The Murder Exchange

Friday, two days ago

Iversson

‘Have you got the money ready?’

‘I told you, I need more time.’

‘So you haven’t?’

‘Look, you don’t know who you’re fucking around with here. If you don’t let him go, I’ll be coming after you, you hear me?’

‘I’m not listening. Now, you hear me. We’ll start pulling your boy’s fingernails out unless you do what we say, when we say it.’

‘If you touch one fucking hair on his head-’

‘Then what? What will you do exactly?’

‘I will kill you. Understand that. I will find you and I will saw your fucking legs off.’

‘Nothing’ll happen to him if you give us the money we’ve requested. Why haven’t you got it?’

‘What guarantee have I got that he’s even still alive?’

‘There’s no point us killing him. He hasn’t seen our faces and he doesn’t know who we are.’

‘You hurt him and I’ll hunt you down. There’ll be no fucking hiding place.’

‘You’ve said that already. It wasn’t frightening the first time. Now, have you got the money or not? Answer me now.’

There was a pause. ‘Yeah, I’ve got the money.’

‘Good. Now, listen carefully. At six-thirty p.m. tomorrow, be in the rear car park of the Post House Hotel on the Epping High Road. It’s on the southern outskirts of Epping, just before the road crosses the M25. Have your mobile with you, as well as the money. And do not bring anyone else. Do you understand?’

‘How do I know you’re not going to have a pop at me?’

‘All I want’s that money. Nothing else. Be at the Post House tomorrow and I’ll call you then.’

I thought I was getting good at this as I stepped out of the phone box into the light morning drizzle.

Gallan

After much persuasion, I managed to push the DCI into organizing the SOCO team to start their painstaking work that Friday morning. I watched them arrive from across the street, hoping they would turn up something, however small, that could solve the murder of the thirteen-year-old paperboy.

The previous evening I’d gone round alone to Robert’s parents’ house to tell them of the new developments and to remind them not to get too optimistic. They’d both nodded in understanding, and had thanked me for my help and my thoughtfulness in keeping them informed. I’d told them I was just doing my job, and Mrs Jones had put her hand on my arm and told me I was doing it well. And I’d thought then that, whatever happened with this lead, I would never stop until I found the person who’d killed their son and brought him to justice. It was why I was a copper. It was my vocation in life. The constant desire to give some sort of justice to people for whom fate had denied it.

I waited there for a long time as the white-overalled SOCO officers strode in and out of 41F Runmayne Avenue with their various paraphernalia. Only when I was satisfied they were taking the job seriously, that they would scour the place until they’d covered every square inch of it, did I finally turn and make my way back to the station.

When I got back to the incident room, Berrin was just coming off the phone. ‘That was Martin Leppel,’ he said, as I went and got myself a coffee.

‘Has he got together that list of people we were after yet?’ I knew Berrin had been hassling him about it all week.

He nodded. ‘Yeah, he faxed it through about an hour ago. That’s what I was phoning him about.’

‘Anything interesting on it?’ I asked, heading to his desk with the coffee.

‘Here, take a look.’ He passed over the typewritten list of names and dates and I scanned down it, immediately seeing what had caught his attention.

‘Well, well, well. So, Craig McBride was there.’

‘Twice. And for a total of nearly eighteen months. Leppel remembers him well. Says he was a right nasty piece of work, but definitely not a drug addict. Apparently some of his colleagues used to take the piss out of him because for all his so-called hardness he was petrified of needles.’

‘I knew there was nothing natural about his death. But that arsehole Burley’s saying it was a self-administered overdose.’

‘Capper told me this morning that all they’re charging Jean Tanner with is possession of a Class A drug.’

I sighed. ‘I can’t see why they don’t at least charge her with the illegal disposal of a dead body. At this rate, we’ll be lucky if she ends up with a fine.’

‘Maybe we should try and talk to her.’

‘Maybe.’ I sipped my coffee, wishing there was something I could lean on her with. But what did I have that Neil Vamen didn’t? There was no way I could put pressure on her and she’d know it. But in spite of everything, I’m an optimist, and that means I don’t give up. I was just going to have to think of a way.

‘Anyway, good work, Dave. You’ve done well.’

Berrin shrugged. ‘I’m not entirely useless, Sarge. I can do more than just routine enquiries, you know.’

I nodded. ‘Yeah, I do know. I’ll do a better job of keeping you in the loop in future.’ He nodded, acknowledging the fact that I was indirectly apologizing, and I hoped we could leave it at that.

I picked up the phone and tried Malik’s number. Amazingly enough, he actually answered, though he informed me he was in a hurry.

‘This Krys Holtz thing’s turning into a nightmare,’ he explained.

‘How come?’

‘Well, no one’s co-operating, as usual. The family say they don’t know what we’re talking about and apparently Krys is fine, just not around at the moment, and now suddenly all the staff at the brothel are retracting their statements. Plus, we’ve got no intelligence on the ground as to who might be behind it.’

‘I’m sorry to bother you, Asif, but did you find out anything about this company, Dagmar Holdings?’

‘I haven’t had time. I’ll get something sorted for you by tomorrow, I promise. Have you tried Companies House for any information?’

