Family Reunion

by Robert F Barker

  ‘Right,’ West said as soon as they were gone. He took another long drag on his cigarette, winding himself up, before flicking it away into the hedge. Carver noted where it landed, so he could tell whoever was in charge of the Ground Search Team later. ‘I want to know what the fuck’s going on. How did you and this PC come to be involved with Maleeva without me knowing?’

  Carver nodded. Under the circumstances it was a fair question, and he met West’s gaze squarely. ‘I was looking to see if there was another way of finding the family apart from trawling immigration records.’

  ‘On whose authority?’ West‘s voice rose in pitch. ‘I thought it had been agreed you aren’t involved in this investigation?’

  Carver checked his response. They both knew there was nothing particularly unusual in an officer not involved in a major enquiry putting out feelers. So long as it didn’t cut across an existing line of investigation, most SIOs put up with it, happily. It was an extra resource, and a break from any source was still a break. But West would know that Carver had ignored his own boss’s instructions. Okay, that was a matter for him, not West, but the obvious inference was already bouncing around his head like a pin-ball machine, and West would be aware of it. Am I in some way responsible for all this?

  ‘I’m not involved. It was just something I thought I could help with.’

  West couldn’t resist the opportunity. ‘Tell that to those poor sods in there.’

  It was savage comment and for a moment Carver thought about responding. Despite what had happened, he hoped that once he’d thought about it, he would know that his attempt to use Radi Maleeva as a source was legitimate under the circumstances. There were always risks in such things, but if detectives weren’t prepared - encouraged even - to take them, half the murderers serving time in the country’s prisons would still be on the streets. But he wasn’t about to disrespect the memory of the family Padma had been close to by getting into an argument with West about it, not here. Besides, it was time he found out how she was managing. He’d left her sipping tea in next door’s kitchen, rapidly turning into the scene’s unofficial cafe. The snippets picked up by the lady of the house would ensure her popularity around the morning coffee circuit for weeks to come.

  ‘Look, Terry-’ Carver began, but as he saw the look on West’s face he knew that nothing he said would dissuade his ex-colleague from making the most of it. He suspected he would be hearing from Nigel Broom before long. He gave a resigned look. ‘Forget it. Let’s just say it was a bad idea. Just get on and catch the bastard.’ He turned on his heel.

  ‘Hang on, I’m not finished yet,’ West said to his departing back. ‘I need to know what this Maleeva bloke told you.’

  Carver stopped and turned. ‘Nothing. He wanted to see us this morning to tell us something. But we’ll never know now, will we?’

  Ignoring West’s demands to come back, Carver strode out the gate and turned right, heading for the neighbouring drive just as Jess, Alec and Mikayel appeared from it.

  ‘How’s Padma?’ he said.

  ‘Getting it together,’ Jess said. ‘How’s he?’ She flicked her head in West’s direction.

  ‘Chunnering. I’ve left him to it.’

  ‘So what’s the connection between Danelian and the Maleevas?’ Jess said. She had arrived with West and it was the first chance they’d had to speak alone. ‘This can’t be a coincidence.’

  He filled them in on Radi’s business, what he’d hoped to learn.

  ‘But why kill them?’ Alec said. ‘If Vahrig’s already here, wouldn’t he go straight for his family rather than alert us by this?’

  Carver shrugged. ‘We can’t be sure of his intentions yet, Alec. Maybe he’s got another agenda.’

  ‘DI GREYLAKE?’

  West’s shout signalled his impatience to get on with things. Jess’s conflicted look as she looked at the tall hedge between the two houses then back to Carver spoke of her concern as to what her former partner might be planning.

  ‘So what’re you going to do now?’

  There was a defiant look in Carver’s face as he stared through the hedge. ‘My mum had a saying. Might as well get hung for a penny as a pound.’

  Jess blinked her confusion, before letting it go and glaring at him. ‘Aren’t you in enough trouble already?’

  Carver’s eyes bore no trace of conflict as he turned from Mikayel to her. ‘People are dying Jess. I’m going to do my job. I’ll catch up with you later.’

