‘What’s up with him? Has he left?’
‘He’s not moving. I’ve tried shaking him, even threw water on him, but nothing.’
Helmsley pulled Coyote inside the flat. ‘Shut up and sit quietly while I get dressed.’
Coyote wrestled with the concept of quiet, and he moved around the flat, looking at this and that, staring out of the window. He was shaking and sweaty, and in need of a fix, and the professor had taken his drugs and given them to Michael the night before.
Helmsley came out from his bedroom, put on a coat that was hanging from a hook on the back of the door to the flat. He then grabbed the addict, not willing to call him by his silly name, and dragged him out. On the landing outside, Coyote said, ‘It’s Michael, he’s dead.’
‘For Christ’s sake, be quiet,’ Helmsley said, increasingly annoyed that the man knew his address.
As they walked down the stairs, Coyote was still complaining, grabbing hold of the bannisters, brushing up against a couple of the doors. One of the disturbed residents opened his door and made a comment; Coyote tried to get free and to smash him one. ‘That’s all they understand,’ he said.
Giles Helmsley had kept his anarchist beliefs separate from where he lived. He had a cause to follow, a cause that required sacrifices, but not his. To his neighbours, he was a quiet, studious man, and now that was unravelling as Coyote continued to cause trouble. Outside, on the street, he gave the addict a smack across the face with an open palm – it had some effect. In the Jaguar, cold at first, but soon warmer with the heater, the two men drove to the dosshouse.
Inside on the floor, lay Michael Lawrence. ‘He’s not dead,’ Helmsley said. ‘He’s still breathing.’
‘He’s OD’d,’ Coyote said. The other occupant of the room, another addict who preferred being called ‘Stud’ to Gerald, continued to sleep, his snoring raucous. Helmsley opened a window, the cold air taking some of the smell in the room. He phoned Emergency Services.
Chapter 28
When Bridget arrived at the railway station in Brussels, Jules Hougardy was waiting outside for her. She was as impressed with the man as Emily and Larry had been. It was late afternoon by the time she arrived, and although she had spent the morning checking through the databases, attempting to access CCTV footage of the cross-channel tunnel and the ferries, it hadn’t been entirely successful. Forensic analysis of the Land Cruiser had not come up with anything more. The vehicle, returned to the owner after its now known sojourn on the continent, had been patched up, driven along rough tracks, had its underside bashed, its bodywork scratched, before being subjected to an amateurish three-month restoration by the owner. It had then been sold on to another off-road enthusiast. Any evidence of Belgium, Caxton, and O’Grady was long gone, apart from a sample of the Peugeot’s paint. The only piece of good news was the confirmation that the vehicle had crossed into mainland Europe three days before Samuels died, and had returned two days after. No doubt the delay in the return had been to check that the vehicle wasn’t wanted by the police: the usual practice being to park it somewhere prominent, somewhere legal, somewhere the police would have been checking. If it was still there after a couple of days, then it was safe to drive.
‘I’ve booked you into the same hotel as Inspectors Matson and Hill,’ Hougardy said, ‘but first, we must have dinner. I’ve arranged a local place, somewhere the tourists avoid. All they want is fish and chips, but for you, the works.’ Bridget remembered Emily’s comments about the Belgian police officer’s love of fish and chips, but that was not what she ate. For her, it was Carbonnade Flamande, a beef casserole cooked in wine. For dessert, waffles and ice cream. The meal was delicious, the company excellent, and she made sure to phone Wendy on her return to her hotel.
‘Perfect gentleman,’ Bridget said.
‘The evening wasn’t a total success then,’ Wendy said.
‘It was. Tomorrow I’m meeting with his team and spending time with the CCTV viewing officer. Not all of it’s available. Hopefully, it’ll be enough. They’ve got cameras everywhere.’
‘Nowhere has more than London but focus on the farmer’s village.’
‘I’ll go and see the farmer for you, see if he’s your type.’
‘He will be. Hurry back soon. The office is not the same without you, and I’ve got another report to file. I could do with your help.’
