Kill and Tell (6 page)

Staffe sits opposite Martin Goldman in the front room of Goldman’s modestly furnished, semi-detached house in Stamford Hill. ‘Strange, I manage to get through all these years in the police, yet I never came across you, Martin. Now here you are, representing a missing man and the two prime suspects in his disappearance.’

‘Perhaps the lazy policeman keeps his investigations close to home.’

‘History tells us these things are usually close to home.’ Graduation pictures of two boys sit on top of the old, analogue TV. One is of a handsome youth, looking cool and smiling. The other is not and Staffe thinks how Martin seems to be the reverse of everything his brother is. ‘Anthony’s something else, isn’t he?’

Martin regards Staffe as if he might be from the Revenue and picks through his words like a man playing straws. ‘Anthony took the accountancy business in directions I couldn’t. He sees the world in straight lines. I envy him very much.’

‘But yours isn’t a world with straight lines. The law can be long and very winding. You changed direction late in life.’

‘There is still plenty for me to accomplish.’

Staffe notices a large pile of papers on a bureau in the corner. It is neat and looks as if it has not been disturbed in some time. Beside it sits a yellowed reel-to-reel tape recorder. ‘You employ old methods.’

‘Aaah. No, that is a different life’s work.’ Martin’s face brightens. ‘My father’s life.’

‘You’re compiling his memoirs?’

‘Forgotten histories. He was in the East End when they turned on us. At least they tried.’

‘Cable Street? A triumph,’ says Staffe.

‘Cable Street disguised the reality as a triumph.’ Martin leans back in his chair and after a few moments, a shallow smile spreads into his face, as if he might be somewhere more exotic.

‘Is that when your father first met Carmelo Trapani?’

‘Ask him yourself.’ Martin stands, goes into the hallway and calls, ‘Father!’

When he returns, Martin comes into the room like a servant, deferential, his hands clasped behind his back, and as he speaks, he bows his head a little. ‘Inspector, this is Leon Goldman. My father.’

Leon appears in the doorway. He is the same height as his son, with slightly less hair but brighter eyes. He eases himself into the chair with a creak and a happy gasp. ‘Terrible business about Carmelo. Any news?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

‘You haven’t had a note yet? For ransom.’

‘I can’t discuss that.’ Staffe gives Leon his most respectful look. The old boy has a happy, whiskery face, a smile permanently creased in his grey jowls. ‘But I feel as if I won’t get anywhere in this case if I don’t trust somebody.’ He pauses. ‘No, we haven’t had a note yet, and I fear we won’t get one now.’

‘He’s worth more than a few bob.’

‘That is my assumption. I saw your other son yesterday but he wasn’t very forthcoming.’

‘Carmelo is the most talented businessman I ever met. He can tell a bad idea from good in a fraction of a second. He can tell a man is lying by the way he blinks, but Anthony is correct. We can’t discuss his affairs without authority.’

‘A dead client is no use to anybody.’

‘That’s not true. The estate will prevail and the investments, actually, go nowhere. Are you close to finding him?’

‘It would help if people would answer my questions. Perhaps you could tell me about Jacobo.’

‘Jacobo loves Carmelo like a brother and vice versa, but I don’t know where he is.’

‘Did I say he is missing?’ says Staffe, going to the desk. ‘I don’t recall saying that.’ He puts an index finger on the tight pile of typescript, at least eight reams thick. ‘Your memoir is intended for the public domain, I take it.’

‘Of course. That’s why I have employed a lawyer to draft it for me,’ laughs Leon, a little mischief in his bright, watery eyes.

Martin looks hurt.

‘It would do no harm if I read this?’ says Staffe. ‘Nothing to hide?’

Leon’s smile beams a little broader. ‘It is a memoir, not a diary. It requires an audience of more than one.’

‘It’s unfinished, and flawed,’ says Martin.