  Repeating the goodbyes he’d made the previous day to Mikayel - ‘I’m sorry this had to happen just as you are leaving,’ - he shook the psychiatrist’s hand before disappearing round the side of the house to find Padma.

  Jess turned to Alec and Mikayel. ‘Great. Jamie and Terry West trying to score points off each other is all we need.’ But as she saw the look on Mikayel’s face, her thought was that he seemed strangely unaffected by the apparent conflicts he had just witnessed. She had seen what seemed a meaningful look pass between him and Jamie as the two men parted.

  The Scotsman also seemed sanguine. ‘Och, lassie, they’re big boys, leave them to it. An’ speakin’ personally, I’d rather the boss was working with us, even if it has got to be unofficial.’

  Jess turned to him. ‘It’s alright for you. You aren’t the one who’s going to be getting the phone calls from Rosanna.’

  ‘ JESS? ARE YOU THERE?’

  She gave the two men a resigned look. ‘You’d better get Mikayel to the airport while I start getting this scene sorted. We’ll speak about Jamie later.’ She turned to Mikayel.

  ‘Goodbye again, Mikayel. Hopefully when we meet next this will all be over.’

  ‘I hope so too,’ he said. ‘But at least you can keep me informed how things are going now.’ He took the leaving present she had given him the night before from his pocket and waved it, to show him how chuffed he still was. The Samsung’s silver and black case glinted in the morning sun.

  ‘Don’t lose it,’ she said.

  ‘I won’t,’ he promised.

  Half an hour later, Carver headed away from the scene, leaving Padma to brief the just-arrived Family Liaison Officer - something positive she could do. As he drove, he fought to keep at bay the doubts that had been threatening to form since his face-off with West.

  It wasn’t his fault, he told himself. It couldn’t be. Radi meeting his death the day after they had met would be too much of a coincidence. Something had happened to mark Radi and his family as targets beforehand. But what?

  As he headed back into the city, determined to find out, his seat belt pressed against the bunch of keys he’d taken from the desk drawer in Radi’s study. Reaching into his pocket he pulled them out and tossed them onto the passenger seat before checking his watch. It was already gone noon. The day had disappeared quickly following the discovery of the slaughter and there were things that needed doing before it was over.

  He turned his attention back to his musings and drove to his destination mainly on auto-pilot. Which was why he remained unaware of the silver saloon that always managed to stay at least two cars behind him.

  CHAPTER 35

  Lucy peered, expectantly, out of Starbuck’s window, scanning the passing shoppers and office workers as she sipped her latte. The day before, after lunch, he’d seemed uncharacteristically vague as they parted. ‘Maybe see you again tomorrow,’ was all he offered.

  Now she was embarrassed to admit that though she had been telling herself all morning she was being foolish she had, deep down, assumed he would show. But half an hour had passed already and still there was no sign.

  She kept trying to convince herself that it was probably just some work commitment that had detained him. He hadn’t actually said what he did, mentioning only something about some ‘project’ he was involved in when she asked. But the thought was beginning to settle that her ridiculous nervousness had finally seen him off, like all the others.

  ‘You stupid, stupid, woman,’ she scolded herself under he
r breath. Then, realising the young man on the stool next to her was glancing, warily, her way, she continued the dialogue in her head.

  Why can’t you just be natural? No wonder they never come back, the way you respond to their every question with suspicion. Isn’t it normal for a man who is interested in a woman to ask about where she comes from, her family, their background? It is time you learned to trust people. But then she remembered the reasons why she didn’t trust people. Her family’s past. What the future may yet hold for her. The telephone call from Cyprus - she was still to mention it to her mother, though was planning to do so that evening. But why should all that stop you behaving normally with someone who knows nothing about such matters? He was just doing what any man does who wants to get to know a woman better. Where is the harm in that? Oh no. You have to make a big thing out of it, like he is about to ask to meet your parents or something, as if it were the prelude to a proposal. Stupid woman.

  ‘Hello, Lucine.’

