‘Has anybody talked to anyone from the 211 Club from that time who might remember what was going on?’ Brooks asked.
Hassan raised his hand to answer. ‘Guv, we’ve tracked down a Michael Fisher. He’s Declan Fisher’s older brother and apparently used to drink with Declan and Charlie at the club.’
‘Good. Let’s see what he can remember,’ Brooks said. ‘And what about our two mystery officers from the South London Murder Squad?’
Ruth looked up. ‘Charlie told us he remembered two young detectives that frequented the club. They asked for money and he told them to piss off. We’ve no idea if that’s connected to Alfie’s death.’
Lucy knew they had to withhold some of the information about what Charlie had told them. The fact that one of the officers had fallen down the stairs, walked with a stick, and had an Irish name might put Arthur Gaughran in the frame. They didn’t want to alert Tim to the fact that they might be looking at his father in the investigation.
‘The Coroner’s asking about a DNA sample so we can formally identify Alfie’s body,’ Brooks said.
Lucy nodded. ‘We got a sample from Charlie yesterday. Results will be back within twenty-four hours.’
‘Any word on the carbon dating of the bones as a backup?’ Brooks asked.
‘I’m chasing it today, guv,’ Hassan replied.
Brooks looked out at the CID team. ‘Is there anything else?’
Gaughran gestured to an old paper. ‘Guv. Our eye witness, Eileen Walters, claimed to have seen Charlie and Alfie Wise, and possibly Trevor Walsh on the 27th November 1956. She and a friend had seen a band called The Rattlesnakes play in Peckham that night. So I eventually tracked down a number for the lead singer of The Rattlesnakes. Apparently they still play the odd gig even now. He remembered the gig because 27th November 1956 was also his 21st birthday. And that strongly suggests that Charlie, Alfie and Walsh were in a car ten hours after Charlie had reported Alfie missing.’
Brooks nodded as he rubbed his hand over his head. ‘Brilliant. That’s great work, Tim.’
RUTH AND LUCY WERE making their way across South London towards Charlie’s house in Wimbledon where they had agreed to meet him. They had explained that there were a couple more things that they needed to check with him. He’d told them he wasn’t prepared to attend a voluntary interview at Peckham Police Station and that he would have his brief present.
Ruth heard the car’s cigarette lighter click. She pulled it out and felt the glowing red heat on her face as she lit her cigarette and took a deep drag.
‘You haven’t told me why your evening was shit last night,’ Ruth said as she blew a long plume of smoke out of the window and watched as the wind snatched it away.
Lucy pulled a face. ‘Karen, Harry’s ex, turned up on my doorstep with her face bashed in. Cut lip, bloody nose.’
‘Christ! What happened?’
‘She told me that Harry had gone round to see her and told her to leave us alone. They got into an argument and he attacked her,’ Lucy explained.
Ruth’s eyes widened. She couldn’t believe what Lucy had just told her. ‘Harry attacked her? Are you sure?’
Lucy shook her head. ‘No, I’m not. I’ve never seen Harry lose his temper. He can be grumpy when he’s tired, but punching a woman in the face ...’
‘I know that Karen’s behaviour has been very strange and scary recently, but I just don’t believe he’d punch her,’ Ruth said. She had never seen Harry remotely aggressive or confrontational even at work. There were plenty of coppers with a short fuse, and she’d even seen some of them arguing and coming to blows. But Harry wasn’t one of them.
Lucy shrugged. ‘My instinct says that he didn’t attack her. But that means she was crazy enough to do it to herself to set Harry up.’
‘Yeah, and that is bonkers,’ Ruth said. ‘But you’ve been a copper long enough to know that people do some very bizarre things. Harry left her and maybe she just can’t get over it?’
‘Bloody hell! Why can’t she get a new haircut, live in the gym, drink too much wine and go on a crash diet like every other middle-aged woman whose husband leaves them?’ Lucy spat.
‘What are you going to do?’
Lucy shook her head. ‘I just don’t know. We can’t carry on like this. I’m scared when I go home. What’s next? Is she going to be waiting for me with a carving knife?’
Ruth raised an eyebrow. ‘Restraining order?’
