London Noir: A gripping crime suspense thriller (Kal Medi Book 2)

by Ann Girdharry

  That’s how I found out Charlie was a prostitute. She was a popular student by day with a gaggle of hangers-on, and at night she metamorphosed into a call girl who strutted her stuff for well-off clients.

  I have to be honest and tell you this revelation came as a shock. I’d been seeing her behind the back of her lover for weeks and I had no idea about her clandestine habits. Did it change my view of her? Perhaps it did. Perhaps it made Charlie even more fascinating. For her part, she acted as if she loved her rich boyfriend, whilst seeing me on the side, and trotting out at the weekend with her clients to bring in the cash. So I carried on as if I didn’t know her game. Well, why not?

  Now we all know that no good comes from lies and deceit, don’t we? No surprise then that Charlie was to come to a nasty end, and all her lovers would play their part in it, though not, perhaps, as we each would have imagined.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Situated in London’s green commuter belt, the Kendrick family home sat in an exclusive Surrey neighbourhood. Private driveways were crammed with expensive cars. The place was awash with alarms and security paraphernalia. Marty parked and turned to face Sophie.

  ‘You’re sure you want to go through with this?’

  Sophie bit her lip and nodded.

  ‘Okay,’ Marty said. They’d already spent a good hour discussing the decision with Sophie over breakfast, and Marty had to admit Sophie seemed adamant about her decision. She’d also noticed how Kal tried to keep quiet during the talk, presumably to dampen down Sophie’s need to impress her, and, for that, Marty admired her friend. Taking the back seat didn’t come easily to Kal.

  They walked through the lovely front garden.

  ‘I thought because no one lived here, the place would be neglected, but the garden looks lovely – banks of lavender, roses and those gorgeous delphiniums and fuschia along the wall, and the lilacs are stunning – it’s like one of those gardens you pay to go to see,’ Marty said.

  ‘My brother hires an agency to maintain the property and we’ve a full-time gardener who cares for the grounds. Actually, it’s the same gardener my mother first hired. It’s funny Mr Connell talked about Mum having admirers because I wouldn’t have thought about it but I’m sure the gardener was one of them. I remember the way he used to gaze at Mum.’

  Sophie paused at the front door.

  ‘You’re still sure? Kal asked.

  Sophie shrugged. ‘With you here I feel I can do it. It’s a while since I’ve been back. Last time I fainted and Raymond took me away.’

  ‘You’d better tell us if it gets too much, Sophie,’ Marty said.

  Marty watched as Sophie turned the key in the lock. As the door swung open, Sophie stepped inside, tripping over the door sill and Marty threw Kal a look of concern as they followed behind.

  ***

  Sophie disabled the alarm and stopped in the hallway. Her mother’s flower mural took her breath away - the lilacs and the blues created a stunning masterpiece that must have overwhelmed every guest who stepped through the door. She remembered how delighted her mother had been, every time someone paused, awestruck. Her mother liked to be admired. Liked to be worshipped. Sophie could see the effect the painting had on Kal and she so wished Kal could be impressed like that by her paintings. Better still, what if Kal were impressed like that by Sophie? Wouldn’t that feel wonderful? The thought made Sophie shiver.

  Marty was full of praise too, saying it felt as if Charlotte’s painting brought the garden inside the house. Sophie drowned out Marty’s words. She was being rude, she knew it, except she couldn’t help wishing she had Kal all to herself. Was it wrong to be envious of their friendship? To wish Marty didn’t exist? Sophie shook her head. She shouldn’t think like that. She knew it was bad for her.

  Sophie’s mind felt numb and her steps were robotic as she led them to the lounge. What had she expected to find? A bloodstained carpet? Crimson streaks on the floor where her mother had tried to crawl away? Of course not. It was all perfect, with new furnishings and tasteful decoration. Raymond had seen to that years ago.

  Kal and Marty trailed behind, treading quietly and both careful not to ask questions. She was the guide and they were the followers. She trailed her hand over the golden upholstery of the new lounge furniture. It was lovely, but it had no life in it. And it was not at all what her mother would have chosen.

