The Raven's Eye

by Barry Maitland

  ‘Not with me, she wasn’t,’ Molly said firmly.

  ‘I’m interested in her frame of mind,’ Kathy said. ‘Did she seem depressed lately?’

  ‘Suicide, do you mean?’ Howard stared at her in surprise. ‘No, certainly not. On the contrary, she was excited by how things were going.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be so sure,’ Molly countered. ‘I watched her the other day . . .’ She pointed to the windows in the stern doors. ‘She was sitting in her bow, smoking a cigarette. She seemed quite agitated, gesturing, as if she was having an argument with herself about something. I went out and said hello and she immediately put on this cheery act. But it was an act, I could see that. She was worried about something.’

  ‘Well, I certainly wasn’t aware of anything like that,’ Howard protested.

  ‘You said she seemed excited,’ Kathy said. ‘Did she say what about? A relationship maybe?’

  ‘No, she didn’t explain, but I got the impression it was to do with her work. A new job maybe, something like that.’

  ‘Where did she work?’

  ‘An office. Somewhere nearby, within walking distance, in Paddington.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  Molly shook her head. ‘We could never find out. She didn’t seem to want to talk about it.’

  ‘Marketing,’ Howard said. ‘I think that was it.’ Then he added hurriedly, ‘But look, I think you can discount suicide. We’ve been through that, haven’t we, Molly?’ He looked with an appeal to his wife, whose shoulders sagged.

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered.

  ‘Our son,’ Howard explained, ‘took his own life two years ago. Eighteen, he was. After that we found we couldn’t live in the house any more. Then I was offered an early-retirement package and we decided to sell up and live our dream. We had Roaming Free built to our specifications, and we set off.’

  Roaming free of the past, Kathy thought. Was that what inspired people to live like this? Was it Vicky Hawke’s reason?

  As if reading her mind, Howard said, ‘Of course, it’s also an economic solution for some people. That boat probably cost Vicky no more than ten thousand, and yet here she was living in an upmarket area of West London just a stone’s throw from her work.’

  ‘Can you tell me who else is living here?’

  There were five narrowboats currently moored on this section of the towpath, he told her. The one closest to the bridge was Aquarius, belonging to Dr Anne Downey.

  ‘I didn’t mention that I tried to get help from her when I found Vicky, but she wasn’t there—must have left early for work.’

  ‘What sort of doctor is she?’

  ‘General practice. She acts as a locum for surgeries that are short of staff.’

  ‘Is she Vicky’s GP?’

  The Stapletons looked at each other and shrugged, unsure.

  ‘I suppose that must be a problem when you’re moving around, finding a doctor?’ Kathy asked.

  ‘You get to know the ropes,’ Molly replied. ‘But Anne did prescribe our medications last week, so she may have done the same for Vicky, if she needed something. We’ve got Anne’s mobile number if you want it.’

  Kathy wrote it down. ‘What about Vicky’s number? Do you have that?’

  They didn’t, and couldn’t remember ever seeing her with a phone. ‘But she must have had one,’ Molly said.

  ‘And she and the doctor would have known each other?’

  ‘Oh yes, we all know each other on this side of the canal.’

  The other two narrowboats belonged to a man in his thirties, Ned Tisdell on Venerable Bede, and a young single mother, Debbie Rowland on Jonquil, with a three-year-old boy.

  ‘That must be tricky.’

  ‘Yes, but it’s amazing how you adapt. Debbie is a website designer, and works from her boat.’

  ‘How about Ned?’

  ‘He’s a waiter in the restaurant on the other bank. We don’t have so much to do with the people over on that side, the houseboats.’ They couldn’t give Kathy any information on Vicky’s family, except that, from her accent, they assumed she’d grown up in southern England.

  As she left their boat Kathy looked across the canal and was struck by the difference between the two sides. Further along the far bank, hazy through the fog, was the restaurant Molly Stapleton had mentioned, its white tablecloths visible through plate-glass windows suspended over the water. Next to it was a row of what she had described as ‘houseboats’, a strange mixture of structures that looked as if they had grown permanently into the canal bank. They ranged in style from one that looked like a timber suburban house, complete with broad veranda and glass french doors, to its neighbour, a ramshackle arrangement of tarpaulins and tarred panels.

