him? What if that war led to innocent victims?
“Guv?”
Karen looked up. “Oh, hi, Taff.”
“Can I join you?”
“
“I’ll take that as a ‘yes,’ shall I?” the Welshman asked, pulling up a chair. He was carrying one plate piled high with toast and another with three fried eggs.
“Going for the premature heart attack?” the chief inspector said, finishing her wholemeal sandwich.
“I haven’t eaten since six this morning.”
“I think you owe me an explanation. Where have you been? I’ve left you several messages.”
John Turner avoided her eyes as he bit into a double layer of toast. “The AC,” he mumbled.
“What?” Karen said loudly, making heads turn. “Has he had you doing things behind my back?”
The inspector wiped egg yolk from his mouth. “He thinks you’re overwhelmed.”
“Fuck that!” she said, provoking stares. “He should have come to me first.” She glared at her subordinate. “And you should have told me what was going on as soon as you left him.”
Turner held her gaze. “He told me not to. He knows how loyal I am to you.” He raised his shoulders. “So I thought about it and came to find you. But he is the senior officer and-”
Oaten leaned over the table. “Don’t worry, I’ll be speaking to the senior officer shortly. In the meantime, you’d better tell me what’s been going on. I’m still in charge of the team, remember?”
The Welshman gave her a weary look. “I was about to fill you in, guv.”
That stopped the next cannonade before it was fired. “Fair enough, Taff,” the chief inspector said, smiling. “Let’s have it, then.”
“He called me before I woke up,” Turner said, pushing away his plates. “Told me to go straight to his office. He was waiting for me there. He made me run through all the outstanding case files with him.”
“That must have achieved a lot.”
“Mm. I did my best to make him see that you were doing all you could. It’s the idea that the White Devil’s sister might be back that’s got to him. Or rather, it’s got to the politicians and the commissioner, and the AC’s nuts are in a vise as a consequence.”
“I wish they were,” Oaten said. “I’d give the handle a couple of full turns, clockwise.”
The Welshman laughed. “Me, too.”
“So why did he let you go?”
“Because there wasn’t anything else I could tell him. The Mary Malone case is dead in the water. Homicide West have got no suspects and the top brass are wondering if there’s a connection between that case and the murder of Matt Wells’s friend, Dave Cummings.”
“They think
Turner shook his head. “I gather old Ron’s happy he’s still got the cases. They still haven’t found the witness who was shot, I heard.”
“I doubt they will,” his superior said. “He’s either made it to his own people or the Shadows have caught up with him.”
“In which case, bits of him will already be setting in concrete.”
She nodded. “What about Dave Cummings? The last time I looked, you were heading up that case.”
The inspector’s cheeks reddened. “I still am, guv. We found an old woman who thought she heard a motorbike making a racket. A powerful machine, she reckoned.”
“What time?”
“She isn’t sure. Mid to late morning, so within the pathologist’s parameters for the time of death.”
“Sara might have a bike. Though I remember Matt telling me not long ago that his friend Andrew Jackson has got a new one.”
Turner frowned as he took that in, then made a note. “I’ve got Morry Simmons and a team of uniforms checking CCTV and traffic-camera footage in the area. Maybe we can get an identification.”
“What, through her helmet? She’ll probably have dumped the bike by now.” Karen Oaten shook her head and looked away.
After a long silence, the inspector tried to bring her back. “What is it, guv?” he asked gently.
The words made his superior glance back. “Oh, not a lot,” she said ironically. “Matt’s keeping things from me. And I’ve just decided to bring him in.”
The Welshman nodded. “Good idea. If we have him, maybe Sara will do something stupid.”
“Or maybe she’ll just kill people at random till we let him go again.” The chief inspector got up. “I’m going to talk to the AC, then find Matt.” As she walked past the counter, she raised her hand at Dino. He responded with a bitter smile.
John Turner stirred another spoonful of sugar into his tea. He was trying to make up his mind about who he’d rather not be-the AC or Matt Wells. Not that he cared. In his opinion, both needed a long and loud reading of the riot act.
“Hello, Safet,” I said from a public phone in Piccadilly. I’d checked that no one had followed me from the sex club.
“Who’s this?”
The Albanian had an American accent. I remembered he’d spent five years running his clan’s operation in Baltimore.
“Matt Wells,” I said, deepening my voice for effect. I needn’t have bothered. He hung up.
I called the number again. “Don’t do that, Safet. This is the Matt Wells who writes a crime column in the
There was silence, and then the gang boss spoke again. “What do you want?” I made out the sound of a keyboard in rapid use. “You have an eleven-year-old daughter named Lucy, living at 32 Oxborne Gardens, Wimbledon. And a mother, Frances Wells, address-”
“All right,” I said, my palms damp. “You’ve made your point.”
“Would you care to make yours?”
There was a hard edge beneath the veneer of politeness. Although I hadn’t met the Albanian, I’d heard stories about his urbanity-he collected seventeenth-century Dutch art and owned a chain of hypertrendy restaurants. He was also said to attend the executions of rival villains and to participate in the torture that preceded them.
The only way to get anywhere with professionals like Safet Shkrelli was to go on the offensive. They respected that, though they’d still happily slit your throat at the first opportunity. “I just came from your place in Lexington Street,” I said.
“Ah, that was you,” he said. “Mustafa wants to kill you.”
“Mustafa being the slob who took a dive?”
“Correct. Holding a gun on a woman isn’t very brave, Matt Wells. Is there any reason why I shouldn’t tell Mustafa where your daughter lives?”
Even though Lucy and Fran were hidden away with Caroline, the threat still made my hands shake. Then I thought of Dave as I’d last seen him. That stiffened my spine.
“Try this one, Safet. Your girlfriend Katya could be the target of a seriously dangerous killer.”
The Albanian gave a dry laugh. “My girlfriend? I am happily married, Matt Wells. And who is this killer?”
I laughed back. “You remember the White Devil?”
There was a pause. “He is dead.”
“But his sister isn’t.”
“Why would this woman want to kill my…want to kill a girl called Katya who maybe works for me? I noticed that you used the words ‘could be.’”
I had to take a calculated risk. “I haven’t the faintest idea why Katya could be the target. Perhaps because I spoke to her when I was writing those columns about the Albanian crime wave.”
“You spoke to her? And she answered your questions?”
