by Tim Ellis
‘You’ll think I’m a wimp if I say I don’t, won’t you?’
‘No, if you want to stop here, then I won’t think anything bad about you.’
‘But then me and Shakin’ won’t be top students either, will we?’
‘No, probably not.’
‘I think I’d like to be top student.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Yeah. And I think I can speak for Shakin’ as well. He’s never been top student in his life before.’
She phoned Bronwyn.
‘Hey.’
‘Hey yourself,’ Bronwyn replied.
‘We went to see George Peckham.’
‘I’m pleased for you.’
‘Somebody came in pretending to be a male nurse and poisoned him while we were sitting there.’
‘Trouble seems to follow you around.’
Jerry smiled. ‘I’m beginning to think the same thing.’
‘So, you found out nothing.’
‘We found out that MI5 had warned the robbers to keep quiet, or they’d end up dead.’
‘Because?’
‘We never got that far, but he did tell us that whatever MI5 were concerned about was in Box 253.’
‘And you want me to tell you who was renting that box?’
‘That’s the idea.’
‘Just a minute.’
She heard a clunk, and then nothing.
‘John Smith.’
‘Great.’
‘Wait . . .’ Another clunk and silence.
‘Hello?’
‘It’s no good getting all impatient. On the list of people who were renting those safe-deposit boxes, some have a contact address and telephone number, some just have an address, and some just have a telephone number. Box 253 has a name and contact telephone number, but it’s an old number. Before 1995 London numbers began 081, which is what this is. In 1995, a 1 was added after the 0, so it became 0181. Then, in 2000 all London numbers became 020. The number I’ve got here is 081 7496 5081, but it’s no longer connected. I have got an address for it though.’
‘Just a minute.’ She found a pencil and notebook in her bag. ‘Okay.’
‘It’s in Holloway – 17 Walters Close, N7 3NL.’
‘Thanks. What about the contents of the boxes?’
‘As I said, that information is in the Evidence Warehouse on Caxton Street behind New Scotland Yard. Maybe you could ask your wreck of a husband to go fetch it for you.’
‘Mmmm! Maybe I could.’
‘Is that it?’
‘I suppose so.’
The line went dead.
She looked at Joe’s enquiring face and said, ‘John Smith, and he lived at that address.’ She turned the notebook round, so that he could read the address she’d written on the page.
‘John Smith?’
‘I can’t imagine it’s his real name.’
‘And the telephone number is disconnected?’
‘Yes.’
‘But we’ve got an address?’
‘Yes.’
‘If the telephone number is disconnected . . .’
‘I know. It’s unlikely he lives there now – if he ever did.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘We’re dealing with MI5. It was probably an empty house with a telephone inside that rang and was answered somewhere else.’
‘A bit like a relay.’
‘I suppose it’d be something along those lines. Don’t criminals do something similar on the internet now if they don’t want to be traced?’
‘Oh yeah. So, what we gonna do now?’
‘We’ll take a trip to Holloway and see if we can’t find out who used to live there in 1971.
‘You lead, I’ll follow, Mrs K.’
Chapter Ten
Bronwyn stared at the phone. The Baker Street Robbery had taken place in 1971 – that was forty-four years ago. Why had someone decided to kill George Peckham now? What had been in Box 253? Why were they still trying to suppress the information all this time after the original robbery? What information could be so terrible that they had to kill to protect it?
She wrung her hands like a washerwoman.
It was a mystery. She hated to admit it, because she was addicted to mysteries.
A stab of pain shot through her body, as if it was reminding her of what had happened the last time she succumbed to her addiction. And anyway, she was in no fit state to even attempt a physical assault on the Evidence Warehouse on Caxton Street, but . . . she had to see what was in those evidence boxes. If, as she suspected, Jerry found an empty building at 17 Walters Close in Holloway, then the only option was to get into that Evidence Warehouse and look inside those damned boxes. It would be alarmed – there was no doubt about that. And there would be cameras everywhere. She could easily disable the alarms and cameras. Were there guards? She suspected there would be – guards, and probably dogs.
In all the time she’d been living in the squat overlooking the cemetery on Oakshott Avenue in Highgate, she hadn’t asked the others for anything. In fact, they’d asked her for favours. Oh, they’d been kind enough when she came back from the hospital for sure – doing the shopping, making soup for her and such like, but she hadn’t asked them to do any paid work for her. It was against their religion to do work for money, but her work was different from normal work. Breaking into a police evidence warehouse right behind New Scotland Yard would appeal to their sense of justice. And if she offered them money as well . . .
There were four others besides herself in the Victorian house – Hawk, Yoda, Sushi and Poo. Like her, they were living on the edge of a society that simply didn’t give a shit, and that suited her just fine. Nobody knew her, and she didn’t know anybody else. To them she was Bronwyn, they didn’t need to know her real name, or that she now had identity documents stating that she was Jessie Gibbs – it was nobody’s business but her own.
She wandered into the communal living room – Yoda and Sushi were sitting there watching Spongebob on Children’s BBC..
‘Anybody interested in breaking into a police evidence warehouse?’
