‘No,’ I said. ‘Patrick didn’t do anything of the kind.’
Grandiosely, to the room at large, Hicks said, ‘I’m not surprised: the man has a reputation for violence and losing his temper.’
Greenway rounded on him. ‘Who asked you?’ he bellowed. ‘Why are you here, for that matter? I thought you were supposed to be working on the Giddings case. Sod off!’
‘You’re SOCA – you can’t order me around,’ Hicks retorted.
‘No, but that doesn’t mean I have to be within the same square mile as someone who tried to stitch up one of my subordinates!’
I have heavily censored that last comment.
Hicks went.
Greenway met Knightly’s questioning gaze. ‘I suggest you don’t concern yourself with the matter, Superintendent. I shall be reporting to his boss.’
Although rejoicing, I thought it best to behave as though these exchanges had not taken place and carried on with what I had been about to say. ‘Although we no longer work for MI5, Patrick and I still behave professionally – which is why, in such situations, I always utilize the small tape recorder that I never quite got round to handing back. It was switched on in my bag when the Superintendent asked Patrick to question Smith and was also functioning through the entire interview with him. I deposited the tape with the sergeant on the desk as we left the building, asking him to put it somewhere safe. While I realize that it couldn’t be presented in court as evidence, it at least helps to sort out the blame game and means we can begin to work together on this.’
Erin Melrose then knocked and entered with a report from the path lab. The blood on the clothing that I had found was human; DNA testing would take longer.
The tape was brought, I produced my little spies’ recorder and we all listened to it, Knightly wriggling in quite gorgeous fashion and everyone else being very careful with their faces when his voice came over loud and clear telling Patrick that it did not matter if Smith met with a couple of small ‘accidents’. Erin had stayed in the room, no one having asked her to leave, and was standing rather touchingly in Patrick’s lee. For protection, I wondered, Knightly having bullied her too? If Greenway had told her about the libellous, if not downright disgraceful, photograph, she might feel a need for the victims of this to stick together.
‘He really was about to cough, then,’ Greenway said into the silence that followed the switching-off of the machine.
Patrick said, ‘I wish to make a formal request for the exhumation and a second post mortem on Detective Chief Inspector Derek Harmsworth. His wife has given her verbal permission.’
‘We don’t know it’s Harmsworth’s blood,’ Knightly said.
At least two of those present rolled their eyes heavenwards and it was left to me to state the obvious. ‘We won’t until we have a sample of his DNA with which to compare it. It’s highly unlikely after all this time that Mrs Harmsworth will have things like his unwashed clothing or brushes and combs.’
‘No,’ he agreed a little sheepishly. ‘I get your point. All right, yes. It’s got to be done.’
I felt that other things ought to be discussed. ‘And Smith?’ I said. ‘Did he commit suicide because he was about to confess to being an accessory to murder? Was he such a sensitive soul he would feel there was no other honourable way out? Was he so disgusted with himself that he could no longer face looking at his own reflection in the mirror? Or was he strung up by someone on the orders of the actual murderer who managed to get hold of the key to his cell?’
Everyone was looking at me, their eyes rather round.
‘Murdered here?’ said Greta Cunningham, making her debut in the proceedings. ‘You’re mad!’
‘Ingrid, that’s a truly staggering thought,’ Greenway said. And to Knightly: ‘Is the body still in situ?’
The Super was away with the birds. ‘Er – er – yes, still in the cell, I think. Yes, that’s right. He was taken down, of course. In an effort to revive him. And – er – obviously, a doctor saw him and signed the death certificate. But there’ll have to be a PM.’
‘I suggest you get a pathologist and a Scenes of Crime bod in there – fast.’
‘When was the last time a suspect in custody was murdered?’ said Cunningham. ‘Isn’t their safety and that of the general public paramount?’ She was still looking at me, askance. I had really ruined what was left of her day.
‘I suggest we take a look at him,’ Greenway said, acknowledging the question with a brief nod. Then he said, ‘You’re the IT wizard, Greta – why don’t you go and look it up on the Internet?’
