The Slaughter Man (10 page)

‘DC Max Wolfe,’ I said, holding out my warrant card. ‘Claudia here paid the late Mr Brad Wood a visit. She found me instead.’

‘That appointment was
cancelled
, Claudia,’ the woman behind the desk said, an American accent grafted onto something else. She took a very deep breath. ‘Didn’t you receive my voicemail cancelling your appointment in the Barbican?’

‘No.’

‘My text message? My email? My DM?’

Claudia sniffed. ‘Lost my phone,’ she said.

The woman behind the desk shook her head and then looked at me with a strange mixture of fear and defiance. It struck me that she had been expecting this moment, or something like it, for years.

‘Where’s the boss?’ I said.

‘You’re looking at her,’ she said.

‘And what’s your name?’

‘Ginger Gonzalez. This is my company. Sampaguita Ltd.’

‘Sampaguita?’

‘National flower of the Philippines.’

‘You Filipina?’

‘Not any more. My father was a US serviceman stationed in the Philippines. My mother was a dancer.’

‘Like Claudia.’

‘Yes. That kind of dancer. Exactly that kind of dancer. In Angeles. Where the Americans were stationed. Then they went home. And when I was sixteen, I went looking for my father.’

‘You find him?’

‘No. But after a few years I got a US passport. Even better.’

I looked around the bare white room.

‘And what do you trade in here at Sampaguita, Ginger?’

‘Sampaguita is a Social Introduction Agency,’ she said with a straight face.

‘Social Introduction Agency?’ I smiled. ‘Is that what they call it these days?’ I nodded at the black kid. ‘Who’s he? The Pound Store Al Capone?’

‘That’s my Security Director.’

I shook my head.

‘It’s all euphemisms with you people. Why do you need a bouncer – sorry – why do you need a Security Director at a Social Introduction Agency?’

‘The locals. The gangs here in Chinatown. Sometimes they ask for rent when absolutely no rent is due.’

I nodded. The Triads would need a bit of scaring away if you set up shop around here. Although they tended to prefer waving their machetes in the faces of members of their own community.

‘Give your Security Director the rest of the night off,’ I said. ‘Claudia too. We need to talk.’

Ginger dismissed the pair of them with a curt nod of her head. We heard footsteps scrambling down the narrow staircase. There was one chair opposite her desk. I took it.

‘So how does it work, Ginger?’

She took a breath.

‘I introduce affluent, high-achieving, men to educated, beautiful younger women.’

‘What should I Google? How do they find you? All those high-achieving men?’

‘It’s strictly word of mouth. Personal recommendations only. Sampaguita is not online. We’re totally discreet. Nobody wants to leave a digital fingerprint these days.’

‘Until one of the girls loses her iPhone,’ I said.

She bit her lower lip.

‘The prostitution laws in this country are interesting,’ I said.

‘Aren’t they?’ she said. ‘They seem to come down hardest on soliciting. In my experience.’

‘True. The exchange of sexual services for money is legal. But if you run a brothel, or if you pimp, or if you coerce, or if you solicit, then the law comes down on you like a ton of bricks. In my experience.’

She waited.

‘I’m not going to bust you,’ I said.

‘Thank you.’

‘But I will if you don’t help me. I’m looking for a murderer, Ginger. And I’m looking for a missing child. And if you make me slow my pace then I will close this place down in my tea break and get you locked up without hesitation.’

‘I understand.’ She hesitated. ‘It’s terrible, what happened to that family, to that little boy.’

‘Tell me about Brad Wood,’ I said.

‘Mr Wood was a regular client.’

‘How often did he use your services?’

‘Once a week. For two years. A different girl every time.’

‘That sounds like an awful lot of girls.’

‘It mounts up.’

‘You’ve got over a hundred girls on your books?’

She shook her head. ‘Nothing like that number. They tend to come and go. Get married. Go home. Go back to school. Rethink their career. But there are always new faces. There are always new girls in town.’

‘How long was the booking for?’

‘Never more than a few hours. They never stayed the night. Mr Wood had to get home.’

I thought about it.

‘And he let you choose who to send round to his flat in the Barbican?’

