The Heights Page 24

  Drake’s phone began to buzz once more. He saw the name on the screen and swore.

  ‘Sorry, I have to take this.’

  ‘Don’t mind me.’

  ‘You haven’t forgotten, right?’ Maritza asked. ‘Only it’s coming up to half seven and we’re not going to make it if we don’t leave soon.’

  ‘No, of course. I was delayed. I should have called.’

  ‘But you’re still on?’

  ‘Yeah, sure. I’ll be right there. Five minutes, I promise.’ He rang off and caught the look on Crane’s face. ‘What? I promised to babysit. No big deal, so don’t say a word.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it. I’m impressed. I thought you were joking. This is very enlightened.’

  ‘Enlightened? Now there’s a word I don’t often associate with myself.’

  42

  Maritza was waiting for him. The door opened almost before he had knocked. All dressed up and ready to go. She looked remarkably good. Beside her, Joe was jumping up and down with excitement.

  ‘Cal! Cal!’

  She had instructions. He was to make sure João brushed his teeth before he went to sleep, which she repeated to both of them. Joe nodded as she spoke. Clearly he had heard all of this before. He was wearing his pyjamas underneath his parka. He took Drake’s hand and allowed himself to be led up the stairs.

  ‘Sure you’ll be okay?’

  ‘We’ll be fine. Don’t worry about it. Have a great time.’

  ‘Enjoy yourself, amorzinho,’ she called as they moved away.

  ‘You look great, by the way,’ Drake said over his shoulder.

  She waved him off, but not before he saw that she didn’t mind the compliment. Upstairs, they soon settled down to a game of chess. To his surprise, Drake lost the first game and had to work hard to win the second.

  ‘You’ve been practising.’

  ‘I go to a club now. They teach us how to play properly.’

  ‘I can see that.’

  After that they watched part of a film that Joe had brought with him. He had a whole bag full of things to keep him entertained. If they had gone through the lot it would have kept them busy for a week. But the film soon had him yawning and so they cut it short. Then Drake waited in the hall outside the bathroom while the boy went to the toilet and brushed his teeth. He seemed to have grown so much in the past year. Cal still remembered him crawling into bed with them when he stayed over with Maritza. Then Joe had seemed like a very small child. In another year he would be on his way to adolescence. It all happened very quickly.

  Once Joe had settled down in the spare room, Drake read to him from a book about space travel and eventually the boy fell asleep. Drake tucked him in and closed the door halfway, leaving the hall light on. Then he poured himself a drink and sat down. His phone began to buzz and vibrate on the coffee table. He reached for it to find that it was Brodie, who had something on his mind.

  ‘After we were talking the other night, I started thinking about the old days.’

  ‘About Zelda, you mean?’

  Brodie exhaled slowly. ‘Yeah, right, about Zelda. What can I say, mate? She didn’t deserve to die the way she did.’ There was a long pause. ‘I get why you feel this.’

  Drake reached for his glass. ‘If I hadn’t convinced her to turn against Goran, she’d still be alive.’

  ‘That’s a cross you have to bear. Just make sure it doesn’t take you down with it.’

  ‘I just need to clear it. If I can find out who killed her—’

  Brodie cut him off. ‘You know as well as I do that revenge is a mug’s game. Even if you find the person who gave the order, you’re never going to make a case of it, not now.’

  ‘That’s not enough reason not to try.’ Drake knew Brodie was right. He also knew he couldn’t stop until he cleared this.

  ‘Walk away, Cal,’ Brodie urged. ‘Let it go. Move on.’

  ‘I wish I could. Somebody cut her to pieces.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. That’s some weird shit, as they used to say.’

  ‘Why would someone do that?’

  ‘Take the head? I don’t know, as a trophy maybe?’

  ‘Or as proof.’

  ‘Right, but why keep it all this time?’ Brodie asked.

  It was a question Drake had been struggling with. It made no sense, and yet to someone it did.

  ‘Somebody has been trying to lay this on me.’

