She looked at him.
‘Why are you surprised?’
‘I’m not remotely surprised,’ Tanner said. ‘Doesn’t stop me being pissed off, does it? All the time it took to find her.’
‘Maybe they’ll find something at her flat. She’s obviously in regular contact with the people who had Jandali and Sykes killed, so somewhere there’s going to be a name or a number. I mean it’s probably not going to be on a note pinned to her fridge or anything, but who knows?’
‘Did you see how scared she was?’
‘You’re very scary,’ Thorne said. ‘You’ve got a touch of Rosa Klebb, sometimes.’
‘Who?’
‘From Russia With Love. She had a knife in her shoe.’
‘Scared of her solicitor.’ Tanner sat down. ‘Couldn’t you tell? Whenever he looked at her she flinched.’
‘Well, she’s got every reason to be, because he’s obviously on the same payroll she is. He almost certainly called them before he showed up, made it very clear what was expected while they were consulting.’
‘Yeah, well unless anything changes she’s not going to be any more use to us than Andrew Evans.’
‘She’s guilty,’ Thorne said. ‘Evans isn’t… well, not guilty of very much, anyway. That’s something.’
‘So, we stop a few phones going into a few prisons. A bit less Spice. It’s not going to help us catch whoever killed Jandali and Sykes, is it?’
‘Probably not,’ Thorne said.
‘And who knows what might happen to her if we put her away? They’ll have plenty of people inside who can do them a favour. Make sure she never says anything. That’s what Evans was frightened about.’
‘You can’t worry about that.’
‘Can’t I?’
Thorne sat back, drummed his fingers on the desktop. ‘I’m thinking I might open a shop.’
‘What?’
‘When this Aiden Goode operation goes tits up and I’m out on my ear.’
‘Won’t happen,’ Tanner said.
‘Records, maybe… or vintage clothes. What about fruit and veg? People always need fruit and veg.’
‘I can see you’ve given it a lot of thought.’
‘Why don’t you knock all this on the head and come and run my shop with me? We’d have a lot less to worry about.’
Tanner was still smiling when a civilian member of staff knocked and put her head round the door.
‘They just rang through from Colindale,’ she said. ‘The old woman in the cells over there says she wants a second interview. Without her solicitor.’
Tanner stood up and waited for Thorne to do the same. She said, ‘Maybe I’ll pop in now and again. Pick up a cauliflower.’
SIXTY
‘Déjà vu,’ Tanner said. She pushed the piece of paper across the desk, as she had done several hours earlier in the same interview room. A photocopy of a passport, recovered from the visits office at HMP Warren Park. ‘That’s you, correct?’
‘Yeah, that’s me.’ Frances Coombs had barely glanced at the document, then, seeing that Tanner was not yet satisfied, she took wire-rimmed glasses from a tatty leather case and put them on. She stared down. ‘I’ve looked better.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Thorne said. ‘I think the auburn suits you.’
‘You think?’
Thorne nodded. ‘Takes years off.’
The truth was that, despite the make-up and the dye job, the woman in front of them looked every one of her sixty-nine years. Her cheeks were hollowed and mapped with veins, the skin sagging from her neck like tired crêpe. She did look younger in the pictures, and from everything they’d heard from witnesses, her turns in visiting rooms were those of a somewhat more energetic middle-aged woman. Clearly playing a role of some sort had a rejuvenating effect, and though she was acting now, affecting an air of poise and confidence, the performance was not doing the trick on any level.
Tanner slid three more pieces of paper across. ‘And these are all you, too, yes? The passport in the name of Sophia Crawford. The driving licence in the name of Audrey Davis.’
‘All me, yeah.’ The old woman pushed the papers to one side. ‘Look, you know why I’m here. You’re not stupid.’
‘No, we’re not,’ Thorne said.
‘So why are we wasting time?’
‘Somewhere you need to be?’ Thorne asked. ‘Not keeping you from the bingo, are we?’
Coombs looked at Tanner, pointed at Thorne. ‘Does he think he’s funny?’
