The grave’s occupant had died on 15th September 1873, which seemed unrelated, but it did raise questions as to why that grave, did it have a significance, and why that night at that hour.
In his office, Isaac sat in his chair. It was eight in the evening of the second day. Across from him, Larry, Wendy and Bridget. They were the core team that he had moulded; they were the best there was. Wendy could find people who wanted to stay hidden better than anyone else; Larry’s contacts out on the street invaluable, but his propensity to drink too much still of concern; and finally, Bridget Halloran, who had joined Homicide on Wendy’s recommendation. The woman was a genius with a computer and an internet connection, able to find information that others preferred to keep hidden.
Bridget was an office person, whereas Larry and Wendy were glad to be out of it as much as possible, although Isaac, a self-professed workaholic, always insisted on a daily end-of-day wrap-up meeting to discuss the day’s results, to plan for the next.
‘Larry, what have you found out?’ Isaac asked.
‘The woman’s not on any criminal database, and until we have a positive identification, we’re flying blind, asking questions, not even sure they’re the correct ones either.’
‘Did anyone see the woman on the night?’
‘No one we’ve found, which isn’t surprising. She had no distinguishing features, average in terms of height, weight, blood type, hair colour. Apart from the tattoo on her leg, that is.’
‘Bridget, you’ve been researching it, any luck?’
‘I can give you a dozen places within walking distance of the police station that could have done it,’ she said.
Isaac felt he was asking questions to which he already knew the answer. However, when everything has been exhausted, asking again can sometimes uncover a hitherto hidden fact, a not previously considered possibility.
‘Any luck with the inks used?’
‘I’ll visit the most likely places tomorrow,’ Wendy said. ‘It’s unlikely they’ll know who she is; a lot of women, some men, have Buddhist chants tattooed on them, but usually on the shoulder.’ Wendy thought back to the holiday in Greece with Bridget, the effects of too much ouzo, the small stars tattooed on their left ankles. They still laughed about how silly they’d been back then.
‘Strength through adversity. It could be significant,’ Isaac said.
‘Or it could mean nothing. It’s attractive to look at, not that I’d do it myself,’ Wendy said, looking over at Bridget.
‘Check on inks, batch numbers, samples of the most likely inks used and when. It could help.’
‘I’ll get what I can and get it over to Forensics, see what they can make of it.’
‘Larry, let’s focus on where you’re at.’
‘As I said, no criminal record and nobody seems to know anything about her. A Jane Doe at this time.’
‘Unless she took public transport or drove there, she would have to be a local.’
‘I’m looking. Give me a couple of days. I should turn up something.’
‘That’s the problem, we don’t have the luxury of time. It’s a clear case of murder, a woman in a cemetery, a man she had obviously known, a knife in her back. Any luck with the knife?’
‘Any department store in London, the cutlery section. An eight-inch knife, the sort that most houses would have; it’s not a name brand, generic Chinese, but sharp.’
‘Sharp enough to have killed the woman with one stab? Not even a frenzied attack.’
‘How could he be sure that she would be dead within a few minutes?’
‘The blade pierced the left atrium of the heart. The chances of survival are rare.’
‘Does that mean it was luck that he stabbed her in the right place or he knew where to direct the knife? The latter would indicate medical knowledge; the former, more than likely.’
‘Or he could have had military training. If he had killed under orders, he could have been trained in how to take out a man without making a noise,’ Larry said.
‘We’re postulating here. The man saw the two youngsters walking through.’
‘He could have got a good look at them, even if they hadn’t seen him,’ Wendy said.
‘Dependent on the man’s state of mind, professional or gifted amateur, he might not want loose ends,’ Isaac said. ‘We need to follow up on the young lovers.’
‘I’ll go and see them, tell them to be careful, find out what more I can.’
‘Before you go tonight, phone them both up, make sure there’s a uniform outside each house until tomorrow.’
