The Business Of Dying

32

As the day wore on, I couldn't help thinking that Carla Graham was going to get away with her role in the murder of Miriam Fox. Malik hadn't seemed overly interested in what I had to say; even if he did believe me, there was no way Knox or Capper or anyone else was going to act on it. In the end, what was there to act on? Just the word of a disgraced police officer who was now on the run.

It bothered me that justice wouldn't be done. I suppose you could say that justice is rarely done in this world and that the vast majority of people don't get the fate they deserve, but that would be missing the point. I knew Carla Graham had done wrong and I wanted her to be called to account for it. I also wanted to find out whether she could shed any light on what had happened to Molly Hagger and Anne Taylor. I was pretty certain by now that Molly was dead and it was important to me to find out why and how. And who it was who'd killed her. It would, I thought, be a chance to atone for my many sins. Even if no-one ever realized that I'd solved the case and punished the perpetrators, at least I would have the satisfaction of having redeemed myself in my own eyes. Which was a lot better than nothing.

It wasn't going to be easy to get Carla to talk voluntarily, I knew that. Knowing her, she'd already have some story concocted as to how she'd found out about the manner of Miriam Fox's death – she was obviously pretty creative in that department – and would be fully aware that one verbal slip-up on her part to a man who'd just resigned from the police force was not exactly going to do a great deal to build a criminal case against her. But get her to talk I would. Carla Graham was a tough cookie who'd be able to withstand some pretty rigorous questioning, but this time it wouldn't do her any good. I would be visiting her in a very unofficial capacity. And with nothing to lose.

By four o'clock that afternoon, I'd decided on my strategy. At ten past, I found a callbox in Kensington, phoned the North London Echo, asking to speak to Roy Shelley. I went on hold to the sound of Marvin Gaye's 'Heard it Through the Grapevine', and it was about a minute before he finally came on the line.

'Dennis Milne. Fuck me, I haven't heard from you in a while. What do you want? Renew your subscription?'

'No, I might have something for you. Something that'll sell a lot of papers.'

'Oh yeah?'

'But I need something from you first.'

'You're not pissing me about, are you, Dennis? No disrespect, but I don't want to waste my time here. There's talk of redundancies at this place at the moment and I don't want to be first in the queue.'

'You'll be last in the queue if you run this story, Roy. It's big stuff, I promise you. The sort of stuff the nationals love.'

I could almost hear his interest cranking up at the other end. I'd known Roy Shelley a long time. He was what you'd call an old-school reporter. A pisshead who could sniff out information faster than any copper I knew.

'Can you give us a little snifter?' he asked. 'Just so I've got some sort of idea what to expect.'

'Not yet, but I promise you it'll be one hell of a lot better than you can imagine. It might even turn out to be the story of your career. But, like I said, I need something from you first.'

'What?' His tone was suspicious.

'Does the name Mehmet Illan mean anything to you?'

He thought about it for a moment. 'No. Should it?'

'I don't know. But can you do me a favour and find out anything you can about him? He's Turkish, I think.'

'Well, he would be with a name like that.'

'I would imagine he's based somewhere in North London, and he's definitely involved in a lot of dodgy dealing.'

'What kind of dodgy dealing?'

'I'm not a hundred per cent sure, but I think, if you ask around enough, you'll find people who know him. But try to be discreet.'

'And is this guy part of the story you've got?'

'He's a part of it, yes. But just a part. There's a lot more besides. How soon can you get me the info on him?'

'It could take a day or two.'

'Too long, Roy. I need it fast. The sooner I get it, the sooner you get your story.'

'Dennis, I don't even know who the bloke is.'

'Yeah, but you can find out. That's why I called you. I'm uncontactable at the moment, but I'll call you back at ten a.m. tomorrow. If you can get me the gen by then, I'd appreciate it.'

'This'd better be a good story, Dennis.'

'It is. I promise you. And something else too.'

'What?'

