Deep Cover

by Peter Turnbull

‘Quite a nice little earner you have here.’ Ainsclough continued to examine the contents of the bag.

  ‘I don’t get to keep it all.’ The girl sighed. ‘I just have to keep it for the evening. I’ll likely get to keep the bacon, the milk and the bread but that’s all. Just to keep me going. Most times I dip and dive the skips.’

  ‘Who takes the rest?’

  ‘Not saying.’

  ‘It’s the old song that’s playing. You know, that music echoing in your ears; the tune that you’ve heard somewhere before.’

  ‘I don’t hear no music.’ She glanced angrily out of the window.

  ‘Course you do, darling,’ Meadows replied. ‘It’s that old singalong favourite, “You can work for yourself or you can work against yourself” – that song. Have you got anything hanging over you?’

  ‘Three months suspended for two years – got that about six months ago . . . shoplifting. I’ve been inside. I don’t like it.’

  ‘Well, you’re going back for another three months, as well as anything you get for receiving stolen goods.’

  The girl leant forwards, covering her face with her hands.

  ‘That’s if we charge you,’ Swannell said. ‘We have the discretion to charge you or not.’

  ‘Really!’ The girl looked up. She was frail and finely made.

  ‘Yes, really; it all depends on how much you help us,’ Meadows replied. ‘There’s two investigations now. I’m a local copper, Kilburn is my manor. I want information from you about the scam going down at the supermarket. I don’t need to give your name, you just give me the names of the geezers involved and let me know when the supermarket staff are going to be walking down the street with valid . . . food that isn’t past its sell-by date. Get to feel their collars when they’re off the premises and they’re in the bucket.’

  ‘Yeah?’ The girl became excited.

  ‘Yeah,’ Meadows replied, ‘and these gentlemen are from New Scotland Yard. They want to know about the assault you witnessed the other night.’

  ‘We want details,’ Swannell growled. ‘Hold anything back about either investigation and you’re going inside.’

  ‘So do some thinking between now and Kilburn nick,’ Ainsclough added. ‘You know, nice crystal-clear thinking.’

  Harry Vicary stood and smiled as Garrick Forbes entered his office. The two men shook hands warmly.

  ‘A-Ten never gets this kind of greeting.’ Forbes returned the smile. ‘So refreshing.’

  ‘Yes, but you and I go back. I did wonder if it might be you when they told me that A-Ten was here. Do take a pew. Coffee? Tea?’

  ‘Tea for me, please.’ Garrick Forbes, large and occasionally jovial, but always serious-minded when he needed to be, sat in one of the vacant chairs in front of Vicary’s desk. ‘Never was much of a coffee wallah . . . and speaking of liquid refreshment, we never did have that beer we promised ourselves. It’s not often you look down the barrel of a gun, even as a copper.’

  ‘It isn’t, is it?’ Vicary turned to the table in the corner of his office, on which stood a kettle and a bag of tea bags, powdered milk and an assortment of half-pint mugs. He checked that the kettle had sufficient water and then switched it on. ‘Have you been back there?’

  ‘Twice . . . last autumn.’

  ‘Me too, also twice. I’ll go again, not now though –’ he pointed to the window – ‘hardly the weather for it, but I understand that what we are doing is called “trauma bonding”.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘If you have been traumatized at a specific location you are bonded to that location, and by visiting it, you begin to aid the process of adjustment. So, the people who escaped the King’s Cross fire all those years ago still visit the underground railway station . . . they are drawn to it, but with decreasing frequency as the adjustment progresses, and in the States, folk who escaped the Twin Towers in 2001 visit Ground Zero, but similarly with decreasing frequency as the years pass.’

  ‘Trauma bonding.’ Forbes pursed his lips. ‘I’ll remember that.’

  ‘We should visit together, then have that beer – there’s a couple of good interesting pubs in and around Northaw village.’

  ‘Yes, we’ll do that, it would be cathartic.’ He took the mug from Vicary’s hand and mumbled his thanks. ‘Doing some heavy reading, I see.’ He indicated the files on Vicary’s desk.

