London Noir: A gripping crime suspense thriller (Kal Medi Book 2) Read online

  ‘You take after her on the artistic side then, with the body art and that lovely rainforest scene.’ Kal cleared her throat – here was an opportunity to go a little deeper except she didn’t want to push too hard. ‘What makes you wonder about your mother’s happiness?’

  ‘Oh, something Penny said to me. Like I told you, they were friends. Penny knew my mother better than most people.’

  ‘Right.’

  The ginger cat had begun to meow and Kal looked at it with suspicion. She’d never liked pets.

  ‘Her name’s Purdy,’ Sophie said, ‘and I think she’s hungry.’

  ‘There’s food in the hall and Purdy’s a strange name for a cat.’

  ‘Penny chose it from an old television series. She got the name ‘Lady Penelope’ from a series too.’

  ‘Yeah, I figured that. It sounds like Penny had a good sense of humour and I’m sorry I didn’t get to meet her.’ Kal hesitated again. She needed to know more. ‘So why did I find you in the street? Why did you leave the clinic?’

  ‘Sometimes I get the urge to escape. It’s as if I’m in a prison and I can’t breathe – at Melrose it’s like I’m being watched all the time.’

  ‘And when that feeling grows too strong you go to Penny’s?’

  ‘When I can, yes.’

  ‘So, do you have any idea why someone would want to kill her?’

  Sophie shook her head and looked Kal straight in the eye. ‘No idea at all.’

  ***

  In Kal’s dream, Alesha struggled underwater, the last air leaving her lungs, her body thrashing as she was held under. The water ran with Alesha’s blood, and Kal shouted and shouted that she was coming to save her but her mother didn’t hear.

  The scene shifted to Marty struggling to climb a flight of stairs, her breath heaving. Every time Marty climbed a step, the next one grew higher, like in some cruel game. Until she couldn’t go any further and lay exhausted. A black line of water crept steadily upwards, step by step, ready to suck her under. As Marty drowned, unable to claw to safety, Kal jolted awake.

  A dark figure loomed over the bed. On instinct, Kal rolled and crashed to the floor. She landed primed on her hands and knees and sprang up, leaping back onto the bed and catching Sophie’s wrist mid-air. A knife fell from Sophie’s grasp.

  ‘What the hell!’ Kal shouted at the top of her voice straight into Sophie’s face.

  The shouting vented Kal’s panic and some of her anger. In the back of her mind, part of her felt pleased her bad knee held out for the jump onto the bed. The girl hadn’t flinched. Keeping a firm grip on Sophie’s wrist, Kal reached for the light switch.

  Staring into Sophie’s face gave Kal the shivers. Sophie’s state of mind had shifted. Her eyes glinted with hatred and savagery. The lines of her face were hardened.

  Shit, the girl had changed from light to dark. Transformed in a horrific way. Keep your cool. It looks like she wants to kill you but there’s going to be an explanation.

  Both of them were breathing hard. Kal snapped her fingers in front of Sophie to make sure she wasn’t caught in some kind of nightmare. But no, Sophie kept tension in her arm and resisted Kal. She stared as if Kal were the enemy.

  ‘What the hell’s going on,’ Kal shouted.

  Sophie was no physical match for her and the girl panted with the struggle.

  ‘No point in trying, Sophie, I’m far stronger than you.’

  One moment they were locked against each other, and the next Sophie’s feral state of mind slipped away. Her arms collapsed, to leave the Sophie Kal knew – a frail Sophie, full of confusion, full of bewilderment. What triggered the change back from savage, or, more importantly, to it, Kal had no idea, though she knew it was an important detail.

  Sophie’s lips trembled. She blinked at tears she couldn’t stop from falling and crumpled on the bed.

  ‘Oh no, oh no, I’m s-s-so sorry.’

  With her chest heaving and huge sobs starting, it was clear Sophie’s horror was genuine.

  What the hell was going on? Kal had to do a double take of her own. Did Sophie suffer from some sort of personality disorder? A split psyche? Was there more here than post-traumatic stress disorder? Shit.