Leon looks at his doting son as if he is a buffoon. ‘You will make a copy for the inspector, Martin. I can see he has a little wisdom.’

‘I really don’t think it is ready, father.’

‘It’s my life to give away.’ Leon winks at Staffe, unseen by his son. ‘I hope you find Carmelo. He has a heart as big as the moon, as heavy as the seas.’

‘That’s quite an image. I look forward to reading your story.’

‘I will bring it tomorrow, if that is what father wants.’

Staffe says, ‘You must be very proud of both your sons,’ watching Martin’s eyes darken.

‘Anthony is like me. He has a gift for money.’

‘For figures?’ says Staffe.

‘In my business they are the same thing, as Martin knows,’ says Leon. ‘It wasn’t your cup of tea, was it, Martin?’

Martin says nothing.

Staffe says, ‘I dread to think of the conditions Carmelo is being kept in.’

‘We should tell the inspector,’ says Leon.

‘Tell me what?’

Martin Goldman sighs heavily at the writing desk. He leafs through a diary, says, ‘It hasn’t even been a week yet.’

‘The inspector said that time is of the essence in a case like this.’

‘There is nothing to tell, father, not if we haven’t even convened.’

‘Convened what?’

Leon Goldman says, ‘Carmelo came to us last week.’

‘I’m his lawyer, father.’

‘And I’m his friend. He came to see both of us,’ says Leon.

Martin says, ‘Carmelo said he had made some changes to his will. He wouldn’t discuss them, nor would he sanction my even perusing them, but he is provenly sound of mind and the codicil is witnessed and certified, he assures me.’

‘He went to a third party?’

‘Tell him everything, Martin,’ says Leon.

‘It gives me the strangest feeling.’ Martin removes his spectacles and looks at Staffe. ‘Just several days prior to his disappearance, Carmelo came to me with the amended will and instructed me, in the event of anything materially untoward – and I asked him to define “untoward”, upon which he said I would immediately know – that I was to convene a reading of his will.’

‘I can assure you, this is untoward,’ says Staffe.

‘He was very specific. He said I was to wait a week.’

Leon Goldman says, ‘And there is one more thing.’

‘Carmelo said that I was to arrange for the presence of the police.’

‘At the reading?’ says Staffe, thinking about the appointment Carmelo made and never kept with Pennington. ‘He knew what was coming.’

Today, Rimmer woke with his first hangover in three years. Half-way through his usual twenty-minute routine of sit-ups and star-jumps, Rodney’s wife brought his breakfast and bill, saying Rodney had gone out, but he knew Rodney hadn’t gone out at all. He was in purdah, for shooting his mouth off.

Now, in Leadengate, Rimmer tells Pennington what Rodney had told him about Attilio Trapani and Helena Ballantyne and the filthy-rich Arab in the middle, and about the Ballantynes’ teetering bankruptcy, but before he can get to the end of his story, Pennington cuts him dead.

‘Christ, Rimmer! Is that what you were excited about? I want evidence; hard bastard evidence, not tittle-tattle.’ Pennington sighs. ‘The Ockingham Stud might be on its arse, but we can’t use what that landlord said to you,’ says Pennington.

‘But Trapani’s wife is having an affair with Jahmood,’ says Rimmer.

‘So?’

‘So it undermines Attilio’s position completely. A man has to provide. He’d do anything to raise the cash to save his business and his wife’s stately home.’

‘Including abducting his own father?’ Pennington swivels his chair, looks out of his window across the City tops to the Gherkin. A view he loves dearly. ‘Can you imagine doing that to your own father? Maybe. Stranger things have happened. God knows, in this job you get to see what families are capable of.’

‘Precisely, sir.’

Pennington swivels back, says, ‘Let’s say you can have a proper run at Trapani. But don’t rattle Staffe’s cage, hey? He’s got plenty on his plate and I’d like the two of you to work side by side on this – like equals, not at each other’s throats.’

