Killer Instinct (26 page)

He led me through to the back of the shop where they had a small, untidy kitchen. There was an odd assortment of cracked but neatly washed up mugs on the scarred stainless steel draining board next to the sink. Paul cleared a load of scrap posters off a rickety, paint-splattered chair and motioned me into it.

He mentioned that he still had a bottle of leftover Christmas brandy about somewhere, and set about making coffee with generous slugs of the spirit in it for us both.

“So,” he said when we were sipping the steaming, biting liquid, “you want to tell me exactly what happened?”

I went through the whole tale of going round to Terry's and finding the body, not skimping on the details. Paul made me feel better about my own weakness of stomach by turning quite green when I described the state Terry was in.

“I don't suppose there's a chance that it was suicide, is there?” he asked, almost hopefully.

I shook my head. “Disembowelment's not a common method of suicide these days, unless you're a Samurai, I suppose, but in that case he wouldn't have had cuts all over his forearms from trying to fight the guy off, and there was no knife next to the body. Whoever did it came and went with his own equipment.”

“Shitfire. Poor bastard,” Paul repeated, nose in his cup. He looked up at me. “How can you be so calm?” he demanded. “I'm gibbering and all I'm doing is hearing about it.”

“Swan syndrome,” I said, taking another swig of coffee and trying not to chip my chattering teeth on the enamel of the mug. “Unruffled on top and paddling like hell underneath.”

He gave a half smile, which disappeared as a sudden thought overtook him. “Did you call the police? I mean, they'll have to be involved, won't they? If Terry's been murdered, there's no way they won't be.”

“I rang them before I came here, from a call box.”

“Shitfire,” he said again. “I could be in big trouble.” He saw my raised eyebrow and went on, “I suppose you know Terry runs – was running – a little sideline in videos that are, well, for a slightly more specialised taste.”

“Hard porn,” I supplied helpfully, amused at his discomfort.

“Well, yes, but the thing is, if the police start nosing around, they're going to find out about it and I could end up in prison. Terry was the one behind it, not me.” His voice sounded aggrieved.

“So claim you didn't know anything about it,” I said. “Did he keep anything here, or was it all on the van?”

“Most of it was on the van, or I think Terry kept some stuff at home. His client book's here, though. He left it on the counter the last time he called in . . .” His voice faded away as though suddenly realising that Terry was truly dead and gone, and the last time he had been into the shop was actually the very last time.

My own last conversation with Terry came to mind, when he'd said none of his mucky video customers were written down in the usual book. “Paul, could Terry's death have had anything to do with those videos?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, they
are
highly illegal, the people who make them must be a pretty nasty bunch to cross.”

“Exactly, so he never crossed them, cash with order, no questions asked. He wasn't a fool.”

I felt my shoulders slump. Somehow I'd been hoping that there might be an explanation other than the one that was forming in my mind. I didn't like the sound of the one I'd come up with. It was too close to home.

“Paul,” I said, “did you know anything about a lap-top computer Terry accepted as part of a debt for his porn videos?”

Paul shrugged. “Terry ran that side of the business his way. I didn't really want anything to do with it. He'd quite often work on a barter system as far as payment went.” He gave a half-smile at the memory. “He'd accept more or less anything, from servicing on his central heating system to booze and fags.”

“What about drugs?” I don't know why I asked it. The question just arrived on my lips without passing selection by the brain first.

Paul didn't need to think about that one. He shook his head emphatically. “No way. Terry may have been into some dodgy stuff, but he was dead against drugs,” he said, without apparently hearing the irony of his own words. “All you had to do was mention that you thought the government ought to legalise cannabis and he used to practically go up in flames. We used to have quite a laugh winding him up about it,” he finished sadly.

But, Terry's computer had come from the New Adelphi Club, and from what Dave had hinted at, there could be something going on there that was tied up to illegal substances. I recalled Terry's words when I told him what Sam had managed to get off the computer.
“That's terrific!
” he'd said, sounding tricky.
“That should be enough to worry the bastard!
”

“So if someone offered him drugs in payment for his porn videos, what do you think Terry would have done about it?” I asked slowly. There was a theory forming, but right now it was so fluid any slight imbalance might make it disappear.

Paul looked evasive, shuffling in his seat and taking a swallow of his coffee before he answered. “Well, he might have tried to use that information to, well, put a bit of pressure on them, in one way or another,” he said, eyes not quite meeting mine.

“Blackmail, you mean,” I put in.

Paul dipped his long nose back into his mug and gave a faint nod. “Yeah, something like that,” he muttered.

“Is that what happened this time?”

Paul didn't answer, looking more shifty than before.

“Paul, come on!” I said, losing patience. “Last night I think the same people who knifed Terry came after me. They took back the computer I was looking after for him and damned near killed me, too.” His head came up at that, shock blanking his expression. “I need to find out who it is, Paul.”

“God, Charlie, Terry would never have willingly got you into trouble, you should know that.” He hesitated for a while, then put down his coffee mug, standing and walking back into the shop. He was back a few seconds later, carrying a small blue book, which he handed to me.

“That's Terry's client book,” he said, “but the truth is, I don't know who he got that computer from,” he admitted. “He rang me just after he'd got it, told me it had come from someone at that club in Morecambe, but he didn't say who and I didn't ask. Like I said, I don't really get involved. When he didn't show up for work this week I had a look through the book, but he only kept a note of initials, and none of them mean anything to me . . .”