They stared at her as if she’d just wandered in off the street and asked them to vote in the next election.
‘I’m willing to pay you a thousand pounds each.’
Yoda’s eyes narrowed. He was white, had dreadlocks and a beard, and always looked as though he was surprised. ‘A thousand pounds each! Where would you get that kind of money?’
‘Don’t worry, I’ve got the money.’
‘What’s the catch?’
‘The catch is – you have to do some work, and break into a police evidence warehouse.’
‘Why?’
‘I need to get some information for a client, and physically I’m not up to it yet.’
‘A client?’
‘Are you interested, or not?’
‘Presumably you have a plan?’
‘I always have a plan.’
Yoda looked at Sushi. ‘What about you?’
Sushi was half-Japanese. She was four foot six, had black hair and an IQ off the scale. Her parents had wanted her to go to Oxford University and be a doctor, but she wanted to take photographs of insects and flowers.
‘I need a new macro lens.’
‘Is that a yes?’ Bronwyn asked her.
‘We won’t get caught, will we? I don’t think I’d do so well in prison.’
‘That’s the plan. I’ll disable the security alarms and the CCTV system from outside, you just wander in and help yourself to what I need.’
‘Sounds easy enough,’ Yoda said. ‘Count me in. A bag of sand will come in handy.’
Sushi grinned. ‘You from a foreign country, or what?’
‘That’s rich coming from you. ‘A bag of sand is cockney rhyming slang for a grand.’
‘It’ll be tomorrow night,’ Bronwyn said. ‘That all right with you two?’
They looked at each other and nodded.
‘What about Hawk and Poo?�
�� Sushi asked.
‘Too many cooks . . .’ she said. ‘Once you’re inside, it’s just a matter of finding what I’m looking for and then getting out.’
Sushi shrugged. ‘Okay.’
‘I’ll see you tomorrow then,’ she said, and left them laughing at the antics of Spongebob Squarepants and his watery friends. She had work to do in Westminster.
***
Furniture World was a three-storey superstore in The Spires shopping centre on the corner of High Road and Station Road in Broxbourne.
Richards parked the car in the car park and the two of them wandered inside the shopping centre. Furniture World was towards the far end. The sofas were on the second floor of the store, so they hopped on the escalator. At the top was a black female shop assistant with a beaming smile and her hair plaited into rats tails at the back of her head.
Parish brandished his warrant card. ‘DI Parish and DC Richards. Is there someone we can talk to about Patrick Carroll?’
‘Yes, of course. The Assistant Section Manager is Millie Monroe. I’ll go and get her if you’d like to wait here?’
He nodded. ‘Thank you.’
Richards was already trying out the chairs and sofas like a quality assurance assessor.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Seeing if they’re any good.’
‘You’ve certainly got the right-sized assets for such a task.’
She slapped her backside. ‘Do you think so?’
‘Definitely.’
‘You’re not going to wind me up, you know.’
‘Is that right?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’
A grey-haired woman in her late forties appeared. She had small shoulders, no discernible breasts, a spare tyre and wide hips. ‘I’m the Assistant Section Manager – Millie Monroe. How can I help you?’
‘We’d like to talk to you about Patrick Carroll.’
She led them to a sofa with two matching chairs, which were located away from the main shoppers’ thoroughfare and signalled for them to sit down.
‘It’s hard to believe that he was here last Friday, but now he’s gone and we won’t ever see him again. The world has gone crazy. It makes you realise how brief life really is.’
Richards nodded sympathetically.
‘Can you tell us what happened last Friday evening?’ Parish said.
‘Of course. We all finished work at five-thirty. There are – were – seven of us, and every Friday we have a drink at The Stag Inn just down the road to wind down. The person with the most sales during the week buys the drinks. Last Friday was no different, except Patrick stayed after the rest of us left.’
‘Why?’ Richards asked.
‘He’d got talking to a blonde bimbo.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah. We tried to drag him away, but he wasn’t having any of it. I got the impression he was having trouble at home. The rest of us joked as we went back to our cars that he was probably on a promise.’
‘But he was married,’ Richards said, as if she’d never heard of such a thing. ‘His wife is pregnant.’
‘That’s men for you. Mine did exactly the same five years ago. We already had two kids, but that didn’t stop him. We’re divorced now you’ll be unsurprised to hear.’
‘What about the woman?’ Parish asked.
‘I went round to her house and gave her . . . Oh! You mean the one rubbing herself up against Patrick?’
‘Yes
‘On the game I’d say. Blonde hair just past her shoulders. I don’t think it was real. Looked like the colour that came out of a bottle to me, but then I’m no expert.’ She fingered her own lank hair. ‘She was probably late twenties, or early thirties. Real pretty with bright red lipstick on full lips. Had on a gold mini dress that left nothing to the imagination. I never had a body like that. She must have been poured into that dress.’ Millie used her hands to emphasise large breasts. ‘Her boobs were like melons. She must have been wearing one of those bras that squeezed them together and pushed them up. Every man in the room was slobbering over her. If I sound jealous it’s because I am. Why she chose Patrick, I have no idea. He certainly wasn’t the pick of the bunch.’
