A Reason to Kill (18 page)

Tom made the decision to hold off and secure the area. If Noon returned he would be arrested as he exited his car. The area was sealed. The other tenants were relocated to a nearby council-run day care centre for the duration. DVLA were contacted, and although outside normal office hours, Tom had all the details of the Mondeo and verification of ownership within ten minutes. The registration, make, model and colour were circulated to all units in the Metropolitan area.

It was a waiting game. Tom gave Matt a call and arranged to send a car. Matt gave a location a couple of minutes walk from the hotel, to be picked up at. By the time he arrived at the scene, every wheel was in motion. Tom briefed him.

“He won’t come back,” Matt stated.

“If he hasn’t seen a newspaper or the TV, he might,” Tom said.

“Wishful thinking. How long are you going to give it?”

“Until midnight. If he doesn’t show by then, we’ll go in.”

“Go in now,” Matt said. “You’ve got him cold if he does turn up. He won’t know we’ve been inside.”

Tom saw the logic and gave the leader of the ARU the green light.

Within a minute of the flat door being forced open, the all clear was given.

Tom, Matt and two DCs entered and searched the place. Nothing incriminating was apparent.

“The techies will no doubt find hair and fibres to tie him to the crime scenes,” Tom said.

“That’ll be helpful if it ever gets to court. We know who he is,” Matt said. “What we need to know is
where
he is. If he had an address book, it’s gone. There are no clues as to family or friends. Nothing. I think he’s cleared out.”

Matt was standing in the lounge in front of what looked to be a lit and lidded fish tank on top of a credenza. Instead of water and goldfish, it had sand, a bark tunnel, and a few large pebbles on the bottom. He put his face up to the glass. It was warm. Maybe there was a lizard or a small snake inside. He slipped the catch that secured the lid, lifted it up and reached in. He intended to flip the piece of bark over, which was the only place for anything to hide, or be hidden from sight. As he gripped the Nissan hut-shaped length of cork and raised it up off the sand, a brown blur of movement shot from the end of it and fastened onto his wrist like a living bracelet.

“Shit!” He jerked backwards and sucked in air at the sudden, hot, needle sharp pain. Gripping the hairy mass with his other hand, he pulled it off, tossed it back into the tank and slammed the lid down.

“What the hell was that?” Tom asked.

“A fucking spider the size of a dinner plate,” Matt exaggerated. “The bastard just bit me.”

The puncture marks on the inside of his wrist were oozing twin streams of blood.

“It’s a tarantula, or to be more precise, a mygalomorph,” DC ‘Spike’ Connelly said, bending to peer through the glass at the spider, which was poised with two of its front legs raised, ready to bite again should it be threatened.

“Is it poisonous?” Matt asked, watching as the spider dropped down and leisurely retreated back under the bark.

“Not really,” Spike said. “But I’d get some antiseptic on it. Who knows what’s in the junk it injects into its food prey? Some sort of paralysing agent.”

“Marvellous,” Matt said.

“Could be a lot worse, guv,” Spike added. “The guy might have had a white-back.”

“What’s that?”

“An Australian spider you don’t want to get bitten by. The venom rots the flesh. There’s no cure. They usually have to amputate the infected limb.”

“You an expert or something?”

“No, guv. But I kept one of these little guys and studied spiders in general when I was a kid. The one that just chewed on you is a Mexican Red Kneed. They’re quite docile. It must be hungry.”

“What do they eat, apart from DIs?” Tom asked, unable to suppress a grin.

“Mainly insects. This one has been fed on crickets. You can see a few wing parts and legs on the sand.”

The phone rang as they filed out of the flat. Tom went back in and answered it. The line was being monitored. The call would be traced.

“What’s your name, cop?”

“Detective Chief Inspector Bartlett. Who am I talking to?”

“You know who I am, Bartlett.”

“We need to speak to you, Gary.”

“I don’t need to speak to you. Is Barnes there?”

“Yes, but
¯”

“Put him on, or I end the call.”

Tom motioned to Matt, mouthed that it was Noon, and handed him the receiver.

