DCI Isaac Cook Box Set 2

by Phillip Strang

  Emily Matson had taken exception to Frost’s assertions, seeing that her station was the closest to where the man lived, and any official police enquiry would focus on Greenwich Police Station, and then fan out from there. Two years previously, an inspector by the name of Fredericks had been charged after he had been exposed for taking backhanders from a local drug dealer. He had been Inspector Matson’s boss at the time; she had been a sergeant on the rapid promotion ladder: young, female, university degree. She was seen as indicative of the future of a modern, educated, and professional police service, and association by default had impacted on her.

  She had suspected him at the time, although she had failed to report it: no proof. Larry understood where she was coming from when she told him the story. It was one thing to inform on a dishonest police officer, it was another to prove it, and for several months she would have been ostracised by some of the others in the station. A word in the ear of the offender, a talk with his colleagues was seen as better, but even that had its risks. Another policeman in the station had taken that course of action. A trio of thugs on his way home, and two weeks in the hospital for him, and then he had left the service, taken a job as a security guard; better pay, though.

  The promotion to Inspector for Matson had come about one month previously, a reward for good work, and a new superintendent in the station who recognised good people and ensured they received the recognition they deserved. And now an email in her inbox from one of DI Hill’s colleagues outlining in detail what she had been trying to find. Little did she know that Bridget was not a two finger typist with limited computer skills, but a whizz who could type a hundred words a minute, and could access the overseas databases of a myriad of police stations, strictly legal, look for the keywords, and then run any document through an online translation service.

  At Challis Street, Bridget told the team what she had already sent to Emily Matson, copied to Larry, who hadn’t had a chance to read it yet. ‘Nineteen months ago, a Peugeot car was sprayed with bullets in Belgium,’ Bridget said.

  ‘Confirmed?’ Isaac said.

  ‘I’ve a copy of the police report at the time, as well as an English translation. The occupants of the vehicle included the driver, Alain Courtois, 38, a Frenchman living in Brussels, the capital. He ran a private taxi service, cheap and reliable according to his website. Also, in the backseat, three passengers: two females, one male. The females were subsequently identified as Freya Brepoels, 29, prostitute, and Sonia Colen, 26, prostitute. Both of the women were Belgian nationals.’

  ‘The man?’ Wendy said.

  ‘English, false passport. I’ve run his photo against that of the dead man. It’s Samuels.’

  ‘I thought he had taken off with a fortune,’ Larry said.

  ‘Maybe he had,’ Isaac said, ‘but if he thought Frost could find him, then a low profile would have been more appropriate, or maybe he liked Peugeots and local tarts.’

  ‘How do we tie him into Frost?’

  ‘We can’t,’ Bridget said. ‘They were shot near a small village outside of Brussels, a wooded area. No witnesses and the vehicle had been pushed off the road into a ditch. Someone in the vehicle that rammed them had got out and sprayed Samuels’ vehicle with one hundred bullets from a semi-automatic rifle. Apart from that, nothing.’

  ‘No link back to Frost?’

  ‘The Belgian police never made the connection between the dead man and Samuels. If there’s a connection, it’s up to us to make it.’

  ‘No joy from the kneecapped man?’ Wendy said.

  ‘No. He’s still frightened, so is Ralph Lawrence, but he’s still carrying on. Not sure if we can protect him and the others,’ Isaac said. He could see a lot of possibilities, no proof, and the primary case, the murder of Gilbert Lawrence, was going nowhere.

  ‘If Samuels was killed in an assassination, that means someone paid, and plenty. And why? Frost would have wanted his money back, and a dead man isn’t going to give him any.’

  ‘Maybe he did have the money or some of it. We know that Frost is devious. Samuels was making plenty at his club, but was everyone losing? And Samuels would have had to ship the money out of the country. He’s hardly likely to have been carrying it on him.’

  ‘Bank records?’

  ‘I’m looking,’ Bridget said. ‘So far no luck. But he could have opened an account anywhere in a false name. All he’d need after that is the account number, the password, and a debit card.’

  ‘Not much of a life for someone who supposedly stole millions,’ Larry said.

