Kill With Kindness

by Ed James

  ‘Had to go to the toilet.’ She sat opposite. ‘Mum said you’re always late, but you only let her know when you won’t make it. So I waited.’

  ‘Even so, you don’t deserve that.’ Fenchurch picked up the menu. Didn’t know what to say.

  She took it off him. ‘I’ve ordered for both of us. Steak chimichanga for you.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have gone for that, but . . . not had one in ages.’ The waiter put two lemonades on the table. Fenchurch took a sip. Perfect mix of sour and sweet, with a minty tang. ‘How was your morning?’

  ‘Do you want me to list the aisles I stocked up or the customers I served?’

  ‘Just asking if it was good?’

  ‘It’s fine. The work’s shit, but the people I work with are a good laugh.’

  Fenchurch shut his eyes. ‘I’d kill for that.’

  ‘Not a good day for you, then?’

  ‘Just . . . tough. This case. I feel guilty even having lunch.’

  ‘You need to eat, Dad.’

  ‘I know, but . . .’

  ‘What is the case?’

  ‘I can’t tell you.’

  ‘Really? Because you kept trying to get me to help on that one last year.’

  ‘And I shouldn’t have done that, Chloe. I’m sorry.’

  ‘You did what you had to. I wasn’t easy to deal with.’

  ‘It’s a family trait.’ Fenchurch took another sip of lemonade. ‘I’m investigating a drugs case. Murder. Super-strong ecstasy.’

  ‘Blockchain?’

  ‘Jesus, Chloe.’ Fenchurch’s scalp prickled again, like someone was digging needles into his skin. All that time they’d missed, not having a firm enough hand on her, and now she was au fait with the latest killer drug? Shit. ‘How do—’

  ‘I read about it on Vice. Killed ten people in the last month.’

  ‘Please tell me you’ve—’

  ‘Jeez, calm down. I’d never take it. Never take any drugs.’

  ‘That’s a relief.’ Fenchurch sighed. ‘The number of drug dealers I’ve arrested over the years. You can’t trust them.’

  ‘But you trusted them enough when you were seventeen?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Aunt Rosie said you were a party boy.’

  ‘Christ. The mouth on her.’ Fenchurch tried to hide his snarl. ‘I took one pill, once. Ended up vomiting for hours. One of the worst nights of my life.’

  Chloe picked at her straw. ‘She’s a bit of an arse, isn’t she?’

  ‘Rosie’s okay. Just . . . I don’t know. She had it harder than me. Your grandfather hasn’t always been sun and light.’

  She pinged the straw. ‘That husband of hers . . . He’s an idiot, Dad. No two ways about it.’

  The waiter reappeared and set down their plates. Fenchurch had a mouthful of hot steak before he’d even asked if they wanted sauces. He shook his head as he took another bite. ‘God, I’m starving.’

  Chloe was chewing her chicken burrito. ‘This is good.’

  ‘Well ordered.’ Fenchurch followed a mouthful with some more lemonade. ‘How are you finding living back at our place?’

  Chloe took her time chewing. ‘I don’t remember much from before. Bits here and there. The bathroom used to be turquoise, right?’

  ‘Forgot about that.’ Fenchurch chuckled. ‘I spent a bank holiday weekend getting rid of that colour when you were seven. Hideous. Can still see it.’

  ‘I remember the smell of pee in there.’

  ‘That’ll be your grandfather.’ Fenchurch laughed. ‘Always misses.’

  ‘Gross.’ She held her burrito over her mouth. ‘How are you coping with having me back?’

  ‘I love it.’ He held her free hand. ‘It’s the best thing that’s ever happened to us. It’s like we never lost you.’ He caught a flash of her scar, which sent waves of revulsion up his spine. ‘Then I see that.’

  ‘I’m not going to hide it, Dad.’ She brushed a finger over it. ‘I was so insecure about it at school. Now I want to own it. It’s who I am.’

  ‘That’s a good way to be.’ Fenchurch gave her hand a squeeze, then went back to his food.

  ‘What are you up to after work?’

  ‘Meeting Mum at the hospital.’

  ‘I’m glad you’re getting on well with her.’

  ‘It’s not easy, but I like her.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing with her, it’s just . . . all the noise in my head, you know?’

  ‘Oh, I know. Believe me.’

  ‘It’s like drums beating.’

