CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Tudor was secretly pleased that Emily was impressed by the flat. Although he had taken her to use the gym at the Aurora in the run up to the tournament, this was the first time she had been inside one of the apartments.
‘And Charlie Whatsisname has this all to himself?’
‘Usually, yes.’
‘Wow, look at that view, and the size of that TV!’
He threw her the remote. ‘Find us a good movie.’
‘And pizza?’
‘Of course pizza.’ Out of habit he checked the flat, hoping she wouldn’t notice him doing it.
He wasn’t worried about security being breached, in truth.
He would not have brought her here had that been the case.
The bizarre killings in the building had been family affairs.
No intruders. No outsiders. She would be safe here, but the security expert in him demanded a sweep.
Finding nothing out of place he returned to the open plan living area and filled the kettle for tea.
Emily was comfortable on the extravagant leather sofa, busy multi-tasking: flicking through streaming channels with one hand, ordering up pizza on her phone with the other.
It was good to see her again. His own phone buzzed.
He checked the caller ID. Deborah. He took the call.
‘You busy?’ she asked. He hesitated just too long before answering so that she jumped in, jumping to conclusions at the same time. ‘OK,’ she said quickly, ‘I get it, Friday night, city at your feet, etc, etc.’
‘I’ve got Emily for the weekend.’
‘Oh right,’ she said, unable to hide the fact that this was a better scenario than the one she had conjured up.
‘Something I can do for you?’ Tudor asked, signalling to his daughter that an 18 rated zombie horror film was out of the question.
‘More the other way around, actually.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah. I’ve been doing a little digging on the Begovich family. Turned up some interesting stuff. Happy to share it with you, but not something I want to be doing down at the station.’
Tudor was suddenly interested. After what had happened at Jagoda, he needed more answers.
Deborah was, without doubt, his best chance of getting background on them.
Emily was pointing to a family film about a lost puppy, trying to make a point.
He gave a thumbs up and she scowled at him and went back to scrolling.
‘What sort of interesting stuff?’ he asked Deborah.
‘It’s… not something I want to share over the phone either,’ she said. When he hesitated for a second time she went on. ‘Look, not good timing. That’s fine, forget it, another day…’
‘No, it’s OK. I can come now.’
‘You sure?’
‘I’m sure.’
‘Emily won’t mind?’
He looked at the bright, lovely girl that so much resembled himself it was like looking in a mirror. She would mind. And that mattered. But her safety mattered more, and the Begovich mob were a threat to that.
‘I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,’ he said before clicking off the phone.
Emily had found an action movie. ‘There,’ she said, ‘perfect. You can relive your youth, leaping about shooting at people, and I can watch hunky men being heroic. Pizza’s on its way.
I ordered pepperoni with extra pepperoni for you.
That OK?’ She turned and looked at him then.
Seeing his face her own expression flattened.
He was saddened to see the joy go out of her eyes. ‘What?’ she asked.
‘I have to go out.’
‘Dad!’
‘Just for a while. It won’t take long, I promise, but…. it’s important.’
‘Un-bloody-believable.’
‘Pumpkin, I’m really sorry…’
‘Actually, it is totally believable. Not like this is the first time you’ve ducked out of our arrangements.’
‘I wouldn’t go if I didn’t have to. It won’t take long.’
‘You’ve already said that,’ she snapped, dropping the remote and folding her arms pointedly.
He walked over to the sofa to stand awkwardly in front of her. If she’d been a little younger he would have cuddled her, teased her out of her grumpiness, won her over with the promise of something, but she was too grown for that now.
‘Look, we’ve got the whole weekend, I’ll…’
‘… make it up to you. Yes, Dad, I know how this goes.’
Seeing he wasn’t going to improve the situation he leant down and gave her a quick kiss on the forehead.
‘I am sorry, Pumpkin. I’ll be back soon.
Have your pizza. It’ll be delivered to the front desk and Deri will bring it up.
Don’t open the door to anyone else, right?
And you can start on with the movie, OK? ’
‘Where are you going anyway?’ she asked.
He was walking towards the door as he replied. ‘Shoreditch.’
‘What’s in Shoreditch?’
‘The answers to some important questions, hopefully,’ he said, reasoning her mood would not be made any better by hearing he was going to see the woman he had had an affair with while married to her mother.
