‘I don’t give a flying fuck that your visa’s expired and that you’re here illegally, Miss Kuznetsova,’ Tartaglia said. ‘But if you don’t cooperate, the immigration services will be the least of your worries. Do you understand?’ He smacked his hand hard on the table in front of her, making her start. She had the sullen, defiant stare of somebody used to being interrogated and he had decided that subtlety or charm would be wasted on her.
She pressed her thin red lips together and nodded.
They were sitting in an airless meeting room in Kilburn police station, he and Minderedes together on one side of the small, coffee-stained table, Tatyana Kuznetsova opposite. It had taken a while to track her down but they eventually found her waitressing in a Turkish restaurant in Salusbury Road, Queens Park – conveniently just a stone’s throw away from the police station. She had refused the services of an interpreter, saying that she spoke English, although she seemed to understand a lot more than she was capable of expressing. She was younger than he had expected, in her mid-twenties, with short, chin-length black hair and a round, not unattractive face, spoiled by too much make-up. She was still in her work clothes: a grubby apron tied around her waist over a short black skirt, white shirt struggling to stretch across her show-stoppingly large and artificial-looking breasts. They seemed all the more extraordinary perched on her scrawny, bandy-legged little frame. Nonetheless, Finnigan must have thought ten Christmases had been rolled into one when she visited him in jail, particularly after his long stretch inside.
‘Do you recognise this man?’ Minderedes asked, holding up a photograph of Jake Finnigan.
She gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head.
He leaned across the table and waved the photo in front of her face but she avoided eye contact, looking straight ahead like a sulky child pretending she was somewhere else. He slapped the photo down hard on the table in front of her. ‘Look again. I think you do. You went to see him in Wormwood Scrubs Prison last March.’
She made no reply.
‘There’s a record of it. We’ve got scanned copies of the IDs you showed.’ He held them up in front of her nose. ‘Crystal?’
‘Do you understand?’ Tartaglia asked.
She shrugged, shifting her gaze momentarily to Tartaglia. ‘OK. Maybe I go see him. What’s the problem?’
‘Jake Finnigan’s dead. He was murdered. Do you understand what I’m saying?’ He spoke slowly and deliberately. He wanted her to be in no doubt.
She nodded.
‘This happened shortly after you went to see him, when he came out of prison.’
A flicker of something crossed her face and she narrowed her black eyes, as though quickly calculating something in her mind. Then her expression shut down again. ‘This is very serious, Miss Kuznetsova,’ Tartaglia continued. ‘We have a letter you wrote to him after you went to see him. You sent him some photographs. “Very special pictures” you called them.’
‘Dirty pictures,’ Minderedes said, with an unpleasant tone.
She looked blank.
‘Pornographic,’ Tartaglia added. He was only guessing. They hadn’t seen the photos she had sent to Finnigan, but the odds were well in his favour.
‘Do you like to take photographs of yourself naked and send them to older men?’ Minderedes asked.
Her cheeks turned pink as though she had been slapped, the first sign of any emotion, but she made no reply.
‘Did you like him looking at you? Did it excite you?’ Minderedes said, emphasising each word.
‘No.’
‘What else did you do for him?’
‘Do for him?’ Again she looked at Tartaglia, as though he might help her but he decided to let Minderedes go with the flow. Sometimes it was better to observe and he was still undecided about her.
‘Yes,’ Minderedes said. ‘Extras. You know what I mean.’ He made a rude gesture with his fingers.
‘Stop this,’ she shouted.
‘Stop? But we’ve only just started, Tatyana. Poor old Finnigan. He must have had the wettest dreams about you, looking at those special little pictures you sent him. All that time inside, with only blokes to suck him off. Must’ve really got him going, fantasising about you, don’t you think? Was that what you wanted? Did you want him panting for you? Bet the poor old bugger couldn’t wait to get out.’
She coloured again as he spoke and shifted in her seat, but made no reply.
‘You talked about getting together when he came out,’ Minderedes continued. ‘Showing him some more of you “in the flesh”, you said. Are you on the game?’
‘What game? What is this?’
‘Are you a prostitute?’ Tartaglia asked. ‘Do you take money in return for sex?’
Her eyes widened a fraction. ‘No.’ She glared at him, folding her pale, thin arms tightly around herself, but he wasn’t convinced. Hard-up amateur or seasoned pro, it didn’t matter what she was. He was sure she hadn’t visited Finnigan or written to him out of love, or any other selfless motive. But what was her motive? He certainly didn’t see her being responsible for the body parts in the Fiat Panda. Somebody else had to have been pulling her strings.
‘When he came out of jail, you texted him,’ Minderedes said.
‘No.’
He looked at her disbelievingly. ‘You saying you did not text him?’
‘No. I do not text him.’
‘You’re a liar, Tatyana. You texted him and you asked him to meet you. We have transcripts of those texts.’
