Cleaver Square

by Sean Campbell

  'James,' Ayala supplied.

  'James would have noticed. As would social services, and the school,' Morton concluded.

  'Then the switch has to be before then. Are we concentrating on the Lovejoys?'

  'I guess so. We'll start our investigation bright and early tomorrow morning. For now, out of my Incident Room. You need to be rested up for tomorrow.'

  Ayala nodded curtly at his dismissal, and then left Morton in silence. Alone with his thoughts, Morton pondered where to spend the rest of the night. He didn't relish the thought of spending the night alone at Tina's, but there was always the slim chance she might come back. Stranger things had happened. Morton rose, flicked off the strip lighting and plunged the incident room into darkness. He should heed his own advice, and be fit for the coming investigation.

  ***

  Pangs of hunger lanced through Tina's stomach. She had been left alone since being knocked out except for one brief visit by her captors. The sound of something heavy had preceded the opening of a trapdoor overhead. For one glorious moment, Tina thought she was free. Something was thrown in, landing on Tina's chest with a painful thud. Then the trapdoor slammed shut, and the darkness conquered her prison once more.

  Tina twisted, trying to manoeuvre the object towards her hands. It was a plastic bottle of water. Good. That meant they weren't intending to kill her. At least, not immediately. An overhead screech reverberated as whatever was being used to weigh down the trapdoor was dragged back into place.

  Her sense of time had been warped by the darkness. Only Tina's hunger gave her any indication how long she might have been kept in the dark.

  'Aha! Got you.' Tina grappled the bottle between her fingertips, constrained by the ropes around her wrists. Somehow, she had to get the bottle back up to her lips in order to drink.

  The bottle was half empty by the time she had contorted herself to bring it to her lips. She held the bottle between her teeth, then chugged back a swing. It wasn't much, but she had to make it last. She settled the bottle down next to her, propped up against the carpet hanging from the ceiling of her cell. Surely someone would come for her.

  CHAPTER 38: A ROOM WITH A VIEW

  It was Hank Williams' first-ever visit to the London residence of Dmitri 'Tiny' Bakowski. Hank had expected something oppressive, broody and vaguely imperial. Instead, the duplex was clean, minimalist and even empty. Over two thousand square feet of open-plan space, but barely any of it in use.

  Hank sat on the edge of a curvy leather sofa, one of a pair positioned right in the middle of the room. The furniture was clearly designer. Other than a television, which hung on a floating wall in front of him, there was no other clutter in sight.

  'Like it?' Tiny's voice startled Hank.

  Tiny appeared from the kitchen wearing shorts and an open-cuff shirt. Tiny's casual attire sharply contrasted with Hank's own, which included a thick cashmere overcoat that was much more practical for someone living in London in the depths of midwinter.

  'It's gorgeous,' Hank gushed, 'but did you just move in?'

  'No. It's meant to be like this. Minimal. Some like to display their wealth.'

  'And you don't?'

  'I do, but I'm doing it by the absence of stuff.'

  'Eh?'

  'This is Hyde Park One, the most expensive building on the planet. Being able to have this much space, and not use any of it, makes me stand out.' Tiny spoke slowly, as if talking to a child.

  'Ah. Right.' Hank's expression betrayed his confusion.

  'So, what do you want? A bonus?' Tiny reached into his pocket to pull out his wallet. He had no qualms about rewarding family loyalty.

  'Umm. I need your help.'

  Tiny's eyes narrowed with suspicion. 'What with?'

  'The Linden job wasn't, um,' Hank watched Tiny's face for any sign of impending violence, wary of his cold stare, 'well, as clean as it could have been.'

  'You whitewashed the scene?'

  'Yes.'

  'You ditched the bodies as directed?'

  'I ditched the bodies downstream, near Tilbury. Thanks for sending a car, by the way.'

  'Outside the Met's jurisdiction? I like it.' Tiny's yellowed teeth, long since stained by cigarettes and poor personal hygiene, protruded from his lips in a victory snarl.

  'Yeah. The Lindens' deaths won't trace back to you, don't worry.'

  'Then what's the problem?'

