‘Shrinking budgets, bro.’ Sunil sipped his Guinness. ‘So, I heard on the bongo drums you’re living out of the Big Smoke now?’

  ‘All part of the cash dash. I managed to get a good price on my place and bought a mansion, well… half a mansion… on the south coast. It’s all right there. I like it.’

  ‘Nice one.’ Sunil was far too urban to consider such heresy. His idea of a view was city lights sparkling across the Thames and the reassuring glow of multiple takeaways within easy reach.

  They small-talked about property prices. Sunil was planning to move more centrally when the property bubble properly burst. He was hoping to take advantage of some foreign fat-wallet speculator, who’d eagerly overpaid for one of those city-centre investment apartments with their floor-to-ceiling plate-glass windows, and buy the property for a fraction. He was just waiting on that bubble to pop – Any time now, mate. You just watch.

  Eventually, niceties over, Boyd nudged the conversation towards the reason they were both sitting there this afternoon.

  He pulled his phone out. ‘Sunny, I’ve got a face I need you to identify for me.’

  ‘You got a decent picture?’ he asked, peering over at Boyd’s screen.

  ‘It’s a social media profile picture. Filtered to fuck, of course.’

  ‘As long as it’s not got a cat’s nose and whiskers, we should be all right,’ quipped Sunil.

  ‘Quite.’ Boyd tapped his phone and pulled up the picture of Zophia.

  ‘Hey, she’s cute.’ Sunil pulled the phone towards him for a closer look.

  ‘She’s probably dead. And quite possibly in a number of pieces.’

  Boyd filled him in on the basic background to the case, leaving Nix’s name out of it for the time being.

  ‘So you think she was some Carole Baskin type?’ asked Sunil.

  ‘Something like that. What’s the expression – Blag, shag, then bag?’ Boyd shuddered.

  Sunil took the phone and studied the picture carefully. ‘How did you get the photo onto your phone?’

  ‘Copied and saved it. Why?’

  ‘Good, then the EXIF file will still be attached.’

  ‘That the metadata?’

  ‘Yup. It contains stuff like when it was originally taken, where it was taken, and a whole bunch of other things. I’m guessing that’ll be helpful to you.’

  Boyd nodded. ‘Very.’

  ‘And do you have the link to the site you grabbed this from?’

  ‘Sure. But, remember, her name’s most likely an alias. It’s any other names you can find for her that I’m interested in.’

  ‘If it’s one of those niche social media platforms, they’re very hackable,’ said Sunil. ‘I could probably dig around her profile and unearth a lot more information than she would have wanted to make available. Sound good?’

  ‘Yep. I’ll text you the link.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll throw some facial recognition software at it too – see what that brings up.’ Sunil looked at him. ‘I’m guessing this one is off the books again?’

  ‘For now, yeah,’ said Boyd.

  Sunil grinned. ‘You do like being a naughty Boyd, don’t you?’

  ‘Not particularly.’ Boyd shook his head and sighed. ‘How long have you been waiting to use that one on me?’

  ‘Since the last time, bro. Thought it up on my way home.’

  ‘Great. Good one, mate. Now, let’s see if you can put as much effort into finding out who this Zophia really is.’

  Sunil chuckled. ‘So what’s she done, then? This girl. She kill someone?’

  Boyd gave him a flat smile. ‘That’s more than I’m going to give you. Sorry. So, how quickly can you work on this?’

  Sunil sucked in a breath, reminding Boyd of a plumber about to quote for a bathroom. ‘Tomorrow. Maybe the day after?’

  ‘And as for the money, Sunny… If you recall, you do actually owe me this one.’

  Sunil gave Boyd a long and heavy-lidded stare through the thick lenses of his glasses. ‘All right,’ he said eventually. ‘But if this goes on the books…’

  ‘Yes. If it goes on the books, I’ll make sure you can bill the force. I promise.’

  ‘Bro, I don’t know why you just don’t do that in the first place.’

  Boyd sighed. ‘I’ve got a feeling about this one. I’d rather know a bit more before I get it out and start waggling it around in front of everyone.’

  Sunil made a face. ‘Nice image there, bro. Thanks.’

