A Need To Kill (DI Matt Barnes) (11 page)

Caroline searched
Matt’s eyes for what lay behind them.  She found an honesty that she doubted he could manufacture.  She took the envelope from his hand with finger and thumb, the way one would hesitantly, reluctantly pick up a vial containing an unknown and deadly form of virus.  She slid the photographs out onto the desktop and stepped back with both hands to her mouth to almost but not quite stifle a low, plaintive moan.

Matt
was not proud of the effect that the image of Marsha’s naked, mutilated corpse had on the woman who had been her best friend.  He had in some way sullied himself by resorting to such shock tactics.  Did the end always justify the means?  He somehow doubted it at that moment, but knew that he would use any trick in the book to capture his as yet unknown quarry.  He scooped up the envelope and prints and returned them to his briefcase.

Caroline continued to stare in horror at the spot that they had occupied.  She could still
‘see’ them crystal clear in her mind’s eye.  Probably always would.

“
One of the sophisticated gentlemen she entertained might have done that to her,” Matt said, keeping up the almost insufferable pressure.  “He had beaten her with his fists, bound and gagged her with adhesive tape, burned her body with the ends of cigarettes, and finally strangled her to death with a pair of tights.  She died hard on the cold concrete floor of a ramshackle garage in a derelict area of Putney.”

“
All right!” Caroline shouted.  “Fuck you!  You’ve made your point.  I’ll tell you everything I know.”

“
Are these two upsetting you, dear?” Rosalie said, bustling into the office carrying a tray with three mugs, a bowl of sugar and a milk jug on it.

Pete watched as a drooping length of ash detached itself from the cigarette in her mouth, to fall onto the wet tray, narrowly missing the sugar bowl.

“No, Mother,” Caroline lied.  She had never been so upset in her life.  “Just put the tray down and leave us alone.  Go into the house and watch television or something.”

Rosalie slammed the tray down in the precise spot the photographs had occupied a
few seconds before, turned on her heel and left the office, unable to throw the door back and slam it due to the hydraulic arm that regulated its movement.

Matt
eyed the now wet ash that had become dark mulch.  It struck him that he had not had a smoke since running out.  He immediately wanted one, but focused hard and waited for Caroline to speak.

“
Marsha was a little desperate, Inspector,” she said, dropping into a swivel chair and staring at a horsy calendar hanging on the wall next to a cork board that had dozens of mainly red and blue rosettes pinned to it.  “As a top model, you get used to the spotlight and the attention of the rich and famous.  It’s like a drug.  You hardly have time to take stock.  And then it suddenly stops.  Someone turns your career off and the light goes out.  You may have a healthy bank account, but it doesn’t replace the buzz of fame.  It may be shallow, but there it is.  You are no longer the centre of attention, and find that a bitter pill to swallow.”

“
You seem to have made the transition,” Matt remarked, going with the flow, knowing that this was Caroline’s way of getting to the point.

“
Don’t believe it, Inspector.  Every day that dawns I wish I was eighteen or twenty again.  Running a riding school is not quite the same as posing for the cover of Vogue, spending a couple of weeks doing a shoot in Mauritius or Rio with the world’s top photographers immortalising you, or fronting a commercial and being paid more for a few days’ work than a regular working stiff can make in five years.  But when the carpet gets pulled and you end up on the floor, stunned and without a clue as to what happened, then everything that follows is an anticlimax.  What I am trying to say is, that Marsha couldn’t cope with the fall.  A part of her could never accept that what she had was temporary and inevitably ran its course.  When the paparazzi quit hounding her and the phone stopped ringing, she became bitter.  She resented the grey, faceless men and women who used other people’s talent or assets, only to unceremoniously dump them with less thought and energy expended than they would employ to flush a toilet. She got hooked on coke, but it was no cure.  You can never run away from who or what you are.  After going through rehab, she decided to get back at life and become a user, not a product that could be discontinued at the stroke of a pen.”

“
How did hooking do that?” Matt asked, wanting to move it along.

“
At first, she told me that when she had amassed enough money, she planned to open an agency―”

“
Modelling?”

“
Yes.  But even with what she charged, she knew that it would be a long time before her dream would be realised.  That was when she started filming her clients and keeping records.”

“
To blackmail them?”

Caroline nodded.

“Who was she squeezing?” Matt said.  “How many were paying for her silence?”

“
Only one that I know about.  Damon Lee.”

Matt
recalled seeing Lee on one of Marsha’s videos.  He had not worn the right type of dress ring, but there was always the possibility that the killer did not put it on every day.  Lee was an international film star, who if the tabloids were to be believed, was reputed to be in line for the role of Bond, should Daniel Craig bow out.  Lee was on the A list, up there with Pitt, Depp and the like.  Marsha had been aiming high, making powerful enemies.

“
I told her that she was playing with fire,” Caroline said.  “But she said, ‘Cassie, you’ve got to be as ruthless as they are, or you don’t get your foot back on the ladder’.”

“
Think, Caroline,” Matt said.  “Who else was on her list of prospective marks?”

“
She talked a lot about Colin Westin.  Said that someone like him could pay enough to turn everything around.  But I don’t think she would be stupid enough to try to blackmail him.”

“
Why do you say that?”

“
Because Westin is a very powerful and dangerous man.  No one who knows him would be foolish enough to take him on.  The only rules he plays by are the one’s he makes.”

“
Give me an example.”

“
He wanted to buy out a large bottling plant in Belfast.  The main hurdle was the managing director, who was trying to negotiate better terms than Westin was prepared to meet.  The man was killed in a hit-and-run a few weeks later, and the deal went through without another hitch.”

“
That could have been a coincidence,” Pete said, speaking up for the first time.

