Cold in Hand

Thirty-three

"My God!" Jackie Ferris exclaimed. "What happened to you?"

"Don't ask." The skin around Resnick's swollen right eye was a dramatic purple tinged with yellow and green; the centre of his face, all around the nose, was blue shading into black. An artist's palette run amok.

They were in the Assembly House, Kentish Town, Ferris's pub of choice. Monday lunchtime, quiet, only a few tables occupied. A lone drinker at the bar. The sound of traffic accelerating away from the lights outside enough to muffle what conversation there was. Among the cards and letters Resnick had received after Lynn's death, expressing sympathy, Jackie Ferris's had been one of the most heartfelt and to the point.

"I take it you didn't fall off your bike?"

"Not exactly."

"The other feller, then? How does he look?"

"Not a scratch."

Jackie lifted her glass. Coke with ice and lemon, still hours to go till the end of her day. "How've you been, Charlie?" she asked.

"You know, okay."

"Don't fob me off, Charlie."

"All right. At first I could hardly sleep, a few hours at most. I wandered round as if I were in some kind of daze. Didn't know where I was, when it was. And cold, a lot of the time I was cold. Shivering cold. And Lynn, she was everywhere."

"Oh, Charlie!"

"Everywhere I looked. Not just at home, but out in the city. I'd see her on the bus or just across the street, the back of her head just turning a corner. I still do. Once today, coming here. And I can't"-he shook his head-"I keep bursting into tears, no warning, no reason."

"You've got reason."

"Standing at the counter waiting to buy a loaf of bread, and suddenly these tears were running down my face. I felt… ridiculous."

"You're grieving. What do you expect?"

"Going crazy, that's what I'm doing. A little bit crazy."

Jackie smiled. "It's not crazy, it's normal. Perfectly natural."

"That's what he said, the bereavement counsellor. Absolutely natural."

"Well, he's right."

"I suppose so."

"How long is it, Charlie? How long's it been? Not long."

He held her gaze. "You want the hours, the minutes, or just the days?"

She placed her hand over his. "I'm sorry."

"I know."

"And I need a real drink." Pushing her Coke aside, she got to her feet. "You want anything?"

Resnick's pint was barely touched. "I'm fine."

Jackie Ferris came back from the bar with a large Scotch, just a little water. She could pick up some mints on the way back to the station.

"You saw her not so long before it happened, one evening, before she caught the train back to Nottingham."

Jackie nodded.

"How was she?"

"She was… she was good. It was great to see her. I was teasing her about this bloke behind the bar, I remember. We had a laugh."

"Did she say anything?"

"How d'you mean?"

"Anything that might have some bearing on what happened."

"I don't think so. She'd been to see this woman over in Leyton. Andreea something? Herself and someone called Daines."

"From SOCA."

"That's right. The two of them went together, and then Lynn nipped back later alone. She wanted to talk to this Andreea on her own. Apparently she claimed to have seen Daines getting his rocks off in some dodgy sauna where she was working, being pally with the owner. But then, when they'd been to the flat earlier, Daines had looked right through her, as if he'd never seen her before at all."

"She challenged him about it later. She told me."

"What did he say?"

"Denied it. Said the girl was lying. Told Lynn to mind her own business in no uncertain terms."

Jackie raised an eyebrow. "She didn't trust him; that was obvious. Said she was going to ask around, I don't know where. I said I'd do the same."

"And did you?"

Jackie took a sip from her glass. "There was a joint operation, came to a head round here, about a year ago now. Customs and Excise and the Met. Illegal firearms. Four arrests."

"You were involved?"

"Not directly. But I know a couple of people who were. Not that they were exactly forthcoming. Daines was with Customs and Excise then-this was before SOCA really got going-part of the team. A lot of the information they were using came from him."

"It worked out?"

"Spot on, apparently. Kept surveillance on this cafe where it was all due to go down. Made the exchange between lattes. 'Red-handed' didn't come into it. Semiautomatics and ammo packed into a rucksack with an old peace sign on the back." She smiled. "Someone with a sense of humour, at least."

"Four arrests, that's what you said?"

"Yes. And three sent for trial. Found guilty, all of them. Ten years apiece."

"The one who walked, he was what? Someone's informant?"

"Looks that way. And not just to me. He was found three months later. Over in Ireland. County Wexford. Nailed to a tree."

Resnick winced at the thought.

Jackie drank a little more of her Scotch.

"These people you spoke to," Resnick said, "there wasn't any suggestion about Daines being, I don't know, dodgy in one way or another?"

Jackie shook her head. "Not really. I meant to dig a little deeper, get back to Lynn and pass on what little I'd heard, but then…"

"Yes."

Resnick's beer tasted sour; his palate, not the pub's cellar. "These guns, the ones that were seized."

"Semiautomatics."

"Baikals?"

"I think so, yes."

"The gun that killed Lynn was a Baikal 9mm semiautomatic."

For some moments, neither of them spoke. The few customers who had been there had mostly drifted away.

"You think there's a connection?" Jackie Ferris asked.

Resnick shrugged his shoulders. "I don't see how."

"Coincidence, then?"

"Probably."

Jackie looked round at the clock on the wall. "Charlie, I should really be getting back."

"Of course."

"Here." She slid the whisky glass towards him. "Stay and finish this for me."

