Death Trap (18 page)

Rio had thought of that; it was the perfect way to keep him out of her hair. But it was a no-can-do situation because Strong was helping her work the drug angle.

‘You’re the one who said we should team up, remember,’ Rio pushed. ‘Plus if I ask another officer to do it, it’s one more person in the chain who knows where Nikki is. The only person I can trust is someone who’s more hardcore, more ruthless than a hitman.’

‘Is that how you see me?’ His question was husky. Unexpected.

Rio fought for words, surprised that she might have hurt his feelings. ‘Not on a personal level, but professionally you’re known as one of the best freelance consultants around. You set up your stall and reputation in a pretty quick timeframe, which couldn’t have been easy with your accident – whatever that was.’ She couldn’t help chucking the last tartly in.

And she couldn’t help what came out next.

‘Why wouldn’t you let me see you?’ Rio moved her hands away from the warmth of the cup and lay them flat against the coolness of the table.

Calum sighed. ‘Don’t do this, Rio—’

‘Do what? Ask the question I have every right to ask after three years.’ Her vocal chords ceased up in her throat.
Why is this still so effing painful?
‘I tried to see you three times.
Three times
. Every time I was turned away. Told, only relatives allowed.’ A sharp look passed between them. ‘I came one more time and was told that you weren’t there anymore. I tried your place.’ She shrugged. ‘Where did you go? On holiday? Another woman? Turn your back on me—’

Calum swore. ‘It wasn’t like that—’

‘That letter you sent says it was.’

He leaned across the table. ‘You want the truth?’ Suddenly he shoved away from the table and staggered to his feet. He pulled a cutting breath in, filled with pain.

Seeing his pain Rio too stood, filled with remorse. ‘OK, that was out of order. Wrong time, wrong place.’ She took a step closer to him. ‘Do you need some painkillers?’

He just looked at her, then started laughing. It was the first time she’d heard him laugh all day and she wished it wasn’t. This wasn’t the laugh she remembered. The one that turned cheekiness and an outrageous joy for life into memorable sounds. No, this laugh hacked up the type of noise it was best not to remember.

‘I told you to leave this alone,’ he said simply.

Rio swallowed. ‘Forget about me, but you can’t leave that girl sleeping down the hallway alone. When I think of how close Nikki came to meeting her death tonight . . . You’re the only one who can protect her when I’m not here.’ Rio moved quickly back, bent down and started rummaging madly in her bag. She straightened as she pulled out Nikki’s adoption papers, and handed them over.

She gave Calum time to absorb what he was reading before saying, ‘The Bells gave this girl a great start in life and I’m going to make it my business to make sure she keeps living the good life they had mapped out for her.’ Rio stepped back from him. ‘You’ll be helping Foster out by keeping his client safe.’

‘Still as bossy and bullish as ever, Ray Gun.’

Usually she hated his use of that name but his teasing was a welcome intrusion.

‘OK. I’ll do it,’ he finally agreed. ‘I’ll be back here at nineish in the morning.’

He left and it was a good few minutes that Rio remained alone in the kitchen. Then she spoke to the dark emptiness Calum had left behind him.

‘Thank you.’

twenty-two

The Hit: Day Two

8:36 a.m.

‘Meat is murder.’

Rio gritted her teeth at Nikki’s words the next morning. The teen was staring down at the bacon breakfast Rio had got up early to specially make for her. The girl had woken up like she’d had a night sleeping with a nest of bees and sporting a pair of gloves her mother would never approve of – fishnet, fingerless, except for the garter-like pink lace around the middle finger. That’s if her mum wasn’t dead, Rio quickly reminded herself.

Why is it so cold?

Why don’t you have Netflix or Amazon Instant?

Why can’t I have Hamlet and my mobile?

Moody, rude and downright disrespectful – that’s why Rio had never thought about having kids; she didn’t fancy spending the rest of her life answering the monotonous question ‘Why?’ But she had to give this girl some significant slack; four people in her family, including her parents, had been murdered yesterday.

