Fifth Member

by Claire Rayner

  ‘Sherlock, Sherlock,’ she crowed. ‘I never thought I’d see –’

  ‘It’s a map-reader,’ Gus growled. ‘And bleedin’ useful at times. Shut up.’ He peered further then stood up and brushed down the knees of his trousers. ‘Some rubber there as though some tyres came close while they were on the hot side, and a bit of rubber melted off. Only on this side, though, not the other. But I can’t be sure. I’ll take a specimen and you can have it for forensic.’

  ‘I’ll send it to the big lab,’ she promised and watched as he scraped some of the almost invisible residue he’d found into a small plastic envelope and then sealed it and scribbled on its label. ‘Why don’t we just –’

  ‘Go in and trample what evidence there might be if there’s a body? It’ll be too late to look afterwards, so I’m looking now. With your permission.’ The heavy irony shut her up and she bit her tongue to keep the questions back.

  ‘Right,’ he said at last. ‘I don’t think there’s a lot more that we can do at this point. We’ll go in and look and we’ll be clever. We’ll go round the edges, to avoid going over any remaining evidence that might be here, OK? And we’ll see where that dog is.’ The barking hadn’t stopped; the dog, wherever he was – and he certainly couldn’t be seen – was giving tongue for all he was worth.

  Gus led the way, holding out a hand to help her over the ledge and she stepped down into the waste land, which was indeed much lower than she would have expected from the look of it; the space had been largely filled with plant growth which seemed to bring it level to the street, and even higher in places. She followed him, picking her way in his wake so closely that for a moment she thought absurdly of King Wenceslas and his page, and then swore as a bunch of nettles swung against her bare leg. That would itch for the rest of the day, dammit.

  Gus moved forwards carefully, pushing fronds of ivy and buddleia aside until he had gone round the front of the waste ground, where it ran parallel with the street, and then turned away at a right angle to follow it further in. The dog seemed suddenly to be aware that there were people nearby and the barking became even louder and more frantic.

  ‘He’s got something there,’ Gus muttered. ‘It has to be –’ and then stopped short, his hand held out against the foliage in front of him, which looked exactly like the same stuff he’d already pushed down easily. But it didn’t move, and he frowned.

  ‘I’ll be buggered,’ he said softly, scraping at the foliage as though it were a sort of wallpaper, reaching high above his head and dragging it downwards. After a while, as masses of leaves came down, George could make out, beyond it, a much darker surface.

  ‘What on earth?’ she said and Gus looked over his shoulder and his eyes glittered.

  ‘If they missed this, I’ll murder ’em!’ he said. ‘I’ll break their legs and shove them up their jacksies. I’ll –’

  ‘What is it?’ She peered over his shoulder and nearly toppled over on to him because the ground beneath her feet was so rough. The dog, which she now realized was immediately in front of them on the other side of whatever it was that Gus had uncovered, made a scrabbling sound and redoubled its barking. From the fence behind them someone yelled; and she looked briefly over her shoulder. It was Gary from the barber shop with a few curious people craning their necks over his shoulder.

  Gus pulled at the foliage again and this time it seemed to part like a great green curtain. And George saw, beneath it, vertical panels of creosoted wood. A door. Which seemed to be partly open.

  He made her wait till the Soco and the rest of the crew turned up, which they did very soon after he sent his call in on his mobile asking for back-up but without saying why. They heard the howling of the sirens on the cars within minutes, and then one after the other three cars with furiously rotating blue lights were in the street and policemen and -women, some in uniform, were picking their way towards them, following in their path round the side, as Gus bawled at them they should.

  Dudley reached their side first and he stared. ‘Jesus, what the hell is that?’

  ‘I’ll tell you.’ Gus sounded grim. ‘That is why I called you. That is a shed. A shed that’s been here for Gawd knows how long. Long enough for that plant there’ – he pointed to the great sheet of leaves and branches which hung over it – ‘to grow over it. And your bodies searched here yesterday morning did they not? And did they find it? Did they hell! We’ve no idea what’s in there, waited for you to be on the safe side. But it could be anything, couldn’t it? What have you got to say then?’

