by Hannah, Mari
Poor Gramps.
Elliot took out his handkerchief and blew hard, choking back a flood of tears he still had left to shed, wondering how he’d fill the void left by his grandfather’s demise. The clock on the wall opposite ticked forward a notch to three-fifteen. He’d been waiting for ages to see Detective Chief Inspector Kate Daniels, the woman in charge of the Murder Investigation Team. He’d asked for her by name but was told she was dealing with a major enquiry, which he presumed was the arson in Ralph Street. He’d seen her on the television many times appealing for witnesses or talking to the press. She’d always impressed him as a compassionate human being, a person determined to seek justice for victims of crime. Not like some of the tossers you get on the box nowadays, only interested in getting their sound bites in, their main aim to look good in front of the camera in order to attain the next rank.
A big man appeared through a security door marked Staff Only Beyond This Point. He crossed to the counter and talked in low whispers for a second to the desk sergeant, who pointed at the bench where Elliot was sitting. Then the big man turned to face him, giving him a sympathetic half-smile as if somehow he knew about his grandfather and understood exactly what he must be going through.
‘Mr Milburn?’ he said. ‘I’m DS Gormley, Murder Investigation Team. I understand you’ve been waiting to see DCI Daniels.’
Elliot nodded cautiously.
‘I’m sorry, but she’s been delayed. Please come this way.’
32
The redhead’s eyes widened. Of all the people in a city this size, she had to run into him. Even though she didn’t know Ben Foster well, she clocked his unmistakable profile immediately: his sharp jawline, short cropped hair flecked with grey, those thick dark eyelashes.
Sensing her presence, he turned.
She looked away. Had her scent alerted him? Did the smart arse possess ESP? Her own insights were telling her to avoid him like the plague. She’d had her fun but didn’t intend, or want, to see him ever again. She had to shake him off.
The tube lights flashed off, then back on.
Oh fuck! He was making his way towards her, squeezing his body through tightly packed passengers. Closer. Closer. Ever closer. The last thing she needed was complications now. She felt the tube slowing as it neared Goodge Street station. But not quick enough. Ben was already by her side.
‘Hello again . . .’ His eyes slid over her. ‘You must think I’m a waste of space. I’m sorry I missed you last night. Got held up at the conference and couldn’t get away. By the time I reached the restaurant you’d gone. Am I forgiven?’
The redhead was profoundly hacked off. Not only had the bastard stood her up – and that didn’t happen often! – but he’d told a train-load of fuckwits all about it. Just who the hell did he think he was? Did he really think she’d been waiting there, hoping he’d come, like some drooling schoolgirl with a crush on an older man? That would require feelings. And feelings were in short supply in her particular box of tricks.
‘I’m sorry?’ She smiled at him, a mixture of puzzlement and embarrassment. It was time to show the pathetic loser who was boss. ‘You have me at a disadvantage. Do I know you?’
He just looked at her, incredulous, a deep furrow on his brow. ‘You are joking, right?’
‘I don’t think so!’ She scanned his face, pretending to search her memory in an effort to remember where – if – they might have met before. Then she shook her head, bemused. ‘I really think you must’ve mistaken me for someone else.’
‘This another one of your games, Liv?’
‘Now I know you have me mixed up,’ she said. ‘My name isn’t Liv.’
The jerk was still smiling. ‘You like playing games, don’t you? Well, so do I.’
The redhead looked around her. People crammed into the carriage were earwigging their conversation. One in particular was glaring at Ben. A young guy: mid-thirties or thereabouts, body-building type, fair-haired, six-two, square shoulders, military crew cut, a man who looked like he could handle himself. Her eyes pleaded with him to intervene. He didn’t need asking twice . . .
‘Pardon me, ma’am.’ He sounded like a New Yorker. ‘Is this guy bothering you?’
‘No, well . . .’ She flashed him an innocent smile. ‘I’m sure he made a genuine mistake.’
‘Oh, please!’ Ben Foster looked at the Yank. ‘She’s winding me up! She’s pissed with me for not turning up last night.’
