by Linda Regan
“There will be.” He lifted her bandaged hand and screwed up his nose at the smell of burns ointment. “Do you regret getting involved?”
“My only regret is not shooting Andrew.”
“You’re lucky no one shot you! What was all that about? The guv’s going to have some tough questions for you.”
“I know.” She raised her bandaged hand to her eyes to mop the tears. “What’s the news on Isabelle?”
Crowther lowered his eyes and scratched the back of his neck. “There isn’t any. Yet.”
She bit her lip. He was obviously upset, and desperately worried. “Can I be discharged?” she asked him.
“Yes. I’m here to take you back to the station. You’re under arrest for possession at the moment – and Terry King will deny all knowledge of that gun. You’d better get yourself a brief.”
***
The coffee machines had been drunk dry, and morale in the incident room was at rock bottom.
The DNA tests were in on the pillow and remnants of clothes Banham had taken from the Pelegino’s house. They proved beyond doubt that Andrew Fisher had killed both Raymond Adams and Sadie Morgan. He had been officially arrested after being treated for the bullet wound in his foot. No one yet knew why he had killed them, but it looked increasingly likely that had been one of Chang’s men all along.
The fire was finally under control, and two bodies had been brought out, both burnt and unrecognisable. One was confirmed as male: almost certainly Roger Atwood, the fireman who went in to help rescue the trapped women. The other was female, but too badly damaged to identify. It could be the last unaccounted-for Ukrainian girl.
Or Isabelle.
A Ukrainian interpreter had spoken to the all the girls. None of them could say who drove them from Dover; their only contact was a man called George. A picture of Eddie Chang drew a blank, but they all recognised one of Johnny Gladman. He had been kind to them, they said, and so had a woman they described as big and broad, and a little odd-looking.
One of the girls spoke a little English. She had told Alison how Millie had opened the door with a hairpin and led them to safety through the black smoke. She said Millie had gone back twice to try to find Isabelle and the missing girl.
Most significant of all was that the same girl had witnessed the scene between Millie and Andrew as she sat in the ambulance. “That bad man,” she told Alison. “He is not kind to us.”
The six-month surveillance operation on Doubles and Eddie Chang had been disbanded. They were waiting for further news, but as it stood they still had no evidence to link Chang directly with the Ukrainian girls or the Mac 10 firearms which were currently going up in smoke.
That could change. Johnny Gladman, his brother Otis, Andrew Fisher, Eddie Chang, Terry King and Millie Payne were locked in separate cells awaiting interview.
The only coffee left in the department was in Alison’s office. Banham heaped sugar into his own and Crowther’s, and handed Alison hers.
“Well, who would have put money on Andrew Fisher?” he said, flopping down in the spare chair.
Crowther perched on the edge of the desk looking thoughtful. He turned his head as Banham handed him the strong, sweet coffee. “Millie shouldn’t be locked in a cell,” he said. “She’s been to hell and back, and you heard what that girl said about her.”
“She was carrying a gun,” Alison pointed out. “And she took the law into her own hands in front of witnesses.” But she softened when she saw the look on Crowther’s face. “We’ll sort it,” she assured him.
“We’ll let her off with a warning,” Banham said.
“Better make it a stern one,” Alison advised. “She could have got herself killed.”
“She deserves a medal, not a dressing down,” Crowther said angrily.
“The press are outside waiting for her,” Alison told him. “She’ll get a lot of publicity out of this.” She tilted her head. “She might even get some acting work, then we won’t need to sack her – she’ll resign.”
Alison could hardly bear to look at Andrew Fisher. He sat the other side of the table, slouched untidily in his chair, hair falling over his eyes.
“We know you killed Sadie Morgan and Ray Adams,” Banham said. “What we don’t know is why. Do you want to enlighten us?”
Andrew shrugged and shook his head.
Alison felt a strong urge to punch him. “You thought you could get away with it, did you?” she said. “You made out you were the big hero, when in fact you were just a snake. You started a fire in a building with two fellow officers and a dozen children in it.”