  ‘Yes . . . yes . . . and in more ways than one.’ Vicary slid behind his desk and resumed his seat. ‘Heavy in the sense that it is a thick file – a lot to get through – but also heavy in the sense of its content. It’s the file on a felon called Curtis Yates . . . apparently he kept a tiger.’

  ‘A tiger!’

  ‘So it is alleged, but they are not easy to acquire, so I don’t know how much credence to give to that story . . . allegedly used the beast as an “enforcer”.’

  ‘Oh . . . but you say allegedly.’

  ‘Yes, I don’t know what to believe – some of the things in here are quite extreme but are only allegations.’ He tapped the file with his palm. ‘But the accumulation of unsupported reports does begin to sway one after a while.’

  ‘Yes, I know what you mean; it’s like that in A-Ten, building a case against corrupt coppers is like walking in thick smoke looking for flames.’

  ‘I can imagine, but this geezer is one slippery customer. We are interested in the murder of three people known to have some association with him, and he might have driven another to take his own life, and, reading his file, two previous lovers and his wife disappeared. The geezer just does not keep his friends for very long.’

  ‘Blimey, I see the reason for your suspicions. See them clearly. Has he done time?’

  ‘Yes, he pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty of manslaughter, and the CPS accepted the plea. He was out in five years, so we have his dabs and DNA on file, and sufficient evidence for him to do his rite of passage number to gain the street cred he needed . . . but nailing him will be a struggle – he uses gofers for all his dirty work and he holds a terror for some people.’

  ‘Any visible means of support?’

  ‘A property company in Kilburn renovating run down properties and renting them to high-end tenants.’

  ‘Very useful if you want someone to disappear . . . all those cellars . . . all that concrete.’

  ‘Yes, that observation has been made. He also has an import/export business in the East End. Those are two that we know of, and go to provide him with a house in Virginia Water.’

  ‘Not bad.’

  ‘Indeed. I do wonder what naughties the import/export business conceals.’

  ‘Drugs . . . illegal immigrants?’

  ‘Yes, my thinking also – not expressed yet – but those are the lines I am thinking along. So, you have had a chat with Frankie Brunnie?’

  ‘Yes, and the upshot is that we won’t be instigating disciplinary action against him.’

  ‘Good. I am relieved.’

  ‘He is consumed with guilt over the death of the office manager.’

  ‘J.J. Dunwoodie?’

  ‘Yes, that’s the man, but that is not the reason we are not proceeding against him. What clears him is that the office manager permitted him to remove the watering can, even though Brunnie might well have coerced him into doing so without the ability to foresee the consequences. The fact remains that the watering can was nevertheless removed with the consent of the office manager. We have taken a statement from him but we still have to take a corroborative statement from a . . . DC Yewdall.’

  ‘Penny Yewdall, yes.’

  ‘The practice of obtaining fingerprints like that is widespread anyway – did it myself once or twice. Can’t use prints obtained like that to prosecute, but it’s very useful to know who you’re dealing with.’

  ‘Yes . . . yes . . . and Brunnie has helped this case enormously, and I understand the guilt you mention. Frankie Brunnie is a very ethical, steadfast human being. I have always found him to be a gentleman.’

  �
��Good. Well, just the interview with DC Yewdall and we’ll wrap it up.’ Garrick Forbes stood.

  ‘Oh . . . I visited Archie Dew’s widow.’ Vicary also stood.

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘Bearing up but feeling the loss, and her daughter is still in residential psychiatric care.’

  ‘Wretched woman, must be difficult for her . . . He was so near retirement and that little toerag who shot him will be on the outside soon.’

  The two men shook hands. ‘I’ll phone you in the spring; we’ll take that trip out to Northaw Great Wood, then have that beer.’

  ‘Yes, please do,’ Forbes turned to go. ‘I’ll look forward to that.’

  ‘Mr Vicary?’ The woman opened the door of her house on Oakhampton Road, Mill Hill. She had short hair and a ready smile, and had worn well with age; even though she was in her early middle years, Frankie Brunnie thought she still looked fetching in tee shirt, jeans and sports shoes.

  ‘No.’ Brunnie held up his ID. ‘I am DC Brunnie, this lady is my colleague, DC Yewdall, we are calling on behalf of Mr Vicary. He is our senior officer.’