'Whatever you do, don't tell anyone I called. And don't make any attempt to get hold of me either. I can't explain why at the moment, but all will be revealed very shortly.'

'Christ Almighty, you're sounding like a fucking Robert Ludlum book. At least give me a sniff of what's going on.'

'Roy, if I could, I would. But I can't. Not for a day or two anyway. Just be patient. It'll be worth it.'

He started to ask another question, but I said my goodbyes and hung up.

After that, I made another phone call, but the person I was after wasn't in. No matter. It could wait.

I stepped out of the phone box and hailed a passing black cab. I got him to drop me off halfway up Upper Street, paid him his money, and went to pick up my car, which was parked on an adjoining street a couple of hundred yards up from my flat. I knew they'd be looking out for me on the off chance that I was stupid enough to return home, but they'd only have a couple of people watching the place, and my car was parked far enough away to avoid getting spotted. I was relieved to see that it was exactly where I'd left it more than a week earlier, which for London is pretty good going. It started first time, too. Maybe my luck was changing.

My first port of call was Camden Town. After hunting around for what seemed like a long time, I found a free meter on a residential street and then made my way over to Camden High Street to get my bearings before heading in the direction of Coleman House. I passed the pub where I'd first had a drink with Carla only a week earlier and, after hesitating for a moment, went inside. At this time in the afternoon it was still quiet, with only a sprinkling of students, old codgers, and the unemployable dotted about the place. That would all change in half an hour when the after-work crowd started to pour in.

I ordered a pint of Pride from the bar and asked the barman where the payphone was. He told me it was in the corridor leading to the toilets. There was no-one around when I walked in, so I dialled Coleman House reception.

'Carla Graham, please,' I asked in as official a voice as I could muster.

'She's not here at the moment,' said the voice at the other end, a woman whose tones I didn't recognize. 'Can I ask who's calling, please?'

'Frank Black. Black's Office Supplies. I'm actually returning her call. She was interested in some prices.'

'Can I put you through to her assistant, Sara?'

'Well, it's actually Miss Graham I need to speak to. Do you know when she's back?'

'I'm afraid she won't be in until tomorrow now. She's at a seminar this afternoon.'

I said I'd phone back, and hung up. After that, I tried Len Runnion's number again, but there was still no answer.

I went back into the bar, took a stool facing the wall near the door, and drank my drink. A mirror stretched right around the wall at head height, and my reflection stared back at me mournfully. I looked a mess, mainly because I hadn't shaved that day, which was deliberate. I was growing a beard now, in keeping with my passport photo. I was also going to have to fatten up a bit. I'd been at least half a stone heavier in the photo, and to be on the safe side I wanted to add another half stone on top of that. I'd had a McDonald's for lunch, which had been a good start, but I was going to have to have a similarly fatty supper for it to have any effect. From now on I was on a diet of greasy, bad food in large quantities until further notice. And I'd probably be one of the first people in the world to actually benefit from it.

I felt like I needed Dutch courage for what I was about to do, so I ordered another pint and drank that with a couple of cigarettes and a bag of cheese and onion crisps I didn't want but felt sure I ought to have. By the time I'd finished it, the predicted after-work crowd had materialized and the bar was three deep with loud, suited individuals and young secretaries out for a good time. The clock above the bar told me it was twenty past five.

Outside, darkness had long since fallen and the streets were crowded with commuters and early Christmas shoppers. The day after tomorrow would be the first of December. The year had gone fast, as they always seem to do. This time, however, I'd be glad when it had been and gone. Memorable it might turn out to be, but for all the wrong reasons.

By the time I got back to the car it had started raining. I jumped in and fought my way through the crawling rush-hour traffic, hoping that I got to Carla's flat before she did. My plan was to wait outside until she arrived, then apprehend her at the door. I'd try to get inside through charm alone – I didn't want to cause a scene – but if she didn't want to play ball, I'd pull the gun I'd taken ownership of the previous night. I didn't think she'd argue with that. After that, I'd play it by ear.

