Cleaver Square

by Sean Campbell

  'You should have given a statement.'

  'Not at all. I'm not obliged to give a statement. Any press releases that concern my investigation are entirely within my purview. I invited Mr Travis to call at a proper hour for comment. I will not reward ambush tactics lest I encourage them.'

  'We're just looking for you to be reasonable here, Mr Morton. A simple statement would have sufficed.'

  'No, you're looking for a scapegoat. And I'm having none of it. Besides, you said this was about Adrian Lovejoy, not Dacre Street, or did I misunderstand you?'

  'No, but...'

  'Then I think we're done here. I will find the man or woman responsible for the death of Charlie Matthews. I would appreciate it if you left me to get on with that. If you want to talk about this again, you can speak to my union rep.'

  With that, Morton left the Superintendent and Doctor Hart. Hart was still scribbling furiously as he left.

  ***

  According to the weather service, it had been raining until six in the morning on the day that Tina had been found in Brockwell Park Gardens. She was found on a Saturday, giving her a full five days unaccounted-for. The glow from Morton's laptop illuminated his home office. The door was shut, and he had headphones on at full volume. Sarah knew better than to disturb him when he was like this.

  The golden rule for survival echoed around Morton's mind as he sat stock-still and stared at the screen. Three minutes without air. Three days without water. Three weeks without food. If she was gone for five days, then her captors must have given her water. Why?

  Tina had been rushed to hospital at shortly after eight, and pronounced dead on arrival. The weather had certainly contributed to her death; Chiswick's autopsy report had confirmed as much.

  Morton's gut feel was that the early risers hit the park from around five o'clock, which would be typical of the type-A personalities that jogged before dawn. That gave a fairly narrow window for Tina to have been dumped without someone noticing.

  Morton glanced at the handsome carriage clock on the left-hand side of his desk. It was fast closing on nine o'clock, well past working hours. He shut his laptop down, and headed for an early night. By the time his head hit the pillow, he was out cold.

  ***

  Fresh from his early night, Morton had made it to Brockwell Park Gardens shortly after half past four. No jogger had yet made it out onto the path, but a few of London's transients were huddled together near a clump of trees.

  '£20 for a quickie, mister?' A girl, wrapped in a tattered assortment of wraps, approached Morton. Her eyes were bloodshot, and train tracks were clearly visible on her arms.

  'How old are you?' Morton asked.

  'Nineteen,' she replied. To Morton's eye, she looked more like thirty.

  'So you want a go or not? I'll go to fifteen.'

  'No.' The girl turned to walk away, but Morton called her back.

  'Have you seen this woman?' Once again, he produced the photo. He turned his phone screen towards it as a makeshift torch.

  'I think so. Last week. She was over there.' The girl gestured towards the fencing where Morton knew Tina had been found.

  'Are you sure?'

  'Yeah. I tried to offer her a blanket, but she ignored me.'

  Morton marvelled at the kindness of someone down on her luck. It had been minus two degrees Celsius, yet she was willing to share the meagre rags she had.

  'Was she conscious?' Morton asked.

  'Dunno.'

  'Well, what time was it?'

  'What do I look like, the talking clock?'

  'Was before or after the bells at the church chimed?' St Giles' Church was located less than three hundred feet away. From his research, Morton had found out that the pastor rang the bells until ten p.m., then stopped until six in the morning out of respect for the local residents.

  'After the night ones, but before the morning. Maybe halfway between.'

  'And did you see who she was with?'

  'Nah, I heard an engine purring, real soft-like, followed by a boot clicking shut. Then the sobbing started. At first I thought it was a fox, but eventually I decided I had to check. The foxes are more scared of me than I am of them.'

  'And that's when you found her?'

  'Yep. Left a blanket over her, and went back to sleep.'

  'Thanks. Are you always around here?' Morton wondered how he'd find her again if he needed to.

  'Naw, but I've got a mobile.'

  'A mobile?' Morton was incredulous. Evidently even homeless people need to keep in touch.

  'Yeah, we all do. We let each other know where there's space to sleep, or a hot meal going.'

