No Sleep for the Dead

Chapter 30

The house where Szulu lived looked quiet. At Palmer’s suggestion, they waited a few minutes, watching the area for familiar faces. There was no sign of the car Palmer had seen, but that didn’t mean Szulu was out.

When Palmer was satisfied they were unobserved, they got out and approached the front door. Riley pressed the button against 3A.

The response was instantaneous. A sash window above their heads slammed up and a voice shouted, ‘Yeah?’. Riley went to step back, but Palmer put his hand on her arm and shook his head. They would wait for him to come down.

Eventually, footsteps pounded down the stairs and the front door was flung open, Szulu already voicing his annoyance. ‘…the matter, you can’t hear me calling you?’ He stopped dead when he recognised Riley and Palmer. He looked drawn and tired, and was dressed in jeans and a cutaway T-shirt, revealing a bandage covering his upper left arm. Whoever had fixed it had done a neat job.

‘‘Hi. How’s the arm?’ said Palmer cheerfully. ‘Bet it smarts, doesn’t it? Don’t mind if we come in.’ He stepped forward, driving Szulu back inside until the driver was backed up against the stairway.

‘Hey — what do you want, man?’ Szulu protested, although without any real fight. ‘Fuck you hassling me for?’

‘So call the police.’ Palmer encouraged him to turn and go upstairs, and he obediently led them into a flat on the first floor. A sofa, two armchairs and several large cushions gave the impression of comfort, but the overall effect was spoiled by a scattering of clothes, CDs, empty beer bottles and fast-food cartons. A battered CD player dwarfed by a tall music rack was thumping a steady beat into the room, setting up a faint buzz from a half-empty glass containing a brownish liquid and some ice cubes on a nearby coffee table.

‘Should you be drinking on top of pills?’ Riley asked, flicking through his music rack. She didn’t recognise the names, but if the lurid covers were any guide, mood music it wasn’t.

‘Pills?’ He flicked his eyes towards Palmer, who was standing by the door, then looked back at Riley. ‘What are you — my mother?’

‘Don’t tell me the doctor who fixed your arm didn’t give you some pain killers.’

‘Yeah, of course.’ He shrugged as if it was no big deal, then walked over to the window and stared out, scanning the street. ‘So where’s the other guy? He waiting to come up here and shoot me in my other arm?’

‘Relax,’ said Riley. ‘He’s gone.’

Szulu grunted. ‘So what do you want?’

‘Where’s Lottie?’ Palmer leaned back against the door and yawned, seemingly bored.

‘How the hell would I know?’ Szulu picked up a slim remote and turned up the music a couple of levels, making the glass on the coffee table vibrate even more. Then he stood and stared in turn at them both, defiant.

Palmer came away from the door and walked over to the CD player. He turned up the volume until the glass began to dance across the coffee table. He picked it up just before it tipped off the edge, sniffed it and put it down again. Bourbon on ice. The beat was now bouncing off the walls, and in the depths of the house, somebody shouted in protest. Riley nudged aside a pile of clothes and sat down on the edge of the sofa. She said nothing, carefully studying her fingernails.

Szulu scowled and pressed the remote to reduce the volume, only for Palmer to reach down and hike it back up. ‘Hey — what the fuck you playing at, man?’

‘It’ll drown out your screams,’ Palmer replied coldly. He picked up a cheap plastic pen from a sideboard and nodded at Szulu’s bandaged arm. ‘Imagine how it will feel when I stick this in the hole and poke it about a bit. What’s the bet it’ll sting a bit?’

Szulu seemed to lose some colour and backed away, shaking his head. Clearly, the idea of suffering even more pain was enough to cut through his natural inclination to resist, and he held up his hands to ward Palmer off.

‘Hold on… there’s no need to get rough, man. I’m done with that.’ When he saw Palmer wasn’t going to attack him, he reached down and picked up his drink and took a hefty swallow, the ice cubes rattling against the glass. This time, when he reached for the remote and turned down the music, Palmer didn’t move. ‘She had another attack. We were by the river — near Runnymede. She asked me to take her for a drive, see. Said she was sick of the hotel. Then she told me to stop. We were in Egham by then, down a side street somewhere. It was quiet, peaceful. She offered me a wad of money to finish it with you two.’

‘Finish it?’

‘Yeah. You know.’ He blinked and seemed to shrink away, plainly not wanting to say the words. ‘I told her straight away I wasn’t going to do that. Said I didn’t want nothing more to do with all it. It’s gone too far.’

‘I can’t imagine Lottie taking that too well,’ said Riley. ‘She was a stickler for loyalty.’

Szulu shrugged. ‘She hardly said anything. In fact,’ he paused, then went on, ‘I suggested she get Ragga’s boys to do it. Sorry, but I couldn’t think of nothing else. She said she couldn’t do that because she’d stolen something from Ragga’s desk when she went to see him a couple of days ago.’

‘Oh, boy,’ sighed Palmer. ‘She never misses a trick, does she? What did she take?’

‘Information. Lists of bank accounts and stuff. She reckoned it would be worth something to someone, detail like that.’ He shook his head. ‘Man, I thought I was going to piss myself. Stealing from the Ragga? You don’t do that, not if you want to live. And worse was, she was going to take me down with her!’

‘What then?’ Riley said, sitting forward.

‘Then I noticed she was looking strange… like she’d suddenly got drunk or something. There was this stuff coming out of her mouth, like spit, only thicker. It was horrible. I was about to take her to hospital, but…’

‘But what?’

‘Ragga Pearl turned up.’

‘Just like that?’ Palmer looked sceptical. ‘I wouldn’t have thought Runnymede or Egham was quite his patch. You sure you didn’t call him up and tell him where you were?’

Szulu looked insulted. ‘Why would I do that? With me ‘n Ragga, you think I’m crazed?’

‘Because it would have got him off your back; a favour for a favour. Are you saying you didn’t think about it… of maybe bugging out and leaving her?’ The expression on Palmer’s face was stone cold. Then he shrugged. ‘Not that I’d have blamed you.’

‘What happened?’ asked Riley, ‘when Ragga and his men arrived?’

‘They took her,’ said Szulu. ‘Right there in the middle of that street. It was cold, man. They lifted her out of the car like a baby, and put her in one of theirs. Then Ragga told me to walk away and forget I ever laid eyes on her. He said the debt was paid and we were all clear. Man, when I heard that, I did what he told me.’ He shrugged, and had the good grace to look sombre. ‘That was the last I saw of her. You’d have to ask the Ragga what happened to her next, though.’

Riley nodded. ‘Don’t worry. We intend to. And that’s where you come in.’