Grave Passion

by Phillip Strang

  ***

  It wasn’t possible to provide security to the level required to ensure the safety of the Robinsons and the Winstons, not that Tim Winston hadn’t been insistent, furious as he had been about Rose being at the Robinsons’ house again.

  The front room of the Winstons’ house. On one side of the room, Tim and Maeve Winston, on the other, sitting on a hard chair, Wendy. Rose maintained a neutral position, a book resting in her lap, pretending not to be involved, but she was.

  Jim Robinson was going to identify his father the next day, and Brad would be taking the morning off school to accompany him.

  Tim Winston was not interested in the Robinsons, only his family, a natural reaction, and so far Wendy hadn’t told him about the detention of an individual in Canning Town.

  No longer regarded as a robbery or a random killing, Hector Robinson’s death had all the hallmarks of an assassination.

  Nobody at Challis Street could make any sense of it. It was illogical why a criminal organisation would remain secret, yet focus attention on themselves through a concerted attempt to eliminate anybody who was somehow associated with the murder in the cemetery.

  Rose and Brad had only seen the body, had a brief glance at the murderer, and Hector Robinson had not been involved at all, nor had Janice Robinson. It was a modus operandi that Homicide couldn’t make sense of.

  ‘Who next?’ Tim Winston said. Wendy was on her own, Larry and Isaac on their way back from Canning Town, and besides, she didn’t need assistance to talk to the family, only had something to tell them.

  ‘We have no reason to believe that you or your family is under threat,’ Wendy said. It was the official line for her to take, but she didn’t believe it.

  Winston sat close to his wife, holding hands; Maeve listening to all that was said but saying little. It was clear she did not know yet of her philandering husband and the weekly meetings that he had enjoyed with Janice Robinson.

  It was bound to come out eventually, and Wendy was curious to see the reaction, to see if Maeve Winston was as placid as she seemed, as forgiving and loving of her husband as Gladys Robinson had suggested.

  ‘Brad’s father? Random or something else?’ Winston asked.

  ‘It’s under investigation. A local youth, a member of a gang, has been detained.’

  ‘That’s not the question.’

  ‘It’s all I can tell you at this time.’ All that Wendy was willing to say. If it was an assassination, elimination of those close to the murder in the cemetery, then doubling the police presence at both houses, ensuring that patrol cars circled the area every hour on the hour, wasn’t going to achieve much.

  Wendy wanted to believe that Rose was safe, that they wouldn’t harm her, but she knew that was wishful thinking.

  Was it, as she had read about overseas, a breakdown in government and policing, anarchy rearing its head, as in Northern Mexico, parts of South America, America during prohibition; criminal organisations taking over the role of government, installing their own people.

  It was a frightening thought. Society was becoming fragmented, with ghettos springing up throughout London and the other major cities. Violence was on the rise, the court system was under strain. Was Warren Preston to go free?

  The young man with no hope of a future, perpetually unemployed, not even looking for a job, just his dole payment and what he could steal or scrounge or trade: what of him and the thousands like him? Even in the area of Challis Street Police Station, there were other ‘Warren Prestons’, disenfranchised, looking for something, not knowing what, causing trouble.

  ‘Do we keep Rose at home?’

  ‘I suggest you continue as before,’ Wendy said. She had no more to say; nothing that would help. The police were as powerless as the Winstons; it was in the hands of Homicide. It wasn’t a comforting thought.

  Chapter 13

  It was, as Chief Superintendent Goddard said, a complete stuff up. The man was livid, and his DCI, Isaac Cook, was on the receiving end of the man’s blunt assessment.

  ‘Not only do you have an armed response team out to a house in Holland Park, I’ve had Commissioner Davies on the phone, asking me to front in the morning with a written report and an explanation about what’s going on and what I’m going to do about it.’

  It was the angriest that Isaac had seen his senior. As the SIO in Homicide, he had to take the blame. The investigation had been conducted correctly by the team, and they had put in the hours, filed the reports, but had always been one step behind.

