Murder Ring (A DI Geraldine Steel Mystery)

by Leigh Russell

  ‘Tell you what, baby,’ he said, ‘that shop ain’t open tomorrow but first thing Monday I’m going back there to get it back for you.’ He kissed her. ‘You’re gonna have it on Monday. Now let’s get up to bed.’

  For once, she had a genuine excuse because her head ached where he had hit her, but she didn’t want to annoy him now. Until Monday she was going to put up with him and then she’d be off.

  46

  QUESTIONING THEO IN his mother’s presence yielded no new information. Although he seemed willing to speak in front of her, what he said made no sense.

  ‘Who’s Jack?’ Adam asked, after Theo had repeated a phrase about waiting until Jack came home.

  Rosa denied knowing anyone called Jack. Geraldine thought she was lying, but Theo was incapable of explaining what he meant.

  ‘Who’s Jack?’ Adam asked him again.

  ‘Wait till my Jack gets home,’ Theo repeated in his curiously high-pitched voice. ‘Wait till my Jack gets home!’

  The interview dragged on all afternoon and through most of the evening, with frequent intervals. It was impossible to determine whether Theo was unwilling or unable to say who had given him the gun, or what he had been doing wandering around the streets of London with it. When Adam asked him point blank if he had been present when the two murders were committed, he babbled inconsequentially about a squashy football.

  ‘He don’t know what he done today,’ Rosa interrupted the questioning at one point. ‘He ain’t gonna tell you what he done any other day. Leave him alone with your questions. Let him come home.’

  At last the lawyer looked at his watch and announced the interview was over for the day.

  ‘Thank Christ we got someone here talking sense,’ Rosa said. ‘Theo’s knackered and he needs to come home.’ She stood up, hands on hips, and stretched her back. ‘We been sitting too long. Come on, kid. You don’t look like you slept last night no more than what I did.’

  No one else budged.

  Geraldine spoke up as gently as she could. ‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible.’

  ‘Jesus, what now?’

  ‘Theo can’t go home yet. It’s just not possible.’

  ‘What you talking about? Theo, you get on up and walk right outa here. Ain’t no one gonna stop you. He ain’t done nothing.’

  When Adam explained that Theo was helping them with a murder investigation, Rosa flew into a temper, insisting her son had nothing to do with any murders. He was harmless, she claimed, and the police were out of line if they thought they could use him as a scapegoat.

  ‘Pick on the weak ones,’ she ranted. ‘You loada bastards!’

  ‘Pick on de weak ones,’ Theo echoed cheerfully. ‘You loada bastards!’ He seemed to enjoy repeating everything his mother said.

  ‘What’s your bleeding murder gotta do with my kid? Nothing, that’s what!’

  ‘Nutting, dat’s what!’ Theo shouted gleefully.

  Ignoring Theo, Adam explained to Rosa that her son had been apprehended in possession of a gun that had been used to shoot two people dead.

  ‘He picked it up,’ she replied dismissively. ‘He picks up all sorts of things, anything he can get his hands on.’

  ‘This was a gun,’ Geraldine said.

  ‘Don’t mean he used it. You got no proof. Theo ain’t no killer.’

  ‘So you’re telling us he is always in control of his actions?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do you mean Theo knows what he’s doing?’

  ‘Don’t you go putting words in my mouth. I never said that, did I?’ She turned a scared face to the lawyer. ‘I never said nothing.’

  Theo appeared to have no inkling that he was suspected of murder. His mother, on the other hand, grew increasingly strident in her rage. Seeing Theo was becoming upset by her shouting, Adam directed that he be returned to his cell, and stood up to accompany the escort himself.

  ‘You leave him be!’ Rosa screeched. ‘You ain’t got no right touching him! Theo, get over here. You coming home with me.’

  Theo turned to his mother and began to whimper.

  ‘Get him out of here,’ Adam barked.

  Two constables promptly stepped forward and took Theo’s elbow, guiding him from the room. ‘Come on, son, there’s a nice dinner waiting for you back in the custody suite.’