‘Yes, I have. The company exists all right. They sent me pages of stuff but nothing that really tells me very much.’

‘I’ll see what I can come up with. Can you give me your mobile number again?’

I reeled it out and Malik said his goodbyes, saying he had to go.

I flicked off the phone and stared at the pile of accounts for Dagmar Holdings Ltd in my in-tray. I really needed to give them a closer look. I looked at my watch. Ten to twelve. It could wait until later.

‘Do you fancy a drink and a bite to eat?’ I asked Berrin.

He nodded and grinned. ‘I could do with both.’

‘Then let’s get out of here,’ I said, and we got to our feet, once again leaving the Matthews incident room empty and silent.

Iversson

Tugger Lewis cooked supper that night. Thai fish curry with noodles and stir-fried veg. Very nice. Apparently he’d been working as a trainee chef for the previous six months, and whatever they’d been teaching him seemed to have done the trick because it was one of the best meals I’ve had in years. It gave me renewed faith in the British education system, to tell you the truth. The only thing spoiling it was Johnny, who’d been moaning pretty much non-stop ever since he’d discovered who the owner of the ‘Elvis barnet’ was. As I finished my last mouthful, he was just starting up again, like a stuck CD.

‘I’ve got to earn some more out of all this,’ he told the rest of us as we sat round the kitchen table. ‘That’s Krys bark-at-the-fucking-moon Holtz we’ve got down there, known affectionately as the Barnsbury Torturer, and that’s by his mum. The one geezer in the whole of north London you don’t want to get on the wrong side of, and I’m part of the team that’s kidnapped him. It’s all right for you lot. You’re all making a decent wedge out of this. I’ve got to make do with fuck all.’

‘That’s because you haven’t had to do fuck all, Johnny,’ I told him. ‘All you did was drive the car. We had the hard work.’

‘I’ve had to put my Niagaras on the line, Max, just like everyone else, even though no one asked me if I wanted to. And I’ve got to live round this fucking city for the rest of my life, permanently wondering if I’m going to end up making a one-way visit to Krys’s workshop.’

‘No one’s going to find you out,’ said Joe, taking another mouthful.

‘I nicked the cars, remember? The coppers could get some sort of lead that puts them on to me and then I’m fucked. I might get nicked for something I didn’t even want a part in, and then it’ll get back to the Holtzes, which is far worse.’

‘You worry too much,’ I told him. ‘Take the money you’re going to get, be pleased with it, and leave it at that. You never know, tomorrow might be your last day on earth. Don’t spend it crapping your pants about something that’ll probably never happen.’

‘It’s easy for you to say. You’ll have enough so you can fuck off wherever you want.’

‘Ah, stop being so fucking gutless.’

It was Kalinski who spoke, his tone contemptuous. He was wearing a black polo-neck sweater with three thick gold chains over it, and his greying hair was slicked back. It made him look like a gangsta version of the Milk Tray man. He’d pushed his plate to one side, having eaten less than half the food he’d been given, and was puffing on a Rothmans.

‘You think you know fear?’ he said, pointing his cigarette at Johnny. ‘Eh?’ Johnny didn’t say anything. He looked like he was an expert in it. ‘You don’t know shit. I’ll tell you that now. Fear’s when you’re standing on the street with no fucking cover and the Filth, them bastards from SO19, are taking potshots at you with sighted rifles, and your best mate, the one you did the job with, is lying dead on the pavement in a pool of blood, inches from your feet, and you know that in two, maybe three fucking seconds you’re going to go exactly the same way.’ Kalinski stared Johnny down. ‘That, boy, is fear.’

‘What happened?’ asked Johnny, eyes wide.

‘You mean, why am I still here? I took a bullet in the gut and one in the leg. I was in hospital for six weeks and the cunts still charged me afterwards. I got fourteen years for armed robbery and attempted murder, because I managed to hit one of their fucking blokes as well. My only regret about the whole thing was that I didn’t kill the bastard.’

To be honest with you, I wouldn’t get too carried away about Kalinski’s role in the gunfight at the OK Corral. From what I’d heard, he’d only ever fired one shot in anger during his long criminal career, and that had been into a sub post office ceiling. And he wasn’t exactly Papillon either. According to what Joe had told me, he’d only ever done a couple of short stretches inside, which was another of the reasons we’d hired him. It showed he was careful. Something smelled a little fishy, and it wasn’t just Tugger’s curry.

Johnny sighed and put his head in his hands. ‘What am I fucking doing here?’ he said to no one in particular.

‘Being gutless,’ snarled Kalinski.

‘Give him a break, Mike,’ I said. ‘The poor sod’s had a bad week. His missus is bisexual.’

‘What the fuck’s wrong with that?’ said Tugger. ‘Nothing better than a bit of three-in-a-bed experimentation.’

‘Not if the third one doesn’t want fuck all to do with you.’

Tugger patted him on the back sympathetically. ‘Shit, Johnny, is that right? Does her lover not swing to the beat of the phallic drum?’

‘Look, fuck off, will you?’ said Johnny, brushing off Tugger’s hand. He turned and gave me the evil eye. ‘That was private what I was telling you, Max.’