The next day, Bridget tucked into a good breakfast. The hotel offered either continental or English. She chose the English, realising that she was falling into the trap of the reluctant tourist, wanting to see the exotic as long as it was accompanied by a cup of tea and bacon and eggs.
At the central police station in Brussels on Rue du Marché au Charbon, Bridget met her counterpart, a moustached man who smelt vaguely of mothballs. She imagined Hercule Poirot, but this man was not short or rotund, and his moustache was neatly trimmed, not curled up at the ends. He was also talkative and did not use his little grey cells to the same extent as Agatha Christie’s most famous creation.
‘Bridget Halloran, I am pleased to meet you,’ Hendrik Brun said, his Belgian accent strong, his English understandable. He also took her hand and kissed it. Bridget blushed. She could never imagine her DCI or her DI kissing her, hand or cheek.
‘We’ve got a lot of work to do,’ Bridget said. The office was better than Challis Street, more modern, more open. To her, it lacked the charm that Challis Street offered, the homely touches she had brought to it. She took out her laptop, logged on using the police station’s Wi-Fi, the password supplied by Brun.
‘We’ve obtained records from the cameras out at Herzele,’ Brun said. ‘One of the cameras was faulty. Also, the videos from another have been deleted. We do have two others. With your permission, we’ll concentrate on them. For our purposes, I suggest we divide the videos, you taking the time after the murders, and I’ll take before.’
Bridget could see that the man was no-nonsense, straight down to work, and as competent on a computer as she was. They first checked the videos at the ferry port where the vehicle had entered the country. The date and the time were now known. It was not difficult to spot the Toyota coming off the ferry and driving up the ramp and onto the dock. The road markings took the cars from driving on the left to the right, and numerous signs reminded the drivers that this was Belgium, and all vehicles were left-hand drive, and great care was to be exercised.
‘The windows are darkened,’ Brun said. ‘We can’t see the driver or the passenger.’ Bridget could see that he was right. The vehicle that had been recently checked in England had clear windows. Someone had applied a film, probably purchased at an automotive store. Whoever had done it had complicated their work. None of the CCTVs in Brussels were of any use, as the department responsible prided itself on erasing all footage after six months.
Herzele was a different situation. The records were kept in Ghent, a city not far from Brussels, and the deletion of video files was not so rigorous. Bridget sat on one side of Brun’s desk, he sat on the other. In front of them, a large monitor each. Brun slowly scanned back from the closest time to the shooting, Bridget scanned forward. The video from one of the two cameras was clear, the other was blurred and out of focus.
It took two hours before Brun saw the vehicle in the village. He and Bridget then focussed forward from that time. It was another twenty minutes before he had traced it as far as he could, which was still two kilometres from the murder scene. With times established, he used enhanced imaging technology to look for additional detail. ‘The tinting is only on the windscreen and the front windows, the rear tailgate has none,’ he said.
Bridget wondered why they had not picked up the Toyota at the time of the murders. But then, as Brun explained, English tourists driving around were not that uncommon, and the registration number wasn’t easy to read. In fact, it was almost impossible, the first and last letters covered in mud or rust or both, the numbers scratched and unreadable. It was either done on purpose or the result of bashing over
muddy tracks or logs with the off-roaders.
After nine hours solid looking at the monitor screens, neither of the two officers was able to focus any more. Bridget phoned Wendy who brought in Isaac on speaker. The time in Brussels had been successful in that the vehicle had been identified. It would need another day, when she and Hendrik Brun would focus in detail on the time that one of the men had entered the shop in Herzele. The almost accident with the farmer had been outside of the village, in an area where there were no cameras. Nothing would be gained by trying to look for further verification from the farmer or any other drivers on the road. It had been a overcast day when the murder occurred and the road had been mainly deserted, the reason that the farmer had pulled his tractor out into the centre of the road without due care and attention.
***
In Belgium, the prosecution case was firming against Ainsley Caxton and Hector O’Grady. In London, there were other developments, in particular, the hospitalisation of Michael Lawrence.