‘I bet you didn’t check to see if it has peanuts in it?’ Nikki carried on.

‘Are peanuts murder as well?’ A silly image of a row of peanuts facing a firing squad invaded her mind.

Nikki’s eyes snapped. ‘I’ve got an allergy to them. If I eat even a trace I’ll end up in the hospital.’

‘I need to tell the medical staff about my daughter’s nut allergy.’

Rio heard Patsy Bell’s voice in the hospital. She should have remembered.

Nikki flicked the two rashers of bacon onto the table. Stared back at Rio with ‘I dare ya’ eyes.

Rio didn’t rise to the challenge. Instead she leaned over to grab the bacon when her phone rang. She twisted away and moved to the counter near the window and grabbed the phone up.

As she passed Nikki she said firmly, ‘You’re in my house now, my rules, so eat the rest of your breakfast.’

In the hallway she answered the call. ‘DI Wray.’

‘Sounds like you didn’t get much sleep last night.’

Hearing the brittle tone of Assistant Commissioner Tripple Rio squared her shoulders. ‘Good morning, ma’am. I was just about to ring you so that you could come and see Nicola Bell.’

‘I don’t think that there’s much need for that. Not now that you’ve found her.’

Stunned Rio couldn’t speak. Then the words were tumbling from her tongue. ‘Ma’am . . . um . . .’ Shit, where were the words when she needed them?

‘You looked too surprised when Detective Strong said that you had the girl safely hidden. I trusted you to get her back, but just to keep you on your toes I told you I needed to see her this morning. And of course the first place a good officer starts when looking for someone is tracking their mobile phone. When one of my contacts at the Information Bureau, who was also my PA many years ago, had alerted me that you had a good trace on her I relaxed.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ was all Rio could say.

‘But I’m warning you, Wray, don’t let it happen again.’

‘No, ma’am. I’m following up a significant lead this morning.’

‘Good. I’ll leave you with a warning about something else.’ Rio waited. ‘I know that you want to rise up in the ranks, probably aiming to be the first black, female Commissioner. Then you’ve got to learn that when you’re stretching the truth, keep the emotion well hidden on your face.’

Rio stood there for a full minute after the call had ended, slightly shaken, but also pleased that the lie was in the open now. The Met’s mission to be seen as honest and transparent was one she took to heart.

When Rio got back to the kitchen, she sighed with relief when she saw that the girl had finished all of the food on her plate, the bacon still abandoned on the table.

‘Mr Burns will be here soon to look after you—’

Nikki’s lip curled ‘I don’t need looking after. I’m not some baby; I can take care of myself.’

Rio played it like she hadn’t heard her. ‘Go get yourself washed up.’

‘I’ll shout when I need you to put my nappy on,’ the girl muttered smartly as she left the room.

Rio leaned against one of the walls.
God, what have I done to deserve this teen hell?
The doorbell went. Trying to shrug off a feeling of total harassment, Rio walked out to the hall and towards the door. Standing on the doorstep, with a heavy looking black holdall bag in his hand, was Calum. He appeared fresher this morning, his hair gelled neatly back and his skin more evenly toned.

‘So how’s our girl today?’ he asked as he moved slowly inside.

‘Driving me nuts.’ More nuts! Gee-sus.

Calum lifted the corner of his mouth with pity. ‘Any girl who names her iPad after a dead Danish prince is not going to be easy.’

‘What?’

‘Hamlet. Must be something going on in the Bell family about that play.’ Seeing the look of confusion on her face he added, ‘Ophelia. She’s Hamlet’s crush.’ He stumbled slightly as he moved.

‘Are you getting whatever is going on with your leg seen to?’ For the first time Rio felt comfortable enough with him to ask. She didn’t like seeing her own one-time crush in pain.

But he made no reply, moving towards the cute-sized sitting room. Rio mentally shrugged; if he didn’t want to talk about it that was his business. By the time she got to the room he was already unzipping his bag and pulling out a laptop.

