Читать книгу The Heights - Parker Bilal - Страница 17

They left the coroner’s office and walked down Black Prince Road, under the railway arch to a café on a corner with a striped green awning and a vaguely Mediterranean look about it. Marsh set a mug of coffee in front of Drake as she sat down.

‘You were looking a little pale back there.’

‘Yeah, sorry about that. Must be out of practice.’

Marsh sipped her coffee thoughtfully. ‘You really cared about her.’

‘You ever done any undercover work?’

Marsh shook her head. ‘Not very good at lying, me.’

Drake turned his coffee mug in circles as his mind went back. Lying had come easy, perhaps because he had been trying to imagine himself a different life for as long as he could remember.

‘You have to be on all the time. Never let the mask slip. You have to believe you are who you are pretending to be.’

‘Must get tricky,’ she said. ‘Emotionally.’

‘The thing about trust is that it works both ways, no matter what you thought when you started out. Someone’s trust means something to you.’

Marsh was watching him carefully. ‘What are you saying, that your loyalties are divided?’

Drake remembered Zelda’s eyes, how they would brighten. It didn’t happen often, but there were moments, when she thought there was hope, a chance of a new life. The image of the half-lidded eyes flooded back. The head on the steel tray. It wasn’t trust that undid you, it was being able to give someone hope.

‘We needed her, but I wanted to help her get out.’

‘And that was never a problem?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Well, there’s a conflict of interests right there. On the one hand you want to help the girl and at the same time you need her to testify.’

‘The two things are not mutually exclusive.’

‘Testifying against someone like Goran Malevich can get you killed.’

Drake sipped his coffee but said nothing. Marsh seemed to have grown, in confidence and experience.

‘You felt it was your fault she was killed,’ said Marsh.

‘You’re beginning to sound like Ray.’

‘You don’t need to be a shrink to see that you’re in pain.’

‘When did you get so wise?’

‘Comes with the stripes.’

‘I thought I was done with all this,’ said Drake.

‘Somebody obviously thinks different.’

‘That’s the bit I’m having trouble getting my head round.’

‘You mean who would go to all that trouble of saving the head all this time?’

Drake stared out of the window. ‘I keep going back over everyone I can remember, but there’s nobody who was that close to her, nobody who would take it so … personally.’

‘She had no family over here? What about friends? Lovers?’

There was nobody he could remember.

‘What about you?’ Marsh said. ‘I mean, you and her?’

‘No. I knew that would be a bad idea.’

‘But …’ Marsh set down her mug. ‘You were stringing her along, right? I mean, you let her think that when all of this was over there was a chance?’

‘She was unhappy, Kelly. She’d spent most of her life in a sewer. This was her chance to get out. She knew the risks. She’d seen what happened to people who snitched.’

‘Look,’ Marsh pushed a hand through her short hair, ‘I’m just wondering. The more I hear about this, the more I worry that perhaps it’s not such a great idea for you to be looking into this.’

‘You’re worried about Pryce? You think I won’t be able to get past what he did to me?’

‘You worked the case together. He filed corruption charges.’

‘It was my word against his.’

‘You were demoted, he was promoted. Where did they send you again?’

‘Matlock.’

‘Which most people couldn’t find on a map.’

‘Nowadays most people wouldn’t know one end of a map from the other.’

‘The point is, you would have been drummed out of the force if not for Wheeler.’

Drake was silent. He knew she was right.

‘So?’

‘So what?’

‘So, can I ask?’

‘Sounds like you already are.’

Kelly looked him in the eye. ‘Were you taking money from anyone?’

‘Do I really need to answer that?’

‘Right now it would help. Right now anything would help.’

‘Kelly, this is it. This is the moment to put it all to rest. There won’t be a better time.’

‘Maybe. Tell me about Pryce.’

‘We worked the case together. He was on the outside, I was on the inside.’

‘You trusted him?’

Drake tilted his head. ‘I had doubts. But nothing’s ever perfect, right? When you go undercover you have no choice. You have to hope that whoever is out there has got you covered.’

‘Did you have any reason to suspect him of being on the take?’

Nothing solid was the answer to that. Hints, inconsistencies. Pryce has always had one eye on the career ladder, and bringing in Goran would have been a feather in both of their caps.

‘There was a certain amount of rivalry between us. Nothing wrong with that. Look, Kelly, maybe you shouldn’t be hearing all this. You have a career to think about.’

‘Maybe I’m the best judge of that.’

‘Pryce takes things personally. If he gets the idea you’re siding with me he could get nasty.’

