[Alicia Friend 01.0] His First His Second Read online

  McCall brought Alfie the desired mocha with an extra shot and a swirl of cream; McCall opted for a venti-sized iced coffee. To Alfie’s enormous discomfort, McCall sat on the same couch as him. Their knees touched.

  “Your contact’s late,” Alfie said.

  “Woman’s prerogative.”

  “Woman?”

  “Yep. Oh, and wait till you see her. What Little Red could do with her…”

  “I’m not late.” A female voice, from the side.

  Alfie looked her up and down, not concealing his interest. She was as tall as him, wearing a figure-hugging trouser suit, low blouse. She held a soft leather case. Oh yeah, Alfie was glad he waited for this one.

  “DCI Chambers, meet Alfie Rhee,” McCall said. “A colleague of mine from the States.”

  She sat opposite. “I’m not happy about this, McCall. It’s an ongoing investigation.”

  “Thought you had someone in custody.”

  “He’s a nutcase. He might have done it but I doubt it. Frigging probie overreacted.”

  “Probie?” Alfie said.

  “Probationary constable. Looks like our nutter was living up there, using the well’s pipe as a toilet. Probie freaked out, decked him.”

  “And you’re sure he didn’t do the two women?”

  “No, not sure. But there’s no weapon. We found his other things, pans and cutlery, but nothing that would penetrate. Besides, he’s the one who dialled nine-nine-nine, and only claims to know about one body. There were two.”

  “How’d the other die?” McCall said.

  “Why don’t we talk about something else for a moment?”

  “Of course.” Alfie handed Chambers the envelope as overtly as he could. Doing it shiftily would draw far more attention. “You can trust it’s there. Red checked it for you.”

  “If it’s wrong, I’ll do something to you Viagra won’t fix,” Chambers said to McCall.

  McCall sipped his coffee. Grinned hornily.

  Chambers took a file from her case and laid it on the table. “You can read it here, Mr. Rhee, but I’m not risking you taking it away. Not for a measly four thousand.”

  Alfie opened it on his lap. Photocopies of photos, copies of reports, no originals. He pointed this out.

  “I don’t mind you eyeballing it,” Chambers said. “But if the tabloids get hold of it someone’ll be for the chop. Probably me.”

  Alfie shrugged. He began to read. Examined the crime scene photos. The excrement in little bags at the bottom of the well.

  How neat.

  Chambers told McCall to go get her another coffee. When he was gone, she asked Alfie, “So why do you want this?”

  “I’m writing a book,” Alfie said.

  He carried on reading. The arrest of Freddie Wilcox, some detail on him. Preliminary autopsy of the intact body.

  Single blow, straight to the heart. A sharp, strong blade.

  “You used to be FBI?” Chambers said.

  “Yep. Started in BAU—that’s behavioural science … serial killed. Then robbery detail.”

  No forensic evidence on the body.

  “So why’d you leave?”

  “Personal issues.”

  Last seen on her usual street talking to a man in a hat or baseball cap. Descriptions all from long range, some saying well-built and handsome, some claiming he was fat and ugly, one saying skinny and plain. A hooker? Yeah, she was seen with a lot of men.

  “What sort of personal issues?”

  Alfie closed the file. “I wanted to catch a killer. They didn’t believe there was a killer.”

  “Ah.” Chambers reached out for the file. “And you think this might be related.”

  Alfie snatched the file back. “Yes. And I’m gonna hang on to this for a while.”

  “That wasn’t the deal.”

  McCall returned with Chambers’ coffee, plus a cookie. She waved the cookie away. McCall’s face dropped into sadness.

  Alfie stood with the file. “I’m changing the deal.”

  Chambers reached for it. “You give me that back right now.”

  Alfie moved for the exit.

  “McCall, stop him,” Chambers ordered.

  People were looking now, glancing up from their books, from each other. The couple making out on the one chair ignored it all.

  “Er, I’m not sure if…” McCall started.

  Alfie pushed his face up close to Red’s. “You’re working for me at the minute. Not her. I’m paying you.”