  She scribbled her number onto a scrap of paper that Morton hastily dug out of his pocket. It was only when she had gone that Morton glanced at it, and immediately felt his eyes begin to water. Her name was Tina too.

  ***

  Hank Williams scattered £20 notes all over his double bed. Tiny had sent over a bundle of notes as a bonus. It wasn't the first time he'd given Hank a bonus. The first bonus he'd handed over was Hank's Mercedes. Ostensibly it was a hand-me-down from his big sister, Tiny's wife. Hank had thought it flashy, but the provenance meant it should pass muster if Hank ever caught any heat from the police.

  Unlike this money. A second-hand car was an over-the-top gift. A bundle of twenties was downright dirty, especially a bundle this large. Hank guessed that there was over twenty thousand pounds on the bed. Hank frowned. It was an odd amount. Too much to simply pretend it had been saved legitimately, but too little to be worth laundering excessively.

  Hank leant over the bed, and began the tedious process of bundling back up his ill-gotten gains. For now, the loose floorboard in the lounge would do.

  ***

  The morning flew by as Morton searched through speed camera records for the night of Tina's disappearance. The good news was that South London's camera system was state of the art. Rather than simple film cameras, the cameras were all digital and sent their photos back to a central database, which made Morton's task pretty easy.

  The bad news was that the cameras only triggered if a passing car went over the speed limit. A few cameras had been triggered during the night, but none of the speeding cars looked suspicious. A couple of boy racers had been speeding up the Norwood Road, and then caught again racing around Holborn in midtown. A little after midnight an elderly gentleman had sped through Tulse Hill to the west of Brockwell Park Gardens, but there were no realistic suspects between two and four a.m.

  Morton was looking for a medium-to-large car. The boot had to be big enough to contain a human, and the purring mentioned by the witness suggested a diesel engine. Morton's gut told him that he was looking for a midsize estate of some kind, which only narrowed it down to the many thousands registered in London and the Home Counties.

  The obvious next step was to pull the registration details of every car owned by anyone that either the real Charlie, or the impostor, had come into contact with, and then see if any of those cars fit Morton's diesel estate theory.

  As if Morton was going to do that drudge work himself. He headed out of his office towards the Incident Room in search of Bertram Ayala.

  CHAPTER 46: NEW BEGINNINGS

  In a bustling school hall, Martin Neil consoled, cajoled and cursed the endless stream of parents who had booked appointments with him for parents' evening. He had two groups of parents. The larger group were those whose children he taught maths. Mostly, these were a two-minute exercise in repeating the comments he had contributed to the child in question's school report. Parents nodded appreciatively at compliments, and tutted gravely when given the news that their child wasn't working hard enough.

  But Martin's main concern was his tutorial group. He had thirty tutees, and twenty-nine sets of parents had booked in to see him. At ten minutes per appointment, Martin was expected to sit at a desk in the school hall for five hours in order to see them all.

  The one child who didn't have a parent or guardi
an in attendance was the one Martin was most concerned about. It was often the way: that parents being absent told more about a student's academic chances than any ten-minute discussion ever could. No one spoke for Charlie Matthews. No one cared to learn that he was top of the year in maths, and bottom in English. Martin Neil had never told anyone, not even his wife Ingrid, but he was in fact adopted. His real parents had him out of wedlock, and could not bear the shame. His very name was taken from the home in which he had been unceremoniously dumped, St Neil's. Martin was far too young to remember the home but the knowledge of his own pedigree honed his sense of responsibility to those in the system.

  If Mrs Lattimer had cared enough to attend then she would have learned that Charlie's school report recommended weekly sessions with the school's special needs department. But in Mr Neil's opinion what Charlie needed wasn't homework help. It was a father.

  ***

  As he was about to leave for lunch, Morton received an email summons from the Superintendent's personal assistant demanding his immediate attendance. With a heave, he rose from his desk. In years gone by, he might have pleaded ignorance of the message or pretended to be out of the building, but Scotland Yard's state of the art 'swipe in, swipe out' security system put paid to any such notion. The Superintendent knew full well that Morton was in the building.

