The DI Hannah Robbins Series: Books 1 - 3 (Boxset) (Detective Hannah Robbins Crime Series)

by Rebecca Bradley

  ‘What can I do for you, Nathan?’ I was blunt and to the point. I didn’t appreciate the cloak and dagger. The attempt to scare me? But why? If it was.

  ‘Get in, won’t you? We can talk.’

  I crossed my arms. Narrowed my eyes at him. ‘I don’t think so. If you want to talk to me, come out here and talk to me. I don’t approve of this approach. You have my work contact details. You could have contacted me and I’d have come out to see you or made time to see you at the office.’

  He pushed his door open, making me move out of the way. I was on the road anyway. I stepped around the front of the vehicle and onto the pavement where he followed me.

  ‘You expect me to believe you would have made more time for me today if I’d have asked? You lot spend all your time attempting to frame us for some shit or other, so why am I to believe you will make any effort to catch my brother’s killer now?’

  I could see him better out of the car and he looked pinched, drawn, grey, even in the low-level glow of the street light.

  ‘Granting, if that is what you believe,’ I stared right at him, ‘which is far from the way we work. What makes you think that following me and stopping me in the street this way will change how I work the case?’

  Nathan scrubbed his hands over his face. ‘I just want to talk to you and for you to take this seriously. What is so wrong in that? Tell me?’

  I took a deep breath. ‘Nothing is wrong with that, Nathan. It’s the way you have gone about it that is wrong.’

  He took a step towards me. I held my ground. ‘I want you to promise me that you will do everything for my brother that you would do for anyone else. He deserves nothing but the best treatment.’ He took another step closer. ‘And that includes from you.’

  This time I stepped towards him. We were now nearly toe to toe. ‘I’ve assured you this investigation is run the same as any other. That will not change. We would, however, appreciate your help, of course.’

  Nathan took a step back, looked around him. The flow of traffic was minimal now. ‘What do you mean from me?’

  ‘I don’t currently give a crap about your business. But there may be information that is relevant to our case that you will need to relay to us.’ I strengthened my voice, ‘Which can be always be provided via your family liaison officer, Amelia.’ I made my point.

  He gritted his teeth but there was a slight incline of his head as he acquiesced. ‘I want to know where you are in the investigation. You’re keeping us in the dark. Because of who we are?’

  I shook my head. This really needn’t have happened like this. ‘No, Nathan, not because of who you are, but because of the fact that we have nothing of substance to tell you yet.’

  ‘I want to know what you’re doing. To catch his killer. Simon’s killer.’

  ‘And that’s also what Amelia is for. She’s your link between you and the investigation. There’s a constant flow of information between us. If we know anything we will let her know and she’ll tell you.’

  ‘Not you? What, you don’t have the time for us?’

  ‘If it’s an important development, then yes, I will come, but the day-to-day stuff will be Amelia. You need to let us do our jobs, Nathan.’

  I could see his eyes fill up, even in this half-light. The sheen glinted and he turned away from me.

  ‘I’ll let you get on your way.’ He moved towards the driver’s door.

  ‘So, you’ll cooperate with the investigation?’

  Nathan climbed into the driver’s seat and pulled the door to with a solid thud. ‘I loved my brother, DI Robbins. I will do what he will have wanted me to do.’

  Hannah

  I liked being in my office in the morning before everyone else came in. Not many people liked my space. They claimed it was untidy. Messy was the ruder word used. I preferred to think of it as a filing system I could navigate.

  There was a peacefulness about the building that allowed me to step into the day gradually rather than dashing into it full pelt. With a hot drink made I checked most of the emails that had come in yesterday and overnight and listened as the station started to wake up and doors opened and closed and voices drifted down the corridor as people acknowledged each other.

  There was nothing urgent that I needed to respond to. CSU had found three sets of prints around the window frame of the passenger side door of Talbot’s car. Two belonged to males who were known to be a part of their crew, plus Nathan Talbot. So far, they had reasonable grounds for their fingerprints to be there. They all knew the victim well and had likely spent time with him in or at his vehicle. We needed more to go on with those fingerprints, but they were at least two names to add to HOLMES. Gary O’Brien and Mac Robson.

