By the Light of a Lie (Thane & Calder Book 1) Page 4

  His explanations reflected no guilt about what he’d done, or self-pity, but he was reflective enough to wonder what kind of a life he might have had born into different circumstances.

  By the fourth night his breathing had grown hoarser and weaker. The last thing he said to her was: ‘You tell my story. I like that. I be remembered.’ The motel owner had fled so Tire was alone when he finally died in the early hours. She sat in the darkness for a while until the overpowering stench from his body forced her to move.

  Driving at speed afterwards towards the US border, she wondered whether she should have set fire to the motel to at least give him a funeral pyre. But it would have drawn too much attention. So she left his body to the rats, which she gloomily thought brought his life full circle back to where he started.

  CHAPTER 7

  At 8 am next morning Tire was at her desk, reading through her penultimate chapter on Sanchez, tightening and tidying up the punctuation. Nearly there. The phone rang.

  ‘Calder here.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Herk.’

  ‘Ah! Thanks for fixing my desk.’

  ‘I’m at the Lavazza, down the road with a mate who can tell you about your friend.’

  ‘Which friend?’

  ‘The one who was killed.’

  A scramble into jeans, boots and a jumper took three minutes and she grabbed her handbag and was downstairs and out the front entrance. Herk was sitting in jeans and an old combat jumper at one of the pavement tables with a ginger-haired man in a navy blue jacket. They nodded as she sat down, breathing heavily, on the spare chair with a coffee already on the table.

  ‘This here’s Momo. He was a medic in the army. Helped me out a bit at one point when I had a slight mishap.’ Herk grinned. ‘Works in pathology now. He can do less damage there.’ He winked and both men laughed.

  Tire offered round her packet of cigarettes and accepted a light from Momo, who thrust forward a hand with two missing fingertips. He had a squat nose and large ears that peered through the undergrowth of his fuzzy hair.

  ‘Just to be clear,’ he said, with a Welsh lilt, ‘your friend Miss Smythson’s body wasn’t one I worked on, so I’m not… directly breaking any confidences. But Herk said you were anxious she might have been raped. She wasn’t.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Positive. I spoke to the orderly, the guy who assisted, and he said not.’

  ‘Thank god.’ Tire sat back, the relief unzipping knots of tension in her back. ‘What else do you know?’

  Momo frowned and waggled an ear. ‘Sure you want to hear?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Not much to be honest. Hard impact caused her death, crushed chest.’ He watched Tire with concern. ‘Vehicular death. Multiple fractures. She must have been caught against a wall. The water unfortunately had taken away quite a lot of traces. Tide there is strong and the body had a foot caught in a wire rope, so the water would have been pulling against it.’

  A black taxi drew up four shops down and a cyclist behind swore loudly as he had to swerve, palming his helmet in annoyance once he had regained his balance. Tire ignored the distraction, mentally ticking off questions she could ask.

  ‘But how?’

  ‘Her underwear was caught round her foot. That’s why it looked missing in those photographs some jackass took before the police arrived.’

  Herk came back with three more coffees and she watched them joshing as they ladled in sugar. It was a curiously reassuring moment despite the oddity of the circumstances. Two mates comfortable in each other’s company because they had faced death together. A hit and run would be small beer in their experience.

  A mobile phone rang and Herk picked his off the table. After a muttered curse he said: ‘Need to go. Water leaking in the basement. Thanks, Mo.’ He clapped him on the shoulder and smiled at Tire. ‘Hope that helped. I’ll be up later to fix your window. Dodgy catch.’

  They watched him lope along the street, hitching up his jeans as he went. ‘Good lad, that,’ Mo said, blowing a perfect smoke ring across the table. ‘Heart in the right place. You known him long then?’

  ‘Two days.’ A brief laugh turned into a sigh. ‘He tripped into my life the day it happened.’

  ‘Ah well, that’s Herk for you. Wrong place, right time. Always.’ Mo’s broad face creased into a smile. He was not attractive, but he had a warmth that was relaxing.

  ‘Why is he squatting in my apartment cellar?’