DI Chowdhury’s flat was a modest two-bedder on the first floor of a converted Victorian terraced.
The long street was made up of a hundred more such houses, most of them flats.
Most of them inhabited by young professionals, out all day, often out most of the evening too.
In such a road you might know your immediate neighbours but three doors down everyone became strangers.
The anonymity of the city right there. He cruised up and down for an infuriating ten minutes before he found a parking space.
As he locked the car he noted the bullet marks again, deciding they weren’t recognisable to anyone not in the know, but that they would have to be fixed.
The last thing he needed was his employer asking very difficult questions along the lines of why his son’s bodyguard was getting himself shot at.
He rang the bell and she pressed the button to open the front door.
The stairway that served the three flats in the building was spotless, all painted white wood and artfully positioned dried flowers.
It was a nice place to live, in a quiet sort of way.
Deborah was opening her front door as he reached it.
‘Did you have to kill someone for a parking space?’ she asked.
‘No, but I was prepared to,’ he said, stepping inside.
As he followed her through the short hallway to the bay windowed room at the front of the house he noticed she had made something of an effort with her appearance.
Her long black hair was loose, which was rare.
She wasn’t wearing her work clothes; no suit or smart trousers and no-nonsense blouse.
But nor was she in the tee-shirt and jeans that he might have expected, had he stopped to think about it.
Looking at the soft fabric of her long, boho skirt and the way it followed the curve of her hips and swished a little as she walked, he was transported back, suddenly.
Back to the time when they had meant something to each other.
Back to when they had shared intense, snatched moments out of khaki.
A night in a hotel. A weekend off base. Even a couple of hours in her quarters.
When they reached the sitting room she turned and now he noticed her loose, pale gold cotton top was flattering too.
And she was wearing perfume. Not one he recognised though.
It was as if she was trying, but determined not to show that she was trying, to look good.
From what he knew about women, this was an art form and took ages to pull off. She’d done a pretty good job.
In the corner of the room there was a small dining table and it was laid up with places for two. Seeing him notice it Deborah spoke up.
‘Don’t look so bloody terrified. I made some pasta. Thought we could eat while we talk, that’s all.’
Wrong footed, he tried to hit the right note. He needed to get back to Emily, but he also needed Deborah’s help. And besides, he didn’t want to hurt her feelings. He’d done enough of that.
‘How did I not know you could cook?’
‘Hardly top of our priorities, as I remember. Anyway, you will want to hear what I’ve found out about our friendly neighbourhood Serbs. I’ll fetch the food. Why don’t you pick some music?’ she suggested, nodding towards the old record player and shelves of albums.
‘Wow, that’s quite a collection,’ said Tudor, happy to be given something to do to defuse the moment.
‘I inherited it from my dad. It’s a bit heavy on the seventies for my liking, but I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of it.’
He flicked through the neatly stacked records, smiling when he found one he knew.
There was something reverent, almost, about the way vinyl had to be handled, held at the very edges to avoid smudges, dropped flat into place on the deck, needle lowered with great care to prevent scratches.
As Deborah came back into the room carrying a bowl of pasta the first chords of his choice began to fill the little room.
‘Oh, you’re playing my song,’ she laughed. ‘Sweet.’
The band was T. Rex, the track upbeat but heartfelt, Marc Bolan singing the lyrics with a voice that found its place somewhere between fun and heartache:
Deboree-deb n’ deboree-de-bree-deb
Deboree-deb, n’deboree-de..
Oh Deborah…
‘Your dad named you for this song, right?’
‘He was mad about T.Rex. The only Indian in his street growing up trying to work a perm.’
‘I can’t imagine what that looked like.’
‘Photographic evidence is slim, but my mother said it never took. All he was left with was the smell.’
‘And he waited all those years to name his baby girl after his favourite track.’
‘Yup,’ she said, setting down the food and pouring red wine.
‘Guess it could have been worse.’
‘Have you ever listened to the lyrics beyond the actual name?’ she asked stepping closer to hand him a glass.
They stood there for a moment while the song played on revealing its nonsense.
Oh Deborah, always looked like a zebra
Your sunken face is like a galleon
Clawed with mysteries of the Spanish Main…
‘You take my point?’ she asked.