Murder on the Commons (A Davies & West Mystery Book 4)

by Will North

  Next from her bag she pulled out a pair of pale olive snakeskin sling-back heels, slipped them on, and then strutted in a circle before her lover, the heels clicking on the bare floor, until she stood inches before him where he sat, her bare legs spread wide. She bent forward at the waist, held out her long-stemmed glass, and winked.

  “I seem to be empty…”

  He ran a hand all the way up the inside of her bare left thigh, but she slapped it away. He smiled. This was new. This was interesting. Was there a hidden dominatrix in this woman? He refilled both their glasses. Statuesque before him, she drank the second glass off quickly, and said, “You, my love, have some explaining to do.”

  O’Dare lifted an eyebrow. “Would you care to sit?”

  “No, I have to leave.”

  She stepped away, pulled a ribbed cashmere knit dress in winter white from her bag and slipped it over her head. It clung to her athletic body like skin. She tossed the Gucci bag over her left shoulder and walked to the door, then turned: “‘Where’s the big bloke then?’ one of them asked me. Think about that for a day or so. And think about what you have held back from your new partner.”

  Moments later the BMW roared out of the forecourt. O’Dare did not move.

  PENWARREN COULD SEE the light already dying in the sky to the east when Calum knocked at his open office door and waited. It was only mid-afternoon, but autumn was advancing too quickly for his taste. He looked west. A snowy white fog bank was moving in off the ocean, backlit by the lowering sun.

  “Was the door wide open?” he asked, turning.

  “It was,” Calum answered.

  “Then why they hell do you people persist in knocking?”

  “Might be a sign of respect, boss. Who knows?”

  Penwarren shook his head in resignation and sat. “Where’s Morgan?”

  “On her way back to my place, I reckon. The girls coming home from school and all...”

  “How long do you expect this arrangement I condoned to continue? You seem almost fully recovered and she does have a home of her own. But wait, no, our other two love birds live there now, don’t they?! What am I, the bloody matchmaker of Cornwall CID?!”

  He knew he was venting and he knew Calum knew, too. “And while I am rattling on like this, perhaps you might also remind my DI that she still has a job?”

  “And the hours are not family friendly,” Morgan boomed, as she shouldered past Calum and took a seat. “I may be their acting evil stepmother just now, but I have kids to look after now, you know! What’s up, boss? I’m all ears.”

  Penwarren calmed.

  “Thanks to Calum and his London friends,” he said, nodding to his SOCO chief, “we have some intel on Liverpool. Someone, a woman, anonymous, but I assume either from or associated with SO15, contacted me. There are coded communications between a Merseyside detective and one or more New IRA contacts in Cork.”

  “What else?” Morgan demanded.

  Penwarren shrugged. “Not much, I’m afraid, and for two reasons. London—whoever she or they are—don’t know much, but they warn that I am way out on a limb here legally.”

  Morgan laughed. “Welcome to my limb, boss. Always room for more!”

  Penwarren shook his head. “I am grateful,” he continued. “She gave us what she could. It’s a step forward. My anonymous lady friend did admit that they had not contacted the Garda about these communications as yet. I have a sense these folks have more important fish to fry elsewhere in the world. The IRA, ‘New’ or otherwise, have been quiet of late. She also said a request from the Garda might get pushed upstairs, maybe as far as the Home Secretary. With this new information, I’m going to have Terry lean on Detective Superintendent Dunleavy in Cork. They got on well when I sent her over.”

  “Terry gets on well with men everywhere,” Morgan groused. “You going to fly her over there again?”

  “Jealousy rearing its ugly head, Morgan?”

  “Don’t be silly. I want her to succeed. She’s first rate.”

  “I’ll remind you it’s free. It’s a cargo plane, and there are no complimentary cocktails, no packets of salted nuts. No decent seating either, I gather. Metal jump seats. But it’s a short hop.”

  As was his habit, Calum listened quietly to all this before he finally spoke.

  “This alleged bad guy at Liverpool: do we have a name?”

  “Not for you, not yet. I know you want it, Calum, but you’ll just have to be patient. On the other hand, I do think I’m going to put Adam, our ace researcher, on this. He’ll find out more about the backgrounds of the Merseyside CID staff. He’s a constant source of wonder, that boy.”

