Broken Homes pg-4

by Ben Aaronovitch

  Lesley had taken off her mask and I saw that patches of skin on her face were so white with cold as to be almost blue. Dr Walid had warned that the reduced circulation in the damaged skin around her mouth and cheeks could make them susceptible to chilblains and/or tissue necrosis — which is exactly as horrible as it sounds.

  ‘If we combine that with the architect and the unfortunate planner, it would seem that all roads lead to Elephant and Castle,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘Circumstantially,’ said Lesley.

  Molly glided over with a folded towel resting on a tray and offered it to Lesley. The towel was sky blue, fluffy and steaming gently. Lesley thanked Molly, tested the temperature with the back of her hand and then draped it over her face with a contented sigh.

  Molly looked at Nightingale and tilted her head.

  ‘That will be all,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’

  Molly drifted away silently towards the back stairs.

  ‘God, that feels good,’ said Lesley, her voice muffled under the thickness of the towel.

  ‘Circumstantial but enough that I believe we should take a closer look,’ said Nightingale, getting back to Elephant and Castle.

  ‘We could talk to the local Safer Neighbourhood team,’ I said.

  Lesley mumbled something under the towel.

  ‘What?’ I asked.

  She lifted the towel off her mouth long enough to say, ‘That’s the East Walworth team. They work out of Walworth nick.’

  ‘Peter can go down and see them tomorrow,’ said Nightingale. ‘Lesley, you can stay in the warm and check whether our Russian friend has emerged onto the radar anywhere else. Meanwhile I’ll see if any of my contacts at the Foreign Office are still alive.’

  There was a skittering sound from the back stairs and then Toby burst into the atrium and scampered towards us, his claws clicking on the marble floor. When he reached our table he snuffled around our chairs before stopping beside Lesley’s and barking twice. Then he sat on his haunches and looked up expectantly. When she offered him a biscuit, he ignored it and instead swung his snout until it pointed at where she’d put the discarded the face towel.

  ‘Do you want this?’ asked Lesley and dangled the towel in front of him.

  Toby barked once, seized the towel in his jaws and scampered off with his stubby little tail wagging. We all watched him go.

  ‘Do you think Molly trained him to. .?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m not sure that’s an alliance we want to encourage,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘We should get Dr Walid to look at Richard Dewsbury’s PM report,’ I said, suddenly remembering my visit to DAFT. ‘Just in case it was something other than a heart attack.’

  ‘Aren’t heart attacks a bit subtle for the Faceless Man?’ said Lesley.

  ‘There’s merit in having two forms of attack,’ said Nightingale. ‘If you’re principally known for setting your enemies on fire you could well avoid suspicion by poisoning one instead.’

  ‘And if Varenka-’

  ‘Varvara,’ said Lesley.

  ‘And if Varvara Sidorovna Tamonina,’ I said slowly, ‘did the deed, then maybe heart attacks are her speciality. How hard would it be to give someone a heart attack?’

  ‘With magic?’ asked Nightingale.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Not hard as such,’ he said. ‘But complex and laborious. I think I’d have to be in the same room as my target to do it as well. Much better to poison them or to use a glamour to make them poison themselves.’

  ‘What makes it so complicated?’ asked Lesley suddenly leaning forward — eyes fixed on Nightingale.

  ‘The human body resists magic,’ he said. ‘Particularly if you try to make gross physical changes.’

  Lesley unconsciously lifted a hand to her face.

  ‘Stopping somebody’s heart with magic is a fifth- or sixth-order spell, depending on how one attempts it, and even then the results would be less certain than setting the victim’s bones on fire.’

  I thought of the braised corpse of Patrick Mulkern and really wished Nightingale had used another example.

  ‘Abdul has a theory about why,’ said Nightingale. ‘You can ask him next time you see him.’

  Lesley lowered her hand from her face and nodded slowly.

  ‘I think I might just do that,’ she said.

  ‘Richard Dewsbury,’ said Sergeant Daverc. ‘He was one in a million — thank god.’

