by Ed James
‘I can’t comment on it just now.’ Fenchurch slipped a business card out of his wallet and held it in his clammy palms. ‘Is there anyone else we should be speaking to in relation to Ms Brocklehurst’s death?’
‘I’m afraid there’s nobody I can think of.’ Ogden tugged at his nose again, like one of those monkeys, and raised his shoulders and hands in defeat. ‘Sorry.’
‘There’s nothing to be sorry for, sir.’ Fenchurch beckoned the uniforms over. ‘My colleagues here will take you home.’
‘Okay.’ Ogden flicked his tongue from side to side. ‘Does it get easier?’
‘Does what?’
‘Dealing with her loss?’
The acid felt like it was going to jump up and attack Fenchurch’s throat again. ‘It gets easier when you let people help you.’
Chapter Seven
Fenchurch stalked across the interview room to lean in front of Shelvey, getting right in his face. He just got a blast of garlic breath for his trouble. Drizzle of garlic oil on his pizza, most likely. He stood up tall and sucked in the silence of the room.
Shelvey sat back, facing away, and glanced at his lawyer.
Anna Xiang didn’t look like any of her ancestors had even left London, let alone been from China. Mid-brown hair, mid-thirties, mid-everything. Her wedding and engagement rings glinted under the strip light. ‘Inspector, I’m here on the understanding you have some evidence to present to my client supporting the allegations you’ve concocted.’ Scratch that — the shrillest voice this side of a not very fondly remembered primary teacher. Like nails down a blackboard. ‘I’d appreciate it if we could get started.’
Reed produced a sheet of paper and handed a copy over the table. ‘Do you own a Toyota Prius, licence plate LK16 VKP?’
Shelvey sat there, mouth clamped shut. He picked it up and shrugged.
‘For the record, the interviewee has just given a shrug.’ Reed held her own page in front of her face. ‘Mr Shelvey, you’ll be glad to know we’ve done some digging into this vehicle. The Borehamwood DVLA Office registered it on the eighteenth of April this year in the name of one Steven Robert Shelvey. Now, is that you?’
Shelvey drew his mouth into a straight line. ‘It’s me.’
‘Okay, so we’re getting somewhere, then.’ Reed opened an evidence box and produced the first bagged item: the tub of blue pills. ‘You know what we found in your car?’
‘Enlighten me.’
‘Viagra.’ Reed rattled the pills around. ‘Fake ones at that.’
‘Never seen that in my life.’ Shelvey pointed at Fenchurch. ‘You planted that in my car when you assaulted me.’
‘Really?’ Reed held the bag up to the light. ‘We’ve got some prints off this and we’ll be running them against yours. It’s usually easier if you just admit they’re yours, rather than waiting for our Crime Scene Investigators to waste hours analysing it.’
Nothing more, just a glare.
Reed squinted at the tub, her right eye shut. ‘I hope for your sake that they’re the real McCoy.’ She pointed at a pill through the plastic. ‘Something like seventy-seven per cent of the pills on the street are fake. They won’t give you a strong hard-on. More likely to make it drop off.’
‘They’re mine.’ Shelvey folded up his polo-shirt collar. ‘And it’s real stuff.’
‘It’s illegal to sell it without a prescription, you know?’
‘They’re for personal use.’
Reed flashed him a coquettish grin, coupled with a wink. ‘Young fella like you shouldn’t need any help getting it up.’
Shelvey just snorted, his sunburn spreading to his ears.
Reed put the pills down on the table. ‘Bet you don’t have a prescription for them, though, do you?’
Shelvey did a double-take at the door.
Clooney was standing there, hand poised to knock. ‘Got a minute, Si?’
Fenchurch got to his feet and whispered to Reed, ‘Keep him talking.’
She spoke into the microphone. ‘DI Fenchurch has left the room.’
Fenchurch eased the door shut behind him. ‘What’s up, Mick?’
‘Got something of interest.’ Clooney rubbed at his ear, setting his earrings jangling. He yawned, his jaw shuddering. ‘Christ, I hate it when you work nights. Always keep me out of my bed.’ He blinked hard a few times, then stretched out his eyes with his fingers. ‘Right. I got some fibres off the girl’s backside and her tights. Done an initial test and, while this won’t stand up in court yet, they match a Prius. A 2015 model, specifically.’
Fenchurch’s gut lurched. Upwards, for once. Good news, no doubt about to be pulled from my paws. ‘And that model would have ’16 plates, yeah?’
