The three were sitting in a large room at the back of the house.
‘I told you what I know. I’ve been honest about the business conducted here. I’ll take my punishment when the time comes.’
‘Which will not be severe. You know this. Is that why you’ve been so helpful?’
‘Once this is over, I’ll sell the house, find a place in the country.’
‘Amanda?’
‘I had hoped for better for her, I really did.’
‘Mrs Wilton,’ Isaac said, ‘coming back to what I said before. We have it from a reliable source that you know more than you’ve told us.’
‘I’ve told you what I can.’
‘Can or will? There seems to be a subtle difference. One infers there is more.’
‘They both do if you want to debate semantics. I admitted to knowing the three dead women, one who, if you haven’t forgotten, was my daughter. What do you want me to say? That I’m sorry for their deaths? It won’t make them come back, will it.’
‘Are you frightened there might be more if we keep pressing? If you tell us more?’ Wendy said.
‘My daughter has died. What do you want me to do? Tell you more, put your lives at risk, as well as others.’
‘We want and demand the truth,’ Isaac said.
Wendy thought her DCI was pushing a little too hard, but she could see his point. A possible breakthrough in the murder enquiries, and the fear that the two teenagers, Brad Robinson and Rose Winston, were still targets, considering that Brad’s father and sister had already died, and the two were back at school with no police protection.
‘Ian Naughton?’ Wendy said.
‘The man in Holland Park is not Ian Naughton. He is somehow tied in to Analyn, but I’m not sure of the connection,’ Mary Wilton said.
‘Then who is he?’
‘I don’t know. Analyn spoke to me once as to how she had come to this country. I know she had not been trafficked.’
‘Analyn, where can we find her?’
‘I’ve no idea. I know of another woman, a friend of hers, where she lives. I suggest you go and see her.’
***
Bill Ross drove. A multi-storey high-rise greeted him and Larry on their arrival. Larry had seen worse not far from Challis Street Police Station, the burnt-out remains of Grenfell Tower, a reminder of similar blocks of flats.
New Barn Street was a thoroughfare connecting Barking Road and the A13 up to Dagenham, Ross’s next assignment, although Larry wasn’t sure it was going to be any better there; just a change of scenery, not that there was much, and a different set of villains.
Ross parked in the open area in front of the building, a patrol car close by to ensure no vandalism. As Larry looked skyward, he saw despair and squalor. Some people had washing draped over the glass-fronted balcony rails, others had attempted to create another room by blocking the balcony front from floor to ceiling with wooden boards. Once it would have been under the control of racketeers, but now it was the local council, who had clearly abrogated their collective responsibility. In the car park about forty cars, although none were old or perilously cheap. A smattering of Japanese imports, some English cars, more BMWs and Mercedes that people on subsided rents and low incomes should have been able to afford, in contrast to the building. It was high crime, low intellect.
It was good, Larry thought, that they were afforded protection by the government, both national and local, but…
A pub next to the building was closed, its windows boarded up, the outside brickwork graffitied. Larry thought it was a depressing area, the sort of place that engenders drug-taking and crime. He and Ross would do their job and get the hell out of it.
Sean Garvey lived on the fifth floor, which was just as well, as the lift inside wasn’t working, vandalised by the looks of it. Larry assumed the vandals who had smashed the control panel didn’t live up at the top of the building as there were at least twenty floors, but he wasn’t sure of that. Vandals, youth on the cusp of crime, but still too young to be legally responsible, had probably thought it was fun. Outside, as they prepared to enter the building, a crew of local council workers arrived, followed closely by a repair vehicle from the lift company.
‘Not much point, is there?’ Ross shouted out.
‘Not much,’ the reply from a white-overalled man with a ruddy complexion and a beer gut. ‘Still, it’s a job. Just glad I don’t have to live here.’
Larry smiled at the humour between the two men as he opened the door of the building, the lift at the end of a hallway, the stairs to their right. At the fifth floor, Ross was attempting to catch his breath; Larry had fared better, and he appreciated his get-fit regime that went with the lower alcohol consumption and his wife spurring him on.
The sound of a child crying from one of the flats, two people arguing in another flat. Ross knocked on the door where Sean Garvey lived, a surly youth answering it. ‘Yeah, what do you want?’
‘I telephoned. Inspectors Ross and Hill, may we come in?’
The reason for the patrol car stationed outside, Larry realised. Not just to make sure that Ross’s car was untouched, but to make sure that Garvey, known on sight to the local police, didn’t make a run for it.
Larry could see that Garvey had an arrogance about him, and though he was sixteen and should have been in school, he wasn’t, and judging by his attitude, he wasn’t concerned either way. The flat was not an agreeable sight, but then that had been expected.
‘You’re after our Sean?’ a fat man, sitting in an armchair, bare from the waist up and holding a bottle of beer, said.
‘Ganja?’ Ross said, looking at the joint in the man’s free hand.
‘What’s it to you?’
‘It’s Sean we want.’
‘He’s an idiot, I’ll grant you that, but he doesn’t get into much trouble, not like me when I was his age.’
‘Mr Garvey,’ Ross said, ‘is that where Sean is heading, prison before his twenty-first birthday?’