  On arrival, Morton heard two men talking inside the office. One voice belonged to the Superintendent. The other was that of Alfred McNamara, the Met's resident celebrity. McNamara was the eldest child of legendary Irish cage fighter Paddy 'Iron Fist' McNamara. According to station gossip, the death of his younger sister under mysterious circumstances, and McNamara's exceptional work in solving that crime, had catapulted him from young upstart to the position he now enjoyed. Morton had the feeling that McNamara was being groomed to become a future Superintendent.

  McNamara certainly cut a dashing figure. At six foot four, he topped Morton by a clear two inches and was all the leaner for it. The younger man had a mane of blue-black hair, a chiselled jaw and blindingly blue eyes. Morton was a man's man, but even he could tell that McNamara was, as Tina used to put it, 'man candy'. Worse still, he clearly knew it.

  Morton knew he'd hate him before he even spoke.

  'David, I'd like to introduce Detective Alfie McNamara. He'll be joining your Murder Investigation Team.' The Superintendent puffed out his chest, as though bracing himself for Morton's response.

  'Superintendent, I didn't ask for an assignee.' Morton glared.

  'You have one all the same. Someone has to replace Detective Inspector Tina Vaughn.'

  'It's been less than two weeks, sir.'

  'And in those two weeks, you've made next to no progress. If anything, you've harassed an innocent couple and offered a red rag to the media. Your team is understaffed, Morton, and McNamara is the best junior officer we have available. I trust you'll impart your usual wisdom.'

  Morton ground his teeth together. 'Yes sir.'

  The Superintendent nodded, then turned towards his laptop and began to click away in earnest. It was clear that Morton and his new protégé had been dismissed.

  'After you,' Morton said.

  They stepped into the lift, and Morton hit the button for the fourth floor, where the Joe Bloggs Junior Incident Room awaited.

  'No offense, Alfie, but this is a temporary reassignment. I'm one officer light so need someone on hand, and you're it. But come the end of this investigation, you'll be back in the pool for reassignment. Do I make myself clear?'

  'If that's the craic, so be it,' Detective Alfie McNamara said. He didn't quite shrug his shoulders, but it was obvious Morton's grudging acceptance didn't trouble him.

  This time Morton made eye contact with the brash youngster and said firmly: 'It is. This is our floor.'

  Morton led the way through the winding corridors, then paused outside the Incident Room.

  'Detective, I've heard you like to go solo, but this unit operates as a team. You're coming in at a stressful time. The group is in mourning over the loss of your predecessor, and we're mid-investigation, so you'll be playing catch-up. Can you handle that?'

  McNamara stared intently for a moment, and then nodded.

  'Let's go introduce you to the team then.'

  ***

  McNamara, Morton and Ayala occupied the large table in the Incident Room. Three mugs of tea sat on the table. McNamara had yet to bring his own mug, and so he used Tina's, a faux pas which caused both Morton and Ayala to wince.

  McNamara was oblivious. He'd read all the details, and the Superintendent had given him Tina's notes. He'd even listened to her Dictaphone. But McNamara was the only detective who could be truly dispassionate about Tina's death. He had never met her.

  'Let me get this straight. The kid's dead, and is the biological son of the Matthews. But the kid living as Charlie Matthews isn't related to the dead boy or either of the Matthews?' Alfie McNamara knotted his eyebrows in consternation. In his left hand he held a notebook with tiny writing scribbled into every available space.

  'Not quite,' Morton admonished. 'We know the kid isn't related to the father. But that doesn't rule out the mother cheating.'

  'Then wouldn't there be a lesser DNA match between Charlie and Joe if they share a mother?'

  Morton fidgeted in his seat as he considered his response. 'They share no mitochondrial DNA, so we know they have different mothers. Y-chromosome testing using Eric Matthews' DNA proves he fathered only Charlie, not the boy who took his identity.'

  'So you're going with the 'impostor theory'?' Alfie injected a note of scepticism into his tone, but privately he had come to the same conclusion.

  'It's the best we've got. Faux-Charlie isn't related to the Matthews or their son. He has no knowledge of a priceless heirloom, and no memory of anything to confirm his identity.'