  O’Brien and Robson were low-level gang members. They were known for selling cocaine for the Talbots and weren’t choosy about who they sold it to. Gary had served time after he was caught outside school gates selling to thirteen-year-old children. Because he’d kept his mouth shut he had walked out and back into his old job. One thing that could be said about the Talbots was that they were loyal and they rewarded loyalty in their crew. It’s how they kept themselves at the top of the tree in their world. If you were on the right side of the Talbots you didn’t have to fear them and even crooks wanted to stay safe. Job security, if you would. They ruled by fear and intimidation but they respected you if you stood by them.

  Had Nathan attempted to intimidate me last night or was he genuinely upset and grief-stricken for his brother and incapable of going about things the right way? I didn’t know. He looked grief-stricken. I would give him the benefit of the doubt.

  Ross was sat at his desk and looked to be working on his computer but there was a lot of noise from his direction when I walked into the incident room. It seemed that I had walked into the tail end of an anecdote about his antics the previous evening that involved a fair bit of alcohol and a young woman. Martin and Pasha were in stitches, and Lee, who I had managed to get seconded for a short period of time at least, was trying his best to look relaxed but he was sat on the edge of a chair.

  Aaron was at his desk with a pair of earplugs in, engrossed in his work. I tapped him on the shoulder and smiled. He pulled them out.

  ‘Morning. Too noisy for you?’

  ‘They’re in high spirits today. I think the fact that they have a good job to get their teeth into has bucked them up. I can’t cope with the noise level.’ I knew he struggled with this. ‘Particularly this early,’ he clarified.

  ‘Morning all.’ Baxter boomed from behind us. Aaron flinched. I stood from where I’d perched myself on his desk.

  ‘Morning, Kevin.’

  ‘I hope everyone slept well as I’m sure we have a busy day planned today, don’t we, Hannah?’

  ‘We do.’

  The room was silent now. They still didn’t know how to take our new DCI and so behaved in the typical respectful fashion.

  ‘What do we have then?’ He rubbed his hands together.

  I moved to the front of the room and updated them on the fingerprints and the email from Jack with the time of the PM.

  ‘I’m attending the post-mortem with Ross today. You all have your allocated inquiries to get on with. House-to-house inquiries need to be completed. CCTV in the area needs to be located, it needs to be collected, brought back here and viewed. Witness statements. Though I know we are short on those for this. Hopefully the old case file will turn up today so we can go through that. I’ll also chase up Byrne about Miller’s details. We need to move on that today.’ Notes were scribbled down. ‘I’ve allocated a FLO to Talbot’s mum, Karen. I sent Amelia Riley as I think she’s one of the less threatening appearing officers we have and shouldn’t get the backs up of Karen or Nathan or whoever else will turn up at the house.’

  A phone started to ring and Lee’s face coloured. ‘I’m sorry, Ma’am.’ He took his phone out of his pocket and looked at the screen, his face went a darker shade of red. ‘Ma’am, it’s my nan, I, erm, I live with h
er, she has Alzheimer’s, we have a carer come into the house to take care of her now and it’s her on the phone, would you—’

  I remembered him telling me of his nan’s position, her health, the day he had asked to join the team on temporary secondment, but nerves of the day must have wiped that conversation from his mind. ‘It’s okay, go and take it. Out there.’ I indicated with my head that he should step out for some privacy. That lad had some issues on his plate. I hoped I had done right by him. After all, I hadn’t always managed to do right by my own staff, as the loss of Sally could attest to.

  ‘So,’ Baxter clapped his hands together, a demonstrative, energetic man, ‘let’s hope that bullet from the PM delivers some results.’

  I managed to get hold of Superintendent Hilary Byrne who provided me the contact details for Paul Miller. He wasn’t happy that Talbot had his name on him when he died, but was grateful it was on his death and not on a stop search when he was still alive when we would worry a lot more about Miller. He wanted to know how it had happened. How Talbot had managed to get details of the witness in the case against him. He was livid but he was also helpful and wanted us to check it out as soon as possible. I had said I would update him as soon as I knew anything.

