‘First date.’
‘Oh dear. Well, it will be a test to see if he’s keen.’
Down the road a car flashed its headlights and the black Range Rover pulled out from the kerb and pulled up beside them. Gheeta’s date smiled across as Palmer opened the passenger door for her and ushered her in with a bow.
‘He’s keen’, he said to her quietly out of the side of his mouth. ‘See you in the morning, Sergeant. Don’t rush to get in ‘cause we can’t do anything until we get those reports.’
He gave her a wink, closed the door and made for his squad car.
CHAPTER 3
‘Right then, what have we got?’
Palmer stood and paced the room. It was mid-afternoon the next day and in the Team Room at the Yard Palmer and DS Singh had been reading through the reports on the hit-and-runs that had come in on email from the other forces. Gheeta was highlighting the relevant facts for Claire – their civilian Technical Clerk – to input into the mainframe server: names, times, routes, addresses, and all sorts of what might seem to be irrelevant facts that the computer programmes would sort and sift through looking for a thread. Palmer’s favourite word was thread. He knew that in every serial murder case there would be one thread, if not more than one, and that thread or threads would tie the murders together and hopefully point him to the killer.
‘Three deaths, two near misses, an unidentified murder vehicle, and not much else.’
Gheeta sat back in her chair.
‘None of the victims had any previous other than parking tickets, which you might expect considering the work they did. They all worked in the gig economy, getting paid for each delivery, and the deliveries were for a number of different fast food outlets and restaurants.’
‘But, their calls were all routed to them through the same work hub,’ Claire added. ‘A delivery service called Deliver- Eat.’
Palmer nodded.
‘Right, then that would seem to be our first call. You two won’t remember it but about thirty years ago we had a mini-cab war in London – same sort of set up, drivers paying a weekly fee to the company for their calls. That ended up with cabs being smashed up and fire bombs chucked into offices. Could be we’ve got the start of something similar here with Takeaway deliveries.’
‘Cold-blooded murder is a bit heavier than smashing up cars and offices, guv – there’s got to be more to this than just delivering meals. I still think there can’t be enough money in that to kill for.’
‘Drugs?’ Claire asked.
‘Could be,’ Palmer pondered. ‘One thing you noted last night Sergeant that needs to be explained is why were the delivery boys hit after the delivery, if you wanted to disrupt a delivery service surely you’d hit them before they delivered to annoy the customers?’
‘So whoever did it either wanted to keep the customer happy, or didn’t want us – the police – to get hold of the meal?’ said Gheeta.
‘Or the drugs,’ said Claire.
‘Or both,’ Palmer added. ‘I think a visit to this Deliver- Eat place is definitely needed. Give them a call and tell them we are coming.’
CHAPTER 4
The Deliver- Eat offices were in a modern business centre off the Edgware Road. A smart single-storey glass-fronted unit gave the visitor an inside view of a typical call centre layout: rows of desks with phone operators busy taking calls and using computer keyboards and watching screens in front of them.
Palmer and Singh left their squad car in the ‘visitors only’ parking space and walked through the automatic sliding double glass doors into a reception area. They were obviously expected as the young brunette receptionist in her Deliver- Eat embroidered jacket made her way out from behind the counter and welcomed them.
‘You must be Superintendent Palmer,we are expecting you.’
She smiled warmly.
‘Detective Chief Superintendent Palmer actually,’ he corrected her. ‘And this is Detective Sergeant Singh.’
He smiled warmly back. Gheeta felt a trifle embarrassed for the receptionist but over the three years she had worked with him she had heard him correct so many people about his proper rank that she had lost count. His excuse for doing so was that it had taken him over fifty years to get to the rank, and he was damn well going to have people respect it.