‘We need to do things properly, Frances,’ Tanner said. She turned a page in her notebook, while Thorne smirked next to her. ‘You used these and other fake ID documents to gain entry over several years to a number of prisons, including Maidstone, Pentonville and Warren Park YOI?’
‘Yes.’
‘You pretended to be a visitor.’
‘Yes.’
‘This was in order to smuggle various prohibited items to a number of prisoners.’
‘You know it was.’
‘Drugs, including Spice.’
‘Yeah, Spice mainly. Coke once or twice, speed…’
‘Anything else?’
‘Mobile phones. I took in a lot of them.’
‘Those dinky little arse-friendly ones,’ Thorne said.
‘You’d know about that, would you?’
Thorne feigned shock and looked at Tanner. ‘Does she think she’s funny?’
‘These prisoners you visited… did they include Graham French, Kyle Mason and Andrew Evans?’
‘I visited a lot of people, love.’
‘Yes, but you must remember Andrew Evans,’ Tanner said. ‘He was one of those you saw after he came out of prison, too. We’re not talking very long ago.’
‘Come on.’ Thorne tapped the side of his head. ‘I’m sure it’s in there somewhere.’
Coombs placed the flat of her hand against her hair, dabbed delicately at it. ‘Yeah, I remember him.’
‘You delivered more drugs to him,’ Tanner said. ‘Made sure he knew exactly how much money he owed. You put him in touch with the people he owed money to.’
‘The people you work for,’ Thorne said.
At the mention of those who had so helpfully supplied her with a solicitor, who had furnished her with the necessary merchandise for so long, the woman’s façade cracked a little. She took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. The skin tightened just a little in that saggy neck.
‘Do you need a drink of water, Frances?’
Coombs shook her head, and when she looked up it was clear that she had rallied a little, or at least reminded herself of the part she had come here to play. ‘Can we talk about what I want?’
‘What you want?’
‘Why I’m talking to you. Like I said, you’re not stupid, so you know why I didn’t want my brief here.’
Thorne leaned across the table. ‘What makes you think you’re in a position to ask for anything?’
‘You’re happy, are you? With me?’ Coombs picked up the papers, the fake IDs, waved them at Thorne. ‘With this?’
‘We’re easily pleased.’
She turned to Tanner. ‘What happened to Andrew Evans?’
‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you that.’
‘Well, you’ve obviously got him stashed away somewhere, but I can tell you right now that, with him on his own, you’ll be lucky if you can charge anyone with loitering, let alone anything you could get excited about. Nothing’s ever going to court, because he knows bugger all.’ She smiled and fussed at her hair again, then laid one liver-spotted hand on top of the other. ‘This kind of business, see, the fewer people know anything, the better. That’s how the people who run the business prefer it. But when you’ve been close to it for as long as I have, you can’t help but pick up a few bits and pieces. Well, you do it without meaning to, even when you’re supposed to be looking the other way, because you’ve lived a bit, and you’re not a stupid kid any more. Because you know that one day, if things aren’t
going quite so well, those bits and pieces might come in handy. A few names and numbers, maybe the places the people with those names might be every so often.’ She gave Tanner a good look at her shiny dentures. ‘When you look at it that way, how useful those bits and pieces might be to the likes of you, it doesn’t sound like I’m asking for very much, not really.’
‘There you go again,’ Thorne said. ‘Wanting things. I want Spurs to win the Premiership, but I’m not holding my breath.’
Tanner waited a few seconds. ‘If, as I understand it, you’re offering to co-operate fully with us, and if your information leads to an arrest in connection with the murders of Adnan Jandali and Kieran Sykes —’
The woman sat forward suddenly. ‘Now hang on, I don’t know anything about murders.’
‘Really?’ Thorne looked astonished. ‘That sort of stuff never come up? Never been one of your bits and pieces?’
‘I’ve never even heard those blokes’ names,’ Coombs said. ‘What was that first one again? Sounded foreign —’
Tanner raised a hand. ‘All right. Just help us find the people who fitted up Andrew Evans and that’ll probably get us close enough.’
