by Michael Kerr
Beth knew that this was a major breakthrough, and mentally fisted a hand in the air. She held out the coat, and Abby stood up with her back to her and put first one arm up and then the other to allow Beth to slip it on.
“There are a few ducks on the pond out back,” Beth said as she walked across to the door with Abby following her. “I think we should get a few slices of bread from the kitchen and feed them.”
A few minutes later they were sitting next to each other on a wood bench that had a plaque on it dedicated to William Parsons, the now late founder of Morning Star. Beth tore a slice of bread into small pieces and threw them out onto the glassy surface of the big pond, and several ducks rose up, wings flapping and quacking loudly as they rushed across the water to gobble up the handout.
Without saying a word, and very casually, Beth held out a couple of the slices for Abby, who stared at them for what seemed a small eternity before reaching out and taking them, to slowly pull small chunks from one and toss it to a duck that had waddled up onto the bank and was only a couple of feet from her.
“There’s a lot of bad stuff happens in life,” Beth said softly to the girl. “But there’s also so much good. We have to somehow accept both and take it a day at a time.”
Abby said nothing, but continued to feed the ducks. The remoteness that she had chosen to embrace was losing its grip.
On the walk back to the rear door of the clinic, Beth held her hand out, and Abby took it.
It was after lunch when Tom Bartlett walked into the squad room. He went across to where Matt was talking to Pete and Phil.
“We have what I consider to be another murder,” Tom said, sitting down on the edge of a desk. “At first look it’s a suicide. A chief inspector from CID just gave me a bell. They were contacted by the Transport Police. A young guy apparently jumped in front of a train on the northern line at Warren Street Station on Euston Road.”
“And the punch line is?” Matt asked.
“That his name is Dominic Wilson, and he worked on City Crime at New Segue Studios. Once his identity was established, it didn’t take long for CID to make the link and contact us.”
“Any witnesses?” Pete asked.
“One guy heard a woman shout, ‘he jumped’, but that was it. A student standing next to him said he just shot forward with his arms flailing as he left the platform, but couldn’t say whether he jumped, fell or was pushed.”
“I wonder what the odds are for it to have been anything other than a deliberate act by the same guy that murdered the two presenters,” Matt said.
“Too long to consider,” Tom said. “Good news is they have the incident taped. All platforms have security cameras watching comings and goings. We’ll have a copy within the hour.”
“We need to know what he was working on,” Matt said. “There has to be something that links all three victims.”
By three p.m. they had the CCTV footage and also copies of initial reports and images on a flash drive taken by crime scene investigators. Marci and Tam had been recalled to the squad room to view what they had.
Phil instinctively put his hand up to his neck as he stared at the screen and studied the awful life-size image of Dominic Wilson’s detached head. It was laid on its side, facing the camera. The pale eyes were half open, and the left side of the face had been ripped off to show shredded muscle and chalk-white bone. Having been bounced for several yards over granite chippings at the side of the track, it was now hardly recognisable as having belonged to the young researcher. Any damage to the head, or the body it had been separated from, was of little value. The injuries had been inflicted by the train, not by the person who had pushed Dominic off the platform.
The security footage was more helpful. They watched as people gathered on the platform, and were rewarded by the appearance of a tall man wearing a red parka, blue jeans and what appeared to be Timberland-style boots. His face was angled down, purposefully, for the grey baseball cap he wore to hide his features, to an extent that only a dark moustache and a firm jaw line could be seen. The figure walked casually up to the main bunch of waiting commuters, to stand behind Dominic, who even from behind was recognisable by his general shape, the clothes he wore, and the fact that his long hair was tied back in a ponytail.
There was no sound, and it happened fast. They played a five second clip of the tape six times, to repeatedly watch the young man meet his death in front of the train.
“Was he pushed?” Matt asked his team.
They all believed that he had been.