‘I was framed. It wasn’t me.’
Ross looked over at the son of a man who was setting anything other than a good example to a youth well on the way to serious crime. Already, Sean Garvey had two convictions against his name, one for stealing a car, the other for illegal drug possession. He was a tall, skinny individual, able to run faster than those chasing him, although on his neck, the unmistakable scar from a knife blade.
‘I haven’t done nothing,’ Sean Garvey said.
Other than mangle the English language, Larry thought.
‘Nothing proven,’ Ross said. He seemed to want to niggle the son and his father. It was succeeding, Larry could see, and the father, neither tall nor skinny, had put down his bottle of beer, rested his smoke on the edge of the armchair.
‘Before we go further,’ Larry said, ‘you are, Sean Garvey, a member of Waylon Conroy’s gang?’
‘The gang’s gone.’
‘Warren Preston, a friend?’
‘He was one of the gang. Hardly a friend, not after what he did.’
‘And what was that?’ Ross asked.
The father went back to his beer and turned on the television. Parental guidance and care were of little concern to him.
‘Nothing.’
‘Are you saying that because he spent time at the police station, he had done a deal with us?’
‘He did, didn’t he?’
‘He never said a word, not against you and your gang, nor did he admit to the killing of Hector Robinson, the white man down by the Durham Arms. His death was pointless, but then again, none of you live for too long. Waylon Conroy?’
‘I don’t know what happened to him.’
‘But you do know about Warren Preston, or as you call him, Wazza. Were you there? Did you see him die?’
The television went off, and Garvey Senior was on his feet. ‘Are you accusing Sean of murder?’ He was ready to grab Ross by the throat until Larry got between the two men.
Garvey Senior was a big m
an, stronger than either of the two police officers, and it was his home, and Bill Ross didn’t have a warrant, only a hunch that Sean Garvey could help.
‘Not at all. Not at this time,’ Larry said. ‘What Inspector Ross wants is assistance. We’re not here to accuse anyone, certainly not your son.’
‘As long as we’re clear.’
The father was easy to anger, easy to calm down, and he went back to his previous position, turned on the television again, took a drag of his drug, a swig of beer.
‘Sean,’ Larry said, ‘we’re not here about Waylon and Wazza. We need to find the two men who approached your gang in the street. What do you remember about the man in the car, the one with the gun?’
‘Nothing, really. Waylon, he was keen to take the money, do the job, but none of us was.’
An element of truth, the two police officers realised. Bravado as a gang, a lot of talking big but not doing much about it. And as for murder, killing a rival gang member was not a crime, just the way they conducted themselves. Even if Conroy had been keen, it wouldn’t have been the whole gang who would have taken part. Preston might have, but Sean Garvey was an insignificant youth, a follower, never a leader. Individually a coward, and collectively in a group bent on death, standing back, jabbing a knife in the general direction, not using force, probably not breaking the skin.
‘We know your gang killed Hector Robinson and Warren Preston, not that we can prove either,’ Ross said. ‘And quite frankly, that doesn’t concern me either way.’
Larry thought Ross’s comments unusual.
Ross continued. ‘It would have been Conroy on both occasions who would be the guiltiest. Two of your gang are dead, and statistically the chance of you still being alive and free after your twenty-third or twenty-fourth birthday is slim. Time will solve the murders committed by your gang, but we don’t have that with the men in the car. Other people have died, more will without your help.
‘Now, tell me about the men, and don’t try to be smart, not like Wazza was, or it’ll be down the police station and me telling the other gangs that you’re an informer.’
‘You can’t do that,’ Sean Garvey protested.
‘I don’t want to. You may prove to be the exception, the one who gets off his arse, finds himself a decent job, settles down, not like your father.’
Over in the armchair, no reaction. The man was asleep, his head on one side, the sound of snoring. Larry took the man’s ganja rolled up in cigarette paper and doused it in the man’s beer.
‘The two men?’ Larry said. He was tired of the flat, and the smell of beer, body odour and ganja was unpleasant. He walked over to a window and opened it, a blast of cold air entering the room.
Ross took no notice, the father continued his slumber, and the young Garvey zipped up his jacket, thinking to put the hood up, deciding against it.
‘Inspector Hill asked you a question,’ Bill Ross reminded him.
‘The one with the money spoke well, better than us. The one with the gun didn’t speak, only made sure we could see the barrel of a gun.’
‘Did they speak to each other?’
‘The one with the money did.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He spoke to the man in the car, told him to be ready if it got nasty.’
‘Did the others hear? Neither Conroy nor Preston mentioned it.’
‘I was closer to the car.’
Aiming to keep out of sight of the car, displaying his cowardice, or, under the circumstances, showing a degree of wisdom. As Ross had said, maybe Sean Garvey would defy the statistics.
‘The two men, what did they say?’
‘Only for the man in the car to be ready.’
‘Not good enough. People, regardless of whether they intend to, invariably refer to the other by a name. What were they? You were either hiding away or you were smarter than the others. Which is it?’
‘The man with the money, he called the other man in the car Gareth.’
‘The one with the money?’ Does he have a name?’