The redhead was wide-eyed. ‘I’ve never seen this man before!’
‘Back off, buddy!’ The Yank leaned into Ben, his dark eyes sending him a message: Don’t-mess-with-me-if-you-know-what’s-good-for-you. ‘The lady isn’t interested.’
Ben stood his ground, furious now. ‘Will you mind your own business?’
Thanking the American, the redhead excused herself politely and moved towards the door, easing herself through a muddle of bodies as fast as her long legs would carry her. The tube screeched to a stop. Once she was off the train, she looked over her shoulder. The doors were still open, allowing passengers on. Ben was about to follow her when the American guy put a hand against his chest, preventing him from getting off. As the train doors closed, the redhead smiled, relieved to be free of him.
33
The minute Daniels stepped through the front door of the station, Hank Gormley caught her eye, sending a clear message that something was up. The exchange was so brief, Naylor didn’t appear to notice. But when Gormley said he needed her ear, the Super narrowed his eyes.
‘Something I should know?’ He was no fool.
‘Long story . . .’ Gormley flicked his eyes in the direction of four civilians waiting to be seen: two middle-aged women, an elderly guy in a wheelchair, and a skinny young man who looked a little distressed. Dropping his voice to a whisper, Gormley said, ‘Mind if I grab the boss a mo, guv? I’m sure she’ll fill you in later.’
Naylor held his gaze. ‘This isn’t trivial office politics, is it?’
Gormley shook his head. ‘No, sir. It’s not.’
Rolling his eyes, Naylor didn’t argue. Without another word, he spun on his heel, punched a number into a keypad and pushed open the door, disappearing along the main corridor and into the labyrinth beyond. When he was out of sight, Daniels turned toward her DS, a question in her eyes. Gormley nodded to the interview room and then followed her in, closing the door quietly behind them.
‘George Milburn,’ he said.
Pulling out a chair, Daniels slumped down on it and crossed her arms. ‘What about him?’
‘The young lad in reception is his grandson, Elliot.’ Gormley let out a worried sigh. ‘He claims the old man was rolled, possibly even murdered. Apparently he was carrying a large amount of cash on him and now it can’t be found. Had the old man collapsed on any other street, I’d have offloaded the job to another incident team, Kate. I’m sorry—’
‘You don’t need to explain. I made it perfectly clear I wanted any activity within that beat area logged and brought to my attention.’ For a moment, she stared at him, processing this new information. No wonder he was worried. They already had two murder cases to deal with. Yet another complication was the last thing they needed. The very thought of it sapped her energy. ‘What exactly did he tell you?’
Gormley had spent quite a while with the lad, he told her. The interview had thrown up more questions than answers, but it had proved useful too, given him a fresh perspective on Ralph Street. Crime pattern analysis was all well and good, but if you really wanted to know what went on in a particular area, nothing could beat talking to locals. In that sense, policing hadn’t changed in decades.
‘He said a lot of residents complained about being disturbed at night, being sworn at, called names. George did too, even rang the police on occasions, asking to remain anonymous in case he was singled out as a grass. The lad claims it’s gone on for months and our lot have done sod all to stop it. You know the area, Kate. Kids round there couldn’t give a stuff about a blu
e uniform. They laugh and stick a finger up if challenged. Community Support can’t cope, simple as that. They move them on and ten minutes later they’re back, giving the old folks even more grief for calling the law. It’s a vicious circle.’
He was right of course and it made the DCI angry. The police service was not the one she had joined. It had been undermined by politicians obsessed with cutting costs. They had pushed through a succession of measures, recruiting community support personnel at the expense of real police officers, to the detriment of both the force and the communities they served. In Daniels’ opinion, the Home Office needed to stop the rot before the situation got any worse, take a step back and think about the consequences of their actions, support her force to do its job, revert to the in-depth training her generation of recruits had been given. The Police Federation’s concerns had been voiced and discounted by a succession of Home Secretaries who’d sold them out. Morale was lower than it had ever been.
