“Henry comes by the office every day. I find out all the latest gossip from him. Like how Kurt’s boyfriend went to Melodi for a business loan. It was silly. Fernando wanted to open a bicycle shop, and when the banks declined him, he went straight to Melodi. She gave him money, the shop lasted a year, and he couldn’t pay her back.”
And there she was again: Melodi Demirci. “What happened? We’re looking to speak with Fernando, but we can’t find him.”
“He ran away, afraid for his life. He knows what Melodi’s cousins are like. If you have not heard of them before, they’re total psychopaths. They like to torture their victims in the cellar of the casino. Anyone caught stealing is punished down in that dank place. I do not know if this is true, but her cousins are her muscle. I heard a rumour that they shot and killed Melodi’s dad, their uncle, at her request.”
“Don’t go believing everything you hear, Ilya. These stories have a way of becoming legend, and someone like Melodi Demirci will lap it up, play up to it even. I doubt there’s a shred of proof in it.”
“But you still think she hired someone to shoot Colin, or Brandy. That woman’s capable of anything. Excuse me, but if I didn’t respect Henry’s carpets so much, I would spit on them. Spit on Melodi. She’s behind this, I know it.”
So, there was no love lost between Ilya and Melodi Demirci. Hayes spent a further fifteen minutes questioning the personal assistant. She and Miller had so much to do, so many leads to follow up. The first thing she wanted to do was pop by Fernando Linares and Kurt Austin’s apartment.
With how involved Demirci was in this investigation, Hayes doubted Gillan would put up a fuss about bringing her in. No doubt the casino owner would have a high-end lawyer, who would advise her not to talk. She and Miller needed to make her want to talk, to want to blab. It wasn’t unheard of, especially on criminals with egos.
26
Luke Walker paid for his pint of Fuller’s London Pride and leaned against the bar. The Round House, on Garrick Street was busy enough with daytime drinkers. Walker rarely got a chance to drink during the day with his job, but he enjoyed being able to on the odd occasion.
Half an hour earlier, he received a call from Zuccari, asking him if he would meet him for a beer, that he had something he needed to talk to him about. Reluctantly, Walker agreed, on the proviso that it was only for one beer. He had a date with Rachel.
Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, Walker placed his pint on the bar. “In your own time, mate. Are we having a chat, or are you going to keep playing that twat machine?” He had no idea why people played fruities. They were designed for players to lose. Even when players won jackpots, they lost, because they ploughed their winnings straight back in. That was where the addiction came in. “Let’s find a table, or something, yeah?”
“I’ll be with you in a sec, mate.” Zuccari continued pressing buttons.
Spotting a free table at the side of the pub next to a blackboard, Walker picked up his pint and meandered through the bar. One girl caught his eye. She smiled, he smiled. It didn’t matter; she wasn’t a patch on Rachel. “I’ll be over here, when you’ve wasted all your money.” He was going to add, “mug” but refrained.
He’d known Zuccari for a couple of years. Walker wanted to like him, wanted to be a good friend to him. There was only one problem: Zuccari. Since his girlfriend left him a few months earlier, his colleague started unravelling. Walker had stopped Zuccari getting into two fights in pubs just like this one.
It was hard watching someone self-destruct. Zuccari had everything going for him at one time. Since the girlfriend left him with a mortgage to cover by himself, though, Zuccari seemed to have given up on life. He started smoking, both cigarettes and weed, not that he objected to the latter, it might calm his mate down.
His friend was sleeping around as well. Alcohol and pubs, chatting to people, girls, invariably led to sleeping with women. Zuccari took it to extremes, though. In January he slept with two women, who turned out to be prostitutes, unbeknownst to his friend. Zuccari threw them out of his flat, so they called in their pimp.
Zuccari ended up putting the heavily set pimp in the hospital, breaking the guy’s arm, and cracking two ribs. He was arrested, but luckily the powers that be, the top brass, took it easy on him and put him on probation. The pimp was a notorious thug and hustler, so no big deal putting him in a hospital bed.
Fifteen minutes Walker spent nursing his pint, sat by himself at the table. The brunette at the bar kept checking him out. “You coming, or shall I go home, mate?”
“Keep your knickers on, bitch. I’m coming.”
When Zuccari finally tore himself away from the fruit machine, Walker saw how awful he looked. Dishevelled, unshaven. “What the fuck happened to you? Did you get kicked out of bed and come straight to the pub? You look like shit, and smell like it.” He grimaced at the sweat patches under Zuccari’s arms.
“I need to talk to you.” Zuccari wouldn’t look at him.
“Yeah? So talk! I’ve been here quarter of an hour already. I’m supposed to be at Rachel’s flat cooking her dinner.” He probably shouldn’t have said anything.
“Not here, somewhere quieter,” Zuccari whispered. “Please?”
What’s he done now? It was becoming a regular thought. “Come on, then.” He said it in almost a huff. “Let’s go outside and talk. You know you’re a liability, don’t you!”
“You don’t know the half of it.” His friend followed him outside.
Out on Garrick Street, Covent Garden, Walker