  Theo went with them quietly. Left alone with Rosa, it took Geraldine some time to quieten the angry mother. Furious that Theo was being held in custody overnight, being told that he was going to be assessed by a mental health expert did nothing to appease her rage. She insisted that she was the only person who understood her son, and she alone was fit to take care of him. They didn’t need strangers interfering in their lives. Only by resorting to threats was Geraldine able to persuade her to go home.

  ‘You’ll be no use to Theo if you’re taken away and locked up for obstruction. He’s going to need you when he gets home. Who’s going to look after him if you’re in prison?’

  At last Rosa left, still protesting. ‘He don’t need no strangers. I’m his mother.’

  With a rush of guilt, Geraldine remembered her own mother. In all the frantic activity surrounding Theo, she hadn’t thought about her since the morning. She dithered over whether it was too late to call the hospital. It was probably too late for a message to reach her mother that evening. In any case, what could she possibly say that would make amends for her negligence? As far as she knew, she was the only person supporting her mother but, despite her good intentions, she had been too busy to manage a visit.

  Before she went to sleep she took her mother’s photograph out of the drawer beside her bed. Staring at it, she tried to connect her memory of the sick woman she had seen in hospital with the girl gazing up at her from her own face. The changes wrought by time were hard to grasp. The girl in the photograph, young enough to be her own daughter, had been her mother in another era. She wondered how close they would have been if she had grown up as Erin Blake. Relationships between mothers and daughters were often fraught, but her mother had cheated her out of having any relationship with her at all. Pricked by sudden anger, she replaced the photograph in the drawer. She wasn’t the one who should be feeling guilty. She would go and see her mother the next day. In the meantime, if she allowed herself to become upset, she would never get to sleep. But when she closed her eyes, she saw Rosa’s distraught face. Theo couldn’t be easy to look after, yet Rosa was frantic at the thought of losing him even for one night.

  47

  THE NEXT MORNING a constable working in the borough intelligence unit reported that Rosa had two sons, Theo and Jack. Theo had gibbered about Jack. It wasn’t clear why Rosa had lied. Geraldine double checked the tape.

  ‘I don’t know no one called Jack,’ Rosa had insisted.

  She might have fallen out with her other son, perhaps over frustration about Theo, but it was possible she had a more sinister reason for trying to conceal Jack’s identity from the police. Geraldine took Sam with her to George Berkeley House in Camden to see Rosa. They left early, hoping to catch her before she set off for the police station.

  Rosa came to the door straight away.

  ‘Where is he? What you done with him?’ she demanded, her eyes flicking past them along the corridor.

  Geraldine explained that they hadn’t brought Theo home. He wouldn’t be released until he had undergone a psychiatric assessment, and even then there was no guarantee he would be allowed out into the community again.

  ‘Into the community?’ Rosa snarled. ‘Some bleeding community they are. I’ll get my coat.’

  She flew into a temper when Geraldine told her they wanted to look round her flat before taking her to the police station.

  ‘I’m afraid we have a search warrant.’

  Rosa stood in the doorway, arms crossed, shaking her head. ‘You got no right.’

  ‘Rosa, your son was found in possession of a gun that has been used to kill at least two people. I hardly need to point out we a
re conducting a serious criminal investigation – a murder investigation. If you attempt to hinder us in carrying out our duties, I will arrest you and you will be prosecuted for obstruction. Under these circumstances, that will carry a custodial sentence. And you won’t be able to help Theo if you’re in prison. Now move out of my way.’

  Rosa hesitated. Geraldine and Sam pushed past her into the flat. The front door opened into a small living room, furnished cheaply but comfortably, and dominated by a large television screen attached to the wall. A sliver of daylight lit the room through a slit in grubby yellow curtains that hung at the window. Geraldine checked the bathroom. There was no evidence of a third person living there. She tried one of the doors off the living room and found it locked.

  ‘You leave it alone,’ Rosa shouted.

  ‘Open this door.’

  ‘Well that’s tough shit because I ain’t got a key.’

