Vendetta (18 page)

Blink. Blink. Blink. ‘Not my type, a bit bony for me . . .’ He jackknifed to the front of his seat. ‘Not that I’m saying I wanted to get down and dirty with her; I would never stare at Sergei’s girl with the wrong expression in my eyes . . .’

Mac leaned his palms on the desk. Bent his body deep into the younger man’s space. ‘Mr Volk isn’t interested in where your cock’s been hanging out; all he wants to do is help his brother find his girl, so just tell me what she looks like.’

Mac guessed that Jeff was too far gone in ketamine heaven to suss out that surely Sergei would have given his brother a description of his girlfriend.

Jeff closed his eyes, deep thinking. Pushed them open again and went straight back into blink-blink mode. ‘About five six or seven. Pretty snub nose with short-cut dyed-black hair. Well, it looked out of a bottle to me. And the tattoo . . .’

Mac froze. ‘What tattoo?’

Sensing the change in the room, Jeff came over all nerves again, his hands jutting back in the air. ‘Look, man, if I ain’t meant to see no tat, I ain’t . . .’

Mac jerked to his feet. ‘What tattoo?’

‘On her arm. A red star with some yellow and some fancy shit foreign writing?’

thirty-eight

‘Did this Katia ever call herself Elena?’

Mac made himself ask the question. His mind was reeling with the information that he’d never prepared himself for. No, he wouldn’t allow himself to entertain the idea. No way . . . No, it just couldn’t be. But the stoned man in front of him was telling a different tale.

Five six or seven.

Snub nose.

Short-cut black hair.

Red star tattoo.

Elena. Was Sergei’s missing girlfriend Elena? Elena wouldn’t be screwing him and some other bloke at the same time. Would she? He tried to deny it but the description and the tattoo just kept hitting him back.

Jeff’s voice tore over his twisting thoughts. ‘I only ever heard her called Anna, Annalisa or Katia. Loads of the girls here have different names. I don’t ask to see no birth certificates. Sergei must be keen on finding this girl because you’re the second guy his brother has sent my way today.’

‘Who else has been here?’

But Jeff didn’t answer. Instead the corners of his eyes crinkled as he stared deeply at Mac, as if seeing him for the first time. ‘How come you don’t know Mr Volk sent someone else?’

Think quickly. Quickly.
‘Because maybe this man was never sent by Reuben.’ Mac added with menace, ‘If you’ve been flapping your lips about Mr Volk’s business to—’

‘Hold up. When the guy limped out of here, he only had the same information I’ve given you . . .’

‘Limped?’

‘Yeah. Well, sort of limped; took it slow each time he raised his right leg.’

Calum. What the fuck had he been doing here?

‘Maybe Sergei’s woman has gone off to get rid of the kid and don’t want him to know.’

The baby. He couldn’t ignore the presence of the pregnancy kit in his jacket any more. If this was Elena, had she been murdered while carrying his child?

Mac threw up in the sink as soon as he got into the toilet not far from Jeff’s office.
Not my kid, not my kid. Please not my kid again.
And how was he going to deal with another child dying before its time? The feeling was crushing, overwhelming. Like a jackhammer brutalising him, over and over. He lifted his head as his hand wiped his mouth. Stared at his face in the mirror, but another scene reflected back at him.

‘He’s dead because of you,’ Donna screamed at him. ‘You were meant to be looking after him. How could you have taken Stevie away from me . . . ?’

Her face became Elena’s, staring up at him in the bath in that ice-cold bathroom. Her hand was curved protectively across her tummy. ‘What shall we call him? Stefan in honour of Stevie?’

Her image disappeared as the room began to close in on Mac. He started shaking. Stevie had died because of him. And now another one of his children was gone. The pressure pulled him under. He took out his Luger and shoved the barrel in his mouth.

thirty-nine

2:20 p.m.

‘I understand that you’ve got some information about a crime that was committed at the Rose Hotel, Mister . . . ?’

