If I Should Die (Joseph Stark)

by Matthew Frank

  ‘Not while you’re entertaining other women. I’ve had it with your sort,’ said Maggie, suppressing her grin with limited success. ‘She’s been waiting ages. Won’t leave. You must’ve been a very bad man.’

  Stark reddened. The smirks of his colleagues didn’t help, especially Fran’s. He went quickly downstairs to the public entrance.

  Maggie’s ‘other woman’ was wearing a uniform. It wasn’t blue.

  ‘Corporal Stark,’ she said, without preamble or pleasantry.

  ‘It’s “Constable” now,’ he said flatly.

  ‘Captain Pierson.’

  ‘I’d guessed.’

  ‘Dial down the attitude, Corporal. The only reason I’m not standing here with a pair of Red Caps is out of courtesy to our civilian counterparts.’

  Perhaps she’d recognized his voice from the phone. Too bad. Stark was happy to match her spiky for spiky. ‘I don’t work for you any more.’

  ‘You’re not discharged yet, Corporal. Now, I trust you’ve kept this matter confidential.’

  ‘I can read.’

  ‘Have you, or have you not?’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘You still know how to follow some orders then. So, are you going to co-operate, as ordered, or not?’

  Her voice carried and the desk officers were paying far too much casual attention for Stark’s liking. He glanced at the cameras too. ‘Can we talk outside?’ he asked.

  ‘“Can we talk at all?” should be the question, given your obstinate refusal to return my calls.’

  ‘Please,’ said Stark, desperately, conscious that the desk officer was now grinning.

  ‘If you insist.’

  Peering between the canteen window’s vertical blinds Fran waited. As expected, Stark and his visitor emerged into view … The public lobby was altogether too public for a private conversation. So this was Captain Pierson. Stark’s lady friend was trim, attractive and possibly not Stark’s friend at all. Fran watched the conversation below grow more and more animated, heated, even. Right now she’d kill for one of those pointy dish microphones they always had conveniently to hand on TV cop shows. What was really going on here? Not a lovers’ tiff, surely nothing so banal. She could imagine Stark throwing taboo to the devil in some sordid affair with a senior officer, but she could equally imagine him stubbornly resisting advances. The problem was, she didn’t understand him. His momentary distress on hearing of the old boy’s decline was probably the first emotion of significance he’d manifested. It was good to care, but in a man so dammed-up, cracks might be evidence of worrying pressure.

  Maggie’s love rival turned and marched away. Stark just stood and watched her go. Intriguing. Of course the public lobby had CCTV, with audio. Perhaps she’d saunter down there later and find out whether the pair had said anything … important that a dutiful supervisor should know.

  Stark stormed into the office, steaming. No one said anything, but to avoid the sideways glances and smirking he flipped through the forensic reports. Something struck him and he opened the CCTV footage on DC Dixon’s computer. His jaw tightened.

  He found Fran nursing a coffee in the canteen. ‘Who decided what clothes and shoes to take from Gibbs’s house?’ he asked.

  ‘SOCO, why?’

  ‘The only trainers listed are the cheap white Asda two-stripe he was wearing when he was picked up. But correlating the confiscated clothing with CCTV, the figure we think to be Gibbs is wearing dark with three stripes.’

  ‘Adidas?’

  ‘Looks like. And I’m not sure but I think Gibbs was wearing blue with yellow stripes when we saw him last week.’

  ‘Bugger!’ Fran looked pained. ‘You’re right! I can picture the little thug. If SOCO didn’t find them …’

  ‘Perhaps he couldn’t get the blood off.’

  ‘Come on, Smarty Pants.’ She sighed. ‘Looks like we’ve got bins to rummage through.’

  An hour later Fran was placating Kyle’s mother with decreasing patience while a uniformed constable was placing two bulging bin bags on a plastic tarp outside the front of her ground-floor flat. Neighbours were gathering to gawp and Kyle’s mum moved from remonstration to abuse until Fran stepped smartly into the woman’s personal space and said something Stark couldn’t hear. The woman shut up immediately.

  ‘All yours, Trainee Investigator.’ Fran smiled darkly and tossed Stark a box. Disposable gloves. ‘The council, in their infinite wisdom, dropped the collections to every other week. I expect they’re a bit ripe.’ The uniforms chuckled. Without a word, Stark pulled on a pair of gloves; it couldn’t be worse than latrine duty.