  Sergeant William Daverc was in his early fifties and had a proper London accent to go with his proper Huguenot name which was properly pronounced D’Averc. He’d been patrolling Southwark since his probation thirty years ago and was a famous pioneer of community policing from back in the days when it was just called ‘policing’.

  ‘Ricky when he was younger,’ said Daverc who’d met me in his team’s office at Walworth nick. ‘Mister Dewsbury as soon as he was middle management — didn’t have a “street” name and that should have been a giveaway right from the start.’

  ‘Violent?’ I asked.

  ‘Not particularly,’ said Daverc. ‘Single minded. He was a tower boy, you understand.’

  Meaning born and raised in the central tower of Skygarden, not the surrounding blocks. Local folklore said that people from the tower never did anything by half, never settled for mediocrity or middle management — not even in the drug trade. The tower had produced a footballer, two pop stars, a stand up comedian, a high court judge, a semi-finalist on Britain’s Got Talent and the most ruthlessly efficient drug baron in south London.

  ‘When he popped his clogs you could hear the dealers giving a sigh of relief from Rotherhithe to Wimbledon,’ said Daverc. ‘Without him it was the usual story — his organisation fell apart, turf wars — the usual aggro. But your lot don’t care about drugs. Do you?’

  I told him that we had reason to believe that there might be activities going on inside the tower that could lead to breaches of the peace of a more esoteric nature.

  ‘Like what?’ asked Daverc, who’d spent too long as an operational copper to be fobbed off with generalities. I tried honesty.

  ‘We have no fucking idea,’ I said. ‘We have a break-in and murder related to the original architect, we have an apparent suicide of a Southwark planning officer who was, in part, responsible for the estate and we have this link to Richard Dewsbury, local resident and pharmaceutical entrepreneur. We were sort of hoping you’d have something.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Anything strange,’ I said.

  ‘The tower’s always been strange,’ he said. ‘Even more so now they’ve closed down the surrounding blocks.’

  ‘I heard about that,’ I said. ‘Are they knocking it down or not?’

  ‘I’ve given up trying to work out what the council’s doing at Skygarden,’ said Daverc. ‘I know they want to flatten it and turn it over to the developers in return for some new build — they had all the plans on show and we was even doing our preliminary impact studies and then it all seemed to fizzle out.’

  ‘Have you got any contacts in the tower?’ I asked.

  ‘I go up there regular,’ he said. ‘I have my community liaisons who bend my ear about kids nicking stuff and people weeing in the lifts.’ He paused and narrowed his eyes. ‘If you want to know what’s going on in the tower, guy like you, your best bet would be to move in yourself.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I’ve heard flats aren’t that easy to get.’

  ‘I’ve got access to one,’ said Daverc. ‘I set it up for DAFT so they could get someone on the inside — they were going to share their intelligence with me — only Richard Dewsbury keels over and DAFT lost interest. Say the word and I can get you in there in less than twenty-four hours.’ He paused to give me another shrewd look.

  ‘If you’re interested.’

  There’s two approaches to dealing with large bureaucracies. Well, technically there’s three but the last one is only available to officers of ACPO rank and people who went to the right s
chool. On the one hand you can phone ahead, explain that you’re the police, give a quick and largely inaccurate summary of your investigation and make an appointment to see the relevant supervisor stroke line manager. Or, if you’re in a hurry, you can flash your warrant card at the security guards, fast talk your way past the reception and see how far up the hierarchy some classic cockney bullshit will take you.

  In this case it took me through the fiercely rectangular and marble-lined atrium at Southwark Town Hall via Grace on the front desk — it turned out that, while we weren’t related to each other, we definitely had family in the same part of Freetown — into the lifts and before anyone could say ‘Hey you what are you doing here?’ into the work area of one Louise Talacre who was employed in the same office as the late Richard Lewis.

  She was a ridiculously cheerful young woman with Italian looks and a Midlands accent who was happy to help the police in any way she could — you’d be surprised how many people are.

  She was familiar with the Skygarden redevelopment and knew that Richard had been particularly involved in trying to get the estate unlisted.