  'But t'at beggars belief! How would no one notice? Hospital staff, a doctor, a teacher, a support worker. Someone must have seen the switch happen.'

  Morton scratched his nose thoughtfully. 'If they did, we haven't found them. We're working on the theory that the faux-Charlie assumed the identity of Charlie Matthews on arrival at the Lovejoy residence. Before that, we know that the real Charlie lived with the Grants. Neighbours confirmed it, with photographic proof.'

  'And you've looked into the Lovejoys themselves?'

  'If they did it, there isn't any tangible proof.'

  'When did this all happen?' McNamara still looked confused.

  'It had to be the seventh of December. After that, the impostor was with the Lovejoys, and social services updated their photos. Before that, the real Charlie was in hospital after the fire. Right, Ayala?'

  Ayala nodded. 'That's it.'

  McNamara looked slowly from Ayala to Morton, and then set his pen down before he spoke again: 'No, it's not.'

  'Excuse me?' Morton asked incredulously.

  'He wasn't in hospital overnight.'

  'How do you know that?'

  McNamara delved into a bag under the table, and pulled out Tina's Dictaphone.

  'Listen to Vaughn's interview with the fire investigator.' He hit play, and Lucien Darville's dulcet tones played back through the Dictaphone's built-in speakers.

  'He got taken to the hospital for a once-over that afternoon as I recall, but he wouldn't have suffered any permanent physical damage from the fire.'

  'See. He had a check-up, that's all. No overnight stay,' McNamara said.

  Morton thumped the table. 'Then our whole bloody timeline is off!'

  Ayala shuffled his chair back. The overnight stay had been information he'd supplied. Ayala's cheeks flushed red, but the others didn't notice.

  'If this is true, we've got a one-day window for Charlie to have disappeared in. The fire at the Grants was on the sixth, early in the evening. Adrian Lovejoy's photo wasn't taken until the next evening, and he said he'd taken it as soon as Charlie arrived. Ayala, where did you get the idea Charlie had stayed overnight?'

 
'Err...' Ayala hesitated, and scrolled through his own notes to check. 'It was during my interview with the social worker, Hank Williams.'

  'Well, that's just grand. He'd have had plenty of chances to swap the boys,' McNamara said.

  Morton nodded. It seemed the most logical conclusion if the Lovejoys were innocent. He dunked a custard cream into his coffee to buy himself a moment to think. If this proved to be another false lead, the Superintendent would be sure to kick the case over to the Cold Case Team. 'Ayala, what did he seem like when you interviewed him?'

  'Friendly. We met at shared offices. They use a hot desk system, so I can't imagine there'd be many secrets in their office.'

  'Secrets? I think I have an idea how Charlie's photo was altered in the Looked After Children database,' McNamara said.

  'So?' Ayala said.

  'We've been assuming this was a routine update. The Lovejoys admitted to taking new photos every time they had a new ward, right?'

  'You think someone knew the Lovejoy routine,' Morton interjected. He tried to ignore the sudden up-swell in his respect for the Irishman.

  'I think passwords would be easy to steal in a shared office space. Hank could have glanced over Bushey's shoulder, or used a computer that she'd left herself logged onto. Mrs Bushey might even have given Hank her password. If he had those details, he could easily remove any data that would contradict the substitution, and slip in Adrian Lovejoy's new photo.'

  Morton snapped his fingers, 'Ayala, run down McNamara's idea. Phone Adrian Lovejoy, and ask how he sent the photo to be updated. Do it now.'

  Ayala scurried out of the Incident Room to find the right number.

  Morton turned to his new officer. 'McNamara, this is a good lead. But we need to be totally on the ball here. Several times we've been convinced we had the right idea, and it's turned out to be totally off-base. We need to get all our ducks in a row before we bring Hank Williams in for a chat. Is that clear?'

  'Whatever you say, boss.'

  ***

  The offices of the 'Looked After Children's Services' at Lambeth Council hadn't changed a jot since Morton's last visit. The corridors were still littered with boxes, and Edith Faulkner-Wellington was once again in her office pottering around purposefully.