Denial of Murder

by Peter Turnbull

  ‘Wait!’ Ainsclough held up his finger. ‘Are you saying Tony “the Pestilence” Smith was involved in the murder of Janet Frost?’

  ‘Well, that’s what Quoshie told me and she’s well frightened of him. From what I have heard about the geezer she’s right to be scared of him. He’s seriously bad news is Pestilence.’

  ‘How was he involved,’ Yewdall pressed, ‘do you know?’

  ‘Well,’ Day explained, ‘Quoshie told me that Pestilence was her supplier; he was holding back her supply. Like I told you, he had her well strung out, and it was Pestilence who told her to put some washing-up gloves on and then rub Gordon Cogan’s sweat all over the dead chick’s body.’

  Yewdall and Ainsclough sat back in their chairs and looked at each other. ‘Well, well, well,’ Ainsclough said, to which Yewdall echoed in reply, ‘Well, well, well.’

  ‘Is that important?’ Anna Day asked.

  ‘It’s a link,’ Yewdall replied, ‘and it’s a stronger link than the fact that they were living in the same house at the time that Janet Frost was murdered.’

  ‘Well, it was fear of Pestilence that was stopping her going with Gordon Cogan to the Old Bill. Pestilence can get at you anywhere, so people say, even if you’re on the inside. He can still get at you. Anyway, they said they’d meet up later and that’s how they left it. Then she vanishes and her body is found in Wimbledon, of all places,’ Anna Day sighed, ‘Wimbledon.’

  ‘You read the newspapers?’ Yewdall asked. ‘That’s how you know where her body was found?’

  Anna Day shook her head. ‘I’m a lazy girl, I saw it on there.’ She pointed to a plasma screen which was attached to the adjacent wall showing the Test Match from Trent Bridge. ‘This is my seat, at this time of day anyway. I get the news here each day. So poor old Cherry Quoshie ends her days in Wimbledon … leafy, posh old Wimbledon. Who’d have thought it? Proper funny … she had to die to go up in the world.’

  ‘These are the Filth.’ The man sneered at Brunnie and Swannell. ‘You’ll learn to hate them. You will really learn to hate them.’ He clasped his hand on the younger man’s shoulder. ‘They’re not called the Filth for nothing.’

  ‘Yes, Grandad.’ The youth stood beside the older man and also viewed Swannell and Brunnie with hostility, ‘but what’s all this “I’ll learn”? I hate them already, Grandad. I really hate the Filth. I have nothing to learn in that respect.’

  ‘You’re a good boy, Pancras, a very good boy. A real scout.’ The older man turned and beamed at the younger man.

  ‘Ah …’ Frankie Brunnie nodded to the younger man, ‘so you’ll be Pancras Reiss. We were told you’d pass for a nineteen- or twenty-year-old. Our colleague was correct … I wouldn’t have guessed that you’re still shy of your sixteenth birthday.’

  ‘Yes, he’s a big lad,’ Tony “the Pestilence” Smith said proudly. ‘He’s a Smith, different surname but he’s a Smith and that’s what matters. In his blood he’s a Smith.’

  ‘Yes,’ Swannell observed, ‘I can see the family resemblance … he definitely takes after you, Tony.’

  ‘Yes, he does,’ Tony once again patted Pancras Reiss on the shoulder, ‘and being big helps a lot in our line of work …’

  ‘And what, may I enquire,’ Brunnie asked, ‘would be your line of work?’

  ‘Whatever comes along,’ ‘the Pestilence’ replied. ‘We don’t have a particular speciality. Whatever we can make a profit out of. If it earns, we’ll do it. If it’s not an earner we won’t do it.’