  ‘He said it shouldn’t even have been listed in the first place,’ she said but someone — Louise always thought Richard might know who, although he never said — had swung a Grade II so that it wouldn’t be pulled down in the late 80s. The council had to spend millions on refurbishment and remedial repairs and resented every penny.

  ‘They put in a concierge system and everything,’ said Louise in a horrified tone. ‘But you still hear stories about what went on in that tower.’

  ‘Really?’ I asked.

  ‘I heard there was a bunch of New Age druids squatting in one of the blocks and worshipping the trees,’ she said.

  Druids, I thought. I asked for that one.

  ‘But he never got the tower unlisted, though?’

  ‘He wasn’t happy about that,’ she said. ‘But he didn’t seem happy about anything towards the end. I told your lot that the first time they came round.’ That would have been the BTP investigation. Jaget’s people. ‘Not that I thought he would. . you know. .’

  Now Lesley may contend that I am, occasionally, lacking in the police work department but even I can spot a lead when a witness waves it in front of my face.

  ‘Did he seem like he was under pressure?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, we’re all under pressure aren’t we,’ said Louise. ‘What with the cuts and everything.’

  I explained that I meant outside pressure — say from unscrupulous developers and the like.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said. ‘They never bother with the likes of us. They always go for the CEOs or the councillors.’ She pulled a face. ‘We never get no baksheesh. Still, you know, now you mention it, there. . no, that sounds stupid.’

  ‘What does?’

  ‘About a year ago when we thought the tower was going to be delisted or unlisted or whatever they call it,’ said Louise. ‘He came in all happy and smiling and of course I asked him what he was so happy about and he said that he was soon going out of this dreadful city for good. And then when they announced that it was going to stay listed he looked like he was going to burst into tears. I say that, but it might have been hay fever — he was never what you’d call demonstrative. He said that he couldn’t leave until the tower came down.’

  ‘I want you to think very carefully,’ I said. ‘What were his exact words?’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ Louise held her fingers by her temples and wiggled them. ‘He said, “He won’t let me go until the tower comes down.”’

  ‘Did he say who “he” was?’

  ‘Might not have been “he”,’ said Louise. ‘It might have been “they”.’

  ‘I see,’ I said.

  ‘I’d have asked him, you know, but he wasn’t exactly sociable,’ said Louise. ‘I didn’t even know he was married, a mail order bride I heard — from Thailand or somewhere like that.’

  Okay, so dying to be helpful. But not actually particularly helpful except to point the finger at Skygarden again. Something that I reported back at the Folly during the daily seven thirty briefing session, otherwise known as the evening meal. Nightingale, running on some internal calendar of Mayan complexity, had declared that evening a full dress dinner. So me and Lesley donned our best approximation while Nightingale slummed it in an exquisite navy-blue evening jacket and his blood-red regimental tie.

  Molly always wore her most Edwardian servant’s outfit for these occasions and swept around the dining room so silently that even Nightingale was unnerved when she materialised suddenly at his elbow with the next dish.

  Fortunately the next dish was spinach tortellini with ricotta, herbs and parmesan, indicating that Molly had reached the pasta section of The Naked Chef and, judging by the absence of those esoteric animal offcuts that get the traditionalist all excited, was getting better at interpreting modern recipe books. Lesley and Nightingale were considering slipping in a Nigella, but I’ve got to say I was beginning to miss the suet puddings.

  ‘I thought Sergeant D’Averc’s notion had some merit,’ said Nightingale. ‘Even if we were only there for a short time it would give us easier access to the whole building.’

  I paused with a forkful of green pasta halfway to my mouth.

  ‘Us sir?’ I asked.

  ‘If the tower is indeed the fulcrum of this case,’ said Nightingale, ‘it must follow that the Faceless Man will be taking an equal interest. Now that we know he’s working with a trained Night Witch it would be extremely unwise if we didn’t operate as a mutually supporting unit.’

  I unpacked that to mean — I need to be close enough to intervene before you get yourselves killed.

  Me and Lesley exchanged glances.

  ‘You don’t think I’m capable of blending in?’ he asked.

