Scared to Live

19

Thursday, 27 October

Early next morning, an officer from the incident room entered DCI Kessen’s office at West Street, and placed several slim files on the desk. Watched by Hitchens, Kessen thumbed through the files.

‘Well, it looks as though we’ve got the first hits from our Nichols trawl,’ he said.

‘Any Simons?’ asked Hitchens.

‘Oh, yes. Three. One of them lives in Ashbourne, and he’s ten years old.’

‘Damn it.’

‘Well, maybe we shouldn’t eliminate him out of hand. Kids are given mobile phones at a very young age these days.’

‘And high-powered semi-automatics?’

‘Let’s hope not. Get Ashbourne section to talk to the parents anyway, check there isn’t some remote connection with Rose Shepherd. It seems pretty unlikely, but we’d best rule it out.’

‘And the others?’

‘The second Simon Nichols is eighty-five years old. Actually, his full name is Edward Simon Nichols, so strictly speaking he’s ESN. He’s in a residential care home in Alfreton, but he could have some connection with Rose Shepherd.’

‘We need to spread the net wider, don’t we?’

‘Nichols isn’t an uncommon name,’ said Kessen. ‘There could be hundreds of Simons around the country. But unfortunately, these seem to be the only leads we have at the moment. Do you want to allocate them, Paul?’

Hitchens took the files into the CID room and passed on the news to the officers on the early shift.

‘Is there one for me?’ asked Cooper.

‘Yes, I saved this one for you specially, Ben. This Nichols lives on a farm, so it’ll suit you down to the ground. The address we have for him is Lea Farm, near Uppertown — wherever the heck that is.’

‘I know Uppertown. It’s near Bonsall.’

‘Bonsall?’ said Hitchens. ‘Just a minute — ’

‘Yes, Rose Shepherd made calls to a phone box in that area, didn’t she?’

Hitchens smiled as he handed Cooper the file.

‘Off you go, then. There’s no time to waste.’

When Fry arrived at West Street, it seemed unnaturally quiet. She made her way to the DCI’s office, where she found Kessen and Hitchens frowning over a document written in a language she didn’t recognize. She leaned over the desk and looked closer. No — it was the alphabet she didn’t recognize. Some kind of Cyrillic script?

‘Morning, Diane. Take a look,’ said Hitchens. ‘This could be a whole new angle on the Shepherd enquiry.’

Fry picked out a photograph from the file. It showed the rear view of a red Ford Escort with a foreign registration number and a shattered back window. The car was parked in a garage, with wooden double doors left half open and a padlock hanging from the hasp. The only other thing she noticed was the international plate — BG. Before she could work out what country the initials referred to, she’d unfolded a label attached to the back of the photo and found it was headed in English. The Bulgarian Interior Ministry.

She raised an eyebrow at Kessen, and he took the photo from her. ‘OK. A year ago, there was a double murder in a city in northern Bulgaria — a place called Pleven. This car was found by the roadside outside the city. The bodies of two people were in it.’

‘Who were they?’

‘Their names were Dimitar Iliev, aged forty-three, and Piya Yotova, forty. Iliev had been shot in the head, and Yotova had bullet wounds in the back and arms.’

‘Was it some kind of execution?’

Kessen shrugged. ‘The Pleven police examined the scene for evidence, but they found nothing to help them identify the assailants.’

‘What has this got to do with Rose Shepherd?’ said Fry.

‘We’re not sure yet. But it could have something to do with Simon Nichols. We got a hit on the name from Europol. They’re building up a lot of intelligence on cross-border organized crime these days. According to their database, Simon Nichols is an alias for a Bulgarian criminal called Simcho Nikolov. They’re sending the complete file on him ASAP.’

Fry tapped the photograph. ‘He’s a suspect for this shooting in Pleven?’

‘He was a known associate of Yotova’s, and he disappeared about the time of the shooting. The Bulgarian police have been looking for him ever since.’

‘So he could be a professional hit man,’ said Hitchens.