  There were no trainers. It had been too much to hope for, of course, but that was police work for you. He pored over the contents anyway, but there was nothing out of the ordinary, just the predictable poverty of freezer-food, ready meals and takeaways. He noticed a cutting from a magazine, about ten centimetres square, clearly once folded geometrically in on itself. Then he found four more. ‘Sarge,’ he said, holding them up. They were classic drug wraps, grams of cocaine most probably.

  Fran turned to Kyle’s mother. ‘Tina, Tina, Tina … Yours? Or Kyle’s?’ Tina scowled, tight-lipped. ‘Five wraps in under a fortnight, and that’s just the ones we’ve found!’ Fran shook her head. ‘And you with nothing but income support to feed you.’

  One of the onlookers laughed. Tina Gibbs stabbed a murderous glance at them.

  Fran nodded to Stark. ‘Bag those up, Constable. They may be of interest to Tina’s parole officer.’

  Tina looked sick. Fran turned to her and said quietly, ‘Right, Tina, how about you let me have another look round upstairs? And while I’m doing that, you can have another think about what might have happened to Kyle’s nice blue-and-yellow Adidas Gazelles.’

  It was a good effort but, anxious as she was, Tina either knew nothing about them or wasn’t ready to tell. And there was no sign of the shoes inside. Stark was left to re-bag the rubbish and the uniforms helped him carry it back through the flat to the bin.

  ‘Foot search, Sarge?’ asked one of the constables.

  Fran’s lips twisted in frustration. ‘We can ask, but this isn’t a murder case.’

  ‘What did you say to calm her down?’ asked Stark.

  ‘I reminded her that the oldest profession is still illegal in this country,’ replied Fran. Stark detected no judgement or cynicism, just a sort of world-weary sadness. She didn’t say much on the way back to the station. The only good news for the rest of the day was that Alfred Ladd was back in ICU, stable and being kept unconscious for now. Tension that Stark had not noticed in himself eased.

  That night, however, he woke in the darkness to the faint ringing of the living room phone. Disoriented, he grappled the silent handset from his nightstand. It was Fran. ‘Sarge?’

  ‘The old boy died at three fifteen this morning.’

  7

  Stark closed his eyes. For any other news he might have been grateful for a call that tore him from another nightmare. On another night without whisky and pills, he noted.

  ‘Stark? Stark?’

  ‘Sarge.’

  ‘Get your arse up. There’ll be a car outside in ten minutes. We’ve got a few hours’ head start to put a shine on this before the super talks to the press.’ Fran barely paused for breath. ‘DCI Groombridge is leading this now. Are you getting any of this?’

  Christ, how many cups of coffee had she already consumed? ‘Understood.’ The army taught you how to go from asleep to clean, shaved and dressed in minutes. He was standing outside as the uniform car pulled up. Strangely, considering his previous emotions, he could summon no anger. He felt numb, detached, beyond. No doubt a textbook reaction.

  Fran and DC Dixon were already poring over the case notes when he arrived. ‘Well, don’t you look shiny?’ she said. Dixon gave him a limp smile.

  A few minutes later, Groombridge rolled in. ‘Right, where are we?’

  ‘Cause of death to be determined, but liver and genera
l health were poor. Possible failure of the remaining kidney or brain haemorrhage from the recent physical beating or blood clot from subsequent surgery.’ Fran read off her notes efficiently. ‘If that’s confirmed, it’s enough for the CPS to call it murder, though no doubt the defence would test the point. I’ll get FSS to process the physical evidence for DNA to back up the fingerprints. The landlady of the Meridian pub remembers the core of the Ferrier Rats leaving around the time we see the group on traffic camera cross the road towards St Alfege Park. What appears to be the same crowd are seen climbing into Greenwich Park. The war memorial was desecrated with more physical evidence. A matching can was found in Blackheath on the way to the Ferrier where the crowd had earlier bought supplies from the off-licence. The magazine pages used for the cocaine wraps found at the memorial and at Gibbs’s house matched. Fingerprint and DNA will probably confirm some or all were his, but he’ll just say he bought them from …’

  ‘A bloke in the pub,’ chorused half the room.

  ‘All this leaves us exactly nowhere. The CPS won’t lift a finger unless we have blood – so we need a foot search to find those shoes. DS Harper will organize it. I’ll go through the interviews again with Stark to see if any of the little shits said anything we missed. I’m assuming you don’t want them all pulled in again until we’ve got more evidence behind us.’