  ‘That’s what this is all about?’

  ‘It looks that way. My DNA was all over the bag.’

  ‘Why would they do that?’

  ‘You see, the fact that it’s taken this long seems to suggest that, whoever it is, they actually believe I’m responsible.’ Drake rattled the ice in his glass. He wished he could think more clearly.

  ‘Which means it’s someone who doesn’t know you.’

  ‘I should hope so.’ Drake was so tired he was slurring his words.

  ‘It’s almost as if they were taunting you with your own guilt.’

  That was how it felt. ‘You know, the other night, at the club …’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘You were babysitting Donny’s nephew, right?’

  ‘Zef? Sure, he’s a real live wire. Tends to get a little excitable.’

  ‘I thought it was an odd group. You know, Zephyr and Khan and that weird little one with the Hitler Youth haircut.’

  ‘Oh, that’s Vuk.’

  ‘Vuk? What kind of a name is that?’

  ‘Serbian,’ said Brodie. ‘He’s a kid in Goran’s old crew.’

  ‘And now he’s working for Donny?’

  ‘He’s just a friend of Zef’s. They all hang around together. What has this to do with anything?’

  ‘Goran was set up. I think he went to Brighton on a tip-off and walked into a trap.’

  ‘You mean he was set up by his own people?’

  ‘I mean somebody close to him saw an opportunity to get rid of him.’

  ‘That’s a bold move. You don’t go against someone like Goran unless you’re ready.’

  ‘Right.’

  Brodie was silent for a moment. ‘If you’re accusing me of something, Cal, you might as well come out and say it.’

  ‘You’re the only person in Goran’s crew who knew that I was undercover.’

  ‘What does that have to do with anything?’

  ‘If I took him down, it would all be gone. The money, the drugs, the girls.’

  ‘I find it insulting that you would even think that.’

  Drake wasn’t sure what he was thinking. Brodie had been working for Goran. He was the only one who knew who he really was. But they’d come through Iraq together. Drake trusted him with his life. A bunch of Serbian mobsters weren’t going to come between them.

  ‘Forget it, Brodie. I’m not accusing anyone. I’m just trying to piece this thing together.’

  ‘Maybe you should be looking somewhere else.’

  ‘Like where?’

  ‘I don’t know. What did she give you?’

  Drake could still recall the stench in the little crawl space hidden behind the wardrobe. It was as if the smell had taken up residence inside his body. It came back to him at the oddest moments.

  ‘The flat Zelda took me to, they were trafficking in kids.’

  ‘That wasn’t Goran’s business,’ said Brodie.

  ‘You’re sure about that? Why would she take me there?’

  ‘It’s an easy mistake to make. Goran had his fingers in a lot of pies. When his mob moved into London they wanted it all. They pushed money and drugs on anyone they thought could win them influence. It took them into some pretty strange alliances.’

  ‘Who are we talking about?’

  ‘Hard to say. Goran made deals with everyone. He lied. He strung them along. He did what he had to do to keep the competition sweet. Sometimes he found himself in with something he didn’t like.’

  ‘Sounds like you’re trying to make out he was an angel.’

  �
�No. All I’m saying is because he was involved doesn’t mean he was close. I’m willing to wager you would never have traced that operation back to him.’

  ‘Zelda knew I was after Goran.’

  ‘She was never on the inside. She didn’t know who he was working with. She was like everyone else. She heard stories.’

  ‘She sounded pretty sure that it was Goran’s operation. She wouldn’t have taken the risk for less.’

  ‘You could turn it around and say maybe that’s exactly why. She wanted to keep you sweet without too much risk of it coming back on her. Ever think of that? Limited damage. You get the score, but nothing really gets traced back to Goran.’

  ‘You’re saying she was playing me?’

  ‘You were her ticket to freedom.’ Brodie sighed. ‘Look, all I’m saying is it’s a consideration. Look at it from her point of view. You were asking her to trust you, a cop she doesn’t know, against a vile gangster she does know. If it worked fine, then she was free, but if it didn’t …’

  ‘Then it wouldn’t harm Goran.’

