Spider - Michael Morley [104]
Howie introduced Jack and everyone shook hands, then McCaffrey introduced Deaver and the best he got was a nod of acknowledgement. The line had already been drawn and they couldn’t help but let Deaver know it.
‘Where’s the girl?’ asked Howie.
‘Next office,’ answered Fernandez. ‘We’ve got her a soda, but should have probably got her a doctor. She looks as though she was totally tanked last night. There’s someone watching the door, so she won’t be doing any running.’
McCaffrey went over the background again and Jack listened politely, as though it was something he was hearing for the first time. Then Deaver filled them in on how he’d visited Smirtin and told him he was looking for his missing hooker.
‘The kid on the tape is called Ludmila Zagalsky, though apparently everyone calls her Lu,’ said Deaver, trying to sound like a helpful cop, rather than a bent one. ‘She’s twenty-five, a Russian, from Moscow we think. Smirtin said very little about her during our face-to-face in his kebab joint, even though I’d gone round there specifically to talk about her. He was more interested in whether I knew anyone over at the Department of Justice who could advise on some tobacco problems he had.’
‘Smoking kills,’ said Fernandez, ‘least that’s what the Surgeon General says, and that’s the only advice that assholes like Smirtin should get.’
Deaver ignored her. ‘Anyways, next day, that’s the sixth, he rings me and says he knows where Lu is; says he’s just seen her on frigging TV. Well, it turns out these A-rabs –’
‘Yeah, we know that bit,’ interrupted McCaffrey. ‘Cut to the chat you had with her friend. These boys here are going to draw their pensions’fore you get to the point.’
Deaver bit back his resentment and picked up the story. ‘That evening I went round to see her friend Grazyna Macowicz –’
McCaffrey interrupted again. ‘This is the whore we’ve got next door, the one he was screwing for a freebie.’
‘Grazyna was shaking like a leaf,’ said Deaver. ‘She’d bottomed a bottle of vodka by the time I found her, and it was only five p.m. She said the kidnapped woman all the news channels were showing was her girlfriend.’
‘She’s a hundred per cent sure on that?’ asked Howie, adding, ‘This isn’t some attention-grabbing time-wasting stunt by some lying little crackhead, is it?’
Fernandez took a deep breath. ‘That’s a bit steep, boss. I’ve spoken to her and I think she’s a straight-up kid.’
Howie ignored her and carried on staringat Deaver, waiting for a reply.
The bent cop drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair and thought it over. ‘I think she’s genuine,’ he said.‘The face-shot inthat videois pretty clear. I’ve got one small photograph of Ludmila already; Grazyna’s found a couple more to show us.’ Deaver handed over the photo-booth picture of the two girls together. Howie looked at it first and then passed it to Jack.
The phone on the desk rang and someone asked Fernandez if it was okay to bring in breakfast. As the others cleared space on the desktop for the food, Jack and Howie peeled off into a corner.
Jack passed the photograph back. ‘It certainly looks like the girl in the video,’ he said.
‘Yeah, I think so too,’ Howie concurred. ‘You reckon she’s still in the neighbourhood?’
‘No way of even guessing,’ said Jack. ‘More importantly, is there a chance she’s still alive?’
The food came and Jack piled up two plates with muffins and pancakes, grabbed some fruit and two cardboard cups