Until Death (35 page)

A high brick wall abutted the play centre at one end, the other end meeting a low, Victorian redbrick warehouse, ripe for demolition as the docks were redeveloped. The flats on Casson Street rose up behind the wall. To her right, a wide expanse of dock led to the Malamatos offices, warehouses and the ships. It would be a dangerous sprint in the open to safety.

Michael paused for just a moment, searching the dock for options, judging the height of the wall. He took but a moment before he ran at the wall, jumping and reaching for a pipe that ran under a ledge on the warehouse and swinging his leg on to the wall. The pipe made a groaning sound and gave way, pulling out of the weathered brick as he struggled to the top of the wall.

She ran towards him. ‘Help them over!’ She lifted Yannis up as high as she could and Michael grabbed his hand, dragging him in an ungainly bundle up and over the wall. Florence was easier, her light frame and trainers helping her over in a moment. Kelly heard incoherent shouts behind her as a huddle of people ran past.

Her former husband’s hand was warm as she grabbed it and tried to get a foothold on the brick. She was two steps up the wall, his face straining with the effort of pulling up an adult. She saw him glance towards the river, his face betraying something. She heard the sound of heavy feet, a shout from Christos. One of her hands was on top of the wall, she had one leg nearly over.

Behind her Christos and two men were racing for the wall. ‘Pull her down!’

Her eyes locked on Michael’s. She had to get her knee over the wall and then she was safe. She couldn’t talk, concentrating all her effort into getting over. She used to talk to him with only her eyes, or so she had thought, when they were young and in love. He frowned slightly, she could feel his hand loosening on hers, his legs tensing as he prepared to fall away on the other side. ‘No!’ He shook his head as if trying to free something that had snagged on his memory, and let go. He jumped down on the other side of the wall and was gone. Kelly half fell back down the bricks, Christos catching her and slamming her into the wall as he did so. Her knees gave way as she landed, a howl of pain that wasn’t physical coming from deep inside her.

Christos was panting, sweating from running hard. He pulled out his phone, ordering Medea to collect the children from Casson Street. She heard the distant wail of police sirens and saw him smile.

G
eorgie, Mo and Mrs Woronzow returned to the elegant living room and the beautiful-smelling fire, the ash from the perfectly chopped logs crumbling elegantly to the bottom of the grate.

By now, Mrs Woronzow was protesting as Georgie outlined the charges against the couple. Her voice, which only moments ago had been so confident and urbane, was now high and reedy in the large room.

‘I think we should have that tea now, Mrs Woronzow.’

Georgie phoned the office. There was still a lot to do, a team needed to come out here, photos needed to be taken, evidence and statements collected: all the processes that allowed a case to go to court. There was no answer on Angus’s extension. She tried his mobile. Nothing. She rang the switchboard. No reply. She tried Preston. She couldn’t understand why no one was answering.

Five minutes later Preston rang her back.

‘Where is everyone? Why can’t I get through?’

Preston sounded ill. ‘There has been a shit show like you wouldn’t believe. There’s just been a shootout at that play centre further down the dock, where Malamatos was having his charity fundraiser—’

‘A shootout? Has anyone been hurt?’

‘I’ve no idea. Armed police have had to evacuate half the port, including our offices.’

Georgie had to sit down on the inviting sofa in the hallway. ‘Where’s Kelly?’

‘Kelly?’ Preston sounded confused. ‘She’s the least of our worries. Who was that guy you brought up from Southampton? He was left to wander about, wasn’t he? Because he’s the one the police think might be responsible. You’d better get back here right now, Georgie.’

Georgie didn’t even think to tell him that they’d found the wood.

T
he Wolf watched the clean-up from the roof of an old oil storage depot. From his position flat down on his belly he could see the panicked movements of groups of people, the masks and costumes littering the dock, balloons freed from their interior home drifting skywards on the wind. The prone body of Jonas on the tarmac didn’t move.

A close-run thing, but then it wouldn’t be the first time. Sylvie had shot the wrong man and as he fell the Wolf had grabbed the bag. He felt the weight of the backpack heavy on his shoulders.

