The Tunnel Rats (Coronet books) Page 10

  ‘Great,’ sighed Wright. He was sure of one thing: it wouldn’t be good news. ‘Where’s Ronnie?’

  Reid gestured upwards with his thumb. ‘With the governor.’

  ‘I’d better tell him I’ve identified the body.’ The door to the incident room was pushed open. ‘Speak of the devil,’ said Wright as Ronnie Dundas stepped into the incident room, closely followed by Superintendent Newton.

  Wright got to his feet. ‘Sir, we know who the victim is. Max Eckhardt. Number sixty-three on the PNC list.’

  ‘Great,’ said Dundas. The chief inspector turned to the superintendent. ‘At least we can show the Met boys something, Governor,’ he said.

  Newton nodded, his mouth a tight line. ‘Where are they going to sit?’ he asked.

  Dundas pointed at a group of desks that had been pushed together to the right of the door. ‘We’ve given them their own HOLMES computer and I’ve asked Phil to assign two uniformed WPCs to input their statements and reports. I don’t think they’ll have any reason to moan.’

  Newton pursed his lips as he looked around the incident room. He looked at his wristwatch. ‘They’re due in at three,’ he said. ‘Bring their chief inspector up to see me when they get here.’ He turned and left the incident room.

  Dundas went over to his desk and picked up a carton of milk. ‘Okay, tell me about Eckhardt,’ he said.

  Wright logged on to the PNC terminal and called up Eckhardt’s details. ‘Forty-eight years old, American, married and lives in Maida Vale.’

  Dundas cursed as his fingers slipped and the carton fell to the ground. Milk splattered over his shoes as he retrieved it. ‘Why the hell do they make these damn things so difficult to open?’ he asked. He took a long drink and wiped his moustache with the back of his hand. ‘Missing since when?’

  ‘A week ago. His wife reported it on Tuesday.’

  ‘Did she say why he was in Battersea?’

  ‘I haven’t interviewed her yet,’ said Wright. ‘She was pretty shaken up. I thought it best if she went home. I’ll go along and see her later.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Dundas. ‘Get a picture circulated. The Met boys’ll be handling the house-to-house in Battersea. They’ll be glad of the overtime.’

  ‘Couldn’t we handle that?’ asked Wright. If there was going to be an early break on the case, it would probably come from a witness who’d seen the killer in the vicinity.

  ‘It’s a joint investigation, Nick.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.’

  ‘I’m serious.’ Dundas held his arm up in the air. ‘That goes for everyone!’ he shouted. ‘I know we’re not the best of buddies with the council cops, but the key word here is co-operation. Everything goes into HOLMES. Everything. No holding back tidbits for yourself. And at morning prayers we share ideas, not hurl insults. Is everyone clear on that?’

  There were assorted mumblings from the detectives in the room.

  ‘Good!’ Dundas shouted. ‘Just make sure we solve the case before the bastards!’

  Roy Casper’s office was little more than a broom cupboard, with half a window that looked down on a street of shops, most of which had ‘For Sale’ or ‘To Let’ signs in their windows. The office had once been twice the size but a plasterboard wall had been fitted, splitting it down the middle. There were no pictures or framed certificates hanging on the wall and Nick Wright wondered if the solicitor had been warned that it wouldn’t take the weight. The few qualifications that Casper had hung on the wall by the door. Wright had never looked at them; for all he knew they could have been primary-school swimming certificates.

  The office furniture wasn’t dissimilar to that in Wright’s own office: a cheap teak-effect desk, three shoulder-height metal filing cabinets, and swivel chairs covered in grey fabric. The solicitor had a computer on his desk but it was probably a decade older than the one Wright used. Casper hadn’t even switched it on.

  Casper was smoking a cigarette that he’d rolled himself and scattering ash over the file he was reading. Wright waited impatiently, knowing that he could only have been summoned to the poky little office to hear bad news.

  ‘Here it is, sorry,’ said Casper, pulling out a letter. Casper was only a few years away from retirement and Wright had the feeling he was coasting. Everything about the man suggested he’d given up taking care of his appearance. In a perfect world Wright would have had a more high-powered solicitor, but Casper was all he could afford.