That was also a lie – they were still waiting for the downloads from Finnigan’s phone service provider – but it was another low-risk gamble they had decided to take.
‘He gets all hot and bothered with excitement,’ Minderedes continued, ‘gets himself all dolled up no doubt, and goes out to meet you. Poor bugger’s never seen again. That is, until he turns up dead as a friggin’ dodo in a car park in South West London. Dead. Capisce?’
‘You’re in big trouble, Tatyana,’ Tartaglia said, deciding he would also switch to her Christian name. ‘Big trouble. And you’re wasting our time. If you don’t start talking, I’m leaving you with Detective Constable Minderedes here, and he’ll make sure that you’re charged with as many things as we can think of. You may not give a stuff about Jake Finnigan, but if you care about what happens to you, you’ll tell us the truth.’ He stared at her until she looked away.
She chewed her lip for a moment, picking at a long red nail with her finger, then said, ‘OK, maybe I text him once. But I no kill him.’
‘First you say you didn’t text him, then you say you did,’ Minderedes said. ‘Now you say you didn’t kill him. Why should we believe a bloody word you say?’
She gripped the table with her hands. ‘I know nothing about this. Nothing.’ She started to get to her feet.
‘Sit down,’ Tartaglia shouted, staring at her until she sank back down in the chair. ‘Things are looking pretty serious for you. Bad. Did you kill him?’
She looked genuinely shocked, as though it was only just dawning on her what was happening. Her tone softened. ‘You make joke, right?’
‘This is no joke. Certainly not for Jake Finnigan, and not for you either. Did you kill him?’
‘This man . . .’
‘Jake Finnigan.’
‘You say he is dead?’
‘Yes. Murdered. Do you understand that word?’
She nodded.
Palms face down on the table, he leaned towards her. ‘This is not a joke, or a trick, Tatyana. I don’t care what you did, or why you did it, who you fucked or how much money you were paid. I just need to know the truth. All that matters is finding the person who killed Finnigan. Again, do you understand?’ He spoke slowly and deliberately making sure she got every word.
She lowered her gaze. ‘Yes.’
‘Right. Now you’d better tell me exactly what happened.’
At first there was silence, and Tartaglia was wondering what to do next when she gave a little sigh, then slowly, in broken English, began to tell them about a man she had met. He had come into the restaurant where she was working one day back in February. He wasn’t a regular and she had never seen him before. He was on his own, business was slow, and they got talking. He said his name was Chris and he was nice looking, she said. Nice eyes, although his teeth weren’t good, she said disapprovingly, like someone who smokes too much. He bought her a couple of drinks and told her he was a freelance photographer. He asked her if she was unattached, which she was, and what she was doing in the UK. He asked her about her family back home, her brothers and sisters, and eventually she told him she was trying to make some money to pay off some debts back home. He smiled, and told her he knew a way.
She had thought he wanted to take pictures of her but instead he told her that he wanted her to help him do a favour for a friend – a very good friend, he said – who was in prison. He said that the man was very lonely and was crazy for Russian women and would do anything just to get to know one as pretty as her. He said that the man had had a hard time in jail, that he was innocent of the crime he was supposed to have committed, and was due to be released very soon. All she had to do was to write to the man – as her English was poor, he would tell her what to say – enclosing a picture that he would take and asking if he would like a visit. That’s all she had to do. Jake had written back straight away, saying he wanted to see her. She had given the letter to Chris, she said. For this, she was paid five hundred pounds. He told her to make the appointment and that when she returned he would give her another five hundred pounds. When she went to see Jake she wasn’t to mention Chris by name, just to say that a good friend of Jake’s had asked her to go and see him. She went to the jail, met Jake and talked to him for as long as she was allowed. He asked her how old she was and if she was single. He seemed to like her, she said. He said he liked Russian women, that he had heard that they were very passionate.
‘He wasn’t at all suspicious about who sent you?’ Tartaglia asked, amazed that a hardened criminal like Finnigan could be so naive.
‘Maybe a little,’ she said. ‘When I first go there he question me. He think it is joke. But then he really like me.’
It was the age-old thing, Tartaglia thought to himself. Sex, or the promise of it, could frazzle even the most sensible of male brains. Finnigan could hardly be described as sensible or level headed. He had also been inside for a long stretch. Maybe he had chosen not to think too closely why a young woman like Tatyana would want to pay him attention, let alone who might have sent her. She was the proverbial gift horse. A Trojan horse, in fact. According to Finnigan’s psychological report, although of a relatively low IQ, he was self-confident and egotistical. He probably felt more than capable of handling most situations, particularly where a woman was involved.
Tatyana described how Chris had come into the restaurant again two days later. She told him what had happened with Finnigan and he gave her the money.