She swallowed hard as an image of Isabelle jumped into her mind, fighting to get out and choking on the oily black smoke.
She leaned across the table. “I’ve got an officer still not accounted for, and I am holding you responsible for her life.”
Andrew bowed his head.
She sat back. “You are all I loathe in a human being and believe me I am going to throw the book at you.” Her eyes burned into him. “They hate our kind in prison.” His eyes flicked nervously; that clearly worried him. She rubbed it in. “You’ll be there for a very, very long time.”
Banham’s tone was softer. “Try to help yourself, Andrew. We know Chang is behind this, and you can help us put him away. Why did you agree to kill Sadie and Ray?”
Andrew sat in silence for a long moment. Alison’s eyes never left him. “Up to you,” she said. “But you’ve a chance here to help yourself.” Isabelle’s face flashed back into her mind. “Not that I’m making any promises.”
Andrew looked at her for the first time. “I owed Chang a lot of money,” he said quietly.
“Speak up please, for the disc.” She wasn’t about to make it easy for him.
“What for?” Banham pushed.
“I was in debt. I was a gambler. The loan sharks moved in on me. They would have killed me. I had no choice.”
Alison didn’t trust herself to speak. She turned a pencil over and over again to occupy her hands. She wanted to hit him so badly.
“Go on,” Banham said.
“Eddie Chang turned up on my doorstep one night, and made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.” He paused. “I’m not proud of myself.”
Alison felt Banham’s eyes on her but she dared not look at him. Isabelle’s desperate face was in her mind again, along with her own voice shouting reassurance.
Andrew continued, “He said he would pay my debt and make me rich if I came to work for him.”
Alison held on to the corner of the desk, still clutching the pencil in the other hand. She hadn’t completely dismissed the idea of poking him in the eye with it.
“What did he want you to do?” she asked tightly.
“Get a job here as a PCSO. It’s not hard to get in. He wanted me to find things out for him.”
“What things?”
“Who was grassing on him.”
“Is that why he had you kill Ray Adams?”
Andrew nodded reluctantly. “I shot him. I didn’t do the... other things.”
“You mean you didn’t cut his penis and tongue off?”
Andrew winced as Banham spelled it out. “Yes, that. It wasn’t me.”
“You killed Sadie Morgan though.”
“Yes, but not the others. I didn’t kill the other Marilyn looka-likes or the boyfriend. Ray Adams killed them.”
“Why did Chang want Sadie Morgan killed?” Banham asked.
“I don’t know.” He flicked his hair from his eyes and scratched at one of his spots.
“I think you do.” Banham wasn’t letting go.
“Something to do with Otis Gladman. That boy that got stabbed – that was Chang. One of his men, anyway. Sadie found out.”
“How?”
“She and Johnny Gladman were friends. Really good friends.”
“So Chang ordered you to kill her.”
He nodded.
Alison wasn’t making it easy. “For the disc please.”
Alison folded her arms. “There’s always a choice.”
“He wrote off my debts, and he paid me thousands. I’ve been able to get full-time carers for my parents. Mum has bad arthritis – she used to be a dancer – and Dad has had two strokes. If I didn’t do what Chang wanted I was a dead man, and they were back to square one.”
“So the CCTV of you in the club at the time of Sadie’s murder was rigged?” Banham asked. “By Chang, for our benefit – was that it?”
Andrew nodded. “Chang realised you were suspicious the morning after, when you asked him about me visiting the club. Terry King fixed the DVD timer to show me in the club at the time Sadie was killed. Terry got me a coat identical to the one I was wearing when I k-killed Sadie – ”He swallowed hard and blinked several times. “And a Tesco bag to make it look like I’d been shopping, but all that was in it was the other coat. He told me to dump that.”
“And you dumped it Saturday late morning, after the search, near the park where you killed her,” Alison prompted.
“Yes.”
“And gave us the coat Terry had given you, which didn’t have Sadie’s DNA on it.”
