A Hard Woman to Kill (The DCI Hanlon Series) Read online

  She looked at the women on the picket line next to her, oblivious of the horrors that lay about fifty metres from where they were standing. It wasn’t that Belanov was selling sex; it was that his hookers were essentially slaves. Some drug addicted, some forced to work for him for fear of family reprisals back home, some brought to Britain on false promises of nannying or bar work and intimidated into prostitution. Work or die, and Belanov liked hurting people very much. So very much.

  The terror of the Russian criminal system is no longer hidden behind an iron curtain, thought Hanlon. It’s not thousands of miles away. It’s behind those expensive-looking net curtains just over that attractive garden wall. And the criminals aren’t behind bars. They’re behind that expensive, ornate ironwork scrolled around the gates, and your husbands, ladies, or their colleagues are subsidizing it.

  What had Oksana called Belanov? One of the smotriashchyi, one of the watchers who looked after the interests of the vor, the criminal boss.

  She’d wondered at the time how he’d got the money to pay for this large house in the centre of Oxford; it must have been worth a couple of million. Now, courtesy of Charlie Taverner’s notes and Oksana’s explanations, she had a better idea. It was money from the obschak, the trough or the criminal fund based in Moscow. It was an international investment.

  She’d parked her car in the street to the rear of the house. Now she walked back there. This road was quiet with residents-only bays. Belanov’s house had the back garden tarmacked over so his clients wouldn’t have to search for parking. High-security gates blocked access and there was an intercom built into a post so the driver could speak and be buzzed in.

  Hanlon slid behind the wheel of her Audi and scratched her head thoughtfully. They were near the centre of Oxford and an intrusive development like Belanov’s car park, extremely visible gates and security system would have required hard-to-get planning permission. Whoever had signed off on that from the council would be well worth investigating, thought Hanlon. Money, big money, must have changed hands. She had a feeling too that if you converted your garden into a hard surface area you were responsible for making arrangements to deal with the water run-off from rains and storms.

  Hanlon was a big fan of harassing criminals with unexpected visits and inspections. She would have no compunction about threatening whoever was responsible for these things into action. The thought of council JCBs tearing up Arkady’s forecourt and ruining his business filled her with glee.

  Joad and Dimitri climbed into one of Belanov’s cars from the car park that had attracted Hanlon’s attention. It was a Mercedes S-Class saloon. Joad was behind the steering wheel, the first time he had ever driven a car that cost in the six-figure mark. House price rises in Oxford had swelled the value of Joad’s modest one-bedroom flat, but he was acutely aware that Belanov’s car was not far short of his property’s value.

  As they buckled their seat belts, Dimitri said to him, his voice dripping with scorn, ‘Arkady Mikhailovitch might want to employ you, but I think you are fucking waste of space. You make one more mistake and I’ll kill you. And you’d better fucking find Hanlon.’

  Joad said nothing. He raised an unimpressed eyebrow. Dimitri might be as strong as an ox, thought DI Joad, but he was as bright as one. He was unfazed by Dimitri’s threats. He noted dispassionately that Dimitri had mastered ‘fuck’ as an adverb but was still at sea with ‘a’ and ‘an’.

  ‘I’m glad to see your English is improving,’ he said to his passenger enthusiastically. ‘It’s getting quite idiomatic – “waste of space” and all that, very impressive, me old cocker!’

  Dimitri was dimly aware Joad was mocking him. He hadn’t got a clue what Joad had just said, but guessed it was insulting. ‘Idiomatic’ sounded like idiot; what was a cocker? Something to do with cock?

  Joad was the kind of man who would sell his grandmother, who had only a hazy idea of concepts of morality, who even among his colleagues was a byword for laziness and rumoured corruption, but he was no coward. In the pocket of his long, unfashionable suit jacket Joad had a set of high-quality brass knuckles and Joad also had a fast, vicious, practised punch. He looked forward to the time when they’d come into contact with the Russian’s face.

  Not just Hanlon who’ll have left their mark on you, he thought, unaware that Dimitri’s recently broken nose had come from DI Enver Demirel.

  Joad pulled into the Woodstock Road, heading for the ring road that circled Oxford and would lead them to the motorway. He looked at Dimitri. He couldn’t resist another jibe.