‘Didn’t you think it was a lot of money for what you did?’ Tartaglia asked, still sceptical. ‘Weren’t you suspicious?’
‘No,’ she replied with a shrug.
‘What the hell did you think was going on?’ he then asked.
Her black eyes glittered with anger. ‘I need money. I don’t ask questions.’
Chris then said he wanted to take some pictures of her. He told her they were for Jake and said he would pay her another five hundred pounds. They met up outside Kings Cross station and he took her to a hotel nearby – she didn’t remember the name – and bought her some drinks. Then he took some pictures of her in the bar. She had quite a bit to drink, she said. Then he said he would give her another five hundred pounds if she would take off her clothes and pose for him, like in the magazines. He said it would be a professional photo shoot. It wasn’t a big deal for her because she had done some glamour modelling as a student back in Russia, and anyway she needed the money. Chris booked a room upstairs and they were there for about an hour, she said. She then had to write another letter to Jake, which he dictated.
‘Did you have sex with him?’ Minderedes asked.
She said very insistently ‘No’, that he hadn’t asked for it or seemed at all interested. She started to think he must be gay, like a lot of English men. This was said with a pointed look at both Tartaglia and Minderedes, their dark Mediterranean looks and un-British surnames clearly lost on her, which amused Tartaglia but made Minderedes visibly bridle.
Tatyana said that the last time she had seen Chris was about a month later. He had appeared at the restaurant again and told her that Jake had just come out of prison and that he wanted to plan something really special for him. She thought he meant some sort of a party or celebration. He said she would be invited and would meet lots of new people. He asked her to send Jake a text saying she had heard he was out and wanted to see him. Again, he told her exactly what to say. He then said he had a present for her and he gave her a new iPhone. He asked if he could have her old Nokia in return and she gave it to him.
‘What, with the SIM?’ Tartaglia asked.
She shrugged as if it was unimportant.
‘Didn’t you think that was odd? He wants your old phone. Why?’ Again she shrugged, as though it wasn’t worth thinking about. He was growing exasperated at her stubborn lack of interest. He couldn’t believe she was that stupid. ‘He wants the SIM. He wants to use it,’ he said, watching her closely. ‘He wants to pretend to be you.’ Again, there was no reaction.
Her only response was that the phone was a cheap one and that anything important was backed up on her laptop, as though that was all that mattered. Tartaglia didn’t believe for a second that she was so gullible, but she was being paid enough not to ask questions. Chris had then told her he would call her to fix things up for the party but she never heard from him again. When she finished her account, she sat back in her chair, arms still tightly folded, and looked at both detectives defiantly, as though she had delivered the goods and it was over to them.
Tartaglia watched her closely while Minderedes noted down a few more details for the statement she would sign. He wondered if she was merely a willing pawn or whether she could be more deeply involved, although she had only been in the country a couple of months before she went to see Finnigan in jail. There was also no reason to think she had ever met Finnigan before then, so it seemed unlikely. However, in spite of her broken English, she appeared sharp and streetwise. She must have had her suspicions that she was involved in some sort of a con, or at least some sort of elaborate practical joke, but she had clearly decided to look the other way. After all, whatever was going on was very profitable for her and, Tartaglia reflected, a lot of people who, if their palms were sufficiently greased, would happily play their part in strange situations and not inquire further.
Tatyana’s reaction on hearing that Finnigan had been murdered also seemed genuine enough, and so far there were no grounds to think she had been an accessory to the crime. He still found it odd though, that apart from his initial wariness, Finnigan seemed not to have had a clue that he was being played and had lapped it all up willingly. What seemed clear was that Chris, or whatever his real name was, had known how Finnigan would react. He had known the man’s weakness, and known that in the end he wouldn’t question the gift that had apparently landed out of the blue in his lap. He had planned everything down to the last detail, and he had also chosen Tatyana well for her role. Assuming he wasn’t just a middleman with somebody else behind him calling the shots, his interest in Finnigan was personal. He had used Tatyana to get close to Finnigan and to lure him to his death. Why Chris had needed her in the first place, why he couldn’t just kill Finnigan on his own, was another question. It seemed a very elaborate and risky way to go about things and there had to have been a good reason for it.
‘Have you ever seen this man?’ he asked when Minderedes had finished, pulling out a photograph of Richard English.
‘No.’
He studied her carefully but there was no sign of recognition. ‘Are you absolutely sure?’
She nodded.
‘What about Chris? You’d be able to recognise him if you saw him again?’
‘Of course.’
‘Can you describe him?’
She pursed her lips, looking from Minderedes to Tartaglia.
‘Not old man. Not like Jake.’
Jake Finnigan had been in his late forties, but maybe to her he had looked older. ‘So, twenty, thirty, forty? What are we talking about?’
‘Maybe thirty. And tall like you.’