  ‘You’ve got that from me. It’s not drums, it’s an inner-ear problem. Stress makes it worse. I’m on pills to stop it.’

  ‘You get it a lot?’

  ‘All the bloody time.’ Fenchurch finished his food. ‘Work is usually my trigger. Sounds like John Bonham pounding away.’

  ‘John who?’

  ‘He was the drummer in Led Zeppelin. Do you have a trigger?’

  ‘Pete.’

  ‘Your boyfriend? Why?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Is it his age?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, he’s a lot older than you.’

  ‘It’s not that. Christ.’

  ‘So what is it?’

  ‘I don’t know, Dad. It’s just . . . Sometimes, I . . . There’s a lot happened, you know? I feel turned inside out sometimes.’

  ‘I get that.’ He gave her a smile. ‘Believe me, I really get that.’

  Fenchurch got out of his car and checked his phone messages. Some garbled shit from Dad, hard to make head or tail of. Didn’t look urgent.

  ‘Hey!’

  Fenchurch swung round, frowning.

  Katerina was standing there, biting her lip. ‘I asked for you at the desk, but they said you were out.’

  Shit, I forgot.

  Fenchurch moved towards her, trying to disarm her with a smile. ‘You okay?’

  She gave a slight shrug. Sucked on her hair like she was seven.

  And Liam’s seeing her?

  ‘I couldn’t sleep last night. Kept seeing Mrs Fisher’s dead body. Can’t believe she’s gone.’

  Fenchurch nodded. ‘Come on, let’s go up to my office. Get you a cup of tea.’

  ‘I don’t like tea.’

  ‘Coffee, then?’

  Another shrug. She wasn’t moving.

  ‘Last night, you said Mrs Fisher was helping you out?’ Fenchurch leaned back against his car. ‘I take it you were close?’

  ‘She was the best.’ Katerina smiled like she’d heard there was a coming rapture and she was on the spaceship with all the true believers. ‘I don’t know what your school was like, but I’m not that popular there. And when you’re not popular, you get picked on.’

  ‘I went to a similar school, just down the road.’

  ‘Didn’t know that.’

  ‘Why would you?’

  Yet another shrug. ‘I’ve read a lot about you. Your situation. They didn’t mention you were an East End boy.’

  ‘With a name like mine?’

  ‘Still. Mrs Fisher knew what the bullying is like. She helped me deal with it. Listened to me. Understood. Tried to stop it, but it’s just impossible, you know?’

  ‘And you’ve got nobody to talk to, right?’

  ‘Right.’ She bit her lip again. ‘I’d like to talk to you.’

  ‘Look, I understand, but . . . I’m leading a murder inquiry. I can recommend a counsellor. He’s good.’

  ‘Did that help you?’

  ‘A lot. Took a while for me to open up. That’s the hard part.’

  ‘Was that about your daughter?’

  ‘It was with her. You know, I wish I’d spoken to Paddy before. Would’ve made the whole thing easier.’

  ‘But you’re reunited with her, aren’t you?’

  ‘She’s living with us again. It’s hard but good.’

  ‘I’d love to meet her. Chloe.’

  Fenchurch swallowed. ‘
That’s not appropriate.’

  ‘Oh, okay.’ She tore at her lip again. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Look. I have to keep my private life private. I worry about who knows things about me.’

  ‘Because that’s how they kidnapped her?’

  ‘I thought it might’ve been. It wasn’t, but . . .’

  Fenchurch’s phone blasted out. Reed. ‘Sorry, I’ve got to take this.’ He walked off.

  ‘Wait.’

  Fenchurch stopped, holding his phone out. ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t know if this is any use or not. On Friday night, I saw Steve Fisher get out of a cab outside the hotel. Thought you should know.’

  Fenchurch stared hard at her. Saw the truth in her eyes.

  If Steve Fisher got in a taxi on Friday night . . . He’s been lying to us. His alibi is bullshit.

  And he had ample opportunity to murder his wife.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Let me get this straight. He told us he went back here—’ Fenchurch pointed at John Fisher’s flat on the laptop screen. ‘—but he never showed up?’

  ‘He did, but at ten fifty, sir.’ Bridge circled the time. ‘Just before his brother got back.’ She wound the CCTV on to show John Fisher walking down the road, stuffing chips in his mouth. He dropped one and stopped, staring at it like he was going to pick it up and eat it.