  ‘The boat of horrors.’

  Kathy turned and saw that Howard Stapleton had followed her out.

  He nodded across the canal at the tumbledown houseboat. ‘Mad old bloke lives there. They’ve been trying for years to get him to clean it up. Look, I’ve just thought of something, about where Vicky worked. I remember she had a stack of brochures in her cabin one day when I looked in. They were about security cameras and alarms. I think she may have been working for a company which sold that sort of thing.’

  ‘Right, thanks.’

  Kathy went back to the dead girl’s boat and joined Mickey Schaeffer, who was completing his search. Kathy took some photographs on her phone while he finished up. He had found Vicky’s handbag in a storage compartment beneath the bed, and he showed her the contents: some make-up and perfume, a hairbrush, a pair of earrings, sunglasses, tissues, a wallet containing a credit card and a small amount of cash, and a receipt from British Waterways for mooring fees inside an envelope marked to an address in Crouch End, North London.

  ‘Maybe her parents’ address,’ Kathy said. ‘But no driving licence, no phone.’

  ‘I couldn’t find one anywhere, or a computer.’

  ‘Is there any twenty-something woman in London who doesn’t have a phone?’

  Mickey shook his head. ‘You’re wondering if she was robbed?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I couldn’t find any sign of a break-in, and nothing looks disturbed. There’s so little of it, as if she arrived here with nothing—no photos, no documents, no history. I did find this . . .’ He held up a plastic bag containing a thick roll of twenty-pound notes. ‘About two thousand quid I reckon, hidden under the kitchen sink. It’s like . . .’ Mickey hesitated.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m thinking maybe she was on the run from someone, a violent partner perhaps.’

  ‘Yes, I was thinking the same thing,’ Kathy said. ‘Let’s take another look at that stove.’

  They peered at it without much enlightenment, then examined the flue and the signs of gas leakage that DC Judd had pointed out. Kathy looked up at the dark corner of the ceiling into which the flue disappeared, then pulled a stool over and stood on it to get a closer view. There were much larger dark stains up there, and what looked like a gap where the flue had separated. She stepped down, coming to a decision. ‘We need an engineer to look at this, and a scene of crime team to check the boat.’

  ‘You sure?’ Mickey looked doubtful. ‘There’s no evidence of a crime, and you know how tight they are just now.’

  ‘I know, but we should do this properly.’

  He shrugged. ‘Your call.’

  More uniforms were arriving in a white van as they emerged. Kathy left Mickey to organise a door-knock of the area and set off for Crouch End.

  2

  Near this place is interred

  Theodore King of Corsica

  Who died in this parish Dec 1756

  Immediately after leaving

  The Kings Bench Prison

  Detective Chief Inspector David Brock studied the inscription on the stone slab as the other mourners filed out of the church. Overhead the red disc of a weak autumnal sun had failed to disperse the morning fog, water dripping from dark branches onto mossy
gravestones, the muffled notes of the organ adding to the crepuscular gloom. The brash lights of Soho on the other side of the churchyard wall might have been a hundred miles away.

  ‘The grave great teacher to a level brings,’ he spoke aloud the next lines, ‘Heroes and beggars, galley-slaves and kings.’

  ‘Not to mention police officers,’ a voice at his shoulder growled.

  Brock turned and saw Commander Sharpe standing there, uniformed, drawing on his gloves. ‘Dick was very attached to this place,’ Sharpe went on. ‘He cornered Charles Hammond in here after he’d disembowelled Mary Chubb—over there by Hazlitt’s tomb. Those Soho years were Dick’s happiest. Never seemed to smile much after that.’

  Dick ‘Cheery’ Chivers’ sudden death had been a shock to them all. For several hours he had sat there at his desk undisturbed, assumed to be deeply absorbed in the thick report lying open in front of him: The Way Ahead for the Metropolitan Police in a Time of Challenge. ‘The excitement was too much for him,’ the office wit later suggested.

  ‘This is the last time I shall be wearing this uniform,’ Sharpe went on, his voice hushed, though whether from regret or relief Brock couldn’t tell.

