by Jack Gatland
‘They did,’ Danny replied. ‘But this was eighteen years back. They still had a presence there and still took in a few hereditary family cases. One of them was us. Both me and Cheryl were born there.’
‘So the midwife nuns looked after you during the birth?’ Declan asked. ‘Were you allowed to attend it?’
‘Again, yes and no,’ Danny said. ‘I wasn’t there at the start, but once they felt the baby’s–Angela’s–head, Father Lawson called me in.’
‘And Father Lawson was…?’ Declan was writing in the notebook, glancing up.
‘I dunno. He was the vicar there or something. Cheryl seemed to know him, I think he was part of the church beside the Mission. Anyway, he stayed with us. But then it all went wrong. They knew something had gone pear shaped. They called for an ambulance, but it was too late. Just after Angela was born, my Cheryl…’ Danny paused, tears streaming down his face. ‘… She left me.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Anjli said. ‘I remember your wife from when I was a kid around here. She was a firebrand.’
Danny chuckled, wiping his eyes. ‘She was that,’ he smiled. ‘Anyway, the nuns passed me Angela, and I took her and Cheryl to the hospital.’
‘Sorry to ask, but do you remember anything else from that day?’ Declan asked.
‘They were a small Mission House, and it was a busy time,’ Danny explained. ‘There was another family there, come from the other house to have their baby.’
‘Other house?’
‘I dunno. Apparently a lot of the nuns had gone to Saltley or Alum Rock or something, but they didn’t do Midwifery there. These guys had driven to have the baby there and then drove to London once they realised. Traveller family, I think. Didn’t want the hospital involved. Your Dad passed a month back, didn’t he?’ Danny changed the subject, calm again. ‘He was a prick. I liked him.’
Declan bristled at the insult, but accepted the back-handed compliment.
‘We may have some more questions for you,’ he said as he rose, Anjli rising with him. ‘You know, getting a better picture of what was going on, that sort of thing.’
‘Sure,’ Danny said. ‘And when I find the killer and cut his balls off, I’ll be the first to phone you.’
Declan rose. ‘Did you keep her room?’ he asked. Danny frowned.
‘What do you mean?’ he asked. ‘I didn’t rent it out, if that’s what you’re insinuating.’
‘I mean that often when we have missing person cases, or ones where the victim isn’t found for ages, we find that the parents leave the victim’s room alone, almost like a shrine. As if hoping that they’ll return,’ Declan explained, looking towards the door and the stairs outside. ‘I wondered if you did the same thing.’
Danny nodded. ‘What if I did?’ he asked. Declan shrugged.
‘I was hoping we could have a look at it before we left,’ he said softly. ‘Maybe we could find something that was missed.’
‘Nobody’s been in there for a year,’ Danny growled. ‘Even I haven’t gone in there.’
‘Danny,’ Anjli placed a hand on Danny’s shoulder. ‘It might help us find out who did this.’
Danny nodded, showing the door with his head. ‘You know where it is,’ he said. ‘And you’ll understand if I don’t join you.’
Declan nodded in return. ‘Of course.’
And with that Declan and Anjli left Danny Martin to his memories, and went upstairs to examine a dead woman’s room.
11
Hidden Things
The room was on the left of the stairs as Declan and Anjli made their way up them; obvious by a faded piece of A4 paper stuck onto the door that said Angela’s Room. It was coloured in with pencils, and drawn images of unicorns and wizards stood either side of it. It looked like a very young Angela had drawn it, and had been stuck onto the door for over a decade.
Opening the door, the first thing that struck Declan was the smell. It was musty, old smelling, as if the air hadn’t properly flowed through this part of the house in a very long time. Entering the bedroom, Declan glanced at Anjli before reaching into his pockets and pulling out a pair of blue latex gloves in a packet. Opening it, he removed the gloves from the wrapping, pulling them on, noting that Anjli was doing the same.