  Casper squinted at the letter, clicking his teeth as he read, and Wright had to fight the urge to grab the letter from him. Casper looked up at him. ‘She wants to cut back on your visitation rights . . .’

  Wright jumped to his feet so quickly that his chair flew backwards and banged into the wall. ‘She what?’ He grabbed for the letter, almost tearing it out of Casper’s hand. His whole body shook as he read it.

  ‘Calm down, Nick,’ said the solicitor.

  ‘Once a month!’ Wright spat. ‘She wants me to see him once a month! For God’s sake, he’s going to forget who I am. She can’t do this.’

  Casper began rolling another cigarette. ‘She can try,’ he said. ‘Read on.’

  Wright read through to the end. Janie was claiming that Sean was having nightmares after the unauthorised visit to his office. ‘This is bullshit,’ said Wright.

  Casper used a red plastic lighter to light his cigarette and he blew smoke over the file. ‘Did you take Sean to your office?’

  ‘Yes. I’d taken him to the zoo, it started raining, I figured he might like to see where I worked, that’s all.’

  ‘But your ex-wife specifically told you not to?’

  Wright shook his head vigorously. ‘No, that’s not what happened at all. Look, whose side are you on?’

  ‘You’re paying my bill,’ said Casper. ‘Though I should mention that I’m still waiting for your last account to be settled.’ He took a long pull on his roll-up. ‘Your ex-wife alleges that your last visit has had a detrimental effect on your son’s mental wellbeing. Accordingly, she wants to decrease your exposure to him.’

  ‘Can she do that?’

  ‘It’ll have to go before a judge. But if she gets a medical report on her side, I wouldn’t be surprised if the judge decided in her favour.’

  Wright tossed the letter back on to the solicitor’s untidy desk. ‘Terrific,’ he said bitterly.

  Casper put the letter back in the file. ‘How do you want me to proceed?’ he asked.

  Wright put his hands either side of his head and massaged his temples. ‘What are my options?’

  ‘I can say that we’d like our own psychologist to examine your son. They’ll have to agree to that, and by the time he’s been examined, he’ll probably be over the nightmares.’ Casper put up his hands as Wright scowled at him. ‘That’s my recommendation, anyway.’

  ‘I’ve a better idea,’ said Wright. Casper raised his eyebrows expectantly. ‘I could kill her.’ Wright bared his teeth in a semblance of a smile. ‘I’m only joking, Roy,’ he said. ‘Honest.’

  May Eckhardt’s address was an apartment in a four-storey mansion block in Maida Vale. Her black VW was parked in the road and Nick Wright pulled in behind it. The exterior of the mansion block was orange brick and white-painted pebbledash with a slate roof that looked brand new. There was a narrow well-tended strip of garden in front of the block and a black and white cat with pale green eyes watched him from the safety of a small chestnut tree as Wright walked towards the front door. There were eight bells and a brass speakerphone to the right of the door. Most of the bells had brass nameplates, but the one under the Eckhardt bell was written on cardboard. Wright pushed the bell. There was no answer and he pressed it a second time. There was still no reply, but the door lock buzzed and when he pushed the front door it swung open. He looked around and saw a closed-circuit television camera tucked away at the top of the entrance alcove. She’d obviously seen him on that. He smiled up at the lens, and immediately regretted it. He wasn’t there on a social call.
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  There were two apartments on each floor. Wright walked up to the second floor where May Eckhardt already had the door open for him. She was wearing a baggy white sweatshirt with Exeter University on the front, the sleeves pulled up to her elbows, and blue Levi jeans. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail and she had dark patches under her eyes.

  ‘Sergeant Wright,’ she said flatly. ‘I thought you said you’d telephone.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I was passing and . . .’

  She turned away and walked down the hall, her bare feet slapping on the polished pine floorboards. Wright closed the door. When he turned around the hall was empty. There was a stripped pine door to the left and Wright peered around it into a big room with a bay window overlooking the street. May was sitting on a beige sofa, her knees drawn up against her chest. Apart from the sofa there were two armchairs in matching fabric and a Chinese-patterned rug on the floor. A big screen TV sat in one corner and a JVC stereo with waist-high speakers in another. An alcove opposite the door had been lined with shelves on which were stacked hundreds of records. Frank Sinatra was playing on the stereo.