“We knew you’d ask for it.”
Banham blew out a long breath. “What about the other two Marilyn lookalikes?” he asked. “Why did Chang want them dead? What did they do to upset him?”
Andrew looked miserable. “Nothing. Nothing at all. He had them killed to throw you off the scent. He got Ray Adams to do it for an armful of heroin. He said you’d think you had a Marilyn Monroe serial killer, and I’d be off the hook. He wasn’t far wrong, was he?”
Alison wanted to kick someone, but wasn’t sure if it was Fisher or herself. “At the expense of two innocent lives,” she said.
“So Lily Palmer, Amy Bailey and Joshua Timpkin were just victims of a cold-blooded plan to throw us off the scent?” Banham repeated.
“Partly. Chang knew Adams was the grass by then.”
“Because you’d told him.” Banham said flatly.
“Yes. He got Adams to kill two of the lookalikes, it didn’t matter which two, then to tell you the girls and the guns were being picked up Wednesday, but they were already here. Then he said I had to shoot Adams, at the garage where they kept the crystal meth. He had arranged a meet with Adams there, to pay him for the killings, but I went instead and... and shot him.” Andrew looked pleadingly at Banham. “I shot him in the head. I didn’t cut his...” He put his hands over his face. “Oh God, what have I done?”
“Where did you get the gun?”
“Chang.”
Banham sat back. It was all starting to fit, at long last.
“OK, what about last night? It was you who you set fire to the cottage?”
“Only because Chang told me to.”
“But you knew Millie and Isabelle were in there,” Alison said through clenched teeth.
Fisher started to cry.
“Oh, spare us the theatricals!”
“I’ve been a real idiot. I’m so sorry.”
“Not half as sorry as you’ll be if Isabelle Walsh doesn’t make it.” Half to herself she added, “And to think I put you in the club to look after Millie.”
“You don’t know what Eddie Chang is like.”
“Oh, don’t I?” Banham said the black flecks in her eyes shone when she was angry. The way she felt right now, they were about to break into flames. “What about those poor girls? You knew they were in the cottage. Some of them are only twelve years old, and they hardly speak six words of English between them.”
He hung his head.
She raised her voice. “And the guns. All those Mac 10s. Didn’t you realise they’d explode?”
Banham leaned towards him. “Do you have any idea what damage those sub-machine guns could cause? Chang doesn’t care who they’re sold to. They would cause carnage on the streets.”
Andrew shook his head vigorously. “I didn’t know the guns were in the cottage. Please, Mr Banham, you’ve got to believe me. He didn’t tell me a thing about that. Or the crystal meth. ”
“But you know where he kept it.”
“Not until he told me to shoot Adams, I swear.”
Banham’s eyes held his. “Don’t fuck with me, Fisher. You knew what his business was. Guns, girls and drugs. You’re Chang’s boy. Of course you knew.”
Andrew cowered back in his chair.
Banham raised his voice. “You knew. Didn’t you?”
Fisher closed his eyes. A tear squeezed past his lashes, and he began to whimper. “Yes,” he whispered. “I know all about him. What do you want to know?”
Ten minutes later Banham and Alison were back in the incident room. There was no more news from the fire, but the building was safe enough to allow a search for the remaining victim.
Banham played the disc of Andrew’s confession for the team.
“We’ve got a confession,” he said when it ended, “but we still can’t prove Chang’s involvement with the Mac 10s or the girls, or even the drugs. It’s Fisher’s word against Chang’s. It’s just not enough.”
If Eddie Chang thought he could wind Banham or Alison up today, he was wrong. He sat opposite them and beside his middle-aged, mouthy brief, who always turned up in a brightly coloured bow-tie whatever the time of day. His name was Toeman; in the force he was known as Toerag. Banham was waiting for an excuse to throw the book at him too.
“You have been arrested for the possession of firearms and illegal substances, trafficking illegal immigrants, and the instigation of the murders of Sadie Morgan, Lily Palmer, Amy Bailey, Joshua Timpkin and Raymond Adams,” Banham said formally. “And the instigation of a fire that has so far resulted in the deaths of two people, including a fire officer.”
