by Jay Nadal
There were multiple criminal organisations in and around Shoreditch. Many were small-time. But most of the crime could be attributed to just a few key players. There were “the Roubles”, a Russian criminal organisation. They specialised in fraud, counterfeiting, and high-tech crime. Most of their revenue was ghosted back to their connections in Russia.
And then there were the Connells. A major criminal organisation run by Sally Connell. She had taken over after her father was gunned down outside a pub in Hackney by a rival firm. Her brothers, Terry and Steve ably assisted her. Since the late 1960s, the Connells were heavily involved in armed robbery, contract killing, drugs trafficking and other racketeering-related activities within London’s underworld. Following the downfall of the Kray brothers, the Connells were one of several criminal organisations who had filled the vacuum within the London underworld.
There followed a highly publicised gangland war during the 1990s as rival families fought for control. The Connells succeeded; they were ruthless and unforgiving. Media reports had linked the family to around twenty-five murders. But their organisation was so complex, that very few of their members had been brought to justice, thanks in part to bent coppers and lawyers on their payroll. The few who had been caught and sentenced were lower in the food chain, and maintained an oath of silence after being imprisoned. Imposing prison walls, and screws, would do little to protect them from the tentacles of justice that the Connells would dish out to traitors and informants.
Karen knew the Connells were connected directly or indirectly to every major crime that had been committed in the area for the past few years. To her, this was both personal and professional.
She carried on scanning the video footage of Columbia Road, pausing the tape every time a car came into view. Footage had been retrieved from three different locations, the off-licence, the pub, and a small boutique shop. The team had worked tirelessly to combine the footage so she could watch all three feeds at the same time on one screen, but the dark, grainy footage proved challenging. The street lights provided little in terms of illumination to help her.
Karen froze the tape again when the figure of a person walked past the pub. She zoomed in, but the closer she focused on the person, the more pixelated it became. Her mind spun as she analysed the image. She switched to the feed from the off-licence and estimated that the figure would have walked past the off-licence just a few minutes earlier. The feed was far clearer because of the bright glare of the shop lighting up the pavement.
“Gotcha.”
Karen zoomed in on the image again and took a screenshot. She saw the distinctive outline and features of Diane Murphy. Karen shook her head. No wonder she hadn’t seen Diane’s car, she had come on foot. Diane had probably parked some distance away. Karen checked the time frame, the timestamp showed eleven thirty-seven p.m. And she was walking towards Macholl’s apartment.
Her eyes were sore, her shoulders stiff, and her back ached from sitting in one position. Staring at CCTV footage was one of the less glamorous activities required for the job. Thankfully, she had a small time frame to work on. But she had been on other jobs where officers had trawled through days and sometimes weeks of footage. Twelve-hour shifts, day after day, staring at a monitor looking for that one clue, or piece of evidence that would give them the breakthrough in a case.
She paused again when she saw Diane’s figure passing the pub and coming into view of the off-licence camera. Karen paused the tape again and checked the time. The timestamp confirmed that she was walking away from Macholl’s apartment at one forty-three a.m.
“Bollocks.” Diane had left his apartment at least thirty minutes before the emergency services received the first calls. Karen continued to study the footage until two twenty-one a.m. when she saw the first area cars and armed response units arriving.
Karen was confident that Diane hadn’t been directly involved in the murder of Macholl. She had left the scene at least thirty minutes before, and unless there was another way to access Macholl’s apartment, she hadn’t returned.
Karen updated Jade as they made their way over to Taylor’s place. Despite what she had observed in the footage, Karen still felt the need to question Diane’s movements. It appeared as if Diane had been the last person to see Dean Macholl alive. There was still a chance that Diane may have spotted something unusual as she left the apartment. There was also a burning question in the back of Karen’s mind. Diane’s son. She had seen Ben with Macholl less than two days ago.
Once there, it took a few moments before Diane opened the door. She looked tired and weary, her eyes darting between both officers. A look of despondency etched with annoyance was all she could offer.
