Murder Of Angels - a crime thriller (Detective Inspector Declan Walsh Book 2)

by Jack Gatland

  18

  Against The Wall

  Opening his eyes painfully, wincing at the light that hit them, Declan half expected to find himself in the boot of a car that was being driven somewhere far away and quiet, or more likely tied to a rickety wooden chair in a North London basement, naked, with electrodes attached to rather sensitive areas. What he’d done was stupid with a capital S. You simply didn’t walk into the Seven Sisters’ castle, attack their men and then expect to walk out. And, considering that the last thing that Declan remembered was a rather pissed off and embarrassed doorman smacking a baseball bat into the back of his skull, he almost hadn’t expected to wake up at all.

  Instead, he lay on a plush sofa in an ornate, red wallpapered lounge. The sofa was leather, very expensive, and Declan was currently sprawled face first on it. Moving his head and instantly regretting it as a wave of pain shot through his skull, Declan spied a mug of tea on a table in front to the sofa, while across from him sat Moses Delcourt, patiently waiting for his guest to waken.

  ‘You’re alive,’ Moses said, matter-of-factly. ‘And you’re not bleeding. Although you’ll have a wicked bump there tomorrow. You’ve got a tough skull, fed. You should be lucky.’

  ‘Where am I?’ Declan clambered ungracefully into a sitting position, looking at the mug warily. ‘Is that for me?’

  ‘Milk and lots of sugar,’ Moses nodded. ‘Good for shock. And as for where you are? You’re in the throne room of Janelle Delcourt. It’s where you wanted to be, right?’

  Declan took a sip of the tea, feeling the hot, sweet liquid slip down his throat. It was good.

  ‘I expected you to be a little more aggressive towards me right now,’ he said. Moses shrugged.

  ‘Gotta admire a guy who comes in like you did,’ he admitted. ‘Although Kayas acted in self-defence, before you consider dragging him in. You held a gun to his head. He was defending me.’

  Declan nodded. ‘You won’t hear me say anything against him,’ he said. ‘he got the drop on me. I’m good with that if he is. Although he aimed the gun at me first.’

  Moses looked around the room, and Declan followed the gaze. The wallpaper was expensive, gold patterns on a deep red background. The carpet was a burgundy; it was thick and obviously equally expensive. The lamps in the room were brass with misted glass shades, but they were more of a brushed gold rather than a hard, shiny surface, making them warmer and more subtle. The furniture was antique mahogany or leather, and on the wall was an oil painting of Janelle and Moses Delcourt, created a few years earlier when Moses was in his mid teens, hanged in an ornate golden frame.

  Moses saw Declan’s gaze.

  ‘Yeah, it’s a bit Buckingham Palace, ain’t it?’ he said with a grin. ‘Mum’s idea. She’s the Queen of North London, so why not live like a real one?’

  ‘I must get her interior designer’s details,’ Declan replied. ‘And arrest them.’

  Moses laughed at this. ‘You’re genuinely not scared, are you?’ he asked. Declan shook his head carefully, still unsure if it would fall off if he moved it more vigorously.

  ‘I’ve been in worse scrapes,’ he admitted. ‘And besides, if you wanted to hurt me, you would have done it already.’

  ‘Let’s just say you piqued my curiosity with the ‘other body’ bollocks you were spouting,’ Moses sat back in his chair. ‘And if someone is setting me and Mum up, I’d like to know about it.’

  Declan placed the mug onto the table, looking back to Moses.

  ‘You’ll let me free when we’re done?’ he asked. ‘I’m not going to be rolled up in a rug and dumped somewhere, or left in the street with words etched into my chest?’

  Moses smiled at the last line, but the humour never reached the eyes.

  ‘Let’s just say that currently you’re walking out the front door.’

  Declan nodded at this. ‘I can deal with that,’ he said. ‘You mother joining us at all?’

  ‘My Mum don’t hang out with feds and tradespeople,’ Moses replied. ‘You’re both. So you speak to me.’

  Declan shifted position on the sofa.

  ‘Okay then, I can deal with that. As I’m speaking to you, Mister Delcourt, I’ll start with some simple questions. Where did you meet Angela Martin?’

  Moses stiffened at the name.

  ‘I didn’t kill her.’

