The long knives, p.9
The Long Knives, page 9
— The perp is likely to have been a male victim of sexual abuse, Hollis suddenly contends, — probably as a kid. He’s stronger now.
Lennox thinks about this, falling into silence.
That tunnel. My ongoing obsession with it; as if hanging around there would bring them back, those three men, now rendered shadowy in my consciousness. I see myself in there, fists clenched, shouting like a maniac:
C’MOAN THEN, YA CUNTS.
He is jarred out of his thoughts by Hollis’s voice. It’s still harsh, but now there’s a fetching melody underscoring it. — Nice dance, mate?
— What? Sorry, I … Lennox is startled. — What do you mean?
— With your demons. We all got em. Hollis shrugs in a sombre, gallows cheer. — It’s why we’re here, innit.
Lennox pulls a tight smile. It’s pointless to argue. He wonders what malign spirits Hollis has to battle with. Already knows they will be extremely bad bastards.
— But don’t worry; I ain’t gonna tell you mine and I don’t wanna know yours. Hollis’s harsh laugh morphs into grim seriousness. — We gotta thank them though, Ray. That’s our engine. That’s wot’s saved us.
Lennox feels his eyebrows rise north. — Saved us? Really? He can’t keep the incredulity out of his voice. — From what?
Hollis looks around the crowded bar, his gaze falling contemptuously over its chatting occupants. — From boredom, mate. From being salaried, uniformed vegetables.
— One way of looking at it.
— We’re dammed, Ray, the likes of you and me, Hollis advances, seeming buoyed by the notion. — What we get ta do is take as many bad cahnts down with us as possible, and he shakes his empty glass. — Now get em in, you tight Jock cahnt!
— Your words are truly inspirational, Hollis. Lennox rises and winks. — See how quickly I get to that bar.
When he does arrive there, he feels buzzed by osmosis. Hollis’s company is like passive drug taking. He looks at the chunky figure, now laughing to himself in soft convulsions at his own exploding thoughts. This man draws from booze and cocaine the energy he needs to take on the world. A universe with too many Hollises would descend into chaos. One without any would be dead. Returning with the drinks, Lennox asks where Piggot-Wilkins is.
— Probably holed up in his Surrey mansion. Can’t get near the cunt. Saying zilch on record. Seems he don’t want to be known as the geezer who lost half of his wedding tackle. So, wanna check out the crime scene? Obviously it’s been long put to bed now. Never seen the cahnts tidy one up as quick.
As they glug back their pints, the lights in the bar go dim. This adjustment made by the barman mirrors the peppering dark of autumn London. The weight of the Stella in his guts and its fuddling of his head makes a heavy-limbed Lennox further regret not smashing that line. That was a fucking waste. They step outside and grab a black cab, Lennox considering that Hollis is so old school he just can’t see his new colleague travelling any other way.
They disembark at the Strand and the ornate entrance to the luxurious building where the bronze soldier stands above the iconic glinting green neon letters announcing the Savoy. Hollis explains they are meeting Colin Neville, one of the doormen. — Tasty welterweight back in the day. Had the best and worst possible ability in boxing: he could take a punch. Maybe not as sharp with the gob, but the ears and eyes work and nothing gets past Nev. I’m treating ya both ta the card at York Hall in Bethnal Green. You like the fight game, sahn? he asks. — Course ya do, he decides without waiting for a reply.
A stout, blue-coated doorman, white hair just visible under his top hat, greets them. — Tom, Hollis nods, and exchanges pleasantries. Then he asks, — Nev inside then, mate? The doorman’s response is affirmative and as they pass the reception area, Hollis asks Lennox, — Ere, whatcha reckon ta old Squeak?
— Don’t really know him well. Lennox takes in the lobby with its black-and-white granite chessboard flooring, beautiful ceilings and cornices, and wood-panelled walls decorated with classical art. — A few tech and forensic courses. He’s generally been a helpful contact.
— Watch the cunt. Hollis taps his nose. — They should be calling him Squeal, if ya get my drift.
Lennox nods, as a smiling, vacant-eyed man sitting in a big upholstered chair rises to greet them. — Alright, Marky!