  They talked for a while longer, finished their drinks and exchanged, probably empty, promises to not leave it so long until next time. Boyd watched Sunil Chandra head towards the Tube station and decided to give it a few minutes before following suit. There was nothing more annoying and awkward than saying goodbye to someone and then having to say hello all over again on the platform moments later.

  Boyd knew Covent Garden very well. He’d been to see many a band at the Marquee Club in his youth, before it closed and relocated. He’d even played a gig there once. Back then he played bass guitar, very badly. He’d been too bloody tall for the stage and its uncomfortably low ceiling, so he’d had to stoop his way through their forty-five-minute set, playing before a piss-poor, mid-week, couldn’t-care-less audience of less than twenty.

  Still, they were good memories.

  He’d first met Julia at the Punch and Judy. And they’d often gone back to the same pub to toast their anniversary and occasionally, drunkenly, to re-enact their clumsy First Encounter. He toyed with the idea of walking over to the Piazza and round the corner to get a quick glimpse of the pub’s outside balcony. It was probably not a great idea, he decided. There were way too many memories lurking around there like well-intentioned ghosts.

  Best let it go, whispered Julia.

  She was right.

  As always.

  37

  ‘There, what do you think?’ asked Emma.

  Boyd stood back and looked at the one study wall they’d actually finished. The colour and the special effect on top had been Emma’s idea: a base colour of very dark green that had, to his eye, looked almost black in its Dulux tin, with a lighter green dry-sponged on top. It had looked a very bad paint experiment at first, but as she finished the last dark corner he could see, at last, what she’d intended: a wall of dark green leathery marble.

  ‘I love it,’ he said. ‘Very Downton Abbey.’

  ‘I told you to trust me. So, you like it?’’

  ‘I do.’ He smiled at the wall. She’d done a great job. Sherlock Holmes would have been proud of a study wall like that.’

  ‘Shall we crack on then,’ said Emma enthusiastically, ‘and get the others done?’

  It took most of the day to do the base coats and for Emma to work her magic with the sponge. They had a very late lunch, then began work on the skirting boards and the study door with a crisp white silk paint. By the time they were done, the day had gone and Ozzie was marching up and down the hallway, making grumpy harrumphing noises at them both.

  ‘I’d better take him out,’ Boyd said. ‘Poor sod.’

  Since it was already dark and still drizzling outside, he decided that it would have to be a quick walk, down to the bottom of the hill and back. Hopefully enough time for Ozzie to do his business, check his pee-mail inbox and fire off a few replies. There was a well-deserved bottle of red on the dining-room table, with Boyd’s name on it.

  As he stepped onto the pavement, he remembered something from this afternoon. While they’d been decorating, Emma had said something out of the blue that had really hit him hard.

  ‘Dad, why d’you never talk about Noah. We talk about Mum, but never him. It sometimes feels like he was never with us.’

  The truth was that Boyd could hardly bear to think of his little boy; it would have pushed him over the edge. Noah was just four when it happened. He hadn’t been a planned baby. Boyd had been thirty-nine when Jules had whispered, ‘Oops, honey, I think we did it again,’ and patted her tummy. Emma had been sixteen at the time, doing her GCSEs. And she’d adored Noah when he came along, tag-team mothering him with Julia.

  Boyd had had only four years with his little boy. Far too much of that time had been taken away by work’s late nights and early mornings. What he had left in his mental memorial to Noah were four Christmases, four birthday parties, a few family outings and a couple of poolside holidays. Noah, with his fluffy little peanut-sized head and his big personality. Noah, who – both he and Julia were certain – was going to make his mark on this world somehow. But he never got his chance.

  Boyd had tried to ringfence his grief. Half of himself had been torn away when he’d lost Julia. But having Noah taken away from the world had been an enraging injustice.

  Losing Julia had broken his heart.

  Noah had broken him entirely.

  Halfway down the hill, his phone buzzed. Boyd pulled it out of his jacket pocket and glanced at the screen. It was Sunil Chandra.

  ‘Hey, Sunny, that was quicker than I was expecting.’