  'When I was cutting up the bodies, someone else entered the flat.' Hank's words came out in a rush, only just decipherable.

  'And? You had to ditch one more body. No big deal.'

  'I didn't kill them.'

  'Why the hell not? What did you do, convince them with your silver tongue, 'Oh hello, I was just cutting up bodies... for the local medical school. Would you mind giving me a hand?' You stupid bastard.'

  'I knocked her out.'

  'Her? Pretty, was she?'

  'No. She was a bloody cop!'

  'What the hell have you done with her?'

  'She's in the basement of our place in Crystal Palace,' said Hank.

  'You've kidnapped a cop, and shut her up in my basement? Has she seen your face?'

  'No.'

  'A minor miracle. You've got two options. One, kill her and dump the body with the others. Two, drug her and dump her somewhere to be found. Number two only works if you're certain she can't identify you or my place or otherwise link back to us.'

  'She was blindfolded the whole time. On the way back from the Linden flat, I stopped off for a while. Bitch did a bit of damage to my boot.'

  Tiny cackled. 'Thought she was going to escape, did she? Nice try. Kill her, she's too much trouble to let live.'

  Hank hesitated. It was one thing to off the competition, but killing a cop would paint a bright red cross on his back for life. Hank's reluctance must have shown in his expression, as Tiny frowned and asked: 'You need a hand?'

  'N-n-no, boss. I'll take care of it.'

  'Good. Now get out. Crystal is waiting for me.' Tiny gestured towards the kitchen.

  Hank looked over to see one of Tiny's floozies loitering in the doorway, her ample chest barely concealed under the fabric of her top.

  'Right. Thanks, Tiny.'

  ***

  It took almost a whole day for Tina's mobile phone network to respond to Morton's request. The last time her phone had been connected to the network, it had bounced a signal off several towers from the Barbican up to Essex Road and east to Shoreditch High Street. Studying the report, Morton realised that the epicentre of the signal activity was Old Street Station. Morton cursed. It looked like Tina had lost signal when going underground on the tube, and had either never resurfaced or lost battery power while in transit.

  Morton traced the laptop screen with his finger. Old Street was on the Northern Line, two changes away from virtually any station on the underground. The signal had gone dead at 12:32 p.m., which was presumably when she descended the escalator to the platform buried deep underneath the silicone roundabout.

  Morton had been to Old Street Station every day since he'd begun occupying Tina's sofa in Hoxton Square. He'd always taken the north-east entrance to the station, and then gone through the ticket barrier towards the tube. Each morning he saw a morass of commuters, dressed for the January weather, congregate like sardines in small carriages. The shorter travellers suffered. They had the misfortune to stand underneath the sweaty armpits of taller commuters holding onto the ceiling-mounted rails.

  Sunday probably wouldn't have been quite so busy. Morton logged onto the Transport for London database. As he waited for his session to load, Morton cracked his knuckles impatiently. It was even slower than the Met's system. Morton stood, and then paced the Incident Room, traversing the small space repeatedly as he waited for the screen to refresh.

  Eventually, he was in. It wasn't as simple as typing in 'Tina Vaughn' and bringing up her travel history. Not that Morton didn't try that. He entered her name, crossing his fingers that she had taken th
e time to register her Oyster Card. No such luck. Like everyone else Morton knew, she'd just paid the five pounds deposit for a pay-as-you-go card, and gone on her merry way.

  Morton clicked back to the menu screen, wondering if he'd be able to find her Oyster Card from her credit card details. Surely she had topped up with her card at some point.

  'Damn!' Morton swore. Payment data wasn't available on the system he had access to. He'd have to call someone.

  'You losing at solitaire again, boss?' Ayala hung in the doorway, propped up against the frame and lazily watched his superior officer's growing frustration.

  'Very funny,' said Morton. Ayala had taken Morton for almost a hundred pounds at a poker game he'd organised. Morton still swore Ayala could count cards. 'I'm trying to find out where Tina went. Her mobile signal died at Old Street Station at lunchtime on Sunday.'

  'Checked her Oyster travel history?

  'Can't. It's pay-as-you-go.'

