1911021494

by MICHAEL HAMBLING

  ‘I didn’t know, Jennie,’ he whispered. ‘I only found out about them a few days ago. That’s why I quit.’

  But she’d already grabbed her bag and was moving away. Blossom didn’t try to stop her.

  Jennie walked away, tears blinding her eyes. Her only contact with her parents. A man who’d known and loved her mother, and what had he turned out to be? Evil, evil, evil. Had anything he’d told her even been true? She walked on, thoughts whirling in her mind. She heard a faint popping noise behind her, but it didn’t register at first. Then something made her turn and look back. Blossom was lying on the ground, sprawled across the path. She caught sight of some dark figures disappearing up a path behind the bushes.

  She ran back. She crouched down by his body and held his hand, but she knew it was too late. It had always been too late.

  Chapter 25: The Two Daughters Meet

  Late Sunday Afternoon

  As a child Nadia had been told the story of Pandora’s Box. It made so much sense now. Evil, once unleashed, can never be put back, never unlearned, never un-experienced. She was safe. She was in a secure house with her mother, under constant guard. But she couldn’t escape her memories. Only one thing made her get out of bed early each morning. Her friend DCI Sophie called in every day on her way into work. She’d tried to get Nadia to call her just Sophie, but the teenager was too much in awe of her. She copied the other police officers, and called her ma’am or chief inspector. This sounded right to her, though she always followed her formal greeting with a hug and a cup of tea for her rescuer and heroine.

  Nadia told Sophie about her recurring memories, and how difficult it was to cope with them. Sophie said, ‘Nadia, it is life. It’s what it means to be human. Your experiences have been worse than most, but you must not let the memories take over. You must master your experiences, not let them master you.’

  But Sophie arranged for a counsellor to visit Nadia. She and her mother had regular visits from a young Romanian woman interpreter, but she struggled to put into words the anguish Nadia was feeling. Nadia now understood that she would come through this in time. But she slept fitfully and was troubled by constant flashbacks.

  Most of all she worried for Sorina. She had promised Sorina’s mother that she would look after her. How was the fragile young girl coping with the ordeal? It was almost too much to bear, sitting in this house and imagining Sorina’s pain.

  It was a relief to go out and visit Jade for a few hours. She and her mother were now enjoying tea and cakes in the Allens’ lounge. Nadia had shown her mother the small guest room where she’d slept the previous weekend. She was now chatting with Jade, in her limited English, about the latest fashion trends.

  * * *

  Sophie’s mobile phone rang and she left the room to answer it.

  ‘Hi, Kevin.’

  ‘Sophie, there’s been a fatal shooting in the central gardens. We think it’s your man, Blossom.’

  Sophie was at the scene within half an hour. She ran across to the group of detectives standing with Kevin McGreedie.

  ‘Blossom Sourlie,’ he said. ‘Single gunshot wound to the head. The woman witness said all she heard was a popping noise, so they must have used a silencer. She was about a hundred yards away, but didn’t see the actual shooting. She says she was walking away from him at the time.’

  Sophie looked down at the body. It was the short, powerfully-built man she’d met at Brookway Farm.

  ‘How did you know it was Blossom Sourlie?’ she asked.

  ‘The woman knows him. Her name’s Jennie Brown. She lives in the flat below his, and was with him until just before the shooting. They had an ice cream, and she left him to walk back to her place. Then it happened. She says that she just caught sight of some figures heading up the path there.’ He pointed to some steps leading up behind a shrubbery to the road above. ‘It’s all taped off. The forensic squad should be here soon.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘In my car with one of the local bobbies. She’s a bit hysterical and wants to go home, but I’ve kept her here. I’ll come with you.’

  The two detectives walked back across the gardens. The car’s windows were misted over, obscuring the features of the woman sitting in the back.

  ‘Thanks, Kevin. I’ll take it from here if you don’t mind,’ Sophie said.

  She climbed into the front passenger seat and turned to speak to the woman. She stared at her, aghast. What was going on? She got out of the car and walked across to a fence that surrounded the gardens. Her mind was reeling. She gripped the handrail as if she was about to fall over a precipice.

