“We’d been talking all week about the girls, the adoption. Seeing Mercedes and finding out… well, that was the last straw for him.”
“Why not tell the police straightaway? Why did he bother to meet with you?”
“He wasn’t going to tell the police. He was going to tell you.”
“What? But I am the police,” said Banks.
Lambert shook his head. “You don’t understand. You’re his big brother. He expected you to handle it.”
Banks felt stunned. He hadn’t realized Roy had been calling on him as much, if not more, as a brother than as a policeman: the brother who defended him from bullies. It made a difference. Roy always shied away from the police and he would expect Banks to sort the situation without letting it become official. Banks didn’t know if he could have done that even if they hadn’t killed Roy and Jennifer, even if he’d wanted to. Things had probably gone too far already.
“So what happened at the club?” Banks asked.
“He said he’d give me an hour to think about it, for friendship’s sake. He’d be in the casino if I wanted to talk. He also told me that he already had someone on her way to see you, but he could ring her mobile and bring her back if I agreed to drop my plans.”
“What did you say after the hour was up?”
“Nothing.”
“You could have lied, told him you’d drop the plans.”
“He would still have known. Do you think he’d have let it go, not kept checking?”
“I suppose not,” said Banks. “So you sent him to his death?”
“I had to. What else could I do? I couldn’t abandon Nina and Mercedes. He was going to ruin everything. Mazuryk’s business, my Nina’s life. Mercedes’ life. Everything. Don’t you understand? I couldn’t give in to him. Without a new heart my daughter will die.”
Blood dribbled over Lambert’s lower lip and bubbled as he spoke. Banks felt like hitting him again, but he knew if he started he might never stop.
“So you had Roy killed.”
“Not me. Mazuryk.”
“Did Mazuryk know what you planned to do with Carmen’s baby?”
“Are you crazy? Nobody knew except me and the doctor I was paying. And the doctor owed me. I helped him out of a jam once. You can’t prove anything, you know. I’ll deny it all. I’ll tell them you beat me up and made me admit to things I haven’t done. Look at me, I’m all bruised and bleeding.”
“Not nearly enough,” said Banks. “You made a call to Mazuryk from the Albion Club about Roy being a loose cannon, and Mazuryk came himself, or sent Broda to pick up Roy outside and bring him here.”
“I told him Roy was threatening to tell everything. All Mazuryk cared about was the girls, the profits they made for him.”
“So Mazuryk protected his interests, and you protected yours?”
“What else could I do? What would you do if it was your daughter?”
Banks didn’t want to think about that one. “Why did they go back and take Roy’s computer? Who did that? There couldn’t be anything on it about the baby because he’d only just got back from seeing Mercedes when you arrived.”
“Mazuryk’s men. Not Artyom and Boris. Others. Not very bright. We thought he might have information on it. About me. About Mazuryk’s operation, the girls. We had talked a lot that week. I really thought he was interested at one time. I told him things. Roy used his computer a lot.”
And they hadn’t taken the mobile because they hadn’t been in the kitchen, hadn’t even known it was there, Banks guessed. Not that it mattered. Roy and Lambert had been careful not to use mobiles in their communications. They knew how wide open and incriminating such phone use could be. That was why most criminals used stolen ones. And Banks doubted that Roy had ever been in direct telephone contact with Mazuryk or Broda. Later, of course, Broda had used the mobile to send his calling card, his sick joke. “What changed things in the first place?”
“If that stupid whore hadn’t told Roy’s girlfriend that some girls had been abducted and badly treated, I don’t think any of this would have happened,” said Lambert, “and your brother and me would have been partners. I spent that week trying to convince Roy it was still the right thing to do but he didn’t like the idea that the girls were working against their will. That’s when I told him about the adoption. I thought he would see what a good thing it was.”
“And did he?”
“He wasn’t convinced. Obviously. But it softened him a bit. Until he went to see Mercedes.”
Roy a pimp, or procurer? Banks found it hard to imagine. He would probably have described himself as an investor in an escort agency, or perhaps as a travel consultant. At least his spiritual and moral conversion hadn’t cut into his desire to make a profit from just about anything, short of illegal body parts. “And to threaten my parents? Whose idea what that?”
“Mazuryk’s. When the digital photo they sent didn’t scare you off, they had to try stronger measures. They could have killed you, but I told them the last thing they needed right then was a dead policeman hot on the heels of his brother. I told them that, Banks. I saved your life. These people are not always reasonable, but I have spent time with them. I can talk to them. They followed you home and back and showed themselves on the road, to frighten you off.”
“I don’t frighten that easily. And Jennifer Clewes?”
“They were already worried about her. At first she was happy enough to help Dr. Lukas take care of the girls, but she got too friendly and Mazuryk was worried someone might actually let something slip about how they really came to be there. They thought Carmen was getting too cocky because she didn’t have to turn tricks anymore, and when Artyom saw them talking together, Carmen and Jennifer Clewes, he got suspicious and told Mazuryk. They made Carmen tell them what she had said. Without hurting her physically, you understand. They couldn’t risk harming the baby.”
“Don’t tell me. They threatened to harm her parents back home.”
“Possibly. But Artyom and Boris had been keeping an eye on Roy’s girl for a few days, then when she took off like that at the same time I told Mazuryk that Roy was out of control… Look, I wasn’t there… I don’t know for sure how it happened. But it wasn’t me.”
“But you know what happened. You set it in motion.”
“Max told me after it was done. They found out where she was going. Roy told Mazuryk when they were beating him and he phoned Artyom in the car. As soon as she got to a quiet spot on the road, they killed her. Artyom was going to kill you, too, just in case, but you weren’t there. He’s not very bright.”
“It’s a pity he didn’t,” said Banks, “because now Mazuryk is dead, Artyom is dead and the rest are going to jail. And you…”
“What about me?”
“I can’t decide whether to kill you or turn you in.”
And it was true. Banks had never in his life felt like killing someone as much as he felt like killing Gareth Lambert at that moment. If he’d had a gun, he might have done it. He hefted the iron bar, heavy in his hand, and smacked it against his palm again. That would do it. One swift blow. Crush his skull like an eggshell. Lambert was looking at him, fear in his eyes.
“No!” he said, holding his hands out to protect his face. “Don’t. Don’t kill me.”
It wasn’t just revenge for Roy, but also because he had never come across anyone so loathsome he’d even contemplate doing what Lambert was doing, let alone defend it and justify it. He could not have imagined such a thing if he hadn’t gone to see Mercedes Lambert, as Roy had, and heard poor Nina cry. Mercedes Lambert obviously knew nothing about her husband’s unholy scheme. The disgust Banks felt churned the bile in his stomach and he could bear to look at Lambert no longer.
“What are you going to do? Are you going to hurt me?” Lambert whined.