The first Homicide heard of him being there was when the hospital administration had phoned, his name being on a database of concerned persons, a possible drug overdose. The second was when Molly Dempster called to tell Isaac that Ralph was on his way to see his son.
In intensive care at St Mary’s Hospital, where Alexander Fleming had discovered penicillin, and not far from Paddington Station, two doctors stood by Michael’s bed, three nurses hovered close by. The man was Gilbert Lawrence’s grandson, and as Jill Dundas had said, money was not an issue. She wasn’t sure why she had said it when she had arrived at the hospital ten minutes after Ralph, five minutes after Isaac and Wendy. Larry had taken over following up on Caxton and O’Grady, attempting to find more evidence against Gary Frost, anything that could stick.
An intravenous drip was to one side of the bed, the patient lying flat on his back. Only Ralph had been allowed in initially, Isaac after he had shown his warrant card and insisted that it was vital to see the patient.
Michael’s face was covered by a mask supplying oxygen, an ECG machine standing by. ‘It’s not good,’ one of the doctors said. ‘The man had three times the normal amount from what we can see.’
It was known that Giles Helmsley had made the phone call for the ambulance, but he was not at the hospital. Isaac made a phone call to Larry. ‘Pick up Helmsley, make sure he’s at Challis Street within the hour.’
On the bed, Michael moved, not conscious of his actions. Ralph was present, although Isaac had left and was talking to Jill Dundas and Molly Dempster.
‘Waste of time getting him detoxed,’ Jill Dundas said. Isaac could see the hardness in her face. She had professed sadness at Gilbert’s death, at the death of her father, but had it been feigned? Isaac couldn’t be sure.
‘Too long without treatment. We could have helped him earlier, but now? There’s possible brain damage as well,’ one of the doctors said as he came out and spoke to Isaac. ‘Not much of a life, not much of a death either, although he’ll not know much about it.’
Michael Lawrence died at 11.08 a.m. on a Thursday morning. Ralph was heartbroken, so was Molly. Jill Dundas stood nearby in the reception area, mouthing the words the others wanted to hear. She did not shed a tear, neither did Ralph, although Wendy and Molly did.
Larry phoned; Helmsley was at the police station. After another twenty minutes at the hospital, Isaac left, leaving Wendy with Molly. She would look after the woman who had aged in that short time at the hospital. She had gained a son, a grandson, and now one of them was dead, and the other was not the healthiest, and his future looked bleak.
At the station, Helmsley sat quietly. He was holding a cup of tea: Earl Grey, at his request. He looked into vacant space, saying nothing, seeing nothing.
‘I found him at the dosshouse,’ Larry said, ‘lying down on that filthy mattress that Lawrence used. He looks as if he can’t take it all in. Bizarre when you think about it. A brilliant man they said down at LSE, and yet he’s out there leading the good fight, believing that people are waiting for the revolution.’
‘Genius level intelligence comes with its own problems,’ Isaac said. ‘Better to be like us, smart enough to know what’s good for us, smart enough to leave the rest well alone.’
Larry led Helmsley into the interview room. He had committed no crime as far as was known, and legal representation was offered but declined.
‘Mr Helmsley, you phoned Emergency Services,’ Isaac said.
‘One of Michael’s friends woke me up, told me that he was in trouble. I went over there, found him on the floor. That’s when I made the call.’
‘The other man could have,’ Larry said.
‘Coyote, that’s the name he likes to use, was the same as Michael, an addict.’
‘But Michael was with Ralph. What happened?’
‘Michael was weak. I was at his place. He had a woman with him, doped up as well. The two were on heroin, and Michael needed help.’
‘The woman?’
‘I’ve no idea. I kicked her out. Michael could have served the cause, but what does he do? He finds himself a drugged-out female. The two of them, naked in that bed, a syringe to one side. I took Michael, thrust him into the shower, plied him with coffee and brought him back to where the woman couldn’t find him, neither could his father.’
‘Even if we accept what you’ve told us, it doesn’t explain why he had OD’d, does it?’