  Get a grip, Sophie, she told herself. McGreedie had turned and was beginning to walk back towards her, and she waved him away. She took a deep breath and returned to the car.

  ‘So we meet again. It’s a bit of a cliché, I know, but seeing you here has taken me by surprise. It can’t be chance, can it?’

  ‘Sorry? I don’t understand,’ the young woman said.

  ‘We met briefly last week. I passed you in the ward at Wolverhampton hospital. I was leaving and you were coming in. You were doing what you’re doing now, pulling your fingers through your ponytail. You were wearing the same coat.’

  ‘Christ. I can’t cope with all this.’

  ‘You need to tell me what’s going on. Jennie, isn’t it? Look, I’m nearly as shocked as you.’ She paused. ‘Do you live close by?’

  Jennie nodded. ‘It’s only a couple of hundred yards further on. He lived in the flat above me.’

  ‘Okay, let’s walk. The fresh air will do you good, and I certainly need it.’

  They got out of the car. Sophie asked one of the uniformed constables to follow them. Then she took Jennie’s arm in a firm grip and started walking.

  ‘Jennie, I need to know what’s behind this. I know what you’ve told my colleague, but there’s more, isn’t there? You were on your way in to visit Billy Thompson at the end of last week. He was in a room by himself, so there was no other reason for you to have been there. I’ve been wondering about you on and off since then. And you just happen to be here when that man Blossom gets killed. What’s the connection?’

  ‘I think he was killed by someone called Charlie Duff. Blossom told me that he’d walked out on Duff’s gang a week ago.’

  Sophie was still reeling. She forced herself to speak. ‘Okay, but that doesn’t explain why you were visiting Thompson last week.’

  ‘He’s my uncle. And I think Charlie Duff killed my father.’

  ‘Your father?’ Sophie stopped walking and gripped Jennie’s arm so tightly that the younger woman winced. ‘Your father? Andy Thompson?’

  ‘Yes. I never knew him, or my mother. As I told Blossom, I was adopted at birth. I only found out about my birth family six months ago when Uncle Billy contacted me. He’d just been told he had terminal cancer, and he decided to trace me. Last week was only the third time I’d met him.’

  ‘And he wanted to know what had happened to his brother, so he was using you to find out. Was it him that suggested you use Blossom as a lead?’

  By now they’d arrived at the apartment block. A police car was parked across the entrance, and a constable was hurrying out of the front entrance. Sophie stopped him and asked what was going on.

  ‘His flat’s been broken into, ma’am,’ he said. ‘We’ve only just discovered it.’

  Sophie checked that the door to Jennie’s flat was still secure. She ushered Jennie inside and told her to remain there with the constable until she returned. She ran upstairs to Blossom’s apartment. Drawers and cupboards had been left open, and their contents strewn over the floor.

  Sophie returned to Jennie’s flat. She sent the uniformed officer outside.

  Jennie seemed to have calmed down. She offered Sophie a mug of tea, although her hand shook as she pushed it across the table.

  ‘Can we start again please, Jennie? From the beginning? Tell me a little about yourself. Try to relax if you can, although I realis
e it might be difficult.’

  ‘I’m thirty-four. I’m an accountant with an insurance firm in Ringwood, and I’ve lived in the area for almost ten years, but not in this flat. I was adopted as a baby in Birmingham. I never knew who my birth parents were, and didn’t want to know because my adoptive parents were so good to me.’ She wiped her eyes with a tissue and blew her nose. ‘We moved to Southampton when I was about five. I never bothered with my past because I was so happy with my parents. I did some checking about ten years ago, but got nowhere, so I left it alone. Then about six months ago I got a message from someone claiming to be my uncle. He said he was my father’s half-brother, and had known about me but had never bothered to trace me. Now he was dying he thought we should meet, and that I might want to help find out what had happened to my father. Apparently they’d lost contact many years ago. I thought about it for quite a long time before deciding what to do. In the end I went to visit him and he told me that my birth father’s name was Andy Thompson. They hadn’t got on at all well, so Andy had left the Midlands and come down to the South Coast area. He’d made one brief trip back for a family Christmas party and then vanished. On that visit he told them he’d met up with Blossom again. Blossom had once been a friend of one of my other uncles.’

