by Jane Casey
‘Who else sat beside her?’ Derwent asked. He was standing at the back of the room where Maeve had been, his hands in his pockets.
‘Number two.’ She put the picture up and a sigh ran around the room at the sight of a woman in a niqab sitting beside Minnie. Only her eyes were visible and flowing black robes hid the rest of her from view.
‘This isn’t a problem even though we can’t see her face,’ Maeve said. ‘We’re pretty sure we have a name and address for her. We think this is Halima Bashir, who used her bank card to pay her fare. She doesn’t stay on the bus for very long either. She gets off near the doctor’s surgery here, on Lonsdale Road.’ Maeve wrote ‘2’ to mark the woman’s exit from the bus. ‘At the same stop, this guy gets on and sits down beside the victim. The bus was full at this point, as you can see.’
The picture was a white man in his early thirties with a small baby in a carrier on his front.
‘He’s got to be our prime suspect,’ Belcott said, his voice heavy with sarcasm.
‘I’d be surprised,’ Maeve admitted. ‘But stranger things have happened. He gets off at Clapham Junction.’ A ‘3’ went up on the map.
‘Doesn’t anyone walk anywhere any more?’ Derwent folded his arms, as annoyed as if he, personally, was paying their fares. ‘What’s the point in getting the bus a couple of stops?’
‘It was raining and cold,’ Maeve said patiently. ‘Passenger four is an older woman who sits beside our victim for a few stops. I’ve watched the CCTV a few times and I can’t see any interaction between them, but there is a bit of the tape where someone is standing in front of them having an argument about sharing the space for a buggy, so I can’t say for sure. Minnie doesn’t seem to move at all. The older woman used her Freedom Pass, so we know she is a Mrs Helena Griffiths. She got on at a stop near the start of Northcote Road and got off at the end of it.’ She marked the map.
‘A pensioner.’ Pete Belcott snorted. ‘What a line-up. Who’s likely to be carrying a knife out of that lot?’
Maeve looked at him with maximum disapproval. ‘I’m not jumping to any conclusions. I’m going to speak to all of them and see what they have to tell me.’
‘Is there anyone else?’ I asked.
‘One more. This kid.’ She put the picture up. ‘He seems to be a Spanish student. He spends the entire time that he’s on the bus sitting with his back to the victim, talking to his friends who are sitting on the other side of the aisle. When he stood up to get off on Clapham Common, his friends noticed blood on his jeans and the back of his coat. He panicked but then he realised it wasn’t his blood. They went and spoke to the bus driver, and the bus driver came back to check on Minnie. He discovered she was dead, called it in, and that was that.’
‘Did we get anything from the passengers at the scene?’ Una Burt asked.
‘Nothing helpful,’ I said. ‘No one saw or heard anything. But most of them had only been on the bus since Clapham Junction or Northcote Road. If it happened before that, they wouldn’t have seen anything anyway. She just looked as if she was asleep, from what they said.’
Silence fell in the meeting room, which was fairly unusual. We were all experienced enough to know that what should have been a simple and straightforward murder to solve was looking more complicated all the time.
‘The murder happened right in front of the bus’s cameras, and we still have no idea who did it, or when,’ Derwent said grimly. ‘Talk about bad luck.’
‘Or good luck,’ I said. ‘If you’re the killer, I mean.’
He stared at me for a moment, as if he couldn’t believe anyone could say something so stupid. ‘Yeah. If you’re the killer.’
One day I’d learn to keep my mouth shut instead of saying whatever came into my head. Today, however, was not that day.
Chapter 5
Four detectives to interview one witness (who was possibly a suspect): it felt like overkill to me. But we were going into the heart of the Castle Estate in Battersea, a place where police were not popular, to say the least. Even Maeve hadn’t argued when Una Burt told us to go in a group. I was nervous about being there, but I hadn’t been able to come up with a reason to stay in the office.
It was two days since Minnie’s murder and Passenger One had a name and a face, thanks to the efforts of BTP – he was Ashton Mayfield, aged fourteen, six foot two of gangly truculence.