‘One of the others must have injected him,’ Helmsley said. Larry noticed the twitch in his face when he spoke.
‘You’re lying, aren’t you, Mr Helmsley? A drug addict is not going to waste perfectly good heroin on someone else. You injected him for your own purposes.’
‘I was going to put him in a room at the back of the house, make him go cold turkey. A fancy rehabilitation centre in the country with its five-star accommodation and runs around the lawns couldn’t fix him, no doubt charged thousands as well. But that’s the capitalist system: screw the poor, bleed the rich.’
‘Mr Helmsley, we don’t need a political party broadcast. Did you inject Michael Lawrence on that mattress?’
‘I did it for him. My intentions were honourable.’
‘Your intentions have killed him, and they were not honourable, they were for your own distorted purpose. You’re a hypocrite, you wanted his family’s money. You will be charged with involuntary manslaughter. Further charges may be laid against you. I suggest you find yourself a good lawyer.’
Chapter 29
Bridget had to admit she enjoyed being in Brussels. Hendrik Brun was proving himself to be a man after her own heart, a computer aficionado. He had admitted the previous night that he enjoyed surfing the net, learning from the computer, and his typing was even faster than hers.
Bridget was confident the following morning that the day would wrap up her time in the Belgian capital, so much so that she checked out of the hotel, booked herself on Eurostar for six o’clock that evening, and arranged for Wendy to pick her up on her arrival at St Pancras Station.
In the office at the police station in Brussels, there was no need for Bridget to set up her laptop, having done it the previous day. The two of them, she and Brun, went straight into reviewing the CCTV from outside the shop in Herzele, the one monitor between the two of them. Scrolling back, the vehicle could be seen entering the town square, and then parking.
‘See there,’ Brun said. ‘You can see Caxton getting out of the passenger’s side.’ Bridget looked closer, could see another person in the driver’s seat, a large man, even larger than Caxton. Bridget was sure who it was, but it wasn’t conclusive.
The pair moved to another monitor with higher definition. Zooming in helped but blurred the man. An overlay of O’Grady was imposed on the monitor, an attempt to align features: the nose, the mouth, the chin. The identity was required first, the proof later. Both admitted defeat. Scrolling forward from where the vehicle had parked, it stopped just before driving out of range of the camera. Two men got out of the car.
This time their features were unmistakable; it was Ainsley Caxton and Hector O’Grady. O’Grady could be seen picking up the phone: a time, as well as a location.
‘Traceable,’ Brun said. He sent an email, Bridget could not understand what was written as it was in Dutch. ‘A colleague. He’ll give us the number phoned.’
‘You don’t have O’Grady’s number.’
‘We must assume he dialled an English number. My colleague is very thorough. He will not let us down.’
Inside the Land Cruiser, with a brief side view in through the passenger’s door, they could see a weapon, its barrel visible.
‘There’s proof,’ Brun said.
‘Proof that they committed the crime. Wherever the weapon is now, it’s long gone. They could have brought it over from England, tied it to the chassis underneath, or they could have purchased it locally.’
‘Only on the black market. The laws are strict here: residency, proof of address, police check.’
‘The same as in England,’ Bridget said, not sure of her facts.
‘They would have brought it from England. Coming into Belgium, the checks are not that strict. Unfortunately, the trade in illegals, contraband, drugs, is one way, not two. The checks will be more vigorous going back to England. They would have dumped it; the river is the most likely. No chance of finding it now.’
‘The deaths of Samuels and the others are murder,’ Bridget said. ‘It will be difficult for the Belgian authorities to prove a case.’
‘Almost impossible. Circumstantially, yes, but the defence lawyers are smart. It’ll never be proved. I’m afraid it’s up to you in England to bring these two men to justice.’
***
Ralph Lawrence, no longer evicted from his flat, moved back. His mother was holding up, tearful at first, then stoic. For a reason he could not explain, he was sad. It wasn’t as if Michael had amounted to much, but he was his son. He reflected on a cheerful baby, a playful young boy. Even Yolanda had eventually found some affection for him.
Murder of a Silent Man Page 20