The bedroom was painted a deep blue; an interesting and unconventional choice for a girl’s bedroom, but then Angela Martin looked to have been an interesting and unconventional girl. There was a single bed against one wall, a flowered duvet pattern on it. Beside it was a small white sideboard with two drawers, and next to that was a writing desk, a lamp and an old iPad the only two things on it. Declan tapped the iPad and wasn’t surprised to see that nothing happened. After a year, the battery would have been drained.
Anjli was walking to the third wall of the bedroom, to the large built-in wardrobe. Painted white with a full-length mirror on it, the doors slid open to reveal a comprehensive collection of teenage clothing, with a long shelf along the top filled with boxes. The last wall, the one where the door was, had a white side cabinet with a small television on.
Anjli was already examining the wardrobe, so Declan opened the first of the drawers. It was filled with underwear, and Declan almost pushed it straight back in, already feeling awkward for breaking this memorial’s silence. Also, this was the room of a girl only a couple of years older than Jessica, and that made him think about his own daughter, to wonder how he’d react if something like this had happened to her.
Forcing himself, he rummaged into the drawer. When he had been a teenager, he’d hidden his secret items in his own underwear drawer, and then in a small keep-safe he’d made behind the extraction vent. He wondered if Angela had attempted the same thing.
Anjli had plugged the iPad into the charger and was trying to boot it up.
‘Maybe we should see if we can take this for a check over,’ she said. ‘Billy could probably get this open.’
‘It needs a fingerprint lock,’ Declan replied before grimacing. ‘And don’t reply that we have her fingers in the morgue. That’s just… Well, you know.’
Anjli nodded. ‘Yeah.’
Declan’s latex fingers brushed against something and he pulled out a small travel wallet. Opening it up, he withdrew a couple of used train tickets.
‘Euston to Birmingham New Street,’ he said, reading them. ‘So she was definitely there. Doesn’t give us anything more.’ He flipped through the wallet, pausing as he pulled out a small photo. It had been taken in a photo booth, and was one of four, the other three missing. Angela sat in the booth, but two other boys were in it as well. The first was a familiar face, Macca Byrne. The other one though was unknown, a blond boy, half out of the photo because of the crowding. Declan replaced it into the wallet.
‘Nothing here says anything more than a teenage girl hanging out with friends,’ he said. ‘You wouldn’t think that she had any secrets.’
‘She had one,’ Anjli said, currently going through a box from the wardrobe. She tilted it so that Declan could see what was inside. A collection of small crosses, statues of the Virgin Mary and old, broken Rosaries were cluttered inside, surrounding a small cigar box. ‘You saw downstairs. If your dad is such a Catholic, why would you hide it?’ She pulled out the cigar box, opening it, revealing a syringe and a burnt spoon among other drug related paraphernalia.
‘And why would you stick it all in a box with your drug stuff?’ she continued.
Declan’s phone rang, and he answered it.
‘Walsh.’
He paused for a moment as he listened. Anjli, putting the box back into the wardrobe, turned and watched his face; it darkened as he heard the voice down the phone. Eventually, with a curt ‘thanks’ he disconnected the call, staring down at it.
‘Everything okay?’ she asked. Declan looked to her.
‘We have to end this search, I’m afraid, and I’ll have to drop you off at Temple Inn,’ he replied. ‘I need to go to Hurley.’
‘Why?’ Anjli was closing up the wardrobe now as
Declan replaced the wallet into the drawer.
‘Because someone broke into my house.’
‘Then we’d better hurry,’ Anjli said. ‘We can make it in an hour if you use the lights.’
Declan looked to her in surprise, and she smiled.
‘You don’t seriously believe I’m going to turn down an opportunity to see your father’s secret crime board, do you?’ she asked. Declan smiled in return, grateful for Anjli’s candour as they left the room, closing the door behind them, taking a last look at the child’s drawing on the door before returning downstairs.
Danny Martin was still in the living room when Declan and Anjli entered it.
‘You find what you were looking for?’ he asked.
‘No, but we will,' Declan replied. ‘I promise you.’
Danny nodded, saying nothing more as he followed Declan and Anjli to the door, closing it behind them, leaving them once more in the uniform street. Declan looked at the house one last time, but then his expression changed as he pulled his phone out once more.
