CHAPTER TEN #2
Tudor began to notice the taint in the air.
It wasn’t just a smell; you could taste it.
The flat was warm, and the deceased were quickly moving from victims to cadavers.
He was relieved when DI Chowdhury turned to go.
He tried to take in as much as he could as he walked back through the unremarkable rooms. Two such events in the same building in a matter of days was beyond odd.
Maybe Charlie was going to have to give up on his cool new home.
His boss would not be pleased. He didn’t want to miss anything helpful.
As he was about to leave the living room, something caught his eye.
On the credenza was what looked like a shrine, almost, though with no photos.
There were fat candles, a small decorated box, an embroidered cloth, and a painting above that seemed familiar somehow.
It was more a pattern than anything else, geometric and intricate.
But why a shrine at all? Had there been another child, lost perhaps?
Or was this something religious? Neither idea seemed to quite fit.
More oddness. The other thing that bothered him, the other thing that didn’t fit, was the Richards themselves.
How could a teacher and a shop worker afford an apartment in the Aurora?
He’d understood the Salingers: they were old, could have traded in a townhouse they bought before the boom, might even have had an inheritance or two.
But the Richards family? Even assuming they had found the funds to meet the inflated price such flats went for, would they have the right connections?
Again, the Salingers’ age meant they could have known people, or at least that there was more chance of it.
How had Mr and Mrs Average found their way into the most sought after building on the Thames?
Tudor and Deborah rode the lift down. He wanted to say something to her, something kind, but there was too much between them for pleasantries.
Or there had been once. He didn’t want to sound trite.
Nor did he want to patronise her. She was a professional.
It was a tough job, but she could handle it.
It was she who eventually broke the silence.
‘I have a name for you,’ she said.
‘You do?’
‘Mmm. I did a little digging. Asked around, as requested.’ She dropped her pen and notebook into the cavernous bag and rummaged for a moment, finally pulling out a packet of mints.
She offered him one, shrugging when he declined.
‘There is a family… surname Begovich…they’re hardly new, which is what you wanted to know. ’
‘It’s what I half expected.’
‘They’re Serbs. Been here since before Yugoslavia went to hell in a handcart. Got out just in time. Opened a restaurant in Shepherd’s Bush. It’s called Jagoda. Means Strawberry, I am reliably informed.’
‘Sweet. Any good?’
She chomped her mint and raised her eyebrows. ‘You ever eaten Serbian food? Anyhow, it doesn’t matter. The place is obviously for show. Daddy and his darling daughter have bigger fish to fry.’
‘They serve fish?’ It was a feeble joke and he wasn’t surprised when she ignored it.
They reached the ground floor. Tudor pulled back the inner and then outer cage doors of the lift and stood aside to let Deborah step into the foyer.
It was as he watched her that his eyes took in the Art Deco design on the wall beyond the reception desk, as if seeing it for the first time.
It was made up of geometric shapes, intricate yet bold, its colours and shapes striking, and it was exactly the same pattern as the artwork he had just seen in the improvised shrine upstairs.
‘Are you listening to me?’ DI Chowdhury reclaimed his attention.
‘Sorry?’
‘I was saying, before you go getting ideas about booking Jagoda’s best table, you need to answer me one question.
How come one minute you are asking me about East European gangsters, and the very next day my lads clock two of Mr Begovich’s boys watching the very building you are suddenly connected to?
The very building where no fewer than six people have just met pretty fucking messy ends?
I’d be really interested to hear exactly how you are mixed up in all this Tudor, if you can spare me just a little bit of your valuable time? ’
The little bit of time turned out to be over an hour of formal interview at the station.
Tudor was surprised to find himself bristling at this sudden switch to official mode.
He had been involved in the first incident, fair enough.
But he wasn’t even in the building when the latest killing had occurred.
He had taken his re-established friendship status with Deborah as a given, and friends didn’t sit each other down either side of a plastic table and record their conversation with a junior detective as chaperone.
He knew she was only doing her job. He knew that in her position he’d probably have done the same.
In two murders at the same location his proximity was one of the few common factors.
Added to which, he had been asking about local east European gangs in relation to the attack on himself and Emily.
And, as DI Chowdhury had pointed out, unless a couple of the members of one of those gangs had recently developed an interest in Art Deco architecture, it seemed likely they were somehow connected to the violent events at the Aurora, or why else would they be watching the building?
Which was the main problem Deborah had. Professional, Detective Inspector Deborah, that was.
How could two seemingly motiveless murders within families be connected to a high end criminal operation?
And yet, they had to be. Every copper knew there was no such thing as a coincidence.
So, while Deborah of old, Debs, the woman with whom Tudor had shared an intense and meaningful affair, while she might have been more concerned for her ex-lover’s welfare (particularly given he had already been attacked), police officer Chowdhury had to keep her focus on doing her job.
Tudor knew all that. Still, he didn’t have to like it.
They had gone over and over the whys and the wherefores of his being at the Aurora in the first place.
How long had he worked for his current employer?
What business had his boss earned his wealth in?
Why had they chosen to buy an apartment there?
Had Tudor known any of the residents previous to his charge moving in?
Then they had turned to the connection with the Begoviches.
Why would such an outfit be interested in Tudor?
What would provoke them into following him all the way to Manchester to attack him?
Could it be they had some business dealings with Tudor’s boss?
He had told her, and the tape recorder, and the junior detective, that he was pretty keen to know the answers to these questions himself.
At last they came to a halt. There was nothing he was hiding from them.
There was nothing useful he could tell them.
DI Chowdhury had done her job and been seen to do it.
She ended their interview by warning him off confronting the Begoviches.
If anything happened to indicate they truly were targeting him, he was to report it at once.
‘No amateur heroics,’ she told him.
‘You know me, Detective Inspector,’ he replied. ‘I don’t think you’d ever call me an amateur, and I am definitely no hero.’
‘I’m delighted to hear it,’ she said dismissively, noting the time and switching off the recorder.
It was gone ten when Tudor returned to the Aurora.
He waved a greeting to Deri on his way up, making a mental note to talk to him later.
He was sure the concierge knew more than anyone about the residents, and he could just have some of those elusive answers, but now was not the time.
Letting himself in to the apartment, he found Charlie shouting into his mobile.
‘No way! Mum… oh come on… that’s bollocks… OK, I’m sorry, but you’re over reacting. Honestly, I’m fine here. Tudor’s got the flat fixed with serious locks. Plus he barely lets me out of his sight,’ he added, rolling his eyes and running his hand through his hair. ‘Mum… seriously, chill…’
Tudor went through to the kitchen, flicked the switch on the kettle, leaned back against the island, and waited, arms folded. A minute later Charlie stormed into the room.
‘Fucksake! You have to get my mother off my case!’
‘Have I?’
‘She wants me to go home! Can you believe it? She thinks this place is jinxed or full of mad people or something. She does’t want me here another night.’
‘It’s understandable she’s worried.’
‘So let her be worried. Doesn’t mean I have to give up my home, does it?
I mean, what are all my friends going to think if I go running home to mummy?
Fucksake,’ he said again, less explosively this time, weary of it all, landing heavily on one of the kitchen bar stools, his face a study of pique and powerless disappointment.