  ‘We’ll miss you, sir.’

  ‘Yes, I rather think you will, Brock. Not for my engaging management style . . .’ he allowed himself a little smile, ‘. . . but because after what you are about to go through you will look back on my tenure in the same way that Dick looked back on his Soho days, as a golden age.’

  ‘Is it going to be as bad as that?’

  ‘Oh yes. Have you met my replacement yet?’

  ‘He gave the team leaders a briefing last Thursday.’

  ‘What did you think?’

  It had been reasonably impressive as these things went. The new head of Homicide and Serious Crime Command, Commander Fred Lynch, had been direct and forceful, his message tough but not despondent: the harsh budget cuts would require fundamental change, would encourage radical innovation and lead eventually to a stronger and fitter police force.

  ‘Police force?’ Sharpe queried. ‘Not service?’

  ‘I believe force was the word he used.’

  ‘Hm. A hard man for hard times was what I heard. It’s the evangelists I can’t stand, Brock, the ones who rush forward to embrace the hairshirt. But then, when you’ve been through more management restructures than you can remember, as I have, you know it’s time to get out. You should have done the same.’

  That thought had certainly occurred to Brock. Superintendent Chivers’ death had disturbed him more than he would have expected, and Dick and Sharpe weren’t the only ones to go. In recent weeks Brock had become increasingly aware of the serious possibility that he would be marginalised by the new management.

  Sharpe was watching the other mourners, huddled together in dark clusters. ‘I suppose he offered a carrot and a stick?’

  He had. The carrot was an IT specialist from the Directorate of Information who talked about emerging technologies that would surely transform front-line operations. The stick was a civilian management expert, a ‘task auditor’, or TA, a title previously unknown, who bore an unfortunate resemblance to Heinrich Himmler.

  Sharpe laughed. ‘But, Brock, you were probably the only one left in the room who was old enough to remember what Himmler looked like.’

  Brock assumed it was impending retirement rather than Dick Chivers’ death that had brought on Sharpe’s unprecedented levity.

  ‘You’ll join us in a farewell drink for Dick?’ Sharpe asked. ‘Or will Heinrich not allow it?’

  Brock’s phone buzzed. He tugged it out and read the message. ‘He must have heard you. He wants to know why one of my officers has asked for a SOCO team to attend a leaky flue. I’d better get back.’

  ‘Ask the cheeky bastard how many front-line officers his salary would pay for.’

  3

  Kathy parked outside a semi-detached house at 62 Carnegie Crescent, Crouch End, and took a deep breath. How many times had she done this now, bringing the bad news home to a shocked family? It didn’t get any easier.

  She got out of the car and walked up the drive, past a Golf with a baby seat in the back, and pressed the button on an answerphone at the front door. She noticed a security camera up in the angle of the porch.

  ‘Yes?’ A woman’s voice.

  ‘My name is Detective Inspector Kathy Kolla of the Metropolitan Police. Can I have a word, please?’

  The front door clicked open. Kathy pushed it and saw an empty hallway ahead. She stepped in as a young woman came out of a side door. Kathy couldn’t see a family resemblance.

  ‘How can I help you?’

  ‘It’s concerning Vicky Hawke. Are you a relative?’

  The woman looked puzzled, then turned away as a baby started crying in the room she’d come from.

  ‘Do you want to come in here? I’m just in the middle of a feed.’

  Kathy followed her. An infant sat strapped into a high chair next to an office desk with a computer and telephone. The young woman took a seat behind the desk and raised a bottle to the baby’s face with one hand and poised the other over the keyboard. ‘What name did you say?’

  Kathy took in the wall of pigeonholes behind her, many of them stuffed with envelopes. ‘What is this place?’

  ‘This is North London Virtual Business Services. I’m Mandy.’

  ‘Hello, Mandy. You’re a mailing address?’

  ‘Mail holding and forwarding is one of our services,’ Mandy said brightly. Beside her the baby paused its sucking and gave a burp.

  ‘Pardon. The name?’

  ‘Vicky Hawke, with an e.’

  The keyboard clicked. ‘Yes, we do have a client by that name. What’s the problem?’