‘It would be preferable to looking at a corpse,’ the woman said stonily. ‘Besides, that isn’t what I’m here for.’
‘Plenty of computers in the general office,’ Knightly said helpfully. ‘Erin, perhaps you’d show Miss Cunningham the way.’
We all prepared to leave the room, Greenway taking the deep breath of a man now unfettered from bureaucracy as he took from his document case a notebook and pen. I never saw the wizard again – why did I think that Greenway had been positively yearning to say ‘wonkess’? – but Erin quietly reappeared a few minutes later as we entered the cell where Daniel Smith had died.
He had been laid out neatly on the bunk, covered by the thin official-issue blanket. Greenway twitched the top of it aside.
‘I take it no one heard anything at the time it was reckoned to have happened,’ Patrick said as we all stared down into the suffused, distorted face.
‘We’ve been inundated since quite early on this evening and it’s been very noisy,’ Knightly said defensively. ‘Young drunks mostly, brought in for their own good. The result of two lunch-time hen parties, I’ve been given to understand.’
‘No bruising on the face,’ Greenway said musingly. Then, to the Super, ‘He’s been moved already and the whole area well and truly contaminated. Can we take a look at his hands?’
With no objection forthcoming the blanket was taken right off.
The knuckles of Smith’s right hand were grazed and there was heavy bruising on both bare forearms.
‘He took a swing at someone,’ Patrick said, ‘and clouted his hand on something solid like a wall when they ducked. Didn’t he attack a constable when he was first brought in?’
‘Find out who it was,’ Knightly said to Erin, having noticed her presence.
‘Peter Mason, sir,’ she said. ‘I was there. But Smith didn’t hit himself on anything other than Peter’s shoulder. He was restrained and then handcuffed before he could do anything else.’
Patrick said, ‘Restrained with sufficient force to bruise his arms like that?’
She shook her head. ‘No.’
‘Look, I know all about loyalty to chums, but please answer honestly – we might have a murder inquiry here.’
‘It’s the absolute truth, sir. Mason got him in a headlock while I cuffed him.’
Patrick was looking more closely at the body. ‘This livid mark just beneath his left ear can’t have been caused by the belt, surely.’ He stood upright. ‘I think he was struck by the edge of someone’s hand. I take it the poor sod’s neck wasn’t broken. So he must have been slowly strangled to death.’
The implications seemed to have just hit Knightly, who had gone very pale. ‘We’d better get someone out to this caravan where he lived,’ he mumbled.
‘Does this unfortunate man’s death open a can of worms, or is it new evidence?’ Greenway murmured. He had accompanied us as we left the building, cleaners still busy with buckets and mops. He wrinkled his nose at the smell. ‘You know, when I started as a trooper in the cavalry, we didn’t make complete idiots of ourselves with booze like this. Drunk yes, but …’ He gestured at the state of affairs speechlessly.
‘I think the answer to your question might be both,’ Patrick said. ‘But the real answers will come after Harmsworth’s exhumation.’
‘How are you getting on with checking the names on that list?’
‘Two are in other forces
’ areas and I’ve requested a check be made, one was stated to be of no fixed address and we haven’t traced him yet, another’s back in prison, another’s address has ceased to exist and the final two were out when we called. Not very successful so far, I’m afraid.’
Greenway departed without further comment.
Patrick said, ‘As you know, once upon a time when we worked for MI5 our brief permitted certain out-of-hours activities. Partly for sheer nostalgia reasons I can feel one coming on tonight.’
‘We do no longer work for MI5,’ I agreed. ‘But what have you in mind?’
‘I’d like to gatecrash a certain private club that has illegal undertones.’
‘Jo-Jo’s?’
‘Jo-Jo’s.’
I knew he was in a good mood after getting agreement on the exhumation and said, ‘Well, as I’m supposed to be your adviser, you’d better give your other reasons. Pretend I’m Greenway.’
