A Morbid Habit Read online

  They had decided to deal with it themselves.

  Yuri was nearly fifty. Perhaps it was a sense of his own mortality that had given rise to these qualms; life expectancy for Russian men was sixty-four. For women it was seventy-six. Maryna could look forward to a good forty years. But how long was he going to last? He had been raised an atheist in the Soviet Union, but belief was making a comeback. Perhaps he should go to church.

  He stubbed out his cigarette. ‘I have to go,’ he said. ‘I’m expected at home.’

  ‘You promised me there would be no loose ends,’ said Maryna.

  ‘A promise I intend to keep,’ said Yuri. He had a bad feeling that there would be other loose ends to deal with; he’d been a policeman too long not to recognise the pattern. When it came to murder, there was always a problem. Dispose of it and you were safe. Until the next time.

  He reached for her, but she shrugged him off. The thought of losing her made him feel giddy, nauseous.

  Yuri retrieved his crumpled uniform from the floor.

  3

  Berlin was woken by the insistent drone of her mobile. She checked the display and picked up.

  ‘Hello,’ she said.

  ‘Ms Berlin, I’m calling to confirm your shift at the Park Royal site tonight,’ said the woman, her tone brisk.

  Berlin didn’t respond.

  ‘Ms Berlin, may I remind you that Hirst are the world’s leading international security solutions group. They control many important contracts.’

  It was true. Hirst liked to boast they ran global ‘end-to-end’ operations. They delivered payrolls, prisoners and close protection; they guarded everything from nuclear installations to borders, provided logistics in war zones, deployed surveillance systems. They also managed compliance, regulatory and fraud investigations.

  Hirst had nearly a million employees in one hundred and twenty-five countries and she would never work for them again.

  ‘Are you reading from the brochure?’ said Berlin.

  ‘Are you refusing a shift?’ said the woman. ‘Because if you are, we’ll have no choice but to take you off our books.’

  ‘Merry Christmas,’ said Berlin. She hung up.

  She rolled off the couch and put the kettle on. Christmas was looming and she was out of a job.

  Summer had been torrid; her one and only foray into matrimonial work had just about finished her as an investigator, let alone nearly ended her life. Her response since had been to work night shifts, guarding empty office buildings and deserted industrial estates. The pay was poor, but the absence of other human beings was a bonus.

  Now it looked like it was going to be a long, hard winter. She had bills that were overdue, and more to come. Well done, Berlin, she thought as she poured a huge mug of coffee.

  It wouldn’t be so bad if she could take comfort in the thought that she had the moral high ground. That option wasn’t available. She had walked away because she had been treated like a fool.

  The one thing she couldn’t stand was someone telling her fairy stories. The supervisor had lied.

  4

  Donald Fagan scratched at his stubble. He’d been up all night and now he was going to be working all day. At the end of it he could look forward to a long drive home and a frigid glare from his wife. She said she didn’t know who he was any more. Which was lucky for her, really.

  He barely had the energy to clasp his phone to his ear. He laid it on the dashboard of the old Audi, in which he spent most of his time, one way or another. It was reliable, unexceptional and fast when it had to be. Qualities he emulated.

  ‘What does she know?’ said his boss through the phone’s distorting speaker.

  ‘She doesn’t know anything. She saw something,’ said Fagan. ‘She’s casual night shift. It was bad luck, that’s all. Raj was sick and —’

  ‘No.’ His boss cut him off. ‘It was bad management. So who’s she working for?’

  ‘Er, Hirst,’ said Fagan.

  ‘Really, Fagan,’ said his boss. The disdain was palpable.

  Fagan imagined his boss sitting somewhere warm. Neat and clean. Manicured. It didn’t matter what Fagan did, he was aware that he always looked as if he needed a good wash. His mum used to say he had been born with dirt under his fingernails.

  He cleared his throat to suppress a snarl. ‘There’s nothing to indicate she’s involved with another outfit,’ he said.

  ‘Look at her background,’ said his boss, taking the tone you would use with an errant child. ‘Why would someone like that take a security guard’s job?’