  I turned to Aaron. ‘Okay, what else is happening?’

  ‘Pasha and Martin are going through the house-to-house notes, checking through them, and then they’ll go out later to mop up the ones we haven’t got.’

  ‘Pasha?’

  She jumped out her chair, sending it scudding halfway across the room with the speed she had leapt up. ‘Ma’am?’ Ross looked up and grinned at her anxiety. He could do that now he was in a better place and not a mess and about to get kicked out of the unit.

  ‘How’s it going with the house-to-house?’

  Her face dropped. ‘Not too well. No one wants to speak to the police. They’re scared of the Talbot family and of the repercussions that will be exacted on them. You know what they’re capable of; the community knows what they’re capable of. Remember that bloke who grassed up his drug dealer, who turned out to be one of the Talbots’ lower level men, the Talbots held him down, gripped hold of his tongue with a pair of pliers and pulled it out of the bloke’s mouth.’ She grimaced. ‘Then drove a nail through it, pinned him to a piece of wood in a derelict garage. He’d have died had his son not gone out and looked for him. He wouldn’t talk to us again though and we didn’t get them for it.’ She shuddered. ‘I mean, how grim is that?’

  ‘It’s hard for the community,’ admitted Lee who had just come back into the room.

  ‘I know we’re up against it. So, don’t we have anything?’

  Pasha shuffled her feet. ‘Not exactly nothing. The next-door neighbour. She didn’t want to speak to the uniform guys but did say she’d speak to a detective. Said she was worried about it getting back to the Talbots if she spoke to us, even though she was trying to help. I’ve asked her to come in to the station so we’re not seen at her address.’

  ‘And did she hint at what she wanted to talk to us about?’

  ‘Oh, yes, she was the person who called the murder in.’

  We hadn’t been able to speak to the caller because they had dialled in on a withheld number and not provided their name at the time of the call. ‘You didn’t think to lead with that, Pasha?’ My irritation with her rose again. I could feel it bubble within. Why couldn’t I control this irrational feeling I had with her? I needed to view her as Pasha and not as a replacement because no one could replace Sally and Pasha wasn’t trying to do that. It was all in my emotional head.

  ‘Sorry, Ma’am.’

  I took a breath and remembered my conversation with Evie. ‘What do we know?’

  ‘That she got up that morning. She didn’t hear anything out of the ordinary, but she doesn’t pay attention to the noise in the area, she thinks she is noise “blind” she made the quote marks in the air. Twice in two days these had been used. Why was everyone so cynical about the choice of people’s words?

  Pasha continued, ‘Because it’s a noisy area anyway so even if there was a loud noise that morning or through the night, she wouldn’t have necessarily heard it. She has a dog, so she drank her coffee and took him out. She walked past Talbot’s car and was anxious because she could see him in it, so avoided looking in it and at him in case he looked at her the wrong way, when the dog started to whine and bark at the car, she couldn’t help but look. That’s when she saw the blood across the windscreen. She pulled the dog back home and phoned it in.’

  ‘I want to be there for her interview, Pasha, what time have you arranged for her to come in?’

  ‘Oh, erm, I erm, this morning. She’s at work this afternoon.’

  ‘I’ll see her with you.’ I relaxed my tone.

  ‘And what are we going to do about Miller?’ asked Aaron.

  I stood up; my arse was going numb perched on the edge of his immaculately tidy desk. ‘We’ll go and see him this afternoon. Make sure he’s safe and find out where he was during the time frame of Talbot’s murder while we’re there.

  The witness interview room was on the ground floor of St Ann’s police station, which was in the midst of its refurbishment due to the firebomb that had been thrown during the height of the Knight digoxin poisonings a few months earlier when the rioting occurred and the anger was directed at police.

  Now I was sitting with Pasha in the witness room with Simon Talbot’s next-door neighbour, Tremelle Brown. Brown was a slim woman with an excess of energy running through her. She couldn’t keep still. Her knees were bouncing and her hands constantly moved as she spoke.

