That, O’Neill thought, was a matter of opinion. But aloud he said, “So, if your only contact was with Dmitry, you can’t actually say for definite that it was Grogan who wanted the stuff?”
Stubbs looked astounded. “Who else would it be for?”
107
Back in his cell an hour later, Brian Stubbs still felt shell-shocked by the whole experience.
He was not, as the older of the two detectives had pointed out, a stupid man, but he recognised that he’d been woefully naïve. He’d thought he could dangle a few little titbits and have them turn him loose. Now he was in it up to his neck. Worse in fact than when he’d started.
Stubbs slumped onto the thin mattress and raked both hands through his unkempt grey hair.
“Why couldn’t you have simply kept your big mouth shut?” he wailed in the empty room.
Unsurprisingly, he got no answer.
They’d made him go over and over it, about how he’d arrived home one day a week or so ago to find Dmitry had somehow broken in and was lounging in his armchair, drinking his booze with that smug, arrogant look on his face. The trouble was, Stubbs was frightened of him and Dmitry knew it.
If they’d stuck to the explosives, those two, maybe that wouldn’t have been so bad. After all, he knew nothing beyond what he’d told them. Dmitry asked for the introduction, presumably on Harry Grogan’s behalf, and Stubbs had provided it. End of story.
But they hadn’t left it there. The older one, O’Neill, had that same predatory air as Dmitry, that same ability to smell blood in the water and home in on it. It was O’Neill who’d led him gently, sneakily, into talking about his professional life and encouraged him to boast, just a little, of his prowess as a veterinary surgeon.
And then the bastard had dropped the smiling act and said, “Tell me about your supplies of ketamine.”
Stubbs had known right then that he was well and truly screwed. He’d no idea how they’d found out he’d been letting a little of the drug go out through the side door or that the last lot had been acquired by Dmitry. It was only after Stubbs had spilled everything he knew that he discovered it had been little more than a lucky guess.
Bastards!
Stubbs clenched his hands into fists in his lap. Only when they were curled tight did the habitual tremors become unnoticeable.
They’d got him every which way. Not just for being drunk behind the wheel and running down that stupid dozy old woman but half a dozen other charges relating to conspiracy to cause explosions and, to cap it all, possession with intent to supply.
No two ways about it—he was going to prison.
It was only then as the weight of it all piled down and began to crush him that Stubbs recalled a final indignity.
A few years previously, when his reputation had not yet begun to tarnish quite as badly, he’d been working for a trainer with a considerable string. There had been a few mistakes—maybe even the start of the downward slide—and he’d been let go. The trainer had given him an expensive bottle of booze to soften the blow.
It was only much later Stubbs had realised the irony of the parting gift—that he was fired because of his drinking. On principle he had put the bottle away and never opened it.
After Dmitry’s last visit though, Stubbs had noticed the gift was gone and he knew the damned man had stolen it.
Perhaps I should have told those two about that.
He quashed the thought as soon as it rose. They’d probably have tried to pin something else on him. Shame though—the way he was feeling at the moment, drowning his sorrows with a few healthy shots of Bacardi 151 overproof rum was a bloody good idea.
108
“I could kill for a decent cup of Earl Grey.”
Kelly spoke the words to her own reflection in the Vauxhall’s rearview mirror. She could see only a narrow slot of her face across the eyes, strobed by the passing streetlights and the flare of oncoming cars. Apart from the shadow of bruises around her cheekbone she looked no different from a week ago, before all this had begun.
Before the world at large assumed her capable of killing for a far lesser reason than a good cup of tea.
She headed west from Erin’s flat on the borders of Hampstead Heath and skirted Golders Green. It was only when she got onto the North Circular and saw the distant bright arc of the new Wembley stadium that she realised she was on autopilot heading back to the McCarron offices.
After a moment’s surprise Kelly shrugged and kept going. The Vauxhall was getting low on fuel and she didn’t want to risk filling up. Not in a garage that was covered with CCTV and staffed by people who had nothing to do between customers but stare at the front covers of the newspapers. Her own face had been made uncomfortably familiar over the past few days.
No, she knew the car had outlived its usefulness and taking it back to her boss’s house in Hillingdon was probably not a wise plan. Ray had mentioned his nosy neighbours often enough for her to know the chances were the Mini had been reported by now. If the police had any sense they’d be watching out for her return.
Besides, Ray hadn’t yet shopped her to the police for nicking his car or his cellphone. So the least she could do was park the old Vauxhall somewhere it wasn’t likely to be towed or stripped within a day.
She left the North Circular just after The Ace Café and pulled up carefully on the road outside the office, peering up at the darkened windows. Kelly crawled into the car park, stopped nose-in to one of the up-and-over doors and climbed out. Nothing stirred. It had rained earlier in the evening and the concrete glistened under the streetlights. The smell in the air was of diesel and winter.
Kelly unlocked the main door using the key on Ray’s set, punched in the alarm code and wound the garage door up from the inside without turning on the overhead lights. The ratchet mechanism seemed very loud in the gloom. Kelly was glad to shunt the car inside and drop the door again.
She lifted her backpack out from behind the driver’s seat and gave the controls a cursory wipe down. She’d had plenty of legitimate reasons to have been in her boss’s car but not as the last person behind the wheel. If the techs wanted to drag the vehicle in and go over it with a fine-tooth comb she knew they’d find plenty of evidence. Shed hair, skin cells, fibres, footprints, dirt, sweat or some other source of her DNA.
Every contact leaves a trace.