  ‘If you don’t open it for us, we’ll break it down.’

  ‘I told you, I ain’t got a key. He don’t give me one.’

  ‘He? Do you mean Jack?’

  ‘Who’s Jack? Just because Theo says a name it don’t mean nothing. There ain’t no one called Jack here. You got it all wrong.’

  ‘You have until we’ve checked the rest of the flat to open this door.’

  Leaving Sam to keep an eye on Rosa, Geraldine took a look in the next room. Rosa’s bedroom was tiny, with barely enough space to walk around the bed. A heap of clothes in one corner seemed to be all she had. Geraldine flicked through it, but found nothing either incriminating or interesting. Anything worth discovering was likely to be concealed behind the locked door. The next room was a complete jumble. There was a bed, barely discernible beneath piles of clothes, broken toys, a rolled-up carpet, and random pieces of trash.

  ‘Is this Theo’s room?’ she called out, although the answer was self-evident.

  After looking around the kitchenette, only the locked room remained. Geraldine nodded at Sam who kicked the flimsy internal door open to reveal a third bedroom. By contrast to the other two bedrooms, it looked as though it had recently been decorated. The largest of the rooms, the walls and ceiling were painted white, and there was a double bed with a navy cover and matching pillow cases. Fitted white wardrobes ran the length of the wall opposite. Geraldine saw herself reflected in a full-length, free-standing mirror that stood beside the bed. Over her shoulder in the mirror she could see Rosa’s shocked face.

  ‘What you done?’ Rosa whispered. ‘You broke his door.’

  The room they had broken into looked out of place compared to the relative squalor of the other rooms.

  Geraldine turned to Rosa. ‘Whose room is this?’

  Rosa shook her head and mumbled about it being a spare room. She was obviously lying. Geraldine took a look around. The wardrobes were stuffed with men’s clothing most of which looked new, including several different raincoats and pairs of leather shoes. Although there was nothing in the room to identify its owner, it could only be Jack’s room.

  ‘Where is Jack?’ she asked.

  Rosa just shook her head. She looked terrified. Geraldine turned back to the wardrobes and began to search through the garments hanging there.

  ‘What you looking for?’

  ‘A leather jacket.’

  ‘There ain’t no leather jacket in there. He ain’t got no leather jacket. What you trying to frame him for?’

  Ignoring Rosa’s protests, Geraldine continued methodically working her way along the row of clothes. She had nearly come to the end of them when she saw a dark brown leather jacket. Pulling on gloves, she removed it, still on the hanger, and laid it on the bed.

  ‘I ain’t never seen that before,’ Rosa blustered. ‘Must be new.’

  Carefully, Geraldine checked the pockets. They were all empty.

  ‘Ralph Lauren,’ she read the label aloud. ‘Very nice. Must have cost a few quid.’

  ‘If it was new,’ Rosa said quickly.

  ‘Whose is it, Rosa? Who sleeps in here? This is Jack’s room, isn’t it? Your younger son, Jack. We know all about him, Rosa, so there’s no point in denying it. Where is he?’

  With a sigh Rosa hung her head and her shoulders drooped. ‘Must be at work now.’

  ‘Where does he work?’

  ‘Thought you knew all about him.’

  ‘Come on, Rosa, the game’s over. We’ll find him so you might as well just tell us. Where does he work?’

  As Rosa mentioned the name of a bar, Geraldine saw Sam’s eyes widen. Both of them had recognised the name of the bar where Luke had been shot. It could hardly be a coincidence.

  ‘It’s a bar up in London somewhere, up in Central London,’ Rosa added vaguely, ‘but I couldn’t tell you where. He earns good money there, and that’s all I know.’

  Sam left the bedroom and Geraldine could hear her talking rapidly on the phone in a low voice. Before long Jack would be picked up. Then they would find out which of the two brothers had shot David and Luke. At the moment, Theo was the main suspect, but it was possible that Jack was responsible for the murders. After using the gun he could have asked Theo to hide it in all the clutter in his room. No one was going to suspect Theo, or find the gun in his untidy room, and Jack would not have bargained on Theo running around the streets waving the weapon around, with no idea of what he was doing. Either brother might be guilty but at the moment only one of them was in custody.