‘Okay, then consider me duly warned. Now tell me why anyone would hold on to her head for so long?’

It was the question that had been going through Drake’s head since this thing first broke. He was still no closer to an answer.

‘Whoever is behind this has been planning it for a long time.’

‘But what for?’

‘Could be for blackmail, or an insurance policy.’

‘Meaning, maybe the people who killed her didn’t trust each other?’

‘Maybe we’re not seeing the big picture. We’re so focused on the idea that it’s about Goran we can’t see anything else.’

‘You’re saying someone else could have been involved back then? Someone nobody could see?’

‘A third party.’ Drake had considered the idea long and hard. ‘The obvious candidate is Adonis Apostolis. He used Goran’s death to move in on his operations. He did very well out of it.’

‘You’ve never taken him down.’

‘Donny is a tricky one. I’ve tried, but he moves around, keeps his nose clean.’

‘You and him are tight.’

Drake glanced sharply at her. ‘Where did you hear that?’

‘I read Pryce’s report. He claimed that Donny killed Goran. Lured him to Brighton, telling him that he had found his witness there, living in hiding.’

‘Gunning down Goran in a car park in Brighton is not Donny’s style.’

‘Maybe it was the only chance he had.’

‘It was a textbook killing, if your textbook was written by Hollywood mobsters.’ Drake shook his head. ‘Donny is a lot more subtle than that. He doesn’t like to draw attention to himself. He’s been trying to go straight for years.’

‘So, what? Somebody was trying to make it look like Donny?’

‘I don’t know,’ Drake admitted. ‘But if you wanted to throw shade onto the obvious suspect, that’s how you would do it. Even if that was the case, it still doesn’t point to Donny killing Zelda.’

‘Goran wouldn’t have gone to Brighton if he’d known she was already dead.’

‘Everything points to a third party.’

Marsh said, ‘So we’re talking about someone in the shadows. Someone nobody thought about at the time.’

‘Someone who was on the inside but kept his head down. A lieutenant, or a foot soldier with ambitions.’

‘No names spring to mind?’

‘None, but we’re making progress.’

Drake felt as though he had been going round and round on a funfair ride with no way of getting off, until now.

‘How do you think Pryce fits into all this?’

Drake glanced round to be sure there was no one within earshot. ‘I think DCI Pryce has a lot of secrets and he’s probably shaken up by this. He’ll try to sit on the case for as long as is humanly possible.’

Marsh tapped her fingernails on the rim of her mug. ‘I get why you turned your back on us.’

‘It wasn’t about you,’ he said, looking over at her. ‘It was about me.’

‘Sure.’ Marsh sat back in her chair and contemplated him. ‘Look, we’re still catching up with last month. Break ins, assaults, burglaries, you name it. We’re just treading water, and in this day and age that means the bad guys are way ahead of us. Especially when it comes to in-depth investigations, organised crime.’

‘What are you saying?’

‘I’m saying that if you want to run with it, this thing is yours, unofficially. Nobody’s going to bother you. I can give you as much support as possible, mainly in the form of Milo dredging through the IT stuff.’

‘Can you handle Pryce?’

‘What he doesn’t know can’t hurt him. If he changes his mind and decides he wants to go for it then all bets are off. Until then, you’re welcome to dig around. Unless you’re too busy with all your wealthy clients.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘That reminds me, the minicab you were interested in? Milo dug up a summary of his movements.’ She reached into her jacket for a sheet of paper, which she handed over.

‘Minicab? So, not Uber?’

‘Puntland Private Cars.’ Marsh spoke as Drake read. ‘Driver’s name given as Lal Ferit.’

Drake ran a finger down the list until he found what he was looking for: Kingsland Road to Pimlico. He looked up.

‘Thanks for this, Kelly.’

‘Just use it wisely.’

Drake folded the paper again and put it away. ‘I let her down, Kelly. I promised I would keep her safe, and I didn’t.’

‘You couldn’t.’

‘Same thing, isn’t it, at the end of the day?’

‘Chief, I hate to break this to you, but you’re a cop, private or otherwise. It’s in your DNA. Your job was to get the bad guys, to use whatever means necessary to get the job done. Goran was the target. He did a lot of bad things, remember?’

‘I remember.’ Drake got to his feet. Kelly put out a hand to touch his arm.

‘Cal, don’t forget you’re not alone on this.’

‘Thanks, I won’t. Just let me know if Pryce decides to change course.’

As she watched him through the window walking away, Kelly couldn’t help wondering if she had made a mistake letting him get involved.