Cold Kill (36 page)

Later that night, Harriman took Frank Silano on a tour of the Strip. Although it was early, they looked in on some casinos and some drinking clubs and they talked to a few people, though the people in question weren't eager to talk back. No one had heard of the Trader. Harriman had spent a few uncomfortable moments with Marilyn Hayes, who had supplied an address that didn't exist and a mugshot that
was six years out of date. They showed the mugshot. No one had seen anyone like that.

Robert Adrian Kimber had the wide-eyed look of a man who hadn't slept for days, who might never sleep again. Since Bloss had left, he'd been drinking, but the booze didn't seem to make him sluggish or to muddy his thinking. It fuelled him. It made his blood sing.

He pulled on his coat. He put the hammer in his pocket.

Maxine Hewitt had spent her day talking to informants and was pretty sick of the lowlife, but that didn't mean she was eager for some highlife. She wanted a bath, a DVD and a curry. Jan took two glasses of red wine into the bathroom, where Maxine was showing not much more than a nose and a knee above water-level. When she saw the wine, she sat up. She put out a soapy arm and took her glass.

‘Something simple-minded,' Maxine said. ‘Not a cop movie.'

They talked about the day they'd had and drank their wine. Jan said, ‘I could get into that bath with you,' but when Maxine smiled and drew her knees up to make room, Jan just kissed her and left, returning a moment later with the bottle. ‘Back soon.'

‘Simple-minded,' Maxine said, ‘but not soft.'

‘Funny?'

‘Not sure about that.'

Jan laughed. ‘I'll call you from the video store.'

‘No,' Maxine settled deeper into the bath. ‘I trust you.'

The café opposite Maxine's flat was closed. Kimber was watching from the far side of the street, where there were parked vehicles and a row of plane trees. He hadn't been early enough to pick her up at her office, but he'd waited by the tube and followed her home. The blind was up and he was able to catch sight of her from time to time; in fact he'd seen both of them, but it was Jan he focused on, Jan who
starred in his little part-written story. The story with no happy ending.

The street was lit but dimly. The few people who passed on foot walked fast, heads lowered, hands in pockets. Kimber didn't know what would happen next, but he hoped to get lucky and he wasn't cold, not at all cold, waiting out there in sub-zero temperatures. He was warm, his cheeks flushed like those of a man with a fever. He thought he'd give it an hour. Maybe the other one would go out and he could find a way of getting into the flat. Ring all the bells, wasn't that what you did? Say you had a delivery for someone… And then you had to be quick, you had to be ready. He took the hammer out of his pocket and looked around. There was no one on the street. He used the hammer on the bole of a plane tree. It made a sharp sound, with a plangent undertone: a little, ringing echo. Instead of putting it back into his pocket, he threaded the shaft under his belt and let it hang from the head. It felt good. He liked the way it knocked his thigh.

As if the thought had its logical extension in Jan, Kimber looked up and saw her pass the window wearing her hat and coat. He stepped back into the deeper shadow close by the tree. There were three side streets between Maxine's flat and Ladbroke Grove. When Jan emerged, he waited until she had rounded the corner into the second street before he started after her.

Sadie was wearing seven layers, the outer of which was her bag wrapped round like a cape. She and Jamie had spent the day playing north side/south side with the tube security men. It was warmer down there, and the crowds were funnelled through the exits and entrances, which made them easier to beg from, but you got moved on. The trick was to
leave by the south-side stairs and come back down the north side, then wait for some bored security man with a grudge against the free-living to kick you back up to the street.

Sadie had left Jamie for a couple of hours while she panhandled the trains themselves. This involved buying a ticket, which Sadie liked to think of as an investment programme, part of a business plan. There were tourists on the trains and they either looked at Sadie as if to suggest that, in their country, she would have been treated to a lethal injection, or they shelled out.

There had been some shelling out and Sadie had taken her share to a good connection off the Grove, where she had bought some crack. Sadie hadn't used crack a lot, but she thought it was a fuck of a rush and that was just what she needed.