Josie is in the snug of the Hand and Shears, sharing a plate of corned-beef hash with a sinuous man with a sleeve tattoo on his left arm and hair cut into a bob like a woman’s. He has dark rings around his eyes. Josie, too, is short of a couple of hours’ sleep. She and Staffe clock each other and her eyes avert, as if she has been caught mid-mischief.

Staffe extends his hand to the man, says, ‘I’m Will.’

‘Conor,’ says the man, shaking his hand and smiling easily.

‘My boss,’ says Josie.

‘I’m going to see Pulford,’ says Staffe.

‘Now?’

‘That’s the guy in jail, isn’t it?’ says Conor.

Staffe looks daggers at Josie and she busies herself with another forkful of the corned-beef hash. She chews it and the men talk about what Conor does for a living. He is a video film-maker and Staffe makes a fine fist of showing interest while Josie eats. Conor doesn’t touch the food and when Staffe stands, they shake hands again. Josie puts a fiver down and stands, too.

Staffe says, ‘No, you stay. Stay with Conor.’

‘It’s OK, Will. I understand. The job comes with her. I’m cool with that,’ says Conor, smiling benignly. He kisses her on the mouth. ‘Just cool.’

When they get out onto Cloth Fair, Josie says, ‘You could have called me. I’d have met you at Pentonville.’

‘You’d have been cool with that?’

‘Don’t take the piss, sir.’

‘He just seems different.’

‘Different to what?’

‘Never mind.’ Staffe hails a cab, asks for Pentonville. Once they’re on the Farringdon Road, he says to Josie, ‘Do you have the printout from Haddaway’s computer?’

Josie plucks a piece of paper from her bag. ‘How did you know that he’d been on Google Earth?’

‘I saw the logo sticking up from Pulford’s file. Let’s put the rest down to guesswork.’

‘You know the significance of Whitley Bay?’

‘His mother lives there. It’s what I feared as soon as I saw the logo. They’re threatening him – to keep him quiet.’

‘Shouldn’t we lay off? Imagine if it was you. Wouldn’t you want to make your own call on something like this? I know I would.’

‘I can’t watch Pulford go down for this, Josie. You know that.’

‘And you think the rest of us want it?’

‘It was me who Golding shot.’

‘It’s not your fault that Golding is dead, or that Pulford’s on remand for it.’

‘Pulford didn’t do it. There is a murderer to find here, but our hands are tied because of bloody Internal Investigations. It stinks. Pennington’s shitting his St Michaels in case there’s a backlash. You can see it: “Policeman remanded on murder charge. Despite rising crime figures, City prioritise clearing killer’s name.” That’s why we’re working on scraps. It comes down to people building their bastard careers. That’s why we have to look like we’re just working the Trapani case.’

‘But you can see where Pennington’s coming from.’ Josie looks out of the window, watches the Grays Inn Road roll by. ‘Pulford crossed a line, the way he hounded Jasmine Cash, and now the father of her little girl is dead. Pulford was up to something, sir. I know it. You weren’t here, but I saw him. He was unhinged.’

‘And we should have helped him. He was being loyal. Pennington sent you to Spain to get me, and now you’re being reticent.’

‘All I’m saying is, it has to be Pulford’s decision. It’s his mother.’ Josie reaches into her bag again, pulls out the photocopy of an itemised phone bill. ‘This is from Pulford’s phone.’ A series of calls have been highlighted in luminous yellow. Alongside the seventeen items are two names: ‘Golding’ and ‘Latymer’.

Staffe says, ‘Brandon Latymer is e.gang, and they’re putting the pressure on Pulford from the inside. And they can manipulate the mood on the Limekiln and Attlee, on the streets in Hackney.’ He taps the satellite printout of Pulford’s mother’s house. ‘What in God’s name is Pulford up against? Poor bastard. If we don’t help him, who will?’