  “Why didn’t you call them both in this afternoon?” Morgan asked.

  “Because you two are my core. I choose to run things by you before going to the rest of the team. You’ll set me straight if I’m wrong.”

  “And because if this all goes balls up,” Morgan added, “we two could take early retirement.”

  “Well, it had occurred to me.”

  Day Seventeen

  Thirty-Five

  LASHINGS OF RAIN pelted the tarmac at Newquay Airport Wednesday morning as Terry dashed across to board the 8:00 am Westwind Air cargo flight. She had two large cups of coffee for the pilot and co-pilot from the Coffee Republic shop in the terminal. Splash of milk in both, two brown packets of demerara sugar on the side. She hoped she’d guessed right.

  The pilot, who she knew only as “Jones,” saluted her and took his cup. “About time we had a flight attendant, is what I say.” His co-pilot, a young woman, ex-RAF, shot out a punch.

  “Oww!”

  Terry liked her immediately.

  Through an email exchange late the afternoon before, Penwarren had arranged for her to meet with Dunleavy. It did not surprise him that Dunleavy was happy to make the time. He even proposed to take Terry to lunch, and Penwarren thought a meeting outside the headquarters was just as well. He said he approved, but it was up to Terry. He wondered if his detective sergeant found her delicate beauty an asset or a liability. Certainly, she’d never complained.

  It was sunny and cold when she picked her way down the aluminum staircase to the tarmac in Cork. She wore heels, not too high, a conscious strategy to make her taller. She met Dunleavy, at his suggestion, at the Farmgate Café on Princes Street, a restaurant on a balcony in the roofed, 19th century English Market in central Cork. The market was just across the river from the Garda’s headquarters on Anglesea Street.

  She recognized Dunleavy immediately and waved as she crossed the café, a long narrow space that overlooked the market stalls below. Black and white ceramic tile floor, small rectangular tables, bentwood dining chairs. Dunleavy was a big man, with gray hair clipped almost to a stubble, rosy cheeks, wide smile, and a belly that suggested this might be his favorite lunch spot. There was a partly drained pint of brown stout on the polished wood table in front of him. He rose to greet her and nearly bowed as he gestured for her to join him.

  A waitress materialized almost instantly and offered two menus. He waved his away. “You know what I’ll be having, Doreen.”

  “The Irish lamb stew, Mr. Dunleavy?”

  He laughed. “Is that a question? Best in all the land, it is. Meanwhile, let’s let my English colleague here have a glance at what’s on offer today. A drink in the meantime, Detective Bates?”

  The waitress lifted an eyebrow but said nothing. Dunleavy always dined alone. The ‘detective’ was half his age.

  Terry looked up from the menu. “Um, a glass of your house white wine? What is it?”

  “A Spanish Albarino, ma’am. Very good. Not your usual house white.”

  “Perfect.”

  “And I’ll have another pint, if I may, Doreen.”

  “Sir.”

  Terry leaned back and smiled. “Are you a fixture here, Roger?”

  The DS chuckled. “Not really. Well, okay, maybe. I live alone. My wife died quite some years ago. Colon cancer. This is my main meal
of the day and I relish it. Tonight, it’ll be just a small salad and the telly.”

  “Is it always the lamb stew?”

  “Not always, but it’s right for the season. Hearty.”

  A few minutes later, Doreen returned with their drinks. “Have you decided, ma’am?”

  “I think I’ll have the roast pumpkin risotto with sage and hazelnuts. Can a small plate be ordered?”

  “Of course, ma’am.”

  Dunleavy leaned back against his chair. “Now, Detective Bates, why did you want to see me again?”

  “Apart from the distinct pleasure of your company?”

  He laughed. “I thought it was we Irish who were full of blarney!”

  “All right Roger, I’ll level with you. I don’t have much time, actually. My flight returns to Cornwall in a couple of hours.”

  The waitress returned with their meals, his steaming and redolently savory, her risotto bright with small roasted pumpkin bits, the sage just lightly fragrant. They began eating. She picked, he shoveled.

