by John Harvey
‘If that is your attitude …’ the solicitor began, rising from his seat.
‘You are the owner,’ Chris Phillips said swiftly, addressing Balaci, ‘of a metallic grey Volvo S90, registration DR66 TDP.’
Balaci shrugged. The solicitor sat back down.
‘Said vehicle,’ Phillips said, ‘was seen twice on Highgate Road between Linton House and the Forum late on the evening of Saturday, April the eighth’
‘ANPR,’ Balaci said with the edge of a smile. ‘Of course. I saw the sign.’
‘Then you admit to being the driver of the car?’
‘Who else?’
‘Perhaps you could tell us what you were doing there?’
Balaci shrugged. ‘A favour for a friend.’
‘A friend?’
‘A young lady.’
‘Does this lady have a name?’
‘Naturally. Sorina. Sorina Nicolescu.’
‘And what is the nature, would you say, of this friendship?’
Balaci leaned his head to one side. ‘We are compatriots, that is all. From Bucharest.’
‘And that was enough for you to leave whatever you might have been doing and not only take her to her destination, but collect her afterwards?’
Balaci shrugged. ‘She asks, I oblige.’
‘Why, I wonder, didn’t she simply take a taxi? Rather than risk inconveniencing you?’
He shrugged his shoulders again, lazily. ‘Women sometimes, who knows?’
Hadley stared back at him, stone-faced.
‘You knew where she was going?’ Phillips said. ‘Sorina. Where you were taking her?’
‘To visit a friend.’
‘A friend of a friend, then?’
Balaci smiled.
‘You know this friend’s name?’
Balaci shook his head. ‘Only that he is artist, I think.’
‘You don’t know his name?’
‘No.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘You are badgering my client,’ the solicitor said. ‘He has already answered your question. He did not know the man’s name.’
‘Not then,’ Hadley said. ‘But later, surely?’
‘I’m sorry, I do not understand.’
‘Later, when it was all over the news, all across social media that this same artist, Anthony Winter, had been murdered.’
Balaci casually crossed one leg over the other. ‘I did not – what is your expression? – place two and two together.’
‘Do you remember, from what you heard, how exactly he was killed?’
‘No, but he was stabbed perhaps. It happens so often now in London, stabbings all the time.’
‘He was beaten to death. Beaten to death with manacles and an iron chain. Beaten in a frenzy.’
‘Manacles – sorry, I do not …’
‘Handcuffs. Old-fashioned handcuffs.’ Hadley leaned forward. ‘You understand handcuffs, surely?’
Balaci didn’t answer.
‘I think, Detective Chief Inspector,’ the solicitor said, ‘this line of questioning is oppressive.’
‘I’m sure Mr Balaci can stand up for himself, can’t you, Mr Balaci? A little to and fro, a little banter, that’s nothing to you? A little give and take.’ She leaned forward, engaged Balaci with her eyes. ‘The kind you exchanged with Gerry Carlin, remember? Is that what it was like with Anthony Winter? When you called round again later demanding money? A little push and shove?’
‘Money? What money?’
‘However much you thought you could get.’
‘Get? Get for what?’ He glanced at his solicitor and the solicitor raised a hand, palm outwards, fingers outstretched. ‘All right, this has got to stop.’
‘Photographs, probably,’ Hadley said, ‘like it was for Carlin? Photos you were threatening to put on social media? Video? Little games he played with your friend, Sorina. The kind of games he might pay to have suppressed. That might be bad for his reputation.’
The solictor was on his feet. ‘This interview is over. You have nothing, no evidence that my client has been involved in wrongdoing of any kind. This has been nothing more than a fishing expedition of the worst kind, fuelled only, it appears, by your personal animosity. We are leaving. And rest assured, I shall be lodging a complaint at the highest level.’
Balaci was on his feet now, too, the smile in Hadley’s direction offset by a quick glimpse of lizard tongue. The solicitor stood to one side to let his client exit first, then closed the door firmly behind them.