  ‘He was meant to be in Dubai: Mercedes, Russian women out of the Cyclone Club, not in Belgium, a Peugeot, and a couple of locals.’

  ‘Made up to suit tough man Frost’s image?’

  ‘It’s possible,’ Isaac said. ‘Larry, phone up Inspector Matson. Tell her that tomorrow she’s on a trip to Belgium with you. Bridget, you make the bookings, and I’ll phone Matson’s boss to okay it. Check out the area where Samuels was staying, the murder scene. There must be witnesses somewhere. No reflection on the Belgian police, but they may have just put it down to an English gangster getting his comeuppance, a drug deal gone wrong. They’ve got their hands full over there with all the migrants trying to get across the channel.’

  ***

  Yolanda was dismayed at Ralph’s pathetic attempts to gain some of his father’s fortune, only to get himself put in hospital, and her son was no better, succumbing to his old habits. The last time she had seen Michael, a few days previously, he had been drunk, and it had been clear that he had been smoking something other than cigarettes.

  A pragmatist, Yolanda knew that father and son were weak individuals, more suited to each other than to her. In Antigua, there was a house and a good life with people such as herself: expats away from the cold and the bleakness, lapping up the sun, playing golf or bridge, or lying next to a swimming pool drinking cocktails. Ralph knocked on her hotel door, looking for a bolthole away from Michael and his girlfriend who had moved in on a permanent basis at the flat in Bayswater. That was when he found out that she had checked out, the hotel taking her to the airport.

  Ralph knew the situation was tenuous. He was no longer Dorothy’s son but Molly’s, not that it concerned him as much as it should. And so it was that at three in the afternoon the only son of Molly Dempster and Gilbert Lawrence presented himself at his mother’s door.

  ‘Mother, I’ve come to stay for a few days, if that’s alright.’

  Molly looked at the man, not the best specimen with his two-day stubble, his breath smelling of beer, his clothes creased. She knew that if it had been anyone else she would have said no, but it was her son: the babe in arms, the young boy who had come to her for sympathy after falling out of a tree, the pubescent youth who had struggled with growing up. She had looked after him through those years, and even though he was in his fifties, he still needed caring for.

  ‘Come in,’ she said, overjoyed to be able to spend time with him, good or bad. It had come full circle from the child to the father and back to the child. For her, regardless of what others may say, Ralph was her son, and she was proud of him. ‘I’ll make up the spare room for you.’ Molly knew that she was happy.

  Michael meanwhile languished in his bed, his woman by his side. On one of the bedside tables, a syringe. He was back in heaven or purgatory, he did not care which. His girlfriend, a woman whom he loved when he was drugged, unsure about when he wasn’t, was in euphoria.

  A knock on the door. Michael stirred from the bed and opened it. ‘What have you done to yourself?’ Helmsley said. Dressed in a checked jacket, a pair of blue jeans, a large scarf around his neck, he looked every part the eccentric professor that he was, not that the young Lawrence could see him, his eyes blurred. He only wanted to go back to his bed and make love to his girlfriend, knowing she would not refuse him. After all, hadn’t it been him who had used the money from Jill Dundas to feed her habit, and if she refused, then there were others. He was flush with mon
ey, sufficient for his life. A flat belonging to another, a woman, a drug dealer who sold only the best and at a reasonable price. The only blight on his life was the man standing at the door, disapproving, the same as his mother. He had spent a lifetime on his own, neglected by his parents, and he did not care for either or where they were.

  ‘The cause needs you clean,’ Helmsley said as he pushed through the door and into the flat. The girlfriend came out of the bedroom, took one look around. ‘Who’s he?’ she said. She was stark naked, as was Michael. Helmsley looked at them both: the seductive young woman with the tattoos and the needle marks and Michael, young, masculine, with bulging muscles. He knew which he preferred, but now was not the time to put the young woman back in her room and to attempt the seduction of a young man who probably would not resist, probably would not remember. Instead, Helmsley put on the kettle. ‘Strong coffee and plenty of it,’ he said. ‘And get rid of that woman.’

