The Mourner Page 10

  ‘Doing our level best. He got in a knife fight, escaped en route to hospital. Looks like it was all planned.’

  ‘Was he hurt?’ Kaz didn’t want to ask the question, but she couldn’t help herself.

  Stoneham sighed. ‘As I say, it was a put-up job, so doubtful. But I’ve had it from a chiz that your cousin Sean’s picked up the reins again in the last couple of months. My guess is, he’ll try and get Joey out the country.’

  Kaz’s thoughts were a jumble, her head ached. Sean again, resurrected from the dead. She met Stoneham’s gaze. ‘That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Joey and Sean never really got on. Last I heard, Sean was in Spain. I don’t think he’d come back.’

  Stoneham eyed the box of doughnuts with longing. ‘When Joey went down, perhaps he saw his opportunity.’

  ‘I doubt he’d help Joey.’

  ‘Well, someone is. Any ideas?’

  Kaz knew she was skating on very thin ice. Stoneham was a sharp, intuitive cop – could she smell Kaz’s guilt? Someone was using Sean’s identity, his reputation. But how many people even knew he was dead, let alone that Kaz was the one who killed him?

  Her brain was too fuddled with weariness to think. Less than twenty-four hours ago she’d boarded a train in Glasgow, now she wished she’d stayed put. She needed to sleep, just close her eyes and rest. The prospect of spending another night of her life locked in a cell didn’t appeal – there’d been too many of those already – but one thing was certain: with Joey on the loose, it was the safest place for her to be.

  18

  Nicci was in the office by eight the next morning and had the place to herself until eight thirty when Alicia arrived. The worker bees of cyber-security drifted in shortly after; Bharat, in bicycle helmet and backpack, greeted her with friendly surprise. When Pascale and Liam put in an appearance just after nine fifteen, they were both somewhat embarrassed and awkward. Nicci assumed this was because they’d been caught out for bad timekeeping. She assured them she couldn’t give a toss.

  Pascale quickly settled at her desk, booting up her computer while Liam, avoiding everyone’s eye, rushed off on some errand. Nicci looked up from her screen, read Pascale’s tension, observed the retreating Liam’s panic and the penny dropped.

  Pascale, sitting bolt upright in her chair, pretended to be far too intent on checking emails to be aware that Nicci was watching her.

  ‘Are you two . . . ?’ Nicci wasn’t sure how to put it; she lifted her hand and gave a questioning wave.

  Pascale mumbled something to herself in French – Nicci couldn’t make out if it was a curse or a prayer – then turned to face her. ‘Are you going to tell Simon? Because . . . well you know his views. When he found out that temp was involved with Hugo, he sacked her straight away.’

  Nicci frowned. ‘What? What temp?’

  ‘And if it comes out, then Liam must tell his fiancée, and we’re not sure we’re ready for all that yet.’

  ‘Liam has a fiancée?’ Nicci became aware of the slackness of her own jaw. ‘He’s hardly a grown-up.’

  ‘Engaged for two years. I feel so bad, Nicci, really I do. I never meant it to happen.’ Tears were gathering in the corners of Pascale’s eyes.

  Nicci realized that there was a whole world here she wasn’t part of. Ever since she’d taken the job she’d absented herself. She came and went, did the work required of her and ignored all the people around her. In the same way she’d ignored Ethel Huxtable and her rowing neighbours.

  She leant back in her chair and let this sink in. What had happened to her? She lived in a bubble, isolated and alone. She tried to remember the last time she’d visited her parents or her sister. Friends? Since Sophie’s death there’d been no social life, she’d cut herself off from everyone. Help had been proffered, she’d been invited out to dinners, on trips, but she’d refused it all and gradually people had given up.

  She became aware that Pascale was watching her nervously shredding a tissue. Nicci could readily see how Pascale’s exotic mix of West African beauty and Parisian chic had floored the hapless Liam.

  Painting on a smile, she clicked onto one of the documents on her screen. ‘Look, I’ve made a list of people who figured in various ways in Helen Warner’s life. I’m forwarding it. I want as much detail as you can dig up on each one.’

  Pascale scrunched the tissue into a ball. ‘You mean, you’re not going to . . .’ A solitary tear coursed down her cheek. Nicci glanced at her, she felt awkward; she didn’t want to get sucked into Pascale’s Gallic melodrama.