  The four men stood in the living room of Tony Smith’s house in Southgate. Swannell and Brunnie stood side by side, facing Tony “the Pestilence” Smith and Pancras Reiss who also stood shoulder to shoulder. Victor Swannell read the room in a single sweep of his eyes and thought there to be little depth to Smith’s house, in terms of the decoration and the taste in furnishings. It was, he felt, clearly the home of a very materialistic homeowner. The brightly coloured wall-to-wall carpeting, the designer chairs and settee, the huge, flat-screen television mounted on the wall, shiny metal objects in a glass display case, the glass-topped coffee table, and all with an everything-in-its-place neatness. There were no comforting shelves of books or prints of famous paintings, no human touch of any kind that Victor Swannell could detect, like a loosely folded-up newspaper resting on the coffee table or an open magazine resting on the arm of a chair. The house had been found to occupy a corner plot on the junction of Maxim Drive and Vera Road, and appeared to exhibit the same square inch by inch perfection on the outside that the officers found within the house. The house had clearly been built in the thirties. It was detached, and an extension had been built on in the form of a double garage with living space above. There was seen to be a balcony above the main door with access clearly only from the master bedroom. A tall chimney rose from the side of the house, on to which had been bolted a satellite dish. Unlike any of his neighbours, Tony ‘the Pestilence’ Smith was not at all concerned about advertising to the world that he had nothing better to do with his time than to soak up twenty-four hour television. The garden surrounding the house had a similar appearance, with not a blade of grass, not a flower out of place, again totally in keeping with the interior of the house.

  ‘So what brings the Old Bill here anyway?’ Tony Smith asked, his hand still resting proudly on his grandson’s shoulder. ‘Mind you, we are always happy to cooperate with the boys in blue, aren’t we, Pancras?’

  ‘Certainly are, Grandad,’ Pancras Reiss smiled an insincere smile, ‘we most certainly are. Anything you think we can help the police with, just ask.’

  ‘Anything to be public spirited,’ Tony Smith added. ‘We all have to support our wonderful police force.’

  ‘You’ve certainly amassed a lot of police interest for someone who is keen to help the police,’ Swannell observed.

  Tony Smith let his hand fall from his grandson’s shoulder and opened both palms towards the officers. ‘I mean, be fair guv’nor, what can I say?’ He smiled but did so with a menacing attitude. ‘But no convictions … no serious convictions anyway … I’m Mr Clean. I’m as clean as clean can be.’

  ‘So what about you, Pancras,’ Brunnie asked, ‘you’ve got convictions already … and now you are suddenly very keen to help the police?’

  ‘I turned the corner, didn’t I?’ Pancras Reiss smiled. ‘It’s all behind me now.’

  ‘That’s good to hear, Pancras,’ Brunnie replied, ‘very good to hear.’

  ‘So what can I do for you gentlemen?’ Tony Smith asked. ‘You’ll note I have let you into my house quite willingly. I didn’t ask for a warrant. I am giving total cooperation, even though you are still the Filth, even though I hate the ground you stand on. You’ve been trying to pin something on me for years.’

  ‘Even though we’re standing in your living room,’ Swannell asked, ‘do you still hate the ground we stand on?’

  ‘I can always have the carpet cleaned,’ Smith snarled his reply. He had a large, round face, wore his hair in a ponytail and had a ring in his ear. ‘It’s no big deal, is it, Pancras? No big deal at all.’ He smelled strongly of aftershave.

  ‘No big deal at all,’ Pancras Reiss parroted.

  ‘It’s good when Pancras visits me,’ Tony Smith smiled, ‘it gets him off the estate he lives on … away from trouble and it lets him see this house where his mother grew up. You see, by visiting me, his old grandad, he sees that an honest pound goes further. Only honest pennies bought this drum. So his mother, my only child, she only gets herself arrested for shoplifting and what does she get to live in? A cheap little council flat that’s no place to bring up a boy like Pancras; it sets him off down the wrong road. So he comes here and gets some good advice and guidance from his grandad. He sees the lifestyle he could have if he keeps his nose clean. We have a chat about this and that and then we go down the pub for a beer.’

  ‘He’s underage,’ Brunnie growled, ‘that’s an offence right there, Mr Clean, buying alcohol for a minor.’
<
br />   ‘Look at him,’ Tony ‘the Pestilence’ Smith protested, ‘… what, a boy of sixteen … he’s no minor … not in any real sense.’

  ‘Fifteen,’ Brunnie corrected Smith. ‘He’s still of school age. Right now he should be at school, and you’re taking him to the pub and buying him beer.’