  She gulped, nearly choking on the coffee she was swallowing as he’d said it. How the devil had she missed seeing him come in?

  ‘H-hello,’ she stammered. ‘I didn’t think you were coming today.’

  ‘I am sorry, I am running late. Busy morning.’ He was red in the face, like he had been jogging.

  ‘I don’t have much longer I’m afraid,’ she said, trying to keep the disappointment out of her voice. She checked her watch. ‘I am due back in a few minutes.’

  His face fell. ‘What a shame. I was looking forward to lunch. I, er-.’ He looked at her in a way she thought was almost sheepish. ‘I enjoyed talking to you yesterday. I was hoping….’ As she gazed up at him, waiting to hear it, she willed herself not to flush. Don’t turn red. Don’t you dare turn red. ‘I was hoping we might be able to repeat it sometime.’

  Lucy felt her ears warming. ‘Well, I’m here most days-.’

  ‘I don’t mean here,’ he said, quickly. ‘I thought we might…. I wondered if….’

  Her heart began pounding.’Yes?’

  He took a deep breath. ‘I wondered if I could take you somewhere? Dinner perhaps?’ He must have read her face. ‘Or maybe just a drink, if dinner is too much?’

  She felt her stomach tying itself in knots, the familiar panic. But as she fished for the usual excuse, she remembered her one-sided conversation of a minute before. So. Is this the way it will always be, or are you going to stop it, right now?

  ‘I… I would like that.’

  He beamed. ‘How about tomorrow? I could call for you. Maybe around, seven-thirty?’

  She thought a moment. She needed time to help her mother settle Dadda. ‘Well… Could you make it eight?’

  ‘Eight it is.’

  She slipped off her stool, eager to leave before she made an even bigger fool of herself.

  Suddenly she stopped. ‘I’ve just realised. You don’t know where I live.’ His mouth opened as if to say something, then closed again. She delved into her bag, took out a pen and scrap of paper and scribbled her address. ‘Here,’ she said, handing it to him. He barely glanced at it before slipping it into his coat pocket.

  Heading back to work, Lucy suddenly remembered the phone call she had resolved to discuss with her mother that evening. She had been putting it off, knowing how her mother would likely react. She knew there would be no going out for a while once she did. Time was drifting and she had already left things longer than was probably wise. But events of the last few minutes had emboldened her. No matter, she told herself. Another day or so cannot harm. In any case, it would give her a while longer to think over their options.

  In lighter mood than she had been for a long time, she returned to her altered schedule. And as she made her way back to the office, it was all Lucy could do to stop herself from skipping along the pavement.

  CHAPTER 36

  Carver’s gaze roamed the dead moneylender’s cluttered office. He had half-expected to find it ransacked, but the shop was still locked when he arrived, and there were no signs anyone had been there before him.

  Though he had chosen, quite deliberately, not to dwell on it, Carver knew he was now going far beyond the bounds of, ‘putting out feelers’. By searching the victim’s office without authority - legal, investigative or otherwise - he was leaving himself open to accusations of, ‘undue interference’, and was in no doubt West would not hesitate to make them. But the clock was running and he knew the way West liked to operate, slow and methodical. It would be hours before he got round to thinking about searching Radi’s business premises.

  Carver knew better than to look for rationality in any of Vahrig Danelian’s actions, and he wasn’t about to assume that the slaying of the Maleeva family would slake the killer’s thirst for blood. On the contrary, he read it as a sign that the man they were after may be throwing caution to the wind, and that any further murders – if that was his plan - may follow quickly. It was why he had decided to put aside the doubts and fears that had been dogging him, and to now do whatever he could to find Vahrig Danelian. And if not Danelian himself, he may at least prevent another slaughter by finding his family. He would think about Rosanna later.

  On his way to the Maleeva grocery, he visualised the action-list he would put into the Major Incident Room once it was up and running. Even now members of GMP’s Major Incident Team would be swarming over Cheadle Heath Police Station – the force’s Western Area ’s designated MIR site – racing to establish the room within their ‘eight-hours from notification’ target. At the top of the list was tracking down and speaking to Radi’s gargantuan body guard – if only he had been around the night before – though depending on what he found here, Carver hadn’t ruled out taking that one on next.