  Kal sat on the bed and pulled Sophie towards her. Now the girl was fragile and frightened. As Sophie sobbed onto Kal’s shoulder, Kal felt the girl’s torment. How horrible it must be to feel you didn’t know who you were. Or what the hell was going on inside you. As she stroked Sophie’s hair, a doubt began to grow. What had she let into her life this time? A cuckoo in the nest? Or something much worse?

  ‘What the hell’s wrong with me! I h-hate myself. I hate myself.’ Sophie’s voice was full of pain.

  Chapter Nineteen

  How it happened, Kal couldn’t say. She was a bad sleeper and a light sleeper. A bad one because she’d suffered from insomnia as a result of her father’s mind games and the challenges he’d set her as part of her childhood training. And a light sleeper because, in the field on her photojournalist assignments, she often slept in places with next to no security, where being alert in an instant could mean the difference between life and death for yourself and your colleagues. So how Sophie left the apartment without Kal knowing, she had no idea.

  After the attack, they’d fallen asleep together on Kal’s bed. It had been a troubled sleep for Sophie. So at first when she awoke, Kal thought Sophie must have snuck away to hide in her corner. When she didn’t find Sophie behind the settee, Kal scoured the flat. That’s when she found the note on the table. “Please forgive me and please, please look after Purdy.”

  The cat followed Kal in her search of the apartment and now it regarded Kal with its green eyes.

  ‘Don’t look at me like that. It’s not my fault.’

  Except Kal felt it was. It was the worst thing that could have happened – Sophie vulnerable and alone. Shouldn’t she have realised Sophie might run? Damn, Sophie had been in her care. Where would Sophie go? She couldn’t hide at Penny’s, so did it mean the girl was on the streets? Kal went cold at the thought. Sophie wasn’t capable of surviving. Out there, she’d be prey to all kinds of bastards on the prowl for the weak – rapists, murderers and abductors. Vulnerable girls went missing all the time. She must find Sophie, and quickly.

  If Marty were better, the two of them could’ve worked a pattern, covering the area around the apartment and relying on teamwork and efficiency to do the job thoroughly. These first minutes could make all the difference. It was early in the morning and Sophie couldn’t have been gone long. If a close proximity search came up empty, they’d face a much wider and more complex set of possibilities.

  Kal dressed quickly and made a snap decision. She’d promised herself she’d stay away from LeeMing and, since her knee wasn’t up to intensive kung fu, it had been easy to miss out on training. Men who were already taken weren’t her style and it was better for her to stay well clear of him. Worse than that, being around LeeMing kept fanning that little flame of hope she felt inside, the one she wanted to deny even existed. LeeMing answered the call promptly and she liked the sound of his voice.

  ‘Hello, I was starting to think you were avoiding me,’ LeeMing said.

  Kal kept her tone curt. ‘As if. I’ve simply had better things to do and I thought I’d run into you at the hospital.’

  ‘I guess our visiting times haven’t coincided.’

  No, because LeeMing’s visits had been at regular times and she’d tracked them and avoided them. ‘Listen, I’m hoping you can help me out. A young girl’s gone missing and I think she’s in danger. Can you team up with me to do a search around 701?’

  She let the urgency come through in her voice and heard LeeMing take a few seconds to process it. It would have more impact than words.

  ‘A search like that would take several hours. I’m curious about why it’d be centred on 701, but aside from that, what makes you think she’ll keep close-by?’

  No time wasted on trivia about the girl nor question
s about why – LeeMing switched straight into analytical mode because he knew Kal well enough to know she wouldn’t ask a favour except in an emergency. His strategic mind, and hopefully his Triad contacts, were exactly what she wanted. Who needed ordinary friends when you knew someone like LeeMing?

  ‘I don’t know for sure, but I think she’s not got anywhere else to go. She has a half-brother and I need to check where he lives. There’s a family house somewhere in the Surrey countryside and she had a friend, recently murdered, in Montgomery Road.’ Kal considered and then pushed aside the idea Sophie might go to Sugar G for help. No, she didn’t think so.

  ‘What kind of danger are we talking about?’ LeeMing asked.