‘We don’t have any evidence that she’s done anything wrong.’
TEN MINUTES LATER, Lucy and Ruth pulled into the drive at Charlie’s mansion and got out of their car. They pressed the door buzzer and were shown through to the kitchen.
Charlie barely acknowledged them when they entered. Instead, he was having a long conversation with his solicitor, a serious-looking woman in a dark suit and glasses who was sitting next to him taking notes.
Ruth smiled as she sat down, but Charlie’s demeanour had changed. The happy-go-lucky, cheeky chappie attitude had gone. It had been replaced by a steely and distinctly unfriendly manner.
Ruth pulled her chair close to the table and cleared her throat. ‘We just have a few more things we’d like to clarify with you, Charlie.’
Charlie gave a sarcastic smile. ‘I’m sure you do.’
‘I take it you know that Trevor Walsh was murdered the day before yesterday?’ Ruth asked.
Charlie nodded. ‘Yes. I hadn’t seen him in a while, but I was really sad to hear about that.’
‘Could you tell us where you were on Tuesday evening between 8 pm and midnight?’ Ruth asked.
Charlie whispered to his solicitor and then looked at Ruth. ‘I was having dinner in the Chelsea Arts Club. There were probably about eight of us. I was there all evening.’
‘Thank you,’ Ruth said. ‘And they’ll confirm that, will they?’
Charlie shrugged. ‘I don’t see why they wouldn’t.’
‘And you say that you haven’t seen Trevor in some time?’
‘That’s right. It’s got to be about six months.’
‘In which time you had paid him three thousand pounds?’ Lucy interjected quickly.
Charlie frowned, snorted, and looked over at his solicitor. ‘I wasn’t aware that was a crime, were you?’
The solicitor raised an eyebrow. ‘It isn’t.’
Lucy flicked over a page of her notebook. ‘If I can take you back to the time that Alfie went missing ... We have the file on his disappearance, which states that you came into Peckham Police Station to report that Alfie was missing on the 27th of November.’
The solicitor leant over and said something to Charlie.
‘Sounds about right but I can’t confirm it,’ he said.
Lucy peered down at her notes. ‘We have an eyewitness who saw you, Alfie and Trevor Walsh in your car on that evening at the traffic lights on Bridge Street, Peckham. Could you explain that to us?’
Charlie spoke again to his solicitor, this time in more depth and for longer. He nodded a few times before turning back to them. ‘I’m sorry. My recollection of that time is pretty hazy. I could have been in a car with Alfie and Walshy. I used to give them lifts all over the place. But I’ve no idea about the date that you’re asking me about. But if I came in to report Alfie missing, how could I be in the car with him later that day? That makes no sense, does it?’
Lucy looked at him. ‘Which is why we’re asking you about it.’
Charlie shrugged. ‘I don’t know what to tell you. Someone has made a mistake somewhere down the line.’
‘Actually, our eye-witness is very clear because she had seen a band playing in Peckham that night. We have evidence which shows they only played on the night of the 27th November. Could you explain that to us, please?’ Ruth asked.
Looking at his watch, Charlie was clearly flustered as he leaned in and spoke to his solicitor again.
The solicitor put down her pen. ‘My client is a very busy man, and this is a voluntary interview at his convenienc
e. However, I am advising him not to answer any more questions today. And if you would like to speak to him again, then it will have to be under caution.’
Ruth glanced at Lucy – Charlie was definitely rattled.
CHAPTER 27
Gaughran and Hassan rang the doorbell to the small flat where Michael Fisher lived. It was part of a 1930s Deco-styled block that was sheltered housing for pensioners.
After a few seconds, Fisher came to the door. He was well into his 70s and clearly out of breath from the effort of walking.
He squinted at them and raised his bushy white eyebrows. ‘Can I help?’
Gaughran noticed that he still had a faint Irish accent. ‘We’re looking for a Michael Fisher?’
Fisher looked guarded. ‘Yeah?’
Gaughran and Hassan showed him their warrant cards. ‘We’re from Peckham CID. I wonder if we could ask you a few questions about an ongoing investigation, Mr Fisher?’