  His thoughts returned to the here and now, and his gaze came back to Radi’s desk. It was tidier than the day before. He must have cleared up after he and Padma left. But one of the journals he had seen Radi take down from the shelf was still there, though the others were back in place.

  Crossing to the desk, he picked the book up and saw at once the slip of paper marking a page halfway through the thick volume. He turned to it. It took him a minute or so to get his head round the dead banker’s elaborate script, but once he did so, he read quickly, running a finger down the list of names. He found it three quarters of the way down. It was a one-line entry against the name, “Danelian”. Like the others, a line was drawn through it, presumably denoting the debt was discharged. But the entry consisted only of figures and dates. From his reading it showed that Maleeva had loaned the family three thousand pounds. The final figures, dated almost three years later, showed three thousand eight-hundred pounds repaid. But there was no address.

  ‘Bugger,’ he said.

  For a moment he stood there, thinking. Then he started checking through various other ledgers. None of them contained addresses. Carver wasn’t surprised. He had dealt with many people who operated businesses that fell somewhat short of ‘legal’. Only the most stupid kept their clients’ addresses along with their other records. There would be a list, somewhere of course. But it wouldn’t be around here, and it wouldn’t be easy to find. He imagined another safe somewhere - Maleeva’s home probably. But it would almost certainly be concealed, and he didn’t think he would get far if he headed back there and demanded West give him free access to look for it. And that was assuming an address list even existed.

  Disappointed and temporarily out of ideas, he tutted and turned back to the original journal, still open at the Danelian entry, intending to return it to its place on the desk. But as he slipped the marker-paper back into the page, he realised there was something written on the other side. Turning it over, he saw a name, ‘Lucine’, along with a Manchester district telephone number, the Prestwich area if his memory served.

  For a moment he thought about it, trying to imagine the moneylender’s actions after he and Padma left. The journal entry was close to ten years old. The family may have re-settled in that time. He imagined Radi ringing r
ound his contacts for up-to-date information, noting names and telephone numbers. He looked at the piece of paper again and wondered. It could of course be nothing; just a scrap Radi retrieved from the waste bin to mark the page. He looked down. The waste bin was empty.

  ‘Then again….’ He took out his wallet and slipped the paper between its folds. Then he closed the journal and put it back in place on the desk.

  As he turned to leave, a noise sounded outside the office and he stopped. It had sounded like the beaded curtain separating the back of the shop from the front being brushed aside. Then he remembered. While he had closed the shop’s front door, he hadn’t locked it. Even if news of the Maleevas’ murders hadn’t yet reached the streets, the shutters and drawn blinds would signal the shop wasn’t open for business. Stepping quickly behind the half-open door, he pressed himself to the wall. For several seconds there was only silence, then he heard soft footfalls outside the room, another pause, then the door began to open, slowly.

  Carver’s first thought was Radi’s bodyguard, but as he glimpsed a man’s bulk through the door’s hinge gap, he saw that, whilst reasonably tall, he wasn’t as big as the giant he had seen the day before. Nevertheless he recalled Vahrig Danelian as being just under six foot - and at that moment could think of no one else who might be interested in searching Radi’s office.

  He waited a second more while the figure stepped into the room, then hurled himself against the door so that it battered the intruder against the door frame. There was a guttural grunt of pained surprise as the man bounced off it then staggered back into the darkened storeroom. Off-balance he crashed down amidst a pile of discarded cardboard boxes. Wrenching the door open, Carver didn’t hesitate but threw himself at the figure now struggling to regain his feet. But even as he fought to get a restraining grip on the man, Carver realised that while he lacked the bulk of the bodyguard, he was big enough, and strong. Knowing he had to get the upper hand quickly or risk being overpowered, he was about to plant a fist into the middle of the face emerging from the cardboard boxes when an anguished cry stayed him.