Vendetta

by Dreda Say Mitchell

  The therapist settled her voice back into an even tone. ‘A man like John, in his line of work, carrying that type of grief, is vulnerable. He may think that he’s in control, but he isn’t. Well, not all of the time. So if he’s put in a situation that heightens all those feelings of remorse, he’s a human hand grenade ready to explode.’

  ‘Is he dangerous?’

  ‘Don’t you understand what I’ve been telling you? His job is about righting the wrongs for the good of society, taking the bad guys off the street and making it safe for everyone else. The only wrong he’s not been able to put right is his son’s death. And who does he blame for that? Himself. He can’t take vengeance against himself, so if he now finds himself in a situation where he thinks he can absolve his guilt and find redemption through another act, he’ll do everything he can to make sure that happens.’

  ‘Is he dangerous?’ Phil repeated.

  She paused. ‘Dangerous? No. Potentially unstable? Yes. If he finds himself in the wrong situation, he could explode.’

  forty-three

  ‘Our victim is Russian. Thirty-two-year-old Yelena Romanov, but who more commonly used the name Elena. She also used the usual string of other aliases.’

  Rio said, ‘I’m surprised that the Russians came back this quickly; they usually drag their feet with us Brits.’

  Detective Martin turned to look at her. ‘It wasn’t the Russians, it was the Germans.’

  ‘Germany?’

  ‘Five years ago, our victim was claiming to be a student studying for a communications degree in Munich. She was arrested by the police in a raid on a club in Berlin, which was believed to be a base for the Russian mob specialising in prostitution, drugs, the usual-usual. Here’s her mug shot.’

  Martin pressed an attachment at the bottom of the screen. A black-and-white photo came up. He clicked on it, enlarging it. The woman in the picture was more striking than pretty, with the type of bone structure that gave her a face that would be remembered. Her hair was dark, straight, with the ends just touching her slim shoulders. It was her eyes that caught Rio’s attention – instead of being scared they reflected defiance.

  ‘Was she arrested for tricking?’ Rio asked.

  ‘No. Being in the wrong place at the right time. Her mother was arrested too.’

  ‘Her mother?’

  ‘The mother claimed to be visiting her, so when the police went to the flat she was living in, they found the mother and pulled her in as well. They had the mother’s DNA on file and that’s how we’ve made the match to the victim.’

  ‘Didn’t they have the vic’s DNA?’

  James shook his head. ‘They let her out on bail pending further inquiries and told her to stay put, but she skipped town before they could get a DNA sample. They didn’t believe the mother had anything to do with the activities at the club so they let her go. But luckily the Germans were able to get some information out of the Russians at the time of her arrest.’

  He minimised the photograph and clicked on another file. They both read the information.

  ‘So,’ Rio said. ‘Our victim has a record in Russia as well. Arrests for drug possession, joy riding, being in nightspots that your mum wouldn’t want you to be in.’

  ‘But it says here that her father was a decorated war hero with a distinguished career in the Red Army. He was awarded the highest Soviet military medal after he was killed in the Afghan war back in the 1980s. So she came from a respectable, military family. Her lawyer managed to get her off the drugs possession charge, pleading that she was a kid who went off the rails after her father died. The family must’ve been connected because the charges were swiftly dropped.’

  Rio said, ‘It doesn’t appear that she was ever arrested for prostitution . . .’

  ‘But the evidence suggests that she may have been involved in it,’ Martin interrupted. ‘She was arrested in a club in Berlin that was known as a hooker hangout and was found dead in a hotel-cum-brothel in London.’

  ‘Um,’ Rio answered.

  She eased back in her chair as her thoughts slipped into place. ‘I think the thread here is gangs. Russian gangs. She was arrested at a club in Berlin that had the stamp of a Russian crew all over, and I’m betting that the nightclubs she was seen at in Moscow were also tied to the mob – or Brotherhood, as some call themselves. And the hit on her in London was a professional job. Yelena Romanov pissed off the wrong person, someone that she knew.’ Rio flicked her gaze back to the computer. ‘What’s that?’ she asked, pointing to the final attachment at the bottom of the screen.

