Tony Park - Silent Predator

‘Um, you know Shuttleworth told everyone that you were no longer working the case or any part of it?’

‘Yeah. Look, this might help you, Dan. Don’t mess me about and I won’t mess you about.’

‘All right. Yeah, we’re trying to find out more of what he was up to, but, I’ll tell you the truth, all we’re getting is dead ends.’

‘You mean literally or figuratively,’ Tom said, writing the word dead on the notepad.

‘Do what?’

Dan was a plodder. A good copper, but not the sharpest knife in the drawer. ‘You mean dead as in bodies?’

There was a pause on the other end of the line. ‘Maybe,’ Morris said.

‘The strip club you and Chris visited — remember it?’

‘How could I forget it? Wish every job was like that one.’

Tom thought the laugh was forced. He knew he was getting close.

‘She’s dead. The stripper I told Shuttleworth about. Ebony, the black girl Nick had been seen talking to a couple of times. The one who did a bunk from work.’

‘Tom, that information hasn’t been reported to the media. In fact, it’s subject to a D-notice. How did you know about it? If Shuttleworth finds out you’ve been poking your nose into the Minx club he’ll have your guts for garters.’

Tom wrote Ebony’s name on the piece of paper, followed by D-notice?

‘Tom? You still there?’

‘Got to go, Dan. Thanks, mate.’

‘Thanks? What for? You said you had something that might help us.’

‘Bad line. You’re dropping out, Dan.’ Tom pressed the end button.

He shuffled the pieces of paper in front of him and dialled Olga Kamorov’s cell phone number. As it rang he checked his watch. He wondered if she would be sleeping in, if she’d been working late at Club Minx the previous evening. Too bad if she was.

When she answered, it was in a whisper. ‘Hang on,’ she urged him.

Tom tapped the pen on the benchtop while he waited. ‘Sorry, I was in class.’

‘Class?’

‘I am student.’

Student as well as stripper. She wouldn’t be the first to pay for her studies by working in the sex industry. ‘Olga, we need to talk about Ebony’s death.’

‘Good,’ she said. ‘Other policemen don’t want anyone to talk about it. They tell all girls at club no one is to talk to friends or journalists about Ebony. But that is problem, and I try to tell them that but they don’t listen to me.’

He wasn’t sure what she meant by that last rambling remark, and was about to tell her to slow down and explain when she cut him off before he had a chance.

‘I must get back inside for lecture. I meet you at lunchtime, yes? One o’clock?’

She was setting the ground rules and he didn’t like being in that position, but he had little option save to play along. Besides, he had nothing else in his diary for the day. ‘Okay, where?’

‘There is a Burger King in Euston Road, opposite St Pancras, near Kings Cross. You know it?’

‘I’ll find it.’ He hung up and walked over to the refrigerator. Inside was a single egg in a soggy carton and a half-pack of bacon. He put the frying pan on the gas hob and dropped in some oil. His stomach rumbled, so he put all the bacon in and cracked the egg. In the pantry was half a loaf of stale bread. He selected the least mouldy piece and chucked the rest in the bin, along with an assortment of pizza boxes and takeaway curry containers from the benchtop.

He continued to clean up while breakfast sizzled mouth-wateringly nearby. Working back from one o’clock he mentally planned his day. It would take him the best part of an hour to eat and get clean and dressed. He’d booked the Jag in for a service on his first day of suspension. He’d discounted the idea of going away anywhere and figured — correctly, so far — he would spend most of his time either drunk in a pub or drunk at home. He hadn’t been wrong until now. He would have to take the tube to meet Olga.

He scooped the bacon and egg from the frypan, added another half-inch of oil and dropped in the slice of bread. He devoured the lot in seconds. Cooked breakfasts always seemed like a lot of effort for little return. He hoped that wasn’t an omen for the rest of the day.

Upstairs he showered and scraped three days’ worth of growth from his face, put on his charcoal-grey suit pants, black brogues and socks, and took a clean white shirt downstairs to the laundry to iron. Olga wouldn’t know he was suspended — unless, of course, she had read a newspaper in the last week. Tom figured that if she had, she wouldn’t have called him. He mightn’t be on duty officially, but he wanted her to think he was. He wondered if the dancer would give him anything that might help Sannie’s investigations back in Africa. He doubted it, but perhaps the South African police could run a check on Precious Mary Tambo.

Before leaving the house, he stopped to straighten his tie in the hall mirror and pull on his suit jacket. It felt good to have a sense of purpose again. It might come to nothing, but would keep his mind off Greeves, Joyce and the impending inquiry for a few hours.

Outside it was a perfect autumn day. The chill in the air helped clear his head, and he felt virtuous walking off some of his breakfast down Southwood Lane towards Highgate tube station.

Two young mums pushed their children in prams, chatting and laughing at something. It was a reminder that life went on, even though his world had been turned upside down. He wondered how Greeves’s wife and children were faring, and if Bernard Joyce had family.

There were already Christmas decorations in some of the shop windows. He wondered what it was like for Sannie’s kids at this time of year, without their father.

Tom entered Highgate Underground station and descended the long escalator to the platforms, his nostrils filling with the unnaturally warm, humid air. A Euston-bound tube train arrived within minutes and he nipped through the sliding doors into the hot, stuffy carriage. Only the drivers got airconditioning.

On the seat beside him was a copy of the Metro, the free newspaper handed out to commuters. He opened it and on page five found the news Sannie had already told him. SOUTH AFRICAN BODYGUARD TO GIVE EVIDENCE AT GREEVES INQUIRY

A South African police officer is being flown to the UK to testify at the inquiry into the abduction and killing of the former Minister for Defence Procurement, Robert Greeves.

Inspector Susan van Rensburg was assigned as the protection officer for Mr Greeves’s South African government counterpart during two days of meetings between the two politicians.

Tom skimmed the recapping of the events, and looked for the ‘why’ in the story.

Mr Greeves’s former spokesperson said the government had decided to invite Inspector Van Rensburg to appear at the inquiry in order to better understand security arrangements which had been put in place prior to Mr Greeves’s visit, and to outline the events leading up to the minister’s abduction.

‘Shit,’ Tom said aloud. An old lady sitting opposite in a plastic mackintosh looked up from her magazine and raised her eyebrows at him. Sannie’s appearance was part of the government’s efforts to set him up as the patsy for Greeves’s death. He could have guessed it. He wondered what she would make of the story and if it would affect her evidence. All she could do was tell the truth — and that would be enough to have him dismissed.

He felt the fog of depression start to settle on him again, almost wilting the creases in his freshly ironed shirt.

‘Only ever bad news in those things.’ The old lady was looking at him, smiling as she nodded to the newspapers beside him. ‘Stick with OK! that’s my philosophy.’

He laughed and nodded as she held up the glossy celebrity gossip magazine.