‘What?’ Anjli asked, looking at Declan.
Declan was already walking to his car, staring down at his phone. ‘Hold on, I’m Googling,’ he said as they both climbed into the car.
‘Wait, now this is interesting,’ he muttered, reading the screen.
‘What’s interesting?’ Anjli was fit to burst now. ‘What did you just realise?’
Declan looked to her. ‘We were so busy looking at the bedroom, we forgot to check on what Danny said to us,’ he replied. ‘Saint Etheldreda’s Mission House in Poplar, where Danny and Cheryl had Angela? They built it in 1892. Although they stopped officially doing Midwifery there in the mid-seventies and moved to Alum Rock, there were a few nuns who stayed, working independently for the local community.’
‘Well yeah,’ Anjli replied. ‘Danny said that. So what?’
‘So, we’re not looking at one murder anymore,’ Declan said. ‘We’re looking at two, if the call Doctor Marcos took was correct. Two identical bodies, one in Epping who we know links to Danny Martin, and one found in Birmingham, that likely links to Macca Byrne somehow.’
He tapped on his phone, bringing up a map image, and turning it to show Anjli across the car.
‘Alum Rock, where half of the nuns went,’ he explained. ‘As you can see, it’s just over a mile outside Birmingham. That’s where the other couple, having a baby the same time as Cheryl and Danny Martin came from, and it’s smack bang in the middle of George and Macca Byrne’s home turf.’
‘Jesus,’ Anjli said, looking back to the house. ‘That’s too much of a coincidence.’
‘Yeah,’ Declan replied. ‘But it’ll have to wait.’
And with that, Declan started the car and headed to Berkshire.
The drive to Hurley from Cyprus Street would usually have taken an hour and a half, but Declan’s Audi was a police issue one, and had all the lights and sirens you’d need for a high-speed chase. Declan and Anjli arrived at the house in less than an hour.
A police officer was waiting outside for them, his car parked on the road outside the house. An officer of colour, he looked no older than twelve, but was more likely to be in his mid-twenties, and had a young earnestness on his face as they exited the car and walked over.
‘You local police?’ Declan asked. The police officer shook his head.
‘PC Monteith, sir. From the Henley station,’ he replied. ‘They said I should wait for you to turn up.’ He showed the door currently open. ‘They came in through the back, but we opened this from the inside. Hope you don’t mind.’
Declan shook his head, moving past the police officer and into the house.
‘I think someone disturbed them,’ PC Monteith continued. ‘Your TV, video, stuff like that is still here, and they didn’t take the jewellery from the bedroom.’
‘I didn’t realise I had jewellery in the bedroom,' Declan muttered, smiling at the police officer’s confused expression. ‘I recently inherited the house from my father,’ he explained. PC Monteith nodded in relief.
‘That makes sense,’ he said, although Declan felt that PC Monteith would have said that even if he’d stated that he wore the jewellery in a drag act.
Looking around the living room, Declan stopped.
‘They took my father’s iMac,’ he said. ‘It was there on that desk.’
PC Monteith noted this down. ‘Anything else visible?’ he asked. Declan shook his head.
‘As you said, they probably ran the moment someone came to the front door,’ he replied. ‘Who called it in?’
‘Your neighbour, Mrs Thickett,’ PC Monteith pointed through the wall, presumably at a house matching the direction. ‘She saw movement through the window when passing.’
Declan made a mental note to thank Mrs Thickett at his first opportunity and, after examining the broken window at the back of the house where the thieves had most likely gained entrance, Declan thanked PC Monteith for waiting around. As soon as he’d left, Declan called for a glazier to come and fix the window.
Walking around the house, Declan couldn’t see anything else missing.
‘They came for the computer,’ he said. ‘They weren’t opportunistic, this was deliberate.’
By now they were in the study, and Declan looked to Anjli.
‘Welcome to my father’s world,’ he said as he pushed the bookshelf to the side. Anjli whistled as she entered the small room, looking around.
‘Jesus,’ she said, looking at the wall. ‘You weren’t kidding.’