  ‘You’d have to ask him that.’ The curt response was followed by a considered look. ‘Sorry about that. He wouldn’t tell you if you asked.’

  She raised an eyebrow, cocked her head and put the hand nearest him on the table with the palm upwards in a placatory gesture. Why was she bothering? Did she really want to know? But people’s lives always fascinated her even if she only got a cameo glimpse.

  ‘Quite persuasive, are you?’ He looked amused and rubbed a short finger against his nose, flattening it further. ‘It’s no big secret. But don’t ask him about it.’ He pursed his lips. ‘He had a bad last mission. Lost three of his mates. Right mess it was. And he’s like a lot of guys, feels guilty he survived and they didn’t. He’s just trying to find his feet, that’s all. He’ll wander for a while and then get settled,’ a wide beam crossed his face, ‘when he finds a good woman.’

  He stood up and reddened in embarrassment when Tire threw her arms round him in a hug. ‘It won’t be me,’ she assured him. ‘I’m already as fixed up as I want to be.’ Holding him on both shoulders, she added: ‘Thank you for your help with Erica. I feel better that she wasn’t… raped. Anything else you find out I’d be really grateful.’

  CHAPTER 8

  An email was waiting for her when she got back upstairs from Susan. ‘I’m so glad we talked yesterday,’ it said. ‘Such a relief to know someone is looking into Erica’s death. Everyone here is treating it like an accident.’ Clearly she was back in the office, although it was from her private Gmail account.

  There were no details, just four names and contact details. Hassan Chutani, Leeds. Bert Dugston, Hackney, London (dead brother Joe). Max Burkhanov (email contact Jean Malhuret, Paris). The fourth name made her blink. Rupert Wrighton, Eaton Square, London. Lord almighty, what persuaded Erica to take him on? She sighed, knowing full well that injustice would have been reason enough.

  A quick Google confirmed what she already knew. Wrighton was second-generation money, his father’s post-war scrap business hauling him up the social scale through a minor public school and Cambridge. Two failed commercial ventures in his twenties. Father dies and the inheritance funds him into politics. Indifferent Labour MP for twelve years, reputation as a loudmouth, not a team player. Deselected after argument with his local constituency party. Now television and newspaper pundit, chairman of a successful, cut-price DIY chain, run by his brother and son. A bully, from all she’d heard, in a Savile row suit.

  Still, his ego fed on publicity so it would be easy enough to get an interview. He’d hardly be likely to confess to molesting his daughter, let alone getting rid of Erica, but she always liked to see the colour of people’s eyes initially and then trust her gut if she thought they were worth pursuing.

  If she checked his birth chart before she met him, it would give her a steer on the best way to handle him. She opened up the software, typed in his date of birth, sat back and sighed, staring at the screen. A bad-tempered windmill in a hurricane. Born into the chaos of the mid-1960s, when the Uranus Pluto conjunction was throwing everything up in the air globally with rebellions, revolutions and mayhem everywhere. It was tied into his Sun and Moon, so unstable, no impulse control. Thug of a father and a clinging wreck of a mother. She’d need to psyche herself up for that rendezvous.

  Mentally she ticked off the leads, pondering how to follow through. Where to start? An honour-killer father, a violent thug, a refugee activist being harassed by secret police and a child-abusing millionaire. A lover and ex-lover – Crumley and Burgo
yne – who might have information. And the Greengate case, although it seemed the least likely. Bumping off defence counsel in mid-trial would have been crass. Her grief and shock at Erica’s death was receding as her research skills took over.

  The names on Susan’s list might all have had a motive, but that proved nothing. The enormity of what she had taken on rose like a cliff face in front of her. Her jaw tightened as she suppressed the voice inside telling her there was no point. To hell with it. If she found out nothing else she could make it a present to Erica to write about the threats she had faced. Even if none of them had killed her, they still deserved to be exposed.

  Schubert helped her think, so she flipped through to find Symphony No. 5 and turned the volume up. An email zinged out to Jean Malhuret, the Kubek contact, suggesting a meeting when she was over in Paris in two days’ time. Another went out to Matt, a disabled researcher she used occasionally to winkle out background information, who had good police contacts. That put an initial tick against Hassan Chutani and Bert Dugston.