  From the window, Sophie looked down the length of the garden. At the far end, down by the willows, Thomas the gardener was stooped over a wheelbarrow. He still had his red hair, recognisable even at this distance, and he appeared, of course, much older than before. She waved and Thomas didn’t look up, though he must have known they were there.

  ‘Perhaps we can go and speak to him when we’re finished,’ Kal said.

  Sophie gave a vague nod and headed out into the hallway and up her father’s staircase. Mum always said it reminded her of a Hollywood staircase because it was so grand and extravagant. As if on automatic, Sophie put her hand up, pinching her nose to block out the smell of-? Of what? She had no idea.

  If Marty hadn’t been tired, Sophie supposed it might not have happened like it did. Marty was recuperating and stairs seemed to be an issue because she trod heavily as they went up, and then halfway, on Sophie’s little landing at the fifteenth step, Marty made to sit down. As Marty’s weight sank into the carpet, Sophie felt her world shifting and crumbling. As if the ground she stood on fell away and she tumbled down a sheer cliff face.

  Somebody screamed and Sophie screwed her eyes shut.

  She felt someone take a firm hold of her arms.

  ‘Keep breathing, Sophie. Look at me, I’m right here, you’re safe,’ Kal said.

  Sophie opened her eyes and looked at Kal. She knew she wasn’t safe.

  A horrible, cold weakness had claimed Sophie’s legs. It all started to fall apart. A dark mist swirled in and she could hear voices – her father’s voice and her mother’s voice. The voices of ghosts. Perhaps she really was mad. She couldn’t stop screaming and Kal and Marty were carrying her down the stairs. Sophie clutched at handfuls of Kal’s hair and hung on. They got her in the car and Marty drove away and Kal sat holding Sophie tight. And she screamed all the way back to 701.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Kal sat in the four by four. She kept thinking of Sophie screaming on the staircase with her red mouth open and full of blood where she’d bitten straight through her lip. Push it away, she commanded herself, you can’t let it distract you or you’re dead.

  Kal could smell stale sweat and cigarette smoke. She had three companions, each unknown and dressed as she was in black from head to toe, all the way to their leather gloves. The four of them sat in silence. They stared out at the three other vehicles in Raphael’s team. The cars were arranged in a semi-circle in front of a fence topped with razor wire. This was Raphael’s team and this was Raphael’s job. They were outside a warehouse somewhere in the east end of London. Where exactly, Kal couldn’t say, since she’d been hooded for the last stretch of the journey. It seemed Raphael wasn’t taking any chances with her, and what the warehouse contained and what they were waiting for, she had no idea. All she knew was that she must follow his orders.

  A white van approached and Kal felt her pulse accelerate. Missing out Kal, Raphael had earlier passed around semi-automatics – guns which behaved like machine guns and were favoured by the low-lives of the underworld. The man next to her stroked his moustache with one hand, his other cradling the metal barrel, fingers light, arm and shoulders relaxed and breathing steady in the attitude of a hardened criminal. All of the team were hardened. She’d seen it in their posture and attitude, even without hearing their voices. Kal fought the urge to swallow, knowing the sound would reverberate in the silence and mark her out as an amateur. David Khan had trained her well, but this was a notch above her experience and the terms were Raphael’s. Keep your nerve, she told herself, you can do it. Play it through step by step.

  When the white van
pulled up, the limping form of Raphael exited one of cars. He tap-tapped his way towards the back of the van, with the stocky silhouette of Clarence in tow. Words were exchanged and then a signal passed which Kal missed because the man next to her nodded his head and said one terse word. ‘Out’. He had an eastern European accent.

  Everyone got out and stood around on the tarmac. Sixteen people. Eyes front. Focused on the van. Waiting.

  Kal didn’t look at faces and didn’t scan around in an obvious way because she couldn’t be sure it wouldn’t earn her a bullet in the back. She just stood there, part of the team. Was Raphael buying or selling, she wondered? What did the van contain? With a storage that size the goods were bulky. Dante had already told her Raphael didn’t deal in the Cartel’s drug business, so what did that leave? Arms, counterfeit money, chemicals, explosives? What lucrative operations might Raphael have running in and out of London? One of the crime capitals of the world.