  ‘I thought I’d try, on the off chance . . .’

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said. There was a bottle of white wine on the floor by the sofa and a half-filled glass.

  ‘How are you?’ he asked, sitting down in one of the armchairs.

  Her eyes narrowed. ‘How do you think I am?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m sorry, stupid question.’ He looked around the room. A black bass guitar hung on the wall behind the sofa where May was sitting.

  ‘Is that your husband’s?’ asked Wright.

  May twisted around and stared at the guitar for several seconds as if it was the first time she’d seen it. ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘He was a musician?’

  She turned around again. ‘No, it was a hobby. He was a photographer.’

  Wright took out his notebook and a pen. ‘Who did he work for?’

  ‘Agence France Press. It’s a news agency. He was moved to the London bureau three months ago.’ She leaned forward and picked up the wine glass. ‘We’ve only just moved into the flat. Half our things are still in storage.’

  ‘When did he go missing?’

  ‘Last Monday. He’d been sent to Brighton for the Conservative Party conference. The office wanted him to stay in Brighton rather than coming back to London each night.’ She sipped her wine. ‘He was supposed to be back on Monday but didn’t show. That’s not unusual so I didn’t worry. But on Tuesday the office called me asking where Max was. He’d left Brighton on Monday. I thought perhaps he’d had an accident, and started calling around the hospitals. Then I called the police.’ She finished her wine with several gulps and refilled her glass before holding out the bottle. ‘Would you . . .?’ she said.

  Wright shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t mind a drink of water, though,’ he said.

  She began to get up but Wright beat her to it. ‘Tap water will do just fine,’ he said.

  May settled back and looked at him over the top of her glass. ‘The kitchen’s first on the right,’ she said.

  Wright went along the hallway. The kitchen was all stainless steel and shiny white worktops and it reminded Wright of the post mortem room, stark and functional. He picked up a glass off the draining board and ran the cold tap. There was a pine knife block to the left of the sink in which were embedded five knives, all with black handles. There was a space for a sixth knife. Wright put down the glass and pulled out one of the knives. It seemed to be a pretty good match to the one that had been impaled in Eckhardt’s body. He took out a second knife. It was a bread knife with a serrated edge. Wright wondered which knife was missing from the kitchen block. He pushed the two knives back into the block and filled his glass from the tap. As he did, he looked down into a plastic washing-up bowl. Lying next to a toast-crumb-coated plate was the missing knife. Wright took it out of the bowl and slotted it into the block. It was a perfect match. Wright felt an inexplicable sensation of relief wash over him.

  He went back into the sitting room with his glass of water. May didn’t appear to have moved at all. Wright sat down and sipped his water. ‘Was he driving back from Brighton?’ he asked.

  ‘No. He was taking the train.’

  ‘So why did you think he might have been involved in an accident?’

  She frowned as if she didn’t understand the question. ‘I don’t know. I suppose I thought he might have had a heart attack or something. You know what flashes through your mind when someone goes missing. You always assume the worst.’ She began to shiver and she gripped the glass so hard that Wright feared it would shatter. ‘Who would do that to him?’ she whispered. ‘Why would anyone want to kill my husband like that?’

  ‘Did he have any enemies?’ asked Wright.

  ‘Good God, no. Oh no. You don’t think that someone who knew Max would . . . ?’ Her voice tailed off.

  ‘Is it possible that he was working on a story that brought him into contact with dangerous people?’

  ‘Like the Conservative Party?’ She smiled thinly. ‘What is it they call it? Gallows humour? Isn’t that what police are famous for?’

  ‘Sometimes it makes it easier to deal with the sort of things we come across,’ said Wright.

  ‘Well, Max is . . . I mean, Max was . . . a senior photographer with the agency. They wouldn’t have him doorstepping gangsters or drug dealers. Most of the time he covered wars. Crazy, huh? I never worried about him when he was here. It was always when he was abroad that I was scared. And we haven’t been here long enough to have made enemies. You could talk to the office, though. His boss is Steve Reynolds.’

