House of Mourning (9781301227112) Read online

  What was he to do? He was not the type of man to give up. They would never say of Oscar Gamboa that he gave up in the face of impossible odds and walked away. Never! What man could ever hold his head up high having failed in such a way?

  At nine-fifteen he put his sandals on and made his way down to the restaurant. After only a short time he saw her as she walked outside to the table at which he was sitting in the early morning sunshine. She wore lilac shorts with side pockets, a matching sleeveless top without a bra and a pair of sunglasses. Her hair was pinned up as if it might fall down at any moment. Heads turned and watched her. He wanted to gouge out their eyes with a knife. She smelled of freshly squeezed lemons. He fell in love with her all over again.

  Why did he bring her? He had confined himself to hell on earth. The most beautiful woman in the world was sitting across from him, and he couldn’t kiss her lips, or run his tongue over her breasts, or breathe in the scent of her hair.

  The waiter arrived. He ordered a mushroom omelette even though he wasn’t particularly hungry. He would much rather have feasted on her body. Rosibel asked for grilled fish.

  ‘Did you sleep well?’ he asked her, merely because he had to say something. He didn’t want her to think he had taken a vow of silence.

  ‘I slept as well as any kidnapped woman might.’

  ‘That is good.’ He ignored her jibes – it was the only thing to do. Soon, she would accept her situation. ‘After we have eaten we will walk along the beach – like normal people who are on holiday – and visit the bank to decide what we are going to do.’

  ‘You’ll never be a normal person,’ she said, as if she were telling him he had a speck of cotton on his shirt.

  It was true. Normal had somehow passed him by in the little village of Puente de Calamate. He hadn’t been normal since the first time he had seen Rosibel Caballero. She had stolen his heart, and how could a person be normal without a heart?

  The sun was rising in the sky, the sea was lapping at the white sand and the woman of his dreams was sitting across from him. It was idyllic. Someone walking by would think they were lucky to have found love in such a place.

  ‘Look behind the masks,’ Abuela Tierra – his mother’s mother – had said when she’d still been alive and before he’d started working the streets. ‘Tell me what you see.’

  ‘It is not possible to see, Abuela.’

  ‘Look closely, little Oscar. See that woman over there, describe her to me.’

  ‘She has short grey hair, wrinkled skin like leather left out in the sun too long, a mouthful of rotten teeth, big ears and old patched clothes.’

  ‘That is all on the outside. What do you see on the inside?’

  He had grinned. ‘I would have to look into her mouth, and I think it would smell terrible inside.’

  She had clipped him round the ear. ‘Look in her eyes.’

  ‘They are sad, Abuela.’

  ‘Why do you think that is?’

  ‘She has no money?’

  ‘Why has she no money?’

  ‘I do not know.’

  ‘You are looking, but you are not seeing, little Oscar.’ She always called him “little Oscar”, even when he had grown and she had shrunk. ‘Why do you say that she has no money?’

  ‘Her clothes are old and worn.’

  ‘So are yours and mine.’

  ‘There is something about her. She is bent forward as if she is carrying the donkey, instead of the donkey carrying her.’

  ‘I am bent forward.’

  ‘But you have no donkey on your back.’

  ‘Why? What makes us so different?’

  ‘Her eyes. The light is dying in her eyes.’

  ‘Now you are peeking behind the mask. Why is the light dying?’

  ‘She is ill?’

  ‘That might be so, but it is not the reason the light is dying. What is the most important thing humans must have to survive?’

  ‘Money?’

  ‘We can live without money.’

  ‘Food and water?’

  ‘They are very important, but not the answer I want from you.’

  ‘Sunshine?’

  ‘I know you know the answer. Tell it to me.’

  ‘Love?’

  ‘That is right. Without love there no reason to live. Everything else means nothing without love. The old woman has lost her husband. Her children are dead. She does not wish to fight anymore. Soon, she will die.’

  ‘Can we do another one, Abuela?’