‘It looks that way,’ said Kessen. ‘Europol intelligence has come up with two more associates of Nikolov’s: the Zhivko brothers — Anton and Lazar. It appears they were members of a criminal gang that got involved in some kind of turf war. The older brother, Anton, was badly injured. He got a bullet lodged in his spine and was left paralysed from the waist down. The Zhivkos had enough money stashed away from their criminal activities that they were able to do a runner and get clear of the country.’

‘Don’t tell me they’re here?’

‘Yes, right here in Derbyshire. Two years ago, the Zhivko brothers opened an electrical shop in Chesterfield. It’s possible Nikolov came here to join them. So far, they’ve behaved themselves, but Europol have passed on a tip-off that the Zhivkos are expecting a visitor from their own country — a visitor they might not welcome. An organized crime surveillance unit has been set up in Chesterfield to keep an eye on things.’

‘An East European feud happening on our territory?’ Hitchens ran a hand through his hair. He was starting to look less elegant than he had when the week started. ‘We’d better find out if we have any more Bulgarians in the area. I’ll run a check on the dispersal facilities, for a start.’

Kessen studied Fry. ‘There’s a job for you, Diane. Europol have arranged for an English-speaking officer to liaise with us from Pleven. He’ll be calling this morning. And I want you to deal with him.’

Fry was aghast. ‘With respect, sir, I’ve got far more important things to do than become involved in international liaison — especially on the basis of such a tenuous connection.’

‘Not quite so tenuous,’ said Kessen calmly. ‘DC Cooper is following up a potential lead to Simon Nichols in the exact area where Rose Shepherd made calls to a public phone box. And don’t forget that the victim had the international dialling code for Bulgaria in her address book — the magic 359.’

Still fuming, Fry went back to her own desk. Bulgaria. The Balkans, right? A former Soviet bloc country, a bastion of Communism during the Cold War era. But what else did she know about it? Nothing.

Fry was still trying to picture what a Bulgarian might actually look like, when her phone rang.

‘Hello, DS Fry.’

‘Alo. My name is Sergeant Georgi Kotsev. I’m calling from Pleven Police Department, on behalf of the Bulgarian Ministry of the Interior.’

Fry tried to mask her sigh. ‘Oh, Sergeant Kotsev. Hello. Thank you for sparing the time to talk to us.’

‘It’s a pleasure to co-operate with our colleagues in the United Kingdom.’

His voice was deep and only slightly accented, not what Fry had expected at all. It didn’t fit the Slavic stereotype that had been lurking at the back of her mind — some hatchet-faced villain out of a James Bond film. Kotsev sounded like the man they saved for PR work, smooth and articulate, with excellent English.

‘I have your fax about the two shooting victims in Pleven,’ said Fry. ‘I wonder if you have any further information?’

‘We know that they were both shot with an assault rifle, probably a Kalashnikov AK47.’

‘Are AK47s commonly available in Bulgaria?’

‘If you know the right people, of course.’

Fry grunted, unsurprised. Kalashnikovs were everywhere. They’d become legendary around the world’s trouble spots.

‘We manufacture a great many Kalashnikovs in Bulgaria,’ said Kotsev, perhaps misinterpreting her silence. ‘Yes, even now.’

‘And they’re used by criminal gangs, Sergeant?’

Kotsev laughed. ‘Da, razbira se. Of course. But, you know, the United States government bought many thousands of Kalashnikovs for use in Iraq. Those guns were also made in Bulgaria. They operate better than the American M-16 in dusty conditions, so our manufacturers produce a weapon to NATO standards. Kalashnikovs travel well, like our wine.’

Fry could have listened to him talk for a while, his voice was so interesting. She guessed he’d be one of those people who were terribly disappointing when you met them in person, because their faces didn’t match the picture their voices conjured up. Probably he was hatchet-faced, after all.

‘Any idea of a motive for these killings?’ she asked.

‘Certainly. People want money. Sometimes they see a way of filling their pockets and getting away with it.’ From the tone of his voice, she could almost hear Kotsev shrug. ‘And then they get drawn in to events. They mix with the wrong people.’

‘And the law catches up with them.’

‘The law? Not so often.’