  ‘I stand by my team,’ Isaac said. He could see a long night ahead of him. It was Jenny’s birthday. She would be disappointed that the planned celebration would have to be curtailed. He felt bad about it, but there was no way he could substitute, not tonight.

  Even if Larry had been up to it, which he wasn’t, not when the commissioner was involved, he was in Godstone, meeting with the local police, trying to understand how a BMW that had sat in a garage for weeks had mysteriously disappeared.

  ‘We had no reason to impound it,’ the sergeant had said. ‘No reason at all. As far as the estate agent was concerned, the payments on the house were up to date, the outside had been maintained. If the people, God knows why, wanted to leave it empty, that’s their business, not ours. No law broken, no action from us.’

  ‘You were keeping a watch. Didn’t you see it was missing?’

  ‘We kept a watch on the house. The agreement was, if I remember correctly, to phone you if we saw someone, to talk to them, find out a phone number.’

  They were right, Larry reluctantly agreed. The address belonged to a woman who had purchased sandals at the shop. It didn’t mean that she was dead, or that Ian Naughton was the man in the village and in Holland Park.

  Larry spoke to the waitress in the coffee shop that he had frequented on past visits to the village, ordered a latte and a croissant.

  ‘It’s official,’ he said. ‘If you’ve got a minute.’

  ‘There was someone there two days ago,’ she said after she had given him his order.’

  ‘Are you able to give me a description, and why didn’t you phone me?’

  ‘Forgot, I suppose. Or we could have been busy.’

  Or didn’t want to get involved, more likely, Larry thought. He’d keep his opinion to himself on the waitress, a pleasant woman, carrying more weight on her hips than she should and a bright red lipstick that didn’t suit her. Apart from that she was Godstone born and bred, had never travelled, and regarded London as somewhere for Christmas shopping and the New Year sales.

  ‘Was it the man and the woman that you saw?’

  ‘I can’t say I got a good look. It was a woman, Asian, I think.’

  ‘Think or know?’

  ‘Short, slim, straight jet-black hair. I wasn’t close, and she never came in here. All I saw was the garage door open, the car reversing out, and then she closed the garage and drove off. Not there for more than a few minutes.’

  ‘Asian? Certain?’

  ‘I believe so. Does it help?’

  ‘It does.’

  ***

  Isaac, Larry, Wendy, and Bridget worked late into the night, going through the case so far. They had to provide a concise report for Chief Superintendent Goddard.

  ‘Save his bacon,’ Larry had jested, the one attempt at humour that night.

  Isaac, who had more experience of Commissioner Davies than the others in the department, knew that their boss was going to have an uphill battle with the commissioner. The man was a no-holds-barred police officer who had earned his stripes in Wales, played the politics well, ingratiating wherever, adopting a Machiavellian approach to those who threatened him.

  Goddard was an adroit political animal, but he still played fair most of the time; Davies had no time for such subtleties. The man would use the current case to unseat Goddard, to bring in the unpleasant and obsequious Seth Caddick.

  Re-examination of the case had confirmed that the house in Holland Park was s
ignificant and that Ian Naughton was not an innocent bystander, and, as Larry had determined in Godstone, the description of the petite Asian woman pointed to Analyn, the woman who had opened the door in Holland Park.

  Two in the morning, the report was ready. Isaac, not willing to leave anything to chance, phoned Goddard.

  ‘What is it?’ Goddard said on answering the phone. Isaac had known that he wouldn’t be annoyed. He was still a friend.

  ‘You’re not going to like it,’ Isaac said. Homicide was quiet, the other three had left the office.

  ‘I’m not going to like a dressing down from Davies either. What have you got?’

  ‘The BMW in Canning Town and Godstone are one and the same.’

  ‘Proven?’

  ‘Ninety per cent. We'll be checking CCTV cameras out in Canning, the ones that still work. We have the registration of the BMW in Godstone. If we get a match, then we’re one step ahead.

  ‘Ahead or on the first rung?’

  ‘The BMW was picked up in Godstone by an Asian woman; matches the description of the woman in Holland Park.’

  ‘Matches or you’re thinking it does?’