  She took a sip of tea.

  ‘So we agreed that since I was living here anyway, I’d start looking. Uncle Billy sent me an address that he thought was Blossom’s. He never told me where he’d got the information from. I did a bit of asking around in the other flats and found that he lived on the top floor but was hardly ever here. Then this flat came up for sale, so I decided to buy it and move in. It’s a lovely flat in a fantastic location and I thought it might give me a good chance of meeting and talking to him. And that’s what happened. Please believe me, I knew nothing about any criminal connections or gangs or anything, until the last day or two.’

  ‘So Billy didn’t give you the full picture?’

  ‘What do you mean? Did he know?’ She looked genuinely surprised.

  ‘He pulled the wool over your eyes, Jennie. With his younger brother Bobby, he ran one of the biggest criminal gangs in the Birmingham area. I had regular run-ins with him when I was with the West Midlands major crime unit, but we could never pin anything on him. He and I became a bit like chess opponents, circling round each other. But in a strange way I kind of liked him. I never knew they had a younger step-brother until last week when I visited him. Anyway, go on with what you were saying.’

  ‘Last week Blossom started living here full time, so I used the opportunity to get to know him and find out what had happened to my dad.’

  ‘And did you? Find out, I mean?’

  ‘Yes. He implied that my dad had been killed by the boss of the gang down here. Someone called Charlie Duff, as I told you. Years ago. And, you see, it fits with what Billy told me. He said to look for someone called Charlie.’

  Sophie wondered if Billy realised what kind of people he’d been sending his niece to seek out. Lethal killers. He certainly knew that Duff had killed her own father.

  ‘And did you find out anything else?’

  ‘Yes. More than I’d ever hoped for. Blossom knew my mother. He told me that she’d died giving birth to me. He told me that my father was a waster, a drug addict. Blossom said he’d always loved my mother. I was trying to convince him to go to the police with what he knew, but he resisted. I only found out why today. That’s why we argued, and why I was walking away from him. I’d just realised what he’d been involved with and it horrified me.’

  She looked at Sophie. ‘Is that why you’re so interested in him?’

  Sophie nodded. ‘But that’s only part of it. How long ago did Blossom say your father was killed?’

  ‘He wasn’t definite. But I got the impression that it was a long time ago, maybe ten, fifteen years or more.’

  ‘Jennie, a few days ago we found the body of an adult male. It was buried under a patch of waste ground owned, we think, by Charlie Duff. We haven’t got anywhere with identifying it yet. Forensic experts have given us a rough age of late twenties or early thirties and they say it’s been buried for about fifteen years. Would you agree to a DNA sample? It would help us both. We might get a positive ID, and you’d have that part of Blossom’s story confirmed.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ she whispered. ‘But it may not be necessary. I’ve already been DNA profiled. I did it a few months ago privately, soon after Uncle Billy contacted me. I expected that a DNA analysis would be useful if I was meeting people claiming to be from my birth family, so I got it done. I’ll get you the results. You may as well take them for checking.’ She got up and took a manila folder from a nearby bureau. ‘In just a couple of weeks I’ve had my whole life turned upside down. I may as well see it through.’

  Sophie looked at her closely. How much did this woman deserve to know? Sophie gambled. She reached across the low table and took hold of her cold, shaking fingers.

  ‘There’s something else you need to know,’ she said softly. ‘Something that Billy Thompson probably hasn’t told you. Something that no one else knows, apart from me. Something that means that you and I are linked by two extraordinary events. Blossom told you that it was probably Charlie Duff who killed your father.’ She hesitated, trying to find the right words. ‘I’ve only found out in the last few days that Charlie Duff killed my father as well. Back in 1969, when my mother had only just become pregnant. No one else knows, Jennie. Not a soul. You and I are two daughters who’ve never known our real fathers. They’ve been taken from us by the same man.’

