Blood Substitute (29 page)

‘It's Syd,' said Patrick, loosely pinching his nostrils in order to mimic Hellier's flat, somewhat adenoidal tones. ‘The whole place went up a treat, them with it. They're raking over what's left looking for bodies now. When do I get paid?'

I could hear the high-pitched, hissy sort of voice on the other end of the line but not what was said.

‘Sometime next week's not good enough,' Patrick said. ‘I've put myself right on the line for you and you owe me.'

More hissing.

‘I
need
the money. I can go to the cops, you know.'

‘Do as you're bloody-well told, you little disease!' came over loud and clear.

‘I'll be at home tonight, waiting. If you don't come up with the goods I'm off round to the nick first thing in the morning. It was all for nothing anyway – I've just found out you've lost your bid to make a mint of money in the area as it's just been granted funding to be restored.' Blustering and slurring his voice as though he had been drinking Patrick finished by saying, ‘So that's what you are, a real loser.'

‘You ought to be on the stage,' Greenway commented wryly. ‘I just hope it wasn't too over the top.'

Patrick sat down rather suddenly. ‘Any chance of some tea and a sticky bun?'

When I had despatched Patrick to SOCA's somewhat upmarket canteen I discovered that Miss Dean had come to the conclusion that most of the information on the CDs involved business ventures – as she had already said, probably legitimate ones to soak up gains from drug-dealing, in other words, money-laundering – records of trading with other criminal outfits and a register of monies received, or not, from small businesses like restaurants, a protection racket. They were all neatly listed under various headings, the place names she had also told us about. There was a lot of it.

‘I can come back tomorrow if you like,' she said to Greenway as she was leaving to be taken to the safe house. ‘There's still quite a bit to do on the names of people side of things, but now I know that most are anagrams I should be able to sort it all out for you. Unless it's another anagram there might be a woman involved, Lil's Here or Lil Here features in what one must assume is recent information.'

Greenway told her that he would be most grateful if she carried on.

‘It has to be S. Hellier,' I said when the door had closed behind her.

Rubbing his hands gleefully Greenway said, ‘That's him as good as in the slammer then.'

‘So what's the plan for tonight?' I asked briskly.

‘The plan is, Ingrid, that you'll be somewhere else,' he replied, and, excusing himself by saying that he had to conduct a briefing, left me.

‘I expect he thinks you've done enough for one day,' Patrick said, infuriatingly, when I had run him to ground together with what remained of his sausages, bacon, eggs, baked beans, tomato and fried bread. Oh, and black pudding.

‘Look, I'm not going back to the hotel to chew my fingernails to the bone while you're setting yourself up as bait!'

‘I agree that after all your efforts it's frustrating for you not to be in at what will hopefully be Ivers' arrest,' he said peacably. ‘But do you really want to hide in a cupboard all night in Hellier's place? You said yourself that it's a fleapit. And it's not as though I'll be unprotected – undercover cops'll be everywhere. Why don't you go and see if you can talk to Robert Kennedy? If he's fit to receive visitors he'll be more likely to give you info that we can use and you can ring Greenway, not me, with anything immediately relevant.'

‘He's not going to talk to me with his F9 cronies hanging around.'

‘He might. It's his last case, remember.'

‘I take it he's been given police protection.'

‘Of course, there's an armed guard.'

Greenway was right, of course: after a big dose of smoke I had done more than enough for one day and my stamina did not seem to be as good as it once was. You are getting older, I told myself, if not old, and took a taxi back to the hotel where I intended to put my feet up for half an hour before going to see Kennedy. I had fleetingly seen Greenway again before leaving the building and he had called to me not to worry as Patrick would be only one of several experienced, and armed, personnel who would be waiting for Ivers and any henchmen with whom he might turn up.

I had a snack in the little bistro just off the hotel reception area and then went up to our room where I slept like something dead for four and a quarter hours.