A sudden banging on the shop door made us both jump. Paul peered out through a gap in the stud partition wall between the kitchen and the shop.

“Oh shitfire, it's the police,” he said. He snatched the book I was still holding, grabbed an empty video case and shoved it inside. “Look, take this with you, see if you can unravel any of it,” he said hurriedly. “Don't worry, I won't mention anything to them about you. Go on, get out of here!”

I didn't argue as we both moved back through to the shop, trying to look nonchalant. There were a pair of uniforms standing with their faces pressed up against the door glass. One gave his mate a nudge and a leer when he saw us emerge together.

I have to give Paul credit, he did make a reasonably convincing display of surprise and concern at seeing two officers of the law on his doorstep. He unlocked the door and let them in. “Er, can I help you?”

They asked him his name in serious voices and, feeling like a traitor, I kept walking. “Cheers for this, Paul,” I said, motioning to the video case as I left. “I'll drop it back later in the week.”

He nodded and gave me a distracted wave, but one of the policemen turned round. “What's the film?” he asked.

I thought my heart was going to stop, or burst, or both.
“Psycho
Cop
,” I said immediately. “It's the English version. A group of deranged lads from Traffic go berserk on the M1 in unmarked Maestro vans.”

He gave me a twisted smile. “Yeah, yeah, very funny,” he said, and they turned their attention back to Paul.

Once I was safely outside I shoved the video case down the front of my jacket, yanked on my helmet, and started up the Suzuki. I then made a complete fool of myself by trying to toe it into gear with the side-stand still down, which cuts the motor. Come on, Fox, get it together.

As I rode back towards the middle of Lancaster and home, I could feel the video case pressing against my ribcage. Did it hold the key to Terry's murderer? God only knew, and she definitely was keeping that kind of information to herself. What an unholy mess.

***

It was too late by the time I got back to the flat to do more than glance at Terry's book that night, but the following morning I spent a couple of hours going through it.

He seemed to have a good system, keeping careful track of dates the porn videos had been borrowed and returned, by whom, and when the monies were collected. I say seemed because it told me just about nothing.

I managed to work out that the videos themselves weren't named, just numbered. They were expensive enough for one night's hire to make my eyebrows lift. And some people seemed to get anything up to half a dozen of them out at a time. It was hardly surprising that those paying on a weekly or monthly basis suddenly found themselves with a hefty bill.

As for the people, they were a mystery. Terry hadn't named anyone in full, relying on sets of initials. AC, AZ, BT, CA, DJ, EG, FA, GB. I stopped when I found PC, just in case it was connected to the lap-top, but the initials cropped up so rarely there was no way that PC – whoever he was – could have owed Terry enough to give him a computer.

As well as initials, there was a three-digit number preceding each one. A lot of people had the same number prefix. Eventually I cottoned on to the fact that the numbers probably related to an address. An office building, a private house – or a nightclub. I couldn't really find enough to identify there, either.

The only thing that was easy to understand was the day of the week when Terry called at each undisclosed location. He'd brought the computer round to see me on a Sunday morning, but that could mean anything. Did he usually call round at the club then, or had he just dropped in unexpectedly to do his debt collecting?

I tried again later that evening, when I got back from teaching my Tuesday evening class at the university leisure centre all about head-locks, but it made no more sense than it had done earlier.

With a sigh I shut the book and threw it down on the coffee table, rubbing at my aching eyes. Last week I was just an average person, living my life and paying my bills on time – mostly.

Now I was mixed up in porn videos, illegal drugs, rape and murder. I had a feeling things were going to get worse – and probably much worse – before they got better.

I taught my usual class at Shelseley Lodge the next day. A couple of nights' sleep made my grisly discovery seem more distant. It was as though I was disturbed by having seen a violent film, rather than witnessing it in real life.

When Marc rang, asking how I was, it was difficult to recall that he was referring to my own attack, rather than simply my reaction to Terry's murder. I must have sounded vague and unfocused. He asked me three times if I was sure I was OK, and seemed dissatisfied with my woolly answers.

Despite another work-out and a couple of saunas at Attila's, I was still as stiff as an elderly Labrador with dodgy hips, so I abandoned my normal syllabus again and taught the class kicks and punches instead.

That didn't require much active participation on my side. I arranged the crashmats standing up, four-deep against the wall, and unrolled the targets over them. There was general giggling amongst my students as I set up. When I was done I grinned at them.

My targets were two long rolls of vinyl with life-size thugs printed on them. I'd chosen vinyl because they had to stand up to quite a bit of hammer. They were representations of big ugly fellers with bulging muscles and scowling faces. I found a long time ago that unless I gave my students something a bit more realistic to aim at, they were never going to be able to defend themselves against anything other than attacks by rabid gym mats.

“Meet Curly and Mo,” I said. “I want you to divide into two groups and form an orderly queue to give these two a bit of stick. Basically, do what you like to them. Punch them, kick them, knee them in the knackers. Pretend they're your boss, your spouse, or whoever's been giving you grief lately.”

There was laughter at that. I showed them the basic line to aim for with a punch, from the temples down to the groin, taking in the nose, jaw, throat, and solar plexus on the way.

“OK,” I said. “Anybody – where would be your first choice target?”

It was Joy who answered first. “The goolies,” she said promptly. Several others concurred, with varying degrees of embarrassment.

“Go for his eyes,” said another. She was one of my older students, a middle-aged lady called Pauline, who'd only recently joined the class, but was taking to it with real enthusiasm.