DI Sean Corrigan Crime Series: 6-Book Collection: Cold Killing, Redemption of the Dead, The Keeper, The Network, The Toy Taker and The Jackdaw. Luke Delaney
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Officer English, from Wandsworth Prison.’
Sally hadn’t expected the prison to call her out of hours. ‘You have something for me?’
‘Your inquiry into a former prisoner: Korsakov, Stefan, released in 1999. You wanted to know why we requested his fingerprints?’
‘Yes.’
‘We made no request for his fingerprints from Scotland Yard.’
‘Are you positive?’
‘Absolutely. Our records are correct. There’s no mistake.’
‘No,’ Sally said, more to herself than anyone. ‘I’m sure there isn’t. Thank you.’ She hung up.
Donnelly appeared next to her. ‘Problem?’
‘Someone’s been lying to me.’
‘About what?’
‘Never mind,’ she said. ‘We’ll talk about it tomorrow. Right now I need another drink.’
Hellier found the small sports shop easily enough. He selected a dark blue Nike tracksuit, the plainest he could find. He added a white T-shirt, white Puma training shoes and a pair of white socks to his basket. He asked for the items to be placed in separate plastic bags. He had been an easy customer who paid cash. The assistant was more than happy to lavish him with extra plastic bags.
He left the shop, headed back to the Tube station and caught a train to Farringdon. He didn’t have to search long to find what he wanted. A bar where men and women in suits mixed easily enough with others wearing casual clothes, even tracksuits.
He ordered a stiff gin and tonic from the bar. Gin, lots of ice, lime not lemon. The barman was good. The long drink both refreshed him and gave his brain a nice alcoholic kick, without affecting his clarity of thought – his control.
Hellier sat and familiarized himself with the layout of the bar. Satisfied, he went to the men’s toilet, entered a cubicle and shut the door. It was fairly solid. That was good. He looked up at the window. It was quite high. If he tried to climb out of it, he would be seen. It was probably sealed shut anyway.
He checked the toilet cistern. It was low on the wall. That was good. He lifted the lid from the cistern. Then he emptied the contents of the plastic bags on to the toilet seat, taking the gun from his belt and the spare magazine from his jacket pocket. He placed them on the tracksuit. Next he took the training shoes out of the box and wrapped them, the T-shirt and the socks in the tracksuit making a tight parcel; the shoes flattened to little more than the width and thickness of the soles, the light material of the T-shirt and tracksuit folded to almost nothing. He placed them in one of the smaller plastic bags and tied a knot at the open end. He placed that bag inside another and fastened it with a tight knot.
At the last minute he recalled that the man who described himself as a friend would be calling on his mobile phone tomorrow at seven. He pulled the phone from a pocket and looked at it pensively. If the police were waiting for him, they would surely seize the phone. They always did. It was the only way he had of allowing the ‘friend’ to contact him. He decided he couldn’t take the risk, but no matter what, he would have to recover the phone before 7 p.m. the next day. Separating the phone from its battery, he undid the plastic bags and dropped both phone and battery in. Then he wrapped and knotted the bags again.
Hellier was about to place the plastic bag in the toilet cistern when he stopped short. The gun was too big a prize to risk. Maybe he should just check into a hotel for the night instead of going home; that way he could stay hidden until it was time to meet the man from the phone calls. He shook his doubts away. He would go home. The police would undoubtedly be waiting for him there, but it wasn’t as if they were going to arrest him. What did they have? Nothing. If they had, they would have arrested him earlier, instead of trying to follow him. And even if they did arrest him, so what? He would be out in time to make the meeting and he would know whatever the police were thinking too. It was an uneven match. Every time the police moved against him they had to tell him what they knew. The laws of the land demanded it. This was a fair and just country. He, on the other hand, had to tell them nothing. And if they were stupid enough to try and follow him again after today, which he absolutely believed they were, then he had made plans for that too.
All doubt gone, he smiled to himself and tucked the plastic bag containing the clothes and pistol neatly into the toilet cistern, expertly packing it around the working parts as he’d practised hundreds of times before, ensuring enough water was allowed into the small tank. He flushed once to make certain it still worked and watched the cistern fill again. Satisfied, he replaced the lid and left the bar carrying the largest of the plastic bags containing only the empty shoebox. He would squash it flat and dump it in a bin on his way to the underground station and home.
It was almost ten p.m. on Thursday. Sean sat alone in his office. The inquiry room was dark and quiet. The rest of the team had adjourned to a nearby pub, where they would be deep into analysing what had gone wrong. They would argue Hellier should have been arrested earlier, that it had been an unnecessary risk to try and follow him around London on the off-chance he would lead them to some clinching evidence. Sean’s absence from the pub would be noticed, but it would be welcome too. They could speak their minds better if he wasn’t around.
He unlocked his bottom desk drawer and pulled out an unopened bottle of dark rum and a heavy, shallow glass. The rum had been in there for months. He only kept it out of a sense of tradition. He had rarely felt the need to use it, until now.
He poured an inch of rum into the glass and rolled it around. He put the glass tentatively to his lips and drank a quarter of it in one go. It was a lot for him. The back of his throat burned painfully, but he enjoyed the warmth of the liquid.
He reached forward for his desk phone. He needed to call Kate. His ringing mobile stopped him. He answered sounding tired and dispirited.
‘Guv. It’s Jean Colville.’ DS Jean Colville was running the relief surveillance team, brought in to cover while DS Handy’s team regrouped and licked their collective wounds. ‘Thought you’d like to know your man just arrived home like nothing happened.’
Sean sprang to his feet as if suddenly standing to attention. ‘What’s he wearing?’ he asked.
‘Suit and tie,’ Jean answered.
‘How’s he look?’
‘Fine. Normal I guess.’ She sounded puzzled.
‘Okay,’ Sean said. He checked his watch. Damn. Half his team would be semi-drunk by now, the other half would have headed off towards whichever corner of London they lived in. Had there been time since he went missing for Hellier to find a victim, kill and return home as if nothing had happened? Sean doubted it. No, this evening he’d been up to something else. Better to let the team rest for a while. What more could he lose?
‘I need you to keep him under obs tonight,’ he told DS Colville. ‘I’ll be there in the morning to take him out. Hopefully he won’t move again until then.’
‘No problem, guv,’ Jean answered. ‘If he moves, I’ll let you know.’
‘Thanks.’ Sean hung up, waited a few seconds and called Sally. When she answered he could hear she was in the pub.
‘Sally. It’s Sean.’
‘Please tell me you’re not still at work.’ She sounded sober enough.
‘Contact Donnelly and the rest of the team.’ He knew Donnelly at least would be close by. ‘Six a.m. briefing back here. We’re taking Hellier out before he leaves for work.’
‘Before he leaves for work?’ she asked. He could hear the confusion in her voice. ‘He’s gone home?’
‘Don’t ask me why,’ Sean replied. ‘I don’t know what he’s up to, but we’re going to finish this tomorrow.’
The light shining through the front door window was not a good sign. It was past eleven and