  ‘So are you going to stay here all day? Are you going to hang around and make sure we don’t go to the boozer? I don’t think so. Not New Scotland Yard. The officers from the local station maybe but not you guys,’ Smith sneered. ‘So, I’ll ask you again … what can I do for you?’

  ‘Gordon Cogan,’ Brunnie spoke softly.

  ‘Him!’ Tony Smith snarled. ‘That little toe-rag!’

  ‘Yes, him,’ Swannell added, ‘that man.’

  ‘Hardly a man,’ Smith hissed. ‘Do you know what he did to my daughter, Pancras’s mother? He only kidnapped her and took her to Ireland. She was only fifteen at the time.’

  ‘Yes, we know,’ Brunnie smiled, ‘more or less the same age as Pancras is now, whom you plan to take to the pub for a beer.’

  ‘That’s different … it’s a different level of offending. Not in the same league,’ Smith protested, ‘and he only got six months for that … kidnap and rape … and he gets six months. There’s no justice in that … there’s no justice at all. But then he messed up, he messed up big time. As soon as he got out he messed up and then he went down for life for murder.’

  ‘Yes, we know that as well,’ Brunnie replied flatly.

  ‘So why bring his name into this house?’ Smith demanded. ‘I don’t like his name being mentioned in this house.’

  ‘Because he was murdered a few days ago.’ Swannell took another look around the superficial, lifeless, soulless room.

  Tony ‘the Pestilence’ Smith smiled. ‘Well, isn’t that a turn up for the old books – so there might be justice after all. I always said that someone would have it in for him one day. I always said that.’

  ‘But of course you wouldn’t know who’d want to murder him?’ Swannell asked. ‘Or would you?’

  ‘Me?’ Smith pointed a fleshy finger to his chest and smiled. He wore a blue T-shirt, white slacks and white sports shoes. ‘Why should I know who’d want to ice the little toe-rag?’

  ‘Well, he did what he did to your daughter,’ Brunnie explained. ‘It gives both you and Pancras a powerful motive. People have been murdered for less of a reason than that. We know that Pancras knows what happened to his mother when she was fifteen.’

  ‘Yes, I told him,’ Smith replied defensively. ‘Kids, they grow up quickly today. He’s old enough to know. I told him because his mother wouldn’t but the boy had the right to know so I told him. The boy knows. There’s no secrets in this family.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Brunnie replied, ‘so long as we can speak freely in front of him.’

  ‘Yes, you can,’ Smith smiled, ‘as freely as you please.’

  ‘Good,’ Brunnie smiled. ‘We’ll take you up on that, Tony. So, Cherry Quoshie, tell us about her.’

  ‘Who?’ Tony Smith looked surprised.

  ‘Cherry Quoshie.’ Brunnie repeated the name.

  ‘Yes, I heard the name, but who is she?’ Smith asked.

  ‘She is … she was an Afro-Caribbean sex worker,’ Swannell explained.

  ‘And …?’ Smith began to sound nervous.

  ‘Well,’ Brunnie continued, ‘she too has been murdered.’

  ‘And so …?’ Smith replied aggressively.

  ‘Well …’ Brunnie explained, ‘you see, Tony, we would not normally associate the murder of Cherry Quoshie with the murder of Gordon Cogan, had it not been for the fact that both bodies were left in exactly the same place with a twenty-four hour time gap between the dumping of each body … the same place almost to an inch. Twenty-four hours apart, exactly.’

  Tony ‘the Pestilence’ Smith’s face paled.

  ‘That means that the murders are definitely linked,’ Swannell explained. ‘If the bodies had been dumped, separated from each other by many miles, then in that case we would not have linked them. But both bodies dumped in the same place in the same street in Wimbledon where neither person had any connection … then the stolen cars which we assume were used to carry the bodies were burned out also in more or less the same place … they have to be linked. The two murders have got to be linked. You see our thinking, Tony?’

  Swannell enjoyed the look of anger that began to well up in Tony Smith’s eyes.

  ‘So then we also discover that the two people were murdered in the same way, battered on the head with a linear object … same MO … dumped in the same place … carried to where their bodies were dumped in stolen cars which were abandoned and torched in the same street … that means intrigue, that means New Scotland Yard Murder and Serious Crime Squad,’ Swannell added.

