‘Liz… Smith.’ She stuck out her hand.
A pause there before giving up Britain’s most popular surname. Added to her dress, and the fact that she was secretive about her husband, her use of a clearly false name dinged another alarm bell. She was obviously hiding something, and not because she was scared and didn’t trust him but because it was something a person might want to keep secret. He shook her hand purely to prevent her from becoming more unsettled. Her skin was cold which made this whole shebang that little more unnerving. He checked the mirrors to make sure no vehicles were approaching.
‘So what’s your name?’ she asked.
Those wrestling emotions again. She was wet and hurt but hiding something, and sad and scared, but lying to him. He knew he should be more sympathetic, but suspicion was blocking that response.
‘Your name?’ she pressed.
Wet and hurt and sad and scared, yet calmer now.
‘Perhaps it’s an embarrassing name like Doug Hole or Sonny Day?’
And now making jokes.
‘I’ll just call you white-van man, shall I?’
‘Peter,’ he said. It was his wife’s dad’s name: anonymity was his safest option here, until he knew what the hell was going on. ‘Over the moon to meet you. I wish you’d jumped in front of my van years ago.’
‘And you’re married?’
‘Happily. So, hands off.’
‘Well, you got an attitude all of a sudden.’
Back there: masked men, maybe a beaten husband, and some missing silverware – and she was worried that he seemed unfriendly?
‘What do you plan to do if you don’t tell the police, eh?’
She didn’t seem fazed by his sudden change of subject. ‘I need to stay away just for the night. I can’t risk running around tonight because I have no idea what’s going on. I’ll meet back up with my husband in the morning. He’ll know what to do. He always does—’
‘Always does? This chase-through-the-woods thing some kind of weird weekly role play, is it?’
She glared at him like a teacher impatient with a child interrupting her class. ‘This a big joke to you?’
He met that glare with a stubborn one of his own. ‘Hey, for me fear and sarcasm are lifelong soul mates. So, if I’m making wise cracks, you can be sure I’m far from having the time of my life.’
She looked away. ‘Like I said, I’ll meet with him in the morning. But not tonight. And if I can’t stay at your house—’
He barked a laugh and showed her his wedding ring. ‘See this? We’ll both be running for our lives if I take you to my house. So, burn that idea and scatter the ashes, okay? Isn’t there a friend’s house you can stay at?’
‘All in Kensington. Too risky, though.’
‘A hotel?’
‘Ron always told me not to trust… to stay hidden until the next morning.’ She put her hand on his arm. ‘It’s Karl, isn’t it?’
‘How the hell did—’ And then he saw what she held in her hand. His business card, plucked from a bunch on the centre console. For a daft moment he feared that she somehow knew who he really was.
‘Karl, I know you’re worried about what’s happening. I understand. But please, trust me. I don’t want to go to the police. I have my reasons, but I don’t want to tell you any more than I have to. I am thinking straight. Please understand. Although it sounds a bit dodgy to you, it’s the way it must be done. No police, not tonight. Tomorrow. Tonight, I just need a safe place to stay. You have a shop, don’t you? It’ll be closed and empty, won’t it? Can I stay there? Just for tonight?’
He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. What the hell was he getting into? Or, more correctly, what was he being dragged into?
Six
Mac
‘Witnesses?’ Mac asked.
‘Over east, 500 feet or so, are some estates,’ Gondal said. ‘But there’s trees blocking any noise the killers might have made. Even the chainsaw. There’s nothing around here. It still amazes me that you can find remote places like this in London. Great for containing the crime scene, terrible for witnesses.’
Mac nodded. It was the damn reason the killers chose this place for the hit.
Gondal said: ‘I sent a guy out to fingerprint the phone the initial call to the police was made from. And a guy hunting for CCTV. Out here, no one cruising past would have seen or heard anything, so the caller might actually have been present during the carnage. It was all the way over in Greenwich, weirdly. That seems off to me. Someone feeling a sudden bout of guilt, maybe.’
Good idea. But these killers were professional. Nobody would find CCTV footage of any use, and the fingerprint man would return with the bad news that the phone box had been wiped clean. Mac asked if anyone had been inside the house yet.
‘Just the FOA and the paramedics, but they were careful. We were about to head in. The pathologist isn’t here y— oh, here we go.’
Two thick beams of light splashed over them as the uniforms barring the entrance to the area had admitted another vehicle. A middle-aged man got out, nice and slow for his ￡40 per hour. He waved, then went to the back of his vehicle to suit up.
The detectives shook hands with the pathologist. Mac explained for about the fifth time how he’d lacerated his ear: car door. The pathologist was on call tonight, like Mac’s team, and moaned about having to bring his dog, which they saw in the back of his car. Mac couldn’t resist a stroke of its fur – it accepted happily. The pathologist clapped his hands together when he was told that the bodies inside were probably not in whole form, like a guy getting ready for a challenge.
The borough detectives offered to hang around – akin to saying the murder squad needed them – but Mac gave them a firm no, thanks, we’ve got it covered, go find a stolen cat or something. The locals made their exit, somewhat reluctantly, like partygoers turned away from a nightclub door. Everyone else went indoors, except Mac, who chose to remain outside for the time being to think to his iPod music. It was how he did things sometimes.
* * *
Everyone spread out once inside. The bodies were the pathologist’s domain, so nobody touched them. They stepped around blood and body bits as if they were pieces of furniture, taking photos and bagging and dusting things because you never knew what insignificant piece of nothingness might provide the breakthrough.
The MIT detectives on the next shift arrived shortly afterwards. One was a slimeball DC called Downey, one day from the end of his police career. Two HAT guys left to pursue enquiry avenues, but Gondal chose to stay. They filed past their boss and went inside. Mac continued to look around outside, thinking, to a backdrop of loud rock music.
When finally he entered, he was called to a body in a white suit. Or, more correctly, body parts in a white suit. Or what technically should be described as a red suit.
‘I think it’s him, sir,’ Gondal said. He searched his superior’s face for an emotion. Mac was staring down at the head, which was a good five feet from the nearest part of the rest of the body. It was impossible to recognise the face, of course, because the face had gone. Literally. And not because of the chainsaw: it had been peeled away carefully. A bloody knife, surely the surgical instrument, had already been bagged. It would go for DNA testing, and the scientists would shake with anticipation.
A typical home in this mess would have required a long face, a shake of the head, an angry or saddened tone, and the detectives stuck to the script. Every cop in London would be glad Ronald Grafton was out of the picture, but an abattoir was no place for rejoicing. Plus, cops didn’t want their jobs taken away by street justice. And there were two other victims, who might turn out to be law-abiding citizens. So, there were counteracting emotions at play, which explained a host of neutral expressions.
‘It might have been a trophy,’ Gondal said, referring to the face. They hadn’t found it.