  Chapter 26

  At St Pancras Station, Larry carried a small bag, Emily Matson arrived pulling a suitcase.

  ‘It’s only overnight,’ he said.

  ‘Better to be prepared, just in case,’ Emily said. It was seven thirty in the morning, the Eurostar direct to Brussels was due out in one hour, and then a trip of just under two hours. Larry reflected that he had got up, showered, driven to the airport, parked his car, and waited for the train, in total nearly three hours, almost long enough to travel under the channel and to return to London. And if he and Emily had travelled out to the airport, it would have taken even longer.

  ‘A coffee?’ Emily said. Larry could see that she had purchased new clothes for the occasion, crisp and still showing the mark on the blouse where it had hung on a hanger. She wore a red skirt, high boots, and around her shoulders was draped a shawl. ‘I’ve got a coat in the case if the weather turns.’

  ‘Not snowshoes, I hope,’ Larry joked. He had to admit she was agreeable, competent, and most of all, enthusiastic.

  ‘Married?’ Larry asked as the two sat down at a table in the coffee shop, keeping their eyes peeled for an update on their train. It was Larry’s first time on Eurostar, Emily’s second.

  ‘Not yet. I’ve got a live-in boyfriend. We’ve been together for a few years, but he’s a bit slow on the uptake. I’ve given him enough hints to get down on his knee.’

  ‘Necessary these days?’

  ‘The wedding ring, down on the knee? Not really, but it’s romantic. I’d like him to do it, just the once.’

  ‘And then marriage?’

  ‘If he’s for me, we’ll stick together. No need for a piece of paper.’

  At 8.31 a.m. the train pulled out of the station; two hours later it pulled in to Brussels Midi Station. Inspecteur Jules Hougardy, a distinguished looking man in his fifties, met Larry and Emily as they left the station.

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ he said. ‘I was involved with the original investigation.’ His English was excellent, which was as well as Larry’s French was rudimentary, and Emily’s good enough to order a meal, find a hotel, ask for directions, but certainly not up to the standard required for a murder investigation.

  ‘I’ve prepared a full day,’ Hougardy said, ‘but first, lunch. It’ll give you both a chance to update me, me to update you. We’ve been working on the case ever since you contacted us.’

  Emily hoped for something traditional for lunch, not the fish and chips that the Inspecteur chose.

  ‘We’ll drive out to the murder scene. We’ve been around the local village with the photos you sent over, with some success.’

  ‘The Peugeot?’

  ‘It’s an old case. We can have a look at it, but you’ll not gain much from it. You’re both booked into a hotel in the centre of town, adjoining rooms.’ Emily didn’t like the look in the Belgian’s eyes. She had heard that the French were incurable romantics, always looking for a dalliance. She didn’t know that it applied to the Belgians as well. And besides, the man may dream, but the reality was a solid day of policing and an early night, alone and without interruption.

  The trip out to the murder scene took twenty-five minutes. They passed through a small village before coming to an isolated area. To one side there was a ditch, large enough for the front end of a car.

  ‘A four-wheel drive rammed the Peugeot near here,’ Hougardy said as he slowed down.

  ‘Did you find the vehicle?’

  ‘Never. Although if it had bars at the front, it might not have sustained a lot of damage, and if it had been used off the road, as many are of course, then it would not have been distinguishable, not around here anyway.’

  ‘Make, model?’ Larry asked.

  ‘We believe it to be a Toyota, but that’s supposition. We found a trace of paint on the Peugeot. Forensics ran it through a spectrometer, conducted solvent tests, came up with a Toyota green. Unless someone had resprayed the vehicle, we believe it to be a Toyota Land Cruiser, 1985 to 1992. There are a few around here and the borders are open.’

  ‘The photos?’

  ‘We’ve one witness to someone buying food in a supermarket not far from here. The man was English, no French, and not very pleasant. He became agitated that the person behind the counter didn’t understand what he was saying.’