  'Her bank must have payment details for top-ups?' Ayala suggested, following the same logic Morton had.

  'Got to subpoena those sorts of records.'

  'OK. Let's try again. What time did you say she lost signal?'

  '12:32 p.m., why?'

  'It takes what, roughly a minute to go from the ticket barrier to the platform? How many cards went through the gates in the period 12:30 to 12:32?'

  'I like your thinking.' Morton ran the query, which flashed up results almost instantly. Maybe the TFL system was better than the Met's after all.

  'Eighteen,' Morton read from the results screen.

  'And how many of those are registered?'

  'Seven.'

  'If we exclude those seven, we've got eleven candidate numbers. Close, but no cigar,' Ayala said.

  'How's the CCTV coverage around there?'

  'Awful; I can see Tina going into the tube station but I lose her once she's inside.'

  'Right. I'll bring up the eleven cards that could be her. Between them we've got one departing at Angel, two at Waterloo, one at Piccadilly, one at Regents Park, one at Camden Town and even one way out in West Finchley. The last four got off the tube at Oxford Street.'

  'Sounds like those four were a group. How closely grouped were their times near the barrier?'

  Morton checked the screen, 'Seconds apart.'

  'Right. So let's park those four for a minute. The other seven: all of them will be on CCTV exiting those stations. They're all pretty thoroughly covered, except maybe West Finchley. I've never been up that way.'

  'I have. Bunch of champagne bloody socialists.' Morton spread his fingers wide, hands held aloft, in a 'What can you do?' gesture.

  'Let me guess. The in-laws live there?'

  'Used to. They've got a place on the riverfront in Hammersmith these days.'

  'Nice.' Ayala didn't envy Morton for being married. He'd sooner be dead.

  'Aha!' Morton cried, 'I've got her. She left Camden Town at just after 12:43.' Morton checked the Oyster database again to get her Oyster Card number: 056056259473. 'No activity on her Oyster Card since.'

  'Then it's time we paid Camden Borough Council a visit and see if we can track her down on their CCTV. Which way did she leave the tube?'

  'She came out on the west side of the station; looks like she was heading north,' Morton said.

  'Towards Camden Market then. Sunday afternoon shopping perhaps?'

  'Let's find out.'

  ***

  Tina kept slipping in and out of consciousness. When she came to, her head pounded as if she was suffering from the worst hangover of her life. It was pitch black, but her eyes still saw an inky black haze shimmering around her.

  The only upside was that the thirst was gone. That wasn't because she had water. The bottle thrown in with her was long gone. She was simply too far gone to feel it. Her tongue felt swollen and dry, as if a sandpaper balloon had been inflated in its place.

  The pain wasn't too bad either. The bindings had slackened a little, not enough for her to effect an escape but enough to afford a modicum of comfort. Tina's limbs simply tingled. It was like the pins and needles she'd been fascinated by as a child, and had sometimes deliberately leant on one arm to achieve; but now the sensation seemed to have taken up permanent residence.

  A sound came from above. It was the same scraping noise she had heard before. As the trapdoor swung open, light rushed into the tiny cell. For a brief moment, she thought she had been saved. A shadow reached down and picked her up, drawing her into the light. Her eyes burned as the sudden light seared them. She instinctively tried to kick out against her captor, but she was too weak to have any effect.

  Her eyes slowly came into focus as she was carried up and out of the basement. Back in the garage, she had one last glimpse of freedom before she was thrown back into the boot. As the boot closed, Tina's world went black.

  ***

  Hank chugged along the A2199, with his hands firmly planted at ten and two on the steering wheel. He was not normally such a cautious driver, but he was anxious not to get pulled over while he had a woman in the boot. He checked the speedometer, and gently lifted his foot just enough to bring him back within the speed limit. The roads were empty. He had to dump her somewhere unconnected to the Bakowski family. New dump sites were hard to find, but sometimes hiding in plain sight was enough.

  He indicated left, a gloved hand briefly activating the turning lights. Hank always wore gloves in winter, but instead of owning one pair he kept sets of three. He had to use an un-gloved hand to put on the first glove, which meant it could end with fingerprints on the first glove worn. He kept a third so that he could put on the pair he really wanted with his contaminated first glove. It was convoluted, but it helped Hank sleep more soundly.

