Simon Kernick - The Crime Trade

The smile grew wider. ‘I knew, John. What did I tell you? I knew the trail would lead back to him. I think you’re going to have to rename me Philip Marlowe.’

‘There’s more.’ I then told her about the gun lead and how it had involved Vokes.

‘So there’s a possibility both of them were involved?’ Tina shook her head. ‘I can’t see it myself. Vokerman just wasn’t the type.’

‘It’s still very strange, though. And coincidental. And I’ve never been a one for coincidences. It’s going to be very interesting to hear what Stegs has to say.’

‘I’d be more interested in kicking him very hard in the nuts. The bastard almost got me killed.’

‘He’ll get more than a kick in the nuts if he is responsible for everything that’s happened. We’ll make sure he goes down for the rest of his days, I promise you that.’ I shook my head. ‘Christ, what a day. I was scared out of my wits when Murk had the gun against your head. How the hell were you feeling?’

‘Scared,’ she said, thinking about her words. ‘But also, I don’t know, exhilarated. I can’t work out whether this morning was the best few hours of my life or the worst. It just feels strange, like a dream. Even my leg doesn’t hurt that much. I just feel very, very tired.’

‘Did they say how long you’re going to be kept in?’

‘Another three or four days so they can check for infections. I can go back to work in about a month if all goes well.’

‘You’re not going to leave, then?’

She sighed and gave my hand a squeeze. ‘Not just yet, no. Why? Do you want me to now?’

‘I want you to do what you think is right,’ I lied. ‘Same as I always have.’

There was silence between us for a few moments. She yawned again, and turned her head away, her eyes starting to close. I took that as a cue to make a move, and I was just about to say my goodbyes when she asked me if I’d meant what I’d said earlier.

‘About what?’ I felt my heart leaping like it does the first time you ask someone out and they say yes.

‘You know exactly what.’ She turned her head so she was facing me again, a coy expression on her face.

I grinned. ‘Yeah. I did.’

‘I think we should maybe take that holiday, don’t you?’

‘Too right. Safari followed by the Seychelles?’

‘I think we deserve it.’ She yawned again, a longer one this time. ‘Let me know what happens with Stegs, won’t you? Straight away.’

I told her I would, but she’d already shut her eyes.

I sat there for a while watching her sleep, thinking that I’d experienced some serious highs and lows that day.

And it wasn’t even finished yet.

Outside, in the car park, it was a mild evening. Darkness had just about fallen, and the sky glowed the unhealthy pink of the city at night. The time was twenty to seven, which meant I’d been in the hospital a lot longer than I’d thought. I switched on my mobile and saw that I had a message. It was from DCI Woodham: Stegs Jenner had arrived home; I was to proceed to his address immediately and to wait out of sight of the house if the rest of the team hadn’t yet arrived. The message was recorded at 6.38, so I’d only just missed him. I pressed 5 for recall and phoned him back.

Malik had had just about as much as he could take of Jack Merriweather.

The way the gangster turned informer talked, you’d be forgiven for assuming that he was doing the CPS and the police some sort of favour by testifying in the Vamen trial, rather than simply saving his own skin. Merriweather had been Neil Vamen’s right-hand man and a member of the Holtz set-up for at least fifteen years, probably more. It was inconceivable that he hadn’t committed murder on their behalf, and, given the evidence against him for more recent crimes, he’d had no choice but to turn against his former allies and employers. Now he was denying any knowledge at all of the whereabouts of Terry Duffy, a small-time thief and thug who’d gone out one morning for some cigarettes and never been seen again. Duffy had left behind a pregnant partner and a two-year-old son. It was known he owed Neil Vamen money over a drug deal and was having difficulty paying him back. In the last week, a potential witness had come forward and claimed that she’d heard Merriweather say he’d been one of those involved in the kidnapping and disposal of the body. The family were desperate for news, even if it was simply the location of the remains, so that they could get some sort of closure on the case. Unsurprisingly, Merriweather was denying any knowledge of the incident.

‘I knew the bloke,’ he’d told Malik, ‘but that’s all. I didn’t have nothing to do with killing him, and I don’t know who did. Or even if he’s dead.’

It was bullshit of course, but there wasn’t much Malik could do about it, and now it was a quarter to seven and he was finished there. It hadn’t been a very satisfactory visit. Merriweather had also never heard of Stegs Jenner, which wasn’t going to help the case against the SO10 man, especially since very little had gone on in the Holtz set-up that their chief witness hadn’t known about. It left Malik with a flicker of doubt about Stegs’s guilt, which was something he could have done without, but he was also aware that Merriweather had never given up the names of any police officers involved with the Holtzes, so either it was an area of the business he’d steered clear of or, for whatever reason, he’d made a conscious decision not to say anything about them. Once again, inconclusive.

But right now, Malik’s home and family beckoned. He left Merriweather sitting in the office they’d been using at the back of the house. The discussions had moved on to the upcoming trial, and the ex-gangster was in good cheer, swigging happily from a can of taxpayer-funded Foster’s, seemingly unworried about the ordeal ahead. ‘Don’t you worry about a fucking thing, Asif,’ he bellowed after the SO7 man, in a tone of camaraderie that Malik could have done without. ‘It’ll be a doddle.’ Malik lifted a hand to acknowledge that he’d heard Merriweather’s boast but kept walking. It had better be a doddle, he thought to himself, because if their star witness didn’t come through the case was in a lot of trouble.

Luckily, Merriweather was a resilient character. He had to be, given that less than two weeks before there’d been not one but two attempts on his life, and that, whatever happened in the coming weeks, he was a marked man for the rest of his days. Already his wife had left him, unable to equate the man she knew with the man he’d become, and had taken the kids with her, and it was a possibility that he’d never see any of them again, because to do so would be such a security risk. He was truly on his own (particularly now that his request for visits from his girlfriend had been turned down), which was a lot for a man to live with. But so far Merriweather was managing, and managing remarkably well. In that respect, he was a perfect witness. In every other respect he was an arsehole, and a nasty one at that.

As he walked past the lounge on the way to the front door, Malik waved at the two plainclothes officers who were acting as Merriweather’s guards. ‘Thanks for that, gents. It’s been a pleasure.’ He rolled his eyes.

‘Take it easy, Asif,’ said the younger of the two, Dan Harold, a guy Malik knew vaguely. He didn’t know Harold’s colleague, Bill Cheek, who simply nodded.

‘Fat chance of that,’ Malik replied with a chuckle as he opened the door.

His mobile rang, and it made him wonder, not for the first time, what anyone had ever done before the advent of the mobile phone. Had a lot easier time of it, probably. Shutting the door behind him, he put the receiver to his ear.