  48

  WHEN GERALDINE RETURNED to the station with Sam, she was gutted to learn that Jack had not yet been apprehended. A patrol car had been despatched straight away to pick him up, but he was not at the bar where he worked.

  ‘He’s not at work, and he’s not at home, so where the blazes has he got to?’ Adam asked.

  Geraldine could tell the detective chief inspector wasn’t really worried. They knew where Jack lived, and where he worked. It could only be a matter of time before they caught him. Still, it was an aggravating delay. As far as they knew, Jack was due at work the following day. No one who worked there was aware that the police were looking for him. A female constable was watching Rosa to make sure she couldn’t warn her son. Unless something went wrong, they would arrest Jack the following day. Apart from that, all they could do was hope a patrol car would happen to spot him somewhere.

  In the meantime there was work to be done. Geraldine called David’s young widow, Laura, and asked her to come in and look at the leather jacket they had found in Jack’s wardrobe. She arrived at the station late on Sunday morning. Geraldine took her straight to an interview room, where they waited for a constable to bring in the jacket. Laura had dressed smartly for the occasion in a knee-length black skirt, a crisp white shirt and a navy jumper. Her hair was well groomed and her make-up neat. She looked like a professional woman going to work. After a few minutes’ polite conversation, the jacket was brought in, enclosed in a protective plastic covering. Geraldine watched the young widow’s face closely as the constable laid her burden on the table and stepped back. Laura’s eyes narrowed. Geraldine waited.

  ‘Can you take it out of the plastic so I can get a proper look at it? I want to be sure.’

  ‘No, I’m sorry, we need to keep it sealed until it’s been for forensic examination, fingerprints and so on.’

  ‘Oh yes, of course. I’m sorry. Well, the thing is, David did have a leather jacket like this, a really nice Ralph Lauren one, but I don’t know if I can be positive it’s the same one. I mean, leather jackets are all pretty similar, aren’t they, and it’s difficult to be sure, especially with it in that plastic.’

  ‘Was your husband’s jacket brown?’

  ‘Oh yes, it looked just like this one. It could be the same one, but I can’t be sure.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Laura’s reservations were understandable. As she pointed out, David’s jacket wasn’t unique. It was possible that Jack had coincidentally got hold of a similar, or even identical, jacket. But such coincidences were rare. Jack worked a
t the bar where Luke was killed with the same gun that had shot David, whose leather jacket had disappeared. And now an identical jacket had turned up in Jack’s wardrobe. All the evidence pointed to Jack, and it was beginning to look conclusive.

  She thanked Laura for coming to the police station.

  ‘I wasn’t much help, was I? I’m sorry.’

  ‘On the contrary, you’ve been extremely helpful. Now we know that this could be your late husband’s jacket, we’ll have it sent off for urgent forensic examination. If we find traces of your husband’s DNA on it, then we’ll know for certain it was his, and that will give us invaluable evidence against the man we suspect of shooting your husband.’

  Laura’s eyes opened wide and her hand flew up to her mouth. ‘Does that mean you know who killed him? Oh my God. He was such a kind man. Who would do that to him?’’

  The widow’s composure crumbled. Tears slid down her cheeks, leaving faints streaks in her foundation. A tiny drop settled, twinkling, above her upper lip.

  ‘Tell me everything,’ she pleaded. ‘I need to know what happened. Please.’

  Geraldine explained that nothing was certain. They were following a strong lead. She could say no more than that, but she promised to let Laura know as soon as they had proof of the suspect’s guilt. She didn’t tell Laura that the suspect hadn’t even been arrested yet.

  ‘But you’ve found David’s jacket,’ Laura protested. ‘Surely that’s enough evidence?’

  ‘Assuming it is your husband’s jacket then it could be enough, but we need to be certain. You said you couldn’t identify the jacket with complete confidence, and in any case we’d have wanted to check for DNA before we could be sure.’