‘Good.’ Coombs stabbed a red fingernail against the tabletop. ‘Because I’m not here to talk about anything like that. About murders.’
‘Understood.’
‘So.’ She looked at Thorne. ‘Can we talk about what I want now?’
Thorne folded his arms, considered it. ‘Well, we can talk about what we might be able to offer,’ he said. ‘Why don’t we run that up the flagpole, see where we are?’
‘I need protection.’
‘Of course you do.’
‘Me and my daughter. It has to be both of us. She’s… struggling a bit and I can’t leave her on her own.’
‘I’m filling up,’ Thorne said.
Coombs looked at him, like she was ready to push those nice red fingernails into his eyes.
‘We’ll see what we can arrange,’ Tanner said. ‘Best I can do at the moment. A new identity shouldn’t be a problem, and it’s not like that isn’t something you’ve had plenty of practice at. There are measures we can put in place.’
‘Mind you, if you’re thinking about a new life in the Bahamas you’re probably pushing your luck.’ Thorne watched the woman nod, happy enough, and he saw the tremor which momentarily narrowed the dark bag beneath her right eye. He said, ‘I hear Wolverhampton’s very nice.’
SIXTY-ONE
It had been Susan’s idea to name the cat Mrs Slocombe and, as far as Tanner was concerned, it had been funny for about five minutes. She’d got tired of explaining the pussy joke to anyone not old enough to remember the awful sitcom it had come from and it wasn’t exactly the sort of name she’d ever felt comfortable shouting out loud. Saying out loud. Standing in her dressing gown and rattling a box of cat treats outside the back door late at night.
Whispering it, while the bloody thing skulked out there in the dark and ignored her.
The cat had always preferred Susan anyway and Tanner had been happy enough to be as standoffish in return as the animal was. That had all changed when Susan had died and the cat had become more than just something to be fed and taken to the vet. Something which, since the fire, Tanner would simply have been unable to live without.
After Mrs Slocombe had saved Tanner’s life.
She lifted the cat up and set it on her lap. It watched her, maintaining its balance as she shifted to kick off her shoes, then leaned down to place them neatly next to each other. She lay back on the sofa and picked up her phone as the cat padded up her body, settling down to knead at her chest while she waited for the call to go through.
She gave the duty officer at Long Barrow Manor the prearranged code word then waited. She listened to the man’s footsteps on the wooden floor fading as he walked away. The pinpricks of the cat’s rhythmic clawing had quickly become annoying and she had just reached down to deposit it back on the carpet when Andrew Evans came on the line.
‘What’s happened?’
‘It’s fine,’ Tanner said. ‘Paula and Sean are fine.’ She heard Evans exhale. ‘It’s good news. We found the Duchess.’
‘And?’
‘She’s talking.’
‘Well, she was always good at that.’
‘So, we’re getting there, you know?’
Evans said nothing for a few seconds. Tanner could hear chatter in the background. ‘Don’t suppose there’s much point asking when you’re likely to actually get there, is there?’
‘Well, we need to get as much out of her as we can.’ The cat began clawing at the edge of the sofa and Tanner waved it away. ‘Especially because there’s been another murder.’ She waited, but Evans said nothing. ‘The same people that killed Adnan Jandali had a drug dealer called Kieran Sykes shot to death in Tottenham.’ She heard Evans sigh. ‘Look, you knew these were dangerous people, Andrew.’
A grunt. ‘Yeah, well. I suppose they’re just as likely to top me for going against them on one murder as they are with two. So it doesn’t change much.’
Tanner was happy that Evans had taken the news so well. She had been afraid there might be a degree of panic, that he might decide he no longer wanted to co-operate. But he was right to realise that, as far as the men they were after were concerned, he was already as committed as he was ever going to be. ‘We have to get what we can from the Duchess and build up enough to make some arrests, to bring charges against whoever killed Adnan Jandali and Kieran Sykes. That’s got to be done properly, then obviously there’s a court case to prepare and that doesn’t happen overnight. We will still need you to be a witness.’
‘Even if you’ve got her?’