  ‘Ah, I see. Pleased to meet you anyway. Do please come in.’

  The two officers stepped over the threshold into a warm house – too warm, Penny Yewdall thought, and she did not envy Mrs South her quarterly heating bills – but the warmth within explained why she wore a tee shirt. The house was a neatly kept, 1930s semi-detached property, which smelled strongly of furniture polish. Mrs South invited the officers into the rear room of the house, which looked out on to a long, narrow garden and to a cemetery beyond that.

  ‘We are very lucky to be here,’ Mrs South announced, ‘privileged . . . the cemetery beyond the garden and the golf club at the end of the road; lots of open space; fairly clean air considering that this is the middle of north London. Do sit down.’ Mrs South indicated the vacant chairs and settee with a very, Brunnie thought, French-style flourish of her hand. ‘My mother phoned me,’ she said as she and the officers sat in the armchairs. ‘It is about Rosemary Halkier . . .’

  ‘Yes. You are Mrs South . . . once Miss North?’

  ‘Yes.’ The woman grinned sheepishly. ‘It always causes comments to be made. I was Pauline North from Leyton, I am now Pauline South from Mill Hill . . . gone northwards to become South. The jokes are endless. I went to Sussex University and married one of my tutors; he was a junior lecturer then. He’s now a professor at Royal Holloway. I teach children now my own are up and away . . . no regular post, I am a supply teacher – explains why I am home today . . . no phone call from the agency.’

  ‘It seems you have done very well.’ Penny Yewdall smiled.

  ‘Yes.’ Pauline South nodded briefly. ‘I am very fortunate . . . successful husband, two lovely boys . . . good marriage. I am fulfilled but Rosemary should have had the same. Was it really her on Hampstead Heath?’

  ‘Yes,’ Brunnie replied, ‘I am afraid it was.’

  ‘Oh . . . and I have all this – still alive and all this – but I appreciate it. I appreciate each day because I know that tragedy can strike at any time; you just have to open the newspaper and read about a tragedy striking some poor family.’

  ‘That’s a good attitude to have.’

  ‘It’s the only attitude. So, how can I help you? I knew that something had happened to her.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Well, I mean, no details, just that some ill must have befallen her . . . some misadventure. Like the fell walker who vanished up in the Lake District and three or four years later his body was found in a mountain stream. The search party swept the wrong area for some reason, and then years later another walker attempted to cross the stream at the same location and so found the body – just ten feet either side and he would have missed the corpse. But that wasn’t Rose, she wasn’t adventurous like that . . . but she wouldn’t walk out on her life and reinvent herself. That’s something that people could do up until the end of the Second World War, but now our National Insurance number and health records follow us everywhere . . . all on computer. So really that just left foul play to explain what happened to her . . . but she was bright at school, she could have, should have, gone on to university, but she married a fairground worker. Can you believe that? And her life never recovered. Some mistake.’

  ‘So, tell us about Rosemary, if you can,’ Brunnie said, ‘we are trying to piece together her life at about the time she disappeared.’

  ‘Well, I was at university, but at home . . . must have been between terms, and I well remember her dad coming to our door asking if we knew where she was. Poor soul, he was in a terrible state.’

  ‘What do you know about her social life at the time?’

  ‘Not much. We went out for a drink occasionally, just two Leyton girls together . . . up the boozer, like good local girls. The landlord of the Coach and Horses knew us, as did the locals, and he and the locals would not let anyone bother us. We just had a couple of glasses of wine and a right good chitchat . . . but we were drifting apart by then, and we never went up town together.’

  ‘Understood.’

  ‘Any man friend? Rosemary’s man friend, I mean.’

  ‘Just one . . . and not a good one.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes. Strange name . . .’ she took a deep breath. ‘How embarrassing, so strange that I have forgotten it.’ She forced a smile. ‘It’ll come . . . it’ll come, the name is that of the American film star, except his surname is that of the first name of her boyfriend at the time. What was it? What was it? Oh . . . Curtis, that’s it. Tony Curtis was the actor and Curtis something was Rosemary’s boyfriend.’

