Питер Мэй - Lockdown

As MacNeil approached, Kazinski backed off until he couldn’t go any further. ‘Your mother thinks you’re at work,’ MacNeil said.

‘What do you want?’

‘Why did you run?’

‘I can smell a cop at fifty paces.’

‘Yeah, it’s the smell of urine from creeps like you pissing their pants.’

‘I got rights.’

‘Yes, you have. You’ve got the right to bleed quietly. You’ve got the right to a decent funeral. Not that you’ll get one. Not these days. But then, you’d know all about that.’

Kazinski tried to break past him, ducking and squeezing to scrape between MacNeil’s right side and the wall. But MacNeil was nearly as wide as the alley itself. He just leaned to his right and pressed Kazinski against the wall. Then he grabbed the back of his collar, almost lifting him off his feet, and threw him bodily against the barrier at the end of the lane. Kazinski fell in a crumpled heap, and refuse and rubble cascaded over him.

‘Tell me about the bones,’ MacNeil said.

‘What bones?’

MacNeil sighed. ‘I’ve got a thumbprint on an Underground ticket found where you dumped them. You’re going down for murder, Ronnie.’

‘I never killed her!’ There was panic in Kazinski’s voice. ‘Honest, mate. I was just to get rid of the bones.’

‘You didn’t do a very good job.’

‘I was supposed to sneak them into Battersea, dump them in the furnace. At first they wanted me to get the whole body in. But there was no way I could have got her in there past security. So I said, gimme the bones. I can get them in. They didn’t want no traces, see? They had to be destroyed.’

‘Why?’

‘I dunno. I didn’t have nothing to do with it, honest.’

‘So why didn’t you burn them?’

‘Because that hole was going to get filled in with concrete this morning. It meant I didn’t have to take no risks, and they wouldn’t have been any the wiser.’

‘Who’s they?’

‘Dunno.’

‘Bullshit!’

‘Honest, mate. They just paid me to get rid of the bones.’

MacNeil leaned in towards him. ‘Ronnie, you’re going down for these guys unless you tell me who they are.’

‘Jesus, mate. I don’t know their names. This guy approached me after work one day, made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.’

MacNeil shook his head. ‘You’re going to have to do better than that, Ronnie. Where did you pick up the bones?’ He heard Kazinski sighing deeply in the dark.

‘I don’t know the address. It was a big house. You know, some rich geezer’s place.’

‘Where?’

‘It was somewhere near Wandsworth Common. Root Street, Ruth Street, something like that. It was dark. I dunno. They picked me up and dropped me off in a car.’

‘During curfew?’

‘Sure. It didn’t seem like a problem. Nobody stopped us.’

MacNeil stood and looked down at him for several moments. He needed much more than this, and he was sure that Kazinski had more to tell. ‘Come on, get up,’ he said.

Kazinski didn’t move. ‘What’re you gonna do?’

‘I’m taking you in, Ronnie, on suspicion of murder.’ He didn’t see the pole coming out of the dark until it was too late. He heard the hollow clang of it against his skull, and his knees folded under him. Kazinski dropped the length of scaffolding tube his fingers had found amongst the rubble, and it rattled away across the tarmac as he leapt over the prone figure of the policeman and sprinted back the way he had come.

MacNeil was doubled over, gasping, lights flashing in his eyes. How could he have been so careless? He cursed, and spat on the ground and tasted blood in his mouth. It took him a full minute to recover enough to stagger to his feet, leaning one hand against the brick wall to support himself until he was able to stand without falling. His head was still ringing like a bell. There was no point in taking things too fast. Kazinski was long gone.

It was several minutes before he emerged shakily into St. Anne’s Court and saw a dark shape sprawled on the ground a few yards to the east. He wondered for a moment what it was. There hadn’t been anything there five minutes ago. He stepped towards it and saw that it was a man lying face down, black liquid pooling on the ground beneath him. Sticky blood, coagulating in the chill wind. MacNeil knelt down and felt that he was still warm. He pulled the body over and Kazinski gazed up at him with staring eyes. His white shirt was soaked with blood, but MacNeil could still see where the three bullets had passed through it. All in the vicinity of his heart. He was quite dead.

MacNeil slumped to the ground and sat with his back against the wall. There was still a fire burning somewhere beyond the west end of St. Anne’s Court, but the looters had moved on, because all he could hear now was the crackling of the blaze.

Someone had shot Kazinski three times in the chest. Someone who had been waiting out here in the lane. MacNeil had heard no shots. Even with the ringing in his head he could not have missed them. He remembered Laing’s verdict on the sniper who had shot the kids in South Lambeth. It was a real pro job. A professional weapon in professional hands , he had said. This, too, had all the hallmarks of a professional. A clean, efficient execution. A weapon with a silencer. Someone did not want Kazinski talking to MacNeil, or anyone else. And it occurred to him that perhaps it was the same professional. Perhaps the marksman who had saved his life that afternoon had been waiting there for Kazinski. And now he had got him.

MacNeil tilted his head gently back against the brick and breathed deeply. He felt something like hysteria slip slowly over him, like a shroud. Everything seemed somehow out of control. His life, the city, his job, this investigation. It was as if he were being swept along on a tide of events he was powerless to affect. He was tired. He had barely slept the night before, and he had been on duty now for nearly fifteen hours. If he closed his eyes, he could sleep. Right here on the pavement, with a dead man at his feet.

But there was an anger in him, a tiny voice that screamed and raged inside, and he knew it would never let him sleep. In the distance he heard gunfire, and the far-off echo of voices raised in anger. Like the one in his head. He crawled forward on his knees and dragged on a pair of latex gloves to start going through Kazinski’s pockets. There was a wallet with an ID card, some bank notes, and a pouch with some loose change. A bunch of keys in his trouser pocket. Cigarettes and a lighter in his jacket. Nothing remotely helpful.

MacNeil looked at the wallet again. There was a zip pocket in the back of it. He fumbled with big fingers to open it up. There were some receipts in there from better times. A couple of restaurant bills, a till receipt from a bar. And a dog-eared business card. MacNeil tilted it to try to catch what light there was, and ran a finger over the red embossed lettering. Jonathan Flight, Sculptor , it read in curlicued script. It had the address of a gallery in South Kensington.

MacNeil knew the name. The arts columns of the broadsheets had been full of him last year, and some of his work had been controversial enough to make the tabloids, where MacNeil had read about him. He specialised in grotesque, often overtly sexual body sculpture. A headless man with his erect penis partially inserted in the anus of a female torso. A woman with one arm missing, holding her severed breast in her remaining hand. A facial sculpture whose smile stripped away flesh to reveal teeth and jaw. MacNeil could not imagine who might buy stuff like that, or who would want it in their homes. But his exhibitions attracted thousands, and his work sold for tens of thousands.