No Kiss For The Devil

17

‘Mr Palmer? DI Craig Pell.’ The detective walked into Palmer’s Uxbridge office, leaving a uniformed officer hovering at the top of the stairs. It was just after eleven and the morning street noise had died to a rumble.

Palmer swung his feet down from his open desk drawer and stood up. He’d left a message for Pell earlier, and the man had called back to say he would drop by for a ‘chat’. The speed with which he had done so and the presence of uniformed back-up weren’t necessarily significant, but neither was it a good sign.

He offered Pell coffee, but the policeman declined and sat down heavily on one of the hard chairs, thrusting his hands into his jacket pockets. The man’s face was all planes and angles, and Palmer guessed he would be the same mentally. A tough cop, he judged, and young for his rank. It meant he was good at his job.

‘You say you knew Helen Bellamy,’ Pell began without preamble. ‘Would you care to describe how and when?’

Palmer sat down and related how he had met Helen when he was hired by a businessman she happened to be profiling at the time for a trade journal. Palmer was doing a security assessment on the man’s factory, and had bumped into her in the company car park. They had exchanged telephone numbers, and from there it had progressed through dinner to more dates, and into what had been a very pleasant relationship, even it hadn’t been long-lasting.

‘Really? Why’s that?’

Palmer shrugged, aware that Pell was looking for clues as to how well he and Helen had known each other. ‘Work, mostly. Helen was trying to make a name for herself; I was away a lot. At the time, it didn’t suit either of us to try for anything more than that.’ He heard the words and thought how bland and casual it must sound, as if their relationship hadn’t been worth more effort.

‘At the time?’

‘Looking back is easy. We did what we did.’

‘So it was just fun?’

Palmer felt his face harden. ‘Come again?’ His words fell softly into the room, and Pell shifted uncomfortably and looked away. For a moment, the creak of the chair and the shuffling feet of the officer on the landing were the only sounds.

‘Sorry — that didn’t come out the way I meant it.’ Pell admitted. He seemed genuinely embarrassed. ‘Do you regret the relationship not being more than it was?’

Palmer breathed easily and tried to ignore the not-so-subtle meaning behind the question. ‘I regret lots of thing,’ he said evenly. ‘I regret not having been able to help her, if that’s what you’re asking. But I can’t change the circumstances.’

‘So you last saw her… when?’

‘Several months ago. I’d have to check, if you want me to be more specific. But I don’t see how it would help with your investigation.’

Pell nodded slowly. ‘So you wouldn’t know what she might have been working on recently?’

‘No. She specialised in commercial and business matters, that’s all I can tell you.’

‘Fair enough. You were in the Military Police, is that right?’

‘Yes.’ Palmer guessed that the moment he had rung and left a message, Pell would have had someone trawling through the records. It would have been negligent not to. And Pell was coming across as anything but slow to join all the primary dots.

‘So you know a bit about procedure.’

‘I know you have to eliminate everybody, yes.’

‘What made you come forward?’

Palmer shrugged. ‘You’d have come across my name eventually.’

Pell raised a cynical eyebrow. ‘Miss Gavin didn’t suggest it, then?’

‘I’m not sure what you mean.’

Pell eased back in the chair and stretched out his legs. ‘I was up at Paddington Green station when I got your message, sitting in on a National Crime Squad taskforce meeting. Bloody boring, most of it, talking about budgets and targets. Christ, it’s like being in a call centre. Anyway, I was relieved to get a message that someone had called about Miss Bellamy. It gave me an excuse to get out for some fresh air.’

‘Glad to have been of help.’

‘While I was taking the message, a senior suit ambushed me; he’d heard your name mentioned and dragged me to one side. He told me a few things about you — and your friend, Miss Gavin.’ He stared hard at Palmer. ‘You know Chief Superintendent Weller?’

‘Yes, I know him.’ Palmer wondered at the small community that was the police service. He had encountered Chief Superintendent Weller on a previous job with Riley. The officer was a member of the Serious Organised Crimes Agency, and was fond of using people involved in cases to get results; of allowing them a certain degree of slack to see what might be stirred up, like sludge on a river bed. It was a risky strategy, but it had worked before and the man had the confidence and clout to use it. ‘You shouldn’t believe everything Weller tells you. He mixes with people who tell lies for a living. It rubs off.’

‘He says you’re quite a team, the two of you.’ Pell waited, but Palmer refused to be drawn. ‘For him, that’s praise indeed. Although,’ his mouth slipped into a humourless smile, ‘I got the impression he might have a couple of question marks posted against your name. What’s that about, then — past misdeeds?’

‘You should have asked him.’

‘I did. He went all secret-squirrel on me and said it was nothing worth worrying about.’ He waved a vague hand, drawing a line beneath the topic. ‘If he can live with it, so can I. Back to the matter in hand. Were you ever in Miss Bellamy’s flat?’

‘Yes. Several times.’

‘You know where it is, then?’

‘Beaufort Street, Chelsea. Why?’

‘Elimination purposes. When were you there last?’

Palmer made a show of remembering. But he was thinking instead of how close he had come to going to Helen’s place yesterday, but how other things, like seeing the inside of Pantile House, had intervened. He’d been lucky, by the sound of it. Being found in the wrong place at the wrong time had dropped many people in the dock when they didn’t need to be. And the home of a newly-discovered murder victim was about as wrong as it could get.

‘Again, several months ago,’ he replied eventually. ‘My prints might still be there, I suppose.’

‘Do you know who she might have started seeing, after you?’