‘Would you follow me please,’ said the receptionist, a little flustered. She led them through more double glass sliding doors into the call centre itself, then along a central path between the rows of telephonists’ desks and through yet another set of double doors to the control area, where a dozen dispatchers with headphones and screens gave out the jobs taken in the Centre whilst watching a giant map of London streets on a screen that took up the whole of the end wall. Numbered lights were flashing on it, some red and some green.
A middle-aged portly man in shirtsleeves and with a receding hairline detached himself from the area and came over, removing his glasses and putting them in his Deliver-Eat shirt pocket. The receptionist carefully announced Palmer.
‘This is Detective Chief Superintendent Palmer and Detective Sergeant Singh.’
She turned to them.
‘This is Daniel Court, our CEO.’
They shook hands and exchanged pleasantries. Court indicated a very modern leather button sofa and two chairs away in a quiet corner and they sat down.
‘Would you like a coffee or tea?’ Court offered.
Palmer waved the offer away.
‘No, no, thank you, we won’t take up much of your time mister Court as I’m sure you’ve been through all this before with the local police.’
Court looked sad and shook his head.
‘Yes, awful, a truly awful thing to happen. Jack was a good lad. A really good worker too, one of our best.’
Palmer gave a sympathetic shake of his head. ‘I noticed that in the report we got from the local force it didn’t give his work rota for the evening he was killed. Would you have a copy we might look at, with the addresses he picked up from and delivered to and at what times?’
‘He wasn’t working that night.’
‘He wasn’t?’ Palmer was surprised at this.
‘No.’
‘But he was on his Deliver-Eat moped and seen to take a meal into an apartment block before the incident happened.’
‘Maybe he was working for some other service, or a local takeaway. It wasn’t our moped – we only provide the insulated food box on the back. Our delivery people use their own bikes and mopeds. No, he definitely wasn’t working for us that night. He only did four evenings a week for us. He could have had more, but only wanted the four.’
‘I see.’
Palmer thought for a moment.
‘Could we have a copy of any paperwork you might have on the lad? His application form, that sort of thing.’
‘Of course.’
‘And the same for the other two chaps who were killed, and whilst you’re at it the two who managed to jump out of the way.’
‘None of them worked for us.’
‘Really? We weren’t aware of that.’
‘No, lots of takeaways have their own staff doing their deliveries they don’t use a service like ours.’
Gheeta pointed to the big screen.
‘Is each of those numbered lights one of your delivery people?’
‘They are, yes. Green light for ‘on a delivery’, red for ‘available’.
‘Lots of them, aren’t there? How many do you have out there?’
‘Just over two hundred at any one time during the day, and up to four hundred on the weekends and evenings. We have one dispatcher for every twenty on call.’
Gheeta pointed to the rows of operators in the main room.
‘So, a call comes in for a delivery to be made by phone, and I presume the telephonist that receives it fills in a standard template on their computer, which is sent on your in
ternal intranet system to the dispatcher controlling the team covering that area?’
‘Correct. It’s programmed by postcode, and that dispatcher then sends it through to the nearest available bike in or near that postcode.’
‘By wi-fi?’
‘Yes, each delivery person has a company app on their mobile that receives the details. Then their number on the screen turns to red once they acknowledge they have received the job, and then back to green once the job is completed.’
‘You have a backup system?’
‘Of course.’
‘So, should we want to have a printout of Jack Bernard’s jobs for that week you could extract it from the backup system of the intranet?’
‘Yes.’
Palmer had no idea what the devil his Sergeant was talking about, but her IT knowledge never ceased to amaze him; so he sat back and let her carry on, nodding now and again as though he knew exactly what she was talking about.
‘That’s good,’ Gheeta smiled contentedly. ‘Okay, then I would be grateful if you would get your system manager to send us the complete work history for Jack over the last three months.’
She gave Court one of her cards.
‘Send it to that email please.’
Court looked at the card for a moment or two.
‘I’m not sure we can do that. Data protection and all that.’
Palmer bristled. There was nothing he hated more than somebody putting a barrier in the way of an investigation by quoting stupid rules and regulations.