He had stared at Florence, looked into her pale eyes as he had pulled her over the wall. She had not recognised him. He wondered whether the tilt of her head, the line of her jaw, the way she moved, would spark some feeling in him, but they hadn’t. The past really meant nothing to him. Florence could have belonged to anyone, anyone at all. He had left the bewildered children where they stood, knowing someone would be along to rescue them. But it wouldn’t be their mother.

He watched as Kelly was quickly frogmarched away from the wall by Christos and some other men. Her howl of anguish at being separated from her children had carried over the wall towards him. He felt a familiar sensation, one he’d tried to dislodge for the past eight years and had never managed. He felt bad for Kelly’s suffering, the bundles of cash in the rucksack not giving him the euphoria he had long dreamed of. He climbed down the metal ladder and managed to track Christos and Kelly along the dock towards the
Saracen.
He had to split then, as he heard the first of the many police cars appearing at the port.

G
eorgie and Mo drove back to the docks, a boulder lodged in Georgie’s throat that expanded the closer they got to the river. She tried phoning Kelly again. It went straight to voicemail. She turned on the radio and got the first reports on the news bulletins. The situation was still confused: a shooting at a children’s charity event … one male victim, as yet unnamed … It had a ghoulish melodrama to it. The head of Lost Souls, Anila, was being interviewed. By the time they drove into the car park and saw the incident vans, TV crews and the press, Georgie’s world as she knew it was beginning to collapse.

In the aftermath of the shooting the police had cordoned off a large part of the docks and evacuated the customs offices, a number of warehouses and Malamatos Shipping’s offices. These areas were being declared safe bit by bit and now staff were streaming back into their offices. Georgie and Mo hurried into the building, now cleared by police and operations resumed as best they could. Angus was at the top of the stairs as Georgie came up; he took her by the elbow and steered her and Mo into the stairwell.

‘One question. Why were you talking to this guy from Southampton?’ He looked grey and old, a spot of blood on his lip from where he’d been chewing it.

‘The tip-off said there was a connection between Malamatos operations here and Southampton—’

‘Why is he here? Why did you bring him up here?’

‘He offered to come, he saved us a trip—’

‘He offered? Mo told me that this guy’s a convicted murderer, that he offered to come halfway across the country to talk to you. Is that right?’

Georgie felt the contents of her stomach begin to move unpleasantly. ‘Yes, but I had no reason to assume there was a problem … And then we went to pursue the wood lead and we, I mean I, was going to talk to him again later.’

Angus raked his hand through his hair. ‘So he was just left here at the docks?’

Georgie nodded. ‘Yes. It’s a public area, I don’t understand—’

‘This bit is very important. Did you at any time mention Christos’s wife?’ Georgie opened and closed her mouth. ‘Because if you did, you’ve blown a witness protection cover. Kelly put that man who you were interviewing this morning in jail for murder. The police are all over me. If they think we led him to her, the shit is already over our heads. You know how much it costs to redo a witness protection cover? It’s thousands of pounds of public money, notwithstanding the upheaval to her and her family’s life.’

Georgie thought she heard Mo swear under his breath. Maybe it was a prayer.

‘Give me something I can use, Georgie. Tell me you found something useful that broke this case from him coming up here.’

He was looking at her, pleading. Her boss was pleading not only for her job but for his own. And she couldn’t offer a thing.

‘Where did you find him? What’s the trail? Tell me every I is dotted, every T is crossed on this?’

Mo and Angus were looking at her. She had been put on the trail to disaster by her family. They had laid down the crumbs in the forest, and she had pursued them as far as they led.

‘Mo had nothing to do with this, it was my decision alone.’

That’s when Angus got angry. ‘You’re not in a position to be saying that kind of thing!’

‘Where’s Ricky now?’ asked Georgie.

‘In police custody.’ Angus pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘They’re trying to piece together what happened at the play centre. There are conflicting reports about who had a gun, and whether he was involved. They want to interview you. They’re waiting in the meeting room upstairs.’

