Vendetta (5 page)

Instead he walked slowly down the street to see if there was access to the rear of the buildings. On the other side of the butcher’s was a wooden gate that led to the rear where the bins that stored the waste were kept. It was a sound gate but easily climbable. Mac looked down the street in both directions but he knew this wasn’t the kind of road where a man scaling a gate was going to attract much attention and, even if it did, he didn’t care. He jumped up and grabbed the top with his fingers, kicking and scraping his way up the wooden panels. With a heave of his upper body and flick of his legs, he dropped down to the other side. Wiped the resin and creosote from his hands, made sure his Luger was easily accessible and then walked to the rear of the building.

The back door was open and he could hear music inside but there was no one around. He looked upwards. A net curtain flapped in the wind from an open sash window on the top floor. Next to that, a rusty Victorian drainpipe. Mac shook the pipe. It rattled and a small dusting of dislodged mortar carried on the wind from where the green metal pins held it loosely to the wall. After a quick look around, Mac reached up, dug his fingers behind the pipe, gripped it between his knees and began to carefully climb it, monkey style. Before he’d gone a few feet, the pins began to come away and the pipe swung and swayed.

He was still low enough to drop back down, but he didn’t even consider it. He went on with patient speed and careful haste. Each time Mac hauled himself up another foot, he would pause while the pipe decided whether it had had enough yet and was going to come down. As the window sill of the open sash came within reach, he hesitated, as if in an attempt to dupe the pipe that the stress being imposed on its joints was finally over. As a final warning, a thick metal pin above him came away, bounced on his head and then fell with a clink onto the back yard below.

Deep breath.

He launched himself up, desperately grabbing at the sill. His fingers caught the mossy stone but he could feel himself slipping away. With a flailing leg he pushed his foot against the pipe, which finally came away from the wall and hung at an angle. But not before Mac had managed to get enough leverage to get an arm over the ledge and, gasping with pain and effort, his leg followed. Like a crab, he pulled himself in sideways and tumbled to the floor.

His grazed fingers and knee stung. Muscles battered and wrung, but he had no time to lose. He stumbled up and across the room, which had files, papers and books piled high, and opened the door onto the second floor’s landing. Opened a second door and went into another room. An office of some kind. A large mahogany desk at one end with swivel chairs on either side of it. There was no sign of life, but Mac knew his quarry was around somewhere. He checked his watch.

A couple of minutes to nine.

Time was moving on way too quickly. Fourteen hours and two minutes to eleven tonight. The man who owned this office had to help him; it was his only shot at finding out what was on Elena’s phone.

Abruptly Mac froze. Something cold was touching the side of his neck. Mac heard the distinctive sound of a gun’s hammer being pulled back. That’s when he realised what was touching the twitching vein in his neck – the twin rims of the muzzle of a shotgun.

A voice growled behind him, ‘You’re very sloppy for an undercover cop.’

ten

‘The dead always speak,’ the forensic investigator said to Detective Inspector Rio Wray, who stood in the bathroom doorway.

Rio was now kitted out in a white forensic suit and matching foot and headgear. Her nose twitched at the metallic residue of blood in the air.

‘Looks like you’ve been out on the razzle,’ the forensic expert continued, her gaze settling, with surprise, on Rio’s lipstick. Rio wasn’t a make-up girl – well, not at work, anyway; she only ever put on a bit of colour when she was stepping out somewhere special.

‘A mate’s hen night that went rocking into the morning. Got the call to come here on my way home. So what’s the damage here, Charlie?’

‘What you see is what you get, I’m afraid,’ came the answer.

Rio stepped forward to join Charlie, who was already crouched down by the bath. The vic was female. Rio’s mouth tightened as she took in the already decaying mush that had once been the woman’s face. Blood, bone and brain splattered thick and high onto the wall. What a bloody mess.

‘The injuries are typical of being shot in the back of the head,’ Charlie continued. ‘Probably a close-range shot just below the start of the crown at the back of the head. All it takes is the speed and impact of one bullet coming out of the other side to pull the face to shreds.’

‘So the killer knew what he was doing?’ Rio threw back, keeping her gaze on the massive injuries.

‘That’s your department. Mine is just to assess the forensics.’

Rio peered closer. Although much of the woman’s hair was the colour of matted, drying blood, she could see it was dark, deep brown or dyed black. Without a face, it might take a while to verify who the victim was.

‘If she was shot in the back of the head, wouldn’t the body be lying forward or slumped to the side?’ Rio asked.

‘That’s what you would expect . . .’

‘Maybe the killer pushed her back?’ Rio interrupted. ‘Why would he do that?’ Then she spoke directly to the corpse. ‘We need to find out who you are.’

‘Probably a prostitute,’ another voice added. ‘It’s that kind of place.’

Both Charlie and Rio turned to find another officer standing in the doorway. Detective Jamie Martin. He was a good five years younger than Rio’s thirty-three, with neat, formal sandy hair and grey eyes that darted around like he was trying to store every detail around him. He was also the newest member of her squad, one of those fast-trackers, which really pissed her off. But she couldn’t show her irritation in public because she’d been tasked with ‘easing him’ into the team. He had just completed his first year and his performance review was due any day now.

‘The hotel’s a favourite haunt for ladies of the night to take their Johns,’ Martin carried on, his voice fast with the eagerness of a young man wanting to do a good job. ‘It’s not the first time our lot have been called here.’

Rio swept her gaze over the victim again. The right arm rested at an angle across the woman’s torso with the hand laid against the stomach. Had the murderer posed the victim like that? And that’s when Rio noticed something else. Something on the right arm . . . She peered closer, just above the wrist. A tattoo. Small with a red star and yellow border. It wasn’t a tattoo she recognised as a stamp of allegiance for any of the gangs she knew. Mind you, everyone and their dog was sporting tats these days. There was some type of lettering above and below it in a foreign script.

