by Michael Kerr
Carl squatted down, grasped Devon by his shirt and trousers and rolled him over up to the wall, before going back out to the van to fetch a thick, folded black plastic sheet, which he opened up and spread out on the floor.
Devon was terrified. They had lifted him as he had been standing outside the rear door of the massage parlour having a smoke. Jay-Jay had got out of the Volkswagen, smiled, walked up to him and hit him hard on the point of his jaw. He had been almost knocked unconscious, and collapsed as his legs turned to jelly and gave out on him. Seconds later he had been thrown in the back of the van, to be gagged and have plastic ties used to bind his wrists and ankles. And now he was stretched out on a cold surface, and from the sound of the rollup door being opened and closed, he thought he might be in a garage.
He had been fucking stupid; should have known that his scam would be found out at some point in time. But he’d needed extra cash to feed his personal drug habit.
It was ninety minutes later when Dewey arrived. He had showered and dressed in a long sleeved chambray shirt, black leather jacket, blue jeans, and Dr Martens safety boots with steel toecaps.
He parked his silver Merc outside the gates, let himself in, walked round to the unit and rapped on the door. Carl let him in. Rolled the door up just far enough for Dewey to duck under.
There was no electric. Carl had lit an oil lamp that gave out a yellowish light that was reflected back from the shiny plastic like moonlight off a calm sea.
“Get rid of the blindfold and gag,” Dewey said, and Jay-Jay did.
Devon squinted at the light before turning his head to face Dewey. “I’m sorry, boss,” he said. “I’ll pay you back and make it right, I swear to God I will.”
Dewy pulled up one of the plastic chairs, and before sitting down in front of the young man, he said, “No, Devon, I’ll make it right,” and drove his left leg forward, for the steel toecap of his boot to slam into Devon’s side, snapping two ribs under the impact.
The strangulated cry from Devon’s mouth was not particularly loud, but relayed the subsequent agony that he was now in. It flashed through his mind that he could well be killed where he lay. Two months ago one of the girls that had worked the street for Dewey had started freelancing to make a few extra quid, and word of mouth had it that she had been garrotted and wound up in the foundations of what was now a new office block in the city. She had done the same sort of thing before, to be slapped around and read her rights, which were none. The warning had apparently fallen on deaf ears.
“The amount of money that you took isn’t important, son,” Dewey said as he sat forward on the chair with his forearms on his thighs. “It’s all about principle, loyalty, and not taking the piss out of someone who gave you his trust. You had a cush job, just watching over the girls at the parlour and making sure that none of the punters got out of hand. Ha, out of hand. That’s funny. We provide services. I want the guys that use the parlours to leave happy and come back. The going rate for a massage with HE is thirty quid. You told the girls to up it to forty-five, and then you split the difference with them. Fortunately, one of them was sensible enough to know that you’d get sussed, so gave us a call.”
HE stood for Happy Ending, which involved an oily barrelled fist or a warm mouth giving relief to guys that, in the main, wanted to pop, not work at relationships.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Dewey continued. “You’re going to be hurt real bad, Devon, and then we’ll dump you somewhere and call for an ambulance. Tell whoever asks you that you were mugged, but didn’t see who did it. And when you get patched up and can walk again, fuck off up to somewhere like Birmingham, Manchester or Leeds. Be advised that if you ever come farther south than Watford you’ll end up on your knees in front of a shallow grave and have your head blown off.”
Devon threw up and pissed himself as Jay-Jay and Carl opened the doors of the wall cupboard, took baseball bats out of it and wound duct tape around the bottom third of them, so as not to leave skin, hair, bone or blood on the makeshift weapons.
Dewey got up, carried the chair back to the rear of the unit and sat down again to watch.
