The Wreckage

9

She’s lower today.”

“Lower?”

“Her head is engaged. It means she’s upside down, ready to come out.”

“Does that mean…”

“She’s just ready. It doesn’t mean she’s knocking.”

Elizabeth gazes out of the window of the Merc, feeling Claudia moving inside her, fighting for room in a shrinking world. Her conversation with Mitchell has been replaying in her head. What he said. What she said. He had lied to her. In her overheated imagination it feels like something final, as though he’s broken more than some bond of filial love.

Ruiz parks in a street of white Victorian terraces with iron railing fences and front doors that are set above street level up a dozen stone steps. Lower stairs lead to basement flats where leaves and rubbish have collected against the doors.

Even before they turn into Old Brompton Road, they see flashing lights reflecting from the windows. Police cars have blocked the traffic in both directions and a white, tunnel-like tent covers a doorway.

Gerard Noonan emerges, holding a mobile phone six inches from his mouth and shouting because he’s unwilling to risk brain cancer. Anyone who cuts open dead people must fear myriad ways of dying.

Ruiz tells Elizabeth to go back to the Merc. She doesn’t respond. There is a particular light in her eyes as though she has come to a realization that isn’t obvious to the rest of the world.

On the far side of the road, a constable in a reflective vest is controlling a small crowd behind fluttering police tape. Further along the street, a young woman is sitting in the back of a patrol car. Peroxide hair. Black mascara tears. Ruiz ducks under the tape and walks with purpose towards the crime scene. The constable stops him.

“I’m on the job,” says Ruiz. Although six years retired, he still looks and sounds the part. The constable hesitates and Ruiz strides onwards, veering slightly to the left and disappearing behind the SOCO van. The door of the patrol car is open.

“Are they looking after you?” he asks.

The young woman blinks at him. She’s wearing a crimson blouse, short skirt and angel earrings. There are pain lines in the corners of her mouth.

She nods.

“You work for Mr. Hackett?”

Another nod, even more rapid. Ruiz slides on to the seat next to her. She tugs at her skirt, covering more of her thighs.

“He’s my uncle,” she adds. “I told that other detective.”

“What’s your name?”

“Janice.”

“That’s a nasty cold, Janice.”

A shiver runs through her shoulders. “That’s what he said to me.”

“Who?”

“The man who came to the office on Friday. He said he was an old friend of Mr. Hackett, but I didn’t believe him. I rang Uncle Colin and I said, ‘That man isn’t your friend,’ but I don’t think he listened. Uncle Colin isn’t frightened of anything. He used to be a soldier. He went to the Falklands.”

She is speaking in a rush, words and sentences running together. Ruiz waits for her to pause for breath.

“This man-did he give his name?”

“He said he was a courier but he didn’t have any packages and he didn’t look like a messenger. He told me to go home for the day. It’s this flu. Uncle Colin said I was spreading the plague.”

Janice takes a ball of tissue from the sleeve of her cardigan. “Auntie Megan called me this morning and said he hadn’t come home and wasn’t answering his phone. I knew something was wrong.”

She blows her nose and takes another big sniffle. “I found him in the loo. There’s blood everywhere.”

“When you talked to your uncle, where was he?”

“On a job.”

“What job?”

“He was looking for that missing banker.”

“Did he say where he was calling from?”

“Luton.”

Campbell Smith emerges from the white canvas tunnel. He struggles to remove his blue plastic overalls and shoe covers. When he notices Ruiz he ignores him for a split second as though he’s simply part of the familiar. Then the information registers and anger blooms in his cheeks.

“I want that man arrested! Get him out now!”

Ruiz is pulled from the car and pinned across the bonnet. His arms are wrenched back. Wrists handcuffed. Campbell is raging about interference with a murder investigation and impersonating a police officer.

“I’d be careful of your blood pressure,” says Ruiz, his cheek pressed to the warm metal.

“What are you doing here?”

“I had business with Mr. Hackett.”

“What business?”

Elizabeth North yells from behind the barricade. “I brought him here.”

Campbell glances at a handful of reporters who are getting every word. He holds his tongue.

Ruiz speaks next. “Can I go now?”

“My office in an hour-be there.”

The young constable jerks Ruiz back roughly, making the handcuffs bite into his wrists.

“Take those off,” says Noonan, who’s been listening to the confrontation. “And you treat him with respect. He’s a former DI.”

Campbell is already at his car. The door slams shut. A liver-spotted hand emerges from the window and places a flashing blue light on the roof. Moments later the siren sounds.

“That guy is going to be on my slab one day soon,” says Noonan.

“Heart attack?”

“Either that or someone is going to punch him too hard.”

The pathologist has work to do. Ruiz has questions.

“How did Hackett die?”

“A forty-five; small hole going in, big hole going out.”

“Is that a medical opinion?”

“Observation is one of my gifts.”

“Same caliber as killed Zac Osborne. It’s going to be the same gun.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“There’s a link. Zac Osborne robbed Richard North a week ago Friday.”

“Why wasn’t it reported?”

“Elizabeth North made a statement but everybody concentrated on her missing husband.”

Noonan’s curiosity has been piqued. Ruiz tells him how the private detective had been hired to follow Richard North and had photographed him leaving a bar with Holly Knight.

“It was a scam. Holly and her boyfriend robbed him.”

“Same sting they pulled on you.”

“You know about that.”

“The email has gone viral. So you were saying…”

“Zac Osborne is dead and so is Colin Hackett. Same weapon. Same killer.”

Ruiz glances again at Elizabeth, who is still on the far side of the road. She’s shifting from foot to foot, mouthing the words, “I need to pee.”

“Is there a toilet she can use?”

Noonan addresses the constable. “Take her to the cafe over the road. Try not to lose her.”

Ruiz watches them leave. “Was anything taken from Hackett’s office?”

“Memory cards from his cameras and his computer hard drive.”

Ruiz nods. “Somebody wanted the photographs of Richard North.”

“Any idea why?”

“Not yet.”

Sunlight shines through the branches above, making shifting patterns of shadow on Noonan’s smooth, pale head. As they linger there, Ruiz senses that he’s being watched. His eyes slowly scan the crowd until they rest on a dark-haired man whose face is lifted at an awkward angle, as though his eyes are not looking at him directly but are still studying him with peculiar interest. There is a strange air about him, sinister yet jaunty: an impression of hidden laughter. For a moment they scrutinize each other before the man turns away and slips into the crowd.

“You’d better go, Vincent,” says Noonan. “Don’t underestimate Campbell. You don’t have any goodwill left.”