Fisher shrugged tetchily, opened the door and gestured. ‘I suppose so ... You’d better come in.’
They followed him inside into the living room. Despite the heat of the day, Fisher was dressed in a large burgundy cardigan. He went over to a faded, patterned armchair and sat down. There was a small canister of oxygen on a trolley. He leant down, took the mask that was attached to the oxygen, placed it to his nose and mouth and took three deep breaths.
Glancing around, Gaughran saw that the room was neat and tidy. There was a bookshelf stacked high with non-fiction and a table that was full of old photos in frames, most of which were black and white.
‘I saw you’d found Alfie Wise’s body on the news. Poor bastard,’ Fisher said as he sat back and eventually got his breath back. ‘Do you know what happened to him?’
Gaughran shook his head. ‘Not yet. We’re hoping you might be able to help us with that.’
Fisher looked puzzled. ‘It wasn’t me, if that’s what you’re thinking.’
Hassan ignored his comment and took out his notepad. ‘I know it might be difficult to remember that far back, Mr Fisher ...’
‘Michael,’ he said.
Hassan nodded. ‘Michael. We’d like to talk to you about Declan and anything you can remember about Alfie and Charlie Wise, especially towards the end of 1956.’
Fisher coughed for a few seconds and then composed himself. ‘What d’you want to know?’
‘Have you any idea who attacked Declan?’ Gaughran asked. As the investigation had progressed, Gaughran had become pretty sure that whoever had attacked and given him brain damage was the same person, or persons, who had also shot and killed Alfie Wise. He was certain the two were linked.
Fisher glared at them. ‘You’ve got some bollocks asking me that.’
Gaughran knew from his response what Fisher was going to say, but he needed him to say it. ‘Why’s that, Michael?’
‘It was one of your lot, wasn’t it?’
Gaughran peered over at him and said gently, ‘Could you elaborate on that?’
Fisher shook his head and huffed. ‘Declan and Charlie were in business together. They ran everything out of the 211 Club in Balham. Then a couple of bent coppers decided they wanted a regular backhander to leave them alone.’
It was what Gaughran had feared Fisher was going to tell them.
Hassan frowned. ‘Which means there was some kind of criminal activity going on?’
Fisher pulled a face. ‘Nothing heavy. After hours gambling, scrubbers.’
‘Drugs?’ Hassan asked.
‘Grass, speed,’ Fisher said.
‘What happened?’ Gaughran asked.
Fisher coughed again and cleared his throat. ‘Charlie and Declan paid these coppers off for a while. Then they got greedy and asked for more, so Charlie and Declan told them to fuck off. There was some kind of a fight one night. A few days later, Declan was attacked round the back of the club. They put him in a coma and he never came out of it.’
Gaughran could see that Fisher was getting upset. ‘You think it was these police officers that attacked your brother?’
‘Of course it was,’ he snapped. ‘They wanted to show Charlie that they weren’t fucking about. It wasn’t too long after that Alfie Wise went missing. We all knew what had happened.’
‘Did you ever see or meet these police officers?’ Gaughran asked.
Fisher shrugged. ‘Couple of times.’
Hassan looked up from his notepad. ‘Do you remember their names?’
He shook his head. ‘Not really. I think one of them was called Clive, but I couldn’t swear to it.’
‘Could you describe them?’ Gaughran asked.
Fisher thought for a few seconds. ‘One of them was tall, lanky and young. The other one was big. Not fat, just really big.’
Hassan scribbled in his notebook. ‘Anything else that might help us?’
As he sat forward in his chair, Fisher wiped his mouth with a handkerchief. ‘Tell you what. I’ve got a photograph.’ He looked at Hassan and pointed to a framed, black-and-white photograph at one end of the table. ‘Pass me that, would you?’
Hassan stood, retrieved the photograph, and then handed it to Fisher. He turned it around. It showed two young men in smart suits and pencil ties, arm in arm, smiling at the camera. From what Gaughran could see, it had been taken inside a nightclub – the 211 Club he presumed.
