Blaylock is long gone, and it looks like he left in a hurry.
It is five months since Vos last drove through the gates of Jack Peel’s mansion; the beech hedges that grow on top of the perimeter wall have turned golden brown and the birch trees lining the driveway have shed their leaves. Somewhere in the grounds a bonfire is burning; the rich, pungent smoke hangs at knee height above the lawn and swirls around the paddock, where a rider is expertly guiding a horse around a series of low jumps in the distance. On the stone-flagged patio the whirlpool bath has been drained of water and covered with tarpaulin and the wrought-iron outdoor chairs are tipped up against the table.
The summer, Vos thinks, is well and truly over.
He stops the car on the driveway and gets out. The paddock is fifty yards away across thick, wet grass. It is surrounded by a wooden, barred fence, and at the far side is a small stables complex. The horse and rider are still going through their paces on the jumps and Vos, who knows nothing about equestrian sport and cares even less, cannot help be impressed by the agility of the horse and the dexterity of the rider.
After a few moments the horse and rider approach the fence. Melody Peel glares down at Vos from the saddle. She is wearing a protective helmet and her hair hangs in a fat, milky plait over her left shoulder.
‘You’re looking good out there, Melody,’ Vos says. ‘Keep it up and you could win gold at the next Olympics.’
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I came to see Kimnai Su. Is she in?’
‘No.’
‘Where is she?’
‘How should I know?’
‘She didn’t tell you?’
A bitter smile. ‘Maybe she did; I don’t understand a fucking word she says.’
‘Has she gone to see Al Blaylock?’
‘Like I said, I don’t know where she’s gone and I don’t really care.’
‘Al’s gone missing,’ Vos says. ‘I need to find him. Do you know where he is?’
‘Why? So you can kill him too?’
Vos shakes his head. ‘You don’t get it, do you, Melody?’
‘Al says there’s going to be an investigation. He says they’re going to hang you out to dry for what you did.’
‘There was an investigation,’ Vos says. ‘And I was cleared. So here I am. And I’m very sorry for your loss, but you need to face up to the facts. Your dad fell. People keep saying that I pushed him, but I didn’t.’
‘Fuck you.’
She pulls the reins and the horse’s head moves, but Vos reaches across and grabs the bridle.
‘You’re a big girl, Melody. You know what Jack was.’
He feels the animal’s hot breath on his hand as it pulls to get away, and when he looks at Melody he sees her for what she really is: a confused, grief-stricken child. For a fleeting moment he feels a twinge of guilt for Jack Peel’s death. But the sensation is replaced almost immediately by anger at Peel himself – for his selfishness, for his abdication of responsibility, for choosing to lead the sort of life that was going to bring him up against Vos, that was one day either going to get him jailed or killed.
‘Your dad was a criminal,’ he says. ‘A drug dealer. An extortionist.’
Melody Peel’s face is twisted with fury and sorrow in equal measure. ‘Maybe,’ she says. ‘But he was my dad.’
And then, with a tug on the reins, she brings the horse around and sets off at a gallop towards the stables.
When he gets back to his car he sees there are three missed calls, all of them from Seagram.
‘What is it, Bernice?’
‘Ptolemy found something in one of Dale Tiernan’s stolen cars,’ Seagram says.
‘Don’t tell me: a winning Lottery ticket.’
‘Better than that, boss. You should get back. You’ll want to see this.’
FOURTEEN
‘I know this guy,’ Huggins says through a mouthful of Big Mac. ‘From way back. Works as a freelance journo in the Midlands somewhere. Last time I saw him, he gave me his number and told me to give him a call if ever anything came up that needed wider exposure. I’ll never forget that phrase he used: “wider exposure”. What he meant was, he wanted me to be a whistleblower. His very own Deep Throat. I, of course, told him to fuck off. But I was thinking about him the other day with this Turkish business. You know what I mean? I mean, all the billions of pounds the taxpayer has forked out for the new, improved border control and yet Okan Gul – a known fucking drug dealer – can enter the country on six separate occasions with six separate passports and nobody raises an eyebrow. Now I’m not saying I’m going to ring my journo guy, but if anything needed wider exposure it’s that.’
‘Phil.’
‘What?’
‘What the hell happened at Timmy Kwok’s?’
Huggins stares at Fallow open-mouthed, a mound of masticated burger visible in his lower jaw. ‘What?’
‘Timmy Kwok. The meat cleaver.’
‘Oh, that.’ Huggins shrugs and continues chewing.
‘Yes, that,’ Fallow insists.
‘What’s the problem, Johnny-boy? He talked, didn’t he?’
Fallow’s eyes flash with anger. ‘You threatened him with a fucking meat cleaver, Phil!’
‘Don’t be so dramatic. I didn’t threaten him.’
‘Waving the fucking thing above his head? That’s threatening in my book. Christ, I thought you were going to take his fingers off.’
Huggins shakes his head and carefully places the remains of his burger in its cardboard box. ‘Have you been stewing over this all this time?’
‘I’m still trying to get my head around the fact that you did it in the first place.’
‘Ah, grow a pair, John. I don’t know what’s happened to you lately.’
‘I could say the same thing about you. It’s like you’re in your own fucking Dirty Harry movie.’
‘So what are you saying? That we treat these fucking lowlifes like they’re some sort of social-work project? That we’re nice to them? Jesus Christ, Johnny-boy, you’re further gone than I thought.’
Fallow stares out through the windscreen as Huggins finishes his Happy Meal.
‘Here he comes,’ he says presently.
‘It’s about fucking time,’ Huggins says, dabbing his mouth with a napkin.
Fifty yards ahead a man has emerged from a betting shop. He is in his mid-fifties, wearing a donkey jacket and a knitted bobble hat. He pauses to light a cigarette, eyes screwed shut against the smoke and the daylight. Now he is now plodding blankly towards them on the main street, hands shoved into the pockets of a grubby jacket, head down, watching the progress of his trainered feet.
‘You’re not going to beat the shit out of him, are you?’ Fallow asks sardonically.
‘Might do,’ Huggins says.
The two detectives get out of the car.
‘Howard Iley?’
‘Yeah?’
‘DCs Huggins and Fallow. We’d like a word.’
‘What about?’ Iley says, his eyes flicking from one man to the other.
‘About twenty-five years, give or take, with no parole or time off for good behaviour.’
‘Eh?’ says Howard Iley in a strangled voice. He smiles, but it is the smile of a man who has just been told he has terminal cancer.
‘It’s an O-Mega Stun Gun,’ says Mayson Calvert, holding up the object that Ptolemy had found in the warehouse. ‘American-made. A basic model but still highly effective. It produces 150,000 volts from a 9-volt battery. More than enough to incapacitate an adult male.’
‘What about the rope?’ Vos says.
‘Aramid fibre. Similar to the rope that was used on our victim.’
‘Similar?’
‘George Watson is making a comparison at the lab,’ Seagram says.
Vos turns to Ptolemy. ‘And the car?’
‘A 1986 Jaguar XJ6. Registered to one Howard Paul Iley, age fifty-six, last known address Murchison Street, Shieldfield.’
‘Huggins and Fallow have just picked him up,’ Seagram says.