  ‘There’s a correlation, something we need to check further.’

  ‘While Davies is slowing you down by wasting your time producing reports, attempting to keep me out of the dog house.’

  ‘I think you’re already there, sir,’ Isaac said.

  ‘And so are you. It’s a tough case, and I appreciate that you and your people are doing your best, but we’ve no results, only deaths. More to come?’

  ‘We can’t protect everyone, not even us.’

  ‘Davies doesn’t understand, up in his ivory tower.’

  ‘We need to revisit Holland Park,’ Isaac said. He looked up at the clock, saw that it was 2.23 a.m. Jenny would wake when he arrived home, whatever time it was. He had a duty to the murder investigation; a duty to her. Sometimes it wasn’t easy to know which was more important.

  ‘Armed response?’

  ‘Will you authorise it?’

  ‘Phone them, get hold of their inspector, take a couple of men, not the full squad, too expensive, and an overkill.’

  ‘It’s not,’ Isaac said. ‘I was targeted in Canning Town.’

  ‘Don’t tell your wife; she’ll freak out.’

  Isaac had never had any intention of doing that. He went and made a cup of tea, sat down, put his feet on the table, attempted to ease the tension in his body. It was stress, and it was unhealthy.

  The next Isaac knew it was 3.56. He had slept for over ninety minutes. Slipping on his jacket and grabbing his keys, he headed for the door; Jenny would be worried.

  ***

  The revisit to Holland Park proved to be an anti-climax. Larry had expected more, but on arrival at the house, it was soon apparent that the place had been vacated.

  After what seemed longer, but was documented as two minutes thirty seconds, one of the armed response officers gave the all-clear.

  Larry looked around. Nothing had changed. There was food in the fridge, a good stock of quality wine, and the television was switched on.

  ‘How long since they left?’ one of the armed response team asked.

  ‘Long enough,’ Larry’s response.

  Ian Naughton and Analyn were gone. Upstairs no clothes remained, only a toothbrush in one of the bedrooms, a solitary earring on the floor.

  Gordon Windsor was alerted; his team of CSIs would check out the place, find out if there was anything to give a clue as to who the two people were.

  Forty-eight hours after he had been held over, Warren Preston walked out of the front door of the Canning Town Police Station, raising two fingers at Ross, then thrusting his arm with a clenched fist up at an angle to make a statement: up yours, copper, it said.

  Bill Ross hadn’t reacted. He was used to it by now.

  ***

  The Durham Arms was quiet, its licence temporarily revoked, although a few more days and the place would be back to normal. Bill Ross wasn’t sure how, but he suspected that money, bribe money, was being handed around. The pub was a goldmine located in the centre of a garbage dump. He rarely visited it, but he had to admit to doing so once or twice when he had been transferred to Canning Town after he had roughed up a couple of suspects who had broken into an off-licence, helped themselves to a few cartons of beer, two dozen bottles of cheap wine.

  Idiots, he had called them, plus a few more words that he shouldn’t have. Out on the street, the language was often crude and insensitive, but a police officer was meant to keep his cool, not to offend a criminal, not to subject him to a fist in the stomach, nor a smack in the mouth. How was he to know that one of the two thieves was the son of a local councillor, high on crack cocaine.

  The Winstons and the Robinsons bonded more closely, although Tim Winston wouldn’t let Brad over to his house, nor Rose over to his.

  Inevitably, the police presence at the school relaxed, and the two youngsters found more than enough places to get some time to themselves.

  Nobody in Homicide believed it was over, and still they had not identified the Jane Doe, nor why she had died. The initial suspicion that Naughton and cohorts had been involved in drug importation and distribution had been put to one side. The sighting of Analyn had raised the spectre of sophisticated illegal transportation of women to brothels in England, but no proof had been found.

  To Isaac, it seemed more sinister. And now, Jenny and their unborn child. It was starting to show, and he was worried for them as well; worried for everyone, but powerless to do any more.

  Whatever the future held, it appeared that it would be Naughton, if he were the main person, to make the running. Which meant only one thing: another death.

