The Bug House (6 page)

Bernice Seagram is in her dressing gown, watching breakfast TV and munching on a bacon sandwich, when Huggins emerges from the spare room. He is wearing boxer shorts and one of Seagram’s T-shirts, which only comes down as far as his navel, exposing the incipient beer belly that only his lanky frame keeps from being prominent. He grunts ‘Good morning’ and heads directly for the frying pan, tweezing a slice of cooling bacon and flopping it on a slice of white bread.

‘Did we make love?’ he says presently, squirting ketchup over the bacon.

‘Did we make love,
guv
’
nor
,’ Bernice corrects him, her eyes fixed on the TV screen.

‘I’ll take that as a no, then,’ Huggins says. He reaches for the tea bags and drops one in an empty mug. ‘Where’s the milk?’

‘I’ve run out.’

He slumps into a chair and shoves most of the sandwich in his mouth. ‘This will all change when we’re married, Bernie,’ he mumbles. ‘You will bide my words and ensure that when I come down for breakfast the larder is well stocked.’

‘What time did you come in last night?’

‘Dunno. One-ish?’

‘Bullshit. You rang here begging for a bed at two. Where did you end up?’

‘Talking bollocks with Frank Jarvis and the lads at Adriano’s.’

‘Was Fallow with you?’

‘Nah. John’s going through one of his periods of self-flagellation. I think he’s taken up running this time. It won’t last. It never does.’

‘You don’t help him,’ Seagram says.

Huggins feigns hurt. ‘Am I my brother’s keeper, Bernie? He’s a grown man. A grown
married
man.’

‘Not for much longer if he keeps hanging round with you.’

‘Dah, Shirley’s never liked me. I don’t even think she likes John. She just likes wheeling him out on social occasions so she can tell her friends from the riding club that she’s married to a policeman.’

Seagram slides off the kitchen stool and makes her way to the door. ‘I’m going up to get dressed now, DC Huggins. Then I will be leaving for work. If you want a lift – and I expect you do – you’d better be ready. And don’t get ketchup on my T-shirt.’

Seven forty-five a.m. Ptolemy is in Asda’s car park in Gosforth, watching the staff arriving for work. Although they don’t call them staff any more; they call them
colleagues
. ‘
Colleague announcement: would a colleague please go to aisle six
. . .’ And off they go, with their bucket and mop, thinking they’re making a significant contribution to the hive.
Jesus
, she thinks,
the most frightening thing about this headlong assimilation into corporate-speak is that people have just sat back and accepted it
.

Severin’s late. He’d said he might be, and his tone had suggested that he didn’t give a shit if he was. During the course of their meeting last night, Ptolemy had got the distinct impression that the world marched to Sam Severin’s beat and she’d better keep in time.

He’d told her to come plain-clothed, which is why she’s wearing jeans and Uggs and one of Ray’s old rugby shirts under a fleece jacket. She wonders, though, if maybe she’s
too
plain-clothed. Maybe she should have worn a blouse, or a skirt, or at least something more feminine. She wonders, as she sits in her car watching the colleagues trudging into the supermarket’s gaping, floodlit maw, if she just looks like a plain-clothes handler waiting to meet her undercover contact.

Shortly after eight thirty a black Ford Focus enters the car park and swings into the space next to her vehicle. The thud of the bass speakers cuts abruptly as Severin kills the engine. He climbs out and crushes his cigarette under a boot. He opens the back door of Ptolemy’s car and gets in. She immediately smells smoke and sweat and the faint tang of stale booze.

‘I don’t have long,’ he says, and when she looks in the rear-view mirror she sees his dark eyes staring straight back at him. ‘And I’ll need you to work fast, too.’

‘No problem. What do you want me to do?’

He reaches into his jacket and hands her a battered padded envelope. ‘That’s the first lot of paperwork. Get it copied and I need the originals back. There’ll be more where that came from.’

‘What do I do with the copies?’

‘You log them. And then you crosscheck them. And you make fucking damn sure you don’t make a mistake, because when this goes down the case against Tiernan has got to be watertight. Understand?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good. Then I’ll be off. I’ll meet you here tomorrow, same time.’

He opens the door and swings his leg out.

‘What if I need to contact you?’ she says.

Severin frowns. ‘You don’t, DC Ptolemy.’

And with that he is gone.