But the traffic was a lot worse than I'd expected and I wasn't totally sure of my bearings, so it was well gone six when I pulled into Carla's cul-de-sac. I managed to squeeze into a parking space about twenty yards down from her building and cut the engine. I could make out her flat through the outstretched skeletal branches of a beech tree. There were several lights on. So she was home.

I cursed silently. I should have got there earlier rather than dawdled over my pints. Now it was going to be difficult to get inside. I lit a cigarette and weighed up my options. I didn't think she'd let me in if I rang on her buzzer. We'd hardly parted on the best of terms, and she had no reason to talk to me. What was I going to say? That I wanted to come up and accuse her of murder for a second time? Breaking in was another option, but I remembered the building's security system being fairly elaborate. The door had been new and the lock was a five-bar. I didn't think my housebreaking skills stretched to that, not without equipment.

Which meant waiting for an opportunity to present itself. I finished the cigarette, took a swig from a bottle of Coke I'd brought with me, and lit another cigarette, wondering what I was going to do when and if she admitted her part in the whole thing. I could hardly make a citizen's arrest, not in my position, and I didn't think I had the stomach to kill her in cold blood. Which kind of cut down my options. Yet somehow I still felt that I was doing the right thing by coming here. That I had to get to the bottom of this before I could continue with my life.

I think I'd been there about ten minutes, maybe a bit less, when a car drove into the cul-de-sac looking for a parking space. I slid down in my seat, not wanting to draw attention to myself, and the car continued past. When it got to the end it made a torturously slow U-turn in the limited space available and drove back out again. About a minute later, I saw the driver, a middle-aged businessman, walk past on Carla's side of the road. He stopped when he came to Carla's building and fished about in his coat pocket for his keys.

I stepped out of the car and crossed the street as casually as possible, coming up behind him as he was mounting the steps. He heard my footfalls and whirled round, his face etched with the automatic fear city dwellers always experience when someone approaches them from behind at night. His expression eased a bit when he saw it was a man in a shirt and tie, but remained suspicious nevertheless.

'Yes. Can I help you?'

I pulled out my warrant card and showed it to him. 'I'm here to see Miss Carla Graham,' I said authoritatively, looking him right in the eye. 'I understand she lives on the top floor.'

He put his key in the door. 'That's right. Well, you'd better buzz her-'

'I'd rather she didn't know who it was, sir. You see, I'm not one hundred per cent sure she'll want to speak to us.'

He looked at me curiously but decided in the end that I was probably who I said I was, and turned the key in the lock. 'I assume you know where to go,' he said, as I followed him inside.

'Yes, I do. Thanks.'

'Sorry to seem suspicious, but you know what it's like.'

'Dead right. You can never be too careful these days.'

He moved off down the hall and I made my way up the stairs, remembering back to that night just three days ago when I'd walked up them the first time. A lot had changed since then.

When I got up to the third floor, I stopped outside her door and listened carefully. The television was on with the volume turned up high. It sounded as though it was switched to the news. I pressed my ear against the door and tried to pick out any other sounds, but couldn't hear anything.

I reached down and tried the handle, but it wouldn't give. The door was locked, so I leaned down and checked the lock itself. It was an easy one. Reaching into my pocket, I pulled a credit card from my wallet and manoeuvred it into the tiny gap between the door and skirting. The lock gave without resistance, and slowly I turned the handle.

I stepped into the hallway and gently eased the door closed behind me, putting the chain across it to delay her if she tried to make a getaway. There were no lights on in the hallway itself but the sitting-room door on my left was open, providing some light. I stopped and listened again.

Making as little noise as possible, I slowly put my head round the sitting-room door.