  She attached the list to an email and pressed send. ‘Your private life is none of my business. Though, if you take my advice, I wouldn’t let Eddie get wind.’

  Pascale reached out and grasped Nicci’s hand. ‘I won’t forget this.’

  Nicci could feel the warmth and slight dampness of Pascale’s palm and the intimacy spooked her. However business-like and efficient Pascale seemed on the surface, underneath she was still very French. But what did that make Nicci? An emotionally constipated Brit? When had she turned into this aloof, uncaring individual? The old Nicci would have responded with a hug.

  She drew her hand away on the pretext of checking her watch. ‘I need to . . . er . . .’ Nicci’s eyes darted round the office in search of inspiration and alighted on Eddie Lunt, at the coffee station, tipping sachets of sugar into a pint mug. ‘I need to have a word with Eddie.’

  Nicci got up and made her escape. She walked briskly across the room towards Eddie. As she bore down on him, he looked up, blinking in surprise. She was feeling rather foolish, annoyed that such a small incident could so confound her. She wasn’t a cold person. Tactile contact had never bothered her in the past. She’d had a child, for chrissake: sticky hands and bodily fluids came with the territory.

  Meeting Eddie’s eye, she desperately tried to regain her composure. ‘Eddie, I need a word.’

  He beamed and put down the mug. ‘’Course. What can I do yer for?’

  Nicci sighed as she hurriedly dredged her memory. ‘This contact of yours . . . in the Labour Party? Is he reliable?’

  Eddie looked relieved. Her fierce manner had suggested he was in for a bollocking. He knew Nicci didn’t like him, though he wasn’t sure why.

  ‘Ray? Yeah, I’d say he’s reliable. Has been in the past.’

  Still floundering, Nicci folded her arms: ‘I’ve seen your notes, but . . . could you just—’

  ‘Yeah, no probs. Well, story is, the party wants a new policy initiative on drugs. Something to put clear water between them and the other lot. Hollister’s very keen on this.’ Nicci’s gaze had drifted off, she was miles away. He tilted his head. ‘Robert Hollister? Shadow Home Secretary?’

  Nicci shot him a combative look. ‘Fuck off, Eddie, I know who Hollister is.’

  Eddie grinned. ‘They been doing a bit of private polling and the thought is they might take a punt on some degree of legalization. Plays well with younger voters.’

  Nicci forced herself to show interest. ‘How does this involve Helen Warner?’

  ‘New back-bencher, bit of a radical, legal background, good on telly, ideal person to fly a kite.’

  ‘So she was arguing for the legalization of drugs?’

  ‘Yeah. She done a couple of talk shows. Visited some youth projects, got down with the kids, y’know the sort of thing.’

  ‘I don’t see how that would get her killed.’

  ‘My point exactly, Nic!’ Eddie beamed, his pixie face crumpling with glee as he warmed to his subject. ‘And this is what old Ray told me. Helen Warner, she was one of these types who thinks she’s gonna change the world. Hundred and fifty years ago she’d’ve been a female missionary paddling up the Zambezi in a bloody canoe. She weren’t satisfied with doing a bit of PR at the leadership’s behest. She wanted to get stuck in, save Central America from the drugs trade. So she goes on a private fact-finding mission – Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador. According to Ray, she met some pretty interesting peo
ple on both sides of the law.’

  ‘What are we saying here? She pissed off some Latin American drug cartel and got murdered for her pains? That’s a bit fantastic. Why would they care about a British MP?’

  ‘Ordinarily they wouldn’t. But, as I say, her job was to fly a kite. What if they thought the next British government was seriously contemplating legalization, which would mean a sizeable cut in profits for them? Portugal, Spain, Italy, they’re into decriminalization. Maybe they decided to send a message?’

  ‘A message?’ Nicci pursed her lips. ‘Oh, come on, Eddie, sounds like a bad action movie.’

  Unfazed, Eddie shrugged and changed tack: ‘I agree. But you see there is another angle here if you dig a bit deeper. Haven’t told Simon yet. Let me show you.’

  Without waiting for a reply Eddie strolled across the room to a corner desk. Nicci huffed, he simply expected her to follow. His desk was a chaotic jumble of papers and post-its and discarded sweet wrappers. Nicci had never ventured into his territory before and now she knew why.