  ‘That’s very interesting.’ Brunnie turned to Yewdall, who raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Is it?’ Pauline South asked.

  ‘Yes, it dovetails neatly, very neatly into other information we have.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘So what did she tell you about Curtis X?’

  ‘Curtis X, I like that. Curtis X . . . well, she was not comfortable with him; he seemed to have betrayed her and she seemed frightened of him.’

  ‘Betrayed her?’

  ‘Perhaps that is the wrong word. Not so much betrayed as deceived her. It was a case of the old, old story of the man who could charm the birds down from the trees and then once ensnared, turns out to be a monster of a person who destroys all and everything he comes into contact with. And she fell for his charms, possibly as a reaction to the fairground worker she had married and who she was escaping from – that made her even more vulnerable to Curtis X’s charms.’

  ‘Oh . . .’ Penny Yewdall groaned.

  ‘You’ve met the type?’ Pauline South asked.

  ‘Oh yes . . . often, all too often – not personally but in police work. We have met the victims . . . either dead or alive, the victims of the easy charms of the predatory psychopaths who can smile as they kill.’

  ‘I don’t know exactly how they met but I think it was in some dimly lit pickup parlour in the West End, or maybe it was the East End – an East End nightclub. She did say he was an East Ender, like she was, so they had that in common, and he was good looking, and also charming, as you have said. I think they became an item quite quickly. She was easy pickings for him. It got sour though, got sour very rapidly.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes, she came home with a bruised face, and after a stupidly short period she went back to him, though she never actually moved in as such. She wouldn’t leave her children but was with him every weekend. I do remember her telling me that he had some strange hold over her. She said she knew that she shouldn’t go back to him, that he was bad news, but she still felt the tug to return to him in his huge house in Surrey.’

  ‘Surrey?’ Brunnie repeated. ‘Large county . . .’

  ‘Virginia Water, she mentioned Virginia Water. The houses down there, like palaces she said, but she felt this magnetic draw to Curtis, which she said she knew she had to resist but she couldn’t resist at all.’ Pauline Sout
h paused. ‘It was as though he had some form of control over her.’

  ‘Yes, I know what you mean. It’s not untypical with that sort of personality. If the victim is weak enough or needy enough that manner of control can be exercised.’

  ‘Interesting, frightening also, but she was a lovely girl, very attractive. We made an odd couple in the Coach and Horses: me short and plain and she the glamorous, raven-haired, Rubenesque beauty, but inside she was so full of unmet need. She felt really guilty.’

  ‘Guilty?’

  ‘About letting her parents down in respect of her choice of husband . . . cheap rented flat in Clacton . . . and so the wealth offered by Curtis what’s his name was, in her mind, like a compensation, but in fact it was all part of the lure to lead her into the minefield, so it seems now.’

  ‘You said she seemed frightened?’

  ‘Yes, she had heard that previous girlfriends, or possibly just one girlfriend, had disappeared.’

  ‘How?’ Brunnie asked.

  ‘The staff told her.’

  ‘Staff?’ Yewdall sought clarification. ‘What staff?’

  ‘Domestics . . . cleaners . . . they clocked her for being an East End girl – their class, not posh; saw her as one of them. She said her name was Tessie . . . the cook . . . just breakfasts and lunch six days a week. Rosemary told me that Tessie had told her to “get out”. Tessie said, “Get out while you’re still alive”. She returned to her parent’s home later that day, and me and her went up to the boozer. That’s when she told me what Tessie had said. Then, the next time we met up she told me Tessie had gone. Apparently, she had turned in her notice and walked out.’

  ‘Do you know Tessie’s surname?’

  ‘O’Shea.’

  ‘And she lived in Virginia Water?’

  ‘Yes, in some council house development in amongst the mansions, just to balance the social mix and provide cooks and cleaners and gardeners for the hoi polloi.’

  ‘What did she tell you about Curtis X’s source of income?’

  ‘A string of businesses, she said, but she also discovered that she had hooked up with a blagger, a serious one, and she suspected that the businesses were there to hide some other activities. She was beginning to wonder what she had gotten herself into – it was about then she vanished.’