It only took a minute. Jay-Jay and Carl were careful not to kill Devon. The solid, round, heavy shafts of the bats broke bones, and bruised flesh without splitting it. They were experts at inflicting whatever level of damage was required, from a minor beating to the execution of someone who had really pissed Dewey off, or was a threat to the organisation. The only blood, and there was quite a lot of it, came from the penultimate blow, that fractured Devon’s bottom jaw in six places and blasted a handful of teeth out of the gums, for them to pepper the plastic and bounce off at various angles. Devon had to endure the pain, because he had no choice but to suffer it. A part of his mind just wanted to escape into unconsciousness, and hope that they would then stop beating him.
The final strike gave him the relief he desired. It caught him across the temple and put him out of it, temporarily.
“Okay,” Dewey said. “Clean up, dump him well away from here, and then call an ambulance. I think that this was a lesson he needed to learn.”
Back in the Merc, Dewey headed back to Teddington. He had not particularly got any real pleasure from seeing Devon get beaten so badly, but had come to the conclusion years ago that the use of violence was one of the most powerful and effective ways to control people. It was sometimes a necessary tool, to keep individuals in line. They needed to know that whatever they believed or thought counted for nothing. If the fear factor was high enough, then ninety-five percent of the masses could be manipulated, if need be. He ran a tight ship. Only idiots and those that held the mistaken belief that they could better him were sometimes a problem that had to be dealt with in the extreme. He was not above torture and murder, if that was what it took to stay in control.
After arriving home, Dewey decided to have a couple of hours’ sleep. He had a busy evening and night ahead. He was negotiating a new deal for a much larger number of young, female illegals to be shipped over the channel in containers. There seemed to be an inexhaustible amount of them available, and human trafficking was a very lucrative game to be in. The women were nothing more than product to him; merchandise to be absorbed by the sex trade. And whenever they were safely delivered from the docks to a secure holding place, he liked to look them over and sample one or two of the younger ones before they were distributed to buyers.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
MATT was on the roof, standing at the edge with his legs braced against the bricks of the parapet and his hands gripping the top of it. A stiff breeze drove him forward, as if it had intention to lift him up and hurl him out into space.
The roof of the apartment building was a recreation area for the residents. There were heavy cast iron tables and chairs, a barbecue pit, and a great many potted plants of various sizes set on a lawn of Astro Turf. This was where Jeff Goodwin had supposedly jumped from, to take a two second flight into oblivion.
But now they knew better. Goodwin had not fallen or committed suicide. He had been pushed, which had necessitated his killer being next to him, in his personal space. Was it reasonable to suppose that someone could have come out onto the roof and taken him by surprise? No. The distance between the door and the parapet was too great. It had to have been someone that Goodwin knew. He had been lured up to the roof by the man in the red parka, and had not felt that he was in danger. It followed that he was pushed by a friend or associate; the same man that had also been in Danielle Cooper’s apartment and cut her wrists, and who had now shoved Dominic Wilson under a moving train. The killer was clever. Matt was now convinced that two of the victims had been murdered purely as misdirection. The killing of only one of them had been personal. But which one? The squad were doing the rounds again, and also looking for a reason strong enough to motivate someone to murder two other people, just to cover his tracks. It had to be for love or money. These hadn’t been spontaneous and unpremeditated acts carried out in the heat of the mom
ent. The killer had known his victims, their addresses, where they were employed, and had stalked and planned and carried out the murders in cold blood. One of them had seriously pissed-off whoever the perpetrator was. There was a degree of irrationality to the acts. At some times in life most people wished harm on someone that upset them, but did not take that extra giant step and act upon their feelings.
His fingers were now ice-cold on top of the parapet. He had been standing there for almost half an hour, deep in thought and letting one scenario after another run through his mind. And he came to a decision. It clicked. He knew with hardly a shadow of doubt that the principal victim had been Danielle Cooper. Her staged suicide had been a hands-on bloody and brutal slaying, whereas the first murder of Jeff Goodwin had been no more than a hard push that resulted in his falling to his death. And Dominic Wilson had suffered a similar fate, being shoved off the platform to be killed by another form of impact.
As he withdrew his hands and rubbed them together to generate some warmth, Matt heard the rustle of something scrape on the short-pile synthetic turf. He spun round to be faced by a tall man who stopped no more than six feet from him.