  Dunleavy wiped his lips and took another drink. “This have to do with your last visit, something about the CID at Liverpool?”

  “Yes.”

  “I told you then, I don’t have anything for you about them. We’ve never had contact from Liverpool.”

  “I know and I would not have troubled you, but we have new intelligence. I’ll admit it’s sketchy, but what we have is said to be reliable.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Someone at Merseyside has been having coded communications with suspected members of the New IRA. Here. In Cork.”

  Dunleavy cocked his grizzled head, spoon suspended mid-air. “News to me. Name?”

  “Known, but not yet shared. Intelligence is still trying to work out the content. Must be pretty sophisticated. I don’t know.”

  “Names on our side?”

  “Again, I don’t know, but I will try to get that for you. In the meantime, though, we are advised that a request for information by the Garda to our National Crime Agency might be entertained.” She pulled a slip of paper from her purse with contact details and pushed it across the table.

  “Thank you. So, person or persons unknown to us here may be conspiring with person unknown in Liverpool…”

  “Unknown to us in Cornwall, too, but known, apparently, by London, though they’ve not been paying attention. Until now. One of our own has an inside track to terrorism experts at the Met.”

  Terry sipped her Albarino and fixed her eyes on Dunleavy. “I’m guessing New IRA locals may be known to your office.”

  Dunleavy smiled in confirmation. They ate in silence for a few minutes.

  “And this request,” Dunleavy finally said. “It should come from Garda Commissioner Harris in Dublin?”

  “I should think so, Roger. You can say Met terrorism people gave you a heads up, but do not mention Cornwall. Our position in this matter is delicate.”

  “Cornwall snooping in Liverpool? Yes, delicate indeed. Does your DCI know what he’s doing?”

  “I’m afraid he does. The risks for him are serious. For the rest of us, too. But we have a particularly diabolical murder to solve.”

  They chatted a while longer until Terry pushed her unfinished plate away, finished her wine and rose. “Thank you for lunch, Detective Superintendent. This was lovely.”

  “You won’t stay? You hardly touched it.”

  “That’s how I keep my figure, my good friend. Anyway, plane to catch. Email me when you get this underway. We will do everything we can to help.”

  Dunleavy rose and took her extended hand. “Thank you, Terry…I think.”

  He sat as she took the stairs down to the floor of the market and watched her from the balcony as she strode to the exit. Doreen appeared and he ordered a third pint of stout, Knockmealdown, his favorite. He needed to think. The very lovely and professional Detective Sergeant Terry Bates did not make thinking easy. He wondered whether she had Irish heritage. With that mass of wavy, ginger hair she could have been the daughter he’d always wanted.

  JUST AFTER NOON, Penwarren reached the top floor of the Bodmin Hub with a fruit and protein smoothie from the downstairs canteen, his usual lunch. He found Adam waiting just outside his office door, as if entering the office and waiting may have seemed disrespectful. Penwarren extended his free hand and said, “Please, after you.” Novak did so, but paused inside the threshold to let his boss pass.

  “Social visit, Adam?”

  “No. Sir.”

  Penwarren sat at his round birch conference table, peeled the plastic lid off his cup, and took a deep swallow. He pointed to the chair opposite and Novak sat.

  Adam began without invitation. “You asked me to look into the staffing at Liverpool CID.”

  Penwarren nodded.

  “I started at the top, with the names you’d already mentioned from your meeting there with Terry.”

  “Waggoner?”

  “And Winterbourne.”

  “Okay…”

  “Winterbourne is practically a cipher. Been there forever. Got into intelligence, but his records focus on local gangs, mostly. The force has tried to retire him, but he’s dodged the bullet thanks to endorsements from an advocate. It’s all in his personnel files.”

  “Waggoner?”

  “Yes, sir. Staunch supporter. And about Waggoner… he came up through the ranks. A fair number of successful investigations and prosecutions. A few murders, assaults, street gangs, the usual. What got him his stripes was solving a serial killing spree—dead prostitutes. Bondage sex and then strangled in bed. Investigation was going nowhere. No useful evidence, forensic or otherwise.”

  “How did he break it?”