  James clicked on it. Another photo. A happy family shot of two dark-haired girls, one older than the other, locked in the embrace of an older woman. They smiled at the camera, just a normal family sharing their love with the lens.

  ‘How does a young woman from a good family end up on the wrong side of the law and butchered in a bath?’

  ‘How do any of us end up on the paths we do?’ There was something about Rio’s face that made Martin stare hard at her. He realised what it was. For the first time since he’d been working with the DI, he saw raw emotion on her face. A vulnerability that made him rethink his view of her as a hard-nosed professional.

  Martin’s phone went off, giving Rio some time to study the photos of Elena’s family on her own. The girls were a dead ringer for each other, and had the features of the woman they posed with. Made Rio think of those times at her grandmother’s house, back in the day. Sundays, usually, filled with the aroma of rice and peas, macaroni pie and sweet, sweet stewed chicken.

  Rio reached for the dead doctor’s patient file on Elena Romanov. Only a single sheet, no contact details. And the sheet was strange because it contained two blood test results, two different types of blood, one of which was AB – which, if Rio remembered her biology correctly, was a rare blood group. What the test was hadn’t been recorded.

  One victim, two different blood groups?

  Before Rio could dig deeper, Martin yelled, ‘Boss, he was lying.’

  ‘Who?’ Rio snapped her gaze away from Elena Romanov’s medical file.

  ‘I know you said that we couldn’t use any unofficial translators, but I just knew something wasn’t right . . .’

  ‘Martin, just tell me.’

  ‘The tattoo artist. I contacted a friend of mine who works at the Russian embassy. My friend couldn’t come back to me straight away because—’

  ‘Martin.’ Rio cut the air with the power of a whiplash.

  ‘The writing on the tattoo doesn’t say, “Love is in the arms of the woman you love.” It says, “To live with wolves, you have to learn to howl like a wolf.” I trawled the Net – all I could find was that it’s a Russian saying meaning if you want to be part of the crowd you have to act like the crowd. Couldn’t find anything else.’

  Rio was already standing up when she said, ‘Let’s go and find out why tattoo man is lying through his scumbag teeth.’

  forty-four

  3 p.m.

  ‘What did you really know about this woman?’

  Calum’s words churned over in Mac’s head as he reached ‘Superb Car Washes & Valeting’, the business that served as a front for the gang’s activity. Of course Calum was right; he didn’t know Elena at all. Didn’t really know where she was from, didn’t know anything about her family. But what he did know was she was dead and the man he was about to confront was her lover along with him.

  Thoughts still preoccupied with Elena, he walked across the forecourt as two of the workers slapped their wet sponges against a Mercedes. Three men, in dark blue overalls, some working, some not, were next to a line of three cars waiting for their shampoo and touch-up. There was no sign of Sergei, so Mac figured that he’d be in the office, pretending to shuffle papers that came from nowhere and meant nothing.

  He reached the squat office building, the bottom of its thick walls freckled in a black, nasty mould. He pushed the door and entered a space that was more like the waiting room in a cab office. T
he air was musty and the floor covered in a carpet so thin and worn it wasn’t clear what colour it was. The door of the main office faced him a short distance away. He felt for his gun. He’d give Sergei his chance to tell his side of the story – then Mac was going to let his Luger do all the talking.

  He pushed the door and nearly trod on a prone body, which made him stumble back. He looked down to find Reuben’s son gazing back at him, a slick red toy Ferrari in his hand. Gazing at Mac with those blue eyes, so like those of his dead son.

  ‘Milos, I’ve told you not to sit on the floor, little man, it’s dirty,’ yelled a male voice.

  Sergei. He stood in the doorway of another room attached to the office, which looked like a tiny kitchen. He carried a half-glass of orange and a plate of chocolate, car-shaped biscuits. The child scrambled to his feet, his fingers went white as they gripped the car tightly. He stared at his uncle nervously. Sergei slapped the plate and glass on a table that sat just inside the room near the kitchen. He said something roughly to the boy in Russian that had the child running across the room to the table.

  ‘Stupid kids,’ he mumbled as he strode towards Mac. ‘Wassup Mac, my man?’ he continued in his fake ghetto-bro brogue.

