by Ian Andrew
“Yes I think I did,” Kara said as she perched herself on the low concrete wall above the flowing river. “Before we go on, my friend gave you some information so I could verify you?”
“Yes. I must admit I thought it was a little cloak and dagger but I suppose no more unusual than some of the things my industry does.”
“So?” prompted Kara.
“Ah yes, she said to say S, L, F and to let you know that I used to work with her husband in the Union Bank of Switzerland before we both moved on to new ventures.”
“Excellent. Where can we meet?”
Chapter 14
Wednesday Morning. Huntingdon
Detective Constable Annabelle Walsh and Detective Sergeant Moya Little were coming out of their third bar of the day and it wasn’t even lunchtime.
“Where next Sarge?” Anna asked.
“The King’s Arms I guess,” Moya answered.
“That’s way out of the centre.”
“Yeah but these women drink somewhere before they head into town and go to the clubs.”
“Oh joy,” Anna sighed as she got into the car.
“Ah it’s not too bad at this time of day.”
“Why, do they change all the staff into nice people?”
Moya laughed and pulled away from the kerb. “No, but at least the clientele should be a bit thinner on the ground and a bit less plastered.”
The journey took less than five minutes but it transported them from the heart of the pleasant market town to the middle of a 1960’s social experiment that had gone wrong. The low-rise and high-rise concrete houses for the masses had, like in every other similar estate, turned into a low-rise and high-rise concrete ghetto for the poorest of the society they were meant to inspire. The King’s Arms pub was designed to be the hub of the community. A place for families to relax and enjoy their neighbour’s company whilst watching the children playing in the beer garden. Instead it turned into a hub of heavy drinking and drug supply where neighbours watched each other’s children push prams at too early an age. The large concrete car park adjacent to the pub was known locally as ‘the Madison’ after Madison Square Garden due to the amount of fights that occurred at closing time on Fridays and Saturdays.
Little pulled the car into it and reached for the car’s radio. “Papa Mike Dispatch, be advised DS Little and DC Walsh on-scene at the King’s Arms in the Cowfield Estate.”
“That’s nice for you,” the voice of Sara Reed, the local radio dispatcher, answered. “Be sure to give them our love.”
“Thank you Sara,” Moya laughed as she hung the hand mic back in its bracket.
Anna led them through the door marked ‘Lounge’ and into a bar devoid of people. She took up a place against the wall whilst her DS walked up to the counter. By peering through to her left Moya could see into the public bar on the other side. A television was showing a rerun of the British Formula One Grand Prix and she could see four men sat at the bar and three more in seats set back against the walls. There was one barman on duty. Little knew all the staff at the King’s Arms by name.
“Hey Harry,” she called and as he turned, so did all the other heads she could see.
Without moving Harry said, loud enough for the whole bar to hear, “Detective Sergeant Little, what can I do for you?”
Three of the men at the bar got up and turned away from her before heading straight to the main door. They were joined by two more from the seats at the wall and no doubt a few more she couldn’t see from her vantage point. Harry took a glance around before making his way over to Little.
“Nice touch Harry. Well done.”
“Don’t know what you mean Detective,” he said as he leant on the counter and looked beyond Moya to Anna Walsh.
“Nice. Is she ‘wif you then?”
Moya leant into him and spoke softly, “Yes Harry she is. She also has a name, a rank and a fuck off big can of pepper spray that she would gladly empty down your miserable fucking throat at one word from me. You keep up your Essex-wide boy chav act and I shall call her over and tell her that you just assaulted me. Are we clear?” She clamped her hand on his wrist and held it down against the bar.
Harry’s ruddy complexion went a clammy white. “I didn’t mean no offence, honest. Detective, you know me. I was just-”
“Well don’t. Anna!”
Anna walked forward reaching into the inside pocket of her jacket. Harry squirmed under the pressure of Moya’s hand on his wrist. He was trying to pull himself free with no success. “Aww, c’mon Detective I wasn’t sayin’ anyfink. I wasn’t. I’m sorry.”