— Nev … this is Ray. We’re all off to York Hall in a bit, mate. Sorted us aht.
— Nice one.
— Can you show us the gaff?
— Follow me.
Lennox can see that this amiable man is punch-drunk, having been the recipient of too many shots from hot prospects on the way up. Boxers often have to be protected from themselves: it’s evident Colin Neville wasn’t.
— Bad management, Hollis confirms in a whisper as Nev gets a set of keys from reception and hands them to him. He waits as Lennox and Hollis go up to the room via the lift. — Piggot-Wilkins came down in this one; starkers, holding his bollocks to him, blood everywhere. Of course, not a bit of farking footage from here, he points up at a camera, — or the lobby. No record it ever happened bar some eyewitnesses who were strong-armed into opening their phones and erasing their images by some special unit cahnts.
— Fuck sake, they started the cover-up quickly.
— It’s known they got a contingency unit to protect high rollers, Hollis says. — Up till then I hadn’t seen them in action. But we was pushed aside and made ta feel like farking cleaners. Hollis grinds his teeth as the lift stops and the doors fly open. — Thought the cahnts was gonna ask us to grab a farking mop and have a go at taking care of the farking claret all over the marble floor. They step out into the corridor, where Hollis points at another CCTV camera, waving his phone. — But we’ve got some shit from up here. I’ve called a couple of lads from our investigations team. They’re on their way.
Down the corridor they observe the painters’ plastic sheeting, still up, but no longer covering room 461. As they enter, feet sinking into the lush carpet, Lennox regards the four-poster bed, as he walks through to the large bathroom with more marble black-and-white chessboard tiles.
Hollis maintains the coke-fuelled running commentary. — I reckon your theory is bang on, Ray: two of them cunts. Piggot-Wilkins goes up to the suite, boner visible from space. She’s wearing a mask, like Venetian, all that Eyes Wide Shut shit. Cahnt’s probably ready to cream as soon as he walks in. Bird probably ain’t saying who this mate was wot sent her. Hooray Henry’s cool with that; reckons he’ll find out soon enough, toffs scratching each other’s backs for favours ain’t exactly unknown.
— So the perp, or perps, knew his MO and who booked him, and set this up.
Hollis nods in affirmation. — The bird keeps the mask on, giving it all that ‘let’s take a bath’ palaver, knowing that a germ-obsessed ponce will be all over that. The taps are already running and soapy bubbles are frothing away. The water’s hot and the blades already in there, concealed by the foam. Then he gets in and relaxes, and bingo …
— Sex-change territory … almost.
— Thing is, after he scarpers, holding his tackle to him, freaking out in reception, screaming for a driver to take him to Harley Street, not an ambulance and A&E, she ain’t far behind. Hollis is highly animated, his breathing laboured. — But, and check this out, if there was two of em, Hollis points to a slatted door, pulls it open to reveal a big walk-in cupboard with hung bathrobes and shelves full of towels, — the other one was hiding in here, I reckon, watching the action. Course, they wouldn’t let us dust it. Their private little force, at the taxpayer’s expense, took care of all that.
— What do you reckon to the cunt in here, Lennox swings the doors, — getting off on it, and/or there to offer assistance if it went wrong …?
— Yeah … but they ain’t the only ones who had assistance. As I say, our big noises cleaned up the crime scene sharpish, and the mug who is retrospectively designated investigating officer, Hollis points to himself, — don’t even get ta sling a decent butcher’s. Ever get the feeling you’re being set up to fail?
Lennox nods grimly at him.
Hollis looks at the suite front door opening. — Ah … here’s my boys … Lennox glances up to see two men standing in the doorway. The one tapping on the door frame is a tall black man with shorn scalp, smartly suited and in his early thirties. The other is white, with a sandy mop of hair, and in his twenties, sporting a badly fitting jacket. — David, Soppy Bollocks. Hollis nods them in. — Thanks for coming along. Ray here has come down from Scotland to civilise us all, right, Ray?
— Far too big a job for one man. I’ll stick to pinching sex cases if it’s all the same with you.
Soppy Bollocks gives a light chuckle, but David remains impassive as he pulls out an iPad from a leather wallet and fires it up.
— Was just going to ask about the CCTV, Lennox says.