С волка?ми жить

по-во?лчьи выть.

‘It’s Russian,’ Martin supplied. Rio hadn’t even been aware he’d come to stand beside her. ‘Cyrillic script.’

‘Any idea what it says?’ When Martin shook his head she added, ‘Make sure someone takes close-up shots of the tattoo. Any witnesses?’ She eased to her feet.

‘Apart from the woman who flagged things up, guests in the neighbouring rooms are saying that they heard nothing and the hotel manager claims he ‘can’t remember’ who he let the room to. There’s nothing in the hotel register to say who booked the room – for which the manager is blaming the young kid who was on duty at reception last night who is “new” and “hasn’t got the hang of things yet” . . .’

‘Is the manager known to us?’

‘Of course – he wouldn’t be running a hotel round here if he wasn’t. Nothing too serious, though – mostly handling and receiving stolen goods from years back. Claims he doesn’t know a thing about last night.’

‘Pick him up – run him in, and bring the other staff who were on duty with him. I’ll talk to them later. Have you found out anything about the victim?’

‘No ID around. Judging by her tattoo, she’s East European. Russian, probably. Given this place’s clientele, she was most likely a prostitute or petty criminal – maybe she got into a row with a punter about money?’

Rio shook her head. ‘Not unless her John was a professional gunman, she didn’t. Even your narkiest John doesn’t normally resort to firearms. It’s savage beatings usually. Perhaps it was something else. And, given the damage, he didn’t want a quick identification either.’

‘You think this was a hit?’ Martin asked.

‘Can’t say that yet,’ Rio answered. ‘All we can say is that the killer is handy with a gun.’

They moved, with Charlie, to the other major scene of evidence – the bed in the main room. As they left the bathroom, Martin caught the arm of his superior, delaying her.

‘Sorry about that business outside.’

Rio didn’t respond. It wasn’t the first time one of her own had fingered her for something else because of the colour of her skin. She’d known that being a black, female cop in The Met wouldn’t always be easy, but she was a woman heading for the top and sticks and stones and racists weren’t going to stand in her way.

‘Go and chat some more to the manager,’ Rio told him as she walked into the main room.

Rio followed Charlie to the bed and peered down at one of its pillows, which was stained a deep colour.

‘I take it this is blood?’ Rio asked.

‘What we have is low-velocity blood splatter.’ Charlie pointed to the different-sized circular drops of blood staining the blue duvet cover. ‘It’s almost as if whoever was on this bed was lying down with blood dripping from them. They were definitely injured when they were lying down.’ Charlie pointed to the pillow and the pool of blood on it. ‘Can you see how the bloodstain is on the side of the pillow; this would suggest they had a head injury—’

‘But I thought you said that the victim was likely killed in the bath,’ Rio cut in.

Charlie stared at her. ‘I’m not sure this blood belongs to the victim.’

‘You think this is the killer’s blood?’ Before Charlie could answer, Rio straightened and answered her own question. ‘So we’ve got a killer out there who’s in need of medical attention.’ Rio swung to the door and shouted. ‘Martin . . .’

As soon as an excited Jamie Martin appeared in the doorway, Rio fired out, ‘We need to check hospitals. Walk-in clinics—’

But the younger officer didn’t let her finish. ‘DI, the manager has got something I think you’ll want to see.’

eleven

The man got out of the Mercedes. Further down the street he could see the police coming and going behind their tape as they investigated the murder in the hotel that was all over the airwaves. He kept his head slightly down and to one side to shield his face and walked into the other hotel that Mac had left earlier. He ran his thumbs down the inside of the lapels of his jacket as he entered. The place was quiet except for a woman at reception. Her back was to him as she watched an old-style portable telly, her elbows pushing out to the side in a strange motion.

As if sensing his approach she swivelled round in her chair. That’s when he saw the dark shades covering her eyes and the knitting in her hands.

‘Can I help you?’ she asked, placing her knitting in her lap.

‘I’m looking for a man who registered here, maybe last night or in the last couple of hours.’

That bought a slight smile to her ageing face. ‘We get lots of men coming in and out of here.’

‘But you don’t look overrun with customers to me, so you must remember him.’

She settled her hands over her knitting. ‘You have the sound of someone on official business.’

‘Don’t worry about my business; just tell me what I need to know.’

Her head tilted to the side. ‘But it is my business.’

His voice hardened. ‘I could jump over the counter and find out for myself, but that wouldn’t be very civilised, would it?’

Silence. Her head straightened as she pointed at the register. ‘Last name in the book.’

He flipped the register to face him. Read: ‘Room twenty-six. Mr Jones Smith.’

‘Some people just don’t want to be found,’ she told him smoothly.

He looked back at her. ‘What did he look like?’

‘Well if I knew that, I would tell you.’ She pulled off her sunglasses and revealed her cloudy, milky eyes. They stared straight through him. She was blind.

‘How come you were watching the television?’

The smile pulled back onto her face. ‘I do still have a pair of ears. I can hear the telly. I can also hear that you’re a desperate man.’

He let her smart remark go over his head, instead saying, ‘Can I check out room twenty-six?’

‘No point, love, he’s long gone. But if you see him, tell him he owes me for trashing the . . .’

He didn’t hear her finish as he walked out of the hotel back into the morning light.

When he got back into his car, he took out his mobile.

‘It looks like he was there this morning but he’s left. Is his phone back on? . . . No, I didn’t think it would be for now. Stick to that screen – I want to know the minute he resurfaces. We might have a problem.’ He looked down the street at the taped-off police lines. ‘A big, big problem.’

twelve

9 a.m.

The shotgun rested firmly against Mac’s neck. The voice of the man holding it spoke in a flat monotone.