Her crack pipe was a Fanta can and her refuge was the dark sub-street area of a basement flat on Bassett Road. She pushed open the letter box and listened for a TV or music or conversation, but the place was silent; she could see down the depth of the flat and there was no chink of light from the hallway doors. Maybe the occupants were away for Christmas. Maybe they were skiing the black runs at Cœur Cheval. Sadie settled into the shadow at the corner of the basement. She was doing a black run of her own, fast and very high.

Jan chose a ghost story and an urban comedy, then went to a wine shop and bought a very superior bottle of Bordeaux. There was no big occasion apart from the fact that this was her first Christmas with Maxine Hewitt and she felt lucky in that. They were good together. She wasn't sure whether Maxine was in love with her – not give-your-life-move-mountains love – but there was definitely something good
going on and they were great in bed and she had started out taking it day by day, but now she was taking it week by week.

There was a sliver of moon low in the sky, seeming to stand just above the multicoloured shop signs, and the lights on each side of it were planes banking west for Heathrow. Their jet engines melded into the traffic blast and the thrash metal from alcopop bars and the All Nite's mushy muzak.

Jan loved the city noise, the round-the-clock stuff. She felt part of it.

Kimber had been a browser in the video store, a connoisseur in the wine shop. He had stood next to her as she read the blurb on the case of the ghost story; he'd watched with interest as she chose the Bordeaux. Now he was tracking her as she walked back towards the flat. The Grove was a conduit of noise and light, but the side street was empty apart from a couple walking swiftly away and rounding the far corner.

Jan thought,
Maybe I can start to think month by month; why not?

She pictured Maxine in the bath, the way the soap bubbles had slipped along her arm to her breast as she'd reached for her drink.

She was halfway down the street, walking in tree-shadow.

Kimber reached under his coat and slipped the hammer from his belt: a cross-draw, left to right. He needed five long steps to reach Jan, maybe six; to be a pace back from her, the right distance to allow for the swing. He took two big strides, raising his hand.

Sadie came out of the basement, turning towards the Grove, and walked into him. She took a step back but somehow kept her balance, swaying slightly. Kimber said, ‘
Ah!
' and stumbled sideways, his foot turning on to the ankle. He hopped and reached with a hand to save himself;
the hammer clattered to the pavement and he sat down, groping for it, looking up at Sadie, his face turned to the glow from the streetlight. He picked up the hammer and got to his feet, leaning back against a tree. Sadie walked closer and peered at him, puzzled, trying to work out what had just happened. She said something, but neither was sure what it was.

Kimber laid a hand on her shoulder. Sadie watched the hammer go up in a bright arc. A street-level door opened in the house above the basement, there were voices, people walked down five steps to the pavement and stood a few yards away from Kimber and Sadie. You might have mistaken them for one group, some looking back to the house to say their goodbyes, while one couple stood a little apart, his hand on her shoulder, her face turned to his, as if continuing a conversation they had started earlier.

Kimber walked away, slotting the hammer back into his belt, moving with a light, limping tread on his twisted foot. He went past Jan's flat but didn't stop. He walked up to the crossroads, past his own room and took a loop to come down through the Strip from Kensal Rise. It was a good place to get lost. There was a walk-up shebeen with a night-long poker game in the back room. Kimber went in and sat in a corner with a drink, letting the migraine-music batter him.

She saw me
.

He stayed there for an hour, then started down towards his room half a mile away. Nancy was cruising the cruising cars as Kimber came towards her, his body swaying slightly as he favoured the injured foot. She stopped and watched. He looked the way he looked in the police photo; he looked the way he'd looked on those occasions when he'd been a
full-sex-no-rubber trick. Just for a moment, the pink and lime-green neon on the Starlite Massage Parlour seemed to spell out five-k in big, bright figures. She thought maybe she'd follow him, find out where he lived, call the cops, hold out her hand for the money.

But not if she wanted to keep her looks. Not if she wanted to see Ronaldo's smile.

Kimber was a few feet away, his head down, talking to himself. A car pulled up and Nancy leaned in, unbuttoning her coat to offer up the merchandise. She gave the price for a blow-job and the punter said that would be fine. She got into the back seat among a litter of CDs and Coke cans and winter-break brochures.