  Fagan knew he was going to take the fall if this operation went south. ‘If that was the case she would have taken the money,’ he argued. ‘So we wouldn’t catch on.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said his boss. ‘This relationship is important, Fagan. No mistakes. So find out.’

  The line went dead.

  5

  Berlin hesitated to get in touch with old clients. If she put out feelers and made herself available there might be work after the New Year, but it wasn’t great timing: she was struggling to break the habit of a lifetime. It was amazing how much energy it took not to do something. On the other hand, it might do her good to get back into the fray.

  Festive occasions often resulted in sexual harassment complaints; frauds came to light when employees failed to return from Christmas holidays; and in the fallout from seasonal family punch-ups, pissed-off spouses suddenly felt compelled, in the public interest, to expose the scams and rip-offs their partners were running.

  Management, or their insurers, or their lawyers, would call on Berlin to investigate, anticipating hefty claims, litigation or bad publicity – or all three. She would conduct an impartial enquiry and then lay out their risks and the options available to manage them: settle, sack or sanction.

  Other people’s fuck-ups had been her bread and butter for more than twenty years. But she was sick of becoming embroiled in messy lives while her own turned to shit.

  There was all that, and then there was the cupboard, which was bare.

  At five o’clock it was dark again. She’d been pondering her options most of the day and was sick of it. In the absence of a job to go to, the pub seemed the best bet. She grabbed her coat and was about to leave when someone knocked at the door.

  She opened it to a courier, cradling a beautiful Yule log wrapped in cellophane.

  ‘Catherine Berlin?’ asked the courier.

  She nodded. He thrust a digital tablet and a stylus at her.

  ‘Sign here,’ he said. She did as she was told and handed it back. The courier thrust the snowy log, resplendent with robins, holly and ribbon, into her arms and turned to leave. There was no card.

  ‘Hang on!’ called Berlin. ‘Who’s it from?’

  He stopped, checked the tablet and shrugged.

  ‘Must be a secret admirer,’ he said, and kept going.

  The Approach Tavern was heaving with Christmas shoppers unable to face the crush or the relentless jingle of sleigh bells for a moment longer.

  The barmaid placed a double Scotch on the bar in front of Berlin.

  ‘Put it up on my slate,’ Berlin said.

  The barmaid glanced at her guv’nor, who frowned and nodded. Berlin raised her glass to him; he owed her a lot more than a few bloody drinks – she had tracked down his business partner, who was also his father-in-law, after he absconded with the previous, much younger, barmaid and a month’s takings.

  The police had decided it was a civil dispute and wouldn’t get involved. Berlin had seen a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to bank a pub landlord.

  ‘Cheers.’ She glanced around, looking for a seat, and saw Magnus Nkonde waggling his empty glass at her. She returned to the bar.

  Berlin slid into the booth opposite Magnus and put a Scotch on the table in front of him.

  ‘How are you, Magnus?’ she said.

  ‘Still fighting the good fight, old darling,’ he said. ‘Merry fucking Christmas.’ He raised his glass and
downed the double. Berlin did likewise.

  Magnus Nkonde was a journalist who preferred the title ‘investigative reporter’ to ‘scum-sucking bottom-feeder’, which was how he had once been described in parliament. Foreign correspondent for a left-leaning newspaper during the eighties, he was fortuitously on the spot when the Berlin Wall came down.

  Rumour had it that he had been given a heads-up by a cleaner in the household of Erich Honecker, the GDR chief. When asked if this was true, Magnus had darkly observed that ‘good help is hard to find’.

  He did everything possible to conform to the caricature of the boozy old-school muckraker, but his contacts were second to none and his bulbous, vein-flecked nose could smell a political rat a mile away.

  In London, they were usually much closer.

  Magnus claimed Maasai warrior blood, on his mother’s side. It was well hidden by his upbringing in St Albans, where his father had been dean of the cathedral. Magnus had certainly once had the looks; he retained the height, but the muscle had turned to flab and gone south.