Josie shakes her head. ‘This Brandon Latymer, they call him B-Lat. We never had his phone number. We tried a hundred times to get him in for questioning. He’s like a ghost, and what’s worse – he’s got no history. He’s clean as a whistle.’

‘But Pulford was talking to him,’ says Staffe.

‘The lease for Cutz is in his name.’

‘Cutz? Shit.’

Cutz,
the barber shop that rinses the e.gang’s ill-gottens. Cutz,
the place Jadus Golding put two bullets into the torso of DI Will Wagstaffe.

Staffe turns the printout over, looks down the list again. ‘And Pulford was talking to Haddaway, too.’

‘The very gangster who is Google-Earthing Pulford’s mother’s house,’ says Josie.

‘They’ve got him by the balls.’

Jacobo Sartori looks out of his hotel room. From here, he can see the exotic onion domes of the Brighton Pavilion through the thickening sea fret. Seagulls swoop and call to each other. Salt is in the air and so are memories. What a life he has had. For the most part vicarious, of necessity, but nobody could question it has been a rich one.

Down the phone, the caller says, ‘You should be present at the reading, Jacobo.’

Jacobo holds the phone away from his ear and thinks of Appolina. He must stay away. Over the decades, he came to love her and now he can’t remember the time he didn’t and it is breaking his heart – flake by flake, like the flesh of fish the way they cook it in the Regency. The gulls call and Jacobo puts the phone back to his ear, says, ‘When is it?’

‘Tomorrow.’

‘But the police will be there.’

‘You have nothing to hide, surely?’

‘Can any of us say that?’

‘The longer you stay away the worse it looks.’

‘I hear they have been questioning Maurice,’ says Jacobo.

‘There’s no evidence against him.’

‘He has done no wrong.’

‘How can you know that, Jacobo?’

‘I am certain.’

‘They would say there is only one way you could know that,’ says Martin Goldman.

‘You mean if I did it?’

‘I mean, if you know who did it. Carmelo was your friend as well as your master, Jacobo. You were like brothers, and I need to know what to do if you are a beneficiary?’

‘Do as you would if I were dead. Consider what is mine to be Appolina’s.’

‘It would devastate her, to hear you talk like this.’

‘Now, can you tell me what is in this damned will?’

‘I haven’t opened it yet. I made my promise.’

‘A promise, from a lawyer? You may as well sign the sea.’

The line falls silent. ‘I can hear gulls.’

Which deduction induces Jacobo to hang up – a little too late, he fears.

Crawshaw pats Pulford down and vets the
Journal of Criminal Studies
that Staffe has brought in with him.

Pulford sits heavily opposite Staffe and Josie, his shoulders bowed. If you didn’t know him from Adam, you would say he is a broken man.

Staffe watches Crawshaw move away and looks at the duty PO, says, ‘Can’t we have some privacy? He is one of us, you know.’

The PO looks across at Crawshaw, says, ‘I have to be by the alarm, in case it kicks off.’

‘Please, just give us a few minutes of privacy.’

‘Are you the one they shot?’ says the PO.

Staffe nods.

The PO looks around, to see he’s not being observed, and moves away, pats Pulford on the shoulder as he goes, making sure Crawshaw doesn’t see.

‘They’re letting you study?’ says Josie as Staffe hands him the journal.

Pulford mumbles, ‘It’s the only thing they can’t stop me doing.’

‘What’s the subject?’

‘Recurring histories of gangland crime.’

‘Christ! Just a bit of light relief, then.’

‘The old times are coming back.’ A glint returns to his eyes. ‘Back in the twenties and thirties, different minority groups formed cartels, and now that’s happening again, with eastern Europeans and Asians, and north Africans.’

‘How heart-warming; a league of nations coming together to keep us in work.’ Josie looks around the room. ‘And this is research, I suppose?’

For an instant, Pulford smiles, like a door swinging open and closing immediately.