  ‘She’s had a fatal accident. We found some mail with this address.’

  ‘Oh dear.’ Mandy scanned the screen. ‘She’s paid up to the end of the month. How can I help you?’

  ‘We’re trying to trace her next of kin.’

  ‘Oh, I see. But we don’t keep that sort of information.’

  ‘What do you have?’

  ‘Name, email address, credit-card details.’

  Kathy took a note of the numbers. The credit card was the same as the one they’d found in Vicky’s purse. ‘She was living on a boat moored down in Paddington. Ring any bells?’

  Mandy shook her head and turned her attention back to the baby, which had begun to whimper.

  ‘Would she have called in here to collect her mail?’

  ‘Yes, or given someone else authorisation.’

  ‘But you don’t remember her?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  Kathy asked her to look at a photograph of Vicky that she’d taken on her phone, and Mandy turned back and paused, bottle in the air, as she took it in.

  She made a face. ‘Oh, that’s her dead, is it?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. Are you sure you don’t recognise her?’

  ‘Actually . . .’ Mandy stared wide-eyed at the image for a moment. ‘I think I do remember her.’ She got to her feet and went over to a pigeonhole at the end of one of the rows. ‘That’s right, she was F1. I don’t remember their names, just their slot. She was about thirty? Came in once a week usually. I thought she was nice.’

  ‘Is there any mail there for her now?’ Kathy asked hopefully, but there was nothing.

  ‘She never got much.’ Mandy returned to her computer and checked. ‘End of August she signed up with us. Three months ago.’

  ‘Do you remember anything about her mail, who it came from?’

  Mandy looked up at the ceiling with a frown. ‘I remember the first letter she got, because it was from a security company, and I was interested because we were thinking about upgrading our security at the time.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you remember the name of the company?’

  She pondered. ‘Paddington, you said? I think Paddington might have been in the name.’

  A few minutes on the internet produc
ed a company, Paddington Security Services, which she thought might have been the one.

  Mickey Schaeffer rang as Kathy was getting back into her car.

  ‘We’re done here. Didn’t find anything.’

  ‘That was quick. The SOCOs have been and gone?’

  ‘They didn’t come. Our request was denied.’

  ‘What? Who by?’

  ‘D.K. Payne, our new TA.’

  ‘What’s a TA?’

  ‘Task auditor. Haven’t you been paying attention? He’s monitoring our use of resources.’

  ‘Oh, that. I can’t believe he would override us.’

  ‘He phoned me up and asked if I considered it essential that we have a scene-of-crime team on this job. I couldn’t honestly say I did. And Borough Command have withdrawn the uniforms. Same thing. Everyone’s got better things to do, Kathy, face it.’

  Kathy felt a bubble of anger rise in her gullet. Finally she said, ‘Who’s the senior investigating officer here, Mickey?’

  ‘As I understand it,’ he said calmly, ‘it’s DC Judd. We were just helping him out.’ Then he added, placatory, ‘I did get Borough to agree to get an engineer to do a report on the heater, for the coroner.’

  Kathy rang off before she said something she’d regret. Mickey had been in their team for over six months now, but they hadn’t worked closely on any case together. Now she felt as if she were seeing him for the first time. She wondered if he had some agenda of his own. Perhaps he saw the new atmosphere of cuts and stringency as a personal opportunity.

  She looked again at the address of Paddington Security Services. So far it was their only lead to tracing Vicky Hawke’s family. She had been intending to pass it over to DC Judd and return to the many other things piling up on her desk, but now she changed her mind. There was something troubling about this death, something that didn’t smell quite right, and it wasn’t just the fog.

  The fog had cleared by the time Kathy got back to Paddington, the sky a chilly blue. Paddington Security Services occupied the tenth floor of a sleek new glass-clad office block near the rail terminus. When she got out of the lift she was presented with a sunlit panorama across West London, the swath of railway tracks, the elevated highway of Westway, and beyond it the canal basin of Little Venice and the Regent’s Canal. From here Vicky Hawke might almost have been able to see her boat, a tiny capsule tucked away among the endless jumble of buildings stretching away to the horizon.