Standing by the car he ticked off on his fingers: ‘It’s run by an Italian who’s almost certainly the local godfather and who was Harmsworth’s snout. Harmworth might not have realized quite how deeply the old snake’s involved with pushing up the crime figures round here but, as we’ve already surmised, he could have done and reasoned that his presence kept out far worse hoodlums. Also, Theodore du Norde is a member, even though he lives quite a way from here in west London and gives the impression of being a bit sneery about Woodhill. And thirdly, after asking a few polite questions in the club you and I were set upon by a knife-carrier who might be connected with the place, or it could have been another attack on the law. So I want to address all these little unanswered niggles by taking the place apart at the seams, with explosives if necessary.’
Deeming the last remark to be mere wishful thinking, I said, ‘There are still a lot of “coulds” and “mights”. What do you hope to achieve? – and I’m only asking this because ten to one it won’t be the kind of thing that can be used as evidence in anyone’s trial.’
‘Sometimes, as we’ve discovered before, you have to make things happen. And then people behave in a way that can be used as evidence.’
‘They’ll recognize us.’
‘We’ll be masked and I propose, unless circumstances change, to use my very good line in ex-IRA bad boys – with current lay in tow.’
‘We’d have to have a convincing reason for what we were doing.’
‘You’re right.’ He pondered. ‘Yes, I know. Your brother has gone missing and was last seen in the place, in the bar, by one of the members – du Norde.’
I hummed disapprovingly, Marge Simpson-style at this and then said, ‘It stinks. And I hate to be such a wet blanket but you shouldn’t go armed. You’re only permitted to carry a handgun for personal protection purposes. If our nocturnal activities are traced back to SOCA, I’m more than sure you’d be finished with them.’
‘An Italian won’t expect an Irishman to be useful with a knife.’
At a little before midnight we were in the narrow lane, almost medieval in its dirt and darkness, behind Jo-Jo’s. We had eaten there earlier – and observing our present surroundings I was wishing we hadn’t – kept our heads down, paid our bill in perfectly normal fashion and gone back to our digs to change. Matters at Jo-Jo’s had not been normal, however, everyone for some reason being in a high state of jitters. A waiter had dropped a whole tray of clean glasses and bolted from sight leaving the mess to be swept up by someone else. The bar staff and waiters had whispered in huddles and of Jo-Jo himself there had been no sign. The fact that my meal had not been the one I had ordered, actually much more expensive, and we had not been charged the extra even though we had pointed out the mistake, spoke of chaos behind the scenes as well. Perhaps something had really gone wrong and everyone was nervously awaiting the boss’s arrival and subsequent wrath.
Helpfully, the lane was not a cul-de-sac, running parallel for most of its length, as might have been expected, to the one fronting the properties. The southern end, farthest away from the main road, ended up in what must have been the Shire’s Yard of its name, a dismal area with another exit that appeared to serve as delivery access to the rear of shops; the other did a right turn and narrowed until it was no more than a footpath between terraces of Victorian houses that led to a side street.
We were dressed in dark clothing: navy-blue tracksuits, ‘yachty’ shoes with non-slip soles of a similar colour and black balaclavas, and right now, after our initial reconnoitre, were perched on a low wall, our backs to another higher one in the company of several large and malodorous refuse bins. It was dark and slightly foggy in a smoky way and although the rear entrance to the restaurant-cum-club was only about ten yards away I knew we were quite invisible to anyone who emerged from it unless they were carrying some kind of light.
Patrick gestured in the direction of where we had just explored, with the aid of his ‘burglar’s’ torch – steps that led down into a basement – and whispered, ‘That’s probably regarded as the emergency exit of the club in the event of a police raid. The main entrance, a door with a very large gentleman keeping guard, is at the bottom of a wide staircase inside. I propose we get in this way.’
‘I thought these places had to be inspected,’ I muttered. ‘The steps look lethal and there aren’t any lights, not even down by the door.’
‘I should imagine there’s everything to gladden a fire-prevention officer’s heart when the inspections are made, but things like lights, or rather the bulbs in them, are quietly removed afterwards. These folk don’t want to make entry easy to outsiders.’