Staffe says, ‘We need a viable suspect for Jadus Golding’s murder. You know who did it – am I right?’

Pulford shakes his head.

Josie says, ‘We know they’re threatening you.’ She reaches into her bag. ‘God knows what I would do in your position.’ She places the printout of Google Earth on the table.

Pulford’s mouth drops open. His lip quivers. ‘Leave this to me. Please.’ He looks past Staffe and Josie and his eyes flit.

‘What were you talking to Shawne Haddaway about, David? You were phoning him the week before Jadus Golding was shot.’

But Pulford is looking away now, distracted by Levi Salmon, who has a visitor on the far side of the room.

Josie turns to see what Pulford is looking at, but she doesn’t register Levi Salmon. She sees his visitor, says, ‘Louis.’

‘What?’ says Staffe.

‘What the hell is Louis Consadine doing here?’

Staffe says, ‘Is he the one who’s threatening you? That big fella over there?’

Pulford shakes his head and the three of them look at Beef and the young lad, sporting a black eye and a mouth like splattered fruit.

Josie says, ‘You were talking to Brandon Latymer, too. We didn’t even have a number for him.’

Louis stands up, lollops across the visitor centre and starts shouting, ‘Grass! You fuckin’ grass!’ He points at a table in the opposite corner.

The PO says to Staffe, ‘First sign of trouble, you press that alarm, right?’ But by the time the PO gets to Louis, it is too late.

Louis shouts, ‘Fuckin’ frag!’ and kicks away the chair of the seated visitor and kicks again, once to the ribs, then a full swing to the head as the visitor squeals. All around the room, inmates and visitors crowd in on the action.

Pulford’s eyes flit left and right, wide with horror, and Staffe registers it, sees that his nerves are withered, his spirit shot to bits. Staffe rushes to the alarm button and presses it.

Pulford cowers at the sound, hunching over and putting his palms over his ears as the thunder of dozens of POs gathers, running towards the incident from all directions.

Inmates and visitors are getting involved in Louis’s fight on the far side, and eventually Louis is dragged away by a PO. The brawling inmates are twisted by officers, their faces pressed to the floor. Some female visitors scream and others appear to be getting off on it. In the midst of it all, Beef has made his way to Pulford’s table and is now beating a retreat, taunting Pulford, pointing at his lap.

Pulford stares down, into his lap, at the dog’s tail, dried clots of blood at its stem; looking at it as if it might blow up in his face. Eventually he picks it up. He says, ‘Simba.’ He strokes the dog’s tail, says, ‘The bastards did for Simba.’

Jombaugh says, ‘You have a visitor.’

Staffe clocks the enormous pile of paper at the end of Leadengate’s reception desk, says, ‘Martin Goldman by any chance?’

Jombaugh laughs. ‘Some bedtime reading! He’s in Two. Been waiting over an hour, said he had something important to tell you.’

When Staffe enters the interview room, Martin Goldman says, ‘Father wanted you to have his memoir.’

‘I have seen. Is there something else?’

‘It’s the reading of the will tomorrow. Father is quite insistent that I told you in person. This must be conducted precisely in accordance with Carmelo’s instructions, but we are also concerned for our family’s professional reputation. You do understand, we have to keep confidential matters confidential – unless directed by the estate.’

‘Will Maurice Greene be at the reading?’

Martin says, ‘He has been invited. That is all I can say. Now, as regards the memoir, father is very proud of his work, and it has also become something of a life’s work for me, so I implore you to tread softly. This is a family affair. It is in sections. There is a list of the sections on the top, but it is told thematically, not by chronology, and there will be some typographical errors. Nonetheless, father said he is anxious to know what you think of it. My favourite episodes are the early years; the events surrounding the Battle of Cable Street. My father was a very young man, and so were Carmelo and Jacobo.’

‘Jacobo? Will he be there tomorrow?’

‘It would benefit everyone concerned if he was. But I’m afraid to say, I doubt it.’