  The lover, or the ex-lover? Justin Burgoyne had been around longer, almost a year of an illicit affair, and might therefore be more amenable to pressure, especially if she landed on him unexpectedly. She looked up his details, checked through a couple of barristers’ blogs for gossip and phoned his chamber’s number, asking for his clerk.

  ‘My name is Melanie Dabshaw. I’m a Newcastle solicitor, only in town for a day, and I’d like an urgent meeting with Mr Burgoyne.’ It was a risk that he might be in, but no, he was in court all day and had a meeting and social engagements thereafter.

  ‘What a shame. I’ll have to try Robin Findston instead. He’s our other possibility.’

  The name of his chief rival for high-profile commercial cases was enough to soften up the clerk, who said Mr Burgoyne might have fifteen minutes before an NSPCC cocktail party he was attending with his wife at the Guildhall at 6.30 pm.

  ‘What luck,’ she said sweetly, ‘I’m going as well. I’ll catch up with him there.’ She clicked off. Bastard. That’s where he’d have met Erica. A call to Susan produced a panicky whisper at the other end.

  ‘I can’t talk now.’

  ‘It’s OK. Just wondered if there was an NSPCC invite for Erica tonight. If so, can I have it?’ There was, and a courier was despatched to uplift it.

  The juggernaut was starting to roll. Her excitement at the start of a new project gave her a pang of guilt. But she needed adrenaline to stay motivated and the end result would be her In Memoriam.

  CHAPTER 9

  A purple bruise on her thigh extended up across her hip bone as she examined herself in the bathroom mirror, having showered after a lunchtime jog. She towelled it gingerly and pulled on loose sweatpants and top. Dratted cyclist who couldn’t look where he was going. She limped into her office, where Herk was up a ladder at the window.

  He glanced over his shoulder. ‘You injured, then?’

  ‘Nah, just tripped over a lycra loon on a bike. Thanks, by the way, for Momo.’

  After a final test of the new catch, he leapt nimbly off the stepladder, picked it up and moved towards the hall. ‘That’s OK. Luck, really. I had a drink with a few of the lads last night and he was there. You seemed worried so I asked him. Nothing to it.’

  The ladder was stowed in the hall cupboard and a voice drifted through: ‘I’ll bring you a coffee. Just sit tight.’

  With relief she landed heavily in her chair and winced. It took an effort to lift her legs onto the table, but it eased the throbbing when she leant back.

  Herk emerged with her coffee and a mug of tea for himself, sitting opposite her on a grey, scallop-shaped chair with spindly aluminium legs, after giving it a shake to test its solidity. He put his tea on top of a low filing cabinet and leant his elbows on his knees, giving the impression he could leap up if the chair disappeared underneath him, and looked towards the window.

  ‘Now, don’t take this the wrong way. I’ve a suggestion for you. No obligation right. Bob, my mate with the car, he needs more work with his wife being ill and all, and he needs to keep up the hire purchase payments. So if you want a decent car any time, chauffeur driven, it’s a BMW in good nick.’ He laid a card on her desk.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Cash.’

  She grinned, stretching down to hold one foot. ‘You help each other out? You and your mates.’

  ‘Well, if we don’t, no one else will,’ he said, biting his lower lip. ‘And I’ve met a fair few since I moved round different units in my time. Those that are left, of course.’ A look of sadness crossed his face, which shut down as he caught her glance.

  ‘How did you meet up with Ali downstairs, then?’ she asked to cover an awkward silence.

  ‘I was dossing down with Charlie, another mate,’ he grinned. ‘He’d done a removal for one of Ali’s family and sometimes helped here with odd jobs when he was needed.’

  The doorbell rang and he waved her to stay still while he went to answer the intercom. Two minutes later he returned with an envelope.

  ‘Courier,’ he said, dropping it on her desk.

  ‘So you’ll go back to Charlie’s when you’re finished here?’ she asked, shifting her position to reach for her cigarettes. When she swivelled to offer him one he was standing stiffly, his eyebrows raised, giving her a hard look and refusing a cigarette.

