Hit and Run

Chapter Twenty-Two

At the station, Stone repeated his version of events in the formal setting of the interview room. Butchers accompanied Richard. The duty solicitor, who had been hoping for a quiet night in with a video, looked half asleep. Stone had exchanged his own clothes for overalls and had been fingerprinted and swabbed for DNA. He answered all the questions they put to him.

‘Sulikov rang you on Monday at 7.15. What exactly did he say?’ Richard asked.

‘There was a problem. One of the girls had OD’d… we needed to dispose of her. He said to pick the car up at eight near these units in Burnage.’

‘You got the car from Harper’s, didn’t you?’ Richard checked.

‘What?’ Stone frowned. ‘No. I mean it’s Harper’s car, bet he wasn’t too happy about it.’

‘But you didn’t get it from his place?’

Stone got prickly. ‘I told you, Burnage, industrial units,’ he sighed and shook his head as though they were beyond belief. He spoke slowly as if dealing with a dozy child, ‘the keys were in the ignition, dosh in the glove compartment, body in the boot.’

‘Then what?’

‘We take it to the place at the river. Get rid of the body.’

‘And after?’ Richard cocked his head.

‘Went for a drive.’

‘All night?’

‘Pretty much. Stopped off a couple of places. Don’t remember exactly.’

‘Why’s that then?’

‘Wasn’t exactly sober,’ Stone sneered.

‘Those your orders were they?’

He scowled. ‘Sulikov said to torch the car. Nice set of wheels, seemed a shame to do that before we’d put it through its paces.’

‘And Ann-Marie?’ Richard said quietly.

Stone’s eyes flicked away and back. ‘Jez lost control, just an accident.’

‘You saying Gleason was driving?’ Butchers asked. A nod.

‘We need a yes,’ Butchers signalled to the tape.

‘Yes,’ he hissed.

‘Funny that,’ Richard said, ‘you letting him drive, hard man like you. Thought you’d want to stay behind the wheel.’

Stone said nothing.

‘So, Rosa?’ Richard sat back surveying the man. ‘When you opened the boot what did you find?’

Stone shifted in his seat. ‘She were all wrapped up. Couldn’t even tell who it was.’

‘Was she stiff? Was she warm?’

‘For God’s sake,’ Stone squirmed.

‘Hard facts, Mr Stone. We need to know when she died, we need to know where.’

‘Don’t ask me,’ he complained.

‘We are asking you. What state was the body in?’

‘She were just – heavy,’ he managed.

Richard switched tack again. ‘Mr Sulikov, you saw him shoot Gleason?’

‘Yeah.’

‘In cold blood.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Gleason provoke him in any way?’

‘No.’

‘Can you describe the weapon?’

‘No. It was dark, hardly see a thing. There’s this loud bang and Jez went down. I legged it.’

‘You’d no idea you were walking into a trap?’

‘No. Sulikov calls, you jump.’

‘He over here much?’

‘I don’t know, first time I’ve seen him but look, I’m a bouncer, I’m a fixer. I’m not in on the board meetings or the fancy meals or the wheeling and dealing. Bloke like that, he keeps his distance; a call, that’s all it takes. He sits in his bloody Polish castle or whatever and dials a number. He’s people like me to do his dirty work, he doesn’t need to get down in the muck with the rest of us.’

‘That a plea for sympathy?’

Stone snorted and folded his arms.

When Richard rang, Janine had just sorted Tom (and the ever-present Frank) out with juice and some dried fruit and was trying to get Charlotte dressed again after changing her nappy. She put Charlotte back on the changing mat and picked up the phone.

‘Have you got Sulikov?’ she demanded, full of anticipation.

‘No. Hasn’t been back to the hotel yet.’

Janine felt the cold wash of disappointment.

‘But Stone’s version stands up,’ Richard told her. ‘Negative on the DNA, the skin sample under Rosa’s nails wasn’t his – must be Sulikov’s. Something’s a bit off, though,’ Richard’s tone changed, ‘Stone claims they picked the Mercedes up on the street, an industrial estate, in Burnage, at eight o’clock. Sulikov told them where it was.’

‘Burnage,’ something clicked in Janine’s memory. ‘Wasn’t there a sighting that didn’t fit?’

‘Yes – teenager who’d seen the car there around that time.’

‘None of this makes sense,’ she complained. She ran her fingers through her hair. ‘Think about it. Sulikov hears that Rosa is going to run away, perhaps Harper lets it slip, so he decides to make an example of her and he kills her. Then there’s all the palaver with the bin bags; trying to make her unrecognisable. Hoping we’ll never find her. Then what does Sulikov do? He goes to Harper’s house, steals Harper’s car, brings it back to wherever Rosa is. He puts the body in the boot, then he drives the car to Burnage and leaves it for Stone to pick up. Why on earth do that?’

