The Honeytrap: Part 4
Read The Honeytrap: Part 4 Online
Authors: Roberta Kray
Through her marriage to Reggie Kray, Roberta Kray has a unique and authentic insight into London's East End. Born in Southport, Roberta met Reggie in early 1996 and they married the following year; they were together until Reggie's death in 2000. Roberta is the author of many previous bestsellers including
Broken Home, Strong Women, Bad Girl
and
Streetwise
.
The Debt
The Pact
The Lost
Strong Women
The Villain’s Daughter
Broken Home
Nothing But Trouble
Bad Girl
Streetwise
Non-fiction
Reg Kray: A Man Apart
Roberta Kray
First published as an ebook in 2015 by Sphere
ISBN 978-0-7515-6111-1
All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Copyright © Roberta Kray 2015
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
Sphere
Little, Brown Book Group
Carmelite House
50 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DZ
20
If there was one thing Harry Lind didn’t need at the end of a long hard day it was to be standing in his living room staring down the barrel of a gun. His gaze flicked between the small black revolver and the pale strained face of Ellen Shaw. Her eyes were wide, strange, flashing with brightness. He breathed in deeply, trying to slow the hammering of his heart. His words, even as they came out of his mouth, sounded ridiculous.
‘What are you doing?’
Ellen inclined her head, an odd twisted smile appearing on her lips. Her hand shook a little as she continued to point the gun at him. ‘You’re always asking questions. Why is that? Why can’t you just let things be?’
‘Sorry,’ he said gently. ‘Too many years as a cop. It’s a hard habit to break.’
‘Questions,’ she muttered, frowning. ‘I’m sick of them. Sometimes there aren’t any answers.’
Harry forced a smile, knowing that he had to find a way of connecting with her. It was as though between climbing the stairs and entering the flat she had become a completely different person. ‘No,’ he agreed. ‘You could be right.’
‘
He
was always asking questions.’
‘That can’t have been easy.’ Harry had no idea who she was referring to. Could she mean Adam, or Danny Street? Maybe it was someone else entirely. He kept his gaze fixed on her while he made a few rapid mental calculations. There was no point in even attempting to grab the gun – she was too far away and there was every chance, in her current state, that she’d go ahead and squeeze the trigger. No, he’d have to try and talk her round. ‘Some people don’t know when to leave well alone.’
‘I told him. I told him to give it a rest, but he wouldn’t. And then …’ Ellen sighed. Her eyes darted to the left and right before focusing back on Harry. ‘You don’t understand. You might think you do, but you don’t.’
Harry stayed very still. ‘I can try. But maybe you should put down the gun first. Those things have a nasty habit of going off.’
Ellen ignored the suggestion. ‘He’s gone now,’ she said. ‘He’s not ever coming back. That’s just the way it is.’
‘I get it,’ Harry said, even though he didn’t. ‘Just put the gun down, yeah?’
‘And now you’ve started following me around. I don’t understand why you’re doing that.’
Harry slowly shook his head, taking care not to move any other part of his body. ‘I’ve not been following you. I didn’t know you were going to be at the Lumière. It was just chance. I was there on a job; I was working.’
‘Right. But then you showed up at the flat. Perhaps you were working there too?’
‘I can explain that. Someone from the office, someone who lives near you, saw you going into your house on Saturday night.’ It wasn’t exactly the truth, but he didn’t want to feed her paranoia. Revealing that Jess had followed her to Stoke Newington wouldn’t do much for her trust issues. ‘They gave me a call, told me where you lived.’
‘So you’ve been talking about me?’
‘I just mentioned that I’d seen you, that’s all. They knew I was worried and got in touch.’
‘Nice of them.’
‘There was nothing sinister about it. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.’
‘And then?’
‘And then what?’
Ellen glared at him. ‘And then you thought it was all right to come round, to hassle me, to start with all the questions again. You have to leave me alone. I don’t want to see you or hear from you or … or anything.’
‘I get it,’ Harry said again. ‘I do. It’s crystal clear. And if that’s what you want, that’s fine. I’ll stay away. I promise. But why don’t you sit down? We may as well have that coffee before you go.’
What Harry did next was risky. He turned round and walked slowly back into the kitchen without looking over his shoulder. With every step he expected to hear a shot, a sudden explosive rifting of the air. He held his breath through one second, two seconds, three, until he was standing by the counter. It was only then that he finally breathed again.
From this position, he could no longer see her. He placed his palms on the cool surface of the worktop. Would she follow him? He waited. He listened. But nothing happened. What next?
Just stay calm
, he told himself. If she was going to shoot him, she’d have done it by now. He wasn’t sure if this was true, but chose in that moment to believe it.