‘Fuck!’ Hadley said. ‘Fuck, fuck and double fuck! I let that smarmy, smug bastard get to me.’
Turning, she kicked her chair hard against the wall.
‘We didn’t have him, boss,’ Phillips said. ‘We never had him. Never even came close.’
He bent down and set the chair to rights.
46
Elder climbed over the granite stile and made his way between patches of brightly flowering yellow gorse, across a paddock of coarse grass and bracken and down towards the sea. To his left, the old engine houses of the Carn Galver mine stood out against the sky. A buzzard hovered overhead, buoyed up by the wind. It was almost a week since he had last seen Katherine, two days since he had spoken to her on the phone. Three days now since Shane Donald’s body had been found. Rumours of Adam Keach being seen in Scotland that were difficult to believe.
Katherine had sounded chirpy enough, considering all she had had to contend with; together with her friend, Chrissy, she had been round to the house of an art teacher they knew – Vida, was it? – eaten too much good food, laughed a lot, drunk too much wine. She thought in a week or so she might even feel up to returning to work, doing some modelling again. The rent still needed paying, after all.
Elder had made encouraging noises, wanting to believe; fearful that this new-found confidence was a carapace waiting to crack. Ahead, the buzzard swerved suddenly and plunged, faster than the eye could follow, down on to its prey.
Colin Sherbourne, it was clear from the brief conversation they’d had, was almost as dubious about the recent sightings of Keach as Elder himself, but in the absence of anything further, what could he do but watch and wait?
Elder hated it, the waiting and, in his case, hundreds of miles distant, the feeling of helplessness that went with it. It was all he could do not to board the next train, or jump in the car and drive.
‘He’ll not thank you, you know,’ Cordon had told him. ‘Sherbourne, that his name? Breathing over his shoulder, second-guessing. Think how you’d feel if it were your investigation. That detective chief inspector up in London the same. Cop comes out of retirement to solve crimes might make a good headline, but we both know that doesn’t make it true.’
Elder realised that made absolute sense and bridled against it all the same: the powerlessness, the inability to influence what was going on – to crack the case, solve the crime – it was as simple as that.
‘I fucked up,’ Hadley said that morning, standing by the kitchen worktop, waiting for the toaster to do its job. ‘Totally, inexcusably fucked up.’
‘What it sounds like to me,’ Rachel said, ‘all you’re guilty of, if anything, is an error of judgement. A relatively small one, at that. And you do know, don’t you, if you stand there like that over the toaster, the bread’ll never brown in a month of Sundays.’
‘I ignored the facts, such as they are. Let my emotions get the better of me. And made myself look foolish and incompetent in front of a junior officer.’
‘And that’s what’s really getting to you as much as anything. You do realise that?’
‘Yes, well, I could do without the analysis, thank you very much. Now, marmalade or jam?’
‘Marmalade. No, make it peanut butter.’
‘I don’t think we’ve got any.’
‘I bought some the other day.’
‘Where? I don’t see …’
‘There in the cupboard, right in front of you.’
Hadley reached for the ja
r and it slipped through her fingers, fell to the ground and smashed.
‘Fuck! Fuck, fuck and fuck.’
‘It doesn’t matter. Just make sure you don’t cut yourself, step on any of that glass. Here, look, I’ll sweep it up. You sit down a minute.’
‘I’m okay.’
‘Are you?’
‘Yes, I’m fine.’
Rachel gave her a quick hug, kissed her on the cheek, and fetched the dustpan and brush. Marmalade would have to do.
There was worse waiting for Hadley when she arrived at Holmes Road. Detective Chief Inspector Andy Price, head of the Met’s Modern Slavery and Kidnap unit within Human Exploitation and Organised Crime Command. Hadley knew him from conferences, knew his face, his name, his reputation. Fools, suffer, gladly – rearrange into a well-known phrase or saying.