Eddie Chang smiled. “What Johnny Gladman does in his house is nothing to do with me,” he said. “And there are witnesses who say Andrew Fisher started that fire. I am the victim here. I have lost my club, my memorabilia, everything.”
“Why did you have Sadie Morgan killed?” Alison asked him.
“I didn’t.”
“Do you have any proof of that?” Toeman demanded.
He was ignored.
“You had Ray Adams killed by Andrew Fisher,” Banham persisted.
“No.”
“He killed Lily Palmer, Amy Bailey and Joshua Timpkin.”
“If you say so.”
“It was you that said so. You paid him to kill them.”
“Certainly not.”
“Using the illegal substances that you trade at the club as a lure.”
Chang smirked. “You’ve been watching too much television.”
“Inspector, my client has had an emotional...”
Alison cut across Toeman’s intervention. “Are you saying you didn’t know there were a dozen young Ukrainian girls locked up in your cottage?”
“I had no idea.”
“You never go in there?”
“No.”
“There’s CCTV everywhere. How could you miss them?”
“There’s no CCTV in the cottage...”
“If you know that, you must have been in there.”
“As I was about to say, Inspector, there’s no CCTV in the cottage unless Gladman has installed it. I certainly haven’t. I own the cottage, but I rent it to Johnny Gladman. It’s his home. I don’t intrude.”
“How did the firearms get in there?”
“I’ve no idea. Ask Johnny.”
“Why were you running away?”
“I was afraid.”
“Your friend had a gun.”
“Yes, he had. I had no idea he possessed a dangerous weapon. That scared me too.”
“Good at passing the buck, aren’t you?” Alison said, staring in to his eyes.
“Not enough,” Banham said, pacing up and down the corridor.
“Not nearly enough. Toerag
will get him bail and we’ll lose him.”
“We’ll have to crack Terry King, then,” Alison suggested.
“That’ll be a hard battle,” Banham said. “They’ve been lovers for twelve years.”
“We could tell him Chang is dropping it all on him, and see how he reacts.”
Banham looked dubious.
“Don’t we owe it to Isabelle?”
Banham stopped pacing. “Take Crowther with you,” he said. “Tell him to frighten the life out of him.”
Terry King’s indignant face reminded Alison of the pet goldfish she’d had as a child. The spiteful hazel eyes sneered at Alison.
“Where did you get the gun?” Alison asked him.
“Andrew Fisher gave it to me. He suggested I shoot you, but I refused, of course. I wouldn’t do that. We panicked, that’s all. Andrew had started a fire, and we realised Johnny Gladman had firearms in the cottage when the explosions started. We didn’t want to get dragged into it – we wanted to get away.”
“What about the gun that was found in your sewing bag?” Crowther asked him.
“If there was a gun in there, someone planted it.” He plonked an elbow on the table and wiggled his fingers as if he was drying his dark maroon nail varnish.
Crowther leaped up as if he was about to lose it. Alison pulled him back.
“You’ve already been charged with threatening a police officer with a loaded gun,” Alison told him. “We know you have access to firearms.”
Crowther cut in. “Make it easy for yourself, Terry. You know what they do to your kind in jail.”
Terry shifted uncomfortably.
“Tell us where the guns came from.”
“Andrew Fisher gave me the one I pointed at you,” Terry said, opening his eyes innocently. “And of course I don’t keep one in my sewing bag. Whoever says I did is lying.”
“Who do you think the judge will believe? You – or the police officer who found it?”
“Why don’t you be sensible?” Alison said.
“For your own good,” Crowther added.
Alison piled on the pressure. “We know Chang is behind all this. If you help us, we’ll put in a recommendation to the CPS. You really don’t want to go back to prison, do you, Terry?”
“Chang won’t be there to protect you this time,” Crowther added. “The likes of you wouldn’t do well in there.”