  ‘When I met Sophie she was running and scared. Then her friend and protector was murdered in a horrible way. I don’t think she’s stable right now. We need to get to her quickly.’

  ‘Before someone else does? Yeah, I got that. Okay, let me make some calls and get together one or two contacts. We’ll meet up as soon as.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, ‘and…’

  ‘Leave the rest for now, you can tell me later, once we’ve found her,’ Lee Ming said.

  Kal had wanted to say she wasn’t the sort of friend who only called when she needed help, or when she wanted to use him, or ask him to put his neck on the line. LeeMing was the type of person who knew how to look after himself and, with his martial arts prowess, he could walk in most places cool as a cucumber. She’s seen him do that not so long ago and he wasn’t reckless like Kal. He thought things through. His past experience in the Triad made him cautious, made him know the kind of bad consequences which came from impulsive decisions.

  When LeeMing arrived, he hugged Kal and planted a kiss on her cheek. She didn’t yield to it, keeping herself a bit stiff as if frozen up inside, even though her heart beat fast. LeeMing’s green eyes were calm and empty of passion and Kal saw him already focused on the job at hand – professional, alert. Strange, how she could feel such strong feelings towards him and all he felt for her was friendship.

  He’d brought two men with him and all three of them were dressed in black jeans, white t-shirt and black jackets that only varied slightly in style. So much for originality, thought Kal. LeeMing’s friends didn’t look dangerous, but they didn’t look friendly either. She knew this was a favour for him, not for her, so when neither of them introduced themselves, Kal didn’t ask.

  They took the apartment as the centre and worked a spiral, each of them covering a segment of the spiral with two people working at the top of the apartment block and two at the bottom. Kal searched the long hallways, the bin area, which she’d marked as a very likely hiding place, and the garages and lock-ups at the back of the parking area. She discovered nothing, not even the slightest trace that Sophie might have slept there. None of the downstairs neighbours had seen Sophie, including Mrs Robinson at number four, who spotted most comings and goings thanks to her front-facing lounge window and her obsession with neighbourhood watch activities. The four of them got together to confer and everyone shook their heads. Zero.

  Next came the surrounding streets. They each took a quadrant and kept in touch using their phones. LeeMing and his associates were methodical and, to Kal’s relief, their attention to detail showed them to be practised and reliable. They didn’t rush and they didn’t complain and they worked to stay in communication smoothly and easily. Kal wondered again about the Triad, which LeeMing told her he’d left long ago, yet he still seemed to have skilled connections he could call on in the blink of an eye.

  It was Kal who called it off, because by the time the sun began climbing, she got a feeling Sophie hadn’t decided to lie low nearby. Three hours of searching was enough. She should look for Sophie someplace else. The big question being, where?

  LeeMing’s friends blended into the London landscape like shadows, one of them boarding a red bus and the other taking off on his motorbike, like a couple of normal guys – which they most certainly were not.

  ‘Nice friends you’ve got and with an unusual set of skills,’ Kal said. ‘They cut the time in half and made it look easy. Where’d you find them?’

  LeeMing smiled. ‘The Chinese community is a small place and we help each other out when we can. So – what next? Any ideas where we look for Sophie?’

  Relaxed and easy, LeeMing clicked straight back into working with her – Kal, Marty, LeeMing, they’d made a great team, hadn’t they?

  ‘I might want to search her brother’s place. He’s a guy called Raymond. I don’t know much about him, but before we go for a break-in, I’m going to head over to meet him and I’m good on my own for that one. Let’s check-in later.’

  ‘I’ve missed seeing you at training.’ Lee Ming said it as a question.

  ‘Yeah, well I’ve not felt in the mood.’ Her knee didn’t feel sore after the search, so she didn’t think he noticed she still had a problem. Dishonesty with strangers was one thing, though she didn’t feel comfortable being dishonest with friends. Maybe that’s why she didn’t have many.

  ‘It’s great news about Marty.’

  She heard caution in his voice. LeeMing must know she felt fragile and didn’t want to dig around in her regrets. Kal felt grateful and irritated at the same time.