Moya straightened up as Anna got to the bar and laid seven pieces of paper down on it. Each one showed a still frame taken from CCTV footage.
“Good Harry. Apology accepted,” Moya said as she released his hand and Harry almost stumbled into the racks of optics behind him. “Now, look at these photos and tell me who these women are.”
Harry glanced nervously at the public bar to his right.
“It’s okay Harry, you did a great job of moving them on. No one left is going to care. Now get back over here and take a look at these photos.”
He slowly came back to the bar and looked down at the set of A4 sized close-ups that Anna had laid out.
Walsh and Little both watched him closely. Before he had even opened his mouth they knew he recognised at least some of them.
“Nah, I don’t know any of ‘ese.”
Moya looked up at Anna, “DC Walsh. Would you care to explain to Mr Cook how much shit he is in?”
“Certainly,” Anna looked down at Harry. Although he was standing on a slightly raised bar floor behind the counter it made no difference as she had a good five inch height advantage on his five foot six. She stared hard at him and he seemed to physically wilt.
“Mr Cook, if you tell us who these women are we shall go away and leave you to your happy bar serving. We know you know some of them. Your afternoon will have a small interruption and we will move on. If you don’t tell us we will take you down to the station right now. You will be arrested and charged with conspiracy and we shall spend a few days talking to you. That will be more than a minor interruption.”
Harry went even whiter. “Conspiracy? Conspiracy to what? I haven’t done nothing.”
“Anything,” Moya said.
“What?”
“You haven’t done anything Harry,” she said.
“Yeah, that’s right. I haven’t.”
“Yes, that is right,” Moya added. “And if you don’t identify these women we will take you in for not helping us. You will be charged with conspiracy to murder-”
“Murder!” he yelped the word and the remaining customer at the public bar leant forward.
Harry stepped right into the counter and out of sight of the interested onlooker. “Murder,” he said more softly. “I’m not involved in-”
“We know,” interrupted Anna. “Just tell us who you recognise here.”
When Moya and Anna left the bar they had the names of four women who lived on the Cowfield Estate. It was blatantly obvious Harry didn’t know the other three on the shortlist.
*
DS Gary Mason and DC John McKay were leaving the much calmer and postcard photogenic surroundings of the Pheasant and Herron. The landlord, Stanley Reese, had been more than cooperative and kindly generous with the offer of a small half on the house for both of them. He definitely knew one of the women in the photos. She was his niece, Tanya. It had been her one Friday night off each month.
“Night off?” asked Mason. “From where?”
“From here. She’s working in our restaurant out the back. Do you want to talk to her?”
*
It was almost 2pm when Tony Reynolds and DC Colin Oldman finished.
They had been given freely volunteered copies of the security videos from Huntingdon’s three nightclubs and had reviewed each of them to match with any of the seven women previously identified from the town’s CCTV.
“Now, now Pop. You’re just jealous you weren’t out there with them. Especially with that nice young lady caught throwing up in the corner,” Reynolds laughed and turned the screen off. “So what do we have?”
“Three definite, one probable and three no, Gov.”
“Let’s go see what the rest have turned up.”
*
The main operations room had a full length magnetic board against the far wall. Moya stood next to a display of the seven enlarged CCTV snapshots.
“Okay, what do we know?” Reynolds asked her as the rest of the team drew their chairs closer.
“We have IDs for five of them. Sisters Shirley and Cheyenne Thompson, Brittany Lancashire and Courtney Stiles. All four of them are off the Cowfield Estate. We also have Tanya Reese from Ellington but Gary will take us through her later. As for the four Cowfield women, Cheyenne Thompson is nineteen and went home early to meet her boyfriend, Drew Iveson, at his house. That corresponds with what we saw on the original CCTV. We also have a statement from his mum that Cheyenne arrived in just after eleven, Drew came home off nightshift about half an hour later and that the pair of them were there through to the morning. It gives a small window of opportunity for her but I don’t reckon on it. We caught up with her at work in Iceland. She was on the tills but took time to talk to us. There was no panic, no aggression. If anything, for a Cowfield resident, she was pleasant and kind. Anyway, we took her to her house and recovered two pairs of red heels from her room. I don’t think either pair is what we’re looking for but they’ve gone to the lab. Anna also walked over to the Iveson’s place, got the statement from the mother and checked their house.”