  ‘Boyd…’ Sunil sounded a little breathless. ‘I’ve got your girl. And you probably need to back off. Or proceed very carefully.’

  ‘Why? Who is she?’

  ‘Her real name’s Zophia Salikova.’ Sunil spelt her surname and paused, as if expecting a reaction. When none was forthcoming, he continued, ‘Her father is Rovshan Salikov?’

  Boyd was still none the wiser.

  ‘Okay, so google him,’ said Sunil. ‘He’s ex-KGB, an old buddy of you-know-who. He’s been a corrupt city mayor for decades with one greedy hand in the trough and one not so much dipped as right up to his fucking armpit in organised crime.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘Absolutely, shit. It’s no secret he’s been trying to relocate his dirty money to the UK for a while. Some of it’s already here and doing its work; he’s got a toehold so to speak.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, he’s greasing the wheels, bro. Making heads look the other way.’

  Boyd could hear Sunny’s unsteady breath. He sounded edgy. Scared. ‘You okay, Sunny?’

  ‘If you’re getting pushback from above, Boyd… if that’s why this is off the books and not official, then you need to be super-fucking-careful.’

  ‘You think that –’ Boyd didn’t finish his sentence. He didn’t want to.

  ‘Yes, bro. I do. Be careful. Better still: drop it.’

  ‘So this Zophia –’

  ‘She’s Rovshan Salikov’s youngest daughter. I don’t know what she’s done, or how she’s crossed your path, but, like I said, mate, you should back well away from it.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Boyd, it was good to catch up again, bro. Really good. I’ll send you over what I’ve got. But I’m going to step away from this one now.’ he paused. ‘And I really suggest you do the same.’ With that, he hung up.

  ‘Shit,’ Boyd muttered again. He stopped walking and turned towards home. Ozzie pulled on the lead – he had other plans.

  ‘Sorry, Ozzie mate, no beach tonight.’

  Fifteen minutes later he had a large black coffee, an open packet of chocolate digestives and Google Chrome at the ready.

  He tapped ‘Zophia Salikov’ into the search bar, paused and hit enter.

  Boyd opened the door before DC Okeke even had a chance to knock.

  ‘I saw your headlights,’ he explained, noting her look of surprise as he zipped up his coat.

  ‘Are you okay, sir? You sounded a bit –’

  ‘I need a stiff bloody drink,’ he said. ‘The Old Pump House will do. I’ll fill you in when we get there.’ It seemed like a fairly quiet place. They should be able to talk without being overheard.

  Okeke made eye contact with Emma over his shoulder. Emma shrugged and mouthed I have no idea back at her.

  ‘Well. All right, then,’ said Okeke. ‘If you insis–’

  ‘Emma?’ Boyd turned back to his daughter. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s work talk. So it’s just us. We won’t be long.’ He went to leave, then hesitated, turned back to her and kissed her on the forehead. ‘I bloody love my study.’

  ‘I know, I’m really glad.’

  ‘And, Emma…’

  ‘Yes?’

  He wanted to caution her, to warn her not to answer the door. But she wasn’t a child, nor could he give any explanation yet as to why he felt the need to warn her.

  ‘Nothing. Just… stay in.’

  ‘Dad?’ She looked concerned now. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘You’re fine. Just stay in.’ He squeezed her shoulder and turned to leave.

  38

  ‘All right, guv. I’ve got my sugary drink and my roasted nuts. So, are you going to tell me why you’re looking so flustered?’

  ‘I have the girl’s proper name now,’ said Boyd. ‘It’s Zophia Salikova. She’s the youngest daughter of Rovshan Salikov, a Russian mafia godfather.’

  Okeke’s eyes rounded. ‘Oh, shit!’

  ‘Mr Gerald Nix, it seems, rather foolishly, and I’m pretty sure inadvertently, got himself involved with one of the most brutal criminal families in Russia – well, Russia, but it’s part of the old USSR thing. Honestly, Okeke, the stuff I’ve been reading for the last hour is enough to turn your hair white.’ He took a big sip of his gin and tonic. ‘The Salikov family are into all the greatest hits – drugs, prostitution, trafficking, slavery. They’ve got a family tradition of butchering people who get in the way of what they want or pose a threat to them.’