Fry didn’t feel able to join in with his chuckle. She turned back to the report on the shooting. ‘Dimitar Iliev was involved in organized crime, is that right?’

‘Yes, we believe so. But Iliev was a very small player in the game, who became greedy, we think. He and Yotova were found in their car on the E83 highway outside Pleven. We don’t know where they were heading.’

‘Tell me what you know about Simcho Nikolov.’

‘Nikolov is aged fifty-five, a native of the Rhodope Mountains. An army veteran. He was a companion of Iliev’s for many years — indeed, they served together as soldiers, but fell on bad times after release from the army. Like so many, these two men turned to crime. For a long time, they were protected from prosecution by their connection with powerful criminal bosses.’

‘But their luck ran out,’ said Fry.

‘Iliev’s did, at least. Simcho Nikolov has been sought ever since. We have had no news of him.’

‘The shooting was a year ago. You don’t seem to have made a lot of progress.’

‘Sadly, that is not unusual in this type of investigation.’ ‘Well, could you keep us updated?’

‘I’ll fax you any relevant information if we have new developments. Would that be suitable?’

‘Yes, excellent.’

Kotsev paused. She thought she heard him drinking, and imagined a cup of decent coffee in his hand. Did they have good coffee in Bulgaria? Just the idea of it was making her mouth dry.

‘And what about you, Sergeant Fry?’ he said. ‘What is your situation?’

‘One of my colleagues is following up a possible lead to Nikolov. In fact, he’s on his way to the address right now. And we’ve identified some associates of Nikolov’s living in the area. Two brothers by the name of Zhivko.’

Sergeant Kotsev seemed to choke over his coffee. ‘Zhivko? Anton and Lazar?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is one of them disabled? In a wheelchair?’

‘I believe so.’

‘You should arrest them immediately.’

Surprised by the sudden urgency in his tone, Fry raised her eyebrows at her colleagues in the office, the way they all did when they had someone strange on the phone.

‘They don’t appear to have committed any crimes here, Sergeant,’ she said. ‘But we’ve got them under surveillance.’

‘They’re dangerous people. And so are their associates. Anton Zhivko was almost killed in an assassination attempt by a rival gang. That was why they left the country.’

‘We’re aware of that. But they seem to be running a legitimate business so far.’

‘That is a joke.’

‘No.’

‘The Zhivkos are desperate men. In fear of their lives, and therefore dangerous.’

‘I’ll mention your concerns to my senior officers.’

There was silence at the other end of the phone for a moment. The line to Pleven was so good that she could hear Kotsev breathing, and even the faint buzz of background conversation, and a door closing somewhere.

‘If you would like for someone to travel to England, it can be arranged,’ he said.

‘Why?’

‘To assist in your investigation. We very much wish to help. Co-operation with our European colleagues is encouraged at the highest level.’

‘Well, I don’t think that will be necessary for now, but I’ll pass on your offer.’

‘It’s been a pleasure to liaise with you, Sergeant Fry. I hope we’ll speak again soon.’

‘Goodbye, then.’

‘Ciao.’

Fry put the phone down. Ciao. Was that a Bulgarian word?

Then she noticed Murfin making frantic gestures at her with his phone.

‘What is it, Gavin?’

‘I’ve got that waitress on the phone — the one from Matlock Bath, who came in to do the photofits. I think you’d better speak to her.’

‘OK, put her on.’

Murfin transferred the call, and Fry picked up.

‘Good morning, Miss Rawson. I understand you have some new information for us. What is it? Have you remembered something?’

‘Well, I’ve just seen something really. That woman I saw on Saturday — it’s the one who’s in the papers. The one who was killed.’

Fry was disappointed. ‘Yes, Rose Shepherd. We know that, Tina. It’s the other two people we’re trying to identify.’

‘No, no. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. She’s right here in the paper. I mean the woman she was meeting, the younger one.’

‘Who’s in the paper, Tina? I don’t understand what you’re saying.’

‘Listen, I’m telling you. The woman that Miss Shepherd met at the tea rooms, the one you wanted me to give you a description of — I’ve seen a photograph of her in the paper. It’s her, it’s definitely her.’

