Death Trap (19 page)

The woman looked shaken by Rio’s know-it-all speech. Finally she pushed the makeshift entrance wider and stepped back and to the side. ‘He’s on the second floor, first room near the stairs.’

Rio pressed her lips tight as she entered and was immediately hit by the stench of recently puffed skunk. The place wasn’t the wreck she was expecting. It showed the signs of too many people sharing such a small space – a few items of clothing scattered around, a sleeping bag neatly folded on a wooden bench with a plush-red cushion back – but it was clean. The wooden bar gleamed and the windows were stained glass that showcased eye-grabbing shades of green. The floor wasn’t floorboards as Rio expected, but red, quarry tiles. They were chipped and broken in places, but Rio could almost feel the footsteps of past generations who must have come here to drink and ease off the stresses of life.

Rio felt eyes upon her, twisted her head slowly and found a man lying on another red-cushioned bench giving her the evil eye.

‘We don’t call each other he or she here,’ the woman who’d let her in announced behind her. Rio didn’t turn, but waited for her next life lesson. ‘We don’t use gender barriers to stereotype or make assumptions about people. We use their name or—’

‘I get it,’ Rio abruptly cut in. Beneath her breath she muttered, ‘Yeah, we’re all Martians from another galaxy.’

She knew she shouldn’t be funning with someone else’s political beliefs and actually saw some merits in what Miss Pink Fluffy Slippers was going on about, but all she could think about was telling a son that his parents were dead.

Rio passed the end of the bar and hit the stairs. These hadn’t been as fortunate as the bar area: the bannister half-gone and steps with holes. Carefully she made her way to the first floor. Saw the closed door to the room she was after. Knocked.

‘We’re sleeping.’ Woman’s voice, high and muggy.

Rio opened the door and walked inside. The air was high with skunk. A see-though, blue bong was on the floor, near where a couple lay beneath a duvet on a mattress. The woman – more a girl really – was white, with short, electric-blue dreads, and the man’s face was buried beneath the duvet with only his hair visible – one of those man-buns that some of the young white guys were sporting nowadays. The woman’s pink nipple peaked just above the duvet, but she didn’t seem too bothered about it.

‘I’m Detective Inspector Rio Wray. Are you Cornelius?’ Rio addressed the man.

‘No. Connie’s in the room at the end.’ He pulled the duvet over his head.

Rio closed the door behind, took long strides to the room facing her at the end of the landing, knocked. No response. She didn’t bother politely signalling she needed to come in, instead she grabbed the handle and opened. Frowned. This wasn’t a room, but a store cupboard. Why would the guy in the other room have said . . .?

Rio snapped around and ran back to the room she’d just been in. She shoved inside the room. The woman was alone now, sitting up with the duvet wrapped around her. But all Rio saw was the makeshift curtain flapping at the wide open window. Rio rushed over, looked down, saw the man who she now knew was Cornelius Bell, naked, except for a pair of boxers, jumping onto the iron balcony below on the first floor.

Rio knew she had to get around the back quickly. She hooked her leg over the window then froze when she saw that the thin side street that Cornelius Bell was heading for was blocked by a high-wall at one end and an open exit at the other. That meant the only route for his absurd getaway led to the front of the former pub.

‘Leave him alone,’ his bed mate squealed as Rio jerked her leg back inside.

Rio ignored her as she rushed out of the room and bolted down the stairs that creaked and whined with her unsteady weight. The man and woman downstairs were both on their feet when Rio reached the bar area. They looked agitated, ready for a fight.

‘Stay out of my bloody way,’ Rio stormed as she picked up speed and rushed past them.

She used her shoulder as a battering ram, guessing that Pink Fluffy Slippers hadn’t locked the corrugated sheet behind her. The makeshift door gave with a crash. Rio sprinted into the daylight. First thing she saw was Detective Strong bolting out of her car.

‘Stay back,’ she yelled at him.