“
Do me a favour,” Caroline said with a sneer.  “Cops don’t believe in coincidence. And if you knew the man, you wouldn’t have even suggested it.  Check him out.  People are either with him, or end up with a lot of grief.”

“
You think he would be capable of doing that to Marsha?” Matt said, tapping his briefcase.

“
I know that he is capable of having something like that done.  He wouldn’t necessarily get his own hands dirty, but has the connections to do whatever it takes to protect all his interests, and Marsha knew that.  I find it almost impossible to believe that she would be so stupid to think he would pay her a penny under duress.”

“
You said almost,” Matt said.

“
She had changed.  Become a little unpredictable.  I’m not a hundred percent certain that she knew where the line was anymore.  She might have crossed it.”

There was nothing more.  Ten minutes later,
Matt and Pete left.  Matt was eager to meet Colin Westin.  The tycoon had just become the prime suspect.

They
took the lift up to the fifteenth floor of the Airscape HQ in London.  It was art deco, as the large foyer had been.  Matt was reminded of the Chrysler building, which brought thoughts of Beth up front and centre again.  They had jetted off for a weekend together to New York; gone to look at Ground Zero, went up the Empire State Building, and did the regular sights, including a dinner cruise round the harbour to see Liberty and the city’s skyline at sunset.

“
I thought Westin would give us the run-around, boss,” Pete said, unconsciously wiping the tops of his black leather shoes against the back of his trousers legs in turn. They hadn’t seen polish for weeks, and looked no different when he had finished.

“
So did I.  He’ll probably have a team of lawyers ready to tell him to give us nothing but his name,” Matt said.

They were shown into an office with a square footage larger than
Matt’s maisonette.  Colin Westin rose from behind his behemoth of a desk and met them in the middle of the room.

“
Detective Inspector Barnes and Detective Sergeant Deakin, welcome.  I’m Colin Westin, and I hope I can help you with your investigation.  Let’s take a seat, have some coffee and get to it.”

At face value,
Matt was impressed.  Westin had the accent and presence of how he imagined a Texas oil baron would speak and conduct himself.  He wore an oatmeal chambray shirt with the collar open and sleeves turned back, a pair of navy mohair trousers and cream loafers.  At over six feet three, he was imposing, and had the look of a man who worked out and ate sensibly.  There was no fat on him.  As he led them across to an area with overlarge sofas the same colour as his shoes, he looked at his Rolex, implying that time was a commodity he could ill afford to waste.  Matt was not now surprised that he was prepared to face them alone.  The man’s eyes generated complete self-assurance, as befit a mogul of his standing.

Matt
and Pete sat at the other side of a low, long marble-topped table that could have been the cover of a tomb.  All that was on it was an intercom.  Westin stabbed a button and ordered coffee.

“
Okay, gentlemen, let’s not fence,” Colin said.  “You know that I was spending some recreational time with Marsha Freeman, and that the dumb broad kept a book and video of every john she screwed.  Let’s go from there, shall we?”

“
How did you know that?” Matt asked.

“
I make it my business to know everything that I need to.  I have contacts, Matt.”

The man
’s smile was one of upmanship.  He had pre-empted them and was now trying to disrupt the formality of the interview by using Matt’s Christian name.  It was a ploy he no doubt used to great effect with people.  But he was scattering corn on barren rock if he thought his attempt to impress or gain Matt’s favour would pay off.

Matt
smiled.  He wished that the Yank was wearing a wolf head ring, but the fact that he wasn’t, did not eliminate him as a suspect.  Whoever his contact at the Yard was, could have mentioned that detail as well.  And as Caroline Foster had pointed out, this guy would not do the deed himself.

“
You had an appointment with her on the evening she was abducted and murdered, sir,” Matt said, without appearing to be phased by Westin’s inside knowledge.

“
Correct.  I arrived outside her apartment building at the arranged time.  She didn’t show.  My limo driver, whose details I will furnish, rang her bell and got no answer.  I phoned her on my mobile and got no reply.  The restaurant I then went to, alone, will confirm that I was there until midnight.  I was then driven to my house in Kensington.  I have time-coded CCTV footage that will show my arrival.  And that I did not subsequently leave the house again until seven in the morning.”

“
Were you aware that Marsha was contemplating using what she had to blackmail you, Mr Westin?”

Colin gave them a broad smile. 
“That would have been a very silly thing for her to embark on, Matt.”

“
She was desperate to make serious money,” Matt said.  “We have to wonder why she would have been in possession of her address book when we found her.  Maybe she was going to hand it over for a bundle of cash.  And just what do you mean, it would be a very silly thing for her to do?”

“I have no idea why she would carry such an item on her person,
Inspector,”  Colin said, letting his expression morph into one of circumspection.  “You’re grasping at straws. She had not at any time given me the slightest reason to suspect that an attempt of extortion was in the offing.  And she would have been out of her gourd to think that I would have handed over a bent nickel.  I would have contacted the police.”

Matt
was pleased to have cut through the man’s outer defences.  That he had now gone from ‘Matt’ to Inspector, signified that Westin was becoming irritated.

“
But you do realise that―”

“
What I realise is, that you haven’t done your homework, Inspector.  If you had, then you would know that twenty-five years ago, after I’d made my first few million dollars, my son Jay was kidnapped.  He was three at the time.  The bastards that did it contacted me.  They wanted a million dollars for his safe return.  I followed their instructions to the letter, and...and lost my son.  He had been dead from day one.  They had at no time intended to return him.  At that moment I promised myself to never, ever try to deal personally with scum again.  I now have a security set-up that is second to none.  The team is headed up by an ex-assistant director of the FBI, and he only uses first-rate personnel.”