‘I didn’t hear one mentioned.’
‘The man in the car? Educated, English?’
‘An accent, although I wouldn’t know what.’
It was a start, but Garvey wasn’t going to improve on what he had said. Now, there was a name, not the most common of names, not the most obscure. And if the man in the car had an accent, it was not Ian Naughton.
The two men left the flat, passing the overalled man down on his knees attempting to clean the graffiti from inside the lift.
‘Best of luck,’ Ross said.
‘Get what you wanted?’ the maintenance man said.
‘Not totally. Are you staying long?’
‘Here? Not a chance. We’ll be back again next week. We’re making plenty, my offsider and me, but our company is on a fixed price contract. They’ll not renew next year, and those at the top of the building are stuffed.’
‘Do you care?’
‘As long as I’ve got a job, not me.’
It was the same as in other parts of the area, Ross conceded, as he and Larry drove away. Certain parts of London were already deemed neither safe to enter nor to conduct business. The great mass of the lost was growing in size, while in the distance, visible from a high point, were the gleaming towers of the Canary Wharf financial district. Larry left Ross at Canning Town Police Station and headed back to the comparative safety of Challis Street and the adjoining suburbs. The villains were bad enough in his area, but in Canning Town and up into Dagenham, they were another breed.
Chapter 24
Questions were again being asked about why the murder investigations were taking so long, primarily by Chief Superintendent Goddard, but then, as Isaac knew, the man had the commissioner in his ear on a regular basis.
Isaac had long ago decided that worrying about the commissioner served no useful purpose. Before Commissioner Davies had assumed his position as the head of the London Metropolitan Police, his predecessor, a mentor to Richard Goddard, had seen great promise in the tall and urbane junior police officer, seen Isaac as the future of the Met, and on several occasions Isaac had featured in advertising literature for the new look, all-encompassing police force in London.
Isaac was disillusioned the first couple of times that Davies thwarted his advancement, although not more than Richard Goddard when he had confided in him. The chief superintendent should have been two rungs up the promotional ladder by now, and Isaac should have risen by one.
Isaac preferred not to dwell on the negatives, although the house that Jenny had found, close to where they lived, and the mortgage, more than he wanted to pay, but manageable, would have been rendered sweeter by the increased pay that he would have had as a superintendent.
The only two opportunities afforded Homicide to solve the murders were the name of a woman that Mary Wilton had supplied, and a name provided by Sean Garvey. The first of the two had an address, the other was vague and seemed to offer little chance of helping.
Regardless, Larry and Wendy made the trip up the M40 to Oxford, the university city, although Seacourt Road, to the west of the city, was hardly in the surrounds of university buildings and students. Instead, rows of white-painted semi-detached houses, neatly presented, no cars without engines or up on blocks in the street. It was the sort of place where middle managers lived, houses not dissimilar to the one that Isaac had made an offer on in London.
At a house at the end of the street, a Toyota in the driveway, an old cat lying close to the front door, enjoying the weak sun. Isaac leant over and pressed the doorbell.
‘What do you reckon?’ Wendy said as they waited. ‘What do you expect to find out?’
No reply from Isaac, none that he could give. The enquiries so far had twisted and turned, with no straightforward direction. He hoped for better this time.
After what seemed an interminable wait, the door opened. In front of the two police officers stood an Asian woman, a baby in her arms.
Inside the house, neat and tidy. A baby’s cot was in one corner of the living room, a television switched on, a midday soap opera, not in a language that either Isaac or Wendy could understand.
‘That’s Tagalog, the language of the Philippines,’ the woman said as she switched the television off.
‘You said you’re aware as to why we’re here,’ Wendy said as the three of them sat down, the baby put on the floor to play with its toys.
‘He’ll give no trouble, not now. He’s just been fed, so if I have to put him down for a nap, you’ll understand. I’m Gabbi Gaffney.’
‘Mary Wilton was reluctant to tell us about you. Why?’ Wendy said.
‘She knows my story and the reasons I wanted it left untold. She’s a good woman, even if you might think otherwise.’
‘Trafficked?’ Isaac said.
‘One moment. I know how you English like a cup of tea. My husband certainly does.’
The woman went to the kitchen, leaving Isaac and Wendy alone with the baby. Wendy, a sucker for children, leant down close to the infant and played with its toys, much to the delight of the child.
‘You’ve got this to look forward to,’ Wendy said, looking over at Isaac.
‘I suppose I have,’ Isaac’s reply, not willing to admit that he was, although it wouldn’t be a boy. Jenny had asked and been told that the child she was to deliver would be a girl, which appealed to Isaac.
Gabbi Gaffney returned, poured the tea for all three.
‘You seem to have embraced England,’ Wendy said.
‘Now, but it wasn’t always so good, but then, that’s why you’re here.’
‘Analyn?’ Isaac said.
‘Yes, I know her. But first, my story and how I came to be married and in Oxford.’
‘In your own time.’
‘Analyn and I are not unique. A lot of women from poor villages with no hope of a good education or a good life are left with only the opportunity of toiling on the land, living a rural life.’
‘Prostitution?’ Wendy said.
DCI Isaac Cook Box Set 2 Page 142