  ‘Hope you do better against Hanlon than you did last time, eh, Dimitri,’ said Joad. ‘I hear these small women can be quite tricky sometimes.’

  He smiled inwardly as he felt Dimitri bristle with rage. Joad knew that only Dimitri’s implacable loyalty to Belanov prevented him from attacking Joad, and the policeman saw no reason to try and placate him. Bring it on, thought Joad. Bring it on.

  The powerful car surged towards Heathrow. Joad was an excellent driver. He was falling in love with the Mercedes. He had good traffic and hazard anticipation and superb all-round awareness of the road, the conditions and his fellow motorists. COAST, he thought to himself, the key to good driving: Concentration, Observation, Anticipation, Space and Time. True of other things too. He hummed a song as he drove, a man at peace with the world.

  ‘You just find her,’ growled Dimitri.

  ‘I’ll do my best, Dimitri,’ promised Joad.

  That shouldn’t be too hard, thought Joad, glancing in his mirror. In fact, nothing could be simpler. C for concentrate; I’ll concentrate on that.

  COAST. O is for Observation.

  I should really tell you, Dimitri, that I observe DCI Hanlon is currently two cars behind us in the outside lane of the eastbound M40, but I don’t think I will.

  COAST. A is for Anticipation. Not just yet. Not until I’ve found out a bit more what she wants with you.

  Joad switched to the middle lane and a nice sedate seventy miles an hour.

  COAST. Space and Time.

  Let’s go slowly, give Hanlon plenty of time to follow us. I don’t know what she wants but I know what I want; your head on a platter.

  He’d hate for Hanlon to lose them.

  6

  Barry Jackson regained consciousness where he would have least wanted to, in the company of the people he least wanted to see. The place: the back bar of the Three Compasses in Edmonton. The people: David ‘Jesus’ Anderson and Morris Jones.

  The pub belonged to the Andersons. To call it a public house was technically, but not literally, true. Admission was by invitation only. If you had walked into the scruffy, down-at-heel dead-end street where it was located – the terraced houses with peeling paint, saggy gutters and the occasional EDL flyer in the window, white and proud but not house-proud, their small front gardens choked with weeds – and tried to enter the small backstreet pub, you wouldn’t have got in. Anderson’s praetorian guard, two shaven-headed, Crombie-wearing men, always stood intimidating watch outside the door to the street.

  ‘Sorry, mate. Closed for a private function,’ they would have said. But you wouldn’t have tried anyway. It was that kind of pub.

  Only the chosen got in. Whether or not you wanted to be chosen was a different question. It was that kind of pub.

  Jackson came to pleasantly enough. Jones had injected him with a high dose of diazepam after they’d bundled him into the back of Anderson’s Range Rover. Morris Jones was a big fan of diazepam. The drug had kept him under for the relatively speedy journey back to North-East London and its relaxing side-effects eased the trauma of the unwelcome return to the real world.

  Now he was back in the room, mentally as well as physically, and wishing he wasn’t. Confused memories of a dash through the woods at the rear of his cottage, Anderson and Danny in pursuit, driven like a pheasant by beaters into the arms of a waiting Morris Jones, and now this.

  ‘Hello, Barry,’ said Anderson quietly. Jackson had n
ever heard him raise his voice. He never needed to. Today was no exception. When Anderson spoke, you listened.

  Anderson moved close to where Barry Jackson was sitting, gaffer-taped to an old wooden Windsor chair. Barry Jackson started praying, mentally, to a God whose existence he doubted, promising him anything if He’d allow him to live.

  ‘I don’t particularly want to hurt you, Barry, but you know I will,’ said Anderson reasonably, ‘if I have to. I want to know what happened and why, and your part in it.’

  Please God, let me live and I’ll go to church on a weekly basis and renounce crime.

  Morris Jones lit a candle that burned steadily in the gloomy light of the small back bar with its stained pool table, the baize shiny with years of use, and the crooked, old-fashioned chintz light fittings with their dim bulbs. They provided the illumination; the candle was certainly not there to enhance the mood. Danny stood by the door, hands folded in front of his body, Anderson’s attack dog. Jackson had seen him in action; he was a useful man in a fight, vicious and fast and strong.

  ‘I’m waiting, Barry,’ said Anderson.

