A Killing of Angels (7 page)

My mother was sitting in the kitchen, her jacket neatly folded on her lap, with a horrified expression on her face. Clearly she’d used her key to let herself in, then spent the last half-hour staring at the pile of dirty laundry waiting to be loaded into the washing machine. It was a typical piece of miscommunication. We’d been making an effort to meet more regularly, yet we always managed to wrong-foot each other. When I kissed her she smelled the same as always, a mixture of coffee, eau de cologne and rage.

‘I didn’t know you were coming, Mum.’

‘Of course you did, darling. I left four messages.’

‘You should have called my mobile.’

I cursed Will without moving my lips. He must have deleted the messages then forgotten to tell me. I glanced at my mother’s clothes. She was wearing a crisp blue dress, a string of pearls nestling on her collarbone. Somehow she’d survived the journey from Blackheath in forty-degree heat without a single hair shifting out of place.

‘I haven’t seen Will today. Have you phoned him?’ I asked.

‘You know he never answers my calls.’

I sat beside her and tried Lola’s smiling trick. ‘We could go somewhere by ourselves, if you like.’

‘Shouldn’t you freshen up?’

‘It’s the weekend. I’m allowed to be scruffy.’

She sighed then gazed out of the window. ‘He’s still got that death-trap van.’

‘I think he’s scared to let it go.’

‘Why?’ My mother’s voice was shrill with exasperation.

‘He sleeps in it sometimes, when he’s stressed.’

‘You shouldn’t allow it, Alice.’ Her grey eyes darkened by several shades.

‘He’s thirty-six years old, Mum. I’m not his keeper.’

When we finally got outside, the walk along the river calmed her, and she told me about the holiday she was taking in Crete, with a friend from the library. It sounded like an endless slog around Minoan ruins, but it would suit her perfectly. It was hard to imagine my mother relaxing on a sun lounger, listening to the sea. She talked about her voluntary work too; one day a week for Help the Homeless, answering the phone. Maybe it appeased her guilt. Will had lived in his van for eight years but she’d never even offered him her spare room.

‘I visited your father’s grave on Monday.’

‘Did you?’ I was too stunned to offer an appropriate reply. Months had gone by since the last time she’d mentioned him.

‘That rosebush I planted is doing well. It’ll need pruning soon.’

I nodded. My father had never shown the slightest interest in gardening, unless she nagged him to mow the lawn; he was too busy getting pissed in the garage. My mother seemed to be on the verge of explaining something, but we arrived at the Design Museum before she could speak. We bought our tickets and stepped into a fantasy world. The exhibition was called Child’s Play. Hundreds of Barbie dolls were trapped in a vat of transparent resin. Some of them had their arms raised, swimming frantically for the surface.

‘Ridiculous,’ my mother snorted. ‘What on earth is that supposed to mean?’

I thought for a moment. ‘That childhood memories are fixed, maybe? They can’t be changed.’

My mother’s frown deepened. She marched from one exhibit to the next, hardly glancing at the huge city made of Lego, suspended upside down from the ceiling. Afterwards I bought her an iced tea, but the museum had reinstated her bad mood. At least she found something to admire on the way back. Hanging baskets blossomed from every lamppost, filled with lobelia and trailing geraniums.

‘Gorgeous,’ she murmured. She’d saved her first smile of the day for a floral display.

There was still no sign of Will when we got back, so she smoothed her hair in the hall mirror and prepared to leave. She kissed the air directly beside my cheek, then stepped back to study my face.

‘You look shattered, darling. Haven’t you been sleeping?’

I gritted my teeth. The urge to tell her to fuck off was overwhelming. ‘I’m fine, Mum, honestly.’

From the kitchen window I watched her return to her car. Her walk was the same as always, light-footed as a ballet dancer. She could have been forty, not sixty, completely carefree.

9

Burns was hard at work when I found him on Monday morning. His office was half the size of his old one at Southwark, as though the architecture had shrunk to match his stature. He was scribbling notes in the policy book. No doubt Brotherton had been breathing down his neck to keep it up to date. When he looked up from the pages, he studied me intently.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

‘Of course I am. Why?’

‘I should have taken you home. You didn’t need to see all that first-hand.’