  A limousine came along the entrance road to the warehouse. Somewhere on Kal’s right, one of Raphael’s team coughed. Fingers started to tap on guns. This was where it could get tricky. Where a few people might end up dead. Kal knew which way she’d dive for cover. Which way she’d crawl, maybe shielding herself with a wounded or dead body. She hoped to hell her knee didn’t let her down.

  Kal couldn’t see who exactly got out of the limo, though she was surprised because from the silhouette and gait, it was certainly a woman. And why not? Not all of London’s crime scene would be controlled by men. Raphael accepted a briefcase, presumably containing the pay-off and members of the woman’s crew got in the van and drove it away, the limo following behind. Was it really that simple? Kal felt the tension draining from her body. If repaying her obligation to the Cartel was as easy as turning up for this handover, she needn’t have been concerned. There was nothing she could do to stop this and very little information she could report back to Spinks. She’d turned up and soon she could be on her way. She breathed a sigh of relief. Debt paid.

  Kal waited for Raphael to dismiss his crew. Except he didn’t. It was then that her instincts started kicking up.

  ‘It seems we have a little problem,’ Raphael said.

  No one shuffled. They probably didn’t even blink. These people were disciplined.

  ‘Before the handover tonight I double checked the merchandise.’

  Raphael was walking amongst them, his cane tapping on the ground.

  ‘I did that last time too and do you know why?’

  Tap, tap.

  No one replied. All eyes were kept to the front, military style.

  ‘Because my esteemed colleague, Estelle, has been informing me our shipments fall short of her order.’ Raphael’s breath misted in the damp night air.

  Tap, tap.

  ‘It’s so terribly bad for business. Bad for my reputation. Bad for my stress levels. And you know how very personally I take anything which affects my stress level.’

  Raphael had stopped and no one moved a muscle. Without warning, Raphael whirled, his body moving like a whiplash, and he brought his cane down crack on the side of a man’s head. The man buckled, his semi-automatic falling with a clatter. No one else moved.

  Kal stared. The man on the ground could have reached his weapon. Could have maybe got off a couple of crazy rounds before the others finished him off. Crack. Raphael bought his cane down a second time and she saw how his face was contorted with fury.

  He pointed in Kal’s direction.

  ‘You! Get over here.’

  In the dark, she felt the force of his command. Felt the hatred and the relish as Raphael anticipated how he was going to use her. This was going to be bad. Very bad. Kal’s legs refused to move and she had to force herself to walk over. No, she mustn’t show any weakness. Not one tiny chink in her façade. She froze her face into a blank mask.

  ‘Get him into the warehouse,’ Raphael told her, and she could feel Raphael studying her, hoping to see horror or fear or dismay. Kal showed him none of that and grabbed one arm of the fallen man whilst the man with the moustache grabbed the other.

  Inside the warehouse, they strapped him to a chair. The room held several wooden crates and Kal took the chance of glancing in and saw semi-automatics nestling in polystyrene chips. Her skin went clammy. So, Raphael really was one of the big boys. This merchandise would be worth a fortune. Worth maiming for at will. Worth killing to control the market.

  The man in the chair had a shaven head and a stud ear-ring. He was toughened and he didn’t seem worried. Kal wondered how the hell Raphael knew this man was implicated in the missing guns. Or had Raphael simply picked someone at random to force out information? Or to take out his spite on a victim? Make the man an example. Raphael had all the markings of someone unhinged by power and pure evil. And he had the backing of the Cartel which made him impossible to oppose. He undoubtedly tortured and killed without turning a hair. Kal had a terrible premonition why he’d wanted her involved tonight, and as her own part in it started to warp out of shape, a cold fear took hold of her.

  Raphael had regained his angelic composure. ‘Go to it,’ he told the man with the moustache.