  ‘I must sleep first. Help me carry this donkey inside, little Oscar.’

  ‘What donkey . . . ?’

  They had laughed as he helped her up the steps.

  Yes, he had come to learn in the years that followed Abuela Tierra’s passing that everything was meaningless without love.

  ‘Are we going to sit here all day?’ Rosibel asked.

  He stood up and moved to pull her chair away.

  ‘Do not embarrass yourself by pretending to be a gentleman,’ she said. ‘You are no gentleman.’

  It would have been less painful if she had cut off his head and fed his brain to the seagulls.

  There were three branches of the First Caribbean Bank on the island, and he decided that the nearest one would serve his purpose. The banks were all connected by computer. If one had the information he needed, they would all have it.

  They walked along the beach towards West Bay. He imagined himself and Rosibel running hand-in-hand into the clear cool water. Laughing and joking together as they waded out to the coral reef where no one could see them swimming and making love amongst the turtles, snappers and clown fish.

  Holidaymakers were arriving in droves weighed down with towels, umbrellas, drinks and a myriad other things necessary for a day at the beach. Apart from a few wisps of white the sky was a clear Caribbean blue.

  The bank didn’t look like a bank. In fact, if it hadn’t been for the ATM sign, they would have walked right past it. The two-storey white building had arched windows, a sea-green wooden veranda and two large pots with palm trees growing out of them either side of the main door.

  There were two other customers inside. A middle-aged local man waiting behind a young woman. They joined the queue and were soon at the front.

  ‘How may I help, Sir?’ the woman asked. She was overweight, dark-skinned and wore her hair swept back.

  He passed his credit card over. ‘Five hundred dollars, please.’

  She passed it back. ‘You need to put your card in the machine and key in your pin number, Sir.’

  He did as she instructed.

  She passed the currency over.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘What time do you close?’

  ‘Four-thirty.’

  ‘Have a nice day.’

  ‘And you, Sir.’

  Outside Rosibel said, ‘Is that it?’

  ‘Yes, until four-thirty.’

  ‘What are we going to do until then?’

  He had some ideas. Instead he said, ‘What would you like to do?’

  ‘I’d like to go back to my life in Medellín, but if I can’t do that then I may as well take advantage of a free holiday and lie by the hotel pool.’

  He shrugged. ‘Okay.’

  ‘And what will you do all day?’

  ‘We are together. I will be on the sun lounger beside you.’

  ‘You may be on the sun lounger next to me, but we will not be together.’

  She twisted the knife in his heart at every opportunity.

  He set off back along the beach towards the hotel. At least now he had a plan. It wasn’t the most elegant of plans, and Rosibel would no doubt object in the strongest possible terms, but if it worked he would obtain the information he needed.

  Chapter Ten

  He’d slept like a rock, washed his face in the brown-stained sink with the sliver of green, cracked soap a rich guest had obviously discarded and – after searching relentlessly for a non-existent towel – dried himself on the bedsp
read. He walked down to reception to hand in his key.

  ‘We don’t do food,’ the fat woman with a cigarette hanging from her mouth announced when he asked about breakfast.

  He grunted. They didn’t do much of anything. If he didn’t already have Lorna Boyce to kill today, he would have killed her and enjoyed every second of it.

  He drove around until he found a greasy spoon where he ordered a full English. The plate they brought him was piled high with food. None of it looked edible, but he cleared the plate anyway, and mopped up the grease with bread that had a thin layer of margarine on it. Two cups of tea to wash it all down set him up for the day.

  It was coming up to eight-thirty when he arrived outside the block of flats in Russell Road. He parked along the street and switched the radio on to listen to the news. He wasn’t really a news-listening type of person, but he liked to hear about his own exploits. Sure enough – there was another knifing attributed to gang retribution. Of course, the opposing gangs would deny it, but that’s what they’d do anyway. They certainly weren’t looking for a random killer – for him.