Shame lanced her. She had bathed in Angus’s approval and his attention and it had been brutally removed. She had pushed the edges of what was permissible in order to impress him and had sown the seeds of her own destruction.

She turned to go but Angus gestured up the stairs. ‘Go that way, it’s quicker and you won’t have to see anyone.’ She stared up the echoing staircase, then looked back at Mo. He was staring at her helplessly. She took the stairs two at a time because she couldn’t bear to be the object of that look any more. She came out on the second floor and heard the staccato chatter of a police radio from one of the meeting rooms. Her courage failed her. The police interview would signal the end of her career. There was no way back from this and she knew it. She walked right past the door without even looking in, slipped down the back stairs and out of the back door.

The wind off the river sliced through her like a scythe. She walked behind a low building to where she had chained up her bike what seemed like a million years ago now. She would delay the axe falling for that little bit longer if she could. It was human nature, after all.

She cycled away.

C
hristos hurried Kelly along, his grip on her arm a vice. People rushed past them in the other direction but they kept on. He had to half carry her, her disappointment at another failed escape stripping her of the will to fight.

They walked a long way down the dock, past the Malamatos offices and the customs block. The afternoon was still and cold, the wind had died and the sky was clear. He led her towards the
Saracen
. She tried to pause as she stared up at the huge ship, but he gripped her arm tighter and pulled her up the gangway and through the bowels of the ship, along corridors and down to a lower level until they arrived in the ship’s galley, a warren of stainless-steel units and corners buttressed by fridges. He pulled a pair of handcuffs from his jacket and locked one of her wrists to the safety rail that ran round the edges of the units.

She turned to face him. ‘I know about the baby. I know all about going to Brazil to buy a son.’

He didn’t reply, had pulled out his phone, was scrolling through numbers.

‘Christos, think of the children. The children you have
now
. You love Yannis and Florence – why can’t they be enough?’

‘Enough?’ Christos looked up from his phone aghast, almost angry. ‘Look around you, Kelly. Six hundred thousand tonnes of metal, one of the biggest fleets in western Europe, it’s not a question of enough. That doesn’t even come into it. You’re asking the wrong question. It’s about what’s possible. I’ve told you before.
Nothing
is impossible.’

‘So what happens now?’ She pulled on the handcuff so that it chinked against the metal. ‘You won’t divorce me, so what accident am I to have? That’s how you’re going to get rid of me, isn’t it? Me dying allows you to bring Sylvie and the new baby in. Nothing’s impossible, eh?’

‘A family line is not disposable.’

‘You set out to meet me, didn’t you? You chose me because you wanted to keep me close, because you wondered whether one day Michael might come back. You came into that restaurant where I was working, down on my luck, banished from my home town and my friends, and you knew I wouldn’t be able to resist. You never loved me at all, did you?’

‘That day in the restaurant wasn’t the first time I saw you. I heard you sing one time in Southampton. You made an impression. And then later, after Michael and Amber were gone, I saw you sing in a pub in the Elephant and Castle. You were so vulnerable you were completely compelling, thinking of your dead child and your husband. I realised then, that if you could make space in there – in your broken heart – for me, it would be the ultimate proof of love. And I got my proof of love.’

‘And this is how you treat someone you claim to love.’

‘Most men are competitive, Michael and I more than most. It adds to the excitement when you win.’

‘Michael’s twice the man you are.’

‘Here’s a thing. Where is Michael now? He didn’t come back for you, did he? He came back for money. He dropped you down that wall to save himself, to keep his bag of cash. Think about that, Kelly. He’s a worthless piece of shit. I felt less bad about the things I’ve done because you were used to it.’

‘You’re a disgusting human being who doesn’t know how to love.’

His face clouded over. ‘I loved you. More than you know. We got married and you moved in, but then reality hit. I expected you to move on, but you didn’t – you couldn’t. Your mind was fragile, you loved and needed the kids more than me, I could tell that. And then later, you would look at me in that way, that way you’re doing now. After everything I did for you, I didn’t like that at all.’