‘Like me, are you sure?’ he asked standing up. ‘Or like DC Minderedes here. Nick, stand up, will you?’ Minderedes was shorter, around five-foot eight, although he normally wore shoes with a slight heel in an effort to seem taller. But Tatyana was very short, so anything Minderedes’s height or more might look tall. ‘Stand up, Miss Kuznetsova. What do you think?’
She got to her feet, put her hand on her hip, and looked sullenly from one to the other. ‘Like you maybe,’ she said after a moment, pointing at Tartaglia. ‘Maybe not so much, I think. But he is . . . thin. He has no . . .’ she pinched her almost non-existent biceps. ‘How you say?’
‘Muscles?’
‘Yes, like he don’t eat good or do man’s work.’
‘Was he clean-shaven? Did he have a beard?’ He gestured to his face.
She shook her head. ‘No beard.’
‘What about his eye colour and hair?’
‘He have brown eyes, I think.’
‘You’re not sure?’
She shrugged. ‘They are nice eyes. But his hair is not black,’ she said, still looking at Tartaglia.
‘So what colour is it? Brown? Dark brown? Light brown? Blond? Red?’
‘Brown, maybe a little red. He look very English.’
‘You mean he has pale skin?’ He didn’t want to lead her, but he was getting tired.
She nodded and sat back down, as though she had done enough. The description wasn’t very clear but maybe it would translate better onto a computer.
‘OK. We’ll need you to help us draw up an E-FIT – that’s a computer-generated picture – of Chris. Nick will organise that straight away. Then you’re free to go, although if you change your address, I want to know. Just in case he turns up, we’ll need you to identify him. OK?
She nodded.
‘Did he say where he lives or where he works?’
‘No.’
‘So he never told you how you could get hold of him, if you needed to?’
‘No. He find me.’
‘And he only came into the restaurant those three times?’
‘Yes.’
‘If he gets in contact with you again, or you happen to see him in the street, I want you to call me right away. OK? Do you understand?’ She nodded slowly and he handed her his card. ‘Is there anything else you remember? Anything at all distinctive about him or his behaviour that stands out, however small? Any distinguishing marks, like tattoos? Something a bit different?’
She looked at him, head slightly to one side, lips parted as though about to say something.
‘What is it?’ he said impatiently.
‘There is one thing.’ She was still staring at him, maybe debating whether or not to say anything.
‘Go on.’
She shrugged. ‘Chris, he have a mark on his hand, here . . .’ She held up her palm. ‘How you say?’
‘A tattoo? A scar?’
‘Yes. A scar. Like with knife. Like this.’ She drew the sign of the cross on her hand.
It was past midnight by the time Tartaglia let himself into his flat. The sitting room was dark, no lights on anywhere from what he could tell. He turned on a lamp and went into the hall. The door to his bedroom was closed and he hoped Donovan was asleep. She needed as much rest as possible. He would have a shower before making up his bed in the sitting room, but first he needed to unwind and get his thoughts straight. In the kitchen, he poured himself a good inch of Lagavulin, then unlocked the back door and went out into the garden. Surrounded by the gardens of the neighbouring houses, it was small but private. He loved sitting out there whatever the weather, having a smoke and a drink and, during the day, listening to the birds. He pulled up a chair, shook a puddle of rain from the seat, sat down and lit a cigarette. With relief, he saw that the shutters of his bedroom window were closed and there was no light coming through the cracks. Steele had briefed him about what she had told Donovan and specifically instructed him not to give her any more information. He understood Steele’s reasons, and agreed. Even though he was sure Donovan could be trusted, he wanted to spare her knowledge that would only cause her more grief, particularly the horrific little details that could stick in the mind for ever.
In the stillness, he heard the rasping cry of a fox somewhere nearby. He took a gulp of the whisky, enjoying its smoky taste. He thought of the mysterious Chris – presumably the killer of Finnigan and the other three victims – and once more he was struck by how incurious Tatyana had been, how apparently accepting and unquestioning of everything that had happened to her. Whether she was blind, or had deliberately looked the other way, didn’t really matter. He wondered how Chris had chosen her; he was sure she had been chosen. Maybe Chris had gone to the restaurant by accident and on speaking to her, had realised that she would be perfect for his purpose, but it seemed more likely that he had seen her out and about – on the street, in a shop, on a bus, or on the Tube – and had followed her back to her place of work. He could have come across her anywhere. Trying to track him down via the patterns of her daily routine would be impossible. Wherever it was, he must have heard her voice to know she was Russian. It would be worth talking to Chapman again to see if it were true that Finnigan had a thing for Russian women and, if so, who knew about it. Even though there was still so much they were missing, at least the shadowy figure of the person they were looking for was beginning to take shape. He was smart, he was organised and highly manipulative, and they had an E-FIT, which they could start showing around. More importantly, they had found somebody who could identify him.