  Today would be the day – he felt sure. He’d wasted enough time on Lorna Boyce. If he’d been paid by the hour, he probably would have earned in the region of £5,000 or more by now. Although, the time wasted was probably down to him not doing the job properly in the first place. The problem was though, there were no apprentice schemes or training courses for assassins – he’d had to learn on the job. Maybe he should write to the government and recommend a scheme be set up.

  Now that he had some experience, had successfully completed a number of hits and expanded his CV, had worked out his modus operandi – so to speak – maybe he needed to review his charges, and up his price to £1,500. Although, he didn’t want to put people off, or price himself out of the market. If people wanted someone killed desperately enough he was sure they’d find the money.

  Negotiating a fee probably wouldn’t be a good idea. Some people could haggle as if they had an extra haggling gene. He’d end up paying them to do the job because he wasn’t much good at haggling. His mum could haggle, but she lost her temper when things didn’t go her way.

  Maybe he could have a scale of charges for different types of jobs. The £1,500 would be for murder – that wouldn’t change, but he could do other things as well – such as break/sever fingers, toes, limbs, a nose, an ear, or a tongue. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more he realised that the possibilities were endless. When people rang him up he could make it known that he was available for other types of work as well, and could they spread the word, please. When he got home he’d have to make a list of the type of work he was willing to do and add a price to each.

  If he thought about it, there wasn’t much he wouldn’t do. He probably drew the line at babies, pregnant women and the really old. He didn’t have a conscience as such, but he could imagine that people would think he was a monster if he accepted those types of jobs. He wasn’t a monster, he was in training to become a skilled technician. The fact that he was employed in the underbelly of society was neither here nor there, people had to earn a living. As far as he was concerned, it was a lot better than sponging off the state.

  He was motivated, he still had his self-respect and he was saving for his retirement. If he’d been doing any other work he’d be a model citizen.

  Smiling, he turned the noise from the radio off. He didn’t need news, music, discussions or anything else – he had plans to make. Maybe he needed to do a course on running a business.

  ***

  ‘What did the Chief want you for?’

  They were on their way up the stairs to see Toadstone in forensics.

  ‘He kept me back because he wanted a private conversation.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘The key word there was “private”.’

  ‘I’m quite sure he didn’t mean from me.’

  ‘If that was the case, why did he ask you to leave?’

  ‘So you’re not going to tell me?’

  ‘All right, I’ll tell you. He was a bit disappointed with the PowerPoint presentation – thought there should have been more bells, whistles, whizzes and bangs.’

  ‘You’re a liar. You know I’ll find out.’

  ‘Sooner than you think.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘We’re going there after we’ve seen Toadstone.’

  ‘You could have just said that.’

  ‘I could have, but then I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to mention your PowerPoint presentation.’

  ‘Did you like it?’

  ‘I thought you were very thorough.’

  ‘You didn’t answer the question.’

  ‘I think I did.’

  ‘What does “thorough” mean exactly?’

  ‘Would you like me to give you a synonym for thorough?’

  ‘I know what “thorough” means.’

  ‘I thought you did. Right, we’re here.’

  ‘Don’t think I’ve finished with you yet.’

  They walked along the corridor to Toadstone’s laboratory.

  Richards opened the door. ‘Good morning, Paul,’

  ‘Hello, Mary. You look very beautiful this morning.’

  ‘Thank you for saying so.’

  Holding a hand up to his mouth, Parish made a gagging noise.

  ‘Take no notice of him, Paul.’

  ‘Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together, Toadstone.’

  ‘Not love?’

  ‘No, not love.’ Parish grinned and slapped Richards on the back. ‘See, I knew I’d beat him one day.’

  ‘You didn’t?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Paul, tell me he didn’t just beat you.’

  ‘It looks like he did, Mary.’

  Richards stared at Toadstone and then at Parish. ‘You’re both lying. Tell me the truth, Paul.’

  Toadstone looked at the floor and shuffled his feet. ‘He made me do it.’