‘He trusted my judgement. And Mr Wood was quite conventional in his tastes. Young. Blonde. Non-smoking, of course – he was an elite athlete, you know. No tattoos or piercings.’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘I prefer to employ young women with no tattoos or piercings, but they’re not so easy to find these days, believe me. But most men are attracted to younger versions of their wife. And that’s what Mr Wood liked. Younger models of Mrs Wood.’

‘Why did he never want the same girl twice?’

‘My theory is that it was the fear of an inappropriate attachment. He didn’t want to like any girl too much. He didn’t want to get involved. And of course there’s the sexual novelty factor. What Mr Wood liked – if I may use a technical term – was
strange
. I prefer that term –
strange
– to
fresh meat
, which I find demeans both the man and the woman.’

I thought about all this for a while.

‘And how did you meet him?’

‘I met him in the bar of the Connaught.’

‘So when you say word of mouth and personal recommendations, what you mean is that you pick up rich men in swanky bars?’

‘That’s a very crude way to put it, Detective. But yes – that’s often how initial contact is made with my blue-chip clients.’

‘Always the Connaught? For your fishing expeditions?’

She smiled.

‘Not always. Although the Coburg Bar at the Connaught has been a happy hunting ground for me. But I also use the American bar at the Savoy. The Rivoli Bar at the Ritz. The Fumoir at Claridges. The Promenade Bar at the Dorchester. Although I tend to steer clear of the Dorchester as I prefer not to do business with some of our more devout Arab friends. But we all have our prejudices, don’t we? Prejudice is the wrong word. Think of it as a preference.’

‘So not always the Connaught, but always five-star.’

‘Yes.’

‘What happened with Brad Wood?’

‘He asked if he could buy me a drink. We had dinner a couple of times. I saw how lonely he was and I made my suggestions as to how he could remedy that situation.’

‘With Sampaguita.’

‘Yes.’

‘You sleep with him?’

She shook her head.

‘I met him three times. That was it. Two years ago. Everything else was done by text message on two BlackBerrys that were used for the sole purpose of our communications. Nothing else. We both understood the importance of discretion. On the third and final occasion we met I convinced him that I wasn’t what he needed. And I told him that an affair with someone he really liked was not the answer to his problems. Affairs are incredibly destructive, Detective. They destroy marriages. They destroy families. They destroy lives. Affairs are never worth the trail of tears they leave behind. Sampaguita offers a healthy, danger-free alternative and Mr Wood took it. He was a wise man and a pragmatic man, a generous man and a decent man.’ Tears shone in her eyes and they seemed to be genuine. ‘And I can’t tell you how incredibly sad I am that he is dead,’ she said. ‘He was a good guy. And for all their money and education and beautiful homes to go back to, they are not all good guys, Detective.’

I wondered how much of this I could believe.

‘I’ll tell you something else about Brad Wood,’ Ginger Gonzalez said.

‘What’s that?’ I asked.

‘That man loved his wife,’ she said.

With our breath making clouds in the freezing morning air, Scout guided Stan through the early morning crowds of Smithfield. The streets were covered with the refuse of another busy night and St Paul’s Cathedral stood against a sky that was grey with the prospect of snow. Scout was wrapped up for the worst of the winter, her perfect face circled by woolly hat, school scarf and a jacket that was zipped right up.

Scout was very good with the dog.

She smiled politely at the compliments the little red Cavalier received from the bleary club kids emerging from Fabric and the meat porters at the end of their long night at Smithfield, but she was alert to sudden bursts of traffic, wrapping the dog lead around her wrist one extra turn at the first sign of danger. Stan trotted happily by her side, the feathery plume of his tail erect and his tiny snout savouring the morning air.

We crossed Charterhouse Street, skirted the market and reached the open space of West Smithfield, where Stan liked to inspect the markings of other dogs before doing his business. He sniffed the dark splashes on the stone chairs that skirted the black statue of a woman that stood in the centre of the square.

While Stan checked his pee-mail, I looked at my messages. My heart took that lurch it always did on those rare occasions when my ex-wife got in touch.

I want to see her.

When I looked up, Scout was slowly mouthing the words that were carved into the stone chairs of West Smithfield. Stan crouched for his toilet, ready at last, turning his bulging eyes towards me for a pleading moment and then shyly looking away. I put my phone in my pocket and took out a small plastic bag.

