The Business Of Dying

10

'He was an accountant.' Malik chewed on his sandwich as he spoke.

'You spoke to your mate, then?'

He nodded, finishing his mouthful. 'Yeah, last night. He's been working round the clock.'

'I can imagine.'

It was twenty past two the following afternoon, and we were in the station canteen. A fairly unproductive morning had been spent helping to collate all the statements we and the other officers had taken so far, in an effort to make some sort of sense of them. So far nothing was leaping out at us, and the one possible suspect, the pimp, had still not been found. Nor was anyone sure where else to look for him.

'How are they coming along with everything?'

'You know what it's like, Sarge. It was difficult for him to say too much but it seems they're working on a lot of leads. From what I can gather, they're concentrating on the accountant and trying to establish what he was doing with those customs officers.'

'Two customs officers and an accountant. It sounds like the name of a bad film.'

'It's an interesting combination, I'll give you that.'

I finished picking at the Caesar salad I'd ordered and pushed the plate away, thinking about the inevitable cigarette. 'What does your mate make of it all?'

'He said they'd already dug up a lot of info on the accountant and there was nothing to suggest he wasn't a sound guy. He didn't have a record or anything.'

I remembered the accountant's face, the shock on it as he looked down the barrel of my gun. I lit the cigarette. 'So what was he doing with them?'

'That's the million-dollar question. My friend says there was an official reason why they were together. He wouldn't say exactly what it was, but from what I can gather the accountant had information on something that was very useful to the customs men.'

'So they're pretty sure the customs men were part of some sort of investigation?'

Malik nodded slowly. 'That's my impression. He didn't say for sure, but I think that's the angle they're looking at it from.'

'So the only way the murderer would know they were going to be there at that time-'

'Was if it was an inside job. It's a worrying thought. You don't like to think of the forces of law and order as being corrupt.'

'You think someone tipped the killer off?'

He shrugged. 'That's what it looks like. What else could it be?'

I hoped Malik's information was wrong – which, of course, it could have been. A lot of the time on big cases involving a lot of detectives, contradictory stories get thrown up. From my point of view, it would be a lot easier to believe that the three victims were the pondscum Raymond had labelled them. Not only did it make what I'd done a lot more palatable – at least to me – I also felt it would make it much more difficult for the investigating officers to come up with a result. If it was an inside job, then the list of people who would have been in a position to know where those men were going to be and when they were going to be there would be pretty short.

But at the moment, it was still conjecture. I knew I was going to have to find out more information from Raymond, but at the same time I was going to have to be careful about how I did it. I'd never looked at him as a threat before, but suddenly I didn't want to give him a reason for wanting me out of the way as well. Maybe there'd been more truth in Danny's words than I'd initially given him credit for.

'You look very thoughtful, Sarge. Everything was all right at the doctor's yesterday, wasn't it?'

'Oh, yeah, yeah. No problem. Nothing serious anyway. I'm just not looking forward to chasing around questioning the rest of those kids at the children's home. It just seems like a hiding to nothing.'

We still had close to two thirds of the kids to take statements from, and, although I quite fancied the idea of seeing the alluring Carla Graham again, I didn't want to waste any more time talking to snotty little bastards who wouldn't help you if their lives depended on it. I'd already told Knox I didn't think we'd get anything helpful out of it, but he'd insisted. He wanted to make sure he covered every angle of the case, if for no other reason than to cover his arse from any future kicking by superiors frustrated by a perceived lack of results.

'Wasn't it you who told me when I started out that only five per cent of policework gets you anywhere, and it's always spread right across the one hundred per cent you have to do?'

I grinned. 'Did I really say that? Shit, that must have been a long time ago.'

'Two years. That's all.'

'I must have been lying.'

'So, what is the answer then? The secret of policework?'

I was about to tell him that it was not to give a fuck about it and make sure you earned an alternative income, when DC Hunsdon walked in. He looked pleased. There were only about a dozen of us scattered about the canteen and most were uniform. Since CID always like to stick together, he made his way over to us.

He stopped when he got to the table and leaned forward, smiling, hands on the top.

'I can see you're dying to tell us something,' I told him.

'We've got the pimp.' He spoke these words in the manner of someone saying, 'We've solved the case.' Somewhat optimistic, I thought.

'Oh yeah? Where was he?'

Hunsdon sat down and lit a cigarette. 'He came in here. Walked in with his brief about ten minutes ago.'

'Who's going to question him?' Malik asked.

'Knox is going to do it with Capper. They're going to lean on him hard.'

He didn't look at Malik as he spoke. Like a lot of the younger detectives, Hunsdon didn't like Malik. This was partly to do with the fact that he was a graduate, but also because he was Asian. There was a feeling that he got special treatment because of his ethnic background, a situation not helped by the way senior management tended to treat him as some sort of teacher's pet. The resentment was unjustified and stupid, but it was difficult to squash. It was a testimony to Malik that he never once acknowledged it.

'Do you think he did it?' I asked him.

Hunsdon shrugged. 'What else have we got?'

'Hardly a reason for pinning it on him,' I said.

'Yeah, but it's not just that, is it? The victim wasn't sexually assaulted but she was attacked in a way that was meant to make it look like a sexual assault, so it's probably not going to be a pervert. Plus, he was seen round the victim's flat just after the murder and attacked you when you tried to question him. And, if that isn't enough, he's got a history of violence, and he'd attacked the victim before. Put her in hospital a couple of months back with cracked ribs and concussion.'

'Yeah, but that's not the same as cutting her throat from ear to ear and hacking great holes in her genitals.'

'He fits, Sarge. Whatever way you look at it, he fits.' He said these last words firmly, and in a way that suggested there was no point continuing to argue with him.

Which there wasn't. Right or wrong, at least it meant there was less work for the rest of us.

'How are you getting on with the mobile phone records? Did Miriam have one registered in her name?'

He nodded. 'Yeah, she did. And I tell you something, it took a fuck of a lot of phoning round to find out. The company's going to send us a list of calls she made and received over the past month.'

'Maybe it'll throw up something.'

'You never know,' he said, but he didn't sound that interested. In his mind, we'd already got our man.