Tina took a deep breath, as if realizing that she wasn’t going to make herself understood unless she spoke more slowly.

‘I’m looking at her photograph right now, Sergeant. She’s the woman who was killed in the house fire in Edendale. It says here her name is Lindsay Mullen.’

Almost all the houses in the Bonsall area were built in the local style — limestone walls with contrasting sandstone quoins and door and window surrounds. Derbyshire limestone was notoriously hard to work, so in some places the builders had laid rough stone without any attempt to form courses. Cooper could see small stone buildings scattered across the landscape here. Most of these were field barns, used for storing feed and equipment, or sheltering animals. But some of them were probably disused coes, the huts built by lead miners near their mine shafts.

With a clatter of wings, a flock of racing pigeons took off from a loft and circled Cooper’s car. Pigeon lofts seemed to be a feature of Bonsall, too. And that phone box outside the Barley Mow pub — wasn’t that supposed to have been designed by the same architect who built Liverpool Cathedral and Waterloo Bridge?

Through Bonsall, the road became single track, with a few passing places tucked into the stone walls. The farm where Simon Nichols worked lay on the plateau to the west of Masson Hill. Cooper had to pass through Uppertown, then follow a couple of B roads before abandoning tarmac altogether for a route the maps would call ‘unclassified’. There were no helpful signs, and many of the tracks were old miners’ roads that led past the remains of disused lead workings and took you back to where you’d started from. You had to know where you were going in an area like this.

Despite what he’d told the DI, Cooper didn’t really know where he was going. This meant he had to stop to consult his OS map, and try to interpret the spider’s web of black and green lines that crammed the spaces between the B roads. To his left he could see the curious bumps in the landscape that indicated the covered shafts and overgrown spoil heaps of a long-abandoned mine. But he had no idea whether it was Low Mine, Whitelow Mine, or Beans and Bacon Mine. Or even one of half a dozen sites marked on the map simply as Mine (disused).

Finally he found himself driving down a stony track, looking for a farmhouse that had been promised by a worn sign half a mile back. But before he found Lea Farm, he came across a pick-up truck and a middle-aged farmer unloading posts for fence repairs.

‘Good morning. DC Cooper, Edendale Police. I’m looking for a Mr Simon Nichols.’

‘Simon? He’s not here. He’ll probably be holed up in his caravan.’

‘He lives in a caravan?’

‘Yes, down at the bottom of the big field there.’

‘Do you own this farm, sir?’

‘Yes, the name’s Finney. Michael Finney.’

‘So you employ Mr Nichols?’

The farmer grunted as he heaved aside two more posts. ‘I suppose so.’

‘When did you last see him?’

‘Not for a few days, as a matter of fact.’

‘Is that normal? I mean, if he’s supposed to be employed here.’

Finney straightened his cap and turned to look at Cooper, weighing him up with a shrewd glance.

‘Well, the thing about Simon is, he tends to drink quite a lot. Sometimes he goes on a bender and stays away for a couple of days. Other times, he just sleeps it off in the caravan. But he turns up eventually. He’s a good worker, when he’s sober. That’s why I keep him on.’

‘And he’s cheap, I expect?’

The farmer shrugged. ‘This is unskilled work. He’s never complained about the wages.’

‘Can I take a look at the caravan?’

‘If you like. Let me get the last of this stuff off the truck, and I’ll show you.’

The caravan stood in a corner of a field, almost hidden by weeds and a copse of trees. Cooper had to park his Toyota in a gateway and walk into the field. The eel post of the gate was new enough to swing smoothly on its hinges, but the clap post it closed against was a chunk of weathered timber so black and hard that it almost seemed to have turned to stone.

‘Keep him well out of the way, don’t you, Mr Finney?’

The farmer shrugged. ‘Simon prefers it down here. He likes to keep himself to himself.’

‘There’s often a reason for that.’

‘I don’t know what you’re getting at.’

Behind the caravan, a row of silage bags glistened in black plastic wrappings, pools of water reflecting the branches of the trees. Overhead, the upper boughs were full of dark, untidy shapes — the nest of the rooks Cooper could see flapping restlessly against the sky.