  ‘Molly’s getting very handy with the parmesan,’ said Lesley politely.

  ‘Yes, you may be right,’ said Nightingale, considering. ‘However, I plan to position myself nearby in the event that you need reinforcing.’

  Lesley glanced down to where Toby, having established that this was to be a largely sausage-free supper, had curled up and gone to sleep.

  ‘Are we going to take the dog?’ she asked.

  ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Combination excuse to go out walking at odd hours and magic detector.’

  Lesley nodded and then looked back at Nightingale.

  ‘How will you know if we need reinforcing?’ she asked.

  ‘I think you’ll find I am perfectly capable of using a radio,’ said Nightingale. ‘And if that fails, I’m sure Peter here can be relied on to blow something up.’

  11

  A Machine For Living In

  We went in early like a dawn raid, on the theory that if we were already in place when the locals woke up they’d just accept us the way badgers accept a naturalist’s low-light camera in their sett. The other reason we went in early was because we were borrowing a van from one of my relatives and he needed it back first thing. We couldn’t hire a removal van as we didn’t have enough stuff to make that credible, and we had more stuff than we could carry ourselves since otherwise we would look like squatters or, worse, undercover police officers.

  Not that we really were undercover police officers, because UC operations are subject to strict guidelines and operational oversight by senior officers. What we were doing was in fact an extremely subtle form of community policing. So subtle that, if we were lucky, the community could carry on, blissfully unaware that they were being policed at all. Just to be on the safe side, Lesley wore her other mask. The one which was coloured olive tan instead of surgical pink, which she claimed was strictly for when she was off duty. She let Toby sit in her lap.

  You didn’t get a good view of Skygarden when you arrived by road. Stromberg had surrounded the central tower with five long thin blocks, each nine storeys high, a very conventional design that, one architectural critic complained, obscured the exuberance of Stromberg�
��s central conceit. These were built in a conventionally slipshod manner which certainly obscured the exuberance of most of the people that lived there, who also comprised the bulk of the population of the estate. Arriving from the Elephant and Castle side you emerged from under the railway bridge to get a quick glimpse of the tower before turning into the estate and dropping down past the, by then, sealed-off garage areas of the blocks and into a narrow culvert sunk six metres below ground level. It was just wide enough for a VW Beetle and a Mini to pass each other and the pavements were only a little bit wider than curbs, pedestrian traffic having theoretically been channelled onto the walkway that was suspended overhead. During the 1981 riots the residents had built a barricade across the culvert and waited with petrol bombs and stones, but the police declined to turn up — I don’t blame them. Back then the Skygarden had been as close to being a real no-go estate as ever existed in the fevered mind of a journalist but Sergeant Daverc said its glory days were long past, and you were as safe there now as you would be in Chipping Norton. Certainly it was home to fewer professional criminals.

  The access road opened into a sunken tarmacked area that surrounded the base of the tower, the outer perimeter of which was lined with garage doors. The actual garages, built just slightly too small for modern-sized cars, were set into the soil of the surrounding landscaping. Above these doors was another metre and a half of concrete cladding topped by a chain-link fence beyond which I could just see, despite the fact that I was effectively standing at the bottom of a wide hole, tufts of grass and the tops of distant trees. I was willing to bet big money that the fence hadn’t been in the original plans and wondered how many kids had injured themselves jumping down from the park before the council put it in.

  We’d asked Frank Caffrey to drive the van for us, since out of his London Fire Brigade kit he looked the part of White Van Man. It was a character he certainly grew into when he elected to stay in the cab and read the Sun while me and Lesley unloaded our stuff.

  Like his hero Corbusier, and many of his contemporaries, Stromberg had had a strange phobia about ground-floor flats. In Skygarden the lower ground floor was strictly for loading and unloading and what is always referred to on blueprints as ‘plant’. The ‘ground floor’, where the elevated walkways converged, was for pedestrian entry, community areas and storage. Thus ensuring that no matter how far down the block the council parked your granny, she was still going to get some much needed exercise when the lifts stopped working.