  “Hair.”

  “Hair?”

  “Yes, sir. A hair was found that matched none of the latest victim’s. It bothered him, apparently.” He looked at his notepad. “They’d been assuming a male attacker. Forensics never found semen in or on the victims. He ran a DNA analysis on the follicle, and it came up female. There were also unexplained faint bruises on wrists and ankles. Woman he finally collared apparently was not amused to discover that her husband was having it off with a series of girls imported from Eastern Europe, so she went after them one by one, pretending she wanted lesbian sex. But with a twist. Search of their house turned up a load of dominatrix gear: black velvet ropes, fur handcuffs…” He looked at his notes again. “Um…nipple clamps, a rubber ball mouth gag, and suchlike.”

  Penwarren nodded. “Trussed them up, got them going, then strangled them. With the gag, no noise for the neighbors.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Nice work, Adam.”

  But I took a closer look at Waggoner.”

  Penwarren shook his head. “How do you know how to do this stuff, Adam?”

  Novak grinned. “A police constable in St. Ives hasn’t a lot to do, boss. Mostly quiet and boring.”

  “Until you were instrumental in that St. Ives murder and helped us corner the imposter killer. We had to grab you.”

  “Yes, sir. But mostly there was damn all to do in that job post: traffic, a late night domestic, or sometimes anti-social behavior at the Sloop Inn on the quay. I studied in the down times, took a few online courses. I like research. I reckon it comes from working alongside my Da’. Watching him in the shop, I learned that the first and most important step was diagnosis. I’d see him studying an engine, running ideas through his head, mumbling, and then crossing the wrong ones off some mental list. Finally, he’d just go quiet and smile. In that business you need to be right the first time. You don’t want to do anything twice. It costs the customer if you charge for the actual hours, and it wastes your time getting to the next car.”

  Penwarren drank more of the smoothie and crossed his arms across his flat belly. The tall DCI was nearly gaunt. Morgan, who did not have that problem, chastised him often, pushed him to eat more. He did. It made no difference. Morgan worried that he carried more stress around inside h
im than he’d ever let show and it ate him up.

  “I started where it was easy,” Novak continued. “Checked his driving records. No citations. But here’s what troubled me, boss. The guy drives a Mercedes Benz G-Class. Last year’s model.”

  “G-Class?”

  “It’s the top-of-the-line Merc SUV. Originally an off-road utility vehicle, like the Land Rover Defender. But like Land Rovers, over the years, it’s morphed into a luxury ride. It’s still goes off-road, so maybe Waggoner is a hunter or walker or something. But you see them in the cities now. Housewives like the height and feeling of safety I guess.”

  Penwarren waited.

  “The thing is, boss, last year’s model, his, goes for more than a hundred thousand quid even today.”

  Penwarren stood and ran a hand through his long silvering hair. “He’s just a DCI like me. Unless his wife is wealthy, there’s no way he could afford that. No way.”

  Novak cleared his throat. “And something else.”

  Penwarren turned.

  “He has two addresses. One his apparent family home just outside Liverpool: the Crosby neighborhood. Maybe twenty minutes from the center and pretty upscale. Good schools and such, though if he had children—I can check the tax records—that would matter no longer at his age. He’s close to retirement. The other property is a condo in a newer estate in the center, near the big cathedral. In-fill development. They bulldoze old, two story terraces and replace them with posh three- or four-story brick townhome blocks. Anyway, he owns one of them.”

  “Mortgages?”

  “Two.”

  Penwarren nodded. “Unless I am vastly underpaid here as a fellow DCI, he is in way over his head.”

  “Yes, sir.

  “Anyone else?”

  “Ten others work in his shop—veterans and new hires both, according to their files. Two women detectives included, and couple of civilian administrators. Good records, all of them.”

  “Thank you, Adam. Well done, as usual.”

  AFTER HIS IN-HOUSE hacker left, Penwarren slowly paced his office, pausing at times at the windows, as if guidance might be found out there in the neat, symmetrical patchwork of hedge-rowed fields. His instincts had been right about Liverpool. Of that he was now certain. But did it have anything to do with Lugg? He still could see no route to tie it all together.