Snake poison. Hardly the work of your average lowlife thug, the type Shaun Matthews specialized in upsetting. Which left what? The neighbours all agreed that Matthews received a fair number of visitors which, given his alleged trade, wasn’t particularly surprising, and it was felt that one of them was the likely perpetrator. Where your average small-time drugs buyer was likely to have got hold of cobra venom, however, was anyone’s guess.
The case was an odd one, and as far as I was concerned odd equalled interesting, and interesting equalled challenging, which these days can be something of a rarity. Never underestimate the stupidity of criminals. Most of them’ll make every effort imaginable to get caught. In the last murder investigation I’d been involved in, ten weeks earlier, the murderer, a seventeen-year-old carjacker named Rudi, had stabbed an unfortunate BMW owner to death when he’d had the gall to try to prevent his car being taken. Rudi had been arrested three days afterwards when a passing patrol car had spotted the vehicle parked outside his mum’s flat. Further investigation had unearthed Rudi’s prints all over the interior, as well as those of two of his mates. The knife he’d used, still complete with somewhat telltale bloodstains, had turned up under his bed hidden in a PlayStation box. I reckon the paperwork took up more time than the detective work. Sherlock Holmes wouldn’t even have bothered getting out of bed, and who could blame him?
But this was different. A poisoning opened up all sorts of possibilities. It suggested interesting motives. It suggested intelligence, or at least creativity, on the part of the poisoner, but also an incredible naivety. Poisoning was, in general, a pretty foolish method of committing murder. It was too easily traceable these days which meant its one great advantage – that it could make the victim’s death look like an accident – no longer held true. Having said this, however, the case was now six days old (or at least the murder was) and had yet to throw up any real clues of note, or anything that pointed to one particular person.
It was a fine sunny morning, the fifth day of what passes for an English heatwave, and DC Dave Berrin was driving as we pulled into the walled car park at the rear of the Arcadia nightclub, an imposing post-war structure on the Upper Holloway Road which dominated the corner on which it stood, and parked in a bay marked STAFF ONLY.
Not surprisingly, the club was closed at this time in the morning, but we were expected and walked right in through the double doors at the front. The interior was dark and spacious with tables facing down on to the dance floor on three sides. At the opposite end of the room was a long bar lined with stools. A woman stood on the serving side of it with a pen in her hand, looking down at some papers in front of her. She appeared to be the only person in the place. She looked up when she heard our footfalls on the wooden floor.
‘Sorry, we’re closed,’ she shouted out, going back to her papers. ‘We open at twelve for lunch.’
‘We’re police officers,’ I said loudly, crossing the dance floor with Berrin in tow. ‘Here to see Mr Fowler.’
‘He’s not here,’ she shouted back.
‘He should be. He’s expecting us. We’ve got an eleven o’clock meeting.’
‘Well, he’s not here.’
I strode up the steps to the bar and stopped in front of her. She carried on making notes on the papers on the bar. ‘Perhaps, then, you can tell us where he is.’
She looked up with a faintly bored expression on her face. ‘I don’t know. He should have been here more than an hour ago.’
This one had an attitude, all right. I gave her a quick once-over. Early thirties, slim with well-defined features, a nose that was maybe a little too sharp, and a vaguely Mediterranean appearance, particularly the olive-coloured eyes. She was definitely attractive – very attractive – but in a hard, don’t-mess-with-me kind of way, with the cynical confidence of someone who’s not afraid of a fight. If we’d been Nazi stormtroopers, we wouldn’t have intimidated her. My ex-wife’s all-time favourite film is Gone with the Wind and I think that says something about her (though I’m not quite sure what). This girl looked like hers was Scarface.
‘Is he likely to be at home?’ I asked her.
‘I told you, I don’t know where he is.’
I sighed ostentatiously. ‘But I presume you’ve got his home phone number?’ She nodded. ‘Well, I’d appreciate it if you’d phone him then and tell him we’re here.’