I could guess what he was thinking: he felt guilty for exposing me to yet another corpse. People handled me with kid gloves all the time when I got out of hospital. Friends spoke in whispers, and took me to see romances instead of thrillers at the cinema. The whole world seemed determined to smother me in tissue paper.

‘It helps me to be there, Don. You know that.’ I smiled at him. ‘I’d like to see someone who can give me some background on the cards he’s leaving.’

‘An expert on angels? There can’t be many of those around.’

I pulled a folder out of my bag. ‘I’ve updated my report for you.’

‘I’ll get Steve. You can give us the headlines.’

I rolled my eyes at him. ‘If you must.’

Burns suppressed a smile then disappeared. When Taylor arrived he looked sulky, like a child disappointed by his birthday presents. Maybe it rankled that his new boss had been right about Gresham’s death being the first in a series, or he was still smarting from my rejection. He checked his watch pointedly as I listed the points in my report.

‘The MO hasn’t changed. He’s still killing men, and leaving the same signature, but this time there was no spontaneity. Everything was stage-managed, with meticulous detail. Even the name of the street reinforces the message: Gutter Lane. An angel couldn’t fall any lower. If a killer mutilates his victim’s face that violently, it normally means he knows them. And he covered the wounds afterwards with the plastic hood. Maybe that’s because he’s ashamed, he couldn’t bear to look at what he’d done. I think it’s someone who’s linked closely to the Angel Bank, or still has a job there. He’s obsessed by the moral status of the place.’

‘He could have good reason.’ Burns peered at me over the top of his glasses. ‘Their lawyers are stonewalling − we can’t get access to their records. Who knows what kind of deals they’re doing?’

My gaze drifted to the window as I tried to concentrate. ‘He’s got to be a Type A psychopath, super-bright, and comfortable wandering round the National Gallery, or reading his Bible stories. The images he leaves are some of the highest examples of Western art. He wants us to know how cultured he is. And he charmed his victim into following him down a dark alley in the middle of the night, which makes me even more sure that Wilcox knew him.’

Taylor gave an exaggerated yawn, as if my theories were a lullaby. I handed him a copy of my report and he marched out without saying goodbye.

Burns looked apologetic. ‘Sorry about that. He’s short on sleep.’

‘And manners.’

I wondered how Taylor’s girlfriend coped with his ego problem, while Burns got ready to leave. He stood by his desk patting the pockets of his jacket.

‘What have I done with my phone?’ he muttered.

I spotted it under a pile of forms and handed it to him. ‘You’ve been losing plenty of stuff lately, haven’t you?’

‘More than I can afford.’

My comment was intended as a joke about his weight loss, but it seemed to hit a raw nerve. Burns crashed back into his chair, and when he started to talk again, his voice sounded like air gushing from a puncture.

‘I’ve been losing things for years. The cardiologist said “drop the weight and quit the fags or you’ll be dead at fifty”, and now it feels like I’m running round in someone else’s body. Then all the crap kicked in at work, and Julie left straight after. She couldn’t handle it.’ He gulped down a huge breath. ‘She got the house, and the kids stay twice a week, if I’m lucky. I haven’t slept properly in weeks.’

I was too shocked to reply. It was the first time I’d heard Burns speak about himself. His head was bowed, and he seemed to be struggling to keep it together. No wonder he was determined to hang onto his job. It must feel like the one thing he had left to lose. Only his machismo made him straighten back up. He polished his glasses frantically, before putting them on again.

‘Sorry,’ he muttered. ‘Boys are told not to bleat about feelings where I come from.’ He shuffled some papers into a folder, taking care to avoid eye contact.

‘It’s better out than in, Don.’

‘Rubbish.’ He gave a narrow smile. ‘It’s best kept under lock and key.’

‘And that attitude is why Scottish men die young.’

Burns had promised to take me to meet some of Gresham’s business contacts. The Angel Bank was being tight-lipped, so I was keen to meet anyone who was prepared to talk. So far Burns had been as good as his word, granting all my requests. I got the sense that he appreciated the company, because his colleagues had left him isolated. For the time being he was treating me like an honorary cop. The arrangement suited me, partly because I needed to know more about the world the victims inhabited, but also because I was worried about him. I watched him square his shoulders as we crossed the car park. His voice sounded calmer once he started driving.

‘I saw the lad’s widow, from Gutter Lane. She’s in bits. Wilcox had only been at the Angel Bank a few months. Now she’s stuck in a high rise on Commercial Road with a one-year-old kid, twenty grand’s worth of debt, and a view of the railway.’