It was a depressing thought.
When George Milburn suddenly collapsed, Gormley had raised concerns that there might be a connection between his death and the fire. At the time, Daniels hadn’t taken it too seriously, but now her mind was all over the place. Could the old man have started the fire? He lived so close, it would have been easy to slip out and back without being seen. Maybe he hadn’t known the child was inside. Had the shock of finding out precipitated his heart attack? Or perhaps he witnessed the arson but was too scared to come forward for fear of reprisals, the stress of that playing on his mind.
Daniels placed her elbows on the table and made a steeple with her hands, her thoughts turning in a different direction. ‘You think the old man was in some kind of trouble?’
‘Like what? Elliot says he was a nice old man who wouldn’t hurt a fly—’
‘He would say that, though, wouldn’t he?’
‘Why d’you ask?’
‘Either these two incidents are purely coincidental or they’re not. If they are, fair enough. But if there is a connection, could it be that Maggie Reid’s house was mistaken for George’s?’ Daniels didn’t wait for an answer. ‘What’s Elliot like?’
Gormley thumbed toward the interview room door. ‘Breath of fresh air, compared to the low-lives normally frog-marched in here.’
‘This missing money bothers me,’ Daniels said. ‘Is he absolutely sure?’
‘One hundred per cent. George took a grand to the garage yesterday to buy the lad a car but it was already sold. They spent some time together at the old man’s allotment and then Elliot put him on the bus. A witness saw him get off the bus and he goes down like a bag of hammers. That was less than half an hour before an ambulance took him to hospital. He couldn’t have spent the money and there were no banks on his way home. Elliot says he wouldn’t use one anyway ’cause he kept his money in the house under the floorboards.’
‘And it’s not there now?’
Gormley shook his head.
Something didn’t smell right in Daniels’ view. Had someone relieved him of the cash on the bus? she wondered. She discounted that. Too risky. Buses had CCTV nowadays. Anyway, George would surely have raised the alarm with the driver. She asked, ‘Where did the money come from, Hank?’
‘Life savings.’
‘Who apart from Elliot knew about it?’
‘Not another living soul, according to the lad.’
‘What did you say to him?’
‘What could I say?’ Gormley hesitated. ‘OK, I said we’d get to the bottom of—’
‘Hank! There’s no evidence George Milburn was murdered!’
‘I know and so does he now . . . I told him I knew the pathologist who carried out the autopsy and that he wasn’t a man given to mistakes. I stressed that there was no doubt his granddad died from natural causes, but I had to accept the possibility that he may – and I stressed may – have been threatened or robbed before that happened. What else could I say?’
Daniels stood up, gathering her bag from the floor. ‘Bet that went down well.’
‘Actually, he accepted it.’ Gormley stood up too. ‘I told you he’s a nice kid.’
‘You did right, Hank.’ Daniels patted his arm as she walked past. ‘Tell Elliot we’ll look into it. But make sure he knows that further enquiries will have to be made and that’ll take time. You better brief the guv’nor too.’
‘Don’t you want to do that?’
‘In a word, no.’ Grabbing the door handle, she turned to look at him. ‘You did good with Elliot. But you’re not the only one with news, Hank. Naylor wants a word.’
‘What the hell does that mean?’
‘You’ll know soon enough.’
34
Daniels returned to her desk and slipped her warrant card into the slot in her computer in order to access the report on George Milburn’s death. Bizarrely, it had taken place not only in the same street, but literally metres from Maggie Reid’s front door. As she waited for the incident to pop up on screen, she sat back wondering if the old man was somehow involved in her current case, either as the arsonist – as Gormley had suggested initially – or as a lucky target because the fuckwit that started the fire had got the wrong address. With his body lying in the morgue, it was going to be difficult to prove either way.
Scrolling through the incident report, she noted that a call had come into the control room from a female member of the public. MAN COLLAPSED is all it said. The first responder to the subsequent callout from the control room was recorded as PC4576 Dixon, an officer standing guard outside Daniels’ crime scene.
Small world.