  ‘Shit!’ Dudley’s face went a deep brick red and George felt a deep pang for whoever it was had searched here and missed this. ‘I’ll murder ’em.’

  ‘Much good that’ll do,’ Gus said. ‘Why they didn’t push a bit, the way I did, I’ll never know. I was trying to get to that bloody dog’ – it was still filling the air with its noise – ‘and it’s somewhere here, so I knew there had to be something more than just a lot of greenery.’

  ‘Which in all fairness they wouldn’t know,’ Dudley said, trying not to sound partisan for his men. ‘Not having a dog to guide ’em, you’d think it was only an ordinary wall looking at it. And that’s a Russian vine, by the way. It grows like the clappers. It can cover a whole building so it vanishes in a single growing season. I nearly lost one of my own sheds that way: once it took off, it was like the shed had never been there. It only took a coupla weeks, I swear.’

  ‘Well, that’s as may be,’ Gus grunted. He was still pulling at the vine and revealing more and more of the wooden structure behind. ‘I ain’t here for a gardening lesson.’ The door creaked and opened a little and George lifted her head sharply.

  ‘There is a body in there,’ she said. ‘That’s what got the dog going.’

  Gus looked over his shoulder at her. ‘Yeah, I thought I got a whiff of it too. Listen to that damned animal, will you? It’ll turn itself inside out in a minute. Get one of your bods to call out an RSPCA bloke, will you, Roop? Get the creature taken away – when we can find where it is. You can’t hear yourself think in this racket.’

  The Soco moved forwards then, beckoned by Gus, while Dudley shouted an order about the dog to one of his men, who promptly reached for his shoulder call system. Gus moved back, making George do the same.

  ‘We’re in the way here,’ he said. ‘You’ll get your chance as soon as Soco gets in properly. Then we’ll see what’s what. Right now, I think you’d better find somewhere to take it easy for a while. He’ll be a goodish time yet, and you’ll have a nasty job on your hands when he gets done.’

  George, aching with impatience though she was, had to agree. That there would be work for her was undoubted. The thick sweetish smell that had filled their nostrils as the door to the hidden shed opened wider was unmistakably that of a dead body. And one that had been dead for some time.

  9

  Terminal Two at Heathrow was for some reason in one of its occasional fits of lunacy. It seemed that every airline in the world was converging on it at the same time, making the concourse look like an illustration for the Last Trump. People were pushing, shoving, sweating and swearing as they tried either to get in or out and Mike cursed comprehensively as he pushed his way through the mob to find the exit from customs through which arriving passengers from Milan would emerge. It was bad enough that he had to do this job because Tim Brewer had been pulled away to get involved with some business over in Henriques Street (and Mike was already frustrated because he hadn’t been told what was going on there even though it was obvious it had to do with this case they were all working on); to find now that the job was going to be complicated by this crowding was infuriating.

  The detective constable at his side, Margaret Chalice, looking absurdly young in jeans and sweater and trainers, said breathlessly, ‘It’s going to be a bugger, this one, Sarge. Finding someone and then talking to them in this sort of crowd is –’

  ‘Does the sun rise in the East?’ he snapped. ‘Go teach your grandma to suck egg
s, lass. I can see that for m’self.’

  Chastened, Margaret said no more, but stuck close behind him as he used his considerable shoulders to get his way. It left irate and resentful people behind him, but it paid off. They reached the exit from the Customs Hall just as the first people bearing luggage with Air Italia labels from Milan came through.