“Why can’t you leave me alone? If you come around here any more, you might as well move in!” she boomed, her voice echoing in the hallway behind her.
Karen and Jade followed her, not waiting to be invited.
“Well, I can assure you this won’t be the last time we’re here. We’ve got a few more questions we need to ask you.”
“Questions, questions. That’s all you bloody do. You should be out there catching the scum,” she uttered as she walked to the lounge, not looking to see if they were following.
Karen and Jade stood as Diane slumped into one sofa and tilted her head back on the cushions. Jade walked over towards the window and perched herself against the windowsill, taking out her pen and notepad. It was a warm morning, and she enjoyed the warmth of the sun on her back. The golden arching rays crept around her, creating an angelic halo that framed her shape in the window.
“When was the last time you saw Dean Macholl?”
Diane shook her head. “I don’t know. The party?”
Karen offered the smallest of smiles. Diane was a lousy liar. “Diane, Dean Macholl was murdered in the early hours of yesterday morning. He was shot dead in his flat.”
Diane’s eyes widened in surprise and grief. Her bottom lip trembled, and her jaw shivered as she wrapped her arms around her chest. Karen noticed the woman’s eyes misting over.
“Dead?”
“Yup.” Karen’s answer was deliberately blunt. “What were you doing at Dean Macholl’s apartment?”
The question took Diane by surprise, her eyes flickering in panic. She tightened her lips into a grimace. The reaction didn’t go unnoticed by Karen and Jade.
“I wasn’t there.”
“Oh, really. So the person we saw in CCTV footage at eleven thirty-seven walking in the direction of Macholl’s apartment, and then leaving again at one forty-three a.m. precisely, wasn’t you?”
“Why does that matter?”
“Why? Because I don’t think you’ve been completely truthful with us. They found your DNA in his bed. How long have you been carrying on with him?”
Diane’s face flushed blood red as she clenched her hands into a tight ball. Her lips mouthed words silently as she fought to gain clarity. “It was just a one-off. I got a bit tipsy, and one thing led to another.”
“Don’t bullshit me, Diane. You were probably the last person to see him alive. You don’t just turn up at someone’s apartment, have a couple of glasses of wine, and jump into the sack with someone you’ve hardly seen.”
For a moment, her own thoughts stunned Karen. She had done exactly that the night she had met Neil in a bar.
“We discovered letters addressed to Dean, and signed by the initial D. We’ve had forensics examine the letters, and your prints were on them.”
“I… I…”
As much as Diane tried to hold it in, the pain came out like a roar from her throat in the form of a silent scream. The beads of water fell one after another without a sign of stopping, muffled sobs racking against her chest.
Karen and Jade exchanged a glance. Karen looked towards the box of tissues on a small table towards the far end of the room, and guided Jade with her eyes towards it. Jade cottoned on and went to retrieve it before offering them to Diane. Diane pulled out a few and wiped her face and
blew her nose.
“I think there’s more that you need to tell us, Diane, don’t you?” Karen’s voice softened slightly, but she wasn’t letting Diane off the hook so easily.
28
Diane looked a shadow of herself. The aggression and bluntness she had displayed on their previous visits had melted away. She looked frail now, uncertain and scared. She considered herself a strong woman. She’d had to be for the sake of her son. As a family, they mixed in the most violent circles of the criminal underworld. Any sign of weakness was a sign of vulnerability, and Jack hadn’t wanted that.
She stared down at the sodden tissues in her hands. Lost in her thoughts, she tore long strips off and scrunched them into tiny balls.
“Diane?”
Diane didn’t hear Karen calling her. It was as if she had blocked out the world around her.
“Diane. We need to hear your side of the story. We’ve got a double murder on our hands. And both men were part of your life.”
The woman looked up and met Karen’s steady gaze. There was an emptiness in her bloodshot eyes. Her lids were sore and red, her lips moistened with tears. She nodded her head a few times.