  “Red, if you stop him walking out of here with my file,” Chambers said, “I will screw your brains out five ways from Sunday.”

  McCall dropped the cookie, reached for the file, and fell to the floor. Alfie’s counter-strike shot pain through his shoulder, ribs and left knee all at once.

  Alfie stared at Chambers, daring her.

  Go on, he thought. Try me.

  “Please,” she said. “If it gets into the wrong hands…”

  Alfie waved the file. “This man killed my wife. And you people have arrested some bum cos you have even less of a clue than the damn Feds. You wanted five-K, but I’m sorry. Four grand sterling is plenty for what you’ve given me. I need time to look through this. And I ain’t doing it in some coffee shop.”

  “Mr. Rhee, try and understand—”

  Alfie grabbed McCall by his ear and pulled him up. “Limp it off. You’re still working for me.” He paused by the door to the stairs. To Chambers, he said, “When I’m done with it I’ll make sure Red brings it back to you.”

  “Hey,” McCall said. “You only said I got to get it back, right? No time limit on that shag is there?”

  Before Chambers could respond, Alfie yanked McCall out the door.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The supermarket Cleaver identified as being the most recent place anyone used the credit card was located five hundred yards from Paavan Prakash’s house, making the car park an excellent staging area where backup would await instructions. The Bridlington Police allowed a black-and-white to idle with two bored uniforms in the front while the suits spent close to two hours working out the logistics and jurisdictional elements. Alicia’s Serious Crime Agency status trumped everything, so it was she who now chatted to Humberside’s public relations officer while Murphy briefed Cleaver and Ball.

  “We go in, me and DS Friend,” Murphy said, having now lost track of their shift patterns. The “inspector” side of his job title wondered about what overtime charges would hit this month, but for now he didn’t question it.

  “Come on, boss,” Ball said. “We found him.”

  “He isn’t a suspect yet. Just a potential witness.”

  “He’s the only bugger without an alibi. And your new DS seems to think being dumped is a good whatsitcalled … trigger.”

  “He hasn’t had opportunity to provide an alibi, and if he’s living and eating here, it’s a long bloody way to go to drop a body.” Murphy struggled to keep his voice even. “For now, he’s a witness, Sergeant Ball. Am I clear?”

  Ball turned away, hoiked up his trousers and blew into his hands.

  Although they lingered in bright sunshine, frost glistened in the shade. Years ago, Murphy and Susan loved coastal days like this: bitterly cold, a cutting wind, a salty tang in the air.

  He tried to imagine what Alicia would say to Ball and Cleaver about their egos, but he was too distracted by the Technicolor dream-hat she purchased from the old dear in a village they passed through as they neared Brid. It was a snug fit and had earflaps that she tied over her head for the time being. She’d tell them to stop being such silly little boys and do as they’re told. If they’re good, she might buy them fish and chips.

  “Sergeant Ball,” Murphy said. “Cleaver.” He passed Ball a twenty-pound note. “While we’re away why don’t you grab us all some fish and chips or something.”

  Ball took the money sullenly. “Sure, boss. No probs.”

  “Salt and vinegar and a can of dandelion and burdock.” He gave them d
irections to a chippy he frequented when Susan and he were together.

  The two skulked back to their car and took coats from the boot, and started the walk past the Priceway’s glass entrance, ignoring the three teenagers smoking and drinking glass bottles of Coke (Murphy thought they didn’t do those any more), and through an alley, where they would descend a steep trail of stairs to the sea front.

  A sharp jolt pricked Murphy’s right buttock. He jumped, turned. Alicia had pinched him.

  She said, “Let’s go visit Mr. Prakash.”

  Parked a hundred yards away, opposite the Priceway’s, Richard Hague used a high-powered camera to watch Alicia talking to some guy in a suit. If challenged by anyone but Alicia or Murphy he could say he was a journalist—freelance, of course.

  God, Alicia looked so cute in that hat. If only they’d met under different circumstances. He’d underestimated the police’s speed of response and, more specifically, the effectiveness of the fatsoes he’d seen at Doyle’s. All you hear about these days is police brutality, incompetence, and red tape. But, Richard now realised, the huge number of crimes that actually get solved didn’t sell newspapers. When this was over, Richard would again consider his offer to kill the reporter.