‘I’ll need to be working while I’m here.’ He didn’t look around at her, instead drew out a plug and lead.

‘If there are any problems you call me straight away. Oh yeah, Nikki’s allergic to peanuts, so watch what she eats.’

He looked up at her. ‘Sure thing, Ray Gun.’

‘And get her to draw a picture of what she saw the gunmen wearing over their faces. I asked her to do it for me, but she wasn’t playing ball. Maybe you’ll have more luck.’

After Rio gave him a detailed description of the killers’ disguise her mobile went off again. Jack Strong.

‘We’ve located Cornelius Bell. A place called The Rebels’ Collective . . .’ Rio listened and took the details.

Before she left she spoke to Calum one more time. ‘You text me on the hour, every hour, to let me know that Nikki is safe.’

twenty-three

9:40 a.m.

‘Wait here,’ Rio told Jack Strong as he started to exit her BMW parked on the road facing The Rebels’ Collective.

‘We work the same way the animals were herded onto Noah’s Ark, lass,’ he answered. ‘In twos.’

‘Not this time. It’s better if I tell him about his family on my own.’

Strong leaned back in the passenger seat. ‘You’re the boss.’

A few seconds later Rio stared up at the building that housed The Rebels’ Collective, one of the many abandoned and forgotten pubs that were littered all over London. Three-storeys high, it stood on the intersection of two streets, as if it had once been the cornerstone of the community. The ground-floor windows and door were lost behind graffiti and poster-splattered wooden boards and corrugated sheets. But upstairs, different coloured bed sheets doubled-up as curtains, giving the upper building a rainbow flag feel. The only grandness it might have once held was in its faded pub sign: The Lady’s Love.

Rio moved to stand in front of the large corrugated sheet that blocked the main door. No knocker or bell in sight, so she pounded her fist against it three times. She heard a noise shifting somewhere close behind the door, but no one spoke, no one opened up. So Rio slammed her fist twice more.

‘What do you want?’ Male voice. Irritated with strains of weariness.

‘I need to speak to Cornelius.’

‘What for?’ The voice was stronger this time as if it was directly behind the door.

‘I’m a police officer. I need to talk to him about a serious matter.’

Silence. Then, ‘He isn’t here.’

Now it was Rio’s turn to become very irritated. ‘If you don’t open up I’ll be back and this time I won’t be on my own, the drugs squad will be right beside me.’

More silence. Then a loud thud, a click, a scraping noise as the corrugated sheet was shoved forwards. A man appeared – strapping build; mid-twenties; white; dark hair, that was a number one cut all over. His nose was pierced and he displayed a multitude of badges on the top half of the T-shirt he wore. Rio couldn’t read any of the taglines of the badges from where she stood, but taking in the way the man glared at her, she guessed they said stuff like ‘Death to the Pigs’. Only when Rio caught the fluffy, pink slippers at the end of combat trousers and the way the T-shirt slightly pushed out at the chest did she realise that she was dealing with a woman.

‘I need to speak to Cornelius urgently, so I’d rather check out for myself that he’s not around.’

The woman didn’t move; instead her expression became more defiant. ‘You’re betraying your race by becoming a puppet of the institutional racist cop system.’

Oh, I’m dealing with one of those.

‘And you’d know all about racism against black folks, being black yourself,’ Rio countered back. ‘Well some of us don’t have a trust fund to look forward to when we’re thirty to help us forget our troubles.’

The other woman’s face pinked up. In Rio’s experience, these trust-fund liberals were always so easy to pick out. Always the ones sprouting the most shit about how they were going to save the oppressed of the world with their bare hands. They didn’t know dick.

‘I don’t have time to debate why you’re still using the term ‘‘race’’ when it doesn’t exist because it’s a social construct made up by the Victorians,’ Rio carried on, bored. ‘But if you’re a member of the
human race
, like the rest of us, you’ll let me in because what I’ve got to tell Cornelius is going to hit him hard.’