LITMIR.BIZ

      7

      Something about the place had changed. It wasn’t all that long ago that Drake could recall his first conversation with Crane in here. Just around the corner from Raven Hill police station. It used to have another name. Now it was the Coffee Cartel. Some kind of a wry joke on the drug trade. It was that kind of a place. Alternative in a palatable, hipsterish fashion. Men with wild mountain-man beards and chains hanging off their belts who wouldn’t say boo to a cat.

      ‘The latté is excellent,’ declared Milo, who seemed to be coming out of his shell. Both Marsh and Drake looked at him. ‘It’s made with soy milk.’

      ‘Good to hear,’ said Drake, ‘but I’ll stick with a black coffee.’

      ‘Americano?’

      ‘Whatever.’

      ‘So, how’s life on the streets treating you?’ Marsh tilted her head back.

      ‘Yeah, well, you know. Civilian life. It takes a little getting used to.’

      ‘Of course.’ Milo snapped his fingers as if to a tune nobody else could hear. ‘You were long time undercover, right?’

      ‘Right,’ nodded Drake. ‘What am I missing here? The thing on the news, the head?’

      The others exchanged looks. Marsh explained what they had found on the Tube.

      ‘In an IKEA bag?’

      ‘The criminal type is getting more inventive,’ nodded Milo.

      ‘Forensics are still going over it of course, but something seemed to stand out.’

      Marsh fell silent as the waiter returned with their coffee. Drake’s came with a note telling him the coffee beans had come from an independent farming collective somewhere in Kenya. Why go to the trouble of printing out a label like that? Marsh was unfolding a photocopy, which she then placed on the table.

      Drake didn’t need to reach for it. He recognised it almost immediately. He had seen it before, countless times. For a while he had carried it tucked into his wallet. It took him back in an instant, to a much darker period in his life when everything had seemed to come crashing down and the Met had fulfilled every assertion of prejudice levelled at it.

      But it was more than that.

      On a personal level it was an affirmation of his failure to beat the system. For a time he had believed that hard work and dedication would allow him to punch through the ceiling. All he needed was to break one good case and that was to be Goran Malevich. Only Operation Hemlock, as it was known, turned sour. Drake’s prime witness disappeared and Goran was gunned down in a car park in Brighton, leaving Drake with a problem, and a lot of explaining to do.

      The papers went further than that. The headline of the article in front of him summed it all up: ‘Finger of Suspicion Pointed at Rising Star of Met Police. Links to Organised Crime’. Drake didn’t need to read further. He knew the article virtually by heart. Written by a certain Charlie Inwood, it had been the last nail in his coffin. For a time he had contemplated the idea that Inwood was in somebody’s pocket, but he’d drawn a blank on that too.

      ‘Where did you get this?’

      ‘The head was wrapped in it,’ said Marsh. ‘Along with some rags.’

      Drake glanced up. ‘I assume you think this is more than just coincidence.’

      ‘Don’t you?’

      ‘Maybe. Maybe not.’

      ‘Come on, Cal.’ Marsh leaned her elbows on the table. ‘We’re both thinking the same thing, right? A head turns up with a link to your name attached? What I’m asking myself is why. We have very little to go on. No scene of crime. Without a body, not even a cause of death. They’re doing DNA tests now to see if there is a match, but you know how that goes.’

      Drake tapped the article. ‘If you’re right, and this is supposed to mean something, then we already have the body.’

      Milo and Kelly exchanged glances.

      ‘Come again,’ said Marsh.

      ‘Headless torso washed up on the beach in Brighton. Four years ago now.’

      ‘And you know this from looking at the picture?’ Milo was incredulous. ‘How can you be sure?’

      ‘I’m not sure, not a hundred per cent,’ said Drake. ‘But if we assume this is more than coincidence, then it’s got to be her. Zelda.’

      ‘All due respect, chief,’ Milo began. ‘We can’t go back to Superintendent Wheeler and say you recognise her. Her own mother wouldn’t recognise her. She’s been somewhere all this time.’

      ‘Which raises other questions, namely where was she stored and why?’

      ‘Deep freeze probably, is the answer to the first,’ said Marsh. ‘The second question is more to the point. Why would anyone do something like that?’

      ‘Also’ – Milo raised a finger – ‘where were they taking her? I mean, why leave her on the train?’

      ‘Two possibilities occur,’ said Drake. ‘Either someone panicked, or they wanted us to find her.’

      Marsh nodded her agreement. ‘Which brings us back to motive. Why store the head?’ She paused to take a sip of coffee. ‘So, why is someone trying to draw our attention back to your involvement in that case. Zelda was the name of your informant, the one who went missing.’

      ‘Right.’

      Marsh thought for a moment. ‘Archie might already have confirmed that it’s her. She was Eastern European, right?’

      ‘Serbian Roma.’

      ‘One of Archie’s preliminary observations was that the victim had pink teeth.’

      ‘Pink?’ asked Drake.

      ‘Apparently it’s a side effect of a kind of dentistry, a type of filling found in Eastern Europe.’

      ‘Just because she’s Eastern European doesn’t mean it’s her,’ Milo pointed out.

      ‘But it’s beginning to stack up that way,’ said Drake.

      ‘But why?’ asked Milo. ‘Why go to all that trouble? Someone’s idea of a joke?’

      ‘If this is a joke,’ said Marsh, ‘it’s in pretty poor taste.’

      ‘What else does Archie say?’ Drake asked.

      Marsh shrugged. ‘The usual. Too early to say. Wait for the tests.’

      ‘Maybe he has a point. We shouldn’t be jumping to conclusions.’

      Marsh and Milo exchanged looks.

      ‘This is your case,’ said Milo, who was having trouble not adding the word ‘chief’ whenever he addressed Drake. ‘This is what brought you down.’

      ‘Look, I want to put this thing to rest as much as anyone, but I have to be sure.’

      ‘What can you tell us about this body?’ Marsh asked. ‘Was it identified as your informant?’

      Drake’s mind went back to that time.

      ‘The headless body of a woman washed up on the shore in Brunswick Town, just west of Brighton. A DNA match was made later with items found in the room we discovered Zelda had been staying in.’

      ‘Why did they remove her head?’ Milo asked.

      ‘They were sending a message,’ Drake explained. ‘This is what happens to people who talk.’

      ‘Goran Malevich was your target so that

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