  ‘Down by the end of the railed-off area,’ Mike shouted above the hubbub. Together they inched their way through the noisy crowd to the point where all the passengers would emerge into the main concourse before scattering. There was a flock of clergymen, in dog collars and even cassocks, some wearing heavy crucifixes, and Mike, a good son of the Scottish kirk, found himself thinking, Catholics, and felt for a moment like a character in a novel. Wasn’t it in a Father Brown story that a lot of priests got in the detective’s way, and –

  He blinked and shook his head a little to clear it. He had to concentrate. He knew what Alice Diamond looked like only from her photographs and that never made for an easy ID. Especially with women. She had only had to change her hair colour or style, or dress differently for that day, and he’d be lost. She could walk right past him and he’d not be sure she was his target.

  Again he made himself concentrate. The loss of sleep he’d suffered over the past few days was beginning to demand payment. Keeping himself fully alert wasn’t as easy as it ought to be. He looked down at Margaret and said, ‘Will you be able to recognize her?’

  ‘As long as she hasn’t done anything to prevent me,’ she said. ‘But you know how it is, if she’s done something different with her face and her hair …’

  ‘That’s what I was thinking,’ Mike said glumly, never taking his eyes off the doors through which people were now coming in rather larger numbers, pushing loaded luggage carts and dragging children by unwilling hands. ‘We know she’s about five five, weighs around nine stone, blonde hair – ah! Would that be – No. Three children with her. Look, you watch the left, I’ll watch the right. And for Christ’s sake stay alert!’

  Margaret, who had an excellent reputation for alertness and suspect recognition, opened her mouth to protest, thought better of it, and watched. And to her gratification saw Alice Diamond before Mike did. ‘She’s just coming out,’ she said softly below the noise of voices around them, so that he could just hear her. ‘There, the one in the dark glasses and the pink trouser suit, with the huge pile of luggage on her trolley.’

  ‘Got her,’ Mike said. ‘Yes, I think – the glasses muck it up a bit. And that bloody hat, but I think you could be – Shit! She’s taking the outside lane.’

  It was clearly deliberate. While every other passenger aimed at the right-hand side of the railed-off area, since that was where most of the meeters and greeters were, their target had moved sharply to her left, hugging the wall so that she would emerge as far away as possible from the most crowded part, where they awaited her. There was more space there on the left, too, and she was able to move much more quickly. Mike realized at once that she would be out on the other side of the concourse before he and Margaret could reach her, unless they moved fast, and he began to shove to get out of the crowd. Someone in front of him took violent exception to his efforts and turned on him, shouting and gesticulating in what sounded like excited Italian. Mike shouted back, trying to reach into his breast pocket for his warrant card to show the man. That seemed to terrify him, for he shrieked at the top of his voice, and everyone around turned and surged first towards the shrieker and then, seeing Mike with his hand in his breast pocket, surged backwards to get away from him. One man lurched and then almost fell over the bag he had set down at his feet and in steadying himself grabbed at a bystander who happened to be a woman. She in her turn became highly agitated at having a strange man dragging at her clothes, and started shouting too. In the middle of it all, Mike did his best to roar them into some sort of order as he waved his warrant card, now at last out of his pocket, not that anyone of them showed the slightest intention of looking at it or listening to him. They were all much too excited.

  Margaret’s first instinct was to stay and help him out but she followed her second and wriggled her way through the heaving bodies – not too difficult for someone as thin and wiry as she was – and emerged on the other side just in time to see the object of her search meet a tall man in a dark-green waxed jacket and matching flat cap, looking rather like an illustration from Country Life, and throw her arms around him. He seemed uncomfortable about that, and raised both his own arms to take hold of her hands and untwine them from his neck. The action obscured his features, and by the time he had succeeded in extracting himself and had reached for Alice Diamond’s trolley, he had turned his back to Margaret and she could not see his face.