‘No. We stopped going out; that was the end of it.’

‘Did the relationship end on a good note?’

‘Yes. Friendly, in fact. It had run its course, that’s all. We didn’t fall out, if that’s what you’re asking.’

‘I wasn’t, but thanks for saying so.’ He studied Palmer carefully, then said casually, ‘Had Miss Bellamy been in touch recently?’

Palmer felt the air around him crackle. Pell knew something. It could only mean he’d got a look at Helen’s phone or email records.

‘Actually, she emailed me something a few days ago,’ he admitted frankly. If he didn’t tell them, they’d soon find out. ‘It was a photo, but there was no explanatory message. I think it came to me by mistake.’

Pell glanced at Palmer’s PC. ‘May I see it?’

Palmer nodded and opened his email, then turned the monitor so that Pell could see the screen. The detective leaned forward to peer at the photo, but other than that, showed little reaction. ‘It’s an office block.’

‘Yes. I have no idea why she sent it. It was probably a mistake.’

‘Do you know the place?’

‘I’ve never seen it before.’

Pell sat back with a sigh.

‘Okay. What was your initial reaction to her murder?’

‘Shocked. Saddened. What do you expect?’

‘Angry?’

‘Of course.’

‘Weller described you as being very laid-back.’

Palmer shrugged. He wasn’t sure what Pell was leading up to, but he had a feeling it could be something he might not like.

‘He also added a ‘but’,’ Pell continued, and levered himself out of the chair. He looked down at Palmer for a moment. ‘A big one. He said you were totally loyal to your friends, and capable of doing anything on their behalf. I was wondering what that meant.’

‘Like I said, Weller mixes with the wrong crowd. It plays havoc with his imagination.’

Pell nodded. He seemed to toy with something for a moment, then said, ‘Our database is quite good these days. We get stuff turning up on it all the time; some of it’s useful, some not. It sits there until someone decides it’s no longer relevant. Or until something rings a bell. Literally, I mean. We have this little electronic sound reserved for entries or cases with more than five points of comparison — I forget what the techies call it. Anyway, whenever something similar to an existing entry pops up, the bell rings. It rang this morning.’

‘How dinky for you. So?’

Pell looked deadly serious. ‘This isn’t for public consumption, so don’t repeat it outside this office. But six weeks ago, the body of a young woman was discovered late one night alongside the A12 in Essex. She’d been thrown from a moving vehicle.’

Palmer waited, wondering why he’d been made privy to this bit of information. Weller, perhaps, playing his old games of stir the pot to see what was in there?

‘She was a German national, name of Annaliese Kellin. You ever heard the name?’

‘Never.’

‘Hardly surprising. She had no family or friends here in the UK. Interestingly, she shared three similar prime characteristics with Helen Bellamy.’

‘Such as?’ Palmer felt the breath catch in his throat. He suddenly knew with absolute certainty what Pell was going to tell him next.

‘Annaliese Kellin was a freelance reporter, specialising in business and commercial matters. That was one. When she was found, her hands were tied together.’ He gave Palmer a grim look, waiting for a reaction.

But Palmer merely said, ‘Three. You said there were three similarities.’ Pell hadn’t mentioned how Helen had died. This had to be it. He could feel it.

The policeman let out a lengthy sigh that seemed to come from deep within him. ‘Early indications,’ he said carefully, ‘and they haven’t yet confirmed which, is that Helen Bellamy died the same way as Annaliese Kellin: of a broken neck and/or strangulation.’

‘And/or? What the hell does that mean?’ Palmer’s jaw clenched tight.

‘We think,’ Pell forged on carefully, ‘that the killer used a stranglehold method, placing the arm round the neck from behind. There was bruising under the chin consistent with someone standing in an elevated position behind and above the victim.’ He sounded as if he was reading from an official report, and his face showed he wasn’t enjoying it.

‘She was sitting down?’

‘Or kneeling, yes. I’m told the blood circulation would have been cut off, along with the air supply. Then the neck was broken. One of my colleagues is ex-Special Forces. He said it’s not as easy as it looks and takes considerable commitment.’ He paused. ‘I know it’s no consolation, but it would have been quick.’

Palmer thought about it. Killing someone like that was just about the most intimate way you could think of ending someone’s life. You had to get right up close. And killing a woman that way took a special kind of cold-bloodedness.

‘You’re wrong.’ His voice was soft but sure, cutting through the charged atmosphere in the room like a blade. He looked right through Pell as if the policeman wasn’t there. ‘If you know it’s going to happen, how can it ever be quick?’

Outside on the pavement, Pell breathed deeply and stood for a moment, glad to out in the fresh air. He hadn’t enjoyed the visit, especially the bit when Palmer had looked at him after his verbal blunder. It was like being skewered by the eye of a killer shark.

He wondered at the nature of the relationship between Palmer and Riley Gavin. Riley came across as a hard-nosed reporter, yet with a softness he found intriguing — and attractive. He thought the softness reflected the real person. At least, he hoped so. Palmer, on the other hand, was harder in more ways than one, in spite of his apparent easy going attitude. His background was clearly that of someone not unaccustomed to death or violence, and therefore hardened to it, but it hadn’t made him immune to its consequences.

The contrast made him wonder if there was anything deeper between them; the attraction of opposites, perhaps?

He walked over to his car, where the uniformed officer was waiting, and tried telling himself that he was not secretly hoping that the relationship was purely professional; that he might have a reason to speak to Riley Gavin again.