Майкл Ридпат - The Predator

‘Look at it this way, it’ll give me a chance to find out what he was doing hanging around Lenka’s place.’

‘I’d have thought that was pretty obvious,’ Megan said disapprovingly. But she gave Chris the flight information.

‘By the way, I’ve worked out who Marcus is,’ Chris said.

‘And?’

‘Alex’s brother.’

‘Of course!’

‘I checked with Eric, who confirmed it. Apparently, Marcus tried to speak to him too, but Eric avoided him. And Eric told me to say “hi” to you, whatever that means.’

‘OK,’ said Megan. ‘How is he?’

‘Doing formidably well. He must be earning millions in bonuses.’

‘That doesn’t surprise me,’ said Megan. ‘Well, I’d better go now.’

‘OK. Oh, Megan?’

‘Yes.’

‘Thanks for ringing. It has been a bad day, and it was very nice to hear from you.’

‘Good,’ said Megan, and she was gone.

Chris waited for ten minutes in the cool glass-clad atrium of United Arab International’s office in Bishopsgate, watching suited bankers come and go. At last, Pippa emerged from the bank of lifts. She was a small woman with curly blonde hair and a bright smile. Quite pretty.

Chris kissed her on the cheek. ‘Let’s go to Williams. It’s close.’

‘Isn’t that where you and Duncan used to meet?’ Pippa asked.

‘That’s right.’

‘Well, I hope he won’t be there now.’

‘I don’t think he will,’ said Chris.

They reached the dark pub in five minutes. Duncan wasn’t there. Chris bought himself a pint of bitter, and Pippa a glass of white wine, and they sat down in the same dark corner he and Duncan had occupied the week before.

‘I haven’t got long,’ Pippa said. ‘I’m supposed to be meeting someone later in Covent Garden.’

‘OK,’ said Chris. ‘I’ll be quick. It’s about Lenka.’

Pippa’s face clouded over. ‘Oh God, not that woman. What’s Duncan done now?’

Chris was taken aback by her reply. It was clear she hadn’t heard. It would be unfair to ask her any more questions until he had told her.

‘Lenka’s dead. Murdered.’

Pippa was shocked. ‘Oh, my God. It wasn’t Duncan was it?’ Then she looked confused. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. But that’s why you’re here, isn’t it? It must have something to do with Duncan.’

‘I have no reason to think that it has,’ said Chris, although in truth Pippa’s initial response had alarmed him. ‘It happened in Prague. The Czech police think it was a local who did it.’

‘Whew,’ said Pippa. ‘Duncan must be in a state.’

‘He is.’ Chris took a sip of his beer. ‘I take it that you knew about Duncan’s feelings towards Lenka?’

Pippa snorted. ‘Knew about them? Yes, I knew about them. At first, she just had the status of old girlfriend to be wary of. But then, pretty soon after we were married, I realized she was much more than that.’

‘How did you find out?’

‘From Duncan. He told me. It was mad. He began to talk about her occasionally, and then more and more often. You know how frank Duncan can be. I used to think it was cute. Now I think it’s just plain stupid. Once he came back from somewhere drunk and he went on about how Lenka was the only woman he’d ever really loved. To his wife, for God’s sake! He wanted to go and see her for lunch or a drink. I told him not to, but I’m sure he must have gone anyway. Not that I think he did anything. I think she had more sense than that.’

‘I don’t think they “did anything”, either, if that helps,’ said Chris.

‘I couldn’t give a shit one way or another, now,’ said Pippa. ‘Probably better if they had, quite frankly.’

‘Was that why you split up?’ Chris asked. ‘Duncan never said.’

Pippa sighed. ‘That’s probably the reason, but I wouldn’t want to put all the blame on Duncan. At first, I thought he was great. He’s cute, and he seemed to think I was the most wonderful person he’d ever met. He had that adoring puppy-dog look.’ She scowled. ‘I really fell for it. Then we got married, things changed, and it turned out Lenka was the most wonderful woman he’d ever met.’

‘Difficult,’ said Chris.

‘Yeah. But I said it wasn’t all his fault. Has Duncan told you about Tony?’

Chris shook his head.

‘He’s a guy at work. I’d been seeing him. Duncan found out about it. He was quite good about it, really. Things just fell apart from there.’

‘Oh.’

‘Yes. The whole marriage was a right cock-up. Thank God there weren’t any kids.’

‘Is it Tony you’re going to see now?’

Pippa reddened. ‘No,’ she said. ‘That ended pretty quickly. It turns out I’m not the world expert on relationships, either.’

Chris had to summon up his courage to ask the next question. ‘Do you think Duncan could have killed Lenka?’

‘Um, no. No, I don’t.’ But Chris noticed the hesitation in her voice.

‘Isn’t that what you seemed to think when I mentioned Lenka had been murdered?’

‘Yeah.’ Pippa looked down into her glass. ‘I’m sorry about that. It was just that I assumed you wanted to see me because Duncan had got himself into some kind of trouble, and when you said she’d been killed, my first thought was that was it. But even in his weirdest moments, Duncan wouldn’t do something like that.’

‘A neighbour said that Duncan had been hanging around Lenka’s flat.’

‘That doesn’t surprise me.’

‘It also seems that Lenka had been avoiding him.’

‘Neither does that. I never got any impression that Lenka felt the same way about Duncan that he did about her. She obviously had more sense.’

‘So, if she rejected him, wouldn’t Duncan have been upset?’

‘Yes. He’d have been devastated.’ Pippa downed her wine. ‘Look. He drove me crazy, but for a while I loved the stupid bugger. He’s not a killer. I know that.’ She looked at her watch. ‘I’ve got to go. Thanks for the drink. Oh, and I am sorry about Lenka. I know she was a good friend of yours, too.’

With that, Pippa disappeared, leaving Chris even more confused.

As Chris opened the door to his flat, he heard the phone ringing. He picked it up. It was his mother.

‘Chris. How are you? Are you all right?’

How the hell did she know there was something wrong? Chris had avoided talking to her about Lenka. It was something he wanted to sort out by himself; the last thing he wanted to deal with then was his mother’s panicking.

‘Chris? Are you there? I’ve been ever so worried.’

‘Why, Mum?’

‘Because you haven’t telephoned me for two weeks, that’s why.’

‘But I don’t have to call you every week, do I?’

‘You don’t have to, no, dear. But you always do.’

Chris closed his eyes. There was no escaping his family. It was the same with all the Poles in Halifax. Even when you were an adult, you couldn’t escape your parents. He knew a close family was supposed to be a good thing, but sometimes, no, most of the time, he just wanted to grow up and get away from it.

‘There is something wrong, isn’t there?’ said his mother, worried now, rather than nagging.

‘Yes, Mum, there is.’ Chris took a deep breath. ‘Lenka has been killed.’

‘Oh, no!’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘What was it? A car crash?’

‘No.’ Chris explained what had happened in some detail. To his surprise, he could hear his mother sobbing on the phone. She was a strong woman, his mother. She scarcely ever wept. It caught Chris unawares.

‘Mum, don’t cry.’

‘She was a lovely girl,’ said his mother. ‘She did so much for you.’

‘Yes, she did.’

‘I got the most wonderful letter from her after you and she started your business together. I wrote to her thanking her for helping you out—’