“Dean and I were an item many years ago. We were in love,” she said nostalgically, her eyes trailing off towards a space in the room. “Dean and Jack were associates back then. Dean introduced me to Jack.”
The penny dropped for Karen and she knew where the confession was headed before Diane even continued.
“There was something about Jack. I couldn’t put my finger on it. They were both wrong’uns. Dean was a charmer, and Jack, well Jack was macho, loud and aggressive. He was never short of female attention. He always had a different woman on his arm. It was like bees to a honeypot. You can imagine how I felt when he gave me the eye.”
“So you saw Jack behind Dean’s back?”
The woman nodded once and bit her bottom lip, a mixture of shame and embarrassment forcing her to pull her arms in closer to her sides.
“The problem was whilst I was seeing him, he already had another woman. And he wasn’t prepared to let her go. She worked in a bookies, and he wanted to rob it. That was his speciality, armed robbery, hitting easy targets like bookies, off-licences, and that type of thing. And of course, this woman was prepared to do anything to help him.”
“Is this the last bookies they raided before they went their separate ways?”
“Yeah. It all went wrong. He told me that he needed her, and once he was done with the raid he would give her the boot. But on the night, there were two members of staff working behind the counter. This woman and her manager. Anyway, the manager decided to have a go. It got out of hand, and Jack pulled the trigger. It missed the bloke but hit the woman. She died.”
“So Dean didn’t pull the trigger?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Dean didn’t. Jack did. But Jack wasn’t gonna take the fall for it, so he spread the word that Dean did it. Before you knew it, there were loads of snouts out there willing to claim that Dean was behind the raid, and that he shot the woman.”
Karen remained silent, letting Diane carry on with her recollections. Diane paused for a moment, no doubt deep in thought.
“Dean had no choice. He was gonna be set up for a murder he didn’t commit or get lynched. He had to go on the run.”
Karen regarded her. “You could have said something to protect an innocent man?”
Diane shook her head as her eyes widened. “No. No. You just don’t do things like that to Jack. I would have been as good as dead, if I opened my mouth. Jack had warned me a few times that I would have to keep that secret until the day I died. But it would be my choice when I died, if you know what I mean?”
Karen nodded. There was something else on her mind she needed Diane to explain.
“After Ben left the station, I saw him cross the road to be met by Dean. How did he know Dean? Was Dean trying to intimidate Ben? Was Ben trying to protect you?” The avalanche of questions seemed to trip on Karen’s tongue.
“No. It was not like that.”
Karen crossed her arms. “Well, what was it like then? You are one of the last people to see Macholl alive. Ben had the perfect reason to murder Jack and Macholl… to protect you from any further hurt.”
An uncomfortable silence settled over the room as Diane processed her thoughts. She tried to make some sense of the events that had shattered her life in the last few days.
As Diane contemplated, Jade’s patience was wearing thin. She shifted uncomfortably on the windowsill, the edge of the wood making her backside numb. She cleared her throat gently to attract Karen’s attention. Karen looked over her shoulder as Jade willed Karen to push on with her eyes.
“Diane?”
Diane dropped her gaze to the floor as her shoulders dropped. “Jack hated Ben. He never wanted anything to do with him. All Jack wanted to do was kick him out, and I had to plead with him on a weekly basis to let Ben stay. He never showed Ben one ounce of love or compassion. It was as if Ben never existed in Jack’s eyes.”
“Why?” Karen probed.
“Ben is Dean’s son.”
29
Karen leant back in her chair and tipped it back and forth. Macholl being Ben’s father put a different perspective on her case. Ben had a motive for killing Taylor, but she questioned whether he would have had a motive to kill his own father. Is there more to this than I’ve uncovered?