  She hesitated. Was this Alice Diamond after all? The dark glasses and big straw hat obscured her face. Margaret had been quite certain at first, but now she began to doubt. If it wasn’t Alice, and she stopped her, it could cause a fuss; people didn’t like being intercepted by strangers and asked to prove their identity. They disliked even more being stopped by police if they’d done no wrong. And this woman had not. She was just a murder victim’s widow and needed careful handling. Certainly she mustn’t be upset. Margaret, uncharacteristically, dithered. If it was Alice and she didn’t stop her – but that was not to be thought of. She threw a glance over her shoulder at the fracas which was continuing behind her, with Mike in the middle of it. A couple of airport police were pushing their way through the crowd from the other side now, making authoritative noises, and Margaret turned back to look at her quarry again, satisfied Mike was in safe hands – or soon would be – in time to see her tittuping away rapidly, her high heels almost twinkling as she hurried to keep up with the long-legged escort who was striding away with her trolley.

  Margaret made her decision. This had to be Alice; her first impression had to have been right; and she began to follow, trying to get close enough to call her and make her stop; but she was unable to run in the crowd. She could just duck and dive and keep her in sight. Soon, surely, the crowds would thin out and she’d be able to go to Alice, explain who she was and ask her, as she knew Mike had intended to, to accompany them to the station, if that would suit her, to give them some information about her dead husband.

  Quite when Margaret realized that she was not the only one following Alice Diamond she wasn’t sure, but become aware she did. A rather small man, not much taller than Alice herself, was keeping close behind the couple. He could easily have caught up with them but clearly he didn’t want to; when they suddenly stopped so that Alice could reach for her bag, which was on top of the luggage on the trolley, and scrabble in it for something, he stopped too, affecting to study a piece of paper in his hand. Neither of the people in front paid him any attention, and when they started to move again, walking as fast as ever, he too started, again keeping the same distance behind them.

  Margaret was intrigued. She could, she knew, make a stronger effort to catch up with Alice and whoever she was with, but the behaviour of the little man just behind them was worthy of observation. And as long as she kept Alice in her sights, no harm would accrue from letting things go on as they were. Margaret could easily speak to her later when it suited her. So they all went on: Alice and her meeter, the little man, and the detective constable in a kind of procession on their way to the car park as the crowds at last began to thin out.

  Mike, red in the face with a combination of acute embarrassment and rage, escaped from the airport police at last, and ran to the far side of the exit area. There was, of course, no sign of Alice Diamond, but also – and this was some consolation – Margaret had vanished. With a bit of luck for once, he told himself, she’s made contact and asked her to come to the station. Or maybe – he tried to survey all the possibilities as quickly as he could – maybe the woman had got ahead of her and Margaret was following her? Or maybe she had become upset when Margaret spoke to her, and had to be taken away to a rest room somewhere? Or maybe she had agre
ed to come to the nick and Margaret had taken her to the car, which they’d left parked on the second level of the car park nearest to Terminal Two, and decided to take her back to Ratcliffe Street, leaving him to make his own way there as soon as he could? No, he decided, she wouldn’t do that to me. She knows Roop’d have my guts out and made into horsewhips to beat me with if I let myself be left behind. Margaret might be in the car, with Alice, even as he stood here, hesitating, but she’d be waiting for him. The only thing to do therefore, was to make for the car. One way or another, that would be where they made contact. He began to run, following the signs that read ‘Car Parks’ and this time, thank heaven, people kept out of his way.

  Margaret was trying very hard to make the right decision. She couldn’t use her call system to tell them at the nick that she’d been separated from Mike, and didn’t really want to; it would make them both sound too nerdish for words. Anyway, Mike would get a mouthful from Roop if he found out. She had to cope on her own, use her initiative, and right now she wasn’t sure she had quite enough. The little man was standing against the wall, not fifty yards from Alice Diamond, who was standing at the pick-up point in the car park, leaning on her baggage trolley and staring into the middle distance. The man who had met her had gone off, clearly to fetch a car. Now was the time, Margaret thought, to go up to her, introduce herself, offer condolences for her loss and invite her to come to the station to help the police with their inquiries into her husband’s murder. But if I do that, the little man would no doubt just melt away – and I don’t want him to do that, Margaret thought. What she wanted was to know who the little man was and why he was behaving like this. And once again, she dithered.