“That reporter guy, Derek, was here looking for you.” She said as she placed his usual pint of bitter on the bar. Looking over his shoulder at the heaving mass, she continued, “He may still be here. Let me know if you want him out.”
“Thanks Daisy. I’ll take care of it.”
Daisy smiled and moved on to the next customer. Sean leant on the bar sipping his drink mulling over the woman on the phone.
“You need to talk to me if you want to crack this case.”
It was said in a hushed tone next to his ear. Sean turned around to see the reporter. It did not look like he had changed since that day. Same grubby jacket and jeans. And that crumpled hat that made him look like a poor version of Indiana Jones.
“I am sure I don’t need your help.”
Sean got up and walked towards an empty table to sit down. Derek followed him.
“You are looking at the wrong people and wrong places.”
“And how is it that you are such an expert on this case?”
“Let us just say that Dev and I go a long way.” His African accent was even stronger today.
“Let me finish this drink and we will have a chat outside.”
Derek pulled a chair up and sat down without saying a word and waited for Sean to finish his drink and get up. The two of them walked outside to the car park before Sean spoke.
“You have two minutes to tell me what you know. I got to be somewhere else.”
“I grew up with Dev in Mombasa. His family were forced to emigrate after a scandal.”
“What kind of scandal?”
Derek appears to be thinking for a minute before replying. “Let us say that one of the Jesuit teachers in the local school took an extraordinary interest in little Dev.”
“What is it got to with his killing?”
“Have you spoken to his wife?”
“She is grieving as you probably know. Yes, I have spoken to her. Obviously she is heart broken.”
Derek laughed. A hollow cynical kind of laugh.
“She is good, I give you that.”
“What are you trying to say? Has she got something to do with her husband’s killing?”
“I am not saying she has or she has not. But our paths have been crossed before and she is not what you see at first sight.”
Sean snorted and replied, “Just because she got the better of you in something does not mean she killed her husband. Now if you will excuse me, I have to be somewhere else in a hurry.”
“The two of them knew each other for ten years before they got married and get this. She knew he was bisexual when she married him. I heard what she said at the press conference.”
“So she lied about him being Gay. I need more than that.”
They had reached his car by then and Sean opened the door and sat inside. Derek knocked on the window. As Sean wound down the window, Derek said.
“Think about it. I would not put it past her to bump him off when she found out that Dev had not changed after the marriage. Have you ever thought about who got the priest beaten up for being Gay all those years ago?”
Sean closed the window and started his car without a reply. He could see the reporter standing in the car park, a lonely figure in a pool of light in the dark car park. He felt sorry for him. He had not considered Sheena as one of the suspects so far. ‘Maybe there is something to this reporter, worth checking out.’ She had very cleverly evaded questions about the priest being gay or bisexual at the news conference. She had shut the reporters by stating that she did not know that he was Gay. He reached the Indigo restaurant just before nine. He had been there once before. It was in the outskirts of Leicester, an old derelict pub converted into an Indian restaurant with a Chinese twist. It still had not caught on with locals as it was a bit out of the way and the restaurants on Belgrave road were too well established with regulars. The car park was lit up at the front with a line of cars near the entrance. He drove to the back of the car park, which was in darkness. He sat there not sure what to do next. The voice on the phone had not said whether to meet inside the restaurant or not.
He was about to open the door when one of the cars in the front came to life. The lights did not come on as the car drove to the back of the car park to near where he was parked. He sat in the car waiting to see what happened next. The car stopped at the back of the car park in the far corner, away from him. There was quiet again. He was getting a bit restless when his mobile rang.
“Is that officer O’Connor?”
“Yes it is. I am parked in the car park at the back.”
“OK. Stay in the car.”
The line went dead. He could see someone get out of the car in the far corner and walk towards him. She was tall and slim, wearing a tight jeans and heels. She had her head covered in a scarf, which went over her face half way up just exposing her eyes. Even in the darkness she struck a note and made his heart race. He liked the sway of her hips as she walked across and was glued to her figure when she knocked on the window and signalled him to open the back door. She slid into the back seat behind him.
“Don’t turn around please.”
He could smell her perfume, quite strong and yet subtle.
“Can I ask who you are?”
“It is not important who I am. I have something to show you. It will help you in your investigation. But I don’t want you to show it to anyone else or make it public.”
“That depends on what it is. I can’t promise you not to use it as evidence if I think it is necessary.”
She became very quiet at this. Sean tried to turn around to see what was happening, when she hissed,
“Don’t! Whatever happens, you are not to turn around.”
Sean could feel the hair on his back stand up. There was something in her hushed voice, which made him shiver. He reluctantly turned back to face the darkness out of the windscreen.
“If what you show me has any incriminating evidence, I will have to use it. It is the law.”
“I have a notebook where Dev has been keeping a dairy of everything he did since childhood. It is his little red notebook. There is a lot of personal information there and I don’t want innocent people dragged into this.”
“How did you come across it?”
“I am not going to tell you. I will let you read it and you have to promise to give it back to me. I can only let you have it for twenty four hours.”