‘Look, I’m very busy.’ She motioned to the notes in front of her.
‘So are we, Miss…?’
‘Toms. Elaine Toms. I talked to a couple of your officers the other day.’
‘Well, we’re very busy too and it would be greatly appreciated if you could phone Mr Fowler and see if he’s at home for us. It won’t take a minute.’
My tone was even but firm, the kind that says I’m going to keep going until I get some co-operation. It always works in the end, but you’d be amazed how many people take a long time getting the message.
Without a word she turned and walked over to a telephone pinned to the wall in the corner, and dialled a number. I was a bit pissed off because I’d been preparing for this interview for close to a day now. We’d talked to Fowler once but only briefly to ascertain his position within the nightclub, what his relationship was with the deceased, and whether he could throw any light on what had happened. He’d come across as very keen to appear as helpful and as friendly as possible, but hadn’t actually managed to tell us a great deal. Predictably, he’d denied knowing anything about Matthews’s involvement in drug dealing. He’d claimed that as Arcadia’s owner he didn’t tolerate drug use on the premises but was aware that it did occur. ‘I’m looking at ways to combat it,’ he’d said, and had talked about installing cameras in the toilets. ‘That’s where most of it goes on, I’m sure,’ he’d added – a fairly logical assumption. Neither Berrin nor I had found the interview very helpful, mainly because there was something not quite authentic about Fowler’s answers, and since then it had come to light that he had a conviction for conspiracy to supply Class A drugs in the late 1980s and that one of his co-conspirators at the time had been Terry Holtz, the late brother of a notorious local crime figure. He’d also been done for driving under the influence of cannabis a couple of years back, and the club had been raided on two separate occasions by the Drugs Squad in an effort to take out suspected dealers, the last time eighteen months ago, although it had to be said that on neither occasion was any contraband found. More promisingly, there was also a rumour doing the rounds that, although Fowler’s name was on the deeds of the club, he wasn’t what you’d call the real owner. That man, it was claimed, was one Stefan Holtz, the same local crime figure whose brother Fowler had once been involved with.
The feeling in the station’s CID was that the motive for this murder was almost certainly drug-related and that it might possibly be something to do with a disagreement between Fowler and Matthews. Since Fowler apparently owned the club, and was almost certainly lying when he said he didn’t tolerate drugs on the premises, and Matthews appeared to have been the chief dealer, it was probably down to an argument about something mundane like the split of profits. All this was conjecture, of course, but DCI Knox, the head of the investigation, specialized in conjecture. Me, though, I wasn’t so sure, not least because I didn’t think Fowler would have used an obscure poison to rid himself of a troublesome business partner. But I did think there were plenty of questions he could provide an answer for, particularly regarding the possible involvement of the Holtzes, and I was keen to hear them.
But it seemed I was going to have to wait a little longer.
‘He’s not there,’ said Elaine Toms, coming back to the papers on the bar. ‘Either that or he’s not answering.’
‘Have you got his address?’ She nodded, and wrote it down on a piece of paper. I took it, thanking her, and put it in my pocket. It was local. ‘And what’s your position here, Miss Toms?’
‘I told you, I’ve already been interviewed about the murder.’
‘Wel
l, we’re talking to you again. I’d just like to refresh myself of your account.’
‘It was a DI I talked to.’
‘DI Capper. Yes, I know. Now, if you’ll answer the questions.’
‘Have you got any ID?’
She was trying to be difficult but I wasn’t going to argue about it, so I took out my warrant card and showed it to her, as did Berrin. She inspected them both carefully, paying particular attention to mine. ‘It’s not a very good photo of you,’ she told me.
‘With me, the camera always lies,’ I said. ‘Now, your position?’
‘I manage the place.’
‘And how long have you been here for?’
‘Just over a year. I joined last July.’
‘You knew Shaun Matthews pretty well, then?’