“You can’t see Red Parka’s hands,” Marci said. “There’s a guy obstructing them at the critical moment. But there’s body movement. His head and shoulders dip slightly and move forward, and then Dominic shoots off the platform.”
“And a second after it happens the guy turns and walks back towards the stairs,” Pete said. “He doesn’t display any sign of shock, just wanders off with his hands in his pockets.”
“I agree,” Tam said. “It isn’t the reaction of an innocent bystander. He appears, stands behind the victim, and then pushes him in front of the train and leaves.”
“So we have the same perpetrator at three murder scenes,” Matt said. “But no motive yet, so more employees at New Segue could be at risk.”
“It has to be someone that they were investigating,” Phil said.
“No, it doesn’t,” Matt stated. “We need to keep an open mind. It could be more personal than that. If I was some lowlife that was being looked at hard by the staff of a TV expose show, then I’d take out the instigator, which could be the producer of the show. Danielle Cooper and Jeff Goodwin were basically presenters, and Dominic Wilson did research for them. If you want to kill the snake, you cut its head off.”
“So you think it’s someone close to them?” Marci asked.
“Maybe close to one of them. Two of the victims could have been window-dressing to distract us from what was the main event.”
Unknowingly, the team would have to work with what they already had. Unbeknown to them the three supposed suicides were all that there would be. And Matt had been right. Only one of them had been murdered for a reason. The other two killings had been carried out to cloud the issue and confuse them.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
IT didn’t take long for him to decide where to abduct Dewey Marvin from. Newspapers had reported that he was the owner of the Black River Bar in Soho, and by sheer doggedness in staking the place out, he had noted that Marvin only showed up after ten p.m. most evenings, and left at approximately two a.m. He was a creature of habit.
Dewey was not a pack animal. He led a double life. By night he associated with his employees, making deals and overseeing his illegal activities, keeping a tight rein on the men and women that ran his large stable of girls, peddled the drugs and dealt with the trade in human trafficking. A dozen enforcers monitored his affairs, collected ‘protection’ money from small businesses, and were happy to chastise anyone that stepped out of line. The only legal revenue Dewey made came from the bar and a large commercial laundry that had contracts with hospitals and clinics and nursing homes. He lived alone in a penthouse apartment in a secure block set in large grounds in the western suburbs of the city, next to the Thames at Teddington Lock on the southern Surrey side of the river. The apartment was listed as being leased by one of the bogus holding companies he owned, to Frank Clay, which was the alias he used. Dewey Marvin had an address in Hammersmith, which he stayed at infrequently.
In the guise of Clay, Dewey could live as an upstanding citizen, who was thought by neighbours to be the wealthy owner of a timeshare company that owned properties mainly in the Canary Islands and Florida. He kept the seedy side of his life totally separate, and planned to bail out of the rackets he ran by the time he was forty, to enjoy the money that he was amassing in offshore accounts.
It was a little after eight a.m. when Dewey took the lift down to the ground floor and left the block. He was dressed in a maroon fleece sweat su
it and matching Gucci Adamo leather sneakers with a combined price tag of just over twelve hundred pounds. He liked to shop at Harrods. There was no point having money and not enjoying the good life.
After doing a few stretching exercises, he jogged along the wide, tree-lined drive to the manned security gates, said good morning to the uniformed security guard, Bert Compton, and made his way to a footbridge that took him across the river to the towpath. He turned south, as usual, and jogged along the eight-foot wide path, that was in disrepair with grass and weeds growing through cracks in the old and pitted asphalt.
Passing by several moored motor cruisers and canal boats, Dewey glanced at a couple sitting out on the deck of one. They were wrapped up against the chill air, and clasping steaming mugs in their hands. They both smiled and waved at him, and he smiled and waved back. The civilised and peaceful side of his character appreciated this kind of environment, which he recognised as being the antithesis of the violent and criminal life he lived in the city, mainly by night.
