Times with a fat stogie clamped between his teeth. The room stank of stale cigar smoke. He didn’t glance up as the door creaked open.
‘Can’t you fuckin’ knock, Terry?’
‘No wonder they call you Cheap Eddie,’ Alex said as she walked in and shut the door behind her. ‘That thing smells like shit. Or is it you?’
A brindled pit bull stalked out from behind the fat man’s armchair, locked eyes on Alex and drew its lips back in a snarl. Alex calmly turned to meet its gaze, and it whimpered and drew away with its tail curled up tight between its legs.
Cheap Eddie stared at the cowering animal, then up at Alex. He plucked the cigar out of his mouth. ‘What’ve you done to my dog?’
‘Nothing yet.’
His bloodshot eyes bulged. ‘Who the fuck are you?’
‘Someone who’ll go easy on you if I get the information I want.’
He scowled, then his stubbly face creased up into a laugh. ‘Oh yeah? And what information would that be, flowerpot?’
‘Like where I can find Four-Finger Paulie Lomax and his mate Vinnie.’
Eddie took a big puff of his cigar and blew a cloud of smoke at her. ‘Never heard of them.’
Alex didn’t blink at the billow of foul smoke around her face. ‘I don’t have time for smart guys, Eddie.’
‘I’m not sure I like your tone, sweetheart.’
‘Better get used to it,’ she said. She slipped the.44 out of its holster, took a step towards him. Grabbed him by the throat, yanked him towards her and stuffed the gun muzzle hard under his cheekbone. ‘I really hate repeating myself, Eddie.’
He struggled against her grip. Close on thirty stone of muscle and lard, lifted half out of his armchair, one- handed, by a woman a fraction his size, and he couldn’t budge her an inch. Beads of sweat formed on his brow.
‘Okay, okay. They was here a few nights ago. Haven’t seen ‘em since.’
‘See how well we’re getting on now? Who were they with?’
‘Bunch of foreigners. They were talking in the corner.’
‘That’s it?’
‘That’s all I remember.’
‘Sure?’ She cocked the gun.
Eddie went a shade paler. ‘Wait. Hold on. Later on, after closing time, I was stacking crates in the alley when I saw Paulie hanging about with this big black geezer and this woman.’
‘Good-looking woman with black hair?’
Eddie nodded. ‘Real corker. Looked like she stepped out of a lads’ mag.’
Alex thought hard. So Rudi Bertolino hadn’t betrayed her. He’d been used to feed her information that would lead her into a trap. But how had Stone’s people known he was her informant?
‘Where does Paulie live?’ she asked Cheap Eddie.
‘Harlesden somewhere.’
‘You’ll have to do better than that, Eddie.’
‘I don’t have the address, honest.’ He gulped. Sweat poured off his nose and through the white bristles over his upper lip. ‘But I can get it.’
Alex let him go, and he slumped back into his armchair, breathing hard. She holstered the revolver and grabbed his wrist and a ballpoint pen from his desk.
‘You call me on this number,’ she said as she wrote it across the back of his chubby hand. ‘I’d better hear from you, Eddie. And I’d better not find out you talked to anyone about our chat. Either way, I’ll be back here to finish it.’
Chapter Forty-Three
Thames Valley Police Headquarters, Kidlington
1.49 p.m.
‘I’ve just got off the phone,’ Chief Superintendent Page said as Joel was marched into his office by two officers in uniform. ‘You want to know who with?’
Joel said nothing. Sam Carter stepped into the room after him and hung about uncomfortably in the background.
Page glared at Joel from across the broad desk. He was a heavyset man in his late fifties, with a downturned mouth like a razor slash. When he was pissed off, which was most of the time, the rash of broken veins across his cheeks glowed scarlet. At this moment they were the wrong side of beetroot.
‘Do you know whose employee you beat up? Do you have any idea the kind of friends Gabriel Stone has?’
‘I didn’t beat anyone up,’ Joel muttered resignedly. ‘But I have the feeling you’re going to tell me anyway.’
‘Jeremy Lonsdale. Name familiar?’
‘Let me think,’ Joel said. He could feel Carter’s gaze on his back, silently pleading with him to watch his mouth.
‘Probably our next Prime Minister. You certainly pick them, Inspector.’ Page shook his head in disbelief, and his jowls wobbled. ‘What’s wrong with you?’
‘Nothing.’
‘What’s wrong with you?’ Page repeated more loudly. ‘Destruction of valuable antique property. Accusations more bizarre and ridiculous than anything I’ve heard in nearly forty years in the force. Letting some dopehead kid fill your brain with nonsense.
Secret passages. Underground crypts. And then beating up an innocent member of the public. Did you know Seymour Finch has a terminal medical condition?’
He punches pretty well for a dying man, Joel wanted to say. But that might have been pushing his luck.
‘And that’s not all,’ Page went on, warming to his anger. ‘I had a talk with a solicitor this morning. A certain Jonathan Hawthorne. Ring any bells? Apparently you were round at his home yesterday afternoon, harassing his family and upsetting a sick girl. Tell me this isn’t true.’
‘I wouldn’t call it harassment.’
‘So you’re not denying this?’
‘Something’s going on, sir.’
‘Damn right something’s going on. In your head. Meanwhile, we’ve got a suspected serial killer going around our county. And this is what I have to deal with?
One of my best officers going into a complete fucking meltdown.’ Page’s voice had risen to a shout, and he was out of his chair with his fists on the desk. His whole body seemed to be quivering with rage. ‘You’re suspended, Solomon.’
‘What?’
At the back of the room, Carter rolled his eyes. ‘Told you so,’ his expression said.
‘Six months. That’s it. No questions. And consider yourself bloody fortunate that you’re dealing with reasonable men. Jeremy Lonsdale has told me that neither Mr Finch nor Mr Stone will be pressing charges. If something like this got into the press…’ Page puffed out his cheeks. The veins were alarmingly inflamed. ‘Doesn’t bear thinking about.’ He pointed a stubby finger in Joel’s face. ‘But I’m warning you. I know you. I know you’re a determined bastard when you want to be. Go anywhere near the Stone estate — I’m talking within a mile of it — or anywhere near him or any of his employees…’ He made a face. ‘You even think about them, and I’ll have your bloody head on a plate. Tell me that’s as clear as I could possibly make myself.’