Worse still, it looked as if Price had been in conference with the DCS; was, in fact, on his way from McKeon’s office when Hadley bumped into him.
‘Alex,’ he said brightly. ‘Well met.’
They went to her office, closed the door. Offers of tea, coffee, water politely refused.
‘Grigore Balaci,’ Price said. ‘What was all that about?’
Hadley took a deep breath. ‘Error of judgement,’ she said, remembering Rachel’s words. ‘Wading in before properly checking the background, checking the facts. Which, if I had done, might well have meant we’d never have gone after him at all.’
‘You thought he might have been involved in your murder? The artist, Winter?’
‘I thought it possible, yes. His name came up and … well, I acted, shall we say, precipitously. And Balaci went off laughing.’
Price nodded, pushed a hand up through his hair. ‘In the long run, maybe no bad thing.’
‘What’s your interest, anyway?’ Hadley asked.
‘In Grigore, to be honest, very little. As far as we’re concerned, small beer. It’s his uncle, Ciprian, we’re interested in. Along with Immigration and HM Revenue and Customs, we’ve been building a case against him for the best part of a year. More. Trafficking, abduction, procuring and trading in prostitution, all on a major scale. I just wanted to make sure your interest in one of the family didn’t clash with ours. But it seems as if that’s all fine. In fact, if anything it might do us a small favour.’
‘How so?’
‘If the old man or any of the Balacis were getting wind of us sniffing round, you bringing Grigore in the way you did might throw them off track.’
‘How close are you to making your move?’ Hadley asked.
Price held up forefinger and thumb and brought them close together until they were almost touching.
‘Good luck,’ she said, getting to her feet.
They shook hands at the door.
By the time Elder arrived back in the village it was late afternoon. Still several hours off sunset, the temperature had already started falling as clouds shunted heavily across the sky. He was on the path between the church and the pub, on his way back to the cottage, when the pub landlord called his name.
‘This came for you,’ he said, holding an envelope aloft. ‘Someone who didn’t know your exact address. Maybe forgot.’
Elder thanked him, glanced at the envelope, and, not recognising the writing or being able to read the blurred postmark, pushed it down into his pocket. Time enough, once he’d unlaced his boots and set the kettle on for tea.
Peckish after his walk, he cut off a wedge of cheese and a hunk of bread, took an apple from the bowl and carried them all out into the back garden together with his mug of tea. Moved the bench so as to get the last true warmth of the sun.
Using the same knife with which he’d cut the apple into quarters, he sliced the envelope open.
A postcard, overbright colours, Skegness, donkeys on the beach.
He turned it over.
47
Forensic records confirmed the presence of Keach’s fingerprints on both the card and the envelope; the lettering of the message similar, if not identical, to examples of his penmanship on record. The card had been posted in Skegness early on the morning of the previous day, CCTV showing someone with a close resemblance to Keach in the vicinity of the post office on Roman Bank, in the centre of the town.
Lincolnshire Police were informed, officers from the Coast and Wolds district covering Skegness and the surrounding area, put on high alert.
Katherine, having turned down the suggestion of moving temporarily into a hostel, was issued by the police with a panic alarm which was patched through to the personal radio network and would be acted on immediately; her mobile number was flagged on to the system and linked, on speed dial, to a priority number which only needed one or two digits to be pushed in order to elicit a response. Two officers from the Safer Neighbourhood Team went round to her flat and offered advice as to locks and general security. Foot patrols in the area would be stepped up, checks and drive-bys scheduled. What more was there they could do?
Elder talked to Katherine on several occasions, wanting both to warn and reassure her, striving for a balance between the two. At first she had sounded shocked, frightened; then calmer, on the surface at least, more matter-of-fact; keeping her fears under control, under wraps.
When Elder offered to come up to London she told him there was no need. With what seemed like half the local police force calling round all the time, what possible difference would him being there make? And neither, thank you, did she want to go running off down to Cornwall to stay with him. She had a life to live, after all – she was just starting to get it back on track – and she wasn’t going to be frightened out of it by a few words scribbled on a postcard.