  ‘OK, OK,’ she laughed. ‘None of my business. Bad habit of mine. Comes with the territory – asking questions. It’s what I do for a living, especially the ones people don’t want to answer. Sit down and finish your tea.’

  He sniffed and sat down, holding the filing cabinet with one hand until he was sure the chair would hold his weight. ‘On my territory, people who ask too many questions of the wrong sort get themselves shot, or at least banged up.’ His blue eyes sparkled and he winked at her. A crumpled packet of unfiltered Camels emerged from a back pocket and he lit up. ‘Now, I hope you’re still not haring after the guys who killed your friend. Just leave it to the police.’

  ‘The hell I will. They’re getting nowhere and not looking.’ She swung her legs off the desk and groaned as the bruise came into contact with the chair arm. ‘I’ve already started. There’s a list of suspects and I’m not stopping.’ She tapped the envelope. ‘Ex-lover, swanky barrister. I’ll tackle him tonight at the Guildhall with his wife in attendance. He might know more and he’ll talk, believe me, when I get him pinned against a pillar.’

  Outside the window, gusts of wind were blowing leaves and a discarded chocolate wrapper up in the air. The sound of heavy drilling from roadworks round the corner broke through the constant traffic rumble, vying with the occasional horn blast for attention.

  Lost in her thoughts, she didn’t notice him stand up and thought he had left. A clatter in the kitchen indicated more tea was being brewed.

  ‘Right,’ he said, when he returned, banging down his mug and sitting down without pausing this time. ‘These suspects, who are they?’

  She rattled them off and he listened intently, running a hand round his chin, then through his bristly hair. When she finished, his cheeks ballooned as he blew out a long breath. He cleared his throat and scratched his upper lip.

  ‘Reckon you can rub the Pakistani father off the list. Hit and runs not their style. And he’ll still be trying to find his daughter.’ He chewed the inside of his mouth. ‘Brother of the dead man killed by his wife? Mebbe, but people say lots of things in the heat of the moment they don’t mean.’

  Why was she telling him all this, she wondered, let alone listening to his opinion? Still, a sounding board was always useful, helped clear her thinking. The sharp clang of his mug on the metal surface made her turn her head.

  ‘Secret police,’ he said with emphasis, ‘from the old Soviet states are not people you want to tangle with. No pinning them against a wall. You’ll end up in bits in a ditch.’

  Despite herself she chuckled, although her brow wrinkled in irritated agreement. Before she could respond,
he held up one hand with three fingers turned down and holding the fourth. ‘Pervy millionaire. Hate that sort. Make me sick. If he was brought up in the scrap business, he’ll know a few gangsters, no matter how respectable he is now. Might be a runner as a suspect or paid someone else to do it, but he’ll never admit it in a million years.’

  His pinkie was thrust at her. ‘The case your friend was involved in. Also could be possible. But,’ he thumped his knee, ‘you’ll get nowhere at all fronting these guys up. What do you expect them to say? You need hard evidence.’

  A picture of her old headmistress ticking her off for being too impulsive flashed in front of her.

  ‘Yes, Miss Archibald,’ she said, one hand curling round her chin, her eyes widening. ‘Could you tell me what I should be doing?’ He ignored her sarcasm and sat thinking, twining his desert boots round each other.

  ‘Well,’ he started, when she stopped him.

  ‘I wasn’t looking for advice. I know what I’m doing.’

  ‘You think?’ His face screwed up with irritation.

  Why had she started this conversation? Socrates didn’t have ex-squaddies in mind when proclaiming the virtues of dialectical debate, although she had to admit his world-weary eyes gave off an air of battle-hardened resilience and common sense. On her estimation it would have been guerrilla fighting he’d been involved in. Her own work of probing and exposing was just a paler version, without the assault rifles.

  ‘Right, what would you suggest?’ The question emerged before she had time to reconsider.

  ‘Get your intel nailed down, do recon and assess risk,’ he said, as if reciting a mantra. ‘Which means,’ he added, steadying a twitch in one knee, ‘only go in if you’re half-sure of getting back out in one piece. And the end result is worth it.’