The Silent Widow

Williams followed her into the dingy sitting room. Taking a seat in an armchair still covered in plastic wrapping, it was immediately obvious that this was temporary accommodation, and not Tina’s’s home. There were no photographs or personal items anywhere, not even a cushion or a throw rug to warm the place up.

‘May I ask who you’re working for?’ said Tina, sitting opposite him.

‘I never reveal my client’s names,’ Williams explained. ‘Confidentiality is kind of a prerequisite in my business. But I will say that I’m working for a woman, a person of integrity, who may be a victim of some of the same people you fell foul of at City Hall. My client wants answers, Tina, that’s all. Just like you.’

Tina rolled her eyes. ‘I don’t want answers, Derek. I want my life back.’

Although Adrienne was right to imply the older woman was no sex object, by Williams’ lights Tina Drayton was an attractive woman for her age. Not ‘pretty’ perhaps, especially not in her current, washed-out, nervous state and dressed in an unflattering skirt and sweater. But there was an intelligence and spiritedness about her that Williams admired, a sort of confidence that, in other circumstances, might have been fun to be around.

‘Do you move a lot?’ Williams asked, already knowing the answer.

‘I do now,’ Tina sounded resigned. ‘It’s not safe to stay in one place too long.’

‘That must be exhausting. And expensive,’ he said, treading carefully. ‘My client would be happy to pay you for any information you might have that could help us.’

Tina waved a hand dismissively. ‘Thank you, Derek, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable accepting payment simply for telling the truth. You seem like a nice man, and I daresay your client is trustworthy.’

‘She is.’

‘But I doubt either of you know what you’re getting into,’ Tina added. ‘If we are dealing with the same people—’

‘The Russians,’ Williams interrupted her.

That simple word alone was enough to make the blood drain from Tina’s face.

‘Yes,’ she whispered, ‘then you should tell your client to walk away.’

Williams thought about Nikki and smiled. ‘I don’t think she’d take that advice. Not from me, anyway. She’s tenacious.’

‘This isn’t a game,’ Tina said, becoming agitated. ‘People have died. The reporter I spoke to, at the LA Times? Robin Sanford? He’s dead now.’

Williams started taking notes.

‘They said it was a heart attack, but there was nothing wrong with Robin’s heart. He was thirty-three years old and fit as a fiddle.’

‘People are still dying, Tina,’ said Williams. ‘That’s why I’m here.’

He talked to her about the slayings of Lisa Flannagan and Trey Raymond, and their links to Nikki Roberts and her husband Doug. About the Roberts’ involvement in drug addiction charities, and the wars between Mexican and Russian dealers for supremacy on the streets of LA.

‘Doug Roberts died last year, in an “accident”, alongside a Russian woman who may have been involved with the people you say were bribing Mayor Fuentes.’

Tina raised a hand. ‘Bribing? Is that what Adrienne told you?’

Williams nodded.

‘My God.’ Tina shook her head. ‘That child is going to get herself killed one of these days. And the irony is, she knows nothing. She’s too stupid to understand any of this.’

‘Yeah,’ agreed Williams. ‘I kind of got that impression.’

‘All right, so firstly, I don’t know if Fuentes personally was being bribed. I never said that. All I know is that he was being paid, or at least someone was being paid, via his accounts at City Hall. I’m talking large sums of money, and it was coming from the Russians.’

Williams was still writing. ‘How large, and which Russians?’

‘The amounts varied each time,’ said Tina. ‘Five hundred thousand, a hundred and fifty thousand. One was for over a million dollars. Every four to six weeks a new check would arrive. Perhaps it was three million in total. Or more, I don’t know.’

‘And the Russians making the payments. Do you have names?’

‘No.’ She looked down. Williams could smell the fear on her skin.