‘He’s been interviewed before in relation to a stabbing outside his school and by all accounts he wasn’t particularly helpful,’ Maeve warned us. ‘The officer who interviewed Ashton on that occasion identified him as a person of interest and found out a bit more about him. At that time, which was about six months ago, he was on the fringes of one of the medium-sized London gangs – SWB, the South West Boyz. He wasn’t a suspect in the stabbing, but he certainly didn’t say anything that would get him tagged as a snitch, even though he knew the victim well.’
‘He’s going to be fun.’ Derwent was driving and I was sitting in the back seat, behind Maeve. On the other side of the back seat, Pete Belcott was staring at his phone, slumped down with his shirt gaping where a button had fallen off. I caught a glimpse of pale belly coated in black hair and looked away. Pete didn’t have a girlfriend to tell him to go a size up, and he didn’t have enough self-respect to realise it himself. Even though I wasn’t looking at him, I was still all too aware of him sharing my space. He cleared his throat with a long-drawn-out wet sound as the car turned into the Castle Estate.
‘Christ, Pete.’ Derwent glowered at him in the rear-view mirror. ‘You could at least wait until you get out of the car.’
‘Sorry. It’s the tail-end of this cold. I’ve got a lot of catarrh.’
I groaned along with Derwent. Maeve’s voice cut through the noise in the car.
‘Is that him? On the balcony up there?’
I bent to peer through the windscreen. The estate was low-rise, three storeys high in long rectangular blocks. All of the front doors opened off one long balcony that ran along each level with a staircase at either end. The guy Maeve was talking about was standing halfway along the second floor, his attention on the phone in his hand. He hadn’t noticed us yet. ‘Same jacket,’ I said. ‘It’s got that flash on the shoulder.’
‘And he lives in number forty-four. That’s on the second floor,’ Pete said. ‘He’s outside his front door, near enough.’
‘That’s him.’ Derwent threw the car into a space. ‘Pete, you and Georgia go up the staircase on the left. We’ll take the right. See if we can grab him before he gets any ideas about running.’
It was a reasonable plan and maybe it would have worked if Pete had been a bit faster. I was behind him on the stairs.
‘Hurry up.’
‘I can’t. You can … go past me … if you like.’
I did not like. I liked having the soft, doughy bulk of Belcott in front of me, if I was honest, so he could tackle whatever trouble came our way first. ‘I don’t know how you’re going to pass your next fitness test.’
‘Don’t,’ was all he could manage, in a gasp.
We were almost at the second floor. I heard a shout: Derwent’s deep, commanding voice.
‘Stop! Police! Do not run!’
It was followed, inevitably, by the sound of running feet approaching our stairwell.
‘He’s coming this way.’ I put my hand in my pocket, looking for my Asp. Belcott already had his out – he had better reaction times than me when he needed them, despite his sluggish demeanour. I was still fumbling when a tall black youth cannoned off the wall opposite the entrance to the second floor and came towards us at speed. I thought he was going to crash into Belcott and had a vision of the two of them colliding with me, overbalancing, sending all three of us crashing down the stained concrete steps. I would be right at the bottom of the pile. It would be a bone-breaker at the very least – potentially fatal. I cringed against the wall, trying to get out of their way.
Belcott braced himself on the stairs, blocking
the whole width. ‘Stop,’ he bellowed – your voice was your first weapon and sometimes it was all you needed, I’d been taught, though mine never seemed loud or commanding enough. On this occasion, the youth hesitated before grabbing the stair rail and vaulting over the bannisters. He dropped to the flight below gracefully, already in motion as he landed. I watched him race down the rest of the steps until he was out of sight. A moment later, Derwent flung himself into view and did the same thing, leaping over the rail with no hesitation and a swish of his coat. He landed with a grunt and checked for a fraction of a second to recover his balance. The boy – our boy, Ashton Mayfield – had the advantage and was making good use of it.
I sighed. It was disappointing. We’d almost had him and now he was going to be in the wind, and we still didn’t even know if he was a witness or a suspect.
‘Where the fuck were you?’ Belcott turned on me. ‘What were you doing?’