  The only positive was the BMW.

  Warton Road, less than two miles from the Durham Arms, a patch of wasteland used as an unofficial car park, a refuse tip by others.

  Larry took one look at the burnt-out but still smouldering shell. ‘It’s the car,’ he said to Bill Ross and Wendy who had accompanied him.

  ‘No one inside?’ Wendy asked.

  ‘If there were, there wouldn’t be much left, not now.’

  ‘Anything to be gained?’ Larry asked Gordon Windsor when he arrived at the scene.

  ‘We’ll check it out, then put it on a flatbed truck, get Forensics to have a look. They might find something, but don’t expect much.’

  ***

  Holland Park had been canvassed, questions asked on the street outside Naughton’s house. The owner, the name given almost certainly false, due to a complex purchasing route through an overseas trust five years previously, had not been found.

  ‘We never met the person,’ Agnes Hepplesworth said in the comfort of her plush office in Mayfair.

  ‘There are still money laundering checks that need to be dealt with if it’s cash,’ Isaac said.

  Hepplesworth and Daughter, Solicitors, was a family concern, three generations, Agnes was the first. Seventy-five at least, a pinched face, heavily lined with wrinkles, no makeup, dressed conservatively although expensively.

  A hard woman, Wendy thought.

  ‘All the necessary requirements were dealt with. As you must understand, there is confidentiality that I need to consider.’

  Isaac had to concede the woman had a point.

  ‘Have you any knowledge of an Ian Naughton?’

  ‘The name means nothing to me. Let’s be clear here, Chief Inspector, the aspersion that my client is somehow involved in – what was it?’

  ‘Murder, three so far.’

  Isaac had stated the reason for the visit on arrival and he felt the woman was being evasive, not a good sign.

  ‘Murder, yes, I understand. However, my client is not involved. How could he be if he’s not in the country.’

  ‘Client? Male? Overseas?’

  ‘My apologies if I’ve confused you,’ Agnes Hepplesworth said. ‘I’ve never met the person or spoken to him on the phone. I assume that
it is a man, but it could be a woman.’

  ‘You must have a signature on the documents?’

  ‘A complex purchase, the name on the documents is not Ian Naughton, nor is it necessarily the person you met at the house.’

  Agnes Hepplesworth had been obstructionist. Whether she had acted professionally or if it indicated an ulterior motive, he wasn’t sure. After the episode with Naughton, he wasn’t trusting anyone.

  ***

  Larry spent time out in Canning Town, not that the area offered any more opportunity than Challis Street and its surrounding area. But it had been the only place, apart from Holland Park, and possibly Godstone, where one of the perpetrators had been seen.

  Warren Preston hadn’t been able to tell them much, other than it was two men, but even that was flawed. Why trust a man’s death to a gang of poorly educated and unreliable black youths? It was a question that Bill Ross pondered.

  The two police officers were enjoying a curry on Barking Road; one of the only advantages of working in the area was great foods, Ross had said. Larry couldn’t disagree with him, and he intended to take advantage.

  Wendy was with the two families, Isaac was in the office, and Bridget was dealing with the paperwork, attempting to get the recalcitrant Agnes Hepplesworth to open up about what she knew.

  Checks had been made on the woman; it appeared that her company specialised in purchasers from overseas. No complaints against the solicitors, but no checking of their records had ever been carried out, although Isaac was keen for one to be done.

  ‘Can’t be done,’ Fraud Squad had told him. ‘Not without something solid to go on.’

  Larry finished his curry, drank his tea; usually a curry deserved a pint of beer to wash it down, but not today.

  Ross answered his phone; a meeting had been arranged with Preston’s gang.

  ‘Preston’s not the smartest,’ Ross said as the two men stood outside the restaurant, a cigarette in his hand, a look of longing from Larry. So far, he had kept his alcohol consumption under control and had given up smoking. Too much friction at home and at Challis Street had made the decision for him, but out at Canning Town, a more liberal attitude prevailed, with a superintendent who wasn’t always politically correct, having said what he thought of the hoodies to Ross and Larry, and not succinctly.