  Then Bridge switched to another view: outside the Prospect of Whitby pub. Steve Fisher stepped on to the street to hail a black cab. ‘That cab’s heading towards the City.’

  And towards the Bennaceur. Fenchurch mulled it over. Definite progress and enough to shunt Steve into pole position, but still nothing concrete. ‘What about near the hotel?’

  ‘Just that bloke doing . . . something.’ Bridge brought up a still of the mystery man. ‘Whatever it is.’

  ‘Could be Steve, guv.’ Reed tapped the screen, then frowned at Fenchurch. ‘Where did this hunch come from?’

  ‘Katerina Raptis.’

  ‘When did you speak to her?’

  ‘She was outside the station, hanging around like a stray cat.’ Fenchurch stared at the screen again. ‘Is it him? I was expecting the cab to drop him off.’

  ‘That’s the problem, guv.’ Reed shot Bridge a glare. ‘Someone in Tower Hamlets Council got wind of the back channel Lisa was using to get street CCTV. Said it should come through from operational command.’

  Fenchurch groaned. Another admin nightmare. ‘What do you need me to do?’

  Reed passed him a piece of paper. A name and a number with a Limehouse area code. ‘If you wouldn’t mind?’

  Fenchurch dialled the number and walked off. ‘Is that Mohammed Singh?’

  ‘Speaking.’ A rasping yawn.

  ‘This is DI Fenchurch of the Met’s Major Investigation Team.’

  ‘Oh, okay. How can I—’

  ‘One of my officers needs access to the CCTV cameras on the Minories.’

  ‘Well, she shouldn’t have been using that login.’

  ‘I can only apologise. Any chance you can issue a new one?’

  ‘Not until tomorrow.’

  ‘This is important. I’m running a murder investigation and that evidence is crucial.’

  ‘I don’t have the authority to—’

  ‘What’s stopping her using the old login until you sort your side out?’

  Singh paused. Fenchurch could make out him licking his lips. ‘She has committed a criminal offence by using someone else’s credentials to access the central London CCTV network.’

  ‘Listen, mate, we really need to access those cameras, so if you want me to have a word with your superiors?’

  ‘That’s not going to wash, sir.’

  ‘You want to speak to my victim’s husband and explain to him why we can’t let him out of custody because you won’t let us verify his alibi?’

  Singh sighed. Then an even longer pause. ‘That’s it reinstated.’ Didn’t even hear him typing. ‘But I expect DC Bridge to fill out a form tomorrow and we can do this properly.’

  ‘Thanks for your—’ Fenchurch had been cut off. Cheeky bastard. He walked back to Reed and Bridge. ‘Well, I’ve sorted him out for now. Sounds like the sort of arsehole who doesn’t forget stuff, you know? Make sure you apply for a new login first thing tomorrow, Lisa. Okay?’

  ‘I did it two months ago.’ Bridge was focused on her laptop. ‘I phone him every day and he does nothing.’

  ‘Then find out who his boss is and I’ll speak to them.’ Fenchurch sat down with another groan. ‘Are we back in business?’

  ‘Oooh.’ Bridge clicked on a link. ‘Yup.’ The screen filled with footage of a taxi pulling up just down the street from the Third Planet and the Hotel Bennaceur’s separate entrance. ‘That’s the cab Steve hailed in Wapping.’

  The cab drove off the far side of the frame. No sign of Steve.

  ‘Shit.’ She smacked her keyboard and scowled at the screen. ‘Sorry, sir.’

  ‘That’s it? We just see the cab outside the hotel?’

  ‘Afraid so.’ Bridge wound back until the cab reappeared, then flicked around a few other viewpoints. ‘None of the cameras on that street point at the hotel or the bar.’

  Fenchurch stood up tall and stretched out. ‘We need to find that taxi driver.’

  Bridge tapped at her keyboard. ‘I’ve got his home address?’

  ‘We’re not keeping you, are we?’

  ‘You are, as it happens.’ Sid Milford shot Fenchurch a glare. Dark-orange skin, but more from being outside all day than lying in a tanning bed. Dressed in salmon Pringle and casual slacks, he stood behind the wooden bar in his living room, stocked with vodka, gin and whisky optics. Classy. Milford sprayed some lemonade into a glass and took a sip. ‘Start my shift in twenty minutes.’ He waved at the front window, towards a gleaming black cab. ‘Got a transfer from Shoreditch to Gatwick. Be a nightmare this time on a Sunday.’