  Groombridge nodded. ‘We’ve got their bullshit statements already. Maybe a day to sweat after the news gets out will open some holes. Can we spare some bodies to watch the estate?’

  ‘Already got some uniforms out of bed,’ Fran said, ‘all happy to sit in unmarked cars for overtime.’

  ‘Good. Right.’ He clapped his hands together. ‘The super’s going to face some awkward questions about the lack of progress and, politically speaking, it doesn’t do to hide behind funding shortfalls and resource priority. We need to turn something up quickly. So get to it.’

  The interview recordings were painful to watch. It was truly shocking to think that, just a few precious years earlier, these kids had been smiling innocents, children with as much potential as any other. Now they were every Daily Mail reader’s fear and delight. Watching them, Stark was inclined to join the chorus demanding boot camps for young recidivists; a lick of real authority would do them the world of good.

  Worst among them were Kyle Gibbs and his girlfriend Nikki Cockcroft. He posed, feigning indifference, silent and sneering; she hissed like a cornered snake, spitting venom. They all trotted out their rehearsed alibis and clammed up like old pros. ‘How do kids like this get so savvy?’ Stark wondered despondently.

  Fran said nothing. They’d both served enough time in uniform to know the answer, having endured the ceaseless tide of youth offending from the depressingly dim to the needle sharp. Kids like these had been in and out of interview rooms half their lives. The sharp ones learnt the system, learnt that keeping your trap shut really did work. You saw them changing, blooming from amoral youth into full-blown adult sociopath. But the dim ones … ‘It’s like they’ve been coached.’

  ‘Or threatened,’ said Fran. ‘Probably both. And if they’re not scared enough of Kyle, Nikki has her big brother to wave around.’

  ‘Gary Cockcroft.’ Stark dragged up the memory. He’d read about Gary in Nikki’s file.

  Fran nodded. ‘Knocked over a security van full of cash. Killed three guards. The guv’nor worked the case.’

  ‘I remember. Gary and another guy, Ben something, went down but a third suspect walked. Liam … Dawson?’

  ‘They never got the cash back either. I was warned not to ask the guv’nor about it – a bit touchy? Anyway, Gary’s doing life-minimum-twenty in Belmarsh but that doesn’t stop little sis using him as leverage, I’m told.’

  Stark thought about that, and about Fran’s tone regarding Tina Gibbs’s profession. They probably all had their hard-luck stories and unstable upbringing. Now they were the Ferrier Rats, busy repaying the fear, abandonment and abuse of their childhoods tenfold. Did their pitiful backgrounds excuse their delinquency? There but for the grace of name-your-deity go we all? Stark didn’t know the answer, but he’d seen kids their age overcoming worse day in day out, and kids not much older fighting in the name of democracy. He resolved to call his mum and sister when he got home. The star of the last recording, Stacey Appleton, was at least less gobby than the rest, though no more co-operative. ‘Wait,’ he said suddenly. ‘Do you mind if I replay that?’ On screen the interview had concluded and both Fran and Groombridge had left the room. Just as the clip ended Stacey wiped a finger beneath both eyes. Stark paused the image. ‘Is she crying?’

  Fran pushed out her lower lip. ‘Hard to say. I doubt it. The guv’nor pressed them all quite hard. None of them cracked.’

  ‘Did she seem more frightened than the others?’

  Fran shrugged. ‘They were all crapping themselves behind the bullshit.’

  Stark stared at the frozen image. ‘We should talk to her again.’

  ‘We’ll be talking to them all again.’ Fran sighed wearily. ‘Come on, let’s finish this up before I get any more suicidal.’

  Harper was just wrapping up the foot-search briefing as they rejoined the team. ‘Everyone clear? Right, then, you lazy sods, time for a stroll.’ He spotted Stark and Fran. ‘You too, Trainee. Time you learnt life out of uniform still has its muck ’n’ bullets.’

  The search was organized into teams, each taking a section of the most likely route from the war memorial to the Ferrier Estate. Harper and Bryden led the first line of uniforms across Blackheath. Stark and Dixon joined the second, assigned the first few residential streets beyond: wide streets lined with large houses in large plots, some divided into flats, some not. As well as lifting drains and picking through verges, this demanded knocking on doors, asking if anyone had found, seen or heard anything, and obtaining permission to search front gardens and bins.