‘That’s the badger.’
‘Tell me there’s evidence she was raped in that car.’
‘It’s on her bare buttocks, Si.’ Clooney grimaced. ‘Unless she was wiping her arse on the back seat, but I can’t find any—’
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.’ Never change, Mick.
‘What about any signs of penetration?’
‘Spoke to Pratt. He’s got traces of spermicide in her vagina. Some pubic hairs that don’t belong on her. Not that she had many.’
Fenchurch’s turn to grimace. ‘I need to know if that sex was consensual.’
‘Think it’s a safe bet it wasn’t. I shall confirm at the post-mortem, though.’
‘What about the knife?’
‘Still not found it, Si. Could be anywhere. Mandy and Nina are checking the fibres in the motor as we speak. DS Nelson’s there from your lot.’
‘Good stuff.’ Fenchurch opened the door and waited until Shelvey looked over, then clapped Clooney on the shoulder. ‘I owe you a beer, Mick.’
‘You know I don’t drink.’ Clooney slouched off down the corridor, shaking his head.
Just no pleasing some people.
Savour this moment. Don’t let it disappear. That little trickle of happiness sliding down to your gut. The spring in your step. That’s yours, sunshine, nobody else’s.
Fenchurch made eye contact with Shelvey again, stopping him mid-sentence. Got you, you raping bastard. He opened the door and stood near the edge of the table.
‘—pills, I bloody swear.’ Shelvey was ignoring Fenchurch now. ‘You’re not listening to me, Sergeant. I need them to get an erection. I was in an accident when I was little.’
Reed spoke into the mic again. ‘DI Fenchurch has re-entered the room.’
Sweat dripped from Shelvey’s forehead. Guilty as that college rapist in America.
‘Son, you’ve been lying your arse off to us.’ Fenchurch sat opposite him and left a few seconds’ gap, drowned out by the thunder of the drums in his ears. ‘That girl was raped before she was killed. And we’ve found fibres on her body matching a Toyota Prius.’
Shelvey pleaded with his lawyer, eyes wide. ‘This is bullshit! I didn’t do anything to her!’
Fenchurch grabbed the pills and rattled them in his face. The garlic stench was even worse. ‘Didn’t pop one of these before you—’
‘I didn’t do nothing!’
‘Let’s go through this from nine o’clock yesterday evening again, shall we?’ Fenchurch leaned over the table. ‘You picked her up on Throgmorton Street, right?’
‘That’s the thing, right?’ Shelvey sat forward, animated for the first time. His heavy eyebrows twitched. ‘I was driving her home, yeah? Then she started having a go at me, said I should’ve gone over Tower Bridge.’
‘Well, she was right.’ Fenchurch cracked his knuckles. ‘You went the wrong way, son. She lives in Bermondsey, not bloody Greenwich.’
‘There was some incident on London Bridge, so I thought Tower’d be rammed.’ Shelvey shifted his monster eyebrows into a frown. ‘So I was heading for the Rotherhithe Tunnel instead.’
Fenchurch ran his tongue over his teeth, trying to suss out whether the kid was as stupid as he seemed. ‘And what happened before you raped her?’
‘I didn’t rape nobody.’ S
helvey waved his hands around. ‘She was shouting at me, man. Telling me I was an idiot. Calling me a prick and everything.’
‘Was that when you were raping her?’
‘Ain’t you listening to me?’ Shelvey huffed again, half of his collar flopping down. ‘I just let her out onto the street.’
‘Where?’
‘Shadwell?’ Shelvey peered around the ceiling, like that’s where Victoria Brocklehurst was. ‘Not far from the DLR stop. Outside an all-night Paki’s.’
Fenchurch flicked up his eyebrows. ‘You dropped a lone woman in Shadwell just after nine o’clock?’
Shelvey burped, his face twisting up like he was disgusted with himself. ‘I’m telling you, man, she could handle herself.’
Fenchurch let the slur hang. ‘You’re lying, son.’
Another burp, Shelvey blinking hard. ‘I’m not, man. I let her . . . Let her out on the street.’ Burp. ‘I know you’re talking out of your arse. I never raped anyone. That bitch . . .’ Burp. ‘That bitch was crazy, man. Crazy.’