  He pushed his fist out to Mac in greeting, as if he was in a hip-hop video. Mac didn’t want to touch any part of this man if he was Elena’s killer . . . and lover. If . . . ? Mac pumped his fist with the younger man. Sergei moved back and threw himself like a sulky teenager, legs spread wide, into a wooden chair behind the desk. On the desk were scattered papers and three electronic gizmos. Although Sergei didn’t indicate that Mac should take the chair opposite him, Mac did it anyway.

  ‘Hello Uncle Mac,’ Milos said quietly from the other side of the room.

  Bright kid to remember his name, Mac thought.

  Sergei picked up one of the gizmos and said in a pissed-off tone, ‘Reuben told me to bring the kid.’ His thumb hit a button on his hand-held digi-toy, making the screen come on. ‘Like I ain’t got enough to do today. Do I look like some babysitter? Eh?’

  Like so many young people today, he didn’t even look at Mac, but kept his eyes fixed on the screen as his thumb and now fingers moved. ‘Thought the kid would be safer with me.’

  ‘Safer?’

  Sergei nodded but kept his head down, fingers and thumb moving. ‘Word came through that the doctor we use, some Arab, got blasted this morning.’

  Mac held back the surprise from his face. He remembered the black Merc outside the doctor’s surgery.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Who the hell knows, man? All I know is, Reuben don’t want the kid in any possible firing line.’

  Elena was dead, now so was the doctor. The bodies were starting to pile up around him.

  ‘Vroom, vroom!’

  Distracted by the noise Milos was making, Mac looked over at him. The boy was back on the floor, under the table this time, playing with his car.

  Mac switched his attention back to Sergei. ‘I went down to Club Zee.’

  Sergei’s head flipped up. The gizmo clattered to the table. ‘What were you doing there? I thought . . .’

  ‘You thought what?’

  The other man hesitated as he straightened slightly. Then said, ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Your brother told me to go down and check out whether anyone had seen your girlfriend,’ Mac smoothly lied.

  ‘Katia?’ Sergei breathed the word slow and soft, like a teen in love for the first time. ‘Did you find out anything?’

  Mac pressed on with his lie. ‘This and that. Of course it’s difficult when you don’t have a photograph, but I got one at the club.’ Mac took the photo he’d taken from the picture frame and handed it to Sergei, ‘Is that her?’

  Sergei took the picture and stared. He didn’t need to say anything for Mac to see the truth written all over his immature, lovesick face. The hate began to well inside him with the power of a fountain that needed to burst out. So Elena had betrayed him. The baby maybe hadn’t been his. At least he might not have to live with another child’s death on his conscience.

  Sergei muttered, ‘I knew I shouldn’t have been seeing her because big brother hates any of us going out with anyone close to the crew. But I couldn’t help it. First time I saw her, I just fell.’ A sudden burst of fear crawled across his face. ‘Don’t tell Reuben about this . . .’

  ‘Did you argue with her?’ Mac knew he was taking a chance provoking Sergei, but all he wanted was the truth.

  ‘Vroom! Vroom!’

  ‘What?’ Sergei half shouted across the table. ‘Are you saying that I had something to do with her going walkabout?’

  The last word was yelled as Sergei surged to his feet, fists balled at his side.

  Mac raised his palms in a peace gesture. ‘I’m not saying anything, just trying to get the full story for Reuben.’

  ‘Well, fuck you. And fuck Reuben.’ Sergei swiped up one of the gizmos on the table and threw it at the wall with all the fury he was feeling.

  Mac’s hand hovered near his hidden gun. ‘Take it easy . . .’

  ‘Don’t tell me to take it fucking easy,’ Sergei belted back.

  ‘Do you want to find out what happened to her?’

  Air puffed out of the younger man’s chest for a few seconds. Then he answered. ‘She was my girl, I was meant to be protecting her. How do you think I’m feeling now she’s disappeared in a puff of smoke? I’ve got a reputation to uphold. If word gets around that I can’t even look after my lady . . .’