She sighed theatrically. ‘Yeah, I knew Shaun Matthews pretty well. You know, I’ve said all this before.’
‘Humour me. I presume you knew he dealt drugs?’
‘Are you asking me or telling me?’
‘I’m asking you.’
She shrugged. ‘I heard that he did some dealing here and there and that he might even have done some in this place, but I never saw him do any and I never saw anyone else take any stuff either. Occasionally you get someone off their face, but if they get like that we don’t serve them and we chuck them out. They’re certainly not sold the stuff in here. I only heard Shaun was meant to be this big-time dealer after he died.’
‘You’re sticking to the party line, then? That Arcadia’s pretty much drug free and that you don’t go in for that sort of thing here.’
She glared at me. ‘We don’t. Now, if you’ve finished…’
‘Does Stefan Holtz own this place?’
‘Who?’
‘Stefan Holtz. You must have heard of him.’ She shook her head. ‘He’s a well-known local businessman, to use the term very loosely.’
‘Look, as far as I’m concerned, Roy Fowler owns this place. That’s who hired me and that’s who pays me.’
‘Are you sure the name Stefan Holtz means nothing to you?’ asked Berrin.
‘Oh, it speaks,’ she said with a smirk.
Berrin looked slightly embarrassed. ‘Just answer the question,’ he persisted, trying not to be intimidated by her, but not making a particularly good job of it.
She slowly turned her head, faced him down, took a breath, then spoke. ‘Yes, I’m sure.’ She turned back to me. ‘I don’t know a Stefan Holtz.’
‘Mr Fowler was going to get us a list of casual door staff who’ve worked here over the past six months,’ I continued, ‘but so far we haven’t received it.’
‘Oh dear,’ she said with a cheeky half-smile.
‘You’re the manager,’ said Berrin. ‘Can you provide us with that information?’
The smile disappeared rapidly. ‘I haven’t got time. You’ll need to speak to Mr Fowler about it.’
‘We would do if he was here,’ I said, thinking that this was one of the great problems with policework. That most of the time you were constantly trying to get blood out of a stone. ‘Just tell us the name of the company who supplies the doormen, then,’ I added, not wanting to waste any more time with Elaine Toms, ‘and we’ll contact them.’
She paused, and the reason she paused was simple. If there were any dodgy ownership issues, then they would spread to the company who supplied the doormen because with nightclubs that’s how things work. She wouldn’t want to give out the information but I knew she couldn’t lie about it either, in case Fowler had already given us the name and I was just testing her.
‘It’s an outfit called Elite A,’ she said eventually. Berrin wrote the name down. ‘But I don’t know how much they’ll be able to tell you. I don’t think they’re too hot on the paperwork front.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘You know what these security firms are like. They use freelancers.’
‘Did Shaun Matthews come via Elite A?’
‘I think so, originally, but it was before my time so I couldn’t say for sure. The papers said something about him being poisoned.’
‘That’s what we believe.’
She shook her head as if she couldn’t comprehend such an end for him. ‘What’s the world coming to, eh?’
‘To the same place it’s always been, Miss Toms. Full of not very nice people doing not very nice things to each other.’ I resisted adding that with Shaun Matthews’s demise there was at least one fewer of them. ‘If you hear from Mr Fowler, please ask him to get in touch with us immediately.’
She took the card I gave her with my number on it. ‘So, have you got any suspects?’
‘We’re working on a number of leads,’ I answered, using the stock detective’s line which was basically a euphemism for ‘No’, and she obviously recognized it for what it was because she turned away with another of those half-smiles. The discussion was over.
When we were back in the car, Berrin turned to me with an expression of concern. ‘I don’t think I did too well in there,’ he said. ‘You handled it a lot better than me.’
Berrin’s young, he’s a graduate, and, like most of us, he’s still got a lot to learn. Unlike most of us, he recognizes it, and it means he’s not as confident as he could be. He’d only been promoted out of uniform three months earlier, and apart from Rudi, the casual killer and carjacker, this was his first murder case. It was also the first time we’d worked together.