‘Recognise any of the faces?’ Declan asked. Anjli was already examining the images.
‘You mean apart from the obvious ones?’ she replied. ‘Not really. Is anything missing in here?’
Declan opened the cabinet, flipping through the files. Everything was as he left it.
‘Now I understand why Dad had this,’ he said, waving around the room. ‘They didn’t even consider that he might have this.’
‘What?’ Anjli asked as Declan’s face fell. He shook his head.
‘It’s stupid,’ he said. ‘When I first saw this board, and when Shaun Donnal was here, I wondered if Monroe was something to do with all this. I even thought he could be the person who betrayed my location to the man with the rimless glasses. When he wasn’t, I kind of put it on the back burner.’
‘But?’ Anjli was helping Declan move the bookcase back now, covering the door. Declan shrugged.
‘But I still know that he has secrets, and it just seems suspicious that an hour after he learns that dad had a crime board, someone breaks into my house.’
‘True,’ Anjli replied as they walked down the stairs. ‘But, he could have simply turned up at the door, and you would have shown him the board without him having to break in.’
Declan thought about this. ‘Then who did this?’ he asked.
‘It could simply be kids, thinking the house was empty after Patrick’s death,’ Anjli replied. ‘It might mean nothing.’
Declan nodded, staring at the empty spot where the iMac had been.
‘Well, good luck to them if they were after anything on that,’ he said. Jess and I went through all of it and found nothing.’
There was the sound of a van pulling up outside. Looking out of the window, Declan saw that it was a glazer. With him was Karl Schnitter, marching quickly to the door as Declan opened it.
‘Ryan told me what happened,’ he said, showing the glazier, now following up behind. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Yeah, nothing stolen, it seems,’ Declan replied, deciding to omit the loss of the iMac. ‘Mrs Thickett saw them and called the police.’
‘I have a Wi-Fi camera on my back door,’ Karl said. ‘I’ll check it, see what was recorded.’
‘Thanks,’ Declan replied, already walking Ryan the glazier to the window. ‘How bad?’
Ryan examined the broken pane of glass.
‘Well, they’re old and you should upgrade them to some double glazing, but it’s a half hour job.�
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Declan looked to Anjli. Karl saw this, offering his hand.
‘Karl Schnitter,’ he said. ‘I am Declan’s neighbour.’
‘DS Anjli Kapoor,’ Anjli replied. ‘I work with him.’
‘Should you not be hunting criminals?’ Karl asked. Declan shrugged.
‘Kind of got distracted,’ he said. Karl nodded.
‘Go hunt criminals,’ he replied. ‘I will stay with Ryan and close the door behind me. You can call him later and pay over the phone.’
‘Do you mind?’ Declan seemed surprised by this. Karl laughed.
‘Again, you forget the generosity of village people,’ he said.
‘Thanks, Karl,’ Declan gratefully replied, patting the German on the shoulder. ‘I’ll return the favour one day.’ Nodding to Ryan, already getting to work on the window, Declan and Anjli walked back to his Audi.
‘Have you decided if you’re selling or staying yet?’ Anjli asked as they climbed into it.
‘Staying, I think. Why?’
Anjli smiled. ‘Because if you ever need a housemate, let me know. I feel like I’ve fallen into Midsomer Murders here.’
Declan chuckled.
‘People die each week in Midsomer,’ he said as his phone beeped. He looked down at the screen.
‘Monroe?’ Anjli asked. Declan shook his head.
‘Just a friend, asking if we can have a lunchtime catchup,’ he said. ‘I’ll drop you off at Temple Inn first, though.’
‘Actually, could you drop me back off in Globe Town?’ Anjli asked. ‘I thought I’d check about, see if I can use my history there to chase up some leads.’
Declan nodded, and gunning the engine, started back towards London.
12
Secret Rendezvous
It took another hour and fifteen minutes to get back to Bethnal Green and Globe Town; by now it was past twelve, so Anjli promised to take no more than an hour and meet Declan back at the Crime Unit, watching him drive off to wherever his lunch date was.