He looked back towards the front of the house.
After all these years, one photo suddenly became important. Cecile knew they wanted to copy it. Would she have had time to conceal it with Michael or Radnor hard on her heels? Make it Michael — it would have taken energy and bite to rip through the security chain, and Radnor had neither. Which meant she wouldn’t have had very much time once he broke through.
‘What if she managed to hide the photo,’ he said quietly. ‘Since we came here, she knew how important it was. But where?’
Riley supplied the answer for him. She knelt down as Cecile had done the previous day, and tried to imagine her in the same position when Michael had burst in on her. From the position her body was now lying in, it was possible she had resumed the same stance in trying to prevent him seeing the incriminating photo.
Yet there was nowhere close that Cecile could have reached from here. All the other items of furniture were too far away. Unless. She peered under the coffee table, then gave a small whisper of triumph. When she stood up, she was holding the photo, complete with one of the old drawing pins. Cecile must have put it under there when she heard someone at the front door, or did so moments before Michael entered the conservatory. It was the last place he had considered looking, right under his nose.
‘Clever,’ said Palmer, with sombre admiration for Cecile’s quick thinking and courage.
‘Do you think she knew what he was going to do to her?’
‘Possibly. Where she came from, she’d have seen people like him in action before.’
They cleaned any surfaces they might have touched, including the mugs they had used yesterday and the photos they had handled. Then Palmer picked up the photocopier, secured the front door and walked with Riley back to the car. Once they were clear of the area, Riley stopped at a public telephone and dialled the emergency services to tell them she’d heard a woman screaming at the Wachter home. She rang off without leaving her name.
When she got back in the car, she found Palmer looking thoughtful.
‘Have you got Mitcheson’s mobile number?’ he said.
‘Yes. Why?’
‘This visit to Ragga Pearclass="underline" we need some back-up.’
Chapter 33
Ragga Pearl’s headquarters were in one of Lewisham’s quieter suburban streets lined with terraced houses not far from the main shopping area. Cars were parked nose-to-tail along both sides, and a scattering of small children were playing along the pavements, with some older people sitting or standing in front of the houses, watching the world go by. A man in a shabby khaki parka and ski hat was shuffling along the street from door-to-door, a large canvas bag over his shoulder and clutching a handful of brightly-coloured mops and dusters. He wasn’t getting many takers, but seemed undeterred.
At the far end of the street, a large building painted in green and cream, and shaped like an old-fashioned fireplace, with stepped shoulders, seemed to overshadow its neighbours and would have been spectacularly out of place had it not been in a forgotten corner overlooked by developers.
Szulu motioned for Riley to stop at the top end of the street and studied the area intensely. Tension had been radiating off him in waves since they had collected him from his flat earlier, which was the only way they could guarantee he would cooperate and accompany them. Now he licked his lips, ducking his head to scan the houses either side and breathing as heavily as if he had run a five-mile race.
Finally, as if reassured that they weren’t going to be ambushed, he nodded. ‘Ragga’s is the big green place down the end,’ he told Riley. ‘But all this round here, it’s his turf. Nothing goes on here that he doesn’t know about. You’d best park up here and we’ll walk down, so his boys can see us coming. That way there won’t be no nasty surprises waiting for us.’
‘Boys?’ said Riley. She thought if anything, walking down the street and giving Ragga advance warning of their arrival would only ensure a nasty surprise, rather than prevent it, but she decided to let Szulu’s local knowledge dictate their moves. Besides, Palmer was sitting in the back seat, and he had so far not voiced any concerns.
‘Yeah. Like those two.’ Szulu nodded towards two black youths lounging against a wall in front of a run-down house halfway along the street. Dressed in baggy jeans and hoodies, they could have been any pair of local teenagers, hanging out, were it not for the aura of menace surrounding them which set them apart from the other people on the street. ‘They’re like his eyes in the neighbourhood. If they see something they don’t like, he gets a warning bell.’
‘Are they any danger to us?’
He looked sour. ‘They’re dangerous to anyone they don’t like the look of. But they know we’re coming, so they’ll leave us alone if they know what’s good. They’re like junior soldiers; if they do a good job and don’t screw up, they get to move up to a place on the inside when a vacancy happens.’
‘What kind of vacancy?’
‘The kind when someone isn’t there any more. A man gets into trouble, say, or maybe gets picked up and does time, his space needs filling, you know?’
For the first time since they had collected Szulu from his flat, Palmer seemed to take an active interest. He leaned forward from the rear seat of the Golf and stared at the building Szulu had indicated. The mop salesman they had seen earlier had crossed the street and was now working his way down towards it. ‘What the hell is that place?’
‘It used to be a cinema. Ragga got it cheap because nobody else wanted to take the risk. He tore out the guts and made it into a pad with some offices, although the planning office don’t know nothing about that.’ Szulu looked at the pair of them, craning round to include Palmer. ‘You decided who goes in with me?’
‘I do,’ said Riley. ‘It’ll put Ragga off his guard.’ She nodded down the street towards the mop salesman, who was now a couple of doors away from the old cinema, demonstrating a mop to an elderly lady. ‘And Mitcheson.’
Szulu looked puzzled for a moment. Then his eyes grew wide as he realised who the door-to-door salesman must be. ‘Shit — you mean the guy who shot me? Tell me you’re kidding, woman! Are you insane? They’ll see him.’
‘I’m not kidding. And they haven’t spotted him yet, have they? We discussed this earlier on. If Ragga sees Palmer, he’ll smell policeman and clam up. That’s if he doesn’t bury us in concrete. Mitcheson’s my back-up, that’s all. It’s what they’ll expect of us. Are you saying Ragga won’t have any of his crew around?’
Szulu shook his head. ‘Man, I don’t know. I still don’t know why you’ve got to do this. I told you, he’s unpredictable. Dangerous. You realise I can’t do nothing to help you once we’re inside. He could have a dozen guys in there, whether your tough-guy friend’s around or not.’ He jerked a thumb at Palmer. ‘What about him? What’s he going to be doing?’
Palmer smiled. ‘I’m the cavalry. All the best cowboy films have them.’
‘Huh?’
‘We’ve told you,’ said Riley, who had already gone over those very points several times in her own mind. Letting Mitcheson go in with her had been Palmer’s suggestion, on the grounds that having some visible protection along was what a man like Ragga would expect. Palmer was to stay on the outside with his mobile on and connected to Riley’s. That way, he would hear everything that went on. If things went wrong, he’d come in after them. But he doubted Ragga would want to cause problems on his own doorstep. Riley hoped he was right. ‘We need to make sure about Lottie, and this is the only way of doing it. Anyway, we’re no threat to Ragga.’ She opened her door, anxious to get this over and done with. It had been a wild idea, but one she was sure was worth a try. Better that than constantly waiting to see if Lottie would pop up again, next time with someone unknown and a lot more deadly. ‘You ready?’ she said to Szulu. She carried nothing in her hands, and wore a simple T-shirt and jeans, to show she wasn’t wearing a recording device. She nodded to Palmer, who merely raised a hand in salute, then turned and walked along the street, Szulu alongside her, grumbling about the risks they were taking. By the time they had gone ten paces, the two young watchers down the street were tracking them, one of them talking rapidly into a mobile phone.