  It made sense in a crazy kind of way. He remembered his excitement when she told him about the flat. Trafficking was a powerful charge. It made people sit up and pay attention. The flat was a turnaround. They brought the kids in and shipped them out in a few days. Drake was familiar with the set-up. He knew how hard it was to track them down. They broke into empty flats, changing the locks and then boarding up windows and doors. They stayed for a few weeks and then moved on somewhere else. Had he been blinded by the fact that he was hoping this was the one, that this would lead to Goran, that it would be enough to bring him down?

  ‘Who were the kids for?’

  ‘All kinds. It was big. Business people, high-grade politicians. The kind of people whose names you read in the paper over breakfast.’

  Drake leaned his head against the window. The glass felt cool against his skin. ‘You’re saying she didn’t really know what was going on?’

  ‘She knew bits of it. Like I did. But nobody had the full picture.’

  Drake heard Brodie’s dry chuckle. ‘You wouldn’t be the first person she’d strung along.’

  It still didn’t sound right. ‘I keep asking myself how they found her.’

  ‘Cal, do yourself a favour, put this behind you. Forget about it. Get on with your life.’

  ‘I’d like to do that, Brodie, truly I would, but there’s a severed head lying in the morgue and I’m a prime suspect. This isn’t going to go away anytime soon.’

  ‘Okay,’ Brodie sighed. ‘So run it by me again and see if that stirs anything.’

  ‘When Zelda disappeared, the finger pointed at Goran. He was the one with the most to gain. The case against him dropped through the floor and our star witness was gone, literally. That made Donny suspect number one.’

  ‘Because he was the one who made the most out of it?’

  ‘Right. But Donny’s too smart to do something like that. Leaving himself exposed.’

  ‘Anyone can make a mistake.’ Drake listened to Brodie sucking air into his lungs. A long rasping sound. ‘You need to be careful where you go with this.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning Donny has spent the last couple of years trying to straighten out his business. He won’t take kindly to you trying to pull him back into the past.’

  ‘I have to go where the story takes me.’

  ‘Be that as it may, you should be careful.’

  ‘This is beginning to sound like a warning.’

  ‘Look, Cal, it’s late, we’re both tired. Maybe we should take this up another time.’

  ‘The other night at the club, the big guy with a tattoo on his neck.’

  ‘Khan. Sure, we talked about him.’

  ‘He and Donny’s nephew are tight.’

  ‘I told you, they’re all kids. They like to hang out together.’ There followed another lengthy pause. ‘Look, mate, I know how you feel. You were the fall guy. They hung you out to dry. But that’s no reason to go after anything that moves.’

  Drake had gone from leading a major undercover operation to being a pariah. The assumption being that he had compromised the operation to protect Donny Apostolis. The Met’s internal inquiry had been inconclusive. All they could do was point at irregularities in his actions: hiding a witness away without clearing it with his superiors, keeping information from the acting head of the unit, Vernon Pryce. Pryce, for his part, had never hidden the fact that he believed Drake was dirty. The inquiry drew its own conclusions. There was no mention of Adonis Apostolis in the final statement, but everyone knew who they had in mind. Superintendent Marshal had been clear in his closing comments: ‘Although we have no evidence to support the claim, it seems plain to this board of inquiry that there is more than enough circumstantial evidence to leave an indelible stain on your name. We therefore recommend that you be suspended from your present duties until such time as we can establish your trustworthiness.’

  They didn’t want to kick up a fuss. The Met didn’t need more bad publicity. Nobody wanted to see headlines about police corruption on the front pages of the tabloids. Drake had been a rising star, the kind of detective who gave diversity in policing a good name. They just wanted this to go away quietly.

  ‘Nobody could prove I was on the take.’

  ‘Sometimes they don’t have to.’

  Drake thought about pouring himself another. Then he thought about Joe, sleeping in the spare room, and he decided it probably wasn’t a good idea. For some reason he wanted to impress Maritza that he could be responsible. Where did that come from, he wondered.

