Ash & Bone

He felt himself hardening and closed his eyes.

Concentrated on the slip slip slap of massage oil on Edie's hands.

First time he'd done this, he remembered, had this done, he'd been a young DC, green round the gills, the other lads putting him up to it, pulling a freebie on his behalf, some scrubber from Swansea with more than a touch of the tarbrush about her and dirt under her fingernails. The minute she'd touched him, he'd shot his load. Caught himself in the fucking eye.

Laughing at the memory, he glanced at Edie, solemn-faced, concentrating, he thought, chuckling, at the job in hand.

'Come here,' he said. 'Here, closer, here.'

Reaching up, propping himself on one elbow, he unfastened the remaining buttons of her overall. Bit of lace round the top of the bra, nipples standing firm. White knickers not much larger than your average postage stamp. No pierced navel for a change. Well, thank God for that.

Feeling himself close, he lay back and closed his eyes once more.

First thing tomorrow he'd find Framlingham and tell him to go fuck himself up the arse.

Breath accelerating, he arched his back as the girl's hand moved faster. Firmer. Faster.

He failed to hear the door open, then close.

'Maurice.' The voice was soft, almost a caress.

Repton's eyes opened in time to see Mallory's face; the ugly bulge of the silencer at the end of the gun.

'Come again, Maurice,' Mallory said and fired.

The girl screamed and, without moving his feet, Mallory slapped her with his free hand, slamming her, mouth bleeding, heavily against the wall.

Raising the gun, Mallory fired again.

Bone and tissue littered Maurice Repton's Irish linen handkerchief and the cheap pink polyester pillowcase beneath it, stained unremovably by a hundred heads and now darkening pink to red.

55

Elder was talking to Karen Shields, still a few minutes short of eight o'clock, the day not really under way, when Framlingham phoned, more of an urgency in his voice than Elder was used to.

'It's Repton. He's been shot.'

'How bad?'

'Bad as it gets.'

Karen read the concern on his face.

'How did it happen?' Elder asked. 'Where?'

'Green Lanes. Early hours of the morning. Someone walked into a massage parlour and shot him twice. Why don't you get yourself down here now? Midway between Manor House and Turnpike Lane.'

'Okay, I'll be there.'

'Serious?' Karen said.

Elder nodded. 'Good luck with Kennet. I'll phone in when I can.'

The traffic was the usual a.m. nightmare, especially after he'd taken what looked, on paper, to be the most direct route, through the middle of Wood Green. He promised himself, once this was over, never to curse the ten-minute wait to get down into the centre of Truro on Saturdays again.

Police vehicles were parked near the scene, half on the road, half off, loops of tape keeping the pavement closed for forty metres on either side of the building where the incident had occurred.

Elder left his car illegally parked on a double yellow line, a hastily scribbled note under the windscreen. Framlingham was inside talking to a DCI from Homicide and the DI from the local Wood Green nick. He continued his conversation for several moments more, introduced Elder and then drew him off to one side.

'Worst nightmare, Frank.'

'What do we know?'

Framlingham steered him outside. There were knots of people staring from the far side of the street, men in bright African-style robes or with their hair cut according to the Hasidic style; women encased almost entirely, head to toe, in black. Produce outside the various Greek and Turkish shops shone purple, red and green in the winter sun.

Framlingham lit a cigarette. 'We know Repton was shot twice, once in the head, once in the chest. Nine-millimetre rounds.' He breathed smoke out on to the air. 'Trousers round his ankles, poor bastard. What an inglorious bloody way to go.'

'Anything on the shooter?'

Framlingham nodded. 'Made no attempt to disguise himself. The woman running the place gave us a pretty good description.'

Elder read the look on Framlingham's face.

'Mallory,' he said.

'Yes.'

'No room for doubt?'

Framlingham shook his head. 'The girl who was with Repton when he bought it – here illegally, terrified out of her life she's going to be sent back to whatever Godforsaken place she comes from – she swears he called him Maurice. Before he shot him. Maurice.'

'You've got a call out for him? Mallory?'

'Oh, yes.'

'Any sign?'

'Not as yet. Not a trace. This aside, no one seems to have seen him since around nine last night. Making his travel arrangements, I shouldn't wonder. Passport's missing. Description's gone out to all the airports, ferries, Eurostar terminal, but I'm not holding my breath. He had a good two hours clear, maybe more. By this time he's probably checking into his hotel on the Costa del Sol, looking forward to his first tapas of the day.'

Or Cyprus, Elder thought. Or Cyprus.

***

In the interview room, Kennet looked even more tired, anxiety evident in his eyes and the way his hands were rarely still.

'This knife,' Karen said, holding up the evidence bag, 'it was found in the roof space of the house in Dartmouth Park Road where you were working.'

Kennet looked back at her and said nothing.

'You were working in that building?'

'You know I was.'

'At the time of Maddy Birch's murder.'

'No.'

'Think again.'

'No, I told you. I was on holiday.'

'You came home early. We've already established that.'

'That doesn't mean I went back to work. I was still on holiday.'

'But you did go back, didn't you? On the Thursday morning. The morning after Maddy was killed.'

'Did I? Who says I did?'

'The man you work with.'

'He could be mistaken.'

'I think not. I think you went to work that morning at eight o'clock sharp. Scarcely gave anyone the time of day. Straight up the scaffolding and into the roof, taking your tool bag with you.'

'I'd hardly leave it behind.'

'Then you were there?'

'Sometime, yes. If you say so, yes.'

'Thursday, twenty-seventh of November.'

'I don't know.'

Karen leaned closer. She could smell the sweat seeping through his pores. 'Come on, Steve, you've had a bust-up with your girlfriend, you're back early from Spain, no need to go into work, you could sit at home with your feet up, watch TV, wander down the bookies, out a few quid on the three-thirty, but instead there you go, first chance you get.'

'There was a job wanting finishing, we were way behind. It's called having a sense of responsibility, maybe you've heard of it?'

'Big on responsibility, are you?'

'I like to think so, yes.'

'Taking responsibility.'

'Yes.'

'Then why don't you take responsibility for this?' Karen had picked up the knife again and was holding it in front of Kennet's face.

'I tell you what,' Kennet said. 'You show me some proof that says conclusively that knife is mine, I'll take responsibility for it? Fair enough?'

Without taking her eyes from him, Karen leaned back against her chair.

***

Nearing four in the afternoon, not so far off dark, Elder had two brief telephone conversations with Katherine, both interrupted, neither satisfactory. Except that she was okay. Rob Summers was okay. He was still with the police, talking, sorting things out. She didn't know what was happening to Bland and his mate, except that she hoped they'd be put away for a very long time.

'I'll come up and see you,' Elder said at the end of the second call.

'When?'

'I don't know. As soon as I can.'

How many times had he said that when she was growing up? Not now, Katherine. Not now, okay. But soon.

Framlingham had been in and out of a string of meetings, in some of which Elder had also been involved, while during others he had been left to kick his heels. There had been sightings of Mallory, unconfirmed, on the ferry from Folkestone to Calais, boarding a flight at Heathrow bound for Miami, buying a Frappuccino in Starbucks on the Avenue de l'Opera in Paris.