  ‘Sounds like the English they get down in Spain,’ Emily said, having been embarrassed by her fellow English on holiday there, getting drunk, making fools of themselves. In her teens she had been there with a few friends, but they hadn’t enjoyed themselves, what with the local lotharios fancying their chances, and the English louts assuming that every English woman was there for their benefit.

  ‘Not the person we’ve got here. Big, muscled, not the sort of man to sit on a beach.’

  ‘We’ve got two people of interest. Any chance of meeting this person who was abused?’

  ‘Next stop.’

  In the town square of Herzele, an attractive village not far from the murder scene, the three police officers entered the shop. Jules Hougardy spoke French most days of the week, but the shop owner, a woman in her sixties, small and neat, shook the hands of the two English police officers, especially Emily’s, and spoke in a language that neither Larry nor Emily could understand.

  ‘It’s Flemish,’ Hougardy said. ‘Most people speak both. In Brussels you’ll find the majority of conversations are in French, but outside of the big city, some prefer French, others Dutch, and some converse in Flemish. It pays to be trilingual if you want to be a police officer in Belgium.’

  ‘And you are?’ Emily said, noticing that Hougardy had no trouble talking to the woman.

  ‘I was brought up in a Flemish-speaking family, but regardless, at the station, we can speak in all the languages of our country. Not like the British, am I correct?’ Hougardy smiled.

  ‘Only English, and not even the Queen’s,’ Larry said, responding to the gibe.

  Emily held two photos for the woman to look at. She studied them for a few minutes, putting on her glasses, before pointing at one of them, pulling a face to indicate non-verbally what she thought of him. She even gripped the tip of her nose and pulled at it. The definition of a stinker translated across countries and languages.

  ‘You know this man?’ Hougardy said.

  ‘We do. Please thank the lady for us,’ Larry said. ‘Would she be willing to testify that he came into her shop?’

  ‘She would. I’ve already asked her. We have another witness. Our people found him this morning. He nearly had an accident with the Toyota.’

  ‘Let’s go and see him,’ Emily said, as she shook the hand of the old lady, who in typical Belgian fashion grabbed hold of her and kissed her on both cheeks.

  ‘She likes you,’ Hougardy said. ‘She thinks you’re attractive and that you should find yourself a good Belgian man to settle down with, her son, for instance.’

  ‘Thank her for the offer, but I’m taken.’

  Outside the small shop, where Emily was still feeling a little embarrassed by the woman’s exuberan
ce, a man stood. He was a robust individual, ruddy complexion, extended belly. Larry liked the look of him. He was farming stock, his clothing indicative of that, as well as the tractor that stood not far away.

  ‘This is Monsieur Mathy. He is quite happy to converse in French.’

  Emily tried out her French. Surprisingly, it wasn’t as bad as she had imagined, and Mathy grabbed both of Emily’s hands in his and shook them vigorously.

  ‘You’re a hit here,’ Larry said. ‘Maybe you should come back and marry the son.’

  ‘Maybe I will if there’s any more cheek.’

  Emily showed Mathy the photo. He responded in French, Emily understanding what he said.

  ‘It’s confirmed. What else do we have today?’ Larry said to Hougardy.

  ‘A meal tonight with my team, a copy of our case files, in French originally, but we’ve translated most of them for you. And tomorrow I’ll drop you off at the station.’

  Larry took the opportunity to phone Isaac on the way back into Brussels. No action would be taken until he and Emily were back in London. Two witnesses of the one person was not sufficient proof in itself. They still needed to find additional evidence, and they didn’t want the man to disappear.

  Jules Hougardy drove past the police holding area where the Peugeot was stored on the way back. As he had said, the Peugeot did not reveal much in itself. It was severely dented at the front, the bodywork was peppered with holes where the bullets had pierced the metal, the windows were all broken apart from one side window, and inside there were still bloodstains.

  ‘The women?’ Emily said.

  ‘Locals, off the street. Both were addicts, neither was attractive. Sorry about the lack of detail, but there’s not much more to say about them. They had been picked up an hour earlier, heading out for the night to a house in the country. Samuels, now we know his name, made the booking in the name of Smith, Airbnb. It was just their bad luck, the same as the driver.’