Rio twisted her gaze onto her target, and caught the back of Cornelius as he motored along the street. She used everything she’d learned as her school’s former female one hundred metres champion to follow. But Cornelius was no pushover, maintaining the distance between them. The burn of rising blood and adrenaline kicked into every muscle that Rio had. Her mouth gaped wide as she pumped in oxygen helping her to accelerate even more.

Cornelius swung around a corner. Five seconds later Rio did the same. The distance between them started closing. He was tiring, while her strength was only getting stronger.

‘Cornelius,’ she yelled out.

He flicked his head over his shoulder and she saw his expression was like a terrified rabbit bang in the middle of headlights. He stumbled. Rio didn’t. He crashed against the side of a parked car and slumped to the floor. Panting Rio reached him. Stopped. Running footsteps sounded behind her.

‘Leave me alone,’ Cornelius desperately let out between harsh, uneven breaths. ‘I haven’t done anything wrong.’

Rio softened her voice. ‘You’re not in trouble. I’ve got bad news.’

‘DI, you alright?’ Rio didn’t answer Jack Strong; instead she kept her attention fixed on Cornelius Bell.

He gazed up at her like he still didn’t believe her.

‘It’s your mother and father.’ Rio took a steady breath. ‘I’m afraid your aunt and uncle as well. I’m sorry but they’re all dead.’

Maurice and Linda Bell’s son’s face crumbled. Lying in the road, in his underwear, he bawled like a newborn babe.

Cornelius’s head was bowed as he sat on the mattress back in his room at The Rebels’ Collective. He now wore a pair of shorts, oversized T-shirt and his man-bun looked like it was about to fall apart. His girlfriend’s arm wrapped protectively around his shoulders. Rio realised that his companion was much younger than she’d first suspected. Although she was thin, she had all the puppy fat on her face of a teenager who hadn’t yet reached eighteen. And the skittish expression in her eyes that Rio had seen on too many runaways.

‘How can they have been murdered?’ Cornelius raised his head to look at Rio. His eyes were bloodshot and glazed.

Rio leaned back against the wall, near the box that was a makeshift table covered with a yellow cloth and a photograph of a young boy. Jack Strong was stationed near the door. ‘Our investigation is obviously still ongoing, but the evidence we have so far suggests that this may be the work of what the press are calling the Greenbelt Gang—’

‘Who?’

It hadn’t even occurred to Rio that he might not be in touch with the latest news – probably too busy enjoying the high-life with his skunk and smooching with his lady friend beneath the sheets.

‘Connie, you know, that crew who’ve been out on the rob and killed that woman who’d only been married for a couple of weeks.’ For the first time the girl spoke. Brummie accent and soft, Rio heard the care and comforting way she spoke to her boyfriend.

‘I remember,’ he answered, but confusion still lit up his face. ‘Did anyone see anything?’

Rio stalled. The less people who knew about Nicola the better. But she was his cousin and his sister was bound to tell him anyway.

‘You’re not telling me something,’ he continued, judging the way she suddenly tightened her lips. ‘Ophelia will let me know—’

Rio pushed herself off the wall. ‘Your sister said that you don’t speak to each other.’

Cornelius dropped his head again and muttered, ‘We don’t. Well, not since she hit the celeb Z-list and doesn’t want everyone to know that her bruv is living in some hole in South-East London. Probably asking her agent how to best play this all out for maximum PR exposure.’

His words were bitter and harsh. No, not much love lost between this brother and sister.

‘What I’m about to tell you, you have to keep to yourself,’ Rio said, but her gaze flicked to the girlfriend.

‘Cookie’s OK. She won’t tell anyone. She doesn’t feel comfortable talking to other people, even the others here when I’m not around.’

Connie and Cookie. If this had been any other situation Rio would have laughed.

Cookie dropped her arm from his shoulder and got to her feet. She was tiny and small-boned, a white girl with blue dreads. Her hair rocked as she shook her head and spoke directly to her boyfriend.

‘No worries, babe, I’ll be downstairs.’