  I’ll atone for my sins. I’ll do good works.

  Jackson and Anderson watched as Morris Jones tipped the contents of a small folded packet, a greyish-brown powder, into an old tablespoon and took two syringes from his jacket pocket. He put one down on the bar. It made a dull clatter. It was made of glass. He filled the other with water, depressed the plunger and carefully voided the liquid into the bowl of the spoon. He stirred it around with the end of a match, warming it over the candle.

  Jackson watched as he cooked the heroin mix, Morris Jones’s face impassive. He watched the mixture dissolve, bubble and thicken. Barry Jackson knew what it was; he could smell its slightly bitter, aromatic scent from where he was sitting.

  Please God, don’t let them kill me.

  Jones squinted down at the spoon, his narrowed eyes glittering, the pupils pinpricks, and, satisfied, broke the filter off a cigarette and removed the paper. He fitted a needle to the hypodermic, inserted it into the cotton-wool filter and put it into the spoon. He pulled the plunger back gently and they all watched as the body of the syringe filled with the drug.

  Jackson knew approximately how much heroin would be in the syringe. Enough for a fatal overdose. Enough to kill him. Jones would know exactly how much; he was very knowledgeable about opiates.

  Morris Jones put the syringe down. He walked round the bar, through the open hatch, and reached for something below the wooden counter. He put the bottle on the bar. Not heroin this time, or any opiate. Drain unblocker. Designed to dissolve hair, grease, soap, organic matter in general. The bottle was predominately coloured red, acidic-based, thought Jackson.

  Jones looked at him steadily as Anderson leaned forward, put his mouth close to Jackson’s ear and said gently, ‘You’re a grass, Jacko, and now Jordan’s dead. Like I said before, just in case you’d forgotten, you’re going to tell me why, when, how and above all, who. One of those syringes is for you, Jacko. You get to choose which one.’

  Jackson felt Anderson’s breath on his ear as he spoke; he was that close.

  Please, my Lord. Please. This is my Gethsemane.

  Jones dipped the needle of the glass syringe into the bottle and filled it. He put it down next to the heroin-filled one.

  Jackson looked at the two syringes: one if he cooperated; one if he didn’t cooperate.

  Jones put a piece of crumpled tissue paper on the bar counter, gently tipped the bottle and carefully poured a few drops on to it. The paper shrivelled and blackened.

  ‘The destination’s the same, Jacko, but how you get there is in your hands,’ said Anderson.

  ‘Decisions, decisions, Baz,’ said Jones. Heroin or Drain-O.

  ‘Can I have a drink?’ Jackson asked. His mouth was very dry. ‘Scotch.’ He had indeed reached a decision.

  Have mercy upon me, oh Jehovah, for I am in distress.

  Jones looked at Anderson who nodded. Jones took a bottle of Bells from the back of the bar where it stood with the other bottles and poured three fingers into a tumbler.

  ‘Water?’ asked Jones pleasantly, as if they were having a convivial drink together. Danny, watching from his place by the door, noticed that the bottle of Cointreau standing with the other liquor bottles was half-full. Who drank that? he wondered. In this place?

  Blessed be thee, Jehovah, for he hath showed me his loving kindness.

  ‘No water for me,’ said Jackson. Jones gave Anderson the glass and he held it to Jackson’s lips while he drank greedily. The Scotch tasted wonderful. Anderson withdrew the glass.

  Into thy hand I commend my spirit.

  ‘Eight days ago my mobile rang,’ began Jackson, and started to tell his story.

  7

  Joseph Huss looked sympathetically at Enver Demirel standing in his muddy farmyard, obviously ill at ease and out of place. He’d met his daughter’s London colleague several times before and had quite liked him. In some respects the two of them were not dissimilar, big men, powerfully built, placid by nature with a tendency to worry about things. Joseph Huss had a farmer’s natural pessimism nurtured by a fear of DEFRA, bad weather and government/EU regulations, while Enver’s gloom was fed by police hierarchy, crime and government/EU regulations.

  They were both naturally shy too, a similarity that led to a lot of foot shuffling and verbal awkwardness when they met as they both devoutly wished they were elsewhere. Huss, happy with animals, cows in particular; Enver content with criminals.