  Chapter 26: Freezing Night

  Monday

  ‘Are you alright, Sophie? It’s just that you went as white as a sheet yesterday afternoon at the car.’

  They were sipping coffee in McGreedie’s office at Bournemouth police headquarters. Sophie and Marsh had just arrived in order to be updated on the details of Blossom Sourlie’s murder. Sophie grimaced as she took another sip of the hot, bitter liquid.

  ‘Kevin, this stuff is awful. It’s like watered-down tar. Can’t you get a decent coffee machine put in here? And thanks for your concern about yesterday, but I’m fine. I probably ducked down into the car too fast and made myself dizzy.’

  ‘If you say so. Are you getting enough sleep?’

  ‘Of course. Can we just get on, please? What have you found out?’

  ‘The gun had a silencer. That’s why the neighbour he’d been with only heard a popping sound. Ballistics are still looking at the bullets. Two shots to the head. He died instantly. We’ve searched the area meticulously but there’s nothing. They were pros. Either that or they were very lucky.’

  ‘Do you think the woman, Jennie Brown, was involved?’

  ‘It doesn’t look like it. Her version of events tallies with the statements we have from other witnesses who were in the gardens at the time. They confirm that she and Sourlie argued and that she walked away. There were two men involved in the shooting, we think. One stood back and kept a watch while the other walked right up to the victim and shot him at close range. It sounds as though Sourlie didn’t recognise his killer, which means it probably wasn’t this Duff character that she insists was behind it.’

  ‘But the second man stood well back?’

  McGreedie nodded.

  ‘So that could have been someone who didn’t want to be recognised. Any further on how they got away?’

  ‘A car just at the top of the steps, hidden from the gardens by the shrubbery. It was waiting with its engine running and moved off fast, but not so fast that it drew much attention. The same with the men. They came across to the car from the top of the steps quickly, but not so fast that the few people around noticed much about them. We found the car late last night, abandoned on waste ground in Poole, burned out. At least we think it was the same one. It had been stolen earlier yesterday.’

  ‘So it looks as though there were three of them. One to carry out the shooting, one to keep watch and maybe identi
fy the victim, and a driver for the getaway. Well, it links in with what she said. Sourlie told her that he’d just walked out on the gang. If that’s true, then it gives us the motive.’

  ‘She seems to know a lot, considering that she was just a neighbour who’d only known him for a few weeks,’ Marsh added.

  ‘I think she’s telling the truth, Barry,’ Sophie replied. ‘Apparently Sourlie had been opening up to her over the past couple of days. He’d told her about a gang member they’d killed a long time ago, and she’d urged him to talk to us. It could tie in with the body we found buried at the depot. By the way, I’m pushing through the DNA profiling of that one as a priority. I’ll let you know when the results come in.’

  McGreedie finished his coffee. ‘You’re right about his walk-out giving them the motive. If he was about to spill the beans it would have been a big nail in the gang’s coffin. What turned him? Did she say?’

  ‘Apparently he didn’t know about the buried bodies on the farm. Those two with the cuts and slash marks. That’s what he told her. And that’s why they argued and she walked away. She had no idea what he was involved in until that moment. And, as I said, I don’t think she was lying. She was clearly in shock when I interviewed her, but I never felt that she was holding back on anything.’ Sophie paused. ‘I think you should speak to her too, Kevin. She still needs to make a formal statement and since you’re investigating Sourlie’s murder, it would be useful for you to interview her. Just in case I’ve missed something.’

  ‘I’ll do it if you think it’ll be useful. I’ll let you know if anything new crops up. It will all feed into the big picture.’

  ‘I still can’t see why he opened up to her,’ said Marsh. ‘It seems a bit strange, doesn’t it? If he’s the experienced thug we’re assuming he is, it doesn’t run true to type, does it? He’s only known her for a week or so, but he’s already told her that he’s been involved in drug trafficking, rape and murder. I don’t get it. Why would he tell her all that?’