  ‘I never said you did.’ Declan motioned to his jacket pocket. Moses nodded, so Declan reached in and pulled out his notebook. Flipping it open, he pulled out a pen and started to write. ‘I know that you’re being framed for it though. Whether or not you killed her, someone has it out for you and I’d like to work out who.’

  ‘Who said it was us?’

  The question was innocent, but Declan could feel the weighted implication. Answering this was pretty much giving someone a death sentence, as it would place them at the top of the Delcourt, and therefore the Seven Sisters hit list.

  ‘Derek Salmon,’ he replied. ‘Came to us saying that he had to confess to the crime because of a deal he’d made with you and your mum. Said that if he did this, you’d look after his wife and daughter. He’s terminally ill, you see.’

  ‘We haven’t spoken to Salmon in ages,’ Moses muttered. ‘Since he quit the feds, in fact. And we sure as hell didn’t pay him to find a body.’

  ‘I know that now,’ Declan replied, putting the notebook down, allowing Moses to see that he was effectively taking the conversation off the record. ‘His wife won the lottery and wants nothing from him. My problem–well, actually my problems are these.’ He counted off on his fingers. ‘First, why was Derek aiming us at you? Or, rather, why was he aiming me at you in the first place, when he must have known we’d work out it wasn’t you? Which gives me a subsequent second question of why me? Why would he throw me to the wolves on a case that was obviously being made up as he went along?’

  ‘You’d have to ask him that,’ Moses replied. Declan nodded.

  ‘I intend to,’ he said. ‘Right after I finish here with you. But there’s more.’

  ‘This the other body bit?’ Moses leaned forwards. ‘About time.’

  ‘So Angela Martin was seen in Birmingham with Macca Byrne,’ Declan said. ‘In fact, we arrested her with him. But you know this already.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘But it wasn’t Angela that was arrested,’ Declan continued. ‘It was Gabrielle Chapman, who we’re still trying to gain information on. She’s the other body we found, killed in the same manner and here’s where it gets interesting, she had the same historical injuries and tattoos as Angela. And we have witnesses that say that this woman, this ‘Gabby Chapman’ was the one seeing Macca Byrne. Not Angela.’

  Moses stared at Declan silently for a moment.

  ‘But you knew that already, didn’t you?’ Declan spoke it as a statement. Moses shrugged.

  ‘I have sources, and I’d heard rumours.’

  ‘Like what?’

  Moses grinned. ‘I don’t deal in tittle-tattle,’ he replied. ‘So he was with this other girl. Why should this matter to me?’

  ‘Well, there we have another problem,’ Declan sipped at the tea as he continued. ‘When we checked her record, Gabrielle Chapman’s fingerprints matched Angela Martin’s ones. So even if Gabrielle was seeing Macca, it was Angela arrested with him.’

  Moses nodded, still calm. ‘Sounds like you got a girl, my girl, playing at being two girls. But then there’s another girl, who seems to be the same as my girl.’

  Declan watched Moses, looking for anything that could give away what the younger man was thinking. There was nothing. It was almost as if Moses had prepared for this conversation; that he expected the questions that Declan was asking.

  Moses knew all this already.

  ‘It’s definitely not your usual crime scene,’ Declan replied. ‘I have to work out who killed both girls, seemingly around the same time and why they were identical. I mean, that’s twins, right? But then that brings up a question about parentage. And all I
have is an ex police officer, a corrupt one who is trying his best to say that you did it, without actually saying that. So I need you to stop pissing about, stop playing whatever game you’re starting here and tell me what the hell is going on.’

  Moses went to reply, to argue, but then stopped. Silently he took a sip of his own mug before looking back to Declan.

  ‘I didn’t know who her dad was at the start,’ he said. ‘I swear. We met at a friend’s house party. She must have been about fifteen back then. I was sixteen, almost seventeen. She was different to the other girls. Later, I realised it was because of how she grew up, you know? We got on with each other...’ he paused, as if trying to work out how to phrase the next line. ‘And after a while we started seeing each other.’

  ‘And her dad?’

  ‘He was well pissed off that she was seeing me,’ Moses actually chuckled at this. ‘His bosses and mum didn’t exactly get on.’

  ‘He knew it was you?’ Declan asked. ‘She told him?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Moses nodded, pulling up his hoodie to show a small scar on his stomach. ‘Sent some prick around to cut me, warn me off. Didn’t work.’