Nobody in the squad knows what time Una Cattrall arrives at the Bug House in the morning, because she is always at her desk before they are. But then she is the gatekeeper, and none shall pass without her permission.

‘Mr Vos will be in later,’ she informs Seagram, eyeing the dishevelled Huggins with suspicion. ‘He has a meeting at headquarters.’

‘Thank you, Una,’ Seagram says primly as Una buzzes them through the security door and into the squad room. ‘I was aware of that.’

It’s just before eight, but Fallow and Mayson Calvert are already there. Fallow’s normally red cheeks have an even rosier glow to them this morning, and his collar-length hair is still damp.

‘Where’s the boss?’ he says.

‘HQ,’ says Seagram, hanging up her coat. ‘He’ll be in later.’ She looks at him suspiciously. ‘What’s up, John?’

‘Brains has discovered something very interesting,’ Fallow says, putting his hands on Mayson Calvert’s skinny shoulders.

‘Time travel?’ says Huggins, heading for the coffee percolator. ‘Anybody gone for bacon sarnies? Where’s Ptolemy when we need her?’

‘Tell them, Mayse.’

Mayson clears his throat. ‘I did a thorough check of all known organizations, criminal or otherwise, that favour branding or tattooing as a form of initiation.’

‘Jesus Christ, Johnny-boy! Have you pinched my mug?’

‘No I fucking haven’t. Listen to Mayse, will you?’

‘Worldwide, there are over 17,000,’ Mayson continues. ‘You see bodily mutation – or is it art? – is viewed by some as being the ultimate expression of membership—’

‘Where’s my fucking mug, John?’

‘
Listen!
’ Fallow exclaims.

Fallow rarely raises his voice, but when he does it is surprisingly loud, and it has the effect of instantly silencing the room.

‘Thank you,’ Mayson Calvert says, fingering his collar.

‘You could just get to the point, Mayse,’ Seagram says.

He looks momentarily put out but continues nevertheless. ‘I believe I have identified the peculiar branding marks on the victim’s testicles,’ he says.

Huggins chortles. ‘You really do know how to enjoy yourself of an evening, don’t you, Mayson?’

‘The KK symbol stands for Kaplan Kirmizi, which in turn is Turkish for Red Tigers. The Red Tigers began life in the 1950s as a gang exporting heroin across the Kurdistan border on its way to western Europe. In recent years, they have spread across Europe to the extent that there are cells in most of the major cities synonymous with the drug trade.’

‘And they go around branding each other’s balls?’ Fallow winces.

‘Only those with a direct connection to the original gang,’ Mayson says. ‘It’s a sign of leadership and of clan membership. And if it makes you feel any better, the branding is done at the age of two.’

‘Trust me, Mayson,’ Huggins says, his expression aghast, ‘there is no good age to get your balls branded.’

‘So if Ahmed Doe is a member of this Red Tigers organization,’ Seagram says, ‘what the hell is he doing hanging from a railway bridge in Stannington? The last time I looked there
was
no big-time heroin trade in Newcastle.’

‘None that we are aware of,’ says Mayson. ‘But that has always made Newcastle an exception to the rule in this country.’

Huggins, happy now that he has found his mug, sits down on the corner of his desk. ‘Maybe our friend was trying to set up some business over here.’

‘Which someone clearly took exception to,’ Fallow says, nodding.

‘Which is why they were keen to send the Turks a message,’ says Seagram. ‘Good work, Mayse. You’d better print something out for the boss when he gets back. Meanwhile, you two hit the phones; I want to know where our Turkish gangster came from.’

‘What the hell is the boss doing at HQ?’ Huggins says. ‘He’s missing all the fun.’

‘Let’s start from the beginning, shall we?’ says retired Detective Superintendent Malcolm Gilcrux of South Wales Police in a manner that suggests he’s been waiting for a long time for this moment.

He’s a fat man with piggy eyes who must have thought his career and its associated importance were over once his thirty years were up, Vos thinks. But a job as an investigator with the Independent Police Complaints Commission has resurrected both, and he has clearly made an effort this morning: crisp shirt, egg-free tie, freshly pressed suit, polished shoes. It looks like his hair has been recently clippered at the sides, and his cheeks have been shaved so closely they are shining like two slabs of red-veined marble.

‘You had been investigating Jack Peel for a number of years, is that correct?’

The two men are sitting in an interview room at police headquarters in Ponteland. The room has been kept deliberately sparse in order to focus minds. The only furniture is a couple of plastic chairs and a table between them. On the table is a thick file. Gilcrux methodically scrolls back through the pages.