‘I’ve got one person already,’ Wendy said, thinking of Constable Ecclestone who had been absent most of the morning, following up on a lead he had said. The man was on night duty, sitting downstairs, taking it easy. He’d not like it, but she didn’t care. To her, people who didn’t pull their weight got what was coming to them. She’d find another constable for the other house, but not Kate Baxter, who was doing a sterling job.
***
The following day it started to rain, an English rain, the type that overseas visitors to London remember only too well. At the cemetery, the crime scene investigators had gone as far as they could, and apart from the tape around the grave and the small patch of grass surrounding it, people were starting to walk through again and to begin visiting the graves, although few did.
Larry went with Wendy to the first house for that day, the Robinson residence. Brad Robinson and his mother lived in a nondescript row of red-brick houses; not the upmarket terraces of Holland Park and Bayswater, more downmarket than that, as far removed from the wealth of the area as could be.
On the next-door neighbour’s front lawn, a motorcycle with its engine removed. Looking at the rust, Larry could see that it would never run again. A dog barked from inside another house, a yapping sound that grated on the nerves, a street where the animal would meet an unfortunate ending, poisoned bait.
Two knocks at the door and Brad Robinson’s mother opened it. She was a woman who had seen better days, Wendy conceded, but she had a cheery disposition and an easy smile. A woman, Wendy thought, who had been dealt a cruel hand by her upbringing, her lack of education, a family that skirted the boundary between legal and illegal, slipping over into the latter on more than a few occasions.
Larry knew Jim Robinson, the woman’s elder son, in passing and had spoken to him a few times, the man not averse to a beer and a fifty-pound note in exchange for information; not that it had ever been any good.
‘You’ll be wanting Brad,’ Gladys Robinson said. ‘He’s expecting you, but he’s got school later.’
‘We’ll make sure he gets there,’ Wendy said.
‘Not in your car. People are sensitive around here, recognise a police officer from a mile off.’
It was true, Larry knew. He drove a regular car, dressed as others, but in an area where crime abounded, they always knew he was the police.
The house was clean enough, although there was an air of decay, not necessarily on account of its occupants, but because the local council had through experience realised that if you gave something too pristine to those who could only afford the low rents that they paid, they wouldn’t respect what they had been given. The Robinsons had clearly tried, but even so, one of the drawers in the kitchen was broken, a windowpane was cracked, and the cooker had seen better days.
Larry shook Brad’s hand as he came into the kitchen wearing his school uniform.
‘We’ve a few questions,’ Larry said.
‘Her father’s been on the phone,’ Gladys Robinson said. ‘None too happy. Accused Brad of seducing his daughter, and her only fifteen.’
‘He dropped Brad home on the night,’ Wendy said.
‘He did, and I grant you that it was the right thing to do.’
‘Your son and Rose Winston?’
‘I’ve nothing against it. I’ve seen her, not spoken to her, but she’s a pretty little thing. I can see why Brad likes her, and if they want to go ou
t, then it’s fine by me.’
‘She’s underage, not at the age of consent.’
‘I’ve known her father almost our entire lives; grew up with him, went to the same school. He wasn’t so posh back then, and as for his wife…’
‘A reputation?’
‘Stuck up, nose in the air, looking down at us, even at school. She’s done well for herself, so has he. Brad could do worse than their daughter.’
‘This may take a while,’ Larry said, aware that the mother wanted to talk. She had lived in the area all her life and was a good source of local knowledge, someone who might know something.
The four sat down at a small table, the mother having dragged a damp cloth across its surface first.
Wendy had no objection to the mother being present, as she was clearly not obstructionist.
‘He doesn’t want me to see Rose again,’ Brad said. ‘Blames me for what happened.’
‘You can’t blame the man,’ Larry said. ‘It was his daughter.’
‘He’s right, I know that, but I want to see her again. He reckons our family is bad news, more than our being out together late at night.’