  Declan thought back to his conversation with Danny Martin.

  ‘She was seeing some lad. Black kid, didn’t know the name. From North London.’

  Danny Martin had lied. What else had he lied about?

  ‘Her father also said she was on drugs at the end,’ Declan continued, moving the subject on. Moses nodded.

  ‘I don’t take the stuff, but Angie became addicted. And when she did, that’s when things fell apart. They’re all druggies up there, even the kids. I tried to get her to stop, but she was a thunderstorm, you know? You couldn’t stop her doing anything she didn’t want to do.’

  ‘Did she ever mention a sister? Or a connection in Birmingham apart from Macca?’

  ‘No, man. Not that I knew. And when she met Macca, she introduced us.’

  Declan looked up from the notebook. ‘I bet that didn’t go down well with the Sisters.’

  Moses leaned in, lowering his voice now. ‘Mum never found out. We had a plan. We were gonna create mad trade routes down the Grand Union, just like they did in Peaky Blinders. He was gonna source the gear, and then I’d sell it down here. Feds have that cool numberplate tech on the roads, but they don’t follow barges.’

  Declan nodded at this. ‘You sure you should give away such trade secrets?’ he asked with a smile. Moses shrugged.

  ‘Don’t matter. Never gonna happen now.’ He looked out of the window, up at the sky. ‘There was something that was weird though,’ he continued. ‘She weren’t religious at all. Her Dad was super Catholic, all into the guilt and everything, but she couldn’t give a shit. Tossed all the crosses he kept giving her away. And then out of nowhere she has this Rosary, you know? The beads and cross and stuff?’

  ‘I know a Rosary.’

  ‘Well, she had this wicked one made of Paracord and I think metal balls. Vicious bloody thing. She’d hold it in her hand and when she was in a scrap, she’d flick it at whoever she had a problem with, and the cross at the end was like a whip.’

  ‘It didn’t break?’ Declan remembered the broken Rosaries that he’d seen in Angela’s bedroom. None of those seemed to be as sturdy as the one Moses spoke about.

  ‘Nah, man. This thing was hardcore,’ Moses was grinning now as in his mind he relived the moment. ‘She was a real bitch sometimes. But you didn’t mess with her. That’s how I know that it was someone who she knew, who she trusted, that set her up to be killed. She wouldn’t have expected it, you know? That way you could stab her in the back.’

  Declan nodded. ‘Did she ever mention a Father Lawson?’ he asked.

  Moses started laughing.

  ‘Yeah, but it was a joke, you know?’

  ‘How so?’ Declan didn’t see the humour. Moses shrugged.

  ‘She kept calling ol’ Lawson her father, because he was her Father, you get it? Father Lawson being called dad?’

  Declan got it. And he believed that he understood the joke far better than Moses Delcourt did. Touching the back of his head and happy to see that it wasn’t bleeding still, he rose from the sofa.

  ‘I’ll find who really killed Angela,’ he said. ‘Don’t take this into your own hands.’

  Moses rose to meet him. ‘I’ll do what I damn well want,’ he said. ‘You might have all your clues and your Sherlock Holmes shit to do, but I know that someone killed Angie to stop what we were doing, and I’m gonna make them pay.’ He grinned; a dark, humourless, violent smile. And for the first time, Declan saw the man that terrorised North London.

  ‘You’re more than welcome to come at me again if I do,’ he said. ‘But I’ll leave you in a far worse state than unconscious on my mum’s sofa, you get me?’

  Declan did. And, nodding a farewell, he left the Seven Sisters’ stately home, walking out of the Brazilian café and over to his car. Only once he sat in the driver’s seat, the door locked, did he finally let out the breath that he’d been holding. The recklessness of the situation hit him like a freight train.

  They could have killed him.

  Staring up at the car roof, Declan took a deep breath to calm himself. There was something still nagging at him, something that Moses had said at the end.

  ‘Someone killed Angie to stop what we were doing, and I’m gonna make them pay.’

  Moses had spoken in the plural, not the singular tense. Which meant that he believed her death affected more than one person. Who were the others?

  Declan tabled that thought for another time as he indicated and pulled out into the road. He had another stop to make, and it was nearby.

  He was going to get the truth out of Derek Salmon.