“Any red heels under the boyfriend’s bed?” Reynolds asked as he looked down the line of his team.
“No Gov,” Anna answered. “No heels at all matching anything we were looking for. Also, the mother was more than helpful. Young Drew is a student nurse down at Hinchingbrooke so I reckon he and Cheyenne are planning to move up and out of their surroundings.”
“Assessment?” Reynolds directed the question to Moya.
“Highly unlikely,” she answered. “There’s no history of any fight training. She’s young and fit and I would assess agile but showed no signs of anxiety or trying to cover anything.”
“And her sister?” asked Reynolds moving the conversation on. As far as he was concerned if Little didn’t put Cheyenne in the frame then that was good enough for him.
“Mmm, yeah. Shirley Thompson. She was at home when we went back with Cheyenne. She’s twenty-eight and has twin boys, aged twelve. They all live together with Cheyenne and Shirley’s dad, Billy Thompson, and his partner Maggie Blake. Shirley wasn’t as forthcoming as her sister. A real attitude and extremely resentful that her little sister was so helpful. Eventually we got to the point where she finally admitted going to Rocky’s Nightclub. Got off with someone, no idea of his name, came back in to the club after a short trip up the side alley with her new beau and then she stayed in the club until chucking out time. She’s the one you found on the video being sick in the corner. Says she can’t remember what happened next but she knows she got a cab home. That tied in with us seeing her staggering about on her own on the CCTV cameras H82 and H89. Also explains why we didn’t see her on H83 because she cut through to the High Street and ducked into Franci’s Taxis. We checked with Franci and he confirmed she was in his office waiting for a cab. Remembers her because she offered him a blowjob for the fare.”
There was a combined groan from all the detectives.
“It’s okay. He says he didn’t accept as she was barely capable of sitting up straight. I didn’t ask if he would have accepted had she been sober. Anyway, he got one of his female drivers to take her home. Dropped her off about half two. Short of the most miraculous recovery from being drunk and deciding to head back out to the industrial estate, she didn’t do this.”
“What did you find in her room?” Reynolds prompted.
“Nothing. She refused us entry. We’ll need a warrant if we want to go back to her but I don’t think it’s worthwhile. She did do boxing in high school and definitely looks like she could hold her own on a normal Friday night in the Madison but from what we saw on the CCTV and from what Franci said there was no way she could have kicked anyone in the head last Friday.”
“Okay, Next.”
“Brittany Lancashire. The one you found on the video from Joanna’s Nightclub, Gov. She’s twenty-five, works in Mission Hire out on the industrial estate. That’s only three streets away from where the body was found. Lives on the Cowfield in a top level flat on her own. She wasn’t delighted to talk to us until we told her what it was about and then she became an open book. She met up with three friends in the club, which corroborates what you and Pop saw. She said she was heading back to one of their houses in St Ives but needed to go and get some money first. We checked with the HSBC and they confirm a transaction from her account at ten to one. We can get their ATM camera footage if you want but I held off with the warrant for now,” Moya paused.
“Fair enough,” said Reynolds. “Did we get confirmation she went to St Ives?”
“Anna caught up with all three of the friends by phone whilst I sat with Brittany and they all confirmed the timeline,” Moya answered.
“Rehearsed?” Reynolds turned to look at Anna again.
“No Gov. All individual, no collusion or covering.”
“Okay. The fourth Cowfield girl?” Reynolds asked and noticed out of the corner of his eye Anna Walsh smiling slightly. He knew that she was pleased that he had taken her assessment without question. ‘Good’ he thought. His young Detective Constables were developing nicely.