Past the boats, and the scene ahead of him comprised the river on his left, the towpath he was on, and the trees to his right. A veneer of gossamer fog clung to the surface of the water, and two majestic snow-white swans forged a path through it, appearing to float on the vaporous grey blanket.
Dewey could relax out here in the sticks, posing as another person. It was when he was ‘doing business’ that he was always on guard, for as any gangland boss, he had enemies that wished him harm. The art of survival was to trust no one, and if necessary use attack as the best form of defence. Everyone was on what he termed the make and take. Greed, sex and drugs in any order were the driving force behind many people’s actions. He had a lot of supposedly honest men and women in his pocket, and they provided an almost impenetrable dome of safety around him. There was no doubt whatsoever that money was what the masses always wanted more of. They were quick to lower their moral values for a fist full of crisp bank notes. You succeeded in life by having power. Feed a need and you were the main attraction; the person that others flocked to for what you could provide them with, at a price.
Rounding a slow bend, Dewey saw what appeared to be an old man sitting on a bench about seventy-five yards distant. No threat. There was a medium-sized black dog sitting on the ground in front of the guy, who was resting his hands, one on top of the other on a walking stick. Without breaking pace, Dewey closed the gap between them to fifty, then forty, and then thirty yards.
The problem was taking him alive. Having finally decided on the best time and place, he’d had to work out how to abduct the tall, powerfully built black man, who would no doubt be very capable when it came to defending himself. Taking a swing with the horn-handled cane was too dangerous. The near fuckup at Danby’s bedsit had shown him that the method was not sure-fire. He needed a gun. No one with an ounce of sense argued when they were looking down the muzzle of a firearm. But a gun was not an item that you could just walk into a store and purchase like a can of beans, this wasn’t the United States.
More time was involved, and money that he could ill afford had to be expended. But anything worth doing deserved to be done properly.
After six tries he struck lucky in a pub in Tower Hamlets, north of the Thames in the East End; got into a conversation with a young guy who had lank hair, a pock-marked face, teeth as black as coal and breath as foul as a restaurant skip. He bought him a drink and mentioned that he smoked joints for bad hip and back pain, but that it wasn’t hitting the spot any more.
“Maybe you need somethin’ with a bigger kick,” Bobby Brewster said.
He nodded. “I think you’re right, but I wouldn’t know where to get hold of it, or what to buy.”
“Follow me,” Bobby said, sliding off his stool and walking back to the dimly lit corridor that led to the gents.
He didn’t see it coming. He was spun round against the grimy tiled wall and frisked before he knew what was happening.
“Sorry about that,” Bobby said. “But you could’ve been wired. I’ve gotta be careful, ’cause I don’t know you from Adam.”
Bobby asked him if he wanted crack, smack or maybe crystal meth. He decided on a small amount of coke and paid a hundred quid for two grams. Said he would give it a try and see how it worked out.
“You’ll love it, and you know where to find me if you want more,” Bobby said. “Is there anythin’ else you need?”
“Yes, a gun,” he said.
Bobby didn’t look surprised or ask him why, just said, “What kind of gun?”
“A handgun with a silencer.”
“It’ll cost you a monkey at least.”
Five hundred was a lot to fork out for something that he only intended to use to intimidate Marvin with.
“Okay,” he said. “When can you get it?”
“Tomorrow evenin’. I’ll meet you in here at nine.”
It had been that easy. He’d met Bobby as arranged, and then been led out the back door of the pub and through a maze of alleys, to come out on a street of terrace houses. Bobby stopped at the rear of a rusted Mazda.
“It’s six hundred for the gun, silencer and a box of ammo,” Bobby said. “Give me the cash, then open the boot and check what’s wrapped in the oilcloth.”
He had thought that Bobby might have planned to mug him and take off, so had brought a knife with him and was holding the handle tightly, ready to pull it out of the pocket of his car coat and use it if need be. But he was given no cause to. He pulled the lid of the boot up, then untied the fastening on the oilcloth. By the dim glow of the small light he could see the gun, a five-inch long steel cylinder, and a brown cardboard box that he supposed was full of bullets.