  Kal watched as the captured man was stripped to the waist. He then received blow after blow to his face and chest. It was the sound of it that started to get to her – the squelching of meat as his face began to cave. The cracking of his ribs. The man suppressed groans at each strike, though no words came out and she wondered how long he’d hold out before he started screaming in agony. Kal felt certain she would throw up and that Raphael would take a delight in it. But it wasn’t long before Raphael seemed to grow bored and it confirmed her view – this was every day entertainment for him.

  ‘And what do you make of all this, Kal,’ he asked her. ‘Is it to your liking?’

  He wanted to see her recoil. Wanted to see her horrified. And so, she gave him none of it.

  ‘This is your business not mine,’ she said.

  ‘Oh dear, you were your daddy’s favourite, weren’t you? But I’m making it your business too, and I think it might be quite fun, don’t you, to soften this one up and then you and I can see what you’re really made of? A couple of days and he’ll soon feel like talking, don’t you think?’

  ‘You sick bastard,’ she said.

  Raphael laughed. ‘Ah yes, so now we’re starting to get to know each other.’

  ***

  Kal was hooded again and taken from the scene some time later. By then, the victim’s face was swollen and grotesque and blood coursed down his battered body. He panted, sagging forward against the restraints, but he wasn’t yet broken, because his groans had given way to sharp noises of terror before each punch, rather than the screams of a mad man. He would live, she thought, in agony and slowly succumbing to shock or infection because his wounds were severe only not yet life threatening.

  They dropped her not far from 701, and Kal held on until the car was out of sight and then threw up in the bushes, heaving until there was nothing left. She was trapped in Raphael’s sick games. Worse, he would try to implicate her, she knew it. Try to write her name on the dead man’s body. Because Kal felt certain it would end in murder. How the hell was she going to get out of this? How the hell was she going to stop Raphael manipulating her so that she’d owe him for his silence for the rest of her life?

  In the toilet of 701, she went into another bout of dry heaving. Sophie was asleep behind her barricade and Kal sat on the floor of the lounge, exhausted and terrified. She hugged her own body, wrapping her arms tightly around, until she stopped shaking. She searched through David Khan’s teachings, meticulously sifting through everything he taught her, hunting for an escape route, for some nugget of information that might help her. And though she stayed up all night searching, she found nothing to save her.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Someone was trying to kill her. In the nightmare, Sophie screamed as a dark form pressed into her, blending with her own body like a giant parasite. An ev
il voice pressed into her mind. It drowned out her own thoughts and replaced them with its own vile words.

  ‘Sophie, it’s okay, I’m here. You’re safe.’

  Kal’s words came from far away and Sophie could hardly grab on to them. She opened her eyes and tried to tell Kal this was the nightmare she had a Melrose but the words wouldn’t come out. Sophie let Kal hold her and she listened to herself gibbering like a mad person. By the time she came back from the nightmare, she knew for sure that Kal was wrong. That she was in danger. And so was Kal.

  Much later that morning, Marty rang the intercom. She’d brought fruit for breakfast and bagels and again Sophie was jealous at the ease between Kal and Marty. You could practically see the camaraderie and closeness as if it were a physical thing. Bits of bagel stuck in Sophie’s throat. It was then she decided she needed a plan.

  ***

  Marty put a second bagel on her plate and filled it with cream cheese. ‘I checked out Connell’s employment record and there was no obvious correlation with the deaths of Spinks’ women. That doesn’t mean much. Connell was in the UK the whole time, so he could have had access. What’s our next step? Tracking down Sugar G? Giving Raymond a shake and see what comes out? Kal, are you listening?’

  It didn’t seem Kal had got much sleep last night. What with her insomnia and then dealing with Sophie’s nightmare, she looked washed out. Marty frowned. They needed Kal’s full attention, and right now she didn’t look capable of giving it.

  ‘Kal? Are you all right?’ Marty asked.

  ‘Sure. Melrose is our next step,’ Kal said, looking straight at Sophie. ‘Your headaches started at Melrose and you keep running away from that place and I want to know why. Then Eliza dies there. What do you think, Sophie?’