  19

  Sisters and Mothers

  Billy and Anjli sat in Billy’s car outside Ursuline Convent, a 1970’s red brick monstrosity of a building that bore more similarity to a council estate than a Catholic Nunnery.

  ‘I never thought about where nuns went to die,’ Billy muttered. ‘I thought it was more like birds, you know? You just never see the bodies.’

  ‘You thought they just disappeared, like Jedis?’ Anjli asked, amused. Billy shrugged.

  ‘They have magic powers,’ he replied. ‘I’ve never felt comfortable around them.’

  The reason for their visit was Sister Margaret, a nun in her eighties who, at one time, was Mother Superior at Saint Etheldreda’s Mission House, but in recent years had moved to Ursuline, to finish her years in quiet contemplation.

  Billy’s phone buzzed, and he answered it on speakerphone.

  ‘Yeah?’ he said. The voice of DC Davey came through the speaker.

  ‘It’s Davey,’ she said. ‘I’ve got your print results.’

  ‘Blimey, that was fast,’ he replied, looking to Anjli. ‘We only dropped them off an hour back.’

  ‘Yeah, but glass is easy to gain them from, and it helps that he was in the system,’ DC Davey explained. ‘And, with you already saying who you thought it was, it was easier to narrow down.’

  ‘Was it Stephen Lawson?’ Anjli asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ DC Davey replied.

  ‘Were you able to get DNA from the glass?’

  ‘That’s a longer and more complicated task,’ DC Davey’s voice was cagier as she answered. ‘But if we manage it, we’ll let you know. It helps that he was drinking water, and not some kind of carbonated drink, but if you find better DNA, it’d be good to know. I’ve already contacted Belmarsh Prison, where Stephen was jailed to see if he was ever swabbed while there. If so, I can compare that to Angela’s DNA and see if something comes of it. Davey out.’

  The phone call disconnected. Anjli considered this.

  ‘He killed his brother,’ she said. ‘It has to be.’

  ‘Let’s arrest him,’ Billy went to start the car. Anjli placed a hand on his arm.

  ‘We’ll send uniforms in,’ she smiled. ‘We, however, are going to speak to some nuns.’

>   Billy’s shoulders slumped as he nodded.

  ‘Fine,’ he grumbled. ‘But if they talk about the damnation of homosexuals, I’m going to have a debate.’

  Getting out of the car, Billy looked around at the terraced Victorian houses on the other side of the road.

  ‘That said, I do like the area,’ he said. ‘I wonder how much the houses are around here?’

  ‘Way more than I can afford,’ Anjli replied as she started across the street towards the Convent. ‘You probably have enough stuffed into your sofa though.’

  Billy chuckled.

  ‘There was a time, Kapoor, where you wouldn’t have been far wrong,’ he said before locking the car and following her to the Convent door.

  The Convent itself was small and quiet, effectively a retirement home for nuns. Sister Margaret had a small room on the first floor, a shared bathroom beside it; inside the room the walls were painted cream and the functional furniture was pine. The paintings on the wall were simplistic and religious in attire, comprising Mary, Jesus, Mary and Jesus together and a crucifix, and there was a narrow Murphy bed that folded up into a pine bookshelf cabinet. By the window was a long desk that also doubled as a sideboard, and a kettle rested beside the lamp, an empty mug beside it.

  On the other side of the room was an armchair, and here Sister Margaret sat, currently knitting as Anjli and Billy entered.

  ‘Sister Margaret? I’m—’ Anjli started, but Sister Margaret held up a knitting needle, cutting her off.

  ‘I lost count,’ she eventually complained. ‘I’ll have to do the row again.’ She looked up to her two visitors with a smile.

  ‘Please, sit,’ she indicated the bed. ‘I have little furniture. It’s not really required by us.’

  Sister Margaret was Irish, although Anjli believed she was more Southern Ireland because of her softer accent. She was short, only five feet in height, and wore the ‘old lady’ frame of a woman who had once been overweight but was now far slimmer because of advancing age. She wore a long black dress with a white collar and contrary to popular culture she didn’t have a full black and white wimple on, instead wearing a more casual looking grey one that covered her hair. The only other item of clothing she seemed to wear were thin rimmed glasses, which she now placed on to stare at Anjli and Billy.