  ‘We’ll try not to keep you.’ Fenchurch showed a photo of Steve Fisher. ‘Recognise this man?’

  Milford took the image and stared hard at it. ‘Should I?’

  ‘You collected him outside a pub on Friday night.’

  ‘The Prospect of Whitby in Wapping.’ Milford tapped the photo off the bar top. ‘Lovely little boozer. The scampi’s to die for.’

  ‘So you recognise him?’

  ‘Never forget a face.’ Milford topped up his lemonade then washed down some ibuprofen from a large tub. ‘My wife won’t let me touch scampi, says it’s baby lobsters and they boil them alive or some shit like that. I don’t believe it but there’s no telling her. So I sneak in there every so often, try and keep schtum. And that’s when I picked up that geezer.’

  A woman appeared at the door. Tight leopard-skin dress. Late twenties. Thai or Vietnamese, probably came out of a catalogue. ‘Milfy, did you get the rice milk?’

  ‘It’s in the cupboard, love.’ He waited for her to leave, then leaned on his bar top like he was running a village pub somewhere in rural England. ‘Everyone calls me Milfy. Even though it’s something to do with porn these days.’

  ‘So where did you take this guy?’

  ‘Now that I can’t remember.’ Another spray of lemonade. ‘Guy looked crazy, though. Wild-eyed and all that. If you told me he shot up a McDonald’s, I’d believe you. Full-on Millwall, mate.’ He cackled. ‘Full-on Millwall.’

  ‘He told us he was dropped off in Shadwell.’

  ‘Lying bastard!’

  ‘Milfy, language!’ Milford’s wife leaned in the doorway, eating cereal from a navy bowl.

  ‘Sorry, love.’ Milford studied the photo again. ‘I dropped him off on the Minories.’

  ‘Sure about that?’

  ‘Not far from that hotel, the posh one where some girl got killed.’ Milford frowned. ‘This is about that, isn’t it? Oh, come on, mate! I’ve gotta get to Gatwick!’

  Fenchurch checked with Reed, got a shrug back. ‘As soon as you’ve dropped them off, I need you straight into Leman Street, ok
ay? Ask for DS Uzma Ashkani.’

  ‘I might have another fare.’

  ‘No, you’re giving your statement.’ Fenchurch took the photo from him. ‘It was definitely him?’

  ‘Clear as day, mate.’ Milford slurped his lemonade. ‘I never forget a face.’

  ‘Don’t forget to come in.’ Fenchurch nodded at Reed. ‘Come on, Kay.’ He led her out on to the street. ‘Time to bring Steve Fisher in for an interview.’

  Reed shut the door. ‘You don’t want to search his house?’

  Fenchurch stopped by the taxi and looked back through the window, where Milford was getting an earful from his wife. ‘I doubt it’ll play well.’

  ‘Play well? Christ, you’re sounding like Loftus.’

  ‘I mean it, Kay. Raiding the house of a grieving widower isn’t good form. Let’s interview him and if he trips up, we arrest him and we’ve got every right to search his home.’

  ‘Can I get a cup of tea?’ Steve Fisher sat in interview room three, nibbling at his nails. ‘Please?’

  At least he’s not asking for a lawyer. Fenchurch sat next to Reed and motioned for her to take the lead.

  ‘You don’t want the tea here, sir.’ Reed smiled. ‘Just need to ask a few questions, if you don’t mind?’

  Steve looked like he could get up at any minute.

  ‘On Friday, you said you went back to your brother’s flat after watching football in the pub.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘How did you get back?’

  ‘Think I walked.’

  ‘Think?’

  Steve shrugged. ‘I walked.’

  ‘You didn’t get in a cab?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘This is outside the pub.’ Reed held out a still. ‘And this is you, isn’t it?’

  Steve took it off her and stared at it like it was the Bible code. ‘It’s me, but . . .’ He flung it back at her, sending it skittering over the table. ‘You’ve been spying on me?’

  ‘We’re validating your alibi.’

  Steve screwed up his face. ‘You can’t think I killed Gayle!’

  ‘Of course we can.’ Reed held up the photo again. ‘Where did you get the taxi to?’

  ‘John’s flat. Like I told you . . .’

  ‘Have you got a receipt?’

  ‘For a taxi?’

  ‘Sir, this is a chance for you to change your story, okay?’ Reed tapped the recorder. ‘We’re on the record here.’