‘ Will you kill Corelli for me?’ he whispered.
She didn’t even have to think. ‘Yes, I will,’ she gasped.
Kovaks couldn’t suppress a grin of triumph. Laura had lived in this motel room since her discharge from hospital and Kovaks, at his own risk and expense, had nurtured her, clothed her, fed her, provided drugs for her and now she was completely reliant on him. He was her world. She loved him. He was her provider. And he didn’t beat up on her, abuse her or want to fuck her ass.
She didn’t know that he really did want to fuck her. But fuck her good and proper.
Kovaks reached into his pocket. He handed her a brown bottle which contained a bright green liquid, rather like Creme de Menthe. It was methadone, heroin substitute. Twice her daily requirement, provided by a ‘doctor’ Kovaks knew who owed him a favour.
She unscrewed the cap and swigged the contents in one, wiped her mouth and smiled at him as warmth spread into her stomach and from there into her bloodstream.
‘ What about my baby?’ she asked.
‘ I’m negotiating. It looks good.’ It was a lie.
‘ Joe, I love you,’ she said dreamily. She put her arms around his neck and sank her bony frame onto his knees, curling up like a child.
‘ I want you to kill Corelli,’ he whispered in her ear.
‘ I will,’ she said. ‘Give me a gun. I’ll do it.’
‘ You’re a good girl.’ Kovaks sighed. Suddenly a surge of guilt whipped through him, but then it was gone. It was the only way, he assured himself. The only way.
Damian lay under the bed for twenty minutes before he dared to move. He was not a brave man. He’d heard the outer door of the apartment open and close but hadn’t had the courage to emerge just in case it was a ploy.
He tried to stand up but his legs were so weak and shaky that they wouldn’t bear even his meagre weight. So, on all fours, stark naked, he crawled slowly towards the door.
He was terrified of what he would see. The reality was far worse than anything he could have imagined.
The living room was swathed in blood. Slashes of it swept across the ceiling and right down the walls, like some sort of modern art form. The couch was drenched in it.
Damian gagged. Using the doorknob for support he levered himself to his feet and stood there wobbling unsteadily.
Then he saw her.
Sue lay on the couch, legs and arms splayed wide. Her throat was cut and the rest of her had been literally ripped apart. Her intestines had been dragged out and some organ or other was hanging, shimmering on the edge of the couch like it was still alive, ready to slither off.
Damian sagged back to his knees, then scuttled on all fours back into the bedroom and into the en-suite bathroom, where he managed to get his head over the toilet before being horrendously sick.
He got dressed quickly.
At the bedroom door he composed himself for his re-entrance into the living room. He placed his hands around his eyes, like he was a kid pretending to make a diving mask, to give himself tunnel vision. Then he ran across the blood-soaked carpet, down the short hallway and out through the front door of the apartment.
Kovaks was back at his desk by 11p.m., having left Laura in a state of drug-induced euphoria. At midnight he took a call. He grabbed his jacket immediately and within half an hour was at the front door of Sue’s apartment block.
The senior detective at the scene was Lieutenant Ram Chander, from Homicide. He was one of the few Asian-Indians on the force, a very good detective, completely ruthless and hard to offenders yet with a genuine compassionate streak where victims and their families were concerned.
Kovaks had worked with him occasionally, but they didn’t have any particular bond. He was surprised when Chander came down in person to greet him. They shook hands.
‘ She was once your partner, Mr Joe?’ Chander said. He spoke with an American accent but with the odd inflection which betrayed his Kashmiri roots as well as the Indian habit of referring to people by their first names but with the preface of Mr or Mrs as appropriate.
‘ She was,’ Kovaks confirmed.
‘ Was she a good friend?’
‘ Yes.’
‘ Then I must ask you to prepare yourself for an upsetting sight,’ Chander warned Kovaks. ‘Would you like me to describe it for you first, or do you just want to go and see?’
‘ I’ll go and see,’ said Kovaks impatiently. ‘I’ve come across some bad things in my time.’
‘ Well, Mr Joe, this’ll be one of the worst,’ sighed Chander.
Ram Chander was right.
It took Kovaks a good while to recover. Yes, he had seen worse, but when it was someone you knew lying there, cut open like a carcass at a butcher’s, it was different.
He was on the landing outside the apartment, talking to Chander. Inside was a bustle of activity. Cameras flashed, videos ran, the ME directed operations and the forensic people got to work.
Chander was telling Kovaks everything he knew.
‘ The call came in just after nine,’ Chander said, referring to his notes. ‘One of the neighbours walked past and saw that the front door was open. Thought it was suspicious, that maybe the place had been burglarised. The only time you leave your door open here is to let yourself in or out. Anyway, very brave of him, he went to have a look and found her. We arrived shortly after.’
‘ Any leads?’
‘ Most certainly,’ said Chander. ‘The boyfriend is the prime suspect.’
‘ Who — Damian?’
Chander shook his head, which actually meant yes. Just occasionally, when he got excited, he reverted to this Indian way of saying yes. Fortunately Kovaks understood the-body language.
‘ He was seen by a neighbour leaving hurriedly.’
‘ I can’t believe that,’ said Kovaks. ‘Damian wouldn’t hurt a fly. He’s not big enough to kill her.’
‘ I have a detective down at your place making enquiries. Seems he was on leave and should have been at his mother’s over in Clearwater until Sunday. Mother was contacted and said he’d left early. Looks like he wanted to surprise the victim.’
‘ Come on — what would be his motive?’
‘ Until we get him, we can’t establish that. Maybe she was seeing someone else. Maybe she’d dumped him. Jealousy? Anger?’ Chander shook his head sadly. ‘It would not surprise me, Mr Joe.’
‘ Well, it would astound me, Ram. Keep me informed, will ya?’
‘ Surely — so long as you keep me informed too. The parties involved may be Federal staff, but the murder is still our jurisdiction…’
‘ No need to remind me.’
They shook hands.
The Coroner’s men were just emerging from the apartment with the very heavy body bag. Kovaks dashed past them. He didn’t want to see her being carried away.
At six o’clock, British time, on Saturday morning, six men, all hard, tough and uncompromising assembled in a yard behind a scrap-metal dealer in North London. There were three cars for them, two Jaguars and a Mercedes. They were good cars, but a few years old and unremarkable, except for the fact that they were the most powerful models in the range and they were scrupulously clean — from a criminal point of view.
The men paired off and chose a car.
Each of the cars had had some internal bodywork carried out. A special compartment had been skilfully fitted underneath the rear seats, which ran the full width of the vehicle, which was about ten inches deep and ten inches
