deceased doggy pathologist it was fired from a Smith & Wesson 1076. Got a lovely clear print on it, too – Les Lathwell’s. You know, the East End gangster? The one they called the Krays’ heir apparent?’
‘To be honest,’ I said, ‘I’m a little hazy on social history. I know the name, but—’
‘Kind of an entrepreneur in the violence and intimidation line. He went to America to learn from the greats: came home and built his own little mafia on the Mile End Road. You should read about this stuff: it’s inspirational. Anyway, I went online and did some rooting around – that’s why I hacked the Police National Computer – and the print checks out A1 at Lloyds. I’m no expert, but I think the ballistics do, too. And that’s where things get interesting.’
‘Oh? Why’s that?’
‘Lathwell died in 1979. The 10mm round didn’t even get introduced until 1983 – in a Swedish hand-pistol that kicked like an unlimbered cannon and broke people’s arms if they weren’t expecting it. It didn’t get popular – and I use that word in heavy quotes – until the FBI picked it up in 1988. In other words, Lathwell couldn’t have fired that round, or loaded it into a gun, because he died before the gun ever came off the assembly line. So there’s your Rod Serling moment. Enjoy.’
Nicky indulged in another deep snort of the wine breath, drawing it out for maximum dramatic impact. He got the timing just about right, because I was struggling to fit that spiky fact into what I already knew – which was only possible at all because I knew jack shit. Looked at from one angle, though, it made a queasy kind of sense.
‘You think Lathwell rose in the flesh, then?’ Juliet asked, voicing my thoughts. ‘As a zombie?’
Nicky put his glass down, basking in our undivided attention. ‘Could be. Or maybe someone just flayed his fingertips and wore them for a joke. There are a couple of other titbits like that in the notes on the disc. Anachronisms, I mean. My favourite is a letter from Tony Lambrianou to his brother Chris. You know the hearse that carried Lambrianou’s body had a message from Chris, in the middle of a wreath the size of Canary Wharf? It said “See you on the other side.” Well, this letter is dated about six months later, and it’s exactly three words long: “I made it.” Sick joke or mystical revelation? You decide.’
He leaned forward, suddenly more animated. ‘Okay, that’s what’s on the disc, so that’s what your dead pal Chesney told your dead pal Johnny G. But I’ll give you something else for free, and this is part of the Nicky Heath service. You get this because I’m obsessive and because I’m dead: in other words, because I’m a stubborn bastard who doesn’t ever need to sleep if he’s got something on his mind. Look at this – and look at this.’
I was expecting him to give me some more of the little evidence bags, but instead he held out two badly photostatted fingerprint charts – copies of copies of copies. I scanned them as carefully as I could, trying to compare them through the smudges and smears.
Juliet looked over my shoulder: her pattern-recognition skills were evidently a lot faster than mine. ‘They’re the same,’ she said. ‘Or almost the same. The differences are very few, and very small. Is that the point?’
‘Yeah, that’s the point. You want the punchline? The one on the right is Les Lathwell again. The one on the left, which is different by about three ridges and one friction artefact, is Aaron Silver, who was the great-grandad of all East End psychopaths. There’s about eighty years between them, and they’re meant to be two different guys. Only they’re not. They’re the same guy twice.’
I gave a long, low whistle. Nicky was right: this was a smoking pistol in anyone’s book – in fact, it was a whole roomful of smoking machine rifles. Something that John had said when I met him in that bad dream came back into my mind.
‘They’re coming back,’ I summarised. ‘All the East End bad boys. All the biggest bastards.’
‘But
The silence after she finished speaking was somewhat tense. She looked at Nicky and saw him staring at her, grimly deadpan. ‘I’m sorry if that was tactless,’ she added. ‘I’m talking in general terms.’
‘Sure,’ said Nicky tightly. ‘I appreciate that. Present company excepted, right?’
Juliet raised an exquisite eyebrow. ‘No, obviously you’re subject to the same—’
‘Shut the fuck up. Please.’ Nicky’s voice was an intense snarl: he’d drawn in a large breath just beforehand for exactly that purpose. ‘I’m giving you information here, not asking for a prognosis. You just – don’t talk, okay. Don’t talk about things you know fuck-all about.’
The tough-guy tone rang hollow. The two subjects with which Juliet was intimately familiar were sex and death: their declensions, and conjugations, and the inflexible metaphysics that governed them. Tactfully, though, she made no reply.
I tried to pull the conversation back onto less controversial topics. ‘They’ve still got their own fingerprints,’ I said, answering Juliet’s question. ‘So somehow it’s got to be their own flesh. If Les Lathwell was Aaron Silver, that means he was born well before the end of the nineteenth century. Died—’
‘1908,’ Nicky supplied, sullenly.
‘1908. So if he was still leaving fingerprints in the 1960s and 1970s, his body would have to have been spectacularly well embalmed.’
Juliet shook her head. ‘It doesn’t work in any case,’ she pointed out. ‘This other man – Les Lathwell – he had friends? Family?’
‘Two brothers, both dead,’ said Nicky. ‘A sister, who’s still alive.’
‘And there’s documentary evidence of his growing up?’
Nicky nodded slowly, seeing where she was going. ‘Sure. Lots of it. School photos. Home movies. All that kind of shit.’
‘Then how – and when – did Aaron Silver insinuate himself into Lathwell’s place?’
It was a more than reasonable question. Something was niggling at me – something that felt as though it might be part of the answer – but I couldn’t tease it out into the light.
‘Not plastic surgery,’ Nicky said. ‘They could do it now – fingerprints and all – but in the 1960s the technology wasn’t that advanced. Except on
‘Flesh is plastic enough in any case,’ Juliet said, and I almost had it.
But then Nicky spoke again and I lost whatever connection my subconscious was trying to make. ‘I haven’t managed to find any Myriam Kale memorabilia,’ he said. ‘Turns out East End gangsters are easy compared to sexy American assassins-for-hire. A few things came up, but they all smelled like scams. I’m still looking. But since you’re going to where she lived, maybe you’ll pick something up along the way. In which case, throw it to me when you’re through with it and I’ll find it a new home.’
So Chesney’s Kale piece had come from some other source. I decided not to mention that: Nicky was touchy enough already without being told that someone else had outscored him. ‘I’ll do that, Nicky,’ I said blandly. ‘In the meantime, could you check something else out for me?’
‘Well, I’m always at your disposal since, obviously, I don’t have a fucking life,’ Nicky observed dryly, flicking a cold glance at Juliet.
‘Can you find out where all these guys are buried?’
‘Yeah, sure. That’s easy. Why, you want to put some flowers on their graves?’
‘I want to find out if there’s any connection here to John Gittings’s list of London cemeteries. If there’s a pattern – if they all ended up in the same place—’
‘Yeah, I get it, Castor. The thing about the flowers? Joke. Is your mobile tri-band?’
‘I don’t have the faintest idea. But the battery’s flat in any case.’
‘Fine.’ Nicky gave it up, getting to his feet and shoving the untouched wine away with a disgruntled air. ‘So you get yourself a stack of dimes and call me. I know you don’t travel much so I probably ought to make it clear that dimes are what Americans use for currency. Have a nice flight, the both of you. I’ll see you when I see you.’ He was about to walk away, but then turned and held out his hand, palm up. I almost shook it, misinterpreting the