“Yes. I can give it back to you tomorrow, I am sure.”
“What guarantee do I have that you will return it to me tomorrow?”
Sean smiled to himself. Two can play at this game, he thought.
“You just have to take my word for it. I can’t say any more than that. I can get it back to you here at same time tomorrow.”
There was a silence from the back seat. There was a noise of zip opening and some tearing from the back.
“Don’t turn around. Just pick up the book from the seat after I have left. I will be here tomorrow at the same time.”
Sean could hear the door handle turn and the door creaked open.
“Don’t be late.” And the door slammed shut.
He watched her hips sway as she walked across the car park. She knew he would be watching as she got into the car and drove off without switching the lights on. He could barely make out a head covered in scarf and not much else. He could not wait to see what she had left on the seat. He leaned over to pick up the package. He grabbed the package and managed to pull it over from the back of the seat where it had slid. He switched on the overhead light to take a closer look. It was a red notebook that was badly crumpled at the edges. The cover had been carefully sealed in thick clear plastic which had become a dirty yellow colour with usage. He turned over to see that pages had been stuck in with glue at the back making it twice the size it had started off with.
Whoever’s it was, they had looked after the book very carefully over the years. It was obviously very old. He gently opened the notebook to see the first page. There
was an old black and white photograph to boys standing on a beach somewhere. One was an African boy with a thick afro flock of hair. It was hard to read in the dull light of the car. It appeared to be a child’s scrawl talking about a new country and new people. He turned the pages to the middle at a random page and what he read shook him. He quickly closed the book and looked around to see if anyone had seen him. There was no one around nearby. He was still parked in the darkest part of the car park. He could not wait to get the book home to read. He stopped at the local Indian take away to pick some curry and rushed home.
He spent the next four hours reading the notebook. He did not notice that the curry had gone cold while he was reading the notebook. It was a fascinating story of someone’s life from childhood to almost the day he died. By the time he finished the book, he felt repulsed at the man and at the same time a subtle admiration for what he had achieved.
A little lost boy displaced from his childhood home because of a sexual scandal in a foreign country, not of his own making, reaching the top of his chosen career was amazing. He had grown from a sullen and confused little boy to a charming and charismatic leader. It was a story filled with intrigue, sex, drugs and shenanigans that would put Borgias to shame. He did not appear to hide anything in the book in most places. The people involved were mentioned by their first names or nicknames – such as Sanju, the Gaffer, the rent boy and Nathu. It would take years of searching to actually identify anyone. One thing that was not consistent was the dates. Not every entry was dated. His adult life had started off being a Good Samaritan helping the needy, the helpless and gay in the Asian community and progressed to blackmail for sex. He loved his new car and his watch, but most of all he appeared to love sex. He appeared to have a voracious appetite for sex. Sex with young boys, both Asian and white. He had been a runner for someone called ‘the gaffer’ supplying drugs for a brief period. He was not addicted to drugs, but would enjoy a bottle of popper whenever he visited the gay clubs. He had started off with the now defunct Spots club and frequented places like the Quebec, the Abbey Park and the Central Motors to pick up boys.
When he finished reading the book, Sean felt drained. Until a few hours ago, he could not understand why anyone would want to kill a well-known and charismatic Hindu priest. After reading the book, he was surprised that he lasted that long. There were many people who would want him dead. He appeared to have control over all of his victims. Except one. His Achilles heel was his wife, Sheena Achar. He had kept his sexual orientation a secret from her, or he thought he had. What started off as an infatuation had turned into a fanatical love. He had poured out his love for Sheena in some detail. It was almost as if he was trying to justify his bisexuality. He had made sure that his fight for the Gay community was out in the open and as public as possible. So much so that anyone would think he could be nothing but straight. Bit of a contradiction in terms, Sean thought. He dreaded her leaving him. There appeared to be some friction towards the end and he was beginning to suspect that she might have found out.
He picked up the little square, black and white photograph that had fallen on the bed, to take a closer look. It was obviously taken in a hot country somewhere on a beach. He could just see shadows of some palm trees in the background. The picture was already fading and slightly discoloured due to time. One of the boys was definitely an African grinning widely as did the other boy. What struck him was that the boys were not facing the camera, but embracing each other face to face. They could not have been older than five or six years at the time the picture was taken. He could not figure out who the second boy was. One of them, could even be the African boy, must be a Peter, the writer of the notebook kept talking about.
He picked up the notebook again to examine it. Something else stuck him. Some pages at the back appear to have been carefully removed – not just torn. There was discontinuity in the text between some of the pages. He scratched his head. For someone who had spent so much time and attention in the care of the book over decades, he appears to have been clumsy in his entry to remove some of the pages. Unless of course if someone else had removed it. His mind started to race and did not matter how much he thought, he could not find an answer. He took out the huge lens he had in his desk, which he had never had a chance to use since becoming a detective, to examine the book a bit more closely. He had imagined himself to be a sort of modern day Sherlock Holmes when he had seen the lens in a car boot sale all those years ago. The back cover of the book appeared to be thicker than the front cover. He took it to the table lamp for a closer examination. There appeared to be few sheets of paper stuck between the back cover and the last page. He tried to prise open the back cover with his fingers. The plastic cover was stapled to the last page sealing the sheets inside. He picked up his penknife and prised open the staples holding the back cover. Numerous pages of very fine paper, each neatly folded into four fell out. He gently unfolded one of them trying not to tear the paper.