‘Oh I think you can manage that mister Court. The alternative would be for me to get a warrant to seize the dispatchers’ computers for forensic analysis – and maybe I’d come and seize then on a Friday evening.’
He raised his eyebrows questioningly at Court.
‘How would that suit you?’
‘I’ll have those work records to you within an hour.’
Palmer smiled.
‘Very helpful of you Sir.’
He stood and buttoned his coat.
‘We won’t detain you any longer, Mr Court. I am sure young Bernard’s family will be very grateful for the help you have given us in trying to find their son’s murderer.’
He gave Court a sharp look and Gheeta followed him out to the squad car.
‘Well, that’s a turn up for the books,’ said Palmer as they settled into the rear passenger seats. ‘So who was Jack Bernard working for on that night then, eh? ‘
‘Why would he bother to work for another delivery service when more work was on offer at Deliver-Eat?’ Gheeta asked.
Palmer rubbed his chin. ‘Better money elsewhere? But if that was the case, he’d work elsewhere all the time and ditch Deliver-Eat, wouldn’t he? But Deliver-Eat is one of the biggest so they must at least pay as much as any other to keep their staff. No staff no business. So mister Jack Bernard, what were you up to?’
‘Perhaps it wasn’t a meal that he was delivering, guv.’
‘Yes, that’s looking more and more likely isn’t it? I think I’ll ask Reg Frome to take a look at the mangled bike and box. Ask Claire to send him through the details with a forensic report request in the morning.’
CHAPTER 5
‘Well, well, well. Justin Palmer you old devil, you got that one spot on.’
Reg Frome stood up from his kneeling position in the large Evidence Warehouse at West End Central and placed the swabs he had used on the remnants of the Deliver-Eat box from Bernard’s moped into an evidence bag. The swabs were blue; they started out white, but even the most miniscule amount of cocaine residue would turn them blue.
Reg Frome was head of Forensics in the Murder Squad umbrella, and that included Palmer’s Serial Murder Squad as well as Organised Crime and Anti-Terrorism. Both he and Palmer had graduated from Hendon Police College at the same time many years before; Frome had chosen forensics and Palmer had stuck to his preferred police work. Both were now at the top of their tree and fighting early retirement offers from the number crunchers at the Home Office in the annual pruning of the budget. Their respect was mutual, as was their ribbing of each other.
He dialled Palmer’s mobile number. Palmer answered with his usual one word.
‘Palmer.’
‘Blue is the colour,’ sang Frome into the phone. Being a lifelong Chelsea supporter, and Palmer being the same for Arsenal, he took every opportunity to stick one in.
Palmer laughed.
‘Good morning, Reg. So I take it we have a positive?’
‘We do indeed Justin. Three swabs in the Deliver-Eat box, or the pieces that are left of it, and everyone of them giving a positive.’
‘We had our suspicions.’
‘The Duty Officer here says they have the other two bike wrecks in storage from the other hit-and-runs where the lads were killed. Want me to do them whilst I’m over here?’
‘Yes, I was thinking that. Might as well if you don’t mind, Reg. Ten to one on you get more positives.’
CHAPTER 6
Sammy Wellbeck stood in the middle of his Hackney scrap yard and watched as the remains of a Fiat were hauled into the air by a magnetic crane and dropped into the crusher that devoured it like a predator on its prey until it became a six foot by three foot square metal oblong that was picked up again by the crane and stacked together with a heap of others waiting to go off to the smelter’s.
Business was good, especially since the government’s car tax rises on diesel cars. Motorists were chopping them in as part exchange for petrol or hybrid cars to dealers who knew they had no chance of selling them on and were quite happy for the likes of Sammy Wellbeck to clear their yards once a month paying half scrap weight. And that price didn’t account for the saleable parts Sammy’s mechanics stripped off them.