“Barnes.”

“Hi, cop. How’re you doing?”

“On the mend. Looking forward to meeting up with you.”

“Believe me, you don’t want to meet me again. Experiences are best learned from, Matt. You were one lucky son of a gun at the bungalow.”

“So why the call?”

“To deal. If you make sure Simon goes to a good home, I might not kill you.”

“Who the fuck is Simon?”

“My tarantula. You must have noticed him while you were searching the flat.”

“Yeah. He’s almost as crazy as you, Noon. He bit me.”

“You’ll live.”

“Can’t say the same for Simon. I squished the ugly little brute.”

The line went silent for a few seconds.

“You just made a very big mistake, Barnes. I was prepared to cross you off my list. Now you get a gold star next to your name for special treatment.”

“You’re full of shit, Noon. When you surface, we’ll pick you up. There’s a hutch at Broadmoor reserved and waiting for you.”

“Dream on, Barnes. You think I didn’t plan for the day when you pigs got lucky? You’re looking for someone who no longer exists.”

Matt didn’t get chance to reply. The connection was terminated. They didn’t get a trace.

“What did he want?” Tom asked.

“A deal. He said he’d let me live if I found Simon the spider a good home.”

“And you told him you’d topped it.”

“Yeah. He got a little sulky.”

“It might have been a bad idea...releasing the picture of him.”

“It wasn’t. We know who he is. And if he was paranoid before, he’ll be trying to run away from his own shadow now. It’s about containment. We’ve disrupted his life and forced him to take evasive action. While he tries to stay hidden, we can build a cast iron case against him. I like the idea of him already being a prisoner in his own mind.”

“What do you suppose he’ll do now?”

“Stay low for a while, change his appearance, make plans to do a bunk out of the area, and then try to kill me to prove a point, before he moves on.”

BETH
was invited to attend the address at Hornsey and be present when Marion Peterson was interviewed. Tom was using all the ammunition he’d got.

It was slow going. Marion confirmed that the wanted murderer was a twenty-six-year-old man, who was in simple terms, schizoid. She was reluctant to talk about him in any detail.

“It’s the same as doctor/patient confidentiality,” Marion said, directing the comment to Beth. “Surely you realise that I’m not at liberty to discuss his mental health or ongoing treatment.”

There was more to it than that. Beth thought that the nurse’s manner was too defensive. Marion was looking slightly down to a point somewhere near Beth’s chin, avoiding eye contact. She was almost squirming in her seat. That in itself was a ‘tell’, in that the woman was hiding something, and was prepared to lie.

“Do you know exactly what Gary Noon has done?” Beth asked.

A muscle began to twitch in Marion’s right cheek. She was under a great deal of self-imposed stress.

“I saw the news,” she replied.

“And did it surprise you?”

“Of course it did. I thought that Gary was being well managed. He responded to his treatment and had never shown any aggression towards anybody but himself.”

Beth said nothing for ten long seconds. The silence was like static in air that needed to be broken and released by a storm. Tom had given Beth the go ahead to push Marion. Pete Deakin and Marci Clark had got nothing from the woman, apart from the fact that Noon was one of her out patients.

Beth continued. “I think you should know that Gary is a professional killer; a hitman. He provides a cold-blooded service, and has murdered at least ten people, that we know of, including an elderly female patient and nurse at a clinic, and a young couple who had a baby. God knows how long he’s been doing it. He may well have killed dozens or even scores of people. I need to know everything about him that you do, or others may die.”

“He’s a patient for Christ’s sake!” Marion shouted. “I didn’t believe he was capable of what you say he’s done. This will come as a shock to all of the support team. If we had thought for a second that he presented a real danger to himself or anybody else, he would have been sectioned under the Mental Health Act.”

“You were his main contact, Marion. I believe your judgement was clouded. Were you fucking him?”

Marion sat bolt upright and looked Beth straight in the eye. It was a gaze comprising anger and guilt and fear in equal parts. The shock tactics revitalised her.