The room was empty. In the corner, the TV blared as a news reporter in some dusty war-torn location gave a dramatic run-down on whatever conflict it was he was covering. A half-drunk cup of coffee sat on the teak coffee table, and next to it was an ashtray with two butts in it. I waited a moment, then, still hearing no sound from anywhere in the flat, walked inside. I leaned over and dipped my finger in the coffee. It was cool, but not cold. Maybe half an hour old. No more than that.

I retreated back into the hallway. Immediately to my right was the kitchen. The door was half closed but the light was on inside. I pushed it open and had a quick look but, like the sitting room, it too was empty. That only left two rooms, one of which was the bathroom, right opposite me at the end of the hall. Its door was wide open. I crept up, paused for a moment, then reached round and pulled on the light.

Empty.

Which left the bedroom.

I assumed she must have gone out for something; either that or she'd taken a very early night. It didn't matter. I could wait for her easily enough. I didn't suppose she was having a romantic tryst in there, otherwise I'd have been able to hear her. Carla was not a woman who could enjoy a quiet fuck.

I stepped forward and listened briefly at the door. Again, just silence.

Slowly, ever so slowly, I turned the handle. The door creaked open.

It was pitch black. Even without looking, I could tell the curtains were closed. I stepped inside, waited a moment, then reached for the light switch, trying to remember which side of the door it was on. Again, no sound. No sound at all.

I picked the right side, found the switch, and flicked it on. It seemed very bright and I blinked rapidly as my eyes refocused.

It took me two, maybe three seconds to see the huge dark stain that spread high up the wall behind her kingsize bed. Beneath it, lying face forward on the heavily bloodstained sheets at a slightly skewed angle from the wall and with its arms and legs spread wide, lay the fully clothed corpse of Carla Graham. She was wearing a white blouse, whole swathes of which were now crimson, black trousers and socks. One of her bedside lamps had fallen off its perch and now lay on its side on the floor, the only obvious sign of a struggle, and her hands were gripping on to great clumps of the sheets. There was a vague, airless smell in the room but nothing like as pungent as the stench in the funeral home after Raymond had murdered Barry Finn.

I stepped forward, still finding it difficult to believe what I was seeing, and gingerly approached the body. I didn't want to touch it, not without gloves on, but I wanted to check that she was actually dead, although with that much blood it was difficult to believe she could be anything but.

Her eyes were open. Wide. Terrified. But still beautiful somehow, even in death. We could have been something. We really could have. At that moment, I felt a bitter regret that it had come to this.

The gaping wound in her throat was partly obscured by her hair, but I could see that it was very deep and very wide… similar to the one that had ended Miriam Fox's life. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched a droplet of blood ease slowly down the wall. I looked back down at Carla's throat. The blood was still oozing out of the wound, though its flow was now down to a trickle.

She had died only a short while before. A very short while. Ten, fifteen minutes. No longer than that. The blood hadn't even coagulated yet. I'd been outside for about ten minutes, sitting in the car. No-one had left the building in that time. It had taken me five minutes to get up the stairs, give the flat the once-over, and come into the room where I stood now. That was fifteen minutes in total. In my estimation, she'd almost certainly been alive fifteen minutes ago.

Which meant only one thing.

I heard the movement behind me and whirled round at just the second the knife came flashing through the air in a great arc, still dripping with Carla's blood. I jumped backwards and banged into the bedside table. The blade swished past perilously close to my skin, almost touching it, only an inch separating me from certain evisceration.

My attacker was a big man, well over six feet with a build to match. He had a black baseball cap pulled low over his face, but I could make out the look of steely determination beneath it. There was no way he was going to let me live. Not now I'd seen him.

He stumbled slightly with the momentum of his swing and I jumped forward, grabbing him by both wrists and kicking him as hard as I could in the shins. He flinched with pain but maintained his balance, and pushed me back against the table, at the same time twisting his way out of my grip.

Now he had both hands free again, and he brought the knife up in a rapid thrust aimed at my belly, but I leaped aside, landing on my back on the bed, my head resting on Carla's still warm corpse. I could feel the blood-drenched sheets wet against my body. I tried to kick out as he lifted the huge knife above his head but his legs were pressed up tight against mine, making movement next to impossible.