  He hoped Alicia hadn’t yet seen today’s edition.

  Having planned to get to Paavan before the police he now wished he hadn’t staged the tattooist so much like a drugs slaying. He should have chanced taking the ledger. It was inevitable they’d find Paavan Prakash eventually, but this fast?

  Was Alicia that good? Was Murphy? Surely not the fat coppers at the tattoo parlour.

  It was his first mistake in years. He had to own that and move on.

  Researching the original kidnapping on the Internet, it was hard to find anything specific, just that she’d disappeared, presumed murdered. Perhaps a runaway. There was far more about Henry Windsor. Quite a man about town, Tanya’s uncle, or rather he was, before she disappeared; a key figure in the upper class social scene.

  DI Murphy appeared to brief the fatsoes, handed them money, and sent them on an errand. Dinner?

  Richard planned to eat his own sandwiches once the matter of extracting information from Paavan was over with, perhaps during, but he was hungry now. Sod it; you only live once. He unwrapped the foil, waiting for movement in the Priceway car park.

  Richard had taken one bite of his ham and pickle sandwich when Alicia and Murphy set off and disappeared from view. He turned up his police scanner, and waited.

  Murphy and Alicia rounded the corner to Belle Vue Drive into a harsh headwind. Alicia untied the flaps and retied them under her chin.

  “What’s the press boy have to say?” Murphy asked.

  “Wants us to acknowledge the Humberside contribution.”

  “Sitting in a car park?”

  “Well that’s hard work at the best of times.”

  He smiled.

  “Getting easier, though,” she said.

  Damn, he thought. Why’d he smile at that?

  Number thirty-two was a small semi; two and a half bedrooms, nicely kept, stone slabs in the front but with rose stems poking from the soil, now brown and hard until the spring. It sloped upwards from the road, a dozen stairs leading to the door.

  Murphy rang the bell.

  An Asian man in his early twenties opened the door, his skin dark, approaching black. He was mostly lean, a slight paunch, wearing slobbing sweat pants, a Game of Thrones t-shirt, and Spider-Man slippers.

  “Paavan Prakash?” Murphy said.

  “Yes?”

  They produced their IDs and introduced themselves.

  “What is it?” Paavan said.

  Alicia said, “It’s very cold, listen.” She exaggeratedly chattered her teeth, lifted the flaps on her hat. “Look. My ears are going blue. Feel my hands.”

  She pressed one hand on Paavan’s. He pulled away.

  “Fine,” he said. “Come on in.”

  The place was immaculate. Clean-smelling, fresh, the windows open, gas fire burning. The living/dining room was compact, a three-piece suite facing a flat-screen telly, and what should have been the dining area sat a sturdy desk on which lay an Apple Mac and the best-looking peripherals Murphy had seen. Lever-arch files bulging with paper filled shelves beside the work area. Murphy touched a radiator, roasting his hand, and looked inquisitively at the open patio windows.

  “I like fresh air,” Paavan said, reading the question. “But I also like to be warm.”

  “Expensive habit,” Murphy said.

  “And not friendly to Mr. Environment,” Alicia added.

  Paavan shrugged. “What do you want?”

  “What do you do for a living, Mr. Prakash?”

  “I’m a writer.”

  “What do you write?”

  “I’m trying to write a novel. A literary horror.”

  “Publish much?”

  “A few short stories here and there. An agent’s been sniffing around my book. Nothing solid.”

  “Can I see?” Alicia asked, removing her hat and unzipping her coat.

  “No. You can’t see. What do you want?”

  Murphy took out his notebook, flipped it open showily. He had no need to look at his notes, but wanted a prop, a gesture that usually worked well on folk who weren’t hardened criminals.

  “Do you have a tattoo?” Murphy asked.

  “No.”

  “Mind lifting the arms on your t-shirt?”

  “Got a warrant?”

  “Come on,” Alicia said. “We just want to see.”