— This floor was being renovated, David responds in a clipped Oxbridge accent that causes Hollis’s face to fall in a crease. — They obviously knew that when they booked it, and he points to the screen. — Dust sheets cover the egress by the back staircase. This happened at 12.45. We have no footage from the lobby. It was switched off for legit maintenance.
— A perfect storm of maintenance in the lobby and renovation up here, Lennox says. — Way too much of a coincidence.
— We’ve been all over the maintenance company and the painting firm. Both legit. We’ve leaned on the management here, Hollis explains. — There’s nothing so far. This job had been planned for a while.
— Somebody knew the story, but anyone with access to the computer would be able to obtain the schedule of work without arousing overt suspicions. David hands Lennox a printed list of around two hundred names. — And a semi-decent hacker could sort it easily, he says slightly ruefully.
— Play it, Lennox requests.
— Is this really …? David asks, looking from Lennox to Hollis.
— Yeah. Carry on, sahn, Hollis barks.
The naked Piggot-Wilkins, eyes glazed through his gold-rimmed glasses, thrashes the plastic sheeting aside, dramatically splattering it with blood as he charges down the hallway. As the makeshift curtains spring back, a figure emerges behind him. But rather than follow Piggot-Wilkins through the curtain, they head towards a stair fire door. It’s a brief image, like that of someone in a shower, but Lennox can pick out a long black coat, blonde hair and a dark Venetian mask. Then, some thirty seconds later, a second blurred backlit silhouetted figure is following, heading towards the same fire exit. It’s impossible to discern much more than the shape, but Lennox can see that Hollis’s probable voyeur in the cupboard is bigger and bulkier than the masked woman.
David freezes the action and points to a section of the screen. — As you can see, the plastic sheet was taped to this section of the hallway … they step outside the room at his urging, — … it obscures the view of the two figures leaving the scene by the stairs, he points to the fire-escape steps, — … after Piggot-Wilkins leaves in a hurry …
Lennox considers the two figures. — These are both women? The second figure is bigger but they’re wearing billowing clothes, maybe a dress?
— Perhaps, David says.
Hollis nods to Lennox, and takes him aside. — I thought so too. But in this era, positive discrimination and all that bollocks, they ain’t particularly desperate to show that skirt can be as nutty as us. You think they’d be all for equality, he chortles, looking around. Soppy Bollocks laughs, both Lennox and David stay neutral.
— You never know, Lennox offers, — the times they are a-changin.
David and Soppy Bollocks look blankly at him.
— Anyway, let’s have a chat with Nev, in more informal surroundings, Hollis says, heaving out a sigh, then nods at the two men. — Thanks, chaps, as he and Lennox head to the lift.
— What’s the story there? Lennox asks.
— A high-flyer and his sidekick; corporate wankers, Ray. They didn’t like me sharing that shit with you. Wouldn’t put it past the cunts to grass me up. He bares his teeth. — That’s the kind of spunkers wot’s replacing the likes of us. And they’ll have a higher clean-up rate. Course by then … A ping of the lift arriving as the doors fly open and they step inside. — … everybody who’s been nonced up will be microchipped and we’ll just wait for them to commit a crime. Be like fish in a barrel.
As the lift descends, Lennox asks, — You think that every single nonced-up kid grows up to be a nonce themselves?
— We know most do. That’s how them viruses transmit, Ray. Chip them all and if they do no wrong, all to the good. Yeah, double punishment for a kid who has been abused to then be stigmatised on a potential short-eyes list, but civil liberties won’t be much of a thing in the near future.
Nev has gone ahead to York Hall and they get outside to find a taxi to take them to Bethnal Green. Then Hollis, suddenly inspired, says, — Let’s make a little detour first, to King’s Cross. Check out this agency; see if they can verify Piggot-Wilkins’s regular custom. The geezer that runs it is well known to Vice. One of yours, he says. — Scotch, he explains, before shouting to the driver, — King’s Cross!
Lennox feels like telling Hollis that Scotch is a drink, but from the Londoner’s lips it sounds oddly comforting, like an aural sip of a twenty-year-old malt. — Right …
Then, the sudden roaring surge of an angry engine snarls at them. They look round to see a van hurtling towards them. — FUCK SAKE, Hollis yells, pushing them into the taxi, spreadeagling Lennox on the floor of the vehicle. He slams the door behind them, but the retreating van clips it.