‘You could say he had been on our radar for a while, yes,’ Vos says.

‘How long?’

‘Two years, give or take.’

‘Why?’

‘Come on, Mr Gilcrux. You know how it works. You get to hear things, then you get to hear some more things, until eventually you decide it might be worth a look.’

Gilcrux makes no comment. He makes no indication of having heard a word Vos has said. Vos can imagine that the fat Welshman was a shit-hot interrogator in his time. And even though he knows this stonewall technique by heart, Vos still feels uneasy, because he has no idea what Gilcrux knows.

‘Go on,’ Gilcrux says.

‘We heard that Peel was involved in supplying class A drugs at his nightclubs. Coke, E, that sort of thing. We were keen to find out if this was the case, and if he was supplying them anywhere else.’

‘These nightclubs were in Newcastle, were they?’

‘Yeah. They still are. Peel Leisure owns pretty much every club, casino and lap-dancing bar on the Quayside.’

‘Tell me about your investigation into Mr Peel, Mr Vos?’

‘What? All of it?’

‘Everything you believe to be
pertinent
,’ Gilcrux says.

Vos winces theatrically at the policespeak, but Gilcrux appears not to notice or care. So Vos tells him about the investigation into Jack Peel, and Gilcrux listens and does not interrupt. His hands are folded in front of him and he makes no notes. There is no need; it’s all in the file that he has already read and digested. But that’s not the point of this exercise. This is all about observation and body language. It’s about Gilcrux getting the measure of Vos, the way a boxer uses the first couple of rounds to analyse his opponent, looking for strengths, identifying weaknesses.

When Vos has finished, Gilcrux asks him if he wants a break. Vos says no. They have been in this room for over an hour now.

‘What was your relationship with Mr Peel?’

‘My relationship?’

‘You investigate someone over a period of time, you get close to them.’

Vos shrugs. ‘As far as I was concerned I was a copper and he was a villain.’

‘What about his wedding?’ Gilcrux’s eyes are like two lasers boring into Vos’s skull. ‘June this year, wasn’t it?’

‘It was hardly a social occasion. We regarded it as more of a reconnaissance mission.’

‘We?’

‘Myself and DS Entwistle. You see, Vic’s daughter is due to get married next spring and he thought he might pick up a few tips. And Peel had had plenty of practice. This was his third marriage. Charming lady name of Kimnai Su. He went all the way to Thailand to get her.’

Gilcrux blinks slowly. ‘What happened?’

‘We sat at the back of the church, sang a few hymns and then shook hands with the groom on the way out.’

‘After which Mr Peel made an official complaint of harassment.’

‘Yes, well, if you check your notes, you’ll see that he withdrew the complaint, Mr Gilcrux. In fact, old Jack was suddenly all sunlight and joy as far as I was concerned. Must have been that married life finally agreed with him.’

‘He invited you to his house,’ Gilcrux says. ‘August 28 this year.’

‘He did indeed, Mr Gilcrux.’

‘That was three weeks before his death.’

‘I’ve never thought about it, but yes, I suppose it was.’

‘Why don’t you tell me about that day, Mr Vos?’

It is one of those improbably hot Indian-summer days when the temperatures in Northumberland exceed those in southern Europe. Jack Peel is wearing an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt and shorts on the patio of his £3 million house in the village of Whalton, north of Newcastle. He’s a stocky man whose fifty-five years are only now beginning to erode a once-powerful physique. The abundant hairs on his chest are turning white, the leathery brown skin beneath beginning to slide away from broad slabs of pectoral muscle. Knotted veins stick out like spaghetti from the flesh of his exposed legs
.

‘
Hey, Al, come and get a drink!
’
Peel calls out
.

Sitting in a whirlpool spa is Al Blaylock, Peel
’
s lawyer, a middle-aged man with a tan and a comb-over. He grabs the side and levers himself and his huge gut out with some difficulty, then grabs a towel from one of the sunloungers and wipes his face. Beneath the flabby overhang, his modesty is concealed by the skimpiest of black thongs
.

Peel sniggers
. ‘
Look at that. What the fuck does he look like? Hey, Al, what the fuck do you look like?
’

Al smiles bashfully and waddles across on spindly white legs to where Vos sits, leaving a trail of wet footprints on the baking slabs
.