‘Do you know what Wilcox was doing on Friday night?’

Burns’s obsessive frown was back in place. ‘He went to the Counting House after work, but the place was so rammed, the bar staff didn’t see who was with him. The pathologist says there’s no sign he tried to fight his attacker, but we’ll have to wait for the PM.’

‘Is there any news on Gresham?’

‘The results came back from the UV test on his jacket. There was a trace of saliva on the back, but there’s no DNA match on the database.’

I glanced across at him. ‘Last time I saw Taylor, he had a bee in his bonnet about Gresham’s deputy.’

‘Stephen Rayner? Forget about it. Taylor’s like a dog with a bone when he thinks he’s onto something. We’ve got no evidence he’s involved.’

‘Does he have an alibi?’

Burns shook his head. ‘He says he was at home on his own, both nights. Okay, he’s a loner, but he’s clean as a whistle. He got cautioned for punching someone in a pub fight when he was a youngster, but since then he’s done an MA in Finance and worked his way up the ladder. He’s not serial killer material, is he?’

I wanted to argue, but Burns was too morose for conversation as the car headed west. In less than twenty minutes we were passing through neighbourhoods with solid gold postcodes.

‘Do all bankers live in Mayfair?’ I asked.

‘Looks like it, the lucky buggers. Nicole Morgan’s place is out of this world. She does PR for the Angel Bank.’

The name rang a bell for some reason. Whoever Morgan was, she couldn’t be short of a penny. Her home was a minute’s walk from the designer shops on Bond Street, protected by a line of fir trees. A flash of turquoise glittered as we drove through the security gates. It was still so airless, I was fantasising about stripping off and diving into her pool. The house was an estate agent’s dream, with rows of gleaming sash windows and a fuchsia-pink front door.

When Nicole Morgan appeared I did a double-take. I recognised her from breakfast TV. She had a regular slot, advising women how to run their lives. According to her it was possible to make cupcakes, have a great career and still find time to get your nails done. Her hair fell across her shoulders in immaculate dark brown waves, and she was wearing a Fifties-style summer dress, perfect for her hourglass figure. She treated Burns to a lingering smile, but her gaze was laser-sharp. I didn’t even appear on her radar − clearly she had no time for other people’s minions.

‘Come through.’

She sashayed along the hallway to a conservatory lined with olive trees in granite pots. Her garden was so vast that no boundaries were visible. Two small boys were playing on the lawn with their nanny, and I wondered how frequently they got to see their mother. Morgan pressed a buzzer then turned to us.

‘I’m afraid I haven’t got long. A film crew’s coming in half an hour.’

A man in black trousers and a crisp white shirt arrived with a jug of coffee. He struck me as the wrong physical type for a manservant, stocky and wide-shouldered as a bodybuilder. His expression was aloof, as if taking orders irked him, and it was obvious that he had the hots for his boss. His gaze stayed glued to her as he unloaded the cups and saucers onto the table.

‘Thank you, Liam,’ Morgan simpered. ‘But could I have green tea, please?’

The butler gave her an adoring look then marched away.

‘Leo Gresham was a close friend of yours, was he, Mrs Morgan?’ Burns asked.

She widened her eyes, lips pouting. ‘This is confidential, isn’t it? No leaking anything to the press?’

I couldn’t help staring. Flirts have always fascinated me − she seemed determined to get a sexual response, but Burns was refusing to comply.

‘Of course,’ he said calmly. ‘This is a police investigation.’

Her teasing manner cooled for a second. ‘I’ve known Leo forever. His house is a stone’s throw from here. He made a pass at me donkey’s years ago, but he was a complete gentleman when I turned him down. We’ve worked together for five years at the Angel Group. He was head of investments, and they’re PR clients of mine. I can’t imagine who’d want to hurt him.’ Her hands fluttered, demonstrating her expensive manicure. ‘The bank let a few people go last year, but that’s no reason to kill someone, is it?’

‘Only if you’ve got a family to feed,’ Burns mumbled. ‘Could anyone in particular be holding a grudge?’

‘One of Leo’s girlfriends, I suppose. He had plenty of admirers.’ She giggled. ‘His wife didn’t have a clue. I’d have been wondering about all his business trips.’