W
aking with a jerk I saw that it was now eight forty-five. I tumbled off the bed and went into the bathroom where I splashed cold water over my face, cursing my carelessness in not phoning reception and asking to be called. For, surely, it was now far too late to expect a hospital ward to admit visitors.

It was, but apparently in this particular patient's case an exception would be made as he had requested that only family and friends, their names to be referred to him first, be admitted. No one, so far, had come and I got the impression that the nursing staff felt sorry for him. The answer came back straight away and after having had my identity checked – I had expected this and had my passport with me – by the armed minder on duty in the corridor that led to the private room, possibly part of an isolation wing, I went in.

Still host to drips and monitoring devices Kennedy looked worse, if anything, than when we had found him, the bruising on his haggard face awful to see and now visible because he had been cleaned up. The only positive difference was the ironic smile on his face.

‘There, and I thought I'd be safe with that proviso,' he croaked.

I pulled up a chair and sat down. ‘You could have refused me entry,' I pointed out, nevertheless experiencing a pang of pity for him.

‘Just don't talk about the job, there's a good girl.' He coughed raspingly and took a sip of water.

‘There might be a rather long silence then as the only other thing we have in common is James.'

‘Oh, I wasn't expecting him to be along,' Kennedy said roughly.

‘No, he can't because right now he's on duty at SOCA's HQ while everyone's co-ordinating a sting operation to grab Lazlo Ivers.'

‘You have been busy,' he said sarcastically.

‘I hope we don't have a bad case of sour grapes here.'

He gave me a wide, mirthless grin. ‘One of the big bosses going out in a blaze of glory. Only it was a real fire and the great man got himself banged up in a shit-house instead.'

I nodded. ‘After surviving a savage beating and severe dehydration by being as tough as nails.'

‘You could have had that put on my headstone,' he jeered, only to set himself coughing again.

‘You're just like him, you know,' I shot back. ‘James, I mean. You've got the same brand of what Patrick calls real buggerence.'

He gave me a sour look.

‘Do you know about Sydney Hellier being arrested?' I asked, damned if I was just going to sit there in an awkward silence.

‘The weird bloke who started the preservation society for the old cinema? No.'

‘He was the one who lit the match. Which is ironic when you think about it. I take it he really did want to save the place originally.'

‘He was easily persuaded it was a lost cause though. Just a couple of hundred pounds under his nose worked like a charm.' He chuckled. ‘A man of cast-iron principles.'

‘Several thousand pounds were found under the floor in his bedroom.'

‘Ivers must have been giving him so much a week to keep an eye on the cinema and run errands for him.'

‘Were you one of the men who first went with Ivers to see him?'

‘Yes, I was. You have to go everywhere, to get as much evidence against them as you possibly can.'

‘Tell me about Ivers.'

‘What do you want to know except for the fact that he's raving mad, and bad, bad, bad?'

This, I saw, was right from the heart, it had to be for a boiled-in-the-wool Scotsman to show that much emotion. I told him about the scarecrows and how my comments to Patrick about my nightmare must have been picked up by the mikes at Slaterfords.

‘That's how he works. He spreads fear. The way he walks when he's on a job, the way he talks. It's not just to disguise himself: it's to terrorize any witnesses. They have nightmares too, he's coming to get them. They refuse to testify against him.'

Baldly, I asked, ‘Why didn't you get your own initials carved on you?'

Kennedy did not even blink. ‘Because I broke free and killed one of his filthy henchmen when he'd just got started. Ivers panicked and thought he might run out of time and breathing minders. That made it worth it, seeing the fear in the bastard's eyes.'

I touched a hand that was free from medical hardware. ‘Sorry.'

‘Don't apologize,' he muttered.

‘Do you know if Lazlo Ivers is his real name?'

‘He bragged to me – when he had thrown me in that bloody john to die – that he had any number of stolen identities but that was the one on his gas bills.'

‘So why are SOCA still struggling to arrest him?'

‘Are they?'