  He scooted a chair over from an adjacent workstation and turned it round for her. ‘Take a pew, boss.’

  ‘Don’t call me boss. Simon’s the boss.’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  They both sat down and Eddie woke his computer. He clicked through several documents until he produced a montage of pictures of Helen Warner.

  ‘Yeah? So?’ Nicci was getting impatient.

  ‘Mostly pap shots. These guys stake out the top clubs, restaurants, see what blows their way.’

  ‘I know how the paparazzi work.’

  ‘Yeah, but take a look at this.’ Eddie ran the cursor across the screen, past Helen Warner, to a partially obscured face behind her left shoulder. ‘Recognize him?’

  Nicci peered at the screen. ‘Okay, it’s Hollister.’

  ‘Right on the money.’ Eddie grinned and clicked his way through several more pictures. ‘Have a look at these. All taken outside a top London eatery.’

  Nicci frowned. She hated the way he said ‘eatery’, as if he were some trendy food critic. She gritted her teeth. ‘Just explain. I haven’t got time for twenty questions.’

  ‘Take a closer look.’ Eddie gave her a puckish grin. ‘Hand on the arm?’

  ‘Meaning what?’

  ‘Rumour has it, she was gonna be his new PPS.’

  Nicci shrugged. ‘All the more reason for them to go out to dinner.’

  His expression was doleful, though she got the feeling he was privately amused at her naivety. ‘That’s the charitable way to look at it. Thing is, Robert Hollister has a rep. He’s shagged his way through most of the female flesh in his own party, not to mention a few on the other side too.’

  ‘Oh for fuck’s sake, Eddie, she was a lesbian.’

  ‘A pretty tasty one too. And who’s to say she didn’t swing both ways?’

  Nicci gave him her blankest stare. No way was she about to be drawn into his world of smut and innuendo.

  ‘Hollister’s the golden boy.’ Eddie blinked at her as if it was all so obvious. ‘Shadow Home Sec, in line for leader if the current one buggers it up. Warner was a girl who clearly wanted to get on.’

  ‘Girl? She was in her middle thirties,’ Nicci snapped in irritation. ‘About the same age as me. That makes her a woman.’

  Eddie accepted the rebuke with a nod. ‘Yeah, all right, a woman who wanted to get on. That’s what I’m saying. All the drugs stuff, her trips south of the border – she was doing it for him.’

  ‘Not everything is about sex, Eddie.’ Try as she might, Nicci couldn’t understand what Blake saw in this guy. ‘And anyway, so what? The voters couldn’t give a stuff about politicians’ sex lives. He’s more likely to win votes for his infidelities. So even if they were having an affair, it’s hardly a motive for murder. Not in this day and age.’

  Eddie rubbed his close-cropped head, reflecting on this. ‘All I’m doing is gathering facts – strikes me he was giving her one. Is that relevant to her death? Who knows?’

  ‘He was “giving her one”?’ Nicci imagined hitting him, picking up the lamp from the desk and smashing his stupid face in. ‘That’s not a fact! All you’re doing is taking a photograph and overloading it with ill-informed supposition. Helen Warner was openly gay, had a civil partner and was about the most unlikely person in Westminster to trade sexual favours for advancement.’

  He beamed and scratched his bearded chin. ‘Maybe you’re right.’ His endless good humour really was cloying. ‘You’re the detective, Nic, not me.’

  She glared at him. Blake called her Nic. He was entitled to such familiarity. Eddie Lunt wasn’t.

  ‘Are you taking the fucking piss?’

  His bushy brows flew up with innocent incredulity. ‘Nah, course not. My job’s just to dig up as much info as possible. And it’s all grist to the mill, that’s what my old news editor used to say.’

  Nicci glared at him in disbelief. Did he really think she’d buy his bullshit? Probably, since he was still beaming at her, his pixie features exuding benevolence. How the hell had her life come to this? Working with an ex-con and chancer like Eddie Lunt, when Fiona Calder had offered her the opportunity to be a real police officer again.

  Turning on her heel, she stalked off. Blake had got it totally wrong. She’d worked with some moronic cops in her time, but Eddie Lunt was a fucking liability.