Rio wasted no words with the cab driver who sat opposite her in Interview Room Number Four. The room was compact, square, with no window but a single table and three plain black chairs. The cabbie was somewhere between late fifties and sixty, with strands of grey hair peeping through a thin, dyed-black patch, and a belly that eased ever so slightly over his belted dark trousers, which had an immaculate crease down each leg.

‘Miller. Lucas Miller.’ He turned a saucy smile on her. ‘Most just call me Lucky.’

Rio didn’t smile back. Instead she said, ‘I’ll need to tape this conversation.’

She popped the tape on but also opened her notepad onto a clean page. ‘So how can you help my investigation?’

‘Well, he got into my cab . . .’

Rio quickly wrote.

Male.

‘I’ve been driving a cab for the last twenty years, love,’ the cabbie smiled slightly, displaying a gold tooth. ‘Passed “The Knowledge” on my first go . . .’

‘Where did you pick him up?’ she cut in. She didn’t have time for the cabbie to take her on a nostalgia ride through the streets of London. Over the years she’d learned that it was sometimes a good ploy to let those sitting on the other side of the table go off the beaten track. Made them more relaxed and the more loose they were, the more they started feeling they were your mate, which usually meant that they’d be more likely to give you the information you were after. But she didn’t have time for that today, not with a faceless victim who still hadn’t been identified.

Lucky Miller shifted forward as he sniffed through one nostril. ‘On the same road that that murder happened. Picked him up on the street. He had a bag on his shoulder, a rucksack, so it looked like he’d come from one of the hotels.’

‘How do you know he’d come from one of the hotels?’

‘Well I sort of asked him, didn’t I? I says to him, you gotta know something about what the Old Bill are doing all over the place, because you’re a guest in one of the hotels. And he never denied it.’

Rio wrote:

Hotel on Crawley Street. Names of the other hotels?

She pressed on with her questions. ‘What did this man look like? How tall was he? What age? Did he have any distinctive marks?’

The cabbie screwed his face up. Relaxed his facial muscles as he sniffed high up into his nose. ‘Hard to say how old he was. I’d say maybe about the age of my Kevin, or a tad older.’ Suddenly his face lit up. ‘He’s my firstborn. Had his thirty-second last week.’ Rio almost jumped in, but let it go. ‘Had a big birthday bash, which caused a bit of bother between the missus and his wife. Who was doing what; you know, power-play over who was going to make the cake.’ He let out a small laugh mixed with the thickness of memories and phlegm.

Rio kept writing.

Thirty-two years old. Maybe older, mid-thirties?

‘What about what he looked like?’

The cabbie closed his eyes and Rio knew he was trying to imagine the scene in his cab again. She was a visual learner as well, having a knack for going back to a scene inside her head without having to be there. A very handy tool for a detective. Snapped them open. ‘Can’t remember too much about his clothes, but he wore a hood . . .’

‘Like he was trying to hide something on his head?’

‘Dunno. I mean, all the young kids are decked out in those hoodies these days. If you ask me, I think they should be banned. Only one reason you’d want to keep your face hidden.’ He pulled some air through his nose again. ‘I think it was part of his jacket . . . Yeah that’s right, a jeans jacket. Mind you, I couldn’t see properly, what with him being in the back.’

Hoodie attached to jeans jacket. Maybe hiding something? A head injury?

‘But he looked upset . . . ?’

Rio’s head lifted up away from her notepad.

‘How do you mean?’

‘I couldn’t say for sure, but his eyes were bloodshot, like he’d been crying, or at least going at it with a bottle of something strong.’ He leaned back. ‘There was something about him that put me in mind of my granddad when my Nan passed away. He looked kind of lost, like he’s on the way to somewhere in my cab but don’t really know where he’s going.’

Upset? Or in pain from an injury? Head injury? Bullet wound?

He took in a long breath, not from his nose this time, but from deep within his mouth. ‘Thought I’d have to tell him to get out when I thought he was smoking.’