  It was a long and tiresome process, and when he guessed they were only about halfway, Stark had to rest on a wall. A treadmill was one thing, reality another. He’d passed the combat-fitness test God knew how many times, completed the Fan Dance (fifteen miles in full kit up and down Pen y Fan) in under four hours, the Long Drag (a forty-mile yomp across Brecon in full kit in under twenty hours), and hacked his way through miles of Borneo jungle, yet here he sat, defeated by a stroll. It was pitiful.

  It wasn’t a particularly popular process either. They’d been met with everything from ambivalence to hostility. At most of the large houses, though, it was alarm, residents leaping from ‘fatal incident’ to vicious murder to killers in their gardens. Stark was struck by their exaggerated incredulity, at the paper borders between pockets of a city. People locked their doors and windows, set the intruder alarm and closed their minds to the darkness. In the end, though, what other way was there? Keep your head down and trust it won’t happen to you, the burglary, assault, murder, the bullet or bomb.

  ‘You okay?’ asked Dixon.

  ‘Hanging on my chinstrap.’

  ‘Huh?’

  Stark chuckled. It was an army line, which suggested that the only thing holding you upright was your helmet. ‘Just waiting for my legs to catch up.’

  ‘You look a little pale.’

  Stark looked up into Dixon’s earnest, innocent expression and suddenly felt a hundred years old. ‘What’s your name?’

  Dixon looked confused.

  ‘I was always deployed with strangers,’ explained Stark. ‘Everyone had surnames on their tunics. I only learnt first names when there was time.’ He nearly said ‘if’. ‘I’m sorry, it’s a bad habit.’

  ‘John.’

  John Dixon, a good man. ‘OK, John.’ Stark forced himself up. ‘Let’s crack on.’

  The search produced bags of ‘evidence’, crap for some poor sod to sift through, but no blood-stained Adidas. The debrief was a downbeat affair. Afterwards, Fran followed Groombridge into his office. ‘Something on your mind?’ he asked.

  Fran hesitated.
Backing someone else’s hunch was fine, but it implied a level of trust she didn’t yet share with Stark. ‘Stacey Appleton, Guv. Did she seem …’

  ‘Seem what?’

  It was too late for second thoughts. ‘Frightened? On her interview tape, she looked as if she started crying after we left.’

  ‘Really?’ Groombridge raised his eyebrows, interested, and waved her to sit. ‘There were a couple of moments when I thought we might be getting to her. Crying, you think?’

  ‘Maybe. The tape cuts out. Here.’ She handed him a memory stick.

  Groombridge plugged it into his laptop and fired it up, skipping to the end. He watched the final frames three more times, pursing his lips. ‘Mm, could be. Inadmissible, of course. Technically we shouldn’t even be looking at anything after interview termination.’ He sat back thoughtfully. ‘You think we should get her in early, lean on her a little?’

  Fran shrugged. ‘The old boy’s death’s been on the news all day, so we can’t hope to shock her tongue loose, but even if she doesn’t crack I suppose it might rattle the others if we bring in her and not them. You never know.’

  Groombridge was nodding slowly. ‘Yes. OK, send Dixon with a couple of uniforms to pick her up. Nice work, Fran,’ he added, as she was leaving.

  Fran paused in the doorway, but left without saying anything.

  Stacey Appleton looked nervously around the room for the hundredth time. Groombridge was letting her stew for a while before the interview, but Stacey wasn’t the only one stewing. In the dimmed observation room Fran stared at her own ghostly reflection in the one-way mirror window, silently berating herself for not correcting Groombridge’s misassumption. It wasn’t her way to take credit for someone else’s ideas and she wasn’t sure why she’d not spoken up. It hadn’t been deliberate, but –

  ‘Is this going to take much longer, Sergeant?’ asked the legal-aid lawyer, impatiently. ‘I have other work to –’

  ‘DCI Groombridge will be here presently,’ replied Fran, a touch brusquely.

  Stark had said nothing while they waited. Patient as stone. She clicked her tongue in irritation. She felt indebted to him, didn’t like it, and couldn’t even blame him. She returned her gaze to Stacey. A pretty sort of girl, trying too hard to be older than she was. Epicanthic folds to her eyes indicated some East Asian blood. Naveen Hussein was Indian or Pakistani, Tyler Wantage, West Indian. If you could say one thing for the Rats, they appeared colour-blind. Multicultural Britain at its feral worst, united in colour and creed against all comers. Was that why they’d begun picking on the homeless? Had they needed an outsider, an alien tribe too weak and unaffiliated to withstand attack?