‘Just that some people prefer not to get visitors …’ he said.

‘Oh, I feel that way myself some days.’

‘… and it usually means they have something to hide.’

Finney sniffed sceptically, but trailed after Cooper as he approached the trees. The nearer he came to the caravan, the more Cooper became aware of the silence in this corner of the field. Apart from the rustling of the birds, there was no sound or movement, no sign of life. Surely someone who didn’t like visitors would be alert for a stranger approaching, or the sound of a car parking in the lane.

Cooper stopped and looked around. The field was full of tussocky grass and outcrops of flat, pale limestone. It was enclosed by two walls that snaked across the landscape until they crested a rise. Halfway up the slope, a section of wall had bulged and fallen. The dislodged stones lay on the ground, grass growing over them. This land hadn’t been used to contain livestock for a while — not unless Mr Finney was happy for his animals to scramble over the damaged wall.

‘I don’t suppose Mr Nichols has a car, sir?’

‘A car? No. I give him a lift into town now and then, if he needs to go to the doctor’s or something,’ said Finney. ‘Otherwise, he gets around on that — ’

The farmer pointed to an old motorbike propped against one end of the caravan. Cooper hadn’t noticed it until now. It was so decrepit that it seemed to have grown out of the weeds.

‘He uses the bike to get around? Even when he’s out drinking?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘But he isn’t out on it now, is he?’

‘I reckon not.’

With a sinking feeling, Cooper knocked on the door of the caravan. ‘Mr Nichols? Are you in there?’ He knocked again, a metallic clanging as if he was hitting a big tin can. A big, empty tin can. ‘Anyone home?’

‘He might be asleep,’ said Finney.

Faded curtains were drawn across the windows. A pattern of orange flowers, speckled with black dots. By pressing his face close to the glass, Cooper could see a small slice of the interior through a narrow gap where the curtains didn’t meet. He saw the edge of a folding wooden table, a scatter of papers, and two beer cans. Orange cans, to match the curtains. Probably Stone’s Bitter from the supermarket in Matlock. One of the cans had been knocked over, and beer was spilt on the table.

‘Police! Open up!’ called Cooper, more loudly. And he gave the door a couple of good thumps that shook the caravan on its chassis. ‘Mr Finney, the occupant appears to be absent. Do I have your permission to enter this caravan?’

‘Eh? Well, I suppose so — if you really want to. It won’t be very nice in there, you know. Old Simon, he isn’t the cleanest of folk.’

‘It doesn’t matter. I don’t suppose you have a key, sir?’

‘I might have one back at the house. But we probably don’t need one. You could just try — ’

But Cooper had already tried. The handle turned in his fingers with a faint scrape of metal. ‘You’re right, we don’t need one.’

He gave the door a yank, but it jammed in the frame where it had warped out of shape. Cooper braced his foot against the step and pulled harder. The soft aluminium began to bend in his hands, and the door screeched as it was forced open. Cooper flinched at the noise, his teeth suddenly set on edge, his muscles tensing instinctively.

With the door open, the two men were frozen for a moment, suddenly reluctant to enter the caravan, or even take a step closer. A fat bluebottle buzzed through the gap and zigzagged slowly past them, too tired and bloated to escape.

Finney drew in a sharp breath, as if he’d been punched in the stomach. His involuntary cry of disgust sent a flock of rooks clattering into the air, cawing with alarm, their black feathers rattling through the branches. Then the farmer made a choking, gurgling sound and staggered towards the wall. He hadn’t reached it before he doubled over and vomited into the grass.

Standing in the doorway of the caravan, Cooper covered his mouth and nose with a hand as he watched a pool of dark, sticky liquid hover on the edge of the step before trickling slowly towards the ground, forming an oily pool on the earth. The sweet smell of it was like a finger pushed down his throat, making him swallow as he fought a surge of nausea.

Cooper didn’t have to look very far to find the source of the smell. He didn’t even have to enter the caravan, which was a relief. Because Mr Finney had been right about another thing. It really wasn’t very nice in there.