‘I had a session with a couple of lesbians once,’ said Kalinski. ‘Porn stars they were, American. Candy and Brandie they was called. Brandie’s been in loads of stuff.’ He shook his head in awe. ‘They knew what they was fucking doing, I can tell you. Could have sucked ballast through a straw, both of them. Did it in a penthouse in the Savoy.’

If Kalinski had been Pinocchio, he’d have had my fucking eye out. This bloke could bullshit for England.

I got up from the table. ‘I’d better give Krysy boy something to eat.’

Kalinski glared at me. ‘Fuck that, let him starve.’

‘I tried him this morning,’ said Joe, ‘and he told me to fuck off. So I did. We’re releasing him Sunday morning. If he wants to lose weight in the meantime, let him. He’s had some water so he won’t die.’

‘He’s been here nearly two days and he hasn’t touched a thing. I’ll just check on him.’

‘You just want a chance to give him another kicking,’ said Joe, with something close to a smile.

Which was partly true, I did. Krys, like Johnny, had been a pain in the arse from the start. When we’d dragged him out of the van and into the farmhouse on the first night, he’d gone absolutely apeshit, kicking like a donkey and screaming all sorts of uncalled-for insults. Me and Kalinski had been forced to give him the beating of his life, just rewards for past wrongs, Kalinski taking particular pleasure in stamping repeatedly on his bollocks until Joe pulled us both off, fearful we’d kill him. When I’d tried to feed him the following morning, he’d spat in my face and told me I was a dead man, which had been a pretty fucking stupid move on his part and had cost him a broken nose, but he still resisted any effort at co-operation and in those increasingly rare moments when his gag was removed he was full of bluster and threats. In the end, I had no choice but to award him a grudging respect. He was a champion arsehole and about as pleasant as a skidmark, but he was no coward. It made me think, too, that this was a much better way of dealing with him than shooting him outright. This way we broke him down, humiliated him, but we didn’t kill him in cold blood. I’m not a bad lad, to be honest with you, and I don’t think I’m capable of just executing someone outright without them having a chance to fight back. Plus, this way we made money out of it, so it seemed to me to be a pretty decent sort of revenge all round, really.

‘At the moment, Joe, he’s the most valuable thing we’ve got and it’s in all our interests to keep him that way. At least if we give him back alive, one day the Holtzes’ll forget about what happened. If he turns up dead, we’ll have them on our backs for ever.’ I picked up a couple of pieces of bread from the kitchen top. ‘Look, I’m not exactly giving him the lavish stuff.’

I went out of the room, through the hallway, and over to the door under the stairs that led down to the cellar. I unlocked it, switched on the light, and walked slowly down the wooden steps.

Krys was strapped to a chair which was in turn secured to the bare brick wall. He was wearing a shirt and piss-stained trousers with nothing on his feet. He had a black blindfold round his eyes and masking tape securing his mouth, and his face was covered in bruises. Dried blood had formed a crusty trail running from his nostrils, where I’d delivered the nose-breaking blow, down to his neck. Another badly healed cut wound its way across his forehead. Basically, he looked a mess.

His head turned as he heard my approach. I stopped and picked up a jug of water, filled a dirty cup, then leant over and pulled the masking tape away from his mouth. Usually this was the cue for a burst of swearing, but instead he just coughed and cleared his throat. ‘I think some of my ribs are broken,’ he said quietly, ‘and I need to change these trousers.’

‘If you’re looking for sympathy, you’ve come to the wrong place,’ I told him. ‘Now, open your mouth, I’m going to feed you some bread.’

Krys did as he was told and I ripped off bitesized pieces and placed them in his mouth. He chewed hungrily and finished off both slices quickly. ‘Have you got any more?’

‘That’s your lot. Now, I’m going to give you some water.’ I put the cup to his mouth and held it there. He gulped it down, drinking about half of it before turning his head away.

I put the cup back down by the jug and thought that I could almost feel sorry for Krys Holtz, tied up and stewing in his own urine. But then I thought of what he’d done to Elaine, and to Kalinski’s brother, and that soon put a stop to it. What he was going through now was certainly no less than he deserved, and far more temporary.

‘I’ve got money,’ said Krys. ‘Plenty of it. If you help me get out of here, I’ll make it more than worth your while. How much do you want?’

‘Sorry, Krys, no can do.’

‘A hundred grand, hundred and fifty. I could get that for you. Honest.’ His voice had suddenly taken on a whining quality which didn’t improve my opinion of him.

‘We’re going to be picking up a lot more off your old man tomorrow.’

‘He’ll kill you, you know.’ This time his voice was quiet, but there was an edge to it. He believed what he was saying. ‘It doesn’t matter where you hide. He’ll find you and he’ll kill you.’ I started to replace the masking tape and Krys’s tone immediately changed. ‘Please change these trousers. Please.’

I ignored his request and finished what I was doing. Krys struggled violently in the seat for a few moments until his strength deserted him. ‘In the morning,’ I told him. ‘We’ll change them in the morning.’

Then, wondering if I really was being too sadistic, I turned and walked back up the steps, switching off the light when I reached the top.