“Satisfied?” Bobby said.
“Yes. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Anythin’ you need, you know where to find me. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Bobby closed the lid, turned and seemed to be swallowed by the mouth of the alley he entered.
With the gun and accessories wrapped up again, he tucked the bundle under his coat and found his way back to where he had parked the Golf.
Back home, he checked the nine-millimetre Browning pistol, worked out how to release the magazine, and loaded it. He then went out into the back garden, screwed the silencer onto the end of the barrel and jacked a round into the chamber, to aim it at the sky and pull the trigger.
He smiled. The pop of the gunshot was negligible. He was ready to deal with Dewey Marvin.
Dewey was less than twenty yards from where the man was sitting on the bench when his mobile came to life with the theme of Shaft as a ringtone. He stopped, unzipped the pocket of his sweat top and took the phone out and answered it after checking the caller ID.
“Yeah, man, what’s the emergency?” Dewey said to Jay-Jay Campbell, who headed up his team of enforcers.
“We jus’ lifted de piece of shit dat was skimmin’ from de parlour at Walker’s Court. What you want me to do wiv ’im, boss?”
“Take him to the storage unit in Paddington, Jay-Jay. Don’t do anything till I get there. Okay?”
“You got it,” Jay-Jay said.
Dewey ended the call, turned round and began jogging back along the towpath. He had the sudden need to deal personally with the young guy that he had put his trust in to run the massage parlour. Stealing from him was as hazardous as swimming in shark infested waters with a bleeding wound. You didn’t stay on top or keep your street cred if you let workers take the piss.
He watched as the big black guy ran back the way he had come, to soon be out of sight round the bend. He had been two seconds from standing up and aiming the gun at Marvin, when he had stopped to take the phone call. Twenty yards away could have been twenty miles. A handgun was not accurate over that kind of distance, especially with a silencer fitted. He cursed under his breath, and then said, “Come on Rascal, let’s go home. We’ll try again tomorrow morning.”
Walking through the trees to where his car was parked off-road, he ope
ned the door, and Rascal jumped in to take up his usual attentive position on the passenger seat. He keyed the engine to life, and then relaxed and reminded himself that sometimes you had to wait for good things to happen. Plans could go wrong, but that didn’t mean they were lost causes. He would be back on the bench at just before eight a.m. the next morning, and would hopefully be able to take Marvin without any further delays.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
DEVON DAVIS was in the back of an old bottle-green Volkswagen transporter panel van. It had a decal for plumbing services on each side and a set of ladders strapped to a roof rack. It was a vehicle that no one would give a second look.
Jay-Jay was driving. Carl Lincoln was sitting next to him, and Devon was under a tarp in the back, blindfolded, gagged, and with his wrists and ankles bound.
They stopped outside the gates of the facility on Saxon Road, which was in a rundown area of Paddington, surrounded by derelict houses that had been scheduled for redevelopment for over a decade.
Carl got out, unlocked the wire mesh gates and pushed them sideways to bump and squeak as the wheels rolled on the recessed steel runners set into the concrete.
Jay-Jay drove in, turned left, and then first right into the second wide aisle, to park outside unit 43. Carl locked the gate and walked to the unit. There was no security guard, just a defunct camera at the gates. Most of the units were empty. This was a company owned by Dewey, and was a legitimate investment. The land that the storage units were on would make him a fortune when all the planning for proposed development was passed. It was a prime location.
Carl opened the roll-up door, and then helped Jay-Jay lift Devon out of the van and carry him into the unit, to dump unceremoniously on the cement floor.
The interior was the size of a regular garage. It had whitewashed breezeblock walls discoloured by damp, and the only contents were a metal table and two plastic contour chairs, a wall-mounted cupboard, and a large galvanised steel bucket with a mop and two scrubbing brushes in it, standing in a corner.