She read on . . . Dixon had given mouth-to-mouth and called the ambulance. The case was then referenced off, having been handed over to the ambulance service. There was a note of a number of witnesses to the event, locals who lived on Ralph Street, and a list of names taken. None of them rang any bells with Daniels.
Picking up the phone, she dialled the West End nick. After a few minutes the desk sergeant answered. She explained who she was and asked to speak with PC Dixon, but neither he, nor his supervision, Sergeant Terrance Smith, were currently in the building.
‘B Rota is on days off,’ the desk sergeant said.
‘OK, make sure either one calls me as soon as their shift comes back on duty.’
She hung up as someone knocked on her door. Looking up, she saw it was Gormley. He had a face like thunder. Assuming Naylor had told him he wouldn’t be working the A1 incident, she beckoned him in, ready for a fight. He slung himself down in the chair opposite but before he had chance to open his mouth she held her hands up in surrender as if he’d pulled out a gun.
‘I know what you’re going to say, Hank. And, for what it’s worth, I don’t like it either. But that’s the way it is. Believe me, I want to get the nut-job that killed Ivy Kerr as much as you do, but it isn’t going to happen, so you may as well get used to it. Besides, I need you on the arson with me.’
‘Can’t I swap with Carmichael?’ He was practically begging. ‘You could have a word with the guv’nor, he’ll listen to you. You know he will.’
‘No, he won’t. I’ve already been there. Besides, he’s got a point, Hank. You’re too emotionally involved. Too close to the case to be objective. You know as well as I do that situations like those rarely, if ever, prove fruitful for the case or the officer concerned. Naylor’s right. We should stay out of it.’
‘Thanks for your support. You could’ve at least warned me.’
‘There’s no good sulking about it, Hank.’ She studied him for a moment, letting him sweat. ‘What exactly did you see anyway . . . at the crash site, I mean?’
‘I thought you said we should both stay—’
‘That was the official line.’ She grinned. ‘Unofficially, I’ve spoken to Carmichael and asked her to produce a computer-generated image of the A1 accident from the rough sketches I drew up at the time. I made contemporaneous notes of the walking wounded and what cars they belonged to, so we should get a p
retty clear picture when she waves her magic wand. Lisa has agreed to feed back anything we need to know at the end of each day – confidentially, of course.’
‘You are some piece of work, Kate Daniels!’ Gormley beamed at her. ‘And if Naylor asks Carmichael what she’s doing?’
‘She’ll be using her initiative, as always.’
‘If he catches on, I hope you know you’ll get your head in your hands to play with.’
Daniels was resolute. ‘We were there first!’
‘Did I ever tell you how much I love working with you? Your epitaph should read: “Insubordination for the good of the cause.” You’re my Jack Bauer.’
She grinned. ‘That makes you my Chloe.’
‘I’m on it, Jack. How can I help?’
Laughing at his Kiefer Sutherland impression, she responded in kind: ‘I think we should talk about what you saw. The President is depending on us. We can’t let him down.’
‘Since when was Jack Bauer Irish?’
They chuckled, the tension leaving them both.
Dropping the accent, Daniels said. ‘Get your thinking cap on. The guv’nor wants a statement from you right away.’
‘I know, he told me.’ Gormley’s expression darkened. ‘I’ve been wracking my brains, but the simple truth is I’m not really sure what I saw.’
‘You must have some idea! The person attending Ivy – was it a man? A woman? Police, fire officer, paramedic . . . ?’
Gormley looked at her. Of his own admission, he’d had a skinful that night, having spent the evening drinking beer and watching the match. Probably shouldn’t have been working, if the truth be known. It was tanking down when they’d arrived at the crash site. So much going on. It was entirely understandable if he couldn’t recall everything in minute detail.
But he had to.
And he would – eventually.
‘I just remember Ivy’s face . . .’ He palmed his brow. ‘Jesus! Those eyes will haunt me for the rest of my days. Someone wearing a high-viz jacket was crouched down beside her. I never saw their face, I swear.’