  Paavan waited for Alicia’s sweet-as-candyfloss smile to melt. It didn’t. So he rolled up the right sleeve past his shoulder, revealing a darker stretch of skin at the top of his arm, about the size of Tanya’s tattoo. “I had it removed six months ago.”

  Murphy did the maths. “When Tanya was officially declared dead.”

  Paavan sat heavily on the chair beside his computer. “Why do you want to know about Tanya? Who sent you?”

  “Please answer the question, sir.”

  The young man breathed through his nose. His eyes didn’t focus on either officer. He simply said, “Yes.”

  “It was a tiger?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sir, you need to tell us everything about your relationship with Tanya Windsor.”

  “Will you go away if I do?”

  “Probably,” Alicia said with a smile.

  “Fine.”

  Paavan said he met Tanya in India. He was over there visiting family, meeting a girl they were trying to pin him down to marry. If he didn’t like her, he could say no, but an arranged marriage was still traditional for the Prakashes.

  Tanya was travelling with an Irish girl called Mary who used the word “feck” like punctuation. They were staying at a hotel in Agra. Tanya had actually tried to learn some Urdu and stopped Paavan, now dressed traditionally, to ask directions. He understood “temple” and “Shiva” but nothing else.

  “Hang on a minute, love,” he said. “Where you wanting to go again?”

  Rather than forcing them to negotiate the streets alone, Paavan escorted them to the temple and bade them farewell, told them he was headed to his grandparents’ village.

  Tanya asked, “Is there any way to get in touch with you again?”

  “Sure,” Paavan said, and gave her his mobile number.

  She called him ten minutes later. He turned the car around and picked them up.

  “Okay,” Tanya said. “We’ve seen the temple.”

  And Paavan agreed to show them the village Khandaui.

  Mid-afternoon, and Tanya and Paavan drank tea and ate hard cakes at The Great Tree Café which was basically a trestle table, an urn, and a Tupperware box of cakes, located in the shade of a large tree. Paavan told her he’d be turning the fiancé down, no matter what.

  “How do you know?” she asked.

  “Because if I didn’t take the chance and ask you to dinner, I’d be thinking of you for the rest of my life
.”

  And that was that. Paavan had already finished university with first class honours in English literature, so he currently had no commitments. A little family money. Tanya, recently turned eighteen, claimed she was travelling for a year before deciding what course she’d do. Mary went north, while Tanya and Paavan headed for the airport. It wasn’t for another month, when the pair of them hit Oz and were laying on the beach on Christmas day, that Tanya revealed how wealthy she was.

  At Tanya’s request, he never told his family about her money. She wanted them to love her for who she was, not what she could bring them. So when, in a swanky restaurant in Agra the following February, Paavan announced their engagement, even the promise of a traditional wedding, right here in India, changed nothing. Tanya wasn’t of their cast, of their religion, and any children would be half-breeds. Paavan’s father cut off his funding, ordered him to fend for himself.

  It was that night, when everyone was asleep, that Paavan’s grandmother, Pria, woke him. She told him to be quiet, and let him out into the rose garden. It was deathly quiet. The only sounds were chirruping insects and his grandmother’s sandals on the sandstone path. No electric lights at this time, so the stars were bright, each one visible, innumerable.

  And Pria regaled him with the story of the Bengal tiger and his girlfriend. Of the royal Bengal falling in love with a rare but lowly white tiger. The Bengal’s father declared he would be exiled from the tiger palace and be forbidden to return. So the Bengal and his love fled, and lived in the wild, without royal trappings, without luxurious food, but happy, until the end of their years.

  It is not a tale many people tell their young, for it gives them ideas like the one already embedded in Paavan.

  When they returned home to England, Paavan felt like half a man, living off Tanya’s trust, but as she pointed out, she hadn’t earned that money either. And besides, it was there to make her happy. She could attend university, attain a degree in social studies and ancient culture, while Paavan worked on his writing, followed his dream. So he started a novel based on their romance. He called it Two Tigers; it would sell millions.

  But after meeting Tanya’s guardian, it was clear he was not welcome in the house—