‘Tim Winston’s right,’ Gladys Robinson said. ‘But Brad’s not like the rest of us. He’s never been in any trouble, not likely to be. He’ll be the one to save this family.’
‘Your other son?’ Larry said.
‘He takes after his father. He’ll be in and out of prison till the day he dies, which won’t be too long, not with his drink driving record, and the people he goes around with.’
‘Local gangs?’
‘Violent individuals. Cross them, and you’re dead. Jim’s a good-hearted man, give you the shirt off his back, but trouble and he go together, and then there’s his and Brad’s sister, my daughter.’
‘Janice?’ Wendy said.
‘I was wild at her age, but back then, it was alcohol more than drugs. A few pills, uppers, downers, but never the hard stuff, but Janice, she had this boyfriend that was dealing drugs, not that you’d know it, smooth as he was, used to bring me flowers. He talked her into injecting herself, instantly addicted. I read somewhere that some people don’t get addicted, but she did soon enough. Pretty as a child, close to Brad and to me, but she changed, hardened, and now she’s out on the street selling herself. How do you think that makes a mother feel? Knowing that her daughter is prostituting herself.’
‘Not good,’ Wendy replied, although they were there to discuss murder, not to solve the Robinson family’s problems, not that they could if they wanted to. Jim Robinson was known to Larry, and Janice was known to Wendy. The mother had only spoken the truth.
‘As sensitive as we are to your situation, Mrs Robinson, it’s Brad we need to talk to,’ Larry said, turning the subject back to the reason for being in the house.
‘We saw nothing,’ Brad said.
‘We realise that, but it’s the minor details that are important, the details that are only remembered sometime after the event. The woman was killed not long before you and Rose walked by, possibly five minutes, maybe less. You said that you saw a man walk by.’
‘Just before Rose screamed, not that we could tell you anything about him.’
‘We believe he was the murderer, not that we can be one hundred per cent.’
‘It was dark; we didn’t see him, not in detail, not that we were looking either. Rose was freaking out, so was I, but I never admitted it to her.’
‘We haven’t been able to identify the woman other than to age her at between thirty-five and forty-four, white, probably English, with a tattoo on her leg.’
‘They’ve all got them around here, even Janice, but then, she’s got more of almost everything,’ the mother said.
Neither Larry nor Wendy felt the need for the mother to elaborate on Janice. If the woman was doing it rough, that was for social services and others more skilled in bringing fallen women back from the brink. It was outside the scope of Homicide, and Wendy, sympathetic to the woman’s plight, knew that well enough, although Larry knew she would do something when she had an opportunity.
‘Here’s our dilemma,’ Larry said, looking directly at Brad. ‘You and Rose saw the man, the only two who did. We’ve not found anyone else, not yet, who can remember either him or the woman.’
‘Dilemma?’ Brad said.
‘We don’t want to be alarmist, but the man who committed the crime could be a local, the same as the woman probably is, or he was a professional brought in to kill her because she knew something. Which brings up another problem: how did he manage to get her in the cemetery and by that grave of her own free will?’
‘We don’t understand, or at least I don’t,’ Gladys Robinson said.
‘What Inspector Hill is saying,’ Wendy said, ‘is that there are inconsistencies in the woman’s death. The most common reason for a murder in such a place is rape, especially when a female is killed, but that wasn’t the case, and a knife in the back is usually accompanied by violence, a tussle, but there had been none, which means the woman knew her killer, and if she’s local, then that means he’s probably local too. And Brad and Rose are the only two who could possibly identify him.’
‘But we didn’t see him,’ Brad said for the second time.
‘He doesn’t know that,’ Larry said. ‘We need you to be careful, to go to school, to come home. We’ll keep a uniform outside the house at night for the next few nights, but whatever you do, don’t go out at night, attempt to meet up with Rose.’
‘I want to see her.’
‘At school,’ Wendy said.
‘Not there. I need to talk to her, to apologise for the trouble she’s in.’