‘It’s the only photo I’ve got of me and Declan together,’ Fisher said. He then pointed to a table in the background of the image where two men were having a drink. ‘You can’t really see very well, but these two blokes here are the coppers I’m talking about. They must have been drinking in there that night. You can’t see the big bloke very well, but you can see the lanky one.’
Fisher leaned forward and handed the photo to Gaughran. He turned the frame around to inspect the photograph with the image of the two detectives.
The lanky copper’s face was clearly visible. His heart dropped.
It was his father, Arthur Gaughran.
CHAPTER 28
Ruth and Lucy marched down the deserted hospital corridor of St George’s towards the mortuary, as they had done many times before. Their shoes echoed loudly and the air smelled of cooked hospital food and disinfectant. Ruth could feel her stomach tense a little. She still couldn’t quite get used to strolling into the mortuary and looking at a dead body.
Trying to distract herself, she glanced over at Lucy. ‘Dan came round last night.’
Lucy frowned. ‘I thought you told him to only contact you through a solicitor?’
‘There’s been a change of plan ...’ Ruth shrugged.
Lucy rolled her eyes and groaned sarcastically. ‘Dan and a change of plan. Now there’s a shock.’
‘I know,’ Ruth sighed. ‘Angela’s dad is at death’s door, so she’s flown back to Australia. He wants to follow her out there in a few days. So, he wants to say goodbye to Ella this week.’
Lucy shook her head. ‘What did you tell him?’
‘I told him to piss off and that he couldn’t see her.’
‘Good for you!’
‘I’m not sure that’s the right thing to do though,’ Ruth said pensively.
Lucy raised an eyebrow. ‘Why not? He’s a useless dad and it will just confuse and upset Ella!’
‘I know that. But I’m allowing my feelings towards Dan to interfere with her saying goodbye to him.’
‘You’re just protecting her.’
‘Maybe saying goodbye would make it clear that he’s going, rather than me trying to explain it to her. I just don’t know.’
‘Well for what it’s worth, I think that the sooner he’s in Australia, the better,’ Lucy growled.
Ruth reached the double doors to the mortuary and opened them. ‘I’m not going to argue with you there.’
The icy stillness inside the examination room made Ruth feel a little anxious. The buzz of fans and the air conditioning added to the unnatural atmosphere. Smells of sterile clinical disinfectants and other cleaning f
luids masked the odour of the gases and the beginnings of rot and decay.
The hospital’s Chief Pathologist, Professor Sofia Deneuve, looked over and smiled a hello. She was tall and thin, with a professional manner that could sometimes be intimidating.
Lucy and Ruth arrived at the metal autopsy table where Trevor Walsh’s body was laid out. Ruth shivered as she glanced up at the intense lights that shone down from the ceiling. Mortuaries were just too quiet, too sterile and too lifeless for her liking. Walsh’s bluish corpse was spread out clinically in front of her.
She looked up and down his skinny body. The essence of life, of personality, was gone.
‘Good morning, detectives,’ Professor Deneuve said quietly without looking up as she continued to examine Walsh’s body that had been cut open from the throat down to the stomach.
‘Morning,’ Lucy said.
‘Morning ... Do we have a more accurate time of death?’ Ruth asked, cutting to the chase. She didn’t want to spend any more time staring at the insides of a person than she had to.
‘Given the lividity, I would narrow it down to between midnight and two am,’ she said.
‘Are we definitely looking at murder?’ Lucy asked.
‘Yes. Cause of death was asphyxiation. I can see evidence of compression of the neck structures that would have led to asphyxia and neuronal death.’
Ruth nodded as if she knew exactly what that meant. ‘Anything that might give us a clue who our killer might be?’
The pathologist looked at them. ‘You’re looking for someone who is incredibly strong. The injuries that your victim suffered were caused manually, but they were what I would expect to see from a suicide by hanging. There is a spinal fracture, spinal trauma, and spinal shock that has caused priapism. The carotid intimal is completely ruptured.’
Ruth and Lucy looked at each other – what does that mean?
Professor Deneuve gave them a withering look. ‘In layman’s terms, whoever strangled your victim did it with such force that he nearly took his head off.’
The Razor Gang Murder Page 15