‘Sometimes it’s just joining the dots,’ says Pharaoh, as they begin walking up Freeman Street, pressed close enough together to be mistaken for a mismatched couple. ‘Sometimes you just get lucky. Sometimes, it really is that bloody easy.’
The woman at the haulage company remembered the booking. It had been made by a man she knew well. Used to drive the cherry-picker that loaded the containers onto the cargo ships at Southampton docks. Lost his arm when a stack toppled over in high winds and crushed him under enough cargo to kill most people. Had moved up north, last she heard. Was nice to hear from him again. Apparently, he was working as a stevedore up on the Humber somewhere. They’d been asked for a reference and been happy to oblige, and he sounded pretty well when he said his hellos and booked passage for the container which, bizarrely, he had insisted be stowed towards the bottom of the stack. She put it down to a peculiarity caused by his accident. Perhaps she’d misheard what he’d said. It was sometimes difficult, due to the thick Russian accent …
Pharaoh nods at the open front doors of a dark-painted, old-fashioned bar that takes up the space of three shops in a small arcade that faces onto the main street.
A bouncer, mug of tea in his hand and earpiece trailing down a thick bullish neck, lounges against the brick front wall. He glances at Pharaoh’s breasts, impressively visible despite her leather jacket, and then gives McAvoy his attention. He appears to straighten slightly, as if suddenly realising that, for the first time in a long time, he is looking at a bigger man.
‘Evening,’ he says. ‘Last orders in fifteen minutes so you better sup quick.’
Pharaoh reaches into her cleavage and pulls out her warrant card.
‘Oh fuck,’ says the bouncer with a sigh.
‘It’s nothing heavy,’ she says, putting her hand on his arm. ‘I need to talk to somebody who drinks in here. And I think you would like to help me. A big chap like you has “protector” written all over him. And I know you want to spare me the bother of walking the streets on a night like this.’
The bouncer gives a scowl, but it’s a token gesture. He still seems keen to be in Pharaoh’s good graces.
‘Who?’
‘Russian chap,’ she says, moving close enough to him that McAvoy has no doubt his nostrils are filled with her scent, and the warmth from her body will be permeating his jacket and resolve. ‘One arm.’
The bouncer raises his eyes. ‘Zorro, you mean?’
‘Eh?’
‘He went on a fishing trip with some of the lads,’ he says, by way of explanation. ‘When he was casting a line the wind caught his rod. It was like he was carving a load of letter Zs in the air. Like Zorro. Y’know?’
‘So? Where might I find him on a cold winter evening on Freeman Street?’
‘He was in earlier,’ says the bouncer with a shrug. ‘Left around eightish with a couple of the lads. Heading into Top Town, I think.’
‘And where would you suggest I start looking?’
The bouncer eyes her again. Weighs up his options, and decides he’s not doing his acquaintance that much of a disservice by exchanging a small piece of information for the affections of this nicely rounded and very sexy older woman.
‘Lives over the tanning salon down by Riby Square,’ he says, nodding in the direction from which the police officers have just come. ‘Won’t be back until late, I wouldn’t have thought.’
‘And if I wanted him now?’
The bouncer smiles and Pharaoh holds his gaze.
‘I could phone him for you.’
Pharaoh smiles, reaches up and gives him a kiss on the cheek, as though he is a good boy who has just done a really lifelike drawing of a dog. He gives a grin in return that is more childlike than lustful, and appears to correct himself by giving a leer.
‘People can be so friendly,’ she says to McAvoy, and then threads her arm through his. ‘Come on. You can buy me a drink.’
Pharaoh is almost at the bottom of her second round of vodka and Diet Cokes.
They are sitting at a round, mahogany-coloured table. To McAvoy, the pub is grotesque; a pastiche of better. A broken mirror gleams grubbily from behind a long dog-leg of a bar stocked with own-label spirits and cheap beer.
‘You take me to the most glamorous places,’ says Pharaoh, draining her glass. Then adds: ‘We’re on.’
McAvoy looks up and sees the bouncer pointing them out to a tall, wiry man with flat, clearly Eastern European features and an empty sleeve in his leather jacket. He approaches, looking less than delighted.
‘Algirdas?’ asks Pharaoh. ‘Lads call you “Zorro”?’
‘Yes,’ he says, and turns his attention to McAvoy. ‘I see you before?’
McAvoy nods. ‘After the business over the road. You came to talk to me.’
The Russian narrows his eyes as if trying to remember.
‘You the copper my friends hurt?’ he throws back his head and gives a bark of laughter. ‘They fuck up, yes?’
‘Yes,’ says McAvoy.
‘Was terrible,’ says Algirdas, shaking his head. ‘I know Angie. Nice lady. Lonely lady, I think. Was my friend.’
‘She’s not dead,’ says McAvoy, before Pharaoh can speak.
‘No, no. Not the same though, eh?’
They consider this for a moment. Wonder what sort of person will emerge from the hospital. How many years Angie will live in fear of another man finishing the job, before the booze and cigarettes pitch her into blessed release.
Pharaoh takes over. She fixes him with soft eyes and taps the back of his hand as it sits, blotchy, pale, and inked with something indecipherable across the fingers and knobbly knuckles.
‘I hope you appreciate us coming over like this,’ she says, smiling. ‘We had a lot of things we could be doing tonight, but when my sergeant here told me about you, I dropped them all in an instant.’
Algirdas closes one eye, as if trying to focus better, then swings his head in McAvoy’s direction.
‘Chandler?’ he asks, and withdraws his hand from the table to start kneading at the place beneath his jacket where his arm ends in a stump.
Pharaoh nods. McAvoy sits motionless.
‘You know him?’
Algirdas looks around again, and Pharaoh marches to the bar. She has a swift discussion with the barman — leaving him in no uncertain terms that the last orders bell has not yet rung — and returns with a pint of bitter and a double vodka for the Russian, another pint for McAvoy, and a packet of pork scratchings for herself.
She tears open the bag and starts shovelling the snacks in her mouth, never taking her eyes off Algirdas as he takes the top off his pint. He downs the vodka in one, then presses his sleeve to his mouth and breathes in through it.
Pharaoh gives McAvoy a sly look, as if asking what he’s doing.
‘It accentuates the hit,’ says McAvoy. ‘Russian thing.’
‘Fuck you,’ says Algirdas, conversationally. ‘I’m Lithuanian.’
‘Fuck you, sunshine. I’m a policeman.’
They sit quietly for a moment, eyes fixed on one another.
‘Are you aware that Russ Chandler has been questioned in connection with two murders?’ asks Pharaoh over the noise of the barman chucking empty bottles into a plastic bin. ‘Probably charged by now.’
Algirdas sits back in his chair as if he’s been pushed in the chest. He’s bolt upright, suddenly, hand squeezing at his stump in a manner that looks almost invasively painful.
‘Murder? Who murder?’
‘A young girl called Daphne Cotton,’ says McAvoy quietly. ‘And a man called Trevor Jefferson. Those names mean anything to you?’
Algirdas takes a large pull of his pint. Taps his pockets and withdraws a pouch of tobacco and papers. Skilfully, with his one hand, he begins rolling a succession of cigarettes. He places one in his mouth.
‘No smoking indoors these days,’ says McAvoy, and, with a suddenness that surprises himself, reaches across