I sat back in my seat and gazed at him. ‘F9 are still behaving like clams then. Surely inter-departmental rivalry isn't as bad as that?'

Slowly, he shook his head.

‘There's something you're not telling me.'

There was a hint of a smile. ‘Do I have to tell you anything?'

‘Patrick's life might depend on it and right now I reckon you owe him a favour, that's all,' I responded stonily.

‘I'd already guessed that someone like that would have several aliaises. But I didn't believe him,' Kennedy said after a silence. It was manifest that he was very tired and probably in pain.

‘What, didn't believe who he said he was?'

‘No. He said it with a leer on his face – a bigger one than usual.'

‘Please tell me what he said.'

‘It's a complete load of havers.'

‘But what did he
say
?'

‘He said he was a cop, and somehow I took that at face value; that he occasionally impersonates a policeman. Criminals quite often do.'

I think I swore. ‘Patrick's at a stake-out at Hellier's place waiting for him to turn up with the wages for setting fire to the cinema.'

‘Ivers won't turn up in person, he'll send someone else and spend no more than the price of a bullet.'

‘But, don't you see? He might arrive in police uniform and no one'll turn a hair!' I rummaged in my bag for my mobile, could not immediately find it and turned the whole thing upside down on the bed.

‘I see you're well prepared,' Kennedy observed dryly, eyeing the Smith and Wesson thus tumbled on to the bed cover.

I grabbed the phone and then threw the gun back in with everything else.

‘I hope you're permitted to carry that, Mrs Gillard.'

‘Yes, Michael Greenway told me to make sure I had it with me at all times,' I said, pushing buttons. ‘And, actually, it's Langley – Miss.'

He tut-tutted. ‘Professional women get so annoyed when you call them by their married name.'

Halfway through dialling Patrick's number I slapped shut the phone.

‘Has he ever told you how wonderful you look when you're angry?' Kennedy asked lightly.

‘OK, so what
will
Ivers do?' I countered in a whisper, trying not to be thunderstruck by what he had just said. Perhaps it was the medication he was on.

‘He'll come here.' When I did not respond, just stared at him, he went on, ‘I'm afraid we're ahead of you on this one. Someone has slipped the fact that I'm still alive to one of his contacts. I'm definitely unfinished business and it's only a matter of time.'

‘You're not all that well protected – not with just one armed copper.'

‘I ken there's more than one but I'm not happy about it for another reason – this is a very public place. They should have chosen more carefully.'

‘He might have smelled a rat if it had been somewhere more out of the way.' I opened my phone again and then paused. ‘This is your case. Is it all right if I warn Patrick anyway?'

‘Please do.'

But his phone was switched off, which, suddenly remembering his telling me not to call him was to be expected. I then rang Greenway and again there was only a messaging service.

‘Keeping radio silence,' Kennedy commented.

‘Can I get you anything?' I asked.

‘You could shoot me and put me out of my misery.'

‘I always ignore men's negative statements. Are you really going to retire?'

‘I am. This is my last job.'

‘You'll be able to go and see Lord Muirshire.'

‘I imagined him to be dead by now – he's quite a bit older than me.'

‘Not a chance. After his wife died he married Kimberley Devlin, the opera singer. It was he who told us you were a man of integrity. The pair of you will have a lot of catching up to do.'

‘I could do with a cup of tea,' Kennedy said after a thoughtful pause. ‘And, if you'd be so kind, a bite of something to go with it.'

There was the same armed policeman on duty, standing now and diligently gazing down the corridor in the direction of the entrance to the wing. At least I assumed it was the same man for, besides body armour he was wearing a helmet with the visor down. He turned when he heard me coming and I explained my errand.

‘Get me a cuppa too?' he wheedled. ‘Milk and one sugar?'

I told him I would, adding, ‘Don't drop your guard.'

I passed a room that might be used as a decontamination area and went out into a long, straight corridor that eventually led to the main entrance. There was no one around. Kennedy was being kept in virtual isolation then.