He brought the knife down hard, but I wriggled violently and grabbed his arm with both hands, pushing it to one side and banging it against the wall with all the strength I could muster. He didn't release his grip. Instead, with his free hand he punched me hard in the face and I felt a terrible pain shoot through my cheek. He punched me again, a triumphant look in his eyes, and my vision began to blur.

Then, suddenly changing tactics, he stopped punching me and reached over to grab the knife from his other hand, which I had pinned against the wall. In doing so, he relaxed the pressure on my legs, and before he had a chance to stab at me again I kicked out wildly, cracking him in the knee with the heel of my new brogues. He jumped backwards out of range of my feet and his cap flew off, revealing a thick head of unkempt hair. The loss of it appeared to distract him momentarily, like Samson losing his locks, and I took the opportunity to roll across the bed, forcing myself over Carla's slick, greasy body.

I seemed to roll for ages before finally crashing down the other side. I could hear my attacker coming round the front of the bed, and I desperately hunted through the pockets of my coat for the gun I'd taken the previous night. I got a grip on the handle and tried to tug it out, but it snagged on the material. He was coming into full view, replacing the black cap on his head, the knife held wickedly aloft. Only feet away. I felt the material around my pocket tear. I pulled again, desperately trying to get it out, panic threatening to fuck up everything.

Suddenly the handle came free and I whipped the gun out, pointing the barrel at my assailant. He saw it and stopped dead, then made a split-second decision to turn and run for the door. I located the safety catch, flicked it round, then sat up and took aim. He was almost through the door but I managed to get off a shot. It went wide and high, hitting the upper door frame. He kept going, disappearing from view, and I jumped to my feet and started out after him.

When I came out into the hallway he was at the front door, fiddling with the chain. He turned, saw me, gave me one last defiant look, and pulled it open. I fired again as he started down the stairs, but again the bullet went wide and high. It was no wonder the Turk hadn't been able to hit me the previous night. The sights on this gun were so out of kilter I'd have had to aim at the ceiling to get any chance of actually putting a hole in my target.

I could hear his heavy footfalls on the stairs, taking them two at a time. There was no way I was going to catch him now. I stopped where I was, panting with exhaustion and shock. That had been close. Far too close for comfort. That made two attempts on my life in twenty-four hours, neither of which had been that far from success. So far I'd emerged unscathed, but it was only a matter of time before my luck ran out.

And now I was never going to get any answers from Carla Graham.

But her killer would know them. And luckily for me I knew him. Or knew his name, anyway.

There's a true story that goes like this. A thirty-two-year-old man once kidnapped a ten-year-old girl. He took her back to his dingy flat, tied her to a bed and subjected her to a prolonged and sickening sexual assault. He might have killed her too; apparently he'd boasted in the past of wanting to murder young girls for a thrill, but a neighbour heard the girl's screams and called the cops. They turned up, kicked the door down, and nicked him. Unfortunately, he later got off on a technicality and the girl's father ended up behind bars, and later underground, for trying to extract his own justice. I remembered the case because an ex-colleague of mine had worked on it. It had been two years ago now.

The rapist's name was Alan Kover, and he was the man who'd just tried to put a knife in me.

There were more footsteps on the stairs, this time coming up. I placed the gun back in my pocket and walked over to the front door. As I was shutting it behind me, the guy who'd let me in emerged from round the corner. He was carrying a heavy-looking torch that I think was his best effort at a weapon, and wearing a very concerned expression.

'What's going on?' he asked. 'I've just seen a man with a knife come charging down the stairs.'

I started down towards him. 'Call the police,' I said.

'But I thought you were the police.'

'Not any more I'm not.'

'Then who the hell are you?'

I pushed past him without stopping. 'Someone who hopes good luck comes in threes.'