Sammy’s yard was big. It had a large corrugated warehouse with aisles of tall shelves holding everything a motorist might want for their car, from engines and doors to nuts and bolts; and all at considerably lower prices than they cost new. The counter was open on a Saturday only and was always busy; the money was always cash.
Next to the warehouse a good-sized brick and tile single-storey office block housed reception and Sammy’s large office. Clean, tidy and presentable, it was chalk and cheese to the warehouse, but that was because Sammy’s wife Chrissie ran that side of the business: the reception, the accounts, the payouts and most importantly, the books. In fact she ran two sets of books – one set for HMRC and VAT, and one set with the true figures.
The perimeter of Sammy’s yard was a twenty foot-high double brick wall with razor wire along the top. The large double door entrance was three inch thick steel on rollers with a Judas door in one corner. CCTV scoped the yard, the walls, the outside of the entrance and the approaching backstreet. The reason his warehouse was only open to the public on a Saturday was that Sammy didn’t like uninvited visitors, as he had other business to do during the week.
Sammy Wellbeck was a narco – a drug dealer. A major drug dealer.
CHAPTER 7
In the team room Gheeta pinned up the mug shots of the deceased delivery lads on the progress chart and below each one she added a police picture of the crushed moped. Something in her brain was making alarm signals. Something wasn’t right; almost like the computer programmes she wrote on crime comparison that disseminated all the information she and Claire input, her brain was flagging an error. And she was looking at it.
She turned to where Palmer was reading the newly arrived forensic reports.
‘Guv, that manager at Deliver-Eat said that only Bernard worked for them, didn’t he? The other two victims didn’t work for Deliver-Eat did they?’
Palmer carried on reading as he answered.
‘That’s what he said, yes.’
Gheeta checked the pictures again.
‘So how come they had Deliver-Eat boxes on their bikes?’
Palmer put dow
n the reports and joined Gheeta at the progress chart.
‘Did they?’
He peered closely at the broken remains of the bikes and boxes.
‘They did, didn’t they.’
‘Somebody is telling porkies, guv.’
Palmer thought for moment.
‘Do we have any pictures of the bikes belonging to the other two lads, the ones who weren’t injured?
‘No, I assume they recovered them themselves. Probably be for the insurance claim.’
Palmer gave her a ‘don’t be silly’ look.
‘You don’t think either of them – or for that matter most of the delivery lads in London – actually have insurance, do you? Or road tax?’
Gheeta clicked her tongue.
‘Guv, you always assume the worst in people.’
‘Forty-five years in this job tells me it’s a good place to start, Sergeant.’
‘Shall I pay another visit to Mr Court?’
‘No, if he or somebody in his organisation is using couriers to deliver coke we don’t want to let them know we are treating this as more than hit-and-runs just yet. I think we might pay a visit to the three victims’ relatives and see what they have to say, should be interesting.’
The Walworth Estate off the Elephant and Castle was much like most other council estates: pockets of well-cared-for houses with well-tended if small front gardens, and pockets of run-down, uncared-for distressed houses and flats; the former more likely remnants of Thatcher’s Right to Buy incentive, and the latter still in the social housing sector reliant on the cash-strapped council for upkeep.
The Bernard’s house was well kept and presentable, Gheeta rang the bell on the front door. She and Palmer had come in a marked police car with a driver who stayed in the car. Palmer liked to cover his back in these estates and liked to have a pair of eyes outside, just in case. In the seventies when he was a young detective venturing into these estates to make an arrest with other officers, their presence would be signalled by the banging of dustbin lids or blowing of whistles, warning the local villains to hide last night’s loot and any absconders around to disappear fast. These days it was the mobile phone that passed on notification of their presence, warning the dealers to hide their drugs or move them quickly off the estate. Amazing the number of innocent-looking little old ladies pulling shopping trolleys that suddenly made for the exits when police came on to the estates.
TAKEAWAY TERROR: The DCS Palmer and the Serial Murder Squad series. Case No.8 Page 2