He flicked the kettle on again, waited for the water to boil and made the coffee. When he eventually went back into the living room, Ellen was on the sofa. Her head was tilted back and her eyes were closed. The gun was on the coffee table. She didn’t move as he put the mugs down, taking care not to make a sound. Then, with the greatest of care, he reached for the gun, picked it up and slipped it into his jacket pocket. Where had she got the damn thing? Not from Danny Street, that was for sure. But there were plenty of other lowlifes in the area.
Harry stood and watched her for a while. There was something surreal about the fact that only minutes ago she’d been pointing the revolver at his chest. What was going on in her head? Grief did strange things to people, but most of them didn’t resort to waving guns about. She was in the middle of some kind of breakdown, perhaps.
He leaned in and studied her more closely. There was nothing to indicate that she’d taken anything dangerous, an overdose or the like. Her chest was rising and falling with the steady even breaths of someone who had simply fallen into a deep and exhausted sleep. He got a blanket from the bedroom and laid it over her. She stirred but didn’t open her eyes.
Harry heard the faint sound of the buzzer go for the office downstairs. He hurried into the hall and picked up his own intercom.
‘Hello?’
‘It’s Jess.’
He pressed the button to let her in before returning to the living room and scribbling a quick note:
Back in half an hour. Please wait for me
. He placed it on the coffee table, hoping that Ellen wouldn’t wake up before he returned.
By the time he got downstairs, Jess was already outside the office. She had that fervent impatient expression that she always wore when she had the bit between her teeth. Before he’d even had time to say hello she was off.
‘So what do you think? This is looking really bad, Harry. If Brett’s telling the truth and Sylvie did leave with Keynes, then where the hell is she? And what happened to the car he was driving? He went back to Hampstead in a cab; I saw him with my own eyes.’ She barely drew breath before continuing. ‘We’re going to report her as missing, right? I mean properly this time. We can’t mess about. Have you talked to Valerie?’
‘Give me a chance. I’ve only just got back.’ Harry unlocked the door and put on the lights. ‘But I have been in touch with Mac. Once he gets here, we can go down to the station, file a proper report and get the ball rolling.’
‘And when’s that going to be?’
‘Soon. He’s on his way.’
Jess paced to the window and back, her arms folded across her chest. ‘I should have talked to Guy Wilder earlier. Damn it! Do you think the police will pull in Keynes tonight?’
‘They might.’
‘They have to! This is serious. He could have done anything to her.’
Harry, who still had half his mind on Ellen, sat down at Lorna’s desk. He leaned back in the chair and rubbed his chin. ‘I still don’t see why she left with him. I mean I understand how she’d have wanted to avoid Brett, but that’s a completely different thing to doing a disappearing act with the target.’
‘He must have forced her.’
‘Not according to Brett.’
‘Well, he’s not exactly a reliable witness. Maybe he just saw what he wanted to see. Anyway, the police need to check out those flats. She could be there! What if she is?’
Harry shifted forward again and booted up Lorna’s computer. ‘We can check out the electoral register, see if we can get some names. What’s the place called again?’
‘Queen Elizabeth Court.’ Jess came over and stood by his shoulder. ‘Keynes went into one of the upper flats, three or four, I couldn’t tell which.’
‘He could have been going to see friends or a relative. Or maybe something to do with work.’
‘Or not.’
‘Or not,’ Harry echoed softly as he tapped on the keys. After a few minutes he came up with the results. ‘Michael and Joyce Barber in flat three. They’re both in their fifties.’
‘What about four?’
‘Nothing. There’s no one registered to that address.’
Jess peered at the screen. ‘What do you reckon?’
‘Some people don’t vote.’ He gave a shrug. ‘And if I was going to abduct someone I wouldn’t want to have to drag them up a flight of stairs. Keynes must have access to lots of empty properties; why would he choose a block of flats where other people could easily see him coming and going?’
‘I don’t know. Because sometimes people don’t notice what’s under their noses?’ Jess sighed and moved away. She walked over to the coffee machine and stared at it. She looked at the clock and then glanced at her watch as if to verify that a mere two seconds had passed. ‘I wish Mac would hurry up. What’s taking him so long?’
Harry was listening out for sounds from upstairs. What if Ellen just up and left and he could never find her again? She was ill, not thinking straight. Anything could happen to her. He should go over and open the office door – that way he’d hear if she was leaving – but then he’d need to explain to Jess why he was doing it, and he didn’t want to have that conversation right now.
‘Harry?’
‘Huh?’
‘I was asking when Mac was going to get here.’
‘Any minute,’ he said.
‘Have you told him everything? About the car and Brett and Sylvie leaving with Keynes?’
Harry gave a nod. ‘Yeah, he’s got the whole story.’ He could see that for Jess it was all clear; she’d put the pieces of the jigsaw together and created a picture that made perfect sense. He envied her that clarity of thought, her single-minded determination, but wasn’t entirely convinced that she had got it right. For him there were still too many loose ends, too many questions without any answers.