  ‘Toadstone!’ Parish said. ‘All you had to do was keep your big mouth shut.’

  ‘I can’t lie to Mary, Sir. Woodrow T Wilson – the twenty-eighth president of America – said that.’

  Richards put her hands on her hips. ‘I knew it, but why lie?’

  ‘He said he’d help me.’

  ‘Which I won’t be doing now that you’ve spilled the beans, Toadstone.’

  ‘Help you to do what?’

  ‘Get another date with you.’

  She touched his hand. ‘You don’t need his help. Let’s go out on Friday night.’

  The sun exploded in his face. ‘You really mean it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is this forensics or a dating agency? Never mind all this lovey-dovey jiggery-pokery, what have you got for us, Toadstone?’

  ‘Ah yes!’ He walked over to his bench.

  Richards said to Parish, ‘Don’t think we’ve finished this conversation yet. We’re not even close to finished.’

  ‘Come on, Toadstone. We’ve wasted enough time up here already.’

  ‘And don’t take it out on Paul just because your grubby little plan didn’t work.’

  Toadstone cleared his throat. ‘We had to cross-check and eliminate everything that was found in the waste bin before we identified anything that was vaguely interesting, which took some considerable time I might add.’

  Parish rolled his eyes. ‘We have got other things to do today, Toadstone.’

  ‘Stop heckling him, Sir.’

  ‘Heckling! Me?’

  ‘Chlorine and bromine,’ Toadstone said.

  ‘Isn’t chlorine used in swimming pools, Paul?’

  ‘Yes it is. It’s part of the halogen group of chemicals together with fluorine, bromine, iodine and astatine. Unfortunately . . .’

  ‘Come on, Richards, let’s go.’

  ‘But he hasn’t finished yet.’

  ‘He used the word “unfortunately”. That’s like a “but” only worse.’
/>   ‘Carry on, Paul. Take no notice of Inspector Parish. He’s just miserable because I discovered his dirty little plan.’

  ‘Unfortunately, chlorine is used in making plastics, solvents for dry cleaning and metal degreasing, textiles, agrochemicals and pharmaceuticals, insecticides, dyestuffs and household cleaning products . . .’

  ‘How does all that help us, Toadstone?’

  ‘If you let him finish, Sir.’

  Parish checked his watch, sighed audibly, grabbed a stool and sat down.

  ‘However, when we find chlorine with bromine then the possibilities are considerably reduced. And with a bit of common sense we can eliminate most of the other applications it might be used for until what we’re left with is the most likely answer. Chlorine and bromine are used together in the maintenance of swimming pools, especially spas and hot tubs.’

  ‘So she had a swim before she died?’ Parish said. ‘Still not much use to us.’

  Toadstone continued as if Parish hadn’t spoken. ‘Let me show you something.’ He nudged his laptop out of hibernation and used the mouse to navigate to a three-dimensional picture of Fannie Binetti. ‘The blue areas are chlorine and bromine.’

  ‘Which are mostly on her back,’ Richards added.

  ‘The back of her clothes, her head, on her hands and the back of her legs.’

  ‘She was lying on top of the chemicals?’ Richards said.

  ‘Yes, that’s my conclusion.’

  ‘See,’ Richards directed at Parish. ‘What do you think it means, Paul?’

  ‘I think it means that the killer is connected to swimming pools or spas in some way. He could work at a swimming pool, or be a pool and spa cleaner, or . . .’

  Parish grunted. ‘Or any number of other occupations that put him into contact with those chemicals. He could also be totally unconnected to swimming pools and spas, but simply have used an abandoned warehouse where those chemicals were stored to kill her. Is that all you’ve got, Toadstone?’

  ‘That’s all I’ve got for the moment.’

  ‘It’s a good lead, Sir. Isn’t it? Thanks very much, Paul.’

  ‘You’re welcome, Mary.’

  ‘I’ll be expecting a lot more from you tomorrow, Toadstone.’