— CAHHNNT! the cabbie shouts. — Did you see that?!
— FOLLOW THE FARKING CAHNNNT!! Hollis barks, pulling out his ID.
The cabbie needs no second invite, accelerating after the van. But it turns and moves out of sight before they can even catch the plates. — That might be on camera, Hollis says, rattling with cocaine, adrenaline and nerves, — I’m putting in a call, and gets his phone and rants into it. — Wankers, he says, hanging up. — All they farking do is moan about what they can’t bleeding well do … He hunches forward in his seat, before laying out what his intuition is. — Piggot-Wilkins or his boys wouldn’t do direct business in King’s Cross. I reckon the third party wot books the hookers for him is a geezer called Toby Wallingham. He’s a failed toff, a typical trust-fund blowout merchant. Well known in cop circles.
— So you reckon he set Piggot-Wilkins up with the masked hooker?
— Dunno, that’s why I’d like to talk to the cunt. But if he did, the perps was probably using the soft cunt; nobody wants to see one of their regular shaggers lose his old fella. You’re farking up your own business. But we gotta tread careful, Hollis raises his bushy brows. — The cunt is like the rest of them, lawyered up to the max.
— London toffs. It’s like you need an appointment to investigate the cunts.
— Don’t like this, Ray, none of it, but first let’s check out the lowlife, Hollis says, and as they step from the cab into a dingy backstreet that has escaped the gentrification of the area, he shakily crams some notes into the hand of the driver. Lennox looks around, and recalls this as more like the King’s Cross of his youth, before the attentions of Eurostar, bursting with a sleaze and repressed menace. Hollis, eyes ablaze, at odds with the cold threat of his voice, tells him, — As is the way of these things, I find myself wanting to take it out on some cunt.
Lennox locks his gaze on Hollis. It was a close call, and somebody means them harm. — I know that feeling, he agrees, feeling the dampness of the still-tea-discharging phone in his pocket.
12
It’s possible that the Colleagues agency is still manned. Sure enough, as the taxi trundles off, a woman in a business suit is leaving the shabby Victorian building. — KEEP THAT DOOR OPEN, Hollis roars, as he runs towards her, waving his police ID in her face. — What’s your name?
— Greta … she says, in an East European accent. — But I have done nothing wrong!
— Nah, you ain’t, Hollis says, putting his foot in the door to prevent it from closing, Lennox reading him as rattled, but by the renegade driver as well as the coke. — And you don’t wanna start now. So tell me who’s up there, in that Colleagues office?
— Just the boss. His name is Simon.
— Right, now scarper. Hollis spits out some gob that splatters on the cold concrete step.
Greta heads off, passing Lennox without making eye contact. They watch her retreat, at what in high heels is an impressive speed. Then they go inside, mounting the narrow stairs to the top floor, both anticipating the surprise they are about to spring on Simon the boss.
Simon David Williamson is just finishing up at the grubby offices of Colleagues Professional Consultancy and Administrative Support Services, and is shutting down his Apple Mac. He tenses as the two men enter his premises. He doesn’t make them out as cops straight away: it’s just as plausible they are villains. As he enjoys some protection by association, he half prays for the latter. He meets the men with a bug-eyed stare. — I’m just closing, and I only do appointments online.
Lennox recognises not the man but the accent. — What’s your name? he asks, flashing an ID.
Williamson screws up his eyes to study it, then looks at Lennox. — Edinburgh Polis … what the fuck?
Hollis follows suit, with his Met card. — We all want ya, mate. How lovely to be so popular!
— Whatever you’re after, you’ve come to the wrong place, Williamson declares, launching into what the two cops read as a well-worn pitch. — We provide a service matching respectable businessmen with associates who act as their administrative assistants in meetings and at dinners. It’s all about show and power. There is no sexual contact tolerated, and if I ever hear of this, the party responsible is struck off our register and rep—
— Fuck off with the bullshit, Hollis snaps. — We don’t give a toss about your scrubbers and johns. Wot’s your name?