‘I thought he was going to run into us. I thought we would fall. I was trying to stay out of the way.’
‘Why aren’t you chasing after him?’ His face was glazed in sweat. ‘Don’t just stand there, Georgia. Make an effort.’
‘I—’
He pushed past me and lumbered down the stairs, swearing under his breath. I stood in the dank stairwell, my breath clouding in the cold morning air. I didn’t know what to do. Something useful, a voice in my head urged. They’re all going to shout at you like Belcott did, another voice said. And a third voice said: Maeve wasn’t running after him either. You haven’t done anything wrong.
Instead of following Belcott down, I went up and out through the doorway to the second-floor balcony where the wind caught the breath out of my body and flung it back into my face. I looked out across the car park and saw Mayfield running towards the main road. He seemed to be limping – he had definitely slowed down – and I bit my lip. Maybe there was a chance we might get him after all. Derwent was flat out in pursuit, dodging through parked cars. He hurdled a low wall to cut a corner, gaining on Mayfield who risked a glance back. I saw the youth move his arm and something flew away from him into the hedge that bordered the estate, though I couldn’t tell what it was.
Five seconds, at a guess, until Mayfield reached the main road. Four. Three—
Maeve stepped out from beside a van that was parked near the exit, holding her Asp. She swung it, aiming low and Mayfield panicked. He jinked out of range, overbalanced and sprawled on the tarmac. Derwent flung himself on top of him with an impact I heard from where I was standing. I clapped and gave a soft cheer before noticing I wasn’t alone on the balcony. Eight or nine residents had emerged from their flats to watch the chase: some elderly, some young, one a night-shift worker yawning in pyjamas. They all had the same expression on their faces as they looked at me: mingled disapproval and distaste. I nodded to them.
‘Good morning.’
Silence.
Well, we weren’t there to make friends.
I hummed to myself as I walked back down the stairs.
‘Nice one, guv.’
Derwent glanced up from searching Mayfield. ‘Where were you?’
‘I went up to the balcony to see where he went,’ I said. ‘Bird’s-eye view.’
He didn’t say anything but went back to checking the boy’s jeans, patting him down with care. Belcott was leaning against our car with his arms folded. His expression was the opposite of warm. I looked away from him. So what if I hadn’t followed him down to the car park? I’d had a good reason.
‘I got nothing, man. Let me go,’ Ashton pleaded.
‘Why did you run, Ashton? I told you not to.’
He shrugged. Without the cap, he looked younger. His face was soft and hairless, and his eyes were liquid with unshed tears. He was shaking. ‘I dunno. I was scared.’
‘Why?’
‘In case you shot me, innit. Some Black Lives Matter shit.’
‘We don’t shoot black kids in this country. We don’t even have guns, you twat. We just want to talk to you.’
‘I didn’t know that.’ He gulped. ‘My arm hurts.’
Derwent sighed. ‘If I take off the cuffs, will you promise not to try to run away again?’
Ashton nodded fervently.
‘If you make me run after you again, I’m not going to be happy, Ashton.’
‘I won’t, I promise.’
Maeve moved closer to him, in front of me. I wondered if she was even aware that she was blocking my view. I stepped to the side, irritated.
‘Do you know why we’re here?’ she asked.
‘No.’ He looked at Derwent. ‘Except he said you want to talk to me. But I don’t know why.’
‘We’re investigating a murder.’
His eyes went wide. ‘Murder? Shit.’
‘Minnie Charleston.’
There was no way he could have faked his puzzlement. ‘Who?’
‘That name doesn’t mean anything to you?’ Derwent asked. ‘Think about it.’
‘No. Never heard of her.’
‘You sat beside her on a bus two days ago,’ Maeve said. ‘She was a student from Lovelace School. She was stabbed to death at some point in the journey.’
‘For real? Fuck.’ He bit his lip. ‘Sorry. I didn’t know.’
‘Can we get you to come and talk to us about it? Look at some pictures?’
He looked away into the distance, not meeting our eyes. ‘I can’t help you. I don’t talk to coppers.’
‘Come on, Ashton,’ Derwent said, tired. ‘Do me a favour. It’s not a lot to ask, is it?’