She saw me
.

He crossed the street and walked the few steps to the side gate of the church. He was taking the same path but going in the wrong direction, telling the story backwards.

Here's where he and Bloss had left the churchyard, here's where he had rested a moment, his face close to hers, and noticed her mouth in that sloppy ‘O' shape, here's the tree where they'd propped her and here's where Bloss had dragged her off the path.

Here's where he'd struck her, once at first, then hard and again and again, feeling light and powerful and good.

Kimber stood on the path with the soft lights from the church window cast around him. Then he backtracked to the tree in the corner of the churchyard, beyond the gravestones, and sat down with his head resting against the trunk.

She saw me. I'll have to find her
.

He imagined Jan drinking her wine and watching her DVD and not knowing. Not knowing how close. He felt sick. He felt profoundly unhappy.

Stella and Harriman were sitting in traffic on Shepherd's Bush Green. Either the Cancer Santa had moved down from McDonald's-at-the-Gate to Flame Burger-on-the-Green or there was a crew of Cancer Santas working the west London punters.

Harriman said, ‘I'm at a bit of a loss.'

‘Sometimes,' Stella advised him, ‘it's a good idea to look for the signs.'

‘What signs?'

‘If you don't know, I can't tell you.'

Harriman was driving and eyeballing the tailback like a man looking down the barrel of a gun. ‘I thought she just wanted some time off. You know, change of scene.'

‘And what she really wanted was a life-change.'

There was a gap in the contraflow; he pulled out and gunned the car fifty yards down the wrong side of the road, then went for a gap between a builder's truck and a family Ford. The builder's truck weaved out towards him in a tight little fuck-you curve and both vehicles stopped. There were three guys in the truck. They had big hands and small eyes. Harriman put an arm out of the window; he was holding his police ID.

He said, ‘Back up or spend the day in a cell.'

They cruised along the Goldhawk Road towards the mews where Mickey Wicks had his lock-up workshop. He said, ‘I didn't see any fucking signs.'

Stella thought back to George and the day he left. She said, ‘I can understand that.'

The patio heaters were arranged in a triangle and throwing a big blue and orange glow. Mickey was rewiring the dashboard of a top-of-the-range Lexus, looking confident amid the cords and cables. His confidence dropped when Stella told him what she wanted. He said, ‘We had an arrangement, Mrs Mooney.'

‘You're right, we did. But this is out of the ordinary, you can see that.'

‘I can give you hints, but I can't give you names,
you
can see
that
.'

‘Hints won't do it. I need solid information, Mickey. I need names, addresses, phone numbers and the wife's maiden name.'

‘I don't know anyone called the Trader.'

‘Yes, you do,' Harriman said.

Mickey looked at him. He said, ‘I heard about your accident.' He didn't laugh, but there was laughter in his voice. Stella hadn't seen that before: Mickey the humorist. It gave her pause for thought. Harriman looked away and the muscles jumped in his cheek.

‘Lexie Bramall,' Stella said.

‘No.' Mickey shook his head.

‘Lexie Bramall also known as the Trader, big guy, dark complexion, shifts stolen goods, a percentage-man, a deal-maker, a broker.'

‘I can't help you.'

Stella guessed that the Trader had big-money connections and some risks are just risks and others are a way of getting nailed to a door. She said, ‘Okay, forget him. Someone
imported a batch of handguns recently, one of which was used in a turf-war shooting up in the Gate. Three men died, the shooter's in the Scrubs, his name is Eric Keith Fellows.'

Mickey was sitting in the passenger seat of the Lexus like someone expecting to be driven somewhere. Hoping to be driven somewhere. He said, ‘Go on.'

‘Who's the armourer?'

‘Would I know that?'

Harriman went out of the lock-up, got into his car, sat with the door open and his feet on the cobbles of the mews and made a call to the AMIP-5 squad room. He asked for stolen-vehicle information updates and gave his current location, speaking as if to the deaf.

Mickey said, ‘Make him stop.'