“You have absolutely no right to even suggest that,” she said. “I want you to leave, now. I have nothing more to say to you. I phoned the police with what I knew, and you are insinuating that I am in some way involved. Get out of my house.”

Beth stayed put. “Would you rather everything came out inchmeal and ended up making it look as though there was some level of complicity between yourself and a homicidal psychopath? Because we will get to the truth, Marion.”

Marion thrust out her bottom lip and closed her eyes. Her expression remained fixed for long seconds and then visibly collapsed. Her whole demeanour altered. The dam had given way. She lowered her head and began to sob.

Beth looked across to the two cops. They read her unspoken request.

“We’ll be outside,” Pete Deakin said.

Beth nodded.

Nothing more was said for awhile. Marion regained a little composure, wiped at her eyes with pudgy fingers. Took a wad of tissues from a box on the table and noisily blew her nose. Lit a cigarette before asking, “What’s your first name?”

“Beth.”

“Well, Beth. I’ve only knowingly made one truly lousy mistake in my career, and it had to be with Gary Noon. I’m in deep shit.”

“Maybe not,” Beth said. “The objective is to apprehend Noon, not to cause you any unnecessary grief. All I’m here for is to find out what makes Noon tick.”

Marion looked about the room. “I’ve lived here forever,” she said, digressing. “This was my late mother’s house. I’ve never had a life, because I’ve always been a fat, unattractive cow.”

“I wouldn’t say
¯”

“Don’t, Beth. You need to have walked a few miles in my shoes to be qualified to say anything about what I am or aren’t. I just want you to have a little background; to know that I’ve never felt loved or wanted or happy. Not for one single second, until I got the hots for Gary. He seemed vulnerable, like me in a way. It just happened. It wasn’t planned, and it didn’t seem wrong…at first.”

She paused.

“Go on, Marion. Finish it.”

“He set me up, I think. He secretly took video of what we did. When we had an argument a week later, he hit me, and then showed me the tape.”

“So there was a shift of control?”

“Yes. But even then, he fooled me. Maybe I wanted to be duped. He said he had only filmed us to protect himself. I made the decision to accept that his illness would account for that. He made me believe that he really cared for me. I thought I might at last have something I’ve never had; companionship and a love life. Somebody who could accept and want me for who I am.”

“Is that it, Marion?”

“Yes. I had no idea he was doing anything criminal. He portrayed a lonely, troubled individual. It seems inconceivable that he was capable of leading such a complex and separate life. I should have recognised him for what he is.”

“Do you think he might contact you?”

“I doubt that very much. I’m obviously of no further use to him.”

“You do realise that I’ll have to tell the officer in charge of the case everything you’ve told me, Marion. But I see no reason why what you did should be made public knowledge. Though I obviously can’t guarantee confidentiality.”

“But the tape. People will see it.”

“If it’s found, then only myself and a couple of the crime team will view it.”

Marion rubbed at her right temple with blocky, short-nailed fingers. “You reap what you sow, I suppose.”

“So use it as a stepping stone. Don’t let life dictate, Marion. Set yourself goals and go for them. Everybody has problems.”

Marion stubbed out her cigarette and immediately lit another.

Beth’s thoughts turned inward to examine her own life. She was a thirty-three-year-old divorced workaholic, who may just be falling in love with a cop who might not feel the same way, or have the ability to reciprocate. Everything seemed to be linked. Gary Noon’s actions had affected a lot of people one way or another. He had shot Matt, who survived, just, minus a kidney. She had got asked to consult on the case and met the DI. It was as if so many things that had and may yet happen, could and would lead back to the wanted sociopath. There was a part of her that wondered if anything good could come out of something with such fundamentally evil origins. She had just told the distressed nurse to set goals and to use this experience as a stepping stone. Now, she was raining on her own parade. She sympathised with Marion. Could sense the woman’s emotional pain.

“You’re right,” Marion said, now more composed. “We all have to look at the menu in front of us, make choices, and hope that what we order is palatable. I’m glad you came, Beth. I needed to talk to someone. I just didn’t know it. Would you like a cup of tea or coffee?”

“Yes, tea please. I’ll make a call while you fix it.”

