by Alan Bexley
‘Damn right.’ Frank stifled a yawn. Helen gave a grim nod.
‘Long day?’ Scaman asked Frank.
‘Started early.’ Frank flexed his shoulders. ‘But I’m off home to the wife.’
Helen plodded down Arundel Road. She entered the small car park beside a Nisa shop and looked for Peter’s red Vauxhall Corsa.
As she approached, he popped open the passenger door. He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek as she fastened her seatbelt. ‘Are you sure you weren’t followed?’
‘Just drive,’ Helen said.
‘I thought your fellow officers might have mounted a surveillance operation,’ he said, as he started the engine. ‘Still keeping us a secret?’
Helen just yawned.
‘I can see I’m in for an exciting night,’ he said.
She put her head back and closed her eyes.
Frank’s journey home took him down the High Street as he made for his house in north Westchapel. He wriggled his head to work out the cricks in his neck. You’re getting too old for this lark.
He slowed and studied the sight to his left. A young woman wearing jeans and a leather jacket was sitting on the cold pavement with her back against a wall. A man had hold of her arms and was trying to drag her back to her feet. Frank parked in an alley just past them. He leaned over and pulled his police radio from the glove compartment and climbed out. The man let her go as he approached and straightened to stare at Frank with a puzzled expression.
The girl looked young to Frank’s eyes, little more than a schoolgirl, an intoxicated schoolgirl. ‘Leave her be.’
‘She’s my girlfriend,’ he said. His breath smelt of beer.
‘What’s her name?’
The man staggered back a pace then stumbled forward again. His eyes were open wide and his mouth opening and shutting, but he didn’t answer.
Frank crouched to the girl. ‘Hi, what’s your name?’
She raised her head and looked at Frank but could only manage an inaudible mumble.
Frank straightened up and stepped in front of the man.
‘She’s my girlfriend,’ the man said again, but louder.
‘I don’t know if she is your girlfriend or not, but she’s not going anywhere with you in this state, so you might as well go home.’
The man pointed a finger at Frank and repeated his mantra. Frank waited until he had finished and then said, ‘I’m telling you to go home, now. I am a police officer and, if I have to, I can arrest you for being drunk and disorderly.’ He raised his voice. ‘Is that what you want?’
The man turned away, took two steps and stopped. Frank stepped up behind him and pushed him placing the palm of his hand between the man’s shoulder blades. He took a few more steps before he came to a wobbling halt.
Frank switched on his radio. ‘This is Sierra four-five to KB. Send a female uniform officer to the front of the Fenchurch Furniture Store on the High Street.’
A reply came back. ‘KB to Sierra four-five, all received, Frank.’
The man turned around as he heard Frank speak. He staggered forward and swung a punch that missed by a mile. Frank muttered, ‘I’ve had enough of this.’ He grabbed the man’s arm and swung him around. The man stumbled forward away from Frank. As he did so, he bent forward and Frank could not resist. He used his foot to shove his backside. The man grunted and went down on all fours.
Frank checked no one was watching him and spotted uniformed PC Malvia Powell who was walking up the pavement towards him. She was a tall, black woman with her jet-black hair in a bob under her bowler hat.
Seconds later, she stood beside him. ‘What are you doing here, Sarge?’
‘I was on my way home when I saw this idiot,’ he pointed at the man who was now crawling, ‘trying to drag her away.’
She crouched down and put her hand under the girl’s chin, looking into her eyes. ‘She’s well gone and underage I would say.’
Malvia checked the girl’s trouser pockets until she found what she was looking for. She held up the mobile phone, swiped through the directory and selected a number.
‘No, I am PC Malvia Powell . . . Do you have a young daughter of school age? . . . No, she’s come to no real harm, but she has been drinking. I think it would be best for everyone if you came and collected her.’ She gave the location.
Ending the phone call, she turned to Frank. ‘If you don’t mind me saying, Sarge, you look like crap. I’m guessing you’ve had a long day.’
‘You could say that.’
‘Go home and get some sleep. I can take care of this.’
Chapter 7
Helen woke up and put her hand to her head. Groaned. Alone in the bed, she wondered where Peter was. She slid out from under the duvet dressed in her underwear, and pulled on her jeans and shirt off the back of a chair.
She padded through to the kitchen where she found him sitting at the table reading a newspaper and drinking coffee.
‘Can I make you one?’ he said, holding up the mug.
‘It’s OK. I’ll do it.’
While the kettle boiled, she looked out the window. Peter Fraser’s flat was on the sixth floor of a smart apartment block on Pearson Road, near the top of the hill. The view covered much of Westchapel. The town was a mixture of old Victorian terraced properties in the town centre surrounded by 1930s detached and semi-detached homes. She could see the school built in the sixties and in the distance the blot on the landscape - Oswell Point, dwarfing its neighbours.
She made her coffee and stood opposite him. ‘Anything interesting?’
He drew in a breath as he looked up from the paper. ‘Same old, same old,’ he said. ‘What’s on today’s agenda?’
‘More interviews.’