  At the side of her, looking tiny on the plastic chair was a young boy. His eyes so wide they were huge dark puddles that filled a nervous face. A small afro accentuated chubby cheeks.

  I leaned towards him, lowered my voice and asked, ‘What’s your name?’ The boy looked up at me. His eyes widened. I hadn’t believed this was possible. ‘I’m Hannah.’ I turned to Pasha at the side of me. ‘And this is my friend Pasha.’

  Pasha gave a small quick wave from the wrist and said hello.

  ‘He’s not good with strangers,’ said Tremelle.

  I kept my eyes on the boy. ‘Oh, that’s a shame; he’s come all this way to help us. I wonder what we can do to make this better for him.’ I bunched up my eyes and scratched at my chin in an attempt to look as though I was thinking about it. The boy tilted his head a little.

  ‘Ah!’ I startled him and he jumped. I couldn’t help but laugh. I didn’t have kids, but this little guy was so adorable, I just wanted to put him at his ease in the police station. Let him know that we weren’t to be feared. ‘I know, we have some police cars outside. How about, when we’ve finished talking to your mum, I show you one of the cars and put the lights on for you?’

  His eyes lit up and he looked at his mum for permission. ‘If the lady says it’s okay.’ She rubbed the top of his head.

  He nodded.

  ‘It’s a deal.’ I held out my hand. ‘I’m Hannah,’ I said again.

  He held his hand out. ‘My name’s Shobi.’ His voice was barely more than a whisper. I had to lean even closer to him to hear.

  I couldn’t help but smile. ‘Nice to meet you, Shobi.’

  Tremelle grabbed his hand in hers and held on to it. She wasn’t happy about being in the police station.

  ‘So, I’m no grass like, but I’ll not have no dead white gang bangers outside my home for my son to see. It’s bad enough that they conduct their business there at all times of the day and night without this as well.’ Her hand waved outwards as if the room were the business. ‘They’re a bad family. I didn’t want to get involved really, that’s why I didn’t leave my name when I called.’

  She looked at her son. ‘But, you have to do the right thing sometimes don’t you?’

  Pasha thanked her for attending and for her time.

  ‘Well, it had to be this morning; I’m to be at work at 12 o’clock. Come back stinking o
f fish and chips but it’s work. Food in my Shobi’s tummy,’ Tremelle replied.

  ‘We do appreciate it,’ I told her as I sneaked a look at the small child at the side of her, ‘and the risk I know you feel you put yourself at by having this conversation, so we don’t want to keep you any longer than necessary. What can you tell us about yesterday morning?’ I took a drink of my tea, I wanted her to feel this was a relaxed meeting rather than a discussion about a dead gangster who had witness details in his pocket, outside her front door.

  ‘Can’t tell you much to be honest. In fact, I think I said it all on the phone.’ Her knees bounced even more but she stopped for a moment and mirrored me, picked up her drink and took a mouthful before she continued.

  ‘We was gobsmacked he walked out of that murder charge. What the hell happened?’

  I shrugged. I didn’t know.

  ‘Mmmm, anyway, when he got back he was loud and twitchy, we heard his brother mouthing off through the walls about how there would be payback. Didn’t understand it. He’d walked, so what they had to pay back I didn’t understand.’ She cradled her mug in her hands now. Shobi had his clasped between his legs which stuck out rigidly across the top of the chair as he was so small. ‘Then yesterday I took Barnaby out, when I saw him. A friend had stayed over the night before so was in the house with Shobi, otherwise we’d have walked him together later on.’

  She put her mug on the table now and crossed her arms over herself. ‘I didn’t want to look at him. Scares me he does. I have to think of me son. I work, I don’t scrounge off the social like you might think I do, I get up, I take care of my house, I feed my boy, walk my dog, get Shobi ready for the day, for nursery…’

  Tremelle looked at me and a flash of panic crossed her face. ‘He only goes in the afternoon when I go to work, he’s three, but with I wanted him with me today. I’ve kept him off. I got the jitters with what had happened.’

  I turned to Shobi who was taking it all in. ‘It’s fine, we’re going to check out those police cars soon, aren’t we, Shobi?’