When she was gone Rio told him about Nicola. His reaction was more explosive than his sister’s. He shot to his feet and stared out of the window.

‘You’re joking. Nikki saw . . . Ania being murdered—’

‘We’re still trying to clarify exactly what she saw, but whoever did this didn’t know that she was there.’

He shuffled around and stuck his hands in the pockets of his shorts. His hair flopped over his forehead giving Rio a glimpse of the boy he had once been. ‘She’s a good kid. A bit nutty every now and again, but it can’t have been easy for her to see what she did. Where is she now?’

‘In the hospital—’

‘Why? Was she hurt?’ Alarm raised his voice.

Rio shook her head. ‘She was traumatised when she saw the bodies—’

‘Bloody hell.’ He wiped the back of his hand against his mouth. Rio saw that his hand was shaking.

‘Put some clothes on. Get some food in your belly. Then ring your sister.’

He wrapped his hands around himself as he nodded.

Rio turned and signalled with her head at Strong who opened the door. His phone rang just as Rio decided to face Cornelius again with a question that had been bugging her. It didn’t have anything to do with the investigation, but she hated loose ends.

‘Your sister doesn’t appear to like your parents’ solicitor, Stephen Foster. Why is that?’

‘I don’t know.’ She could hear the threat of tears back in his voice. ‘I’ve never even met this Stephen Foster. All I know is that my mother and father are dead.’

Rio left him to his grief and turned back to Strong who just punched off his mobile.

Once they were outside the room he said, blues eyes gleaming, ‘Next stop is Gary Larkin. I’ve just got his location.’

10:00 a.m.

Rio didn’t kick-start her car once they got back inside it. Instead she anxiously waited for Calum’s text message. Five seconds later it came. A single word:

Safe

twenty-four

10:55 a.m.

Road works had made the journey to South-East London much longer than they’d expected. Rio and Strong drove in silence to Gary Larkin’s address in a rundown suburb of South London, the ideal place for a criminal down on his luck. His home was a small brick-block of flats surrounded by a square of unkempt grass and a few weather-beaten trees. They identified his flat from the outside: top floor, curtains closed although it was still daylight.

‘Are you sure we can trust Calum Burns to look after the girl?’ Strong asked.

She’d filled him in on the safe house situation as they made their way across the capital. Strong had said nothing, obviously using the journey to figure out what he wanted to say to her.

‘I trust him, that’s all you need to know.’

Strong raised his chin as he turned to stare at her. ‘You know why he was booted out of the Force then?’

Rio pulled the keys from the ignition. ‘He’s not the only officer who should’ve been given his
adios
orders.’

A slow, sour smile turned up the right corner of Strong’s mouth. ‘And there was me thinking we were becoming best friends.’ He turned the smile into a short twist of his lips. ‘All kind of rumours went around at the time as to why Detective Burns was shown the door. Not that it’s got anything to do with anything but I heard he got hitched—’

‘Married?’ Rio turned swiftly to face him. ‘Where did you hear that?’

Strong tapped a finger twice against the side of his nose. ‘Now that would be telling.’ He turned the conversation as he gazed back up at Gary Larkin’s home. ‘He doesn’t want prying eyes from neighbouring properties . . .’

‘Yeah, but we’re going to need a bit more than that. Leave the talking to me.’

Just as they got to the lift, Rio’s mobile pinged. Urgently she pulled it out. Checked.

Safe

Hearing from Calum eased some of the tension as she rode the lift with Strong to the top floor. Larkin’s front door was in one corner of the landing, the letterbox sealed off. Rio didn’t see a bell or knocker so she rapped her fist against the door.

No answer.

Her next knock was louder.

Still no answer.

The door of a neighbouring flat opened, bringing the background sound of Ella Fitzgerald’s mournful vocals on ‘Cry Me A River’ out on to the communal balcony. An older woman peered out, sporting half glasses, liquorice-dyed hair and a mauve tracksuit with silver glitter running down the seams that was designed for someone at least twenty years younger.