  ‘Where were you before you moved to London?’

  ‘The States. New York.’

  ‘He was an American?’

  She nodded.

  ‘And you? If you don’t mind me asking, where are you from?’

  ‘Sale. Just outside Manchester.’ She smiled tightly. ‘Sorry to disappoint you if you thought I was from somewhere more exotic.’

  ‘Oh, it’s not that,’ he said quickly. ‘I know lots of Asians are born here these days—-’

  ‘Oriental,’ she interrupted.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘I’m Oriental,’ she said. ‘Asians are Indians or Pakistanis.’ She shook her head. ‘It doesn’t matter.’ Her eyes glazed over and it was obvious her mind was elsewhere. They sat without speaking for several minutes. Frank Sinatra began to sing ‘New York, New York’. One of life’s little coincidences, thought Wright.

  ‘He must have died in such pain,’ May said eventually. ‘I wonder if . . . ?’ Tears welled up in her eyes.

  Wright uncrossed and crossed his legs, embarrassed by the strength of her emotion. He looked down at his notebook and to his surprise saw that he’d been doodling, boxes within boxes.

  ‘Why would anyone torture him like that? Why would anyone cut him so many times?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Wright lamely. He knew that she wasn’t fully aware of the extent of her husband’s injuries and he didn’t want to make her any more upset than she already was. ‘It could have been a random killing. Someone who just wanted to kill, and your husband was in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

  ‘Poor Max,’ she said. ‘Poor, poor Max.’

  Wright and Reid had to wait in the reception area of Agence France Press for almost twenty minutes before a balding man in his late thirties ambled out. His jacket collar was up at the back as if he’d pulled it on in a hurry and one of his shoelaces was undone. ‘Hiya. Steve Reynolds,’ he said, holding out his hand. He had an American accent.

  ‘Tommy Reid,’ said Reid, shaking his hand. ‘This is Nick Wright. Thanks for seeing us.’

  Reynolds opened a glass door for them and they walked together down a white-walled corridor and through another set of glass doors into a large open-plan office full of shirtsleeved young men and women sitting at desks in front of VDUs.

  Reynolds’
s office was to the left with a glass wall overlooking the main working area. ‘Can I get you coffee or something?’ he asked. Both detectives nodded and Reynolds asked a young blonde secretary for three coffees. Reid and Wright sat down opposite Reynolds’s desk. Wright took out his notebook as Reynolds closed the door and sat down on the other side of his desk. ‘So how can I help you guys?’ Reynolds asked.

  ‘We’re looking for a reason why anyone would want to kill Max Eckhardt,’ said Reid.

  Reynolds grimaced as if he had a bad taste in his mouth. ‘It’s a mystery to all of us here,’ he said. ‘Max was the nicest guy you could imagine.’

  ‘How long have you known him?’

  ‘Personally, three months. That’s when he moved here from our New York bureau.’

  ‘He was a photographer?’ asked Reid. The two detectives had agreed beforehand that Reid would lead the questioning and Wright would take notes. It was their usual way of operating, mainly because Reid’s handwriting was so bad that he often had trouble reading back his notes.

  ‘That’s right. He’s been with the company for more than fifteen years.’ He reached across his desk and picked up a green file which he handed to Reid. ‘This is Max’s personnel file. I thought it might speed things up a little.’

  Reid gave the file to Wright. ‘The job he was on just before he died. The Conservative Party conference. Was that typical of the sort of work he did?’

  ‘Good Lord, no,’ said Reynolds. ‘In fact, he fought like hell not to go.’

  ‘Labour supporter, was he?’

  Reynolds grinned and shook his head. ‘War photographer. Max always wanted to be where the bullets were. Panama. Grenada. Kuwait. Northern Ireland. Bosnia. Never happy unless he was wearing a flak jacket.’

  ‘That’s why he requested a transfer from New York? To be closer to the hot spots?’

  ‘Partly,’ said Reynolds. ‘He reckoned that Europe and the new Russia were going to be the major areas of conflict over the next decade. He tried to get a transfer to our Paris office, but there are no openings there.’