The Villa Venice was a majestic Mediterranean-style house that would have graced a cliff top on Capri. Instead of being in the bay of Naples, it was situated in Essex, north and east of Cheshunt, off the A194. The estate and the twenty-five room villa at the approximate centre of the fifty acres it occupied were out of sight from the road. Frank Santini had named it after a restaurant in Cook County, north of Chicago, which had at one time been owned in part by the gangster Sam Giancana. The joint had been pure Italian; even had a river snaking through the main room, with gondoliers poling their craft through it. And Sinatra, Eddie Fisher and other headliners of the day attracted high-rollers in to use the gambling facilities.

There was only one entrance to the Essex Villa Venice. On the inside of the massive and ornate wrought iron gates was a marble chip-covered main drive lined on both sides with mature lime trees. A secondary loop road ran through a copse of firs to the rear of the house, for tradesmen. Within the property, armed dog handlers patrolled the inside of a sixteen-foot-high electrified fence.

Frank Santini was at home, swimming in the indoor pool when Tiny came through to him with news that immediately darkened his mood.

“The Old Bill have just put out more details on the hitter, boss. His name is Gary Noon. He’s a bona fide nutter, and they expect to make an early arrest.”

Frank was doing a clumsy breaststroke, head held high to keep his toupee above water. He found the non slip bottom of the pool with his feet and waded up the steps at the shallow end.

“I don’t need this, Tiny. Get me a drink,” he said, snatching the bath towel that Tiny held out to him.

Frank had been mellow. He had flown across the pond to the Big Apple and opened a new night club – Capo Peloro – on West 53rd Street in Midtown, just a spit from Broadway. The club was a joint venture. Benny Andretti had fifty percent of it. Benny lived out at Eastchester and, through spring and summer, conducted much of his daily business from the deep porch of the Larchmont Yacht Club, which offered a fine view of Long Island Sound. Benny had not sailed once in his sixty-seven years, but enjoyed the old money ambience and the setting of the Larchmont. And come Labor Day every year, he moved down to his Boca Raton location in Florida, to spend the late fall and winter in warmer climes.

On his return from New York, Frank had been up. Not even the news of Dom’s meeting with the cop had dampened his spirits. Now, the sense of well-being had evaporated. It was obvious that the hitter was a certifiable head case, unstable and dangerous. That in itself was no big deal. What really concerned him was, that if the filth lifted him, he would no doubt confirm that Frank had hired him to hit Little. It was an unwelcome development.

“If they pick him up, we can make sure he never gives evidence, boss,” Tiny said. “He can be dealt with while he’s on remand.”

Frank clenched his teeth. “If he’s prepared to sell me out, they won’t put him inside, dummy. He’ll be protected, same as they tried with Lester. Only difference is, they’ll do it properly with this wanker, and make sure he keeps breathin’. I doubt he’ll appear in court. They’ll set up a fuckin’ video-link from wherever he’s stashed.”

“So what do we do, boss?”

“Find him before the plods do. Or have somebody ready to move in and whack him when he’s picked up. I still have a cop at the Yard who’ll keep me in the picture. This has just got messy, and I like things neat, Tiny. I could do without these distractions.”

“Who would you use to hit a hitter, boss?”

“Another pro. Benny Andretti uses a guy based in Miami to take care of problems like this. We discussed the affair. If necessary, Benny will get him to fly over and be on standby for as long as it takes. He don’t come cheap, but he’s supposed to be as good as money can buy.”

Tiny attempted a smile, but his face still hurt. The pained expression was more of a scowl. He held the leaded crystal glass awkwardly and cursed under his breath as he poured Frank a large Jack Daniel’s. His splinted finger throbbed. The cop, Barnes, had taken him by surprise, but Tiny had patience. Every dog has its day. He would catch up with him and put him in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Dominic helped keep his hate for the cop as fresh as new mown grass. He wouldn’t leave it be, taking the piss by reminding Tiny that an invalid who couldn’t walk without a cane had taken him with ease. The physical injuries were far less painful than the bruising of his ego.