  ‘Oh, shit,’ she whispered again.

  ‘And dumb old, dirty old Gerald Nix found himself chatting up Capo di tutti I capi’s precious little princess.’

  ‘By chance? Surely not.’

  ‘Probably not by chance. I suspect they found him and got lovely Zophia to groom him and reel him all the way in.’

  ‘But why Nix?’

  ‘Money laundering is my guess,’ Boyd said, working with a fifty–fifty mix of information and speculation. ‘It seems the Salikovs decided a while back that London would be the best place for their dirty money. Which makes sense. Now we’re out of Europe and it’s all deregulated, London’s the perfect place to toss your dirty laundry, to be mixed around and cleaned up.’ He lowered his voice further. ‘London’s becoming the Wild West when it comes to dirty money. It’s all flooding in now.’

  ‘The Thailand of Europe.’

  He nodded. ‘So, let’s look at our Mr Nix. We’ve got a independent financial advisor with his own practice and licence, who has a speciality in walking money into bogus Guernsey-based shell companies and walking it out again smelling of roses and ready for London. Make no mistake… she almost certainly approached him.’

  ‘That’s not at all creepy.’

  ‘Right.’ He continued, ‘Now do I have to spell out what I’m thinking… or are you getting my point?’

  ‘Erm, not yet, guv. You’re going to have to help me out here.’ She glanced around the pub. ‘Say it quietly.’

  ‘OK. What I’m about to say is just me freewheeling, okay? It’s no more than paranoid shite at this stage but –’

  ‘But?’ she echoed.

  ‘Look. I got some pretty heavy pushback on Nix from above. As you know, I was told in no uncertain terms to dress up this case as migrant trafficking gone wrong. Now, I’m not saying the pushback we’re getting from up above is directly linked to this, but… you know how these things work, right? Down the golf club, or at the members-only bar… A quiet word here, a would you mind awfully there?’

  Her eyes suddenly rounded. ‘Her Madge?’

  He shrugged. ‘Maybe. Or someone in Border Force leaning on her. Like I say, I don’t know. And I don’t have anything to back this up – I shouldn’t even be saying it out loud – but it adds up.’

  ‘So what levels of money are we talking about?’

  ‘I have no idea. Millions? Hundreds of millions? Who knows? Big numbers, for sure.’

  Okeke pulled the bag of roasted peanuts open and Boyd grabbed a handful. ‘I think Nix was either willingly channelling Salikov money into Guernsey via his company, or he was being coerced into doing it. Carrot or stick, or both.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  ‘I know, right?’ He crunched the nuts in his mouth, hardly tasting them, then washed them down with another swig of gin and tonic. ‘You know, I made the mistake of reading up on them, to figure out their MOs. You ever watch Breaking Bad?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Sam, these Russians make the Columbians look like learners.’

  Okeke sipped her drink more cautiously. ‘Guv, there was something I was going to tell you today, before this. But… I dunno –’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nix has one of those smart CCTV systems. You know the ones that send an alert to your phone and you can talk through it to the DPD guy dropping your parcel off at the front door, or whatever? I managed to contact the company that runs the operations side and get permission to access Nix’s camera log.’

  ‘And?’ This was good.

  ‘There’s nothing much to show. Lots of ten-second clips of cats walking past, the occasional postie delivering spam mail. But there’s one entry with a deleted media file.’

  ‘From when?’ he asked, wondering if it was of the day he’d nearly lost his ear. Maybe it had shown the bastard on the recording.

  ‘From the twenty-ninth of November. Two days after the Magpie left Sovereign Harbour Marina.’

  He frowned. ‘So the boat sets sail. Then –’

  ‘Two days later someone enters the house.’

  He reached for the peanuts again. ‘Who?’

  She shrugged. ‘I guess that’s why the video was deleted, guv.’

  ‘Okay then.’ He let out a breath. ‘So… who were they? Why were they there? And what were they after?’

  ‘The thing is,’ she continued, ‘I was talking with the operations people. They said that since the video is stored remotely, rather than, you know, normally on the camera, the only person who can delete it is the account holder.’