“The fourth is Courtney Stiles. She’s the one we saw on the CCTV hanging around the front of Rocky’s and then eventually going in. She exited later and wandered off on her own up Prince’s Street.”
“Yeah,” said ‘Pop’ Oldman. “She was weird in the club. I tracked her for about half an hour on the CCTV and she looked really twitchy.”
“She should have. She was meant to be meeting her boyfriend. His name’s Andy Louth. He stood her up, or so she thought. She eventually left and wandered up Prince’s Street to get a cab to take her back home. Then she got into her car and drove to his house in Peterborough. Except she didn’t get there. Instead she got a call telling her that Andy had been admitted to the Emergency Centre at Peterborough City Hospital after being involved in a road accident as he’d been driving south to meet her. Andy’s parents had forgotten to call her to let her know until then. We checked the call log on her phone and there were multiple calls out to his number in the evening, all unanswered obviously and then the one from his Parent’s number. It all checks. Andy’s comfortable but still in hospital. So, she’s not in the frame either.” Moya sat down.
“Gary?” Reynolds looked at Mason.
“Tanya Reese, from Ellington. Works at her Uncle’s pub. Has one Friday night off a month but has to be home relatively early to get up for work on Saturday. Her brother picked her up at 11pm and drove home. We checked the registration with the number plate recognition cameras on the A14 and the car definitely made the journey. Her brother and parents confirmed the arrival time. As for Tanya, she was completely open. Came back to her house with us and voluntarily allowed us to search her room. We have one set of heels in the lab but much like the others, unless this kid is a future Oscar winner, then I don’t peg her for this.” Mason sat down and Reynolds stood up. He took a red marker and put diagonal lines through the five pictures they had ruled out for now.
“That leaves us the brunette, seen on street CCTV but not on the nightclub tapes. She’s heading out of town in the wrong direction but might have doubled back.” He reached up and put a small tick mark next to her picture.
“And finally the blonde. She shows up in Rocky’s Nightclub taking multiple selfies, doesn’t drink too much,
doesn’t dance, doesn’t hook-up with anyone and leaves on her own. Then she shows up near the cemetery on CCTV and after a considerable time turns up again over on Walden Road. She’s the only one in the right area of the town at about the right time. Interestingly we never get a clear look at her face in any of the camera footage. Not once, not on any camera.” He reached up and put a large red tick on her picture.
“We need to find these two women. Especially this blonde.”
Chapter 15
Wednesday Afternoon. Camden, London
Kara and Tien were in Tien’s apartment looking at the photo of Chekov. David was leaning with his back to the window and dunking a bourbon biscuit into his tea.
“I know this is going to sound weird David, but he looks familiar to me,” Kara said.
Tien nodded, “Yeah, he does. But I can’t place him.”
“Really? How familiar?” David pushed himself up and moved to sit on the sofa. “Where did you see him?”
“I don’t know,” said Kara. “He just seems familiar.”
“But you both think so. Was it somewhere overseas when you were serving? When you were on ops? In Iraq, Afghanistan?”
Tien took the photo in her hands. “No, I don’t think so. Much more recent. Kara?”
“I agree. It wasn’t from any of our ops. It’s recently, but I can’t think where. Don’t worry David. It’ll come to me. Us,” Kara said.
“Well make sure you tell me,” he said looking directly at his sister. Kara nodded like a chastised child.
“I must admit I was expecting a sort of Rasputin type of look. You know, big and hairy and menacing. He’s actually quite handsome,” Tien said as she looked at the semi-profile picture of a man, probably in his fifties, wearing a suit and smiling at someone or something that was out of frame. The shot had been taken at distance so fine details were impossible to see but his neatly groomed hair still had a lustrous dark brown sheen, he was clean shaven and most prominent of all the features was a distinctive, almost classically proportioned, Roman-nose. “He has quite a cute smile to be honest.”