‘Vicky Crosby case?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Any hints for me?’
He stood up and took her coffee mug and put it on the table. He pulled her to him, wrapping his arms around her. ‘Just a hint. An arrest today?’
She grinned as she studied his hairline. ‘No hints.’ She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him passionately. After a few moments, he tipped his head back.
‘Whoa,’ he said. ‘I have to go.’
‘Come back to bed,’ she said.
He gently released her arms. ‘I’m off to the office to find out what I missed while I was treating you to pizza. Use your key to deadlock the front door on your way out.’
The CID team were assembled. The office smelt of furniture polish - a rare occurrence.
Frank dragged the chair from behind his desk to put it in front of Yalina. Helen who had the next desk watched him.
‘Anything interesting come up while you were researching the relatives of our persons of interest?’ he asked Yalina.
‘Mr Ingermann’s brother has a daughter, who’s known to us because she’s the live-in girlfriend of Neil Morgan.’
‘Excellent.’
Helen said, ‘The CSI mechanics worked on the car yesterday afternoon. They can’t find any damage to show anyone had forced open a door and there’s no damage to the ignition. It’s not conclusive but there’s no physical evidence the car was stolen.’
‘Then it’s time to pull in Ingermann and put him under some pressure. Helen, you come with me and we’ll rustle up a couple of uniform officers on the way.’
The four officers grouped around the door of the house on Northcroft Street in the chilled drizzle of the early morning. Frank rang the doorbell and banged on the door. ‘Open up. Police. Open up. Police.’ PCs Malvia Powell and Ken Lyons, shaven-headed, scary-looking and in his thirties, backed up Frank and Helen.
Ingermann appeared at the door, still wearing the same clothes. ‘What?’
The smell of grilling bacon wafted out.
Frank held out his warrant card as he said: ‘Mr George Ingermann, I am arresting you on suspicion of conspiracy to murder. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned
something which you may later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’
Ingermann looked stunned. ‘My car was stolen. What happened to that girl was nothin’ to do with me.’
‘Save it,’ Frank said.
The uniformed officers took Ingermann’s arms and led him to their patrol car. Frank and Helen walked in through the open door and closed it behind them. Frank turned off Ingermann’s breakfast.
The flat was a mess, newspapers and magazines strewn over the furniture and floor. An ash tray full of cigarette stubs sat on the coffee table in the front room. Next to it were cheap, empty, supermarket own brand lager cans. There were piles of documents and opened envelopes on a wall shelving unit. Helen went through them.
‘I’ll check the bedroom,’ he said.
The bedroom contained a double bed with a duvet thrown over it, a drawer unit beside it, a dressing table whose drawers were largely empty and had no cosmetics on its top, and a veneered chipboard wardrobe. The unit beside the bed contained packets of condoms in the top drawer and a stash of pornographic magazines in another. Further down was a laptop which Frank pulled out once he had put on latex gloves. He left it on the bed and went to see how Helen was getting on.
‘Find anything interesting?’ he asked.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘I’ve found a laptop. Might be something on there.’
‘What’s obvious,’ Helen said, ‘is that he’s living hand-to-mouth. Maybe he sold the car and planned to claim on the insurance as well.’
‘Let’s get back and see what he’s got to say.’
Frank and Helen walked into the CID office. It was two minutes past nine.
‘Got a message for you,’ Jade said. ‘Louise Hopkins is waiting in the front office.’
Frank turned to Helen, ‘Vicky’s latest girlfriend. Let’s see what she can tell us. Ingermann can wait.’
The three of them sat in the interview room. Louise was in her twenties and wearing a white strapped dress that had buttons running to the waist. Her long blonde hair had been brushed so it fell down one side of her face and a string of pearls circled her neck. She had been carrying a fawn ski jacket with a hooded collar. She sat down opposite Frank and crossed one leg over the other. She had applied her makeup with care but her eyes were red-lined.
‘Thank you for coming in,’ Helen said.
‘I would have come forward earlier but Vicky’s murder was a great shock.’
‘We appreciate that. I believe you knew Vicky well. That’s what we have been told by another friend.’
Louise stroked her top lip. ‘That’s embarrassing, I hoped she was being discreet. What am I saying? She didn’t know the meaning of the word.’
‘Don’t worry, we know how to be discreet. You were lovers?’
Louise chewed her bottom lip. ‘It’s more accurate to say we were sexual partners when it suited us both. I knew from the word “go” that she wasn’t monogamous and I never fooled myself that she loved me. I was a step up from some of the others and she treated me well. She knew she had to.’
Helen nodded. ‘We know she used to carry a knife. What can you tell us about that?’
‘She carried the knife for protection. She’d been in a couple of sticky situations in the past. She also had a gun that she kept at the apartment. She showed it to me but I think it was little more than a toy. She had a flair for the dramatic. I’m not even sure that she had any ammunition. I know nothing about guns. I ride but I’m not into shooting.’
Frank shuffled in his seat and leaned forward on the desk. ‘Did Vicky ever mention the Morgan family to you?’