  Mac almost sneered. So that’s what this was all about, Sergei’s macho pride had been wounded and he wanted to know the collateral damage it might do to his rep on the street.

  Sergei slumped back in his seat. Grabbed up the photo. ‘No way would I touch her, no way. Why would I kill someone so beautiful?’

  Sergei stabbed his finger again. At the woman . . . Mac hustled forward. Peered closer. That’s when he realised that Sergei was pointing at the woman in the pink wig, not Elena.

  ‘Vroom! Vroom!’

  Mac’s hand slipped off the end of the gun. ‘So you weren’t going out with Elena?’

  ‘Elena?’ Sergei said, wiggling his nose like a bad smell had entered the room. ‘Elena’s in the gang. You know what Reuben’s rules are about that.’

  ‘So what are your girl and Elena doing in the photo together?’

  The younger man’s face closed down. ‘All I know is that they used to hang out together. Calum must’ve found Elena by now . . .’

  Mac’s surprise pushed him closer to Sergei. ‘Calum?’

  ‘Yeah, big brother sent him out to look for her and I know he told him to go down to the club. He takes care of all of Reuben’s awkward jobs, so when there’s anything unpleasant to take care of, our friend gets a call.’

  ‘Do you mean like killing someone?’

  Outside in the yard, a car horn sounded and there was some shouting.

  ‘Dunno. I don’t ask.’

  Mac’s mind spun with the new information. Had Reuben asked Calum to kill Elena? But before he could think through it further, there was more shouting from outside.

  ‘Do you know if Elena had anyone staying with her?’

  ‘Vroom! Vroom!’

  ‘What the fuck . . . ?’ Sergei growled, before he could answer Mac. He jumped up. Strode angrily over to the twin windows with a view of the forecourt outside. Looked out. Opened one of the windows and shouted, ‘Hey, what’s . . .’

  But he never finished the sentence. Instead Mac heard the sound of glass breaking as an object came flying into the office. It spun like a mottled green ball on the wooden floor. For what seemed like minutes, but was only a split second, Mac watched the ball spin. When he realised what it was, he vaulted the desk at the same time as the room flashed in a white and blue sheet of lightning explosion.

  forty-five

  Mac didn’t hear the hand grenade explode. But the shockwaves shattered his eardrums like a hammer blow and crumpled his bo
dy. The room shook from side to side. Furniture broke apart and erupted into the air. The windows burst outwards in a shower of glass. For a few seconds he lay winded. Then clawed desperately, coughing at the smoky air. Struggled to his feet, but collapsed backwards in a heap, gasping for breath in the acrid air.

  Even the buzzing and humming in his ears couldn’t shield him from the noise outside as more hand grenades went off. Then the steady thumping of a sub-machine gun. He heard the screams, yells and pleading of the wounded, crippled and dying. Mac grabbed a corner of the shattered desk, which was charred and smoking. Yelped with pain as the wood burned and came away in his fingers. He rolled onto his front, into a crawling position, and then rose upright like a dead man’s ghost. There was silence, apart from the crackle of flames and the sound of water gushing from unattended hoses.

  Mac found himself curiously calm, as if he were back on the meds he’d been given after Stevie’s death that would take him in and out of the world. As the smoke swirled through the wreckage, he saw a masked figure appear outside. He looked through the empty space where the window had been and caught Mac’s eye. The figure toyed with a sub-machine gun. Raised and pointed it at Mac before hesitating. Suddenly a second, masked man appeared, a machine gun slung over his shoulder. He ran by, grabbed the first by the arm and shouted, ‘Let’s go, let’s go!’

  The gunmen took off towards a black Mercedes; soapy water was pumping over it in the car wash. Black Merc. Elongated, ridged line just below the door handles. Just like the one he’d seen outside the doctor’s. Were these Doctor Mo Masri’s killers? Mac wanted to chase after them, but his legs were too weak. He steadied himself and stumbled to the office entrance. His foot stuck. He looked down and realised that he’d trodden on Sergei’s face. Or what was left of the other man’s face. His body looked like it had been on a dissecting table, his liver and stomach, slopping and wet, strewn around him. Katia and Elena’s happy-times photo lay in the muck of his exploded body.