‘We’re not a hundred per cent sure she’ll testify,’ Tanner said. ‘But what’s really important is the information we can get out of her. I mean, I’m hoping she will, but either way, you’ll be part of the prosecution’s case. The attempt to fit you up for the Jandali murder.’
‘So I shouldn’t start packing just yet, then?’
‘No, but… look, we know it’s happening now. There’s an end point, OK?’
‘So what are you going to do with her? If she’s grassing them all up, I mean? Christ, she’s not coming here, is she?’
Where to put Frances Coombs during the next stage of the investigation had been the subject of much discussion. There were a number of safe houses mentioned but, in the end, they had opted for a small hotel near Alexandra Palace. She would be escorted to and from the hotel daily by armed officers. She would wear a panic alarm at all times which, if activated would alert the Met’s Central Communications Command who, in turn, would immediately contact Tanner or Thorne. ‘No,’ Tanner said. ‘She’s not coming there, because she doesn’t have any addiction issues. Besides which you’re both witnesses, so you need to be kept apart.’
‘Lucky for her,’ Evans said.
‘Right.’
‘I’d like to smack the old cow.’
Tanner had not been expecting Andrew Evans to react as if he’d won the lottery, she had known his major concern would be about the timescale, but all the same, some… appreciation would have been nice. She could easily have ignored the story he’d told her weeks before in that cell and fallen back on the evidence she already had. She could have talked to the CPS, charged Evans with Jandali’s murder there and then and put a major case straight to bed. Instead, she’d gone out on a limb.
She could almost hear Tom Thorne telling her that she didn’t do this job expecting to be thanked and that anyone who did was an idiot.
She said, ‘This is good news, Andrew.’
Evans let out another noisy breath. Said, ‘Yeah, I suppose. Definitely the best news I’ve had since I came here.’
‘I think you’re forgetting you’ve got a baby on the way.’
Evans laughed. ‘Shit, yeah.’
‘Look, I can’t promise anything, but if there aren’t any major issues I don’t see any reason why you should
n’t be there when Paula gives birth.’
‘What… six and a half months?’ Evans said. ‘Some of these murder cases can take longer than that, can’t they? Years, some of them.’
‘Sometimes.’ Tanner caught movement from the corner of her eye and turned to see the cat spring on to the window ledge. She watched it raise its tail and slink behind a framed photograph of herself and Susan. ‘I can promise I’ll do whatever it takes, OK? To make that happen.’
‘Yeah, OK,’ Evans said. ‘That’d be great, obviously.’ There was a hiatus, a change in sound as if he were moving the phone from one ear to the other. ‘Thank you.’
On his way back towards the communal sitting room, he walked past Barrett, the lanky copper he’d struck up a decent relationship with over the previous couple of weeks. Evans’s father would have called him a lanky strip of piss, but the bloke was friendly enough. A Chelsea supporter, but nobody was perfect.
‘Good news, Andrew?’ Barrett asked.
Evans looked at him.
‘Bit of a spring in your step, that’s all.’
‘I’m getting out of here,’ Evans said. ‘I mean, not tomorrow or anything, but hopefully soon.’
The officer smiled; flat, automatic, like he couldn’t be bothered to pretend he cared much one way or the other. A few more guests had arrived in the last week or so and it wasn’t as if one less junkie trying to cut a deal was going to make a lot of difference. ‘Nice,’ he said.
‘Back in time for the baby with a bit of luck.’
Barrett grunted, nodded around. ‘Best make the most of all this then, mate. It’ll seem like a holiday once you’re changing nappies and not getting any sleep.’
‘You got kids?’
‘Teenagers,’ Barrett said. ‘I can’t wait to come to work every day.’
Evans walked on to the sitting room and found one of the recent arrivals watching TV. A stocky lad in his early twenties, tattoos and a dirty tracksuit; he’d dragged a chair up close and sat craned forward, his face no more than a foot from the screen. He did not look up when Evans came in.
Evans said, ‘All right?’ and was not surprised to be ignored.
The Killing Habit Page 30