No Peace For The Wicked

Chapter 18

In the silence that followed, Riley felt a tingle in her shoulders. “Gross?” she asked carefully. “That was his name?”

“Grossman.” Peter Willis stirred and looked at Riley. “Ray Grossman. This was years ago. Grossman could be dead by now. He wasn’t well, even then. Big man, he was. Overweight and soft looking. Like he’d been a couch potato all his life.”

“Where did he come from?”

“The Smoke, I think. I only met him that one time.” His expression made it clear that once had been enough.

Riley nodded. She’d ask Donald Brask to delve into his files. “I suppose there wouldn’t be anything at the house, would there — information about this Grossman?”

Willis gave her a flinty look and she dismissed that as an avenue to explore. There were obviously limits on the amount of help he was prepared to give.

“The police will have cleaned it out already if they’re doing their job right,” he said stiffly. When he stood up, Riley took the hint. The interview was over.

“Thanks for your help. I’m sorry I descended on you so abruptly. Are you going anywhere nice?”

“All over, really,” Willis replied vaguely, walking her to the door. “Nowhere for long. We like driving… moving around.” He opened the door and briefly checked the corridor, then stood back to let her pass. She turned to shake hands, but he was already closing the door firmly behind her.

“So we have a name.” It was three hours later and Frank Palmer was behind his desk, fiddling with a retractable ruler. He’d listened in silence to Riley’s account of her meetings with Hyatt and the Willises, occasionally making a note on a small pad at his elbow, but seemed to have something else on his mind.

“It’s a start,” Riley replied. “I gave Grossman’s name to Donald. He said he’d have a trawl through his files to see if it means anything. How about you and your army friend? Any luck?”

Palmer gave Riley a strange look and stood up. He walked over to the kettle on the floor and plugged it in, then busied himself spooning coffee into mugs with agonising deliberation. When he showed no signs of replying, she went across and glared at his back. “Did I just speak in Swahili or something?”

“Sorry,” he said, pouring water and handing her a mug. “Brain’s in overdrive at the moment.” He wandered to the window and stared out, blowing on his coffee. Almost as an aside he asked: “Apart from that, how did your evening out go?”

“My evening?” Riley was surprised by the sudden change of direction. “It went very well, thank you. But what’s that got to do with this — or you?”

“Did he tell you how he managed to get your phone number?” He smiled to soften the question. “Just concerned, that’s all.”

“Yes, he did,” Riley replied. She realised she was being unfair after her concerns the previous day and owed him an explanation. “He said he had friends in the security industry who could access that sort of thing. It seemed reasonable, and it would have been — I don’t know — churlish to object if all he wanted was to go out with me.” She described the events of the evening, finishing with the large man she had seen twice near the restaurant, although she wasn’t sure why she remembered that.

Palmer looked round, suddenly interested. “Can you describe him?”

“Big — maybe six-four. Forty-ish, thinning brown hair. Looked like an ex-boxer. Or a heavy. Why are you asking? You still haven’t told me what you got up to in the last couple of days. You were going to see if you could identify the two men who smashed up your office.”

Palmer puffed out his lips and took a sheet of paper from under a folder on his desk. “My mate in Whitehall,” he said, “works in a section of the Ministry of Defence that deals with military personnel records. They have a database down there that houses the name of every person who has served or is serving in the forces. It only goes back to about 1960 at the moment.” He flapped the paper in the air. “But he managed to come up with a few names.” He explained Charlie’s findings after feeding in the name of Howie, and the possibility of him being Malcolm Howard, late of the Royal Marines.

“God, Palmer, that’s a stretch,” Riley pointed out. “Howie could be a nickname for all sorts of reasons. This Malcolm Howard could be an anorexic weakling with a pot-belly and flat feet — too feeble to even lift a baseball bat.”

“Unlikely,” said Palmer, “if he was in the Marines. Same with Duggan, the other one. I’d lay good money they were the two who trashed my office. They have the right background: military training, accustomed to giving orders and not frightened to chuck their weight around. On the other hand, clever enough to know when beating the crap out of me wasn’t necessary.”

Riley felt sceptical but had to concede the point. She held out her hand. “Can I see?”

Palmer looked up. “Pardon?”

“You said he came up with a few names. Can I see them?”

Palmer hesitated, then pushed the sheet of paper across the desk. “You’re really not going to like it, though. ”