  Huss Senior was in a faded blue boilersuit and steel-toed, rubber workboots. A fine drizzle fell from the grey, Oxfordshire heavens that to Enver seemed huge and unfriendly after the more restricted London skyline. His cheap, dark polyester suit was sodden with moisture and his highly polished black shoes were caked with mud. He hadn’t given much consideration to his clothes. Footwear just wasn’t a city problem, other than style. He hardly ever left the capital and he’d given no thought to the practicalities of walking around the farm.

  The silence prolonged itself. Enver stroked his thick, dark drooping moustache, Joseph Huss scratched his grey one. He knew that Melinda, his daughter, and Enver had been seeing each other and there’d been a break-up. Shame, he’d thought. He’d liked the quiet policeman. He had pushed the matter away. He had every faith in his daughter’s abilities; boyfriends were not his field of expertise. Joseph Huss was not given to dwelling on his daughter’s love life. That was nothing to do with him. Well, anyway, here Enver was again. Not dressed for the occasion either.

  ‘She’s in the workshop,’ he said, pointing across the farmyard.

  ‘What’s she doing?’ asked Enver. It didn’t really matter, of course, but he felt he should say something. Are the cows well? would have sounded inane. He never knew what to say to Joseph Huss.

  ‘Fixing the clutch on the Freelander,’ said her father. Enver nodded. He knew nothing about cars. He knew a clutch changed gears when depressed, or something like that. He knew a Freelander was a kind of Land Rover. There were another two parked in the yard, a Defender and its precursor, a 1964 Series Two, looking like a prim old lady on its narrow wheels. They were both army olive-green drab. Joseph Huss said thoughtfully, ‘They’re pigs to work on, Freelanders.’ Enver made a non-committal noise, nodded again and squelched his way across the mud covering the cobbles of the yard.

  More mud. More mud on his shoes.

  Joseph Huss watched him go, a wry smile on his face. His daughter had painted her nails that morning over breakfast. I thought you were fixing the clutch. I am, she’d said. He had shrugged, baffled; now all was explained.

  Enver walked into the workshop through the open door and looked around him. He shivered. The Husses, like most country people, were outdoor types. Doors and windows tended to be left open; draughts predominated. He was always cold when he visited Huss at her home. The air in the workshop was chilly and heavy with the smell of engine oil. A black SUV was in front of him
, like a dead animal, rearing up at a thirty degree angle, held in the air by two trolley jacks, one on each side. The bonnet was open; there was no sign of Huss.

  He walked to the rear of the car. His shoulders brushed a board devoted to spanners, arranged in order of size. Silhouettes had been drawn round every one of them so they wouldn’t be misplaced when they were returned after use. There were three metal toolboxes on the floor, one containing a huge array of sockets, and various other tools neatly attached to the wall. His gaze travelled over a workbench with a vice that you could fit a man’s head in, a generator and then, rounding the rear of the car, he saw DI Melinda Huss, crouched so far inside the near-side rear arch she was practically invisible. Most of her seemed to be under the car apart from her backside encased in a boilersuit, although hers was a faded green as opposed to her father’s blue one, that jutted out from beneath the curve of the car.

  Enver coughed discreetly. He didn’t want to startle her, not with all that metal hanging over her. He had somehow managed to crush their relationship; he didn’t want to add her body under a ton or so of Land Rover to that unfortunate score.

  ‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said from inside the car. Her voice sounded unfriendly. For the thousandth time, Enver wondered what he’d done to upset her. They’d seen each other socially maybe a dozen or so times, things had even progressed as far as passionate kissing, which was fast work by Enver’s standards – he was a shy man by nature and had body-image problems. He would occasionally look back to photos of himself in his prime as a boxer – had he so wanted he could have found some of his fights on YouTube – and compared himself unfavourably to what he had become in just a few short years. He hated seeing himself naked these days, and when he showered he’d avert his gaze from his flabby body like a prim Victorian.

  He was unaware that Melinda Huss found him physically very desirable indeed, despite heavy hints on her part. Huss had no idea of Enver’s self-loathing. She assumed, correctly, he was either shy or, incorrectly, playing hard to get. Huss had reached the stage of actively planning to drag him bodily into her bedroom, if necessary, but then the fault lines had widened irrevocably.