"Sure."

"The funeral," Jackie Ferris said, "you'll let me know?"

"Of course."

"I'll get there if I possibly can."

When she had gone, he eschewed his pint for her whisky and water, drinking it slowly as he sat thinking.

Daines was just leaving his office as Resnick arrived. A darker grey suit today, the colour of slate; white shirt with the top two buttons undone, no tie.

"A minute," Resnick said.

Daines looked at him as if not immediately knowing who he was.

"Resnick, isn't it? I'm sorry, but your face-"

"A couple of minutes," Resnick said. "That's all it will take."

Daines slid back his cuff and looked at his watch. "It's really not the best time. Perhaps tomorrow?"

"Now's fine," Resnick said.

Daines started to say something, but swallowed back the words and opened his office door instead.

"Come on in," he said. "Take a seat."

Resnick stood.

Daines was standing also, close alongside his desk. It was almost dusk out, the evenings still closing in.

"What happened," Daines said. "I'm sorry for your loss."

Resnick nodded an acknowledgement. "This operation you're working on, illegal-arms sales, is that right?"

Daines's turn to nod.

"These arms, they're Lithuanian?"

Daines nodded. "I don't understand why you're interested in all this."

"The weapon that killed her-killed Lynn-it was manufactured in Lithuania."

"A Baikal IZH?"

"Exactly."

Daines sat back on one corner of his desk, automatically tugging at his suit trousers as he did so. "We managed to intercept a number of small batches over the last year or so, but not all. Some will have got through." He shrugged. "Without the resources we really need, it's inevitable, I'm afraid."

"And this operation now, that's the same weapons, the same source?"

Daines didn't answer immediately. "The initial source is the same, yes. According to the Office of Organised Crime and Corruption in Lithuania, it's a factory in Kedainiai, north of Vilnius, the capital. That accounts for the majority of them, at least. They're transported through a variety of routes to this country, via Italy and up through France, or Frankfurt and then Amsterdam. Those seem to be the most popular."

"And it's the Albanians, if I've got this right, who are making the deal here and selling them."

"Pillow talk," Daines said with a sly smile.

"Lynn was at liberty to say what she wanted. You didn't exactly get her to sign the Official Secrets Act."

"I assumed she'd use her discretion."

"She did."

Sceptical, Daines angled his head a little to one side.

"One thing I don't understand," Resnick said. "Why go to the trouble of bringing the guns here? Surely they could sell them in Europe without running the extra risk of getting them into the UK?"

"Simple," Daines said. "Supply and demand. As the demand for guns here grows, so does the price."

Resnick snorted dismissively. "The free-market economy at work."

"Precisely. And the Albanians, for a relatively small outlay, can expand their business into a new and highly profitable area, using networks that've already been established."

"By Viktor Zoukas and his ilk."

"Viktor and his brother Valdemar, exactly."

"Which is why you were so keen, when the opportunity came along, to keep Viktor Zoukas out of jail."

Daines smiled. "Let's say we didn't want Valdemar to be distracted by the prospect of his brother being sent down for murder. Nor did we want to wait while a whole new network was set up, which we'd then have to track down. Especially not with the deal, as we believe, being so close to going ahead."

"Convenient, then, that Crown's witness disappeared when he did."

"Wasn't it?" Daines said flatly, choosing to ignore the implication in Resnick's tone.

"Pearce. He hasn't surfaced anywhere, as far as you know?"

"I'm afraid I've no idea." Daines looked again at his watch. "You know, I really do have to go."

Resnick walked down past the Playhouse and turned left on to Derby Road, then up past the Roman Catholic cathedral towards Canning Circus, his old stamping ground. The Warsaw Diner was near the top, on the left-hand side.

After exchanging pleasantries, he settled into a corner table with a bottle of Polish beer and browsed through the Evening Post while he waited for his meal. When it arrived-a plateful of pierogi with sauerkraut and two large pickled dill cucumbers-he set aside the newspaper to eat, and as he ate, he tried to organise his thoughts.

Lynn had been murdered after returning from London, where she'd been asking about the disappearance of one of the two principal witnesses in the case against Viktor Zoukas, who was currently out on bail following the adjournment of the trial.

Coincidence?

The gun she was shot with was the same make as Viktor and his brother, Valdemar, were allegedly trafficking.

Another coincidence?

And this…

One of the SOCA personnel heading the operation against this arms trade, Stuart Daines, was known to have applied pressure on the CPS to have Viktor Zoukas's trial adjourned and Zoukas himself released on bail. He was also-if hearsay evidence were to be believed-on friendly terms with Viktor's brother, Valdemar, and had visited the brothel Valdemar ran under the guise of it being a massage parlour and sauna.

Resnick ordered a second bottle of beer.

He could see the Zoukas entourage threatening both witnesses and putting pressure on them to the point where they were too frightened to give evidence and went into hiding. He could even imagine Daines being involved in that process in one way or other, either out of some friendship with or indebtedness to members of the Zoukas family, or because, as he had explained to Resnick earlier, it suited his plans to bring the gun traffickers to justice.

He thought he might just have room for a couple of jam-filled pancakes. After which a brisk walk home in the chilling air and-hopefully-a good night's sleep would encourage things to fall into place more clearly in his mind.

It was raining when he left the diner, raining hard.