  ‘Tell me about Khan.’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘I’m sure I remember him from the old days.’

  ‘He used to work for Hamid Balushi.’

  ‘Used to?’

  ‘Balushi is getting old. Khan is a new generation, more at home here than in the old country. Take my advice, you don’t want to mess with them.’

  ‘He used to be a driver. He used to drive Balushi around.’

  Brodie sighed again. ‘Come on, Cal, it’s getting late. I just wanted to hear how you were doing.’

  ‘How do I find him, Khan?’

  ‘Christ, you are persistent. I’ll give you that.’ There was a long pause. ‘The Green Gardens Halal Meat Packing. Just don’t ask me any favours for a while, Cal.’

  The line went dead. Drake stood there for a long time, staring at the window. Thinking about the past was never helpful. It brought back feelings of loss and failure. Now, however, he suddenly felt he had something. Nothing more than a spark, but it was enough. His instincts told him he was on the right track.

  Deciding one more drink was in order, he wandered back through to the kitchen. The only form of decoration on the walls was a black-and-white photograph of a group of jazz musicians from back in the 1950s. It had been resting against the wall of the flat when he had moved in and somehow he’d taken a liking to it. Now it was a part of him. He lifted his glass in salute to Dizzy Gillespie, one of the few faces he recognised. Then he went back to the living room and lay down on the sofa. His favourite spot for thinking.

  The conversation with Brodie had stirred a lot. Some of it he didn’t want to unpack just yet. He sat up and reached for his laptop. He spent the next fifteen minutes digging through the material Milo had sent him until he found what he was looking for. The van parked outside Clapham Common station. He took a screenshot of the vehicle as it was being towed away that included the time in the corner of the picture. He then emailed it to Milo and asked him if he could trace the movements of the van that day. After that he lay back again and closed his eyes. The next thing he knew the doorbell was ringing and his phone was buzzing. He opened the door to find Maritza standing there looking frantic.

  ‘Cal, where have you been?’

  ‘I was here. I just fell asleep.’

  She frowned. ‘Have you been drinking?’

  ‘No. I mean, yes. I was aslee
p. Joe’s fine. He’s in bed.’

  She didn’t wait for him to finish but rushed past him into the flat and down the hall to the spare room. Drake remained where he was, by the front door.

  ‘Look, I …’

  She went straight past him without a word, tugging the child along with her. The door swung shut behind her.

  43

  Breakfast time and the Ithaka was crowded with builders from multiple construction projects in the surrounding area. Eleni was complaining loudly about their muddy boots while Kostas was trying to convince her that they needed the customers.

  ‘Would you mind if I joined you?’ said Crane.

  Donny Apostolis looked up from his newspaper and broke into a smile.

  ‘Ah, what a pleasant surprise. Please, sit.’ He snapped his fingers and folded his paper. The chair opposite him was immediately vacated by the goon who’d been sitting there chewing his nails.

  ‘I’m surprised to see you still come here.’

  ‘Ah well, you know how it is.’ Donny beamed. ‘It’s important to remember your roots.’

  The waitress appeared to be indifferent to their presence. She was new and seemed confused as she went rushing by from table to table without any real sense of purpose. She was also having trouble understanding what the builders wanted. The conversation was at cross purposes since neither side appeared to speak English properly.

  ‘Eleni’s niece,’ Kostas explained after stepping in to clear up the confusion. ‘She arrived from Athens. She came here to get over a divorce. Her mind is not on the job.’

  Crane ordered coffee and one of Eleni’s spinach pastries.

  ‘I assume this is not a coincidence,’ Donny said. ‘You want to talk to me about the money I gave your partner.’

  ‘Among other things.’

  ‘You are not happy working for someone like me. Why? Am I not respectable enough for you?’

  ‘It’s not so much that as the fact that your interest in this case is not clear.’

  ‘Do you treat all your clients with such suspicion? You assume I am trying to use you.’