Be careful? Of course she’d be careful. What did he think?
He thought she was foolish; he thought she was putting on a brave front. He thought, after discussing it with Cordon, and then with Colin Sherbourne, that the card could well be a red herring, a way of laying down a false scent, setting a false trail.
‘If that’s really his intention,’ Cordon said, ‘going after Kate, why give fair warning? Surely that’s the last thing he’d do? No, I think, giving wrong information aside, he just wants to get up your nose, make you worried and angry. Taunting you, that’s what he’s doing. Letting you know he’s still free. And besides, how does he even know where she lives? If he’s IT savvy enough, he could use her social-media footprint to track her down, but I doubt if he is. He couldn’t even find out your exact address, remember, just the name of the village from it being all over the papers.’
‘Looks as if you were right,’ Sherbourne said, ‘about Keach sticking to the east coast, where he knows. Skeggy, Mablethorpe, up as high as Whitby, maybe. Saltburn. That’s where we’ll find him. And we will.’
That weekend, the proprietor of a crazy golf course in Ingoldmells, two miles north along the coast from Skegness, thought he recognised Keach from his photo on the television news and notified the police accordingly.
‘Right shifty, if you ask me,’ he told the officers who attended. ‘Saw me looking at him, interested like, and buggered off sharpish. Up towards the dunes.’
Monday morning, Maureen Tracy, a single mum living on Richmond Drive, close to the Tesco superstore in the centre of Skegness, went into her sixteen-year-old daughter Jessica’s room and found the bed had not been slept in. She’d gone off to a party with friends and not returned home.
48
Hadley’s team redoubled their efforts: checked back again through all the available CCTV, traced the owners of vehicles seen in the vicinity of Winter’s studio on the night in question, reinterviewed people living in the flats nearby. Because of the hour, there had not been a large number of pedestrians using that stretch of Highgate Road and they assiduously tracked down as many of them as they could. A man who had been seen on camera ducking into the path leading to the studio, and who they thought might be of interest, was eventually found to be someone who, after several hours in the Bull and Gate, had simply been looking f
or somewhere to take a much-needed piss.
Mark Foster continued to burrow into Winter’s life, personal and professional, hoping to turn up something that might provide a fresh lead, a clue worth following. Through Rebecca Johnson and Vida Dullea, Alice Atkins contacted the models who had posed for Winter in the years preceding Katherine, one of whom admitted having participated in a short-lived sexual relationship, another claiming that she had been propositioned, but declined to be involved. With some striking exceptions – a West African, tall with severely cropped hair, and a petite Chinese woman with tattoos on much of her body – the models Winter favoured, Alice noted after going back a dozen or more years, were very much of a type, a type exemplified by Katherine Elder: the same cut and colour of hair, the same hazel eyes.
Howard Dean, meanwhile, continued the slippery task of tracking down the women Winter had contacted through various sites on the Internet. A task made all the more difficult by the fact that as soon as one site closed down, it reopened under a different name. As did the women whose sincere friendship was advertised: Valeria from the Ukraine looked an awful lot like Valmira from Albania.
Earlier that morning, 5.30 precisely, fifteen minutes ahead of officially designated sunrise, some seventy officers from units within Human Exploitation and Organised Crime Command had raided the Epping home of Ciprian Balaci and other premises belonging to him in Romford and Walthamstow. Thanks to a friendly tip-off which had resulted in a BBC News camera crew being conveniently present at Balaci’s address, Hadley had been able to watch edited highlights on her mobile phone over breakfast. Ciprian Balaci being bundled into the back of a van before being charged, later that morning, with false accounting and fraudulent evasion of tax, controlling prostitution for gain, and human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation. Somewhere out of picture, Hadley thought, Andy Price must be feeling pretty pleased with himself. She wished she could feel the same.
She was on her way back to her office after another chastening meeting with McKeon, when Mark Foster intercepted her.