‘Chivalrous,’ Larry said. ‘We’re meeting with Rose later. We’ll put you forward as a man of good morals and decent to a fault.’
‘Don’t overdo it,’ Gladys said. ‘He was still up to mischief. Tim Winston’s not going to go for it if you paint Brad as a saint; he’s not that, never has been, never will be, but you’ll not see him in trouble with the police.’
‘Describe the man,’ Wendy said. ‘Distinguishing features, the way he walked, a smell of aftershave, of sweat, of alcohol, of anything.’
‘I can’t. We told you all we could.’
‘Enter our numbers into speed dial on your phone. Phone us at any time, day and night, if you remember anything, see anyone suspicious,’ Larry said.
‘A ride to the school?’ Wendy said a smile on her face.
‘Not with you. Sorry, more than my life’s worth,’ Brad replied.
Chapter 4
Tim Winston was not in the mood to hear that Brad Robinson was a fine young man; it had been his underage daughter that the sixteen-year-old was attempting to lead astray.
The Winston family home wasn’t far away from the Robinsons’, only five minutes by car, but it was a vast improvement. No discarded motorcycle next door, no look of decay, but a two-storey semi-detached house, freshly painted inside and out, the aroma of air freshener throughout.
Winston’s anger was palpable, which both the police officers thought under the circumstances to be understandable.
Even so, Tim Winston and his wife invited Larry and Wendy into the living room, offered them tea and asked them to make themselves comfortable.
‘You can’t understand how disappointed we are with Rose,’ Maeve Winston, the young girl’s mother, said.
Wendy looked over at Rose, and although she had spent time with her at the murder scene, it was the first time she had seen her in the light. A fresh-faced and pretty fifteen-year-old; no one would have thought her to be older.
‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ Rose said. ‘It won’t happen again.’
Maeve Winston looked across at her daughter, managed a weak smile. ‘I hope not, scared us half to death when you told us where you were.’
‘I can appreciate that the situation in the house is not the best,’ Larry said. ‘However, we need to follow through on the events at the cemetery.’
&n
bsp; ‘I told you all I know,’ Rose said. She looked as though she had been crying, lecturing from her parents most likely the cause. Not that it would help in the long run, Wendy knew, although it might make her think twice.
‘We’ve met with Brad Robinson,’ Larry said. ‘He’s not been able to help us much more. We need to see if you can help with anything, no matter how insignificant.’
‘That name is not to be mentioned in this house,’ Winston said, a man quick to anger.
‘Unfortunately, it’s a murder enquiry,’ Wendy said. ‘We must conduct our investigation, regardless of your dislike of the young man.’
‘How is he?’ Rose asked timidly.
‘He’s fine, sorry for what happened.’
‘Dislike is not the word I would use,’ Winston said. ‘Not only was he with our daughter late at night, but he was also planning something that we disapprove of, especially at Rose’s age.’
‘I don’t think we should talk about this in front of Inspector Hill and Sergeant Gladstone,’ Maeve Winston said.
‘Don’t worry about us,’ Wendy said. ‘I’ve been there, know the anguish that you both feel, Rose’s awkwardness. However, it doesn’t alter the fact that she and Brad Robinson probably saw the murderer.’
‘We only saw a man walk by. I can’t tell you any more than that,’ Rose said.
‘Let’s focus on him,’ Larry said as he sipped his tea and helped himself to a biscuit from the tray in front of him.
‘Do we need to go over this now? Rose is still traumatised,’ Tim Winston said.
‘You gave the two of them a ride back last night. Did they say anything to you?’
‘Neither of them spoke, which was as well. I was relieved to have Rose in the car, and as for the other one, it seemed the right thing to do; not sure why as he didn’t live far away.’
‘I understand that you knew his mother?’
‘We both did, Maeve and me, went to school with her, friends once.’
‘So you know of the family?’
‘Trouble, all of them,’ Maeve Winston said.
Grave Passion Page 3