‘So he was a smoker?’

He leaned forward again. ‘Well, he said that he didn’t have a fag, but he definitely had something in his hand. Don’t know what it was, but he pushed something back inside his jacket.’

Something inside his jacket. Gun? Knife? Or maybe just an everyday pen?

‘How tall was he?’

‘I’d say . . .’ He twisted his lips. ‘About five eleven, five ten; he didn’t top six foot.’

Five ten or eleven.

‘Do you remember anything else?’

He shook his head. ‘When I heard the news report on the radio, I thought I should drop in and have a word. I mean, it might mean nothing, but no harm coming in. I mean he could’ve been anyone, just wanted dropping off in a rough part of town . . .’

‘Where did you drop him off?’

He told her.

Brixton.

Rough end of town? Rio half smiled at that. She’d tried to buy a flat there a few years back and couldn’t afford the three-hundred-G-plus price tag.

‘I’m going to get one of my colleagues to get a police sketch artist to get your description computerised.’

A few minutes later, Rio was back on her own, leaning against the wall outside the interview room, staring at her notes.

Male.

Hotel on Crawley Street. Names of the other hotels?

Thirty-two years old. Maybe older, mid-thirties?

Hoodie attached to jeans jacket. Maybe hiding something? A head injury?

Upset? Or in pain from an injury? Head injury? Bullet wound?

Something inside his jacket. Gun? Knife? Or maybe just a freaking pen?

Five ten or eleven.

Brixton.

The cab driver’s passenger might not have anything to do with the investigation. Might just be a guy taking a ride from A to B. Might be the client of a prostitute who just didn’t want to be recognised? Or was this her naked cop?

forty

Mac’s finger twitched against the trigger.
But what if it wasn’t your kid? What if it was Sergei’s?
The guilt was overpowering, but doubt was starting to creep through. Mac’s inner cop kicked into gear, allowing his mind to take that step back and see all of the evidence:

Elena is murdered on the same day Sergei’s girlfriend goes missing.

The description of this Katia-Anna-Annalisa fits Elena.

He’d only ever met one woman who showcased a red star tattoo.

His mind twisted back.
But if that was your child, are you really going to let some bastard get away with killing him? You owe it to Stevie, and maybe you owe this child too. Justice. Revenge.

Slowly Mac eased the gun from his mouth. Put it away and took out the bottle of pills in two swift moves. He still wasn’t sure if these were the same meds that Doctor Warren had doled out to him, but if he was going to find out the truth, he couldn’t go around with the head that currently sat on his shoulders. As he popped two pills, the toilet door swung open. A woman with blonde pigtails. She became flustered when she saw him.

‘This is the Ladies loo,’ she said, her voice still clinging to its Russian roots.

Yellow crop top, blowsy blonde pigtails. The pole dancer from the dance floor downstairs. Only when he caught her face did Mac realise that she was something else as well – the woman he’d rescued from Elena’s burning building.

They both stared back, surprised. Hurriedly she twisted round, but Mac was on her in two steps. She gasped as he dragged her back inside and pushed her against the grass-green tiled wall. The tabs hit Mac’s blood, heating him up. He looked her up and down, the same way he’d assess a suspect during an interrogation. Her eyes darted around, fingers resting on the strap of her bag curled, uncurled, curled.

The power of the drugs pushed his face a half-inch from her own. ‘You claimed not to know Elena this morning. Said that you were just a neighbour.’

‘I’ll scream . . .’ Her voice jerked, her accent stronger.

‘Go ahead.’ Mac’s breath blew against her skin. ‘But the boss of the club isn’t going to be happy that you wouldn’t tell me what you know about Elena’s disappearance.’

At the mention of Reuben, her eyes widened. ‘I don’t know her really . . .’

‘Then how come you work in the same club that she comes to?’

Her hand tightened against her bag. ‘I just dance, that’s all, keep the men happy and my eyes to myself.’