He considered her question. ‘I think so,’ he said, ‘but probably not close enough for her to tell me she’s shot and killed six men.’ He took a deep breath. ‘There’s something I should tell you,’ he said. ‘I had a look around her house today.’
Button’s eyes narrowed. ‘You broke in?’ She stubbed out the cigarette.
‘I had keys. I did a pretty thorough search and there’s no gun. But I did find some ammunition in the attic.’
‘First of all, if she went to kill Lynn then, it’s pretty bloody obvious that she’d have taken the gun with her,’ said Button. ‘Second of all, what the hell did you think you were doing? You can’t break into a suspect’s house without a warrant, you know that. If you had found anything it wouldn’t have been admissible. Damn it, Spider, you could have blown the whole case.’
‘First of all we don’t have a case,’ said Shepherd. ‘Second of all I already said I didn’t break in. I had keys. And third of all, if I had found a gun I sure as hell wouldn’t have done anything with it. But at least we would have known it was there.’
‘And if you’d been caught?’
‘That’s hypothetical,’ said Shepherd. ‘I wasn’t caught. And there was nothing in the house to suggest that Elaine Carter is a serial killer or a mass murderer.’ He went to the kitchen cabinet above the fridge and came back with the round he’d taken from the box in Elaine’s attic. ‘Except this.’ He gave the bullet to her and splashed more wine into her glass. ‘You’re right, of course. It was the wrong call. I just wanted to push things along. And maybe I didn’t find the gun because she had it with her. But there was a box of those rounds in an old trunk along with some papers and photographs.’
Button weighed the cartridge in her palm. ‘It’s a .357, same as Carter’s service revolver, right?’ She put it on the table by her glass.
‘That’s what it looks like,’ said Shepherd. ‘PMC .357 Magnum 158-grain semi-jacketed rounds. They’d be my ammo of choice for the gun he had.’
‘PMC?’
‘That’s the manufacturer’s name,’ said Shepherd. ‘One of the firms that supplied rounds to the RUC. It was an old box. The manufacturer’s date was two years before Robbie Carter was killed, so they almost certainly belonged to him. The box originally contained fifty and there were twenty-six left. Twenty-five after I took that one. Your forensic boys should be able to tell if it’s similar to the rounds that were used to shoot his killers.’
‘That’ll be a help, but it’s no proof that she’s the killer even if the rounds are the same. If they are RUC issue we can assume that dozens if not hundreds of officers had the same ammunition.’
‘Maybe not,’ said Shepherd. ‘Remember, most RUC officers were issued with nine-millimetre Smith amp; Wessons. But I take your point. Without the gun we don’t have proof. So, where does that leave us?’
‘The words “shit”, “creek” and “paddle” spring to mind,’ said Button. ‘The powers-that-be are going to be looking for someone to blame for this.’
‘Me, you mean?’
‘I was thinking me, actually. It’s my operation.’
‘You’re still assuming Elaine’s the killer,’ said Shepherd, ‘and we don’t know that.’
‘Proving a negative is going to be next to impossible,’ she said. ‘We either prove she’s killed these six men, or that it’s the work of someone else. It doesn’t get us anywhere to say that we don’t think she did it.’
Shepherd sipped his wine. ‘There is a bright side,’ he said. ‘At least it was Lynn and not Kinsella who was killed. Lynn was a nasty piece of work and I doubt there’ll be many tears shed for him.’
‘I’ll be sure to tell the Home Secretary so when I’m next in his office,’ said Button. She raised her glass to him. ‘Here’s to my short and eventful career with the Serious Organised Crime Agency,’ she said. ‘I need another cigarette.’
The widow was quite beautiful, thought Viktor Merkulov, as he watched her at the graveside. She was in her late twenties and her knee-length black coat was open to reveal a low-cut dress that showed off an impressive pair of breasts. Her long blonde hair glistened in the afternoon sun and her nails were painted blood red. She was wearing a pair of Gucci sunglasses, but every now and again she would glance towards a good-looking man at the edge of the crowd of mourners. He was a few years older and elegantly dressed, the suit almost certainly Armani and the shoes Italian, handmade. Merkulov was sure he was the woman’s lover. There were no children around, and no one old enough to be the deceased’s parents. Merkulov didn’t know who the dead man was, but he was fairly sure that the widow wouldn’t miss him.
The widow had arrived at the cemetery in an expensive Mercedes sports car, the man in the Armani suit a few minutes later in a yellow Ferrari. Most of the mourners were men in their forties, probably work colleagues – bankers or stockbrokers. Merkulov knew that if he’d attended the service he would have learnt something about the man they were burying, but he had no interest in eulogies. He cared only about the burial.
The priest was saying whatever it was that priests said at funerals. The widow reached up to rub her left eye with the back of her hand but Merkulov knew she wasn’t crying. In fact, no one was shedding tears. There were sombre faces and clasped hands, but no tears.
A man in a fawn raincoat sat down next to him. ‘You’ve always had a thing for funerals, haven’t you, Viktor?’ He spoke with an American accent.
He was watching the mourners so Merkulov could see only his profile. He had short gun-metal grey hair and thin lips. He crossed his legs at the ankles. He was wearing black leather shoes with tassels and bright red socks. ‘Do I know you?’ asked Merkulov.
‘We’ve never met,’ said the man. ‘But I know you. And you seem to think you know me.’ He turned with an easy smile on his face. ‘Richard Yokely,’he said. ‘Nice to meet you at last. I’ve followed your career with interest over the years.’
Merkulov glanced over his shoulder. A man in his early thirties was standing a few paces away, his hands deep in the pockets of a black overcoat. He had a thick scar above his lips and he returned Merkulov’s stare with hard eyes.
‘Yes,’said Yokely. ‘He’s with me.’ He nodded to Merkulov’s right. ‘Him too.’
Another big man was positioned some twenty paces away, wearing a matching overcoat. Like the other, his hands were in his pockets.
‘We’re professionals, you and I, aren’t we,Viktor?’ said Yokely.
‘I suppose so,’ said Merkulov. If he had been in Russia he’d have been carrying a gun, probably two, but in Britain the penalties for being caught with a weapon were too severe to take the risk. They had outlawed most knives, and even a baseball bat was classed as a weapon unless it was accompanied by a ball.
‘Professionals in a world of amateurs,’ said Yokely. ‘We’re a dying breed.’ He smiled. ‘Some of us dying quicker than others, of course.’
‘What is going to happen?’ said Merkulov.
‘To the world?’ said Yokely.
‘To me.’
Yokely patted his back. ‘Are you carrying any sort of weapon?’ he asked.
‘Sadly, no.’
Yokely laughed. ‘Viktor, even if you had a submachine-gun under your coat, it wouldn’t do any good with my two colleagues there.’
Merkulov sighed. ‘I knew it was a mistake to look for you.’
‘But you were paid well?’
‘Of course.’
‘So you took a risk. I can understand that. You have bills to pay, and there’s no pension at the end of your career, is there?’
‘Can I make a phone call before . . .’ He left the sentence hanging.
‘Before what, Viktor?’
‘Before you kill me.’
‘Let’s talk first,’ said Yokely. He waved at the cemetery gates. ‘We’ve a van outside,Viktor,a blue Transit. You and I will walk together to it. When we get close the back doors will open and you will get in. You will lie face down on the floor.’
The Russian nodded.
‘My men are armed, and if you try to run they will shoot you. They won’t shoot to kill so, one way or another, you will get into the van. And we won’t be taking you to hospital so you’ll only be putting yourself through a lot of unnecessary pain.’