“You a cop?” the big man asked in a low, deep voice.
“Yeah,” Matt said. “Who are you?”
“Mark Wallace. I live in the apartment below Jeff’s. I had to fly up to Glasgow the evening that he was murdered, so I wasn’t here to be questioned over it.”
“Who says it was murder, Mr Wallace?”
“I do. Jeff was on a high. He’d just signed a new three-year contract with the studios. There is no way he jumped off the roof.”
“Maybe you’re right. But we haven’t talked to anyone that can give us the name of a single person that they think would harm him.”
“He was a nice guy. The only time I ever heard him raise his voice was with his agent.”
“Do you have his name?”
“It’s a woman. Her first name is Rhonda.”
“Rhonda Gould?”
“He didn’t mention her surname.”
“Do you know why he was raising his voice?”
“Something to do with the way she was representing him. It was a phone call, and I only heard one side of it. I was in Jeff’s apartment, having a glass of wine when she called. As soon as it got heated I went to the loo to give him some privacy.
“What did you hear Jeff say?”
“Just that she was well out of order. He said that there were plenty of other agents that would be more than happy to have him on their books. When I came back in the lounge he was pouring another glass of wine, and he was upset and said that the bitch was a control freak, and that he was tied to her for another year, but would then dump her.”
There was no more, and Matt seriously doubted that Rhonda Gould had anything to do with the murders of Jeff, Danielle or Dominic.
Thanking Mark, Matt left the apartment building and drove to the Strand to interview Jeff’s agent again.
The attractive receptionist asked him to take a seat. Said that Ms Gould was with a client, but should only be a few minutes.
It was almost ten minutes later that a middle-aged guy with a paid-for tan – and suspect grey hair that could have been a rug – walked out looking a little dejected.
The phone on the receptionist’s desk trilled, and the dumpy redhead answered it, said nothing, then hung up and told Matt to go in.
“Take a seat, Inspector,” Rhonda said. “Would you like a cup of coffee, or tea?”
“Neither, thanks,” Matt said as he sat on a black leather swivel chair that could have been taken from the set of Mastermind.
“Fine,” Rhonda said, opening a drawer of her desk and placing a buff folder in a compartment of the swing file that was fixed on runners inside it. “Why a second visit? I told you all that I could the last time you were here.”
“Not quite,” Matt said. “You didn’t mention that you also represented Jeff Goodwin.”
“I never gave it a thought. I was so upset over Danielle that other clients were not a consideration. I’m still finding it hard to believe that she committed suicide.”
“I think it’s safe to say that she didn’t. Someone staged it to look as though she had, and the same person murdered Mr Goodwin.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Positive. And whoever did it also pushed Dominic Wilson in front of a train.”
Rhonda closed her eyes for several seconds. Her hands clenched into fists on the desktop, and she swallowed hard. “I didn’t know Dominic,” she said. “Although I knew that he worked at the studio.”
“What was Jeff like?” Matt asked.
“He was a very pleasant man, and a valued client.”
“So you got on well with him?”
“Absolutely.”
“That surprises me, because I know that you had a heated argument with him during a phone conversation just a few days before he was murdered.”
Rhonda blinked rapidly. Matt could tell that she was struggling to think of an appropriate response.
“We had a difference of opinion over the contract that Jeff had been offered by New Segue Studios. I told him that he should have consulted me before signing it. I could have negotiated better terms on his behalf.”
“Did you know that he was intending to find another agent?” Matt said.
“No I did not, and I don’t believe for one second that he would have done that.”
Matt let a thick wedge of silence fill the space between them. Just stared at her and waited.
Seconds drifted by.
“Just what exactly are you implying, Inspector?” Rhonda asked.
“Nothing, yet. I’m just investigating the murders of three people. You had strong links to the first two victims, so are obviously a person of interest to us.”
“In what sense?”
“You had motive, Ms Gould. Should we find that Danielle had also planned to find alternative representation, I’m sure you can imagine that from our point of view that would set bells ringing.”