‘The door looked solid enough.’
‘It’s just as well I brought my sonic screwdriver then,’ said the avid Doctor Who fan.
The basement area was not completely dark, a weird sort of glow rising through the misty air from below ground level, presumably escaping through the blinds on the windows. I suddenly remembered that I had planned to write a novel encompassing everything Sherlockian, gloomy and bog-ridden. In the next moment my imagination had galloped away, forcing me to strangle at birth lurid ideas involving evil miasmas emanating from putrescent corpses in mires and, as Katie would say, ‘all sorts of silly stuff like that’.
‘What was going on in there earlier, d’you reckon?’ I said in Patrick’s ear. ‘They were freaking out.’
‘God knows. Perhaps a fridge has failed and everything in it’s gone off.’
A church clock struck twelve and still Patrick sat motionless. I shifted my weight slightly: the wall was freezing cold through my trousers and getting harder by the minute. At last I could stand it no longer and said, ‘What are you waiting for?’
‘I rang Theodore du Norde pretending to be Jo-Jo and asked him to come over. I’m giving him time to get here, that’s all.’
‘Why, though?’
His teeth flashed white as he grinned at me. ‘Just stirring things up a little.’
‘You won’t know if he’s arrived from here,’ I pointed out grumpily.
‘There were several cars parked down in that yard. I reckon anyone who didn’t want to be seen on the streets would park there. So if he does come this way, it suggests he’s as dodgy as Maggie says.’
Another ten minutes went by, during which my rear end went quite numb.
Then, even above the traffic noise on the main road, I distinctly heard the sound of tyres crunching over the rough ground of the yard, parts of which were liberally scattered with dumped hardcore and broken bricks. A door slammed and a couple of minutes later a small hurrying figure appeared. We froze, for whoever it was carried a torch. But he was too involved with finding his way and we saw it was Jo-Jo as he went from view into the light emanating from the basement. There were a series of knocks at the door and we heard it open and close.
Patrick was listening, head cocked, a hand on my wrist. Another car was arriving. There was a lot of door-slamming, but only one person eventually materialized: the unmistakable, blundering, portly outline of du Norde, using a
flash lamp with an almost flat battery. He was swearing under his breath as he struggled to see where he was going and then uttered an expletive out loud as he tripped and nearly fell over some projection or other. I waited, breathlessly, for him to go headlong down the steps, but he survived and after knocking in the same fashion – three quickly, a pause and then two more – was admitted.
‘We go!’ Patrick said.
We were off the wall and making our way towards the steps when I heard people coming at the run. I was grabbed, thankfully by my working partner, finding myself momentarily airborne and then, only a little scratched, in very close proximity to one of the rank and overgrown bushes that grew at the bases of the walls – inside it, to be precise. Seconds later several dark shapes ran past us, almost close enough to touch, actually brushing the foliage, and disappeared down the steps. There followed the hammering and smashing of wood as the door was broken down.
I spat out the leaf in my mouth.
From the building came a subterranean convulsion, a megaton upheaval of the terrified accompanied by shouting, screaming and the crash of overturned furniture. Several people tried to escape up the steps but were hauled back. We heard the sound of blows, more shouts, groans and then it went quieter as though the main activity had moved farther within. No, just one sound – that of prone bodies being dragged away.
‘Oh, brother,’ Patrick whispered and then had gone.
Over the years I have discovered, the hard way, that the safest place to be in situations like this is not hanging around nervously on the fringes but right behind him, if necessary passing the ordnance. Nothing like this was required to begin with as the two masked men standing just inside the shattered door who disagreed with Patrick’s insistence on entry ceased to take further interest in the proceedings and we locked their unconscious selves in what turned out to be a storeroom. Then we stood quite motionless, listening.
I think it had occurred to us both that the raid might be a police one, in which case we had no choice but to silently retire. But police left on guard would have identified themselves – in fact, would probably have mistaken us for part of their own team from the way we were attired.
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