‘To teach Harper a lesson like he said?’

‘But why do it himself? Why not get Stone to do it? Stealing cars is right up his street. Sulikov would have to leave the body to go off to Harper’s to steal the car.’ She had another thought, ‘Unless she was killed at Harper’s house?’

‘They could be in it together,’ Richard suggested.

Had both men killed Rosa and then colluded in the cover up? But Harper had ratted on his boss. When they caught up with Sulikov would he blame Harper in turn? Marta had told Janine that Harper was a weak man. Had he betrayed his girlfriend to Sulikov? Rosa had gone out that Monday afternoon, maybe Harper had lured her to his house. Then left her to Sulikov. Afterwards they wanted Stone to dispose of the body but didn’t want to link it to Harper’s house.

‘I think we should get a search warrant for Harper’s house,’ Janine said.

Charlotte crooned and cycled her legs.

‘I still can’t work out why Sulikov got so involved,’ Janine continued. ‘We know he’s got a fearsome reputation. Everyone’s scared stiff of him. He’s got an empire – goons to do his every bidding. He keeps it all at arm’s length – that makes sense to anyone with half a brain. It’s the likes of Stone and Gleason who do the dirty work, take the falls.’

‘Maybe-’

‘Oh, Tom!’ He’d knocked his drink over the table. Janine dived for a cloth.

‘Wasn’t me, it was Frank.’ Tom said quickly.

She mopped at the pool.

‘Wait,’ she said to Richard, trying to follow her train of thought. ‘All that stuff about giving Stone and Gleason a lift over the Channel – does that sound likely? Mr Big turned taxi driver.’

‘But he wasn’t going to drive them anywhere – it was an ambush; we know that. Wanted them dead.’

‘Why kill them himself?’

There was a pause. ‘Enhance his reputation,’ he suggested.

‘He wasn’t usually hands on.’ Janine rubbed at her forehead; there was something missing, just out of grasp, tucked away in her mind.

Janine stared at Tom sitting beside the imaginary Frank, sharing out raisins. Wasn’t me, it was Frank. Shifting the blame. Just like Harper who had blamed everything on Sulikov. A chill washed through Janine and her heart began to hammer. Harper, Sulikov. Could she be right? ‘Oh, God!’ she said urgently. ‘Richard, the photo of Sulikov. Has it arrived?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Get onto Poland and tell them to email it to me immediately – here. And double check Harper’s ID.’

She paced up and down waiting for the message to come through, her guts knotted, her face feeling aflame.

The familiar tone sounded. You have mail. One message and an attachment. She clicked on the message and watched it open. Richard was still on the line, watching at his end.

‘Got it,’ Janine said, her eyes racing over the text as she read it aloud. ‘Says Konrad Sulikov was born here. English mother, Polish father, moved there aged seven. Current whereabouts not known. Surveillance operation launched last year in connection with trafficking but we believe Sulikov was alerted to this and is in hiding. Photograph attached, jpeg file.’

Her fingers were trembling, her heart burning as she clicked the attachment. The customary warning came on: what would you like to do with this file? Janine selected open it. The loading bar appeared, a flash of blue as it processed the file and then the pixels filled the screen. A face. His face. Janine’s eyes scurried over the features; she forced herself to slow down, look steadily and make sure: the long, bony nose, the slightly mismatched eyes, the chiselled cheekbone and dimpled jaw of James Harper. A few years younger, with a lower hairline, but unmistakeably the same man.

She heard exclamations from Richard’s end, joined in with her own. ‘Shit! The cheeky bugger. Konrad Sulikov otherwise known as James Harper.’ And they’d released him! On bail, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out he’d make a run for it.

‘Airports!’ she instructed Richard. ‘Check the passenger manifests.’

‘His house?’

‘Send someone round, just to cover our backs, he won’t be there. Get a technician too – I bet that’s our scene. Come and get me.’ She rang off. She kissed Tom’s hair and told him to be good for Michael. She snapped shut the poppers on Charlotte’s babygro, scooped her up and took her into the back room where Michael was enjoying a game on the Xbox. ‘You have to watch her.’

‘Mum!’ He protested but he held his arms out anyway and Charlotte gave a little shriek of glee.

‘I’ve got my phone,’ she called as she pulled open the door, ‘send Tom up in half an hour.’

Richard reached her in record time.