  19

  Kaz was woken with a mug of tea, an occurrence that had certainly never happened before when she’d been in a police cell. Stoneham had gone off duty, one of her DS’s appeared and said they were still trying to get in touch with witness protection. But Kaz had already made up her mind, she wasn’t hanging about. She told the officer she planned to head straight back up north. They gave her a lift to Basildon station. Jumping on the first train, she lost herself in the crush of morning commuters bound for Fenchurch Street and the City.

  Her night in the cells had offered some time for reflection. How the hell had Joey escaped from jail? It was ludicrous. She’d turned her back on everything and everyone to help send him down and still the prison authorities couldn’t keep him under lock and key. In the dark recesses of her mind there was ripple of admiration. And fear.

  It had taken a while for the shock to subside. The bunk was hard, the plastic mattress stuck to her damp cheek. In the early hours she’d finally managed to corral her scattered thoughts. Joey was on the run and his main concern would be not to get caught. Getting out of the country had to be his priority. He had funds salted away in offshore accounts and contacts in mainland Europe. Coming after her would be the last thing on his mind.

  Nevertheless Kaz had to be careful. Being secretive, lying, hiding, these things were all second nature. The problem was she was broke, an impecunious student living on credit. She didn’t even have the price of a hotel room.

  As she stood, crammed up against the door of the train watching the flat estuary marshlands scudding by, she thought about Helen, her lover, her saviour. She’d have done anything to break into Helen’s world. Impressing Helen, winning Helen had been the obsession that carried her through the long years of jail time. But Helen was gone. Her body washed up like a sack of rubbish on the banks of the Thames. Even the thought of it was piercing. What the fuck had happened to her? Could she have killed herself? Maybe it was just some bizarre accident. Kaz didn’t believe either of those things. She knew too much of how the world worked, of the kind of people who were out there.

  When the train finally pulled into Fenchurch Street she let the flow of commuters carry her out of the station and into the City streets beyond. She wandered through the side turnings and found herself in Leadenhall Street. A queue snaking out of the door of a sandwich bar reminded her that she hadn’t eaten since the afternoon before. She walked on, selected a coffee shop with tables stretching back into the dark interior. She ordered coffee and a bacon roll, counting out her small change and finding she had just enough to pay.

  Taking a table
at the back she sipped her coffee and waited for the food to arrive. It was mid-morning and the place was bustling. She’d placed herself strategically to watch all the comings and goings: office workers, shop workers, a couple of builders in heavy boots from a nearby site collecting take-aways. There were three people serving, young and harassed, they didn’t stop. Kaz waited nearly ten minutes for her bacon roll to arrive with apologies. She smiled at the scrawny kid who delivered it and let it all wash over her. She was getting the lie of the land.

  The bacon was salty, the roll crisp. She savoured every mouthful, wiped her fingers on the napkin and considered her next move. The adjacent tables were closely packed to accommodate as many customers as possible. Kaz’s immediate neighbour was a young woman texting on her phone; as the phone dinged with a reply, her frown deepened. She wasn’t having a good morning. On the other side of her was a lad, probably a student, tapping lethargically on his laptop and yawning. Beyond him three lairy blokes sat round a table having an animated conversation. They were in their thirties, suited and booted, collars unbuttoned, loosened ties.

  Kaz sat back and tuned in. The one facing her was chubby with close-cropped hair and a red face.

  He opened his palms, laughing, as he addressed his companions: ‘I mean, fuck me, wha’d she expect?’

  The man facing away from Kaz lounged back in his chair, rubbing his shiny, bald pate. ‘She expected ding-dong wedding bells. It’s what most of ’em expect.’

  ‘Not me, mate!’ Red face shuddered emphatically. ‘I’m not going down that road. If it don’t work out, then you’re stuffed. Half of everything, every bonus you get for the next twenty years. A live-in shag’s one thing. But marriage? I’m a feminist, me. Everyone equal, pay your own bills.’

  They all guffawed and rocked back in their seats. Kaz got up, slipped her backpack on one shoulder and edged her way between the tables. Pushing a chair aside she used it as an excuse to dip her hand down and scoop up the leather briefcase sitting on the floor next to Baldy. The move was swift and deft. Holding the briefcase in front of her, she headed for the door without a backward glance.