I shrugged. ‘I’ve been in the game a lot longer, which makes it a lot easier to handle people like her. Remember, you’re the one who’s the boss. With the cocky ones it can be easy to forget.’
He nodded thoughtfully. At that moment, he reminded me of a contestant from that TV programme Faking It. One month to turn a good-looking Home Counties college boy into a Met detective. He was working hard to master the ropes, to make a good impression, but he didn’t look a natural.
He turned to me, the concern replaced by determined zeal, the kind you sometimes see on the faces of door-to-door missionaries. ‘I let her get me on the wrong foot. That was the problem. I didn’t do enough to make her show me respect. It won’t happen again.’
‘I know it won’t,’ I said, patting him on the shoulder. ‘You work with me, you’ll be Dirty Harry in no time.’
He pulled out of the parking space. ‘Yeah, right.’
* * *
Roy Fowler lived in a modern, showy-looking development complex near Finsbury Park. It’s what these days they like to call a gated community, although there usually tends to be very little community-wise about them. We were stopped at the main gates by a uniformed doorman who was well past retirement age and looked like he’d have trouble stopping a runaway skateboard let alone a shadowy intruder. We showed him our credentials and were waved into the car park in front of the five six-storey buildings that were arranged in a semi-circle around the well-kept, if rather dull, communal gardens. Fowler lived in apartment number 12 which was in the second building on the left.
But if he wasn’t at work, he wasn’t at home either. We buzzed on his intercom for several minutes but didn’t get an answer. I phoned the Arcadia and double-checked the address with Elaine Toms. It was the right one. Fowler still hadn’t turned up at the club either, a fact that was beginning to irritate me and her.
We sat in the car and waited for ten minutes without result, then decided to make our way back to the station. It had been an unproductive morning and Berrin was beginning to look depressed, as if it had only just dawned on him that life in CID was a lot less interesting than it looked on the telly.
It was as we were coming out of Fowler’s complex that I saw it. A dark blue Range Rover driving by just in front of us. It only passed our field of vision for a couple of seconds at most but I noticed straight away that it had holes in the paintwork and industrial taping over two of the windows. It kept going and I memorized the number plate as Berrin pulled out, heading the other way.
‘Did you see that c
ar?’ I asked him.
Berrin is not the most observant man in the world. ‘What car?’ was his reply.
I thought about it for a few seconds. Who’d be daft enough to be driving around in a bullet-ridden Range Rover in broad daylight? But those holes didn’t look like they’d been made by anything else – what else could have made them? – and, as I’ve said before, you should never underestimate the stupidity of criminals. It was probably wasting someone’s time but I took my mobile from my pocket and phoned the station to report a suspicious vehicle, giving its location and possible route.
‘Do you want to turn round and go after it?’ said Berrin, looking like his depression was lifting.
‘It’s probably nothing. Let’s leave it for the uniforms. I need to get something to eat.’
* * *
‘What do you think? Do you reckon he’s flown the coop?’
The loud, confident voice belonged to DCI Knox, the big boss. No question of him ever losing control of an interview. Berrin and I were sat in his office, on the other side of his imposing desk, explaining the position regarding the lack of intelligence as to Roy Fowler’s whereabouts.
‘We don’t know,’ said Berrin. ‘He was certainly aware that we were meant to interview him this morning.’
‘It seems odd, though,’ I said. ‘Him disappearing off so soon. It’s like an admission of guilt, but, if we’re honest, we haven’t really got anything on him.’
Knox nodded in his sage-like way. ‘True. But then where is he?’
It was a good question. ‘Maybe he had more pressing engagements and thought we could wait,’ I said eventually.
Knox snorted. ‘Well, he’s wrong if he thinks that. We’ll put out an alert. Any patrol that sees him, they can pick him up and bring him in for questioning. I don’t like the way these small-time villains think they’re royalty these days.’
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