Scout looked at me, her face lit with delight.

‘It’s a story!’ she said. ‘The words in the stone! Do you see?’

‘And I bet you can read some of it, can’t you?’

She nodded once. ‘But you read it to me, Daddy.’

I scooped up Stan’s mess, tied the top of the plastic bag and dropped it in the bin. Dog owners can do it in one smooth move. And then I leaned in to the words that were cut into the stone chairs.

‘
It was market morning
,’ I read. ‘
The ground was covered nearly ankle-deep with filth and mire, and a thick steam perpetually—
’

‘Perpetually?’ Scout said.

‘Always,’ I explained. The words spun out across the stone chairs and I had to slowly walk around the square to read them. ‘
And a thick steam perpetually rising from the reeking bodies of the cattle, and mingling with the fog, which seemed to rest upon the chimney tops, hung heavily above
.’ I straightened up. ‘Charles Dickens,
Oliver Twist
.’ I indicated the square. ‘Dickens was writing about Smithfield, Scout.’ I spared her the stuff about Bill Sikes dragging young Oliver through Smithfield on the way to commit a burglary. ‘Dickens was writing about where we live. A long time ago. When they still brought cattle to the market.’

‘Once upon a time?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Once upon a time.’

I crouched down so that I was level with my daughter.

‘Scout,’ I said. ‘Your mother would like to see you.’

Scout blinked at me. We were not like other divorced families who effortlessly handled the new arrangements. The breaking of our family had been brutal and we all still reeled from the shock of the ending, even as we got on with our lives, Scout and I in the loft high above Smithfield, Anne in a new house in Richmond, with her husband and young son, and another baby growing inside her. Anne’s contact with Scout had been sporadic. My ex-wife was always looking for a window, she told me. She had apparently found a small window before her due date rolled around.

‘But school starts today!’ Scout said, immediately anxious.

‘You would stay at the weekend. Friday night, Saturday night. Something like that. I would drive you down there. Collect you.’

‘But what about my stuff? I don’t have any of my stuff there!’

I placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. ‘Scout, you can take what you need. It’s just for a night or two. You know your mother loves you, don’t you?’

‘But what about Stan?’ Scout said, wringing her hands now, on the verge of tears. ‘The weekend is when Stan goes off-lead! You know that, don’t you, Daddy?’

It had become our habit to take Stan up to Hampstead Heath on the weekends when I wasn’t working. Our little red Cavalier was not the easiest dog to let off-lead – he would stick with the pack until something more interesting came along, like a rabbit or a bird or, increasingly, a female dog of round about his own size. When that happened it felt like he would gamble with his life and home for one brief sniff of paradise. But he needed that time to run loose. We had to learn to let him go. Just as I had to learn to let Scout go.

‘I can walk Stan alone,’ I said. ‘And – if you think it’s not safe to let him off-lead when you’re not there – then we can just go for a walk in the woods behind Jack Straw’s Castle and save the Heath for when you come back. Then we can do it together. OK, angel?’

She sighed with all the world-weariness she could muster.

‘OK, Daddy.’

Scout turned quickly away, Stan following her, but before she dipped her head, all wrapped up for winter, I saw it in her five-year-old eyes.

The flash of joy.

‘So it was about the father,’ DCI Whitestone said. ‘It was always about him.’

We stared at the images of Brad Wood on the whitewall of Murder Investigation Room One. Brad Wood with his eyes blown out on the bedroom floor. Brad Wood on a stainless steel slab at the Iain West Forensic Suite, the bloody pulp of his eyes expertly cleaned up now, but those empty sockets still seeming to stare at death itself. He looked very different to the rest of his family.

‘Mary, Marlon and Piper,’ I said. ‘They were all violently murdered. But it was more than that with Brad Wood. He was slaughtered.’

‘A different prostitute every week for two years,’ Gane said. ‘Even assuming time off for Christmas and all the major holidays, that’s still knocking on for a hundred different hookers.’

‘All of them with boyfriends,’ Wren said. ‘All of them with a motive to blackmail a wealthy man. And despite what the lady pimp told Wolfe, I doubt if every single one of them had a PhD and a heart of gold.’

‘And no tattoos,’ Gane said. ‘I bet some of them had a few tattoos.’