  Berlin and Magnus lived at different ends of the manor – he in a gentrified terrace, she in a former council flat – but were united in appreciation of their local, the Approach.

  The din around them rose a notch as the patrons took up the refrain of ‘Silent Night’. Berlin relaxed in the warm fug of Christmas cheer. Magnus joined in with the carol singers. His sonorous bass creaked, but remained in tune. His stint in the choir had paid off.

  Magnus’s druncle performance didn’t fool Berlin. ‘How’s business?’ she asked.

  ‘And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free,’ declared Magnus. ‘But unfortunately, my dear, the Fourth Estate has been routed – hijacked by a bunch of touchy B-list celebs and nervous politicians who don’t want their dirty habits and scurrilous ways exposed to public scrutiny.’

  Magnus was now a ‘stringer’. Sacked six months ago by his newspaper, The Sentinel, following his conviction for paying a public official for information, he was now forced to prowl the corridors of power, looking for stories to sell. Accordingly, he spent most of his time cadging drinks.

  Berlin was sympathetic. Her own profession often relied on buying information. It was a commodity, like any other, and sources were not always simply motivated by cash. Going up against powerful interests often involved a catastrophic loss of income, broken legs – or worse.

  Berlin recalled one salutary case of a private investigator who had tried to expose police corruption and ended up with an axe buried in his head. Given the risk to one’s personal wellbeing, an individual could hardly be blamed for trying to maintain a healthy bank balance.

  ‘Things are quiet, then?’ she asked.

  ‘Not a fucking dickie-bird,’ he said, rueful. ‘Anything come your way?’

  Berlin took pity on him. At a more pragmatic level, she also respected the old adage ‘one good turn deserves another’. Magnus had proved handy in the past, and might do so again one of these days. That, and she was curious.

  ‘I may have something,’ she said. ‘Although it could be nothing.’

  Magnus perked up. ‘My round,’ he said.

  Magnus listened attentively to her tale about the unscheduled appearance of the van at warehouse 5B. She described the vehicle and the men in it, and the subsequent attempt to bribe her.

  ‘This bloke wasn’t happy to see me. He was big,’ she said. ‘So I wasn’t inclined to ask a lot of questions.’

  Magnus was unimpressed. ‘Why would I be interested in a bit of seasonal pilfering?’ he said. ‘It’s hardly front-page stuff.’

  ‘Because they weren’t nicking anything,’ said Berlin.

  ‘What were they doing?’ said Magnus.

  ‘They were unloading something,’ said Berlin.

  ‘How do you know?’ asked Magnus. ‘You said the van backed into the warehouse.’

  Berlin knocked back the dregs of her Scotch. ‘Because when it drove away, it was sitting much higher on its axles.’

  ‘Lighter,’ said Magnus.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Berlin. ‘They weren’t taking stuff out, they were putting stuff in. So what was it? More to the point, why lie about it?’

  The pub door swung shut behind Berlin, abruptly cutting off the warmth, light and good cheer. She confronted the black evening and biting wind. At least she had left Magnus happy. It was a Christmas gift. Something to distract him during the long, lonely hours of the holiday. And it hadn’t cost her a penny. Just her job.

  Tugging her black woolly hat down over her straggly blonde locks and turning up her coat collar, she set off towards Roman Road. Her Peacekeeper boots gave her an extra couple of inches. An Armament Systems and Procedures telescopic baton in her pocket gave her extra confidence.

  Lenny, her father, had always said you can’t fatten thoroughbreds. Her mother had lived in hope that she would ‘fill out’. Berlin had disappointed her in so many ways.

  But her grandfather, Zayde, Lenny’s father, never judged. When he stood beside her, she was defiant. When he taught her to swear in Yiddish, her mother despaired. When she mimicked his surly silences, Lenny warned her that Zayde wasn’t playing: he mourned for what he had lost. But he never told her what it was.

  Berlin would run to find Zayde’s things; she would bring his braces, his shaving mug, his watch, and drop them in his lap. Then he’d smile. That was it. His smile. She had brought it back.

