Simon Kernick - The Murder Exchange

‘And it would have just bogged us down in paperwork, and wouldn’t have done anything to hinder the Holtz supply chain. Sometimes you’ve got to let the small fish go so you can get hold of the big ones. But do me a favour and don’t say anything to anyone about it.’

‘Course not. Do you think it was worth letting him go like that, though? Did we get enough out of him?’

‘We’ve got other people with motive now, so it’s putting us further forward.’

‘All we’ve got to do is find them.’

‘That, my friend, is what it’s all about.’

Iversson

It was three o’clock in the afternoon when I buzzed Joe up and led him through to the lounge. It was a stinking hot day and all the windows were open. Outside, the traffic rumbled endlessly past.

‘Nice place for a hideout,’ he said, dropping on the floor a bag containing belongings he’d picked up from my flat. He sat down in one of the leather chairs, and put the four-pack of beers he’d also brought down on the glass coffee table. I went and got a couple of glasses and emptied the contents of two of the cans into them. ‘So, where’s the girl?’

‘She’s gone out,’ I said, sitting down opposite him. ‘She’ll be back later.’

‘And how long’s she going to let you stay here for? I mean, she doesn’t even know you, does she?’

‘I told you, I went to school with her.’

‘But, Max, you’re not eighteen. That was a long time ago now. You haven’t seen her in, what? Twenty years.’

I took a drink from my beer. ‘Not that long.’

‘But long enough. You’ve got to be careful. Time changes people. She might just run to the law.’

‘She won’t.’

‘Well, either way she’s going to want you out of here pretty soon, isn’t she?’

I nodded, not liking to think about that. After the sexual athletics of the previous night, I was in no hurry to go anywhere. ‘I suppose so.’

‘So we’ve got to discuss what you’re going to do. The police came round to see me this morning, asking about you. Questions like, what were you doing driving a car riddled with bullets? And why were you so keen to make a break for it when you were stopped for questioning, smacking two coppers in the process? That sort of thing.’

‘What did you tell them?’

‘What do you think? I didn’t tell them anything, just said I’d always thought you were pretty straight, and that I didn’t think you were involved in anything untoward.’

‘Do you reckon they believed you?’

He shrugged. ‘Difficult to tell. I think so, but you never know. It helps that you’ve never been in trouble before. But they’re definitely looking for you, Max, and that’s not good.’

‘You don’t think they followed you here, do you?’

He shook his head. ‘No, I was careful. Anyway, at the moment you’re probably not a big enough fish to waste that many resources on. I mean, there’s still no proof you’ve actually done anything other than deck a couple of coppers.’

‘Fowler bled over the back seat when he died. Not much, and I gave it a fair old scrub afterwards, but one of the coppers spotted the stain when they stopped me. I don’t know if they can trace it back to Fowler or not. What do you think?’

He pondered that one for a few moments. ‘I doubt it. If they don’t know who Fowler is and they haven’t got a blood sample of his, then I would have thought you’re in the clear.’

I took another drink from my beer. It was going down well. ‘What a fuck-up,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘So did you get anything on that bastard Tony? Anything that might explain what the fuck he thought he was doing?’

‘I talked to a few people, other people he’d been doing work with, but no one seems to have anything bad on him. He did some guarding work for Barry Unwin, looking after wealthy Arabs, and he even had a stint through Barry as a minder for Geri Halliwell, and everyone reckoned he did a fine job. And he’d been with Barry a while, too. More than two years.’

‘Well, something happened. Somewhere down the line he met someone who was willing to pay him big money to get involved in some very nasty shit.’

Joe seemed to notice his drink for the first time. He picked it up and took a healthy swig. ‘How about you? What did you get?’

I told him what Elaine had told me.

Joe rolled his eyes at the mention of the Holtzes. ‘Fucking hell, Max, that’s all we need. Let’s make sure we stay well clear of it if it’s anything to do with them. I don’t want to get into a confrontation with people like that.’

I knew he was right, and if a man like him was saying it, then it was best to listen. But the thought of not doing something to retaliate still pissed me off.

‘Joe, no offence, but I almost got my head blown off the other night. If I hadn’t been carrying, I’d probably be at the bottom of the Thames now. It’s sort of affected my viewpoint on all this. We also lost Eric, and no way did he deserve to go like that.’

‘I know he didn’t, and apart from anything else he’s going to be difficult to replace. And his ex-missus called in this morning.’

‘Shit.’

‘Yeah, my sentiments exactly. He was supposed to be looking after two of their grandkids today, only he hadn’t turned up. So she phones, asking me if we’ve seen him. Luckily she didn’t know he was working for us Thursday. I said we hadn’t clapped eyes on him since last week.’

‘How did she sound?’

‘Worried. She said it was totally out of character for him not to turn up, especially for his grandkids.’

‘It would have been. He was always our most reliable bloke. I can’t remember him ever missing a day. Did she sound like she was going to call in the law?’

‘Not yet, but she will do eventually, no question. And that’s going to pose a problem because it’ll give them a chance to make a link with you. We’ve just got to hope they don’t take it too seriously. I mean, it’s not like a kid going missing. This is a sixteen-stone ex-soldier in his fifties. They may just conclude he’s fucked off on some military adventure, but the problem is, it’s all a little bit coincidental.’

I had to agree with him on that one.

‘Anyway, the best thing we can do is forget about everything that’s happened and put it down to experience.’

‘It doesn’t seem right, letting them get away with it.’

‘This was a professional operation, Max. Three people dead, but no peep from the press, no sign of any bodies. No nothing. It’s like it never happened. Which is exactly the Holtzes’ style. Do you remember that jeweller out of Hatton Garden, Jon Kalinski, the one who did a runner with about a quarter of a million in diamonds? About three years ago?’

‘Yeah, I remember reading something about it.’

‘Well, I heard he didn’t do a runner at all. I heard it was the Holtzes who had a role in that particular disappearance. Apparently he owed Krys Holtz, Stefan’s boy, a lot of money, which was part of some scam they were both involved in, and Krys was worried they weren’t going to get much of it back. So he paid one of Kalinski’s girlfriends to phone him up and invite him round to her pad in Hampstead. When he turned up, Krys and a few of his associates were waiting for him. They took the keys to his safe, found out where every penny he’d stashed was, then killed him. And the girlfriend. Dismembered them both in the bath tub, cleaned everything up so there was no trace they’d even been there, then took the bits out in suitcases in the middle of the night. Then they went down to Kalinski’s place of business and cleaned him out of everything he owned, and everything he didn’t. Do you know how they got rid of the bits of the corpses?’