‘I don’t suppose you know whether he left with her, or not?’
‘No, we’d already gone.’
‘Do you think you can describe the woman to one of our sketch artists?’
‘I can do better than that.’
‘Oh?’
‘The Stag Inn has CCTV cameras. I bet if you go round there and ask, they’ll have her on a recording.’
Parish stood up. ‘Thanks very much your help, Mrs Monroe.’
‘I use “Miss” now.’
‘I never get it right.’ He passed her a card. ‘If you think of anything else that could help us find Patrick’s killer, please give me a call.’
‘Do you think this woman killed him?’
‘We don’t know anything yet. We’re simply trying to piece together what happened to Mr Carroll on the night he went missing.’
They left the car where it was and walked the short distance to The Stag Inn.
‘From what she was saying,’ Richards said. ‘Patrick might not have been a random target.’
‘So it would appear, but why Patrick Carroll?’
‘Maybe he sold someone a poor quality sofa.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Are we going to have lunch here?’
Parish raised an eyebrow. ‘You’ve forgotten, haven’t you?’
‘No. What?’
‘We’re having lunch with Doc Riley, and you’ve rigged it so that I’m paying again.’
‘Oh yes.’
At the bar Parish showed his warrant card to the bearded man. ‘The manager, please.’
‘You’re speaking to him.’
‘Name?’
‘Tony Quick.’
He pointed to the dome camera on the ceiling. ‘Do you still have the CCTV footage from Friday night?’
‘Yes, each day is replaced after a month.’
‘Is it all right if we take a look?’
‘Just a minute. I’ll ask the wife to come down and cover for me.’
He made the call.
Within minutes a short plump woman with a sour, pock-marked face appeared.
‘Thanks, babe,’ the manager said. ‘We shouldn’t be long.’
She grunted like a warthog being interrupted while tearing up her lunch.
Quick led them into an office with a desk, a computer; trays full of receipts and invoices; a stack of ledgers; and a horde of free gifts such as bottle openers, tankards, badges, corkscrews, calendars and a dozen other things. In the corner was another computer sitting on top of a DVD. The monitor showed a screen split into eight.
Mr Quick sat down in front of the computer screen and said, ‘Last Friday?’
‘Yes,’ Parish said.
‘Time?’
‘Between five-thirty and seven I would say.’
It didn’t take him long to find what they were looking for.
‘That’s it,’ Richards said.
They watched Patrick Carroll and the blonde woman cosying up to each other.
‘Yeah,’ Tony Quick said. ‘I remember her. Well, you’d have to be deaf, dumb and blind not remember her.’
‘Do you know her?’ Parish asked.
‘Are you trying to get me hung, drawn and quartered? If there was even a hint that I might know that woman, my wife would slaughter me without batting an eyelid.’
‘Has she been in the pub before?’
He shook his head. ‘Not to my knowledge.’ He licked his lips as he stared at the screen. ‘As I said, I would have remembered.’
‘Have you seen her since?’
‘No.’
They watched Patrick Carroll leave the pub with his arm around the woman’s waist.
‘Do you have cameras outside?’
‘No.’
‘Okay, thanks. Can we get a copy?’
>
‘Sure.’ He found a blank USB memory stick, copied the relevant footage onto it and passed it to Parish. ‘There you go.’
‘Thanks for your help,’ Parish said, slipping the memory stick into his jacket pocket.
They strolled out of the pub, nodded at Mr Quick’s sour-faced wife and headed back to the car in The Spires shopping centre car park.
‘Aren’t you going to say anything?’ he asked Richards as they walked along.
The wind was picking up, and it was trying to rain.
‘About what?’
‘About the woman?’
‘What do you want me to say?’
‘Say the first thing that comes into your head.’
‘She’s not a prostitute. Oh, she certainly looks like one . . .’
‘Do you think so?’
‘Don’t you?’
‘You’re making the same snap judgement that men and some women usually make. Just because she’s dressed provocatively does not mean she’s a prostitute.’
‘Do you like what she’s wearing?’
‘I don’t dislike it.’
‘You’re just like all the other men.’
‘I’m happy to agree with you on that point. Do you think Toadstone would be like all the other men?’
‘Certainly not.’
‘How does that make you feel?’
‘Oh!’
‘If you were wearing that gold skin-tight metallic mini-dress, how would you want Toadstone to react?’
‘We’re not talking about me and Paul.’
‘Maybe we should be.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Do you think you’ve chosen wisely?’
‘I like Paul.’
‘That’s not what I asked. Are you in love with him? There are four scientifically-proven signs that you love someone: You can’t keep your eyes off him; you feel as though you’re high on a drug when you’re with him; you can’t keep your hands off each other; and you can’t stop thinking about him. Tick the ones that apply.’
‘Oh God!’
‘You’re with him because he saved your life, aren’t you?’
‘I hate it when you’re right.’
‘I know. So, what are you going to do about it?’
‘Paul’s a friend.’
‘And as such, he deserves your honesty.’
‘I’ll have to tell him, won’t I?’