‘Evening, guv.’ DS Jon Nelson was lurking by the Shelvey house, having a sly suck on his vape stick. He pocketed the e-cigarette. His purple shirt contrasted as ever with his beige suit and black skin. Didn’t look anything like a cop, more like a management consultant. An overweight one who abused the weights at the gym. ‘Did Temple come through?’
‘Don’t know how he does it, but he’s always got a magistrate waiting by the phone.’ Fenchurch unfolded the search warrant.
‘You want me to lead in here, guv?’
‘No, Jon, I’ll take this.’ Fenchurch knocked on the pale-brown front door. ‘Mrs Shelvey, it’s the police.’
She pulled the door open and stood there, hands on hips. Fully dressed now in tracksuit bottoms and a baggy T-shirt. A little Yorkie barked at her ankles. ‘Have you let my son go?’
Fenchurch held out the search warrant. ‘No, we’ve got a warrant to search these premises.’
‘What for?’
‘Drugs, weapons. Whatever your son’s got—’
She prodded him in the sternum. ‘What are you scumbags saying he’s done?’
‘Rape and murder.’ Fenchurch let it sink in. ‘Now, I need you to let me and my officers inside.’
‘What the hell’s going on here?’ A lump of bone and anger lumbered through from the living room. Tight jeans strained to contain a pale-yellow work shirt hanging open, a silver St Christopher tangled up in white chest hair. ‘You think you can come in here, do you?’
‘It’s not just think, sir.’ Fenchurch stepped into the hall, his foot squelching on the carpet. Christ knows what that was. ‘And you are?’
‘Pete Morris. Barbara’s brother.’ He loomed tall, like a giant searching for a beanstalk. ‘You saying my nephew’s raped a girl?’
‘I just need to get on with this, sir.’ Fenchurch waved for Nelson to barge past and get up the stairs. A SOCO stood behind him, straining at his lead. ‘On you go, Jon.’
‘You need to give us space.’ Morris tried to block Nelson, but Fenchurch got between them. ‘Get back here, you bla—’
‘No, you don’t.’ Fenchurch got in the guy’s face, just a few inches too short. He had that uncle-y cigar smell you didn’t get often these days. ‘Keep out of our way.’
‘I’ll smash you into next week, you punk.’
‘Try it.’ Fenchurch reached round for his baton and detached it from his belt. ‘I’m sure you’ll get on well in Belmarsh.’
Morris stepped back and dusted himself off. ‘You fascist bastards.’
Fenchurch pointed through to the living room. ‘I need you to get in there and stay there. Okay?’ He turned round and gestured for the squat uniformed officer to guard the door. He took a few seconds for the thunder in his ears to calm down.
That could so easily have turned nasty.
He bounced up the stairs, each step squeaking as he put his foot down. Three doors led off the landing. The bathroom door hung ajar. A second was shut. Nelson was standing next to the third one, waiting for the SOCO to nudge it open. The walls were covered in Nuts and Zoo posters, busty girls in the all-together on beaches and in hotel rooms. A Charlie the Seahorse poster, him smoking a joint, his eyes turning inside out. A few pictures of blokes in sharp suits — Charlie Sheen, Johnny Depp, Ray Winstone, Tom Hardy. Crystal Palace bedspread.
‘See the bedding, guv? Geezer’s maybe not so bad after all.’ Nelson was over the other side of the double bed, careful not to sit on it. He rummaged around in the chest of drawers under the watchful eye of the SOCO. ‘Oh, here we go . . . I’ve got something.’ He held the drawer open for a photograph.
Fenchurch got a look. Some black fabric, frills around the edges. ‘Is that . . . knickers?’ His flashlight bounced off the material. ‘Tell me these aren’t Victoria Brocklehurst’s.’
‘Could be, guv. I’ll get Clooney on it.’ Nelson bagged them up, the camera pulsing light over every movement. ‘Hang on, what’s this?’ He crouched down and lifted up the bed’s valance. A small plastic ziplock bag lay there. Triangular wraps and some white powder in baggies. ‘Bingo!’
‘Now we’re talking.’ Fenchurch patted Nelson on the back. ‘Good effort, Jon. What do you think, coke and speed?’
‘Way more than enough to stretch beyond personal use, especially if you include the Viagra.’
Fenchurch peered over Nelson’s shoulder into the drawer. Underneath an old mobile charger was a long strip of pale-blue fabric, UNICEF stencilled on it in white letters. He reached his gloved hand in and picked it up as the SOCO documented it. Plastic rattled as a work pass tumbled out. Something else clattered to the floor.