Following Skelton’s “suggestion” she had instructed the team to gather as much CCTV footage as they could of the Copthorne estate on the date of Taylor’s murder. From her past dealings, she knew the estate had featured heavily in Taylor’s empire. It had proved a useful conduit for the supply and distribution of drugs. And it was quite possible that either Taylor had upset one of the distributors, or someone on the estate had decided they wanted a bigger slice of the cake. Intelligence on the HOLMES2 system confirmed that there were several smaller pockets of criminality, but most of the illegal activity was attributed to Darren Finch, aged thirty-two, a drug dealer with connections to Taylor and the Connells.
She could visualise the hierarchical chain with the Connells on top, followed by the likes of Taylor, with street rats like Finch and his runners languishing at the bottom. Each part of the chain chomping at the bit to find a way to move up the ladder.
Karen’s phone chimed, and she stared at the screen for several moments. She had cancelled the reminder a few times in recent days. Each time the guilt haunted her. After all this time it still cut just as deep. She had to remind herself that whilst she couldn’t undo her misdeeds, she’d dedicated her life to making a difference in the world.
Maybe that was her way of avoiding emotions she kept tightly locked away. It seemed unfair that no matter how much she strived to be the woman her conscience wanted her to be, it taunted her with her failures. Each time the regrets emerged, she would diligently analyse them again, hoping that this time her mind would be satisfied with her self-professed remorse. But a tormented soul showed no mercy, and she’d quickly bury them for fear of being consumed by them. Like an unforgiving spectre it would return tomorrow to haunt her again.
Karen scrolled through her contacts until she found and dialled the number for Broomfield Residential Care Home. After reaching the reception, they put her through to her contact, Nurse Robyn Allen.
“Karen. It’s lovely to hear from you. It’s been a long time, and we were hoping to have heard from you sooner, or at least a visit.”
Nurse Allen’s words cut through her like the pointed tip of a shard of glass. Each word punctured her heart and twisted her insides. She glanced up towards the ceiling unsure how to reply, knowing anything she said would sound like a feeble and pathetic excuse.
“I’m sorry, Robyn. I’ve meant to call for a few days but been tied up with a major case.” She felt pangs of guilt for just saying those words, knowing if she had wanted to, she could have made the time.
“I know. And I know you’re busy. But
Jane looks forward to your visits. She is less irritable, and so much calmer after you’ve gone.”
Robyn’s words stifled Karen’s breath. She could feel her eyes moistening but was determined not to let her tears escape. There was nothing she could say or do that would make the situation any better. She felt helpless, selfish and a poor excuse for a sister.
“How is she?” Karen asked.
“You know… She has good days and bad days. The physiotherapist visits her every day and does her best to make sure that Jane’s mobility doesn’t worsen. Her feeding is just the same. We get the occasional murmur and semi-constructed word slip from her lips. But other than that, nothing has changed.”
It was nothing she’d hadn’t heard before. Her sister’s condition had remained the same for as long as she could remember. “I will try my hardest to get there in the next few days. I would like to see her.”
“And I’m sure she would love to see you,” the nurse said.
With the lift in Robyn’s tone, Karen imagined that the woman was smiling as she said those words. The phone calls were always awkward. She never knew what to say, and they would cover the same ground each time. Karen would ask how her sister was, if she was being fed well, and whether there were any further complications or issues she needed to know about. Robyn, in return, would update her on her sister’s condition, and would always find a way of asking when Karen could spare the time to visit.
Karen hung up after promising to call back to arrange a time. She stared at the phone as she placed it back on the desk. Each call left her deflated, emotionally confused and riddled with guilt.
Following difficulties conceiving, and after her mother, Anne, had suffered a miscarriage during her second pregnancy, her parents had been blessed with Jane. Her sister was born prematurely with a compressed umbilical cord which led to a situation called birth asphyxia and brain damage. Jane had lived in a care home for most of her life, suffering with seizures, blindness and an undeveloped brain. Motor disorders, development delays, speech delays, and emotional and behavioural disturbances were some of the complications that the nursing team had to deal with whilst they provided her with twenty-four-hour care. Jane was thirty-six years old but had a mental age of a twelve-year-old. Karen had promised to pop in once a week, but only managed once a month.