  Crossing the road, Berlin took the steps down to the canal. The path was deserted, which was how she liked it: no dog walkers or cyclists to disrupt the rhythm of her stride or the flow of her thoughts. Which inevitably turned to one thing.

  Addiction was as dark and menacing as the dirty water beside her. Its grip was as cold. But the promise of heroin was relief. It offered respite from the self. Berlin feared that if she truly abandoned it she would be embarking on a life of regret and longing that would be just as onerous.

  She wasn’t sure that she was ready to look grief in the eye.

  6

  Magnus sat in the cabman’s shelter in Russell Square, munching on a sausage sandwich. He wasn’t a cab driver but he was tolerated, and at this time of night if he required a good, hot, strong cup of tea and a bit of peace and quiet, this was the place for it. The green timber shelter with its shingle roof was no bigger than a garden shed, which it resembled. It was a Victorian monument to philanthropy.

  Magnus wasn’t one for mourning the good old days, which struck him as invariably awful, but there was no doubt the nineteenth century had been a golden age for newspapers: London alone had had fifty-two.

  Chagrined by the government’s vendetta against journalists, Magnus had been forced to implement sordid cloak-and-dagger methods to allay the fears of potential sources.

  These days it was increasingly difficult to get the cooperation of people with access to information that in Magnus’s opinion should be in the public domain. The owner of a vehicle, for example. It had to be done in writing, on a special form, and you had to have ‘reasonable cause’.

  Being a nosy bastard wasn’t regarded as reasonable any more. It all took bloody ages.

  A quick phone call would no longer suffice; middlemen had to be involved, so-called ‘cut-outs’. Meetings had to be held in places where there were no cameras, and there were fewer and fewer of those. The biggest impact, of course, had been on price, which – unsurprisingly – had shot up. Berlin had provided the van’s number. Now it was up to him.

  A bleary-eyed cabbie wandered into the shelter and ordered a bacon sandwich with brown sauce.

  Magnus wiped the grease from his chin with his less-than-snowy-white handkerchief and vacated his place.

  The cabbie sat down in it, opened his newspaper and moved Magnus’s plate. Beneath it was a fifty-quid note and a piece of paper with a vehicle registration number on it.

  The cabbie slipped them both into his pocket.

  Magnus left the shelter with a spring in his step. Game on.<
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  Fagan was finally on his way home. But instead of turning off to Chigwell, he kept going around the Fulwell Cross roundabout and took the road to Fairlop Waters. It was as if the car had a will of its own.

  The transition from suburb to green belt was abrupt. Fields opened up on either side of the road, expanses of darkness blurred at the edges by the glow of the city.

  He pulled into the deserted car park beside the lake and switched off the motor. The moonless night was still. A thin mist drifted across the water, the frost on the jetty iridescent in the sulphur glow of security lights.

  Fagan reached into the glovebox and retrieved his kit from beneath the false bottom he’d installed.

  The ritual of preparing a pipe filled him with sweet anticipation. He would limit himself to a small toke, using just a thumbnail of the sticky resin so he could get a decent night’s sleep when he got home. On empty roads it was an easy ten-minute drive and would pose no problems.

  Opium was a habit he’d picked up when serving in Afghanistan, where it was cheaper and more readily available than a pint of bitter or a bar of chocolate.

  The small bowl glowed, and he inhaled deeply.

  If this business went pear-shaped, he wouldn’t be able to shoot his way out of trouble. That was the problem with being a civilian. No-one had your back.

  Hirst had brought him into this operation for his size, he knew that. A bit of muscle was always handy. But he’d been kept on for his connections and his other more esoteric skills.

  Smoke seeped into his lungs and stress slipped away.

  Once again he shed a skin that was too tight.

  7

  Berlin arrived home just before dawn, harbouring the hope that she’d tired herself out enough to be able to sleep. She dropped her bag as soon as she was through the front door and made straight for the Advent calendar on the wall. It wasn’t really her sort of thing, but Bella had given it to her and she didn’t like to offend. She popped open the little flap marked ‘22nd’ and devoured the chocolate behind it.