“That’s totally preposterous,” Rhonda said through gritted teeth as she got to her feet. “I do not murder my clients. They come and go. I’ve had many leave over the years, because it’s a fickle business, Inspector. I deal with people that have very big egos. And I was not Dominic Wilson’s agent. As you will know he was just a researcher on the show.”
“He was a red herring,” Matt said. “Murdered purely to throw us off the scent. I personally believe that Danielle was the main target.”
“I resent the fact that you believe I could be implicated in any way with anyone’s death. Do you recall a talk show host by the name of Jerry Hill?”
Matt nodded.
“Jerry was in line to be the next Michael Parkinson at the time, and decided to dump me for a bigger agency. And although I was obviously upset, I didn’t kill him. But I was more than pleased when he was accused of impropriety with a fifteen-year-old girl. That ruined his career, even though he was found not guilty.”
“Do you employ a man of approximately my height?” Matt asked.
“No. I have an assistant, Belinda. This is only a small agency. Why?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Matt said as he got up to signify that the interview was over.
“It matters to me, Inspector. You seem to have no idea who did these terrible things. You believe that people like me merit investigating, when it would appear that the most likely reason anyone would have to murder Danielle, Jeff and Dominic was because of their work. Perhaps some Kray-type gangster knew that they were looking too closely at his operation.”
“We’re considering all options,” Matt said, walking over to the door and opening it. He nodded at Rhonda, not inclined to talk further; closed the door behind him and took the stairs back down to the street.
Perhaps she was right. But it didn’t sit right in his head. Most of the high-profile criminals that had the resources to have people eliminated, would have had
someone lean on Danielle Cooper and Jeff Goodwin, to put the frighteners on them. Threatening to kill friends and relations was always a good incentive to concentrate people’s minds. And gangland hits were usually carried out by gunshots to the head. Arranging fake suicides seemed a too subtle way to go.
When he arrived back at the Yard, Pete had news over the Clown murders.
“Lenny Newton gave us a bell,” he said. “He picked up samples of DNA from all three victims that match. It was from dog hairs.”
“So we’re looking for a killer dog?” Matt said.
Pete grinned. “Next best thing, a dog with a killer for an owner. Lenny said that the results are based on analysis that isn’t of a quality that would be solid enough to be used in court as evidence, but he’s sure it’s from the same dog; a black Labrador.”
Matt was energized by the development. It was the breakthrough they had needed. If The Clown was known to the Madsen’s and lived in the Romford area, then it would just be a matter of finding out who on their list owned a black Lab. With any luck it would narrow down the field of suspects to just one.
“Shall I get on to David Madsen and ask him if anyone he knows owns that breed of dog?” Pete said.
“No, I don’t trust him. Even if he knew who’d killed his daughter’s murderer, he wouldn’t tell us. He’s glad that it happened, and he’d probably warn him off. We need to go back and check to see if anyone we’ve interviewed has a black Lab.”
“What about the Suicide Killer?” Pete said. “Did you find anything at Goodwin’s apartment?”
“No. Just confirmed that he wouldn’t have topped himself. One of his neighbours told me that he was considering changing his agent, so I had another word with Rhonda Gould. We know that the killer is a man, so unless she paid someone to murder three people, she’s clean. Maybe it was gangland-related, but I don’t think so. We still need to interview one of the guys that Dominic was investigating. There was a lot of info on an MP in his laptop. Cyril Brent-Soames is allegedly a slum landlord on the side. Dominic was trying to find hard evidence to link him to scores of properties that were not fit for human habitation. He had notes on flats and houses that were in a disgusting state; cockroach infested, with no heating or hot water and substandard electric wiring. Most were riddled with damp, and by rights should have had closure notices issued by the respective borough councils. But no tenants officially complain, because a lot of them are illegals, and so the problem just spirals out of control. For example, Dominic had interviewed nine Slovakian Roma that were living in a squalid one bedroom flat in Bermondsey, but they wouldn’t say or do anything.”