‘No.’ His confidence was coming back. Maybe someone was watching who he wanted to impress, I thought, with a glance up at the flats. The balconies were full of onlookers, some of them filming. I felt their eyes on me, their hostility prickling on my skin like electricity. Ashton’s head was tilted back now so he could look down his nose at us. ‘If you wanted to talk to me, you’d have to arrest me, and I’ve done nothing wrong. You searched me and you didn’t find nothing. You’ve got to let me go.’
‘What did you throw away, Ashton?’ At the sound of my voice, Maeve, Derwent and Ashton all turned to look at me with varying degrees of surprise. ‘When you were running. What was that?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Really.’ I took out my evidence gloves and put them on, then walked over to the hedge. I worked my way along it, trying to remember where he’d been when I saw it fly away from him. It had to be something he didn’t want us to find. Drugs, maybe, or a phone, or …
I stopped and reached in through the spindly branches, triumph and relief sweeping through me.
‘What have you got?’ Derwent was leaning over my shoulder, his face close to mine.
‘A knife.’ I lifted it out with my fingertips. ‘I saw him throw it.’
‘I missed that.’
‘I had a better view,’ I said.
Belcott lumbered over and held out an evidence tube. I slipped the knife into it and he sealed the tube.
‘Is this yours, Ashton?’ Derwent demanded.
‘Never seen it before in my life.’
‘We’ll see what the lab has to say about that. I’m inclined to think we might find your DNA all over it.’
‘No.’ He shook his head, frantic. ‘No.’
‘Good work, Georgia.’ Maeve sounded genuinely pleased and I glowed with pride. Yes, it was pure chance that I’d seen him throw it from my vantage point, but they didn’t need to know that.
Derwent turned to me. ‘Do you want to do the honours?’
‘I’d be delighted.’ The only thing better than the satisfaction of making an arrest, I thought as I reeled off the caution (word-perfect, naturally), was the look of fury on Belcott’s face.
Chapter 6
‘You’ve decided I’m guilty just because I’m black, I’m a kid and you can fit me up.’
‘We haven’t decided you’re guilty,’ Maeve said. Her hands were folded in front of her, on top of a closed notebook. Everything
about her demeanour suggested she was completely calm and prepared to sit there for as long as it took to get some answers. ‘We’ve identified you as a suspect because you were in the right place to commit this murder, and you were carrying a weapon that might have been the murder weapon.’
‘No, I wasn’t. I didn’t have a weapon.’
‘We found it.’ Derwent leaned forward, his elbows on the table. ‘One of my colleagues saw you throw it away.’
‘I don’t carry a knife.’ Ashton hunched his shoulders. ‘I promised my mum. And I know too many guys who’ve been killed, you know. I try to stay away from all of that.’
He was sitting on the opposite side of the table from Maeve and Derwent, slumped in his chair. He was arrogant and talkative, which was good news for us because the more he said, the more information we got out of him. In the interview room, stripped of his cap, coat and attitude, he had a neat head, bright eyes and a quick smile. He looked like a child when he forgot to put on his tough-guy demeanour. A young black female solicitor sat beside him, her hair braided down her back, listening carefully to everything that was said. At the back of the room, Ashton’s mother sat on a chair with her arms crossed. She had cried the whole way to the police station, I’d heard, but she was dry-eyed now. Ashton was a minor and she was entitled to sit in on the interview. She was watchful, wary of us and the strange claustrophobic environment of the interview room. The poor quality of the images that were being transmitted from the interview room made everyone look like a potato, except Maeve, I thought: high cheekbones made all the difference. All my expertise with expensive contouring palettes couldn’t match the real thing.
‘We know you’re involved in the local gang, Ashton,’ Derwent said. ‘The South West Boyz. Does that ring a bell?’
A grin flashed across his face. ‘Man. You like to sound like you know a thing or two, but you don’t. My life. The South West Boyz.’ He imitated Derwent and I found myself chuckling along with Pete Belcott, who was beside me, eyes fixed on the screen.
‘Are you saying you’re not in that gang?’ Maeve asked.