Louise shook her head. ‘No.’
‘They’re a criminal family, well known to us.’
‘I don’t know them,’ she said, slowly shaking her head. ‘I didn’t know any of Vicky’s other friends.’
‘Did you ever use cocaine when you were with Vicky?’ he asked.
She looked startled and paused before answering. ‘A tiny amount now and again.’
She shifted in her chair. ‘I imagine you’ll need to take my fingerprints. They’ll be all over the apartment.’
‘We take them electronically these days,’ Helen said. ‘It’s not the messy process it used to be.’
‘Good to know.’
‘You knew that she lived with Simon Hayward?’ Frank asked.
‘I never met him but she mentioned him.’
‘How did she talk about him?’ Helen asked.
‘I don’t recall. Do you think he killed her?’
‘He’s on our list of suspects,’ Frank said. ‘As are you.’
Louise stared at him. ‘I understand that and it’s why I came here this morning so there’s no misunderstanding.’
‘What were you doing at 7:30 yesterday morning?’
‘I was at home. The family home with my parents. They’ll vouch for me. I don’t get up that early. None of us do.’
‘You could have slipped out,’ Frank said.
‘Not without setting off the sensors and alarms and all that malarkey. There’s cameras so you could view the recording if you wish.’
‘Whereabouts do you live?’
‘The Beeches at the top of St Johns Road.’
Frank knew the large house which was only a short distance from his more modest home.
‘There’s nothing you can tell us about yesterday? Any plans that Vicky had?’ he asked.
‘No, we weren’t meeting up. I was going to the gym and meeting friends for lunch.’
‘Anyone that might have had a grudge? Wanted to harm her?’ Helen asked.
‘No, she had the habit of rubbing people up the wrong way, but I don’t think anyone took serious offence. She was too flaky for anyone to take her seriously.’
‘I think we’re done here for the moment,’ Frank said.
‘I’ll take you to get the fingerprints sorted out,’ Helen said.
Chapter 8
Ingermann had been booked in and held in a cell. The custody sergeant fetched him for Frank to interrogate. Frank and Helen led him into Interview Room One where the duty solicitor, who had spoken to his client earlier, was now waiting at the table. The solicitor opened his folder and lifted two sheets of paper. Frank recognised the top sheet as his disclosure form.
The solicitor prodded the sheet. ‘Your justification for bringing my client in for questioning is very thin, Detective Sergeant. I have advised Mr Ingermann that he is not obliged to answer your questions.’
‘Can we make a start?’ Frank asked.
The solicitor nodded.
‘Murder is a serious crime and Conspiracy to Murder carries a similar long jail sentence. Do you understand that, Mr Ingermann?’
Ingermann’s eyes were wide, an effect exaggerated by his glasses. ‘Yes.’
‘Our enquiries show you are connected to the Morgan family, the members of which have a long string of convictions between them. This is why our line of enquiry is based on the premise your car was not stolen but that you sold it. What do you say to that?’
Ingermann looked at his solicitor and then said, ‘No comment.’
‘Our forensics people say nothing shows your car was broken into. I suggest you simply handed over the keys. What do you say?’
‘No comment.’ He pushed his spectacles further up the bridge of his nose.
‘Did you know Victoria Crosby?’
‘No.’
‘You still haven’t reported your car stolen. Why?’
‘I was going to get on to my insurance company today.’
‘Do you know Simon Hayward?’
‘Who? No.’
‘How about Mr & Mrs Quinnan?’
Ingermann looked at Frank and then Helen. ‘I’ve no idea who they are.’
‘Have you ever done any work for the Morgan family?’
‘No comment.’
‘You realise everything you are saying is being recorded and will be checked? It will not go wel
l for you in court if you have lied about anything.’
He stayed silent, watching Frank. His hands were locked together under the table.
‘Your car was used to murder Victoria Crosby. Do you want to tell us anything about that?’
‘No comment.’
‘Are you sure there is nothing you want to put on record?’
Ingermann turned to his solicitor again, who shook his head.
‘Nothing.’
‘Your solicitor has warned you the tape we are making may be played at your trial and that your lack of co-operation may sway the jury?’
The solicitor replied, ‘My client has been fully briefed.’
Ingermann nodded his confirmation.
‘If you have no evidence that my client colluded in the commission of this crime, I see no reason for you to detain him further. Mr Ingermann has been more than co-operative.’
Frank pursed his lips. ‘We will release him on bail.’ He ended the interview.
Helen said, ‘I’ll take you through to the custody area and get you bailed.’
Frank watched them walk away from him down the corridor. When they went through the door at the end, he pulled out his phone. ‘Ingermann will be out in the next few minutes. Are we ready?’
‘Two cars are in position,’ said Jade’s voice at the other end.
He waited for Helen to come back.
‘Well?’
‘He had no reaction to any of the names you threw at him. I don’t think he’s clever enough to fake it,’ she said.
‘Let’s see where he goes next.’
‘I hope he doesn’t just go home, otherwise this will be a waste of time.’ She scratched her chin.