by Sarah Hilary
The e-fit showed a man in his thirties, oblong face, thinning fair hair. Sol had given a detailed description, right down to the blackheads on the right side of the man’s nose. Noah had been complimented on his brother’s acuity: ‘I wish all witnesses had his eye.’
Their suspect was wearing a black fleece-lined anorak over bleached jeans, white trainers, ‘But more like grey. Dirty.’ He’d picked at his teeth with his thumbnail as he’d climbed the steps to Marnie’s front door. ‘Ugly, ugly teeth.’ Sol hadn’t missed a beat.
‘We’ve shown this to Elliot Pershall, but he’s none the wiser,’ Ron said. ‘No matches in our system. CCTV at the Hillingdon shows the Astra entering and exiting the car park, but no eyes on the driver. Col’s running the e-fit against CCTV from their front desk.’
‘Mr Pershall’s memory’s going,’ Debbie said. ‘He’s been passed around a few places before landing up at the Hillingdon.’
‘If he was visiting other hospitals,’ Noah said, ‘let’s find out which ones. It’s possible our suspect saw Mr Pershall on an earlier occasion, the way he parked, leaving his keys in the car . . . This might not have been opportunistic.’ He glanced at Marnie, who nodded for him to continue. ‘Carole works shifts as an auxiliary, at more than one hospital.’ He pinned up the job agency paperwork from her handbag. ‘There could be a link between her and our suspect. If so, we need to find it quickly. In terms of motive—’
‘Shall we save the psychology for the interview,’ Ferguson interjected in her arid way. ‘We’ve a warrant for Ollie Tomlinson. That’s plenty to be going on with.’
‘Carole’s five foot one,’ Debbie said. ‘And she’s really skinny.’
‘Your point, DC Tanner?’
‘She could pass for a kid.’ Debbie hesitated.
Marnie said, ‘Go on.’
‘We know Ollie’s big for his age, and she’s tiny. We’ve been looking for two boys but with their shared history—’
‘And our car-jacker with the bad teeth?’ Ferguson asked. ‘How does he fit in?’
‘Like DS Jake says, ma’am, if she’s working at hospitals, maybe he is too . . . She could be using him, the way she’s using Ollie. Our eyewitness in Page Street said the same as Stuart: two kids, one big, one small. If the small one’s Carole then she could be in charge. It wouldn’t be the first time she’s told Ollie what to do.’
‘DI Rome.’ Ferguson turned on her heel. ‘What do you make of this new theory?’
‘It’s plausible. Carole went missing around the same time as Ollie. And DC Tanner is right to point out their shared history, which was rooted in violence and control.’
‘So she faked her own assault?’ Ferguson said. ‘Set fire to her skirt, ruptured her own innards?’
‘No. But she’s a part of this,’ Noah said. ‘And not in the same sense as Stuart, or Kyle. Carole was always different—’
They all turned when the door opened.
‘We have a name,’ Colin said, ‘for the man who stole the Astra.’
He held up a print-off. ‘From the Hillingdon. I ran the e-fit and got a match.’
Marnie pinned the new photograph to the board.
Everyone gathered closer to study it. Noah blinked. The likeness to Sol’s e-fit was uncanny, right down to the blackheads clustered to the right of the man’s nose.
‘That’s not a CCTV still,’ Ron said.
‘No,’ Colin agreed. ‘It’s a staff ID. He’s a paramedic.’
A paramedic?
Like the ones who’d treated Kyle, and Stuart, and Carole.
‘Huell Gareth Bevan. Thirty-five years old, lives in Feltham, works out of Cressey Road ambulance station in Camden.’ Colin rubbed a mark from his spectacles. ‘That’s as far as I’ve got.’
‘I’ll make some calls.’ Ron wrote the contact numbers on a scrap of paper and moved away.
‘We need a record of Bevan’s shifts,’ Noah said. ‘If he was in Holloway at the time of the assaults, or in Westminster earlier this week . . .’
‘I’ve put in a request.’ Colin glanced at Marnie, asking a silent question, wanting a moment of her time, alone.
Ferguson intercepted the look. ‘There’s something else, DC Pitcher?’
‘No, I just—’
‘Is it connected to the investigation?’
‘Yes, but—’ Colin looked cornered.
‘Go ahead.’ Marnie smiled at him, disliking Ferguson’s tactics to divide-and-rule her team. ‘Good work on finding Bevan.’
‘Thanks, boss. It’s just . . . he’s on a visitor list.’ Colin cleared his throat. ‘At Cloverton.’
‘Bevan is on the prison visitor list?’
‘I ran his name through the system as soon as I had it,’ Colin said. ‘No criminal record, but he’s twice visited an inmate at Cloverton in the last ten weeks.’
Marnie held hard to the smile, afraid to let it slip. ‘Which inmate?’
‘Jacob Collins.’
Not Stephen, not this time.
‘Collins . . .’ Ferguson looked at Marnie. ‘You met him, didn’t you?’
‘I did, yes.’
‘A friend of Aidan Duffy’s, although perhaps Mr Collins should take that under advisement given the nature of their friendship just lately.’
‘Then Bevan’s the one,’ Debbie said. ‘The one who gave Collins the message about Aidan’s son. He has to be. If he’s the one who took Finn—’
‘Have there been any sightings of Finian Duffy?’ Ferguson demanded. ‘DC Pitcher?’
Colin shook his head. ‘Nothing on CCTV, or not yet.’
‘His friends haven’t seen him in weeks,’ Debbie said. ‘They thought he must’ve moved away. When we asked about Uncle Regan they all said Finn would never’ve gone there unless he was desperate. He sounds like a nice kid. Ollie wanted him in his