It was a hand written letter, in very neat handwriting from someone called Peter Ngyo. He was Dev’s friend from Mombasa. Luckily all the letters were dated. The first one appeared to go back to 1964. The first few were like reading letters from teenagers in puppy love. There was fondness to be expected of two long lost friends and maybe a bit more. Peter was obviously deeply in love with Dev. The letter spoke about a Brother Francis and Kilindini Harbour and the beach and cricket. The Jesus fort appeared to have a been a special place for the two of them as well as their trips to the Brother Francis’s room at the back of the school. There was a lot of recriminations against the grownups generally in first few letters. There was an invitation to ordaining ceremony of Peter in 1982. It did not look like Dev had made it to the ceremony. The frequency of letters reduced after that until it completely dried up around 1994.
His head was spinning as he looked at the clock. It was nearly four in the morning. He had been up most of the night reading the damn “little red book!” He needed a drink. He staggered up to the sideboard and poured himself a shot of whisky. He started to feel a bit more settled after the second glass. Tiredness and alcohol finally took their toll and he was fast asleep still in his street clothes, clutching an empty whisky bottle.
He was woken up by the sun burning down on his face. The late October sun was burning his cheeks as he had forgotten to pull the curtains the night before. He looked at the bedside clock.
“Bloody hell, it can’t be ten already!” he exclaimed and jumped off the bed, only to fall flat on his face as he tripped over the whisky bottle lying on the floor. ‘Shit, the chief is going have my guts for garters.’ He muttered to himself as he pulled off his clothes on the way to the bathroom. The mobile phone rang as he was shaving and brushing his teeth at the same time. He ignored the phone and let it ring till it was picked up by the answering service. It was the girl in the car park.
“Call me back Mr O’Connor. I wanted to remind you to return the little red book tonight.” A brief and terse message. He better call her. He was now quite convinced that it must be the wife, Sheena. Once he was dressed, he called her number. She picked up the phone after the first ring.
“Hello.” Still a brusque tone. She had recognised his number.
“Hello, Mrs Sharma, this is Sean O’Connor.”
There was quiet on the other end. After what appeared to be ages, she said,
“I would be very careful Mr O’Connor. You have no idea what or who you are dealing with. I will forget what you said just now and expect to see you prompt at eight tonight.” And the line went dead. He was now convinced that it must be Dev’s wife who had given him the notebook.
Sean faced a dilemma. He was not sure if he wanted to show the ‘little red book’ to the chief or anyone else. There was nothing in the book to use as evidence. He had made some notes during the night and noted the dates and names as they appeared for some of them. He was not sure if he could ever find out who the people were in that book apart from the priest’s family. There was one person
he could recognise outside of the family. Dev’s business partner, in care home business – Stuart. He could not remember his surname offhand, but should not be difficult to get it. He struggled with his decision throughout the day. The missing pages was something he could not get out of his mind or understand. Something at the back of his mind kept telling him that it is not good idea to share the contents of the book with anyone. Not just yet anyway.
Returning the book was a quick affair and it was over before he knew what was happening. Her car was waiting at the back of the car park as he drove in. She was out of her car before he had a chance to switch the engine off and knocking on his window. He wound the window down and said,
“Hello, here I am as promised.”
“The notebook please.”
Sean took the notebook out of the glove compartment and held it out. She snatched the book from his hands and turned around walk across the car park.
“Excuse me Mrs Sharma.” Sean was out of the car and stood outside the car. “Mrs Sharma.” He called out again as she did not stop.
She stopped and half turned towards him and said, “Yes?”
“Some of the pages were missing from the red book.” He said trying to sound quiet. But it still sounded loud in the car park.
She turned around to face him still a few steps ahead of him.
“I had not noticed that Mr O’Connor.”
“I did. I just wondered if you knew anything about the missing pages.”
“I would not know Mr O’Connor.” She did not sound as confident as she did before, he thought. Or was he just imagining things? “Now, if you will excuse me, I have to be somewhere else now.”
Before Sean had a chance to respond, she was back in the car. Her car was out of the car park before he could realise what was happening.
The Garrulous Burglar
It was three weeks since the body was discovered and the police were no further forward with the investigation. Stoker was getting increasingly stressed and he was taking it out on everyone else. Sean got the brunt of his wrath almost every morning when he walked in, late as usual with a tongue lashing. He was reluctant to pull back any of the hundred odd officers looking for clues for the murderer. They had drawn a blank on the drugs end. The entire drug mafia appeared to have gone underground and none of the contacts had come with any information. Mick Mills was convinced that it was a drugs hit.
The Retribution Page 20