Dark hair shrouded her narrow eyes, a frosty smile on her lips.
VICTORIA BROCKLEHURST, OGDEN & MAKEPEACE.
Fenchurch swung it around to Nelson. ‘What a stupid, stupid bastard.’
‘This is gold dust, guv.’ Nelson was crouching again. He pointed at a knife, the serrated edge lined with blood.
Fenchurch couldn’t keep his eyes off it.
The SOCO logged it and photographed it. ‘I’ll get this to Mick Clooney, sir.’
Fenchurch’s Airwave blasted out. Reed. ‘Better take this.’ He stabbed the button, but still couldn’t take his eyes off the knife. ‘Kay, what’s up?’
‘Couple of my guys have been looking into this Shelvey bloke.’ Reed paused on the line, that infernal Rihanna tune playing in the background. ‘Think we might have something. Shelvey worked for Flick Knife last year.’
Ice crept through Fenchurch’s veins. ‘Frank Blunden?’
‘That’s right. I’m round here just now, checking up. Blunden’s here working, but . . .’ Reed clicked her tongue a few times. ‘As you’d expect, he’ll only speak to you, guv.’
Chapter Eight
Fenchurch spotted Reed’s car outside Frank’s Cabs. Just an anonymous residential street in the better part of Mile End. ‘Anywhere here.’
‘Sir.’ The uniform pulled in a few car lengths up and let Fenchurch out.
Reed got out of her Fiat and joined him. ‘Morning, guv.’ She ran a hand through her hair and let it fall into the new shape, then pursed her lips, a thick dark scab in the middle.
Fenchurch stopped dead. The DLR tracks sat silent above them, lit up on a Victorian railway bridge. ‘You okay?’
‘I’m not going in that office unless you order me to.’ She tugged her hair tight round her ears. ‘Said it has to be you, and you alone.’
Blunden.
‘Didn’t say why?’
‘Just called me a bitch.’
‘You shouldn’t have to put up with that, Kay.’ A shard of light crept out of the gap between the houses. ‘Give me five minutes, okay?’ Fenchurch set off, passing a pair of silver Škodas and a black cab on the street. He was tempted to key at least one of them. He marched beneath the arch and knocked on the door of Frank’s Cabs.
It flew open and Frank Blunden peered out, almost as wide as he was tall. Hi
s snakeskin suit formed a chessboard pattern, twisted round by forty-five degrees, crinkling as his hands fell to his sides, flapping off his barrel body. ‘Fenchurch . . . Nice to see you, me old mucker.’
Fenchurch ignored the counterfeit friendliness, instead pointing at the suit. ‘Must’ve been a bloody big snake.’
‘It’s fake. Don’t want any animal-rights tossers round here. Come on in.’ Blunden ushered Fenchurch into his office through the darkened reception area, the white glow from a battered computer monitor the only light in the room. He rested against his desk, shunted round to the other window, facing out of the room instead of in. ‘Have a seat.’
03:16 burned in large red digits on an old clock radio. ‘You’ve long since burnt all the midnight oil, Frank.’
‘I’m actually in early.’ Blunden eased himself back onto the desk. ‘I’m not sleeping so well these days.’ He sneezed into his hand, then ran it down his trousers. ‘Prostate cancer.’
Fenchurch’s throat tightened up. ‘You’re serious?’
‘Inoperable. Spread to my liver. Docs give me three months. We’ll see how that goes. I’m not rotting away in some hospice.’ He spat the word out like it could make the cancer worse. ‘That’s not for Frank Blunden.’
‘Not sure working all night will give you any longer, though.’
‘I’ve got a lot of thinking to do about what happens to this place after I’ve gone.’ Blunden swept his hand round the grotty office like it was a country mansion with two sides of a family at loggerheads over the inheritance. ‘They call it “advanced care planning”, you know? How I’d like to die. Who inherits my empire.’
‘Got anyone in mind?’
Blunden tapped his nose.
‘Have to say, you don’t seem too bad, Frank.’
‘I’m one of the very lucky ones. I don’t seem to be getting the biting pain a lot of my fellow sufferers get. It’ll come, though.’ Blunden picked up a newspaper and waved it in the air. ‘Got a copy of the Post at the petrol station on my way in. Very interesting reading.’
Fenchurch’s mouth dried up. He tried to swallow something down. Anything. ‘What you talking about?’