  The girl had to go. He should have just killed her in the Linden flat. The blessings of hindsight.

  Still, a little voice in his head kept on arguing, she hasn't seen you. She didn't even see the Linden corpses. Why not just let her go? Why risk a murder rap when you could just dump her? Even Hank's more ruthless side was calculating enough to see the benefits of letting her live.

  Hank pulled over onto Brockwell Park Gardens, pulled up on the curb and killed the engine. There was no one around. He'd expected as much. It was four a.m. If he'd been any earlier, there might have been drunk students stumbling home. Much later, and the fitness nuts would be out in force.

  Hank chewed his lip. He didn't want to kill. That had never been the plan. All he ever wanted was a better life for the kids than he'd had.

  Hank pulled his scarf tight above him, obscuring his face. Then he rose from the driver's seat, still unsure of his final decision. He opened the boot slowly to keep the noise down.

  She was pitiful. Bedraggled, covered in her own sweat, urine and faeces. She was bound tightly, gagged and unconscious. She was no threat. Screw Tiny. He didn't need to snap her neck.

  Hank pulled out a pocketknife, and slit her bonds. They fell back into the boot. The gag was likewise removed, revealing puffy purple lips. Hank lifted Tina, a little more gently this time.

  Tiny would punish him, if he ever found out. He carried Tina towards the south-west fence of Brockwell Park Gardens, lifted her easily over the knee-high fence, and then propped her up against the fence. He crouched next to her. Both the road and the jogger's path on the other side of the tree line were visible. Confident that she'd be found shortly, Hank scurried back to his car.

  ***

  Ayala nodded, 'I think we've got it from here. Thanks.' He nodded at the CCTV tech who loitered awkwardly until he realised his presence was no longer required.

  'Well, call the front desk if you need anything, Just dial one on the intercom,' the tech said as he walked out, leaving Morton and Ayala alone with the bank of screens. There were thirty-two smaller screens displaying the insides of various council buildings, plus a larger screen in the middle which had been left for their use.

  'How do you work the facial tracking on this thing?' Morton said.


  'Been watching crime dramas again? These cameras were put in back in the early nineties. The resolution is awful. I've seen higher-quality video taken using mobiles,' Ayala replied.

  'The old-fashioned method it is, then. Where are all these cameras?'

  Ayala pointed at a map of the area on the wall behind them. 'Each of those pins is a council-owned camera. The yellow triangle on the top shows which way the cameras are facing.'

  'Are they all the same model?'

  'Nope. So we've got different fields of view covered. Some of them are narrow-lens cameras. I think they're mostly pointing at doorways in and out of public buildings. What we want is a camera on Camden High Street, as that was where Tina was headed.'

  'What about that one covering Inverness Street Market?'

  Ayala pulled up the feed on the largest monitor, and then found the footage from 12:43 p.m. Sunday.

  'There she is, right at the back of the image. On the opposite side of the road, next to the 'One Way' sign.'

  'Looks like she's headed towards Camden Market.'

  Morton glanced up at the map of camera locations. 'We've got two cameras on the market. Get those up.'

  A processor whirred as it fetched video archives from the computer's memory banks. The file began to buffer, and an image of Camden Market sprang to life.

  'Wide-angle lens. Looks like we've got the whole of the frontage covered,' Morton said.

  'Yep, and there she is!' Ayala grabbed Morton's arm and pointed. Tina could be seen disappearing between the shoe store on the corner and the clothes stall next to it.

  'And after that, nothing. Too many stalls in the way.' Morton checked the map to see if there were any other cameras covering the inside of Camden Market, but there were none to be found.

  'Right. So, the question is: did she leave Camden Market under her own volition? There's no sign of foul play so far, which suggests anything that has happened would have been after that.'

  'Fast forward a bit, and we'll see if she comes back out.'

  The pair sat in silence as the feed flashed by at quadruple speed.

  'There! Rewind a sec. I think I spotted her.' Morton pointed at the left-hand half of the screen, showing the northern half of the market's front elevation.