  ‘That’s us,’ Brunnie smiled, ‘and we know that you have a great dislike for Gordon Cogan.’

  ‘Had,’ Smith replied quickly, defensively, ‘had. I had a great dislike for him but he went down for murder. I moved on in life, like you have got to do. I don’t see any debt outstanding.’

  ‘Yet you just described him as … what did you call him … “that little toe-rag”? Sounds like there’s still a lot of hate in you, Tony,’ Brunnie observed.

  ‘So why link me? Where do I fit in?’ Smith appealed.

  ‘We don’t know yet …’ Brunnie replied. ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Yet?’ Tony Smith echoed. ‘What do you mean “yet”?’

  ‘We mean yet …’ Swannell repeated. ‘You knew Gordon Cogan; you have a motive for wanting to harm him. If we can find a link between you and Janet Frost, and you and Cherry Quoshie, like supplying heroin to Janet Frost …’

  ‘You can’t prove that,’ Tony Smith growled.

  ‘We can’t prove anything at the moment, Tony, but you are in the mix somewhere … and we are under no time pressure. We’ve got all the time in the world, and it’s only a matter of time before we find out where, and how, you fit in.’

  Tony Smith remained stone-faced but both officers saw the look of worry in his eyes.

  ‘So,’ Brunnie said, ‘do you know what we will find in Scythe Brook Cottage, down in Hampshire? We’re going over the building now – well, not us personally, of course, but our scene of crime officers are. And they are very efficient.’

  A look of fear flashed across Tony Smith’s eyes. Swannell saw the look and thought Gotcha, Tony, but he said, ‘We came from Scythe Brook Cottage today – quite a nice little retreat. Rented, we have found, so it can’t be linked to you; we assume that you paid hard cash to the rental agency using an assumed name, but we’ll check anyway. We saw the burn on Cherry Quoshie’s leg, that was really quite horrible, and the remains of the coal fire in the garden, the fire you had on Monday evening, as if you were trying to make Cherry Quoshie tell you something by burning her leg. Somebody smelled the coal smoke, you see; it has a distinct smell, that’s how we know when the fire was burning, the night before Cherry Quoshie’s body was found in Wimbledon.’

  Tony Smith remained silent. His face was set hard. Pancras Reiss stood motionless. He also had paled and looked worried.

  ‘Bet you’d like to know who’s been talking, wouldn’t you, Tony?’ Brunnie smiled. ‘But sorry, we can’t name our sources … I dare say you had the cottage cleaned, all surfaces wiped of fingerprints … but you know Cherry Quoshie, she was a very clever girl, she obviously wasn’t supervised all the time and she left us a present. And if she left us another present in the form of her fingerprints in an obscure place … such as inside a drawer, underneath a table … a place like that which would not be wiped down and if she got Gordon Cogan to do the same, that will place them both at the cottage at the same time, and if we can find some link with you and Cherry Quoshie and Gordon Cogan and the cottage, then we’ll be back and we’ll have a warrant for your arrest, Tony. Imagine swapping this house for a cell in Wormwood Scrubs.’

  ‘You might have just gon
e and tripped yourself up at last,’ Swannell said, ‘but, like I said, this is really just a social call. We’ll see ourselves out.’

  Swannell and Brunnie turned away from Tony ‘the Pestilence’ Smith and Pancras Reiss and walked to the front door of the house, leaving grandfather and grandson both looking very pale.

  ‘We palled up in Wormwood Scrubs, me and Gordon …’ Philip Dawson sat in the armchair of his flat in Pennyfields, Poplar, crossed his legs and smoothed down his three-quarter length skirt. Tom Ainsclough sat opposite him in the second armchair whilst Penny Yewdall sat on the settee. The flat, she noted, was a sixties development and was on the first level above a parade of shops. ‘We were both graduates, both of us had fallen from grace and we very quickly found each other among all those really awful rough boys. You know how it is, like always finds like. Gordon was in for life for murder and I was serving seven years for the manufacture of ecstasy tablets. He was classed as being IDOM at the time but I was with him, I mean that I was present, the instant he changed his mind. I was still a boy then.’