turned his attention to the prisoner.

  ‘How did he do it? What did he use to cut his own fucking throat? You did search him, I presume?’

  The custody officer ignored the last remark. Instead he pointed to the bloodied half of a razor blade which lay alongside George on the bunk.

  ‘Seems he smuggled it in, guv,’ said Sergeant Pierce.

  Again he pointed. This time to a small cylindrical object with some sticky tape attached to it. Vogel recognized it as the curved end of a cigar container. He didn’t need to ask how George had smuggled the half-razor in. He had inserted it in his anus, and an anal search is not a routine part of custody procedure at British police stations.

  ‘He must’ve had that damned thing up his arse when we arrested him,’ muttered Vogel. ‘He had it all planned. He knew exactly what he was going to do if we came to get him. He was one step ahead of us, the bastard. Just as he’s been all along.’ Vogel shook his head angrily. ‘How can a man cut his own throat?’

  George’s eyes were closed. Vogel moved closer and lifted one eyelid. A pale blue eye stared at him, presumably the man’s natural iris colour. Having decided to end his life, Burns had finally abandoned all pretence and removed the tinted contact lenses that had been part of his George Kristos disguise. The cold blue eye was full of hatred. Vogel stared into it. He could see a kind of triumph there too, he was sure of it.

  Then Burns’ entire body convulsed and he spewed black blood from his open mouth. Vogel let go of the eyelid and stepped back.

  At the same moment the doctor arrived in the cell and rushed to Vogel’s side, bending over the blood-covered man.

  After a couple of minutes he stood up and turned to face Vogel.

  ‘There’s nothing I can do,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid your prisoner is dead.’

  Vogel’s gaze remained fixed on the prisoner. Who had beaten who? Vogel was not sure. He did wonder, however, how many questions would remain unanswered. All hope of a confession was gone. There would be no cross-examination in a court of law. They could onl
y guess at what had motivated him, and they might never be able to determine exactly how many victims he had claimed.

  Vogel allowed his eyes to wander around the cell, taking in the volume of blood and the crumpled blanket, which he assumed had been pulled off the dying man by the custody officer.

  Kristos had removed his police-issue paper suit and folded it neatly on the bottom of the bunk. He lay now with his nakedness exposed, which presumably had been his intention. His body was almost hairless, presumably because of his emasculation. Between his legs there were no recognizable genitalia. No testes and no penis. Just a jagged scar and an almost vaginal opening which had presumably been fashioned in order for him to urinate.

  Vogel shuddered. What a secret to keep, he thought.

  Then the piece of cylindrical cigar casing caught his eye. Was there something in it still? Vogel thought so. He reached for it carefully. Using only the tips of one forefinger and thumb he removed a neatly folded piece of paper.

  It bore an inked message, rather beautifully handwritten and resembling medieval biblical script, Vogel thought.

  Thus saith the Lord: Though I have afflicted thee, I will afflict thee no more.

  epilogue

  DCI Nobby Clarke waited until seven days had passed before visiting Vogel at his home. He was on mandatory sick leave. His upper arm and shoulder had become infected, almost certainly due to his refusal to undergo proper treatment until several hours after he was shot.

  Vogel’s wife, Mary, greeted the DCI warmly and ushered her into the living room of the Pimlico apartment.

  Clarke took in the abundance of pink, the floral wallpaper and curtains, and the predominantly feminine air of the place. For some reason, Vogel, sitting on an ornately covered settee with luxuriously deep cushions, seemed to fit in perfectly – but then, why shouldn’t he, in his own home?

  Next to him was a young girl, in her early teens, Clarke thought, holding a purple Nintendo Game Boy. She waved one arm awkwardly. All her movements seemed awkward.

  Vogel stood up and shook Nobby Clarke’s hand.