  ‘It’s such a relief she’s okay,’ he said, ‘and I know it’s early days but she won’t be spending much longer at the hospital. I was thinking about organising a party, you know, a homecoming surprise? Her brother said he’d be up for it.’

  ‘Did he?’ Kal knew Marty’s brother, Vince, since they were kids and it didn’t sound at all the sort of thing he’d be interested in. Only she’d been avoiding them all, hadn’t she? Cutting herself off as usual.

  ‘We’re going to get together to plan something. Shall I send you the details?’

  Kal shrugged to hide her feelings and especially the jealousy she knew was mixed in there. It was stupid to think of Marty as exclusively her friend. Stupid and immature. Marty was popular and a diplomat and a team leader at work and she made friends easily, so why shouldn’t the others organise a celebration?

  ‘You don’t need to cut yourself off, Kal. I know you’ve been hurting. We all know it.’

  Kal swallowed it all down. ‘I’ll try to come if I can. Right now, I need to track down Sophie. That’s my priority.’

  ‘Sure, I can see she’s important.’ And LeeMing gave her such a kind look she felt tears prickling the back of her eyes. Why did she always keep so far away from people? And then beat herself up for it?

  ‘Keep in contact,’ LeeMing said. ‘You know I’m always around if you need me.’

  Chapter Twenty

  Sophie’s half-brother, Raymond Kendrick, owned his own finance and investment company, Kendrick Equity. Kendrick Equity gave out advice to those with enough cash to invest in property development or overseas investments, or with enough balls to back technology start-ups that could either make it big or completely flop. With a staff of around twenty and a plush office at the right end of London’s Strand, Kal reasoned Sophie’s half-brother was pulling in the bucks.

  Now was the time to start putting pressure on him. See what he let slip. See what was going on under the surface. See what he really felt about Sophie and what he knew about where she might go. Kal didn’t buy his story of being the concerned brother, and she didn’t like the fact Sophie had been running from him, no, she didn’t like that at all.

  In the waiting room, Kal struggled to control her impatience. She thumbed through the Kendrick Equity brochure. A beachfront hotel in Tunisia located in a palm-fringed bay, a group of technicians showing off their robotic medical scanner, an eco-development apartment complex on the Cote D’Azur – the possibilities for investors appeared exotic. She’d decided her tactic mustn’t be full frontal – smashing Kendrick up against a wall would give her satisfaction but it was unlikely to yield the information she needed. No, she needed to be more clever than that. Hence the short dress. She would shake intell
igence out of him by putting him off his guard. By letting him think he kept his position of moral superiority. By playing on his dislike of Penny and her profession.

  Kal glanced into the adjoining open plan area. A group of employees clustered around the coffee machine. Kal spotted only one woman on the staff team and that person seemed a lot older than the others, with hair dyed a fetching red chestnut, most likely to disguise the grey. Kal tossed the brochure onto the table. Kendrick Equity clearly moved in the aspiring upper circles, but what interested her more was what type of man Raymond was. Since Kal had given Sophie as the reason for her visit, she didn’t think Kendrick would keep her waiting long.

  She was right. Within a few minutes, Kendrick came personally to the waiting room. Psychological assessment was her speciality and Kal took in his appearance in one practised glance. As she’d seen before; features unlike Sophie’s, not unpleasant but not particularly good looking, sandy hair and nice eyes. A dress sense with flair, with a tailored shirt and smooth-line jacket that showed off his wide shoulders. The most noticeable aspect to the man was the quality of his clothing because it wasn’t simply expensive, it was hyper-expensive.

  Despite his professional veneer, as he approached Kal, Kendrick had a reticent air about him – the type to have been shy around girls at school, she thought. Or maybe he went to an all-boys school. A man who might attract women yet not be overly aware of it and not know how to deal with it when it came his way. Not all men are passionate. At least, not with women. In Kal’s assessment, Kendrick’s passion, and therefore his weakness, revolved around wealth and having the finer things of life around him and on his person. Probably he detested the feel of cheap materials on his skin. The sort of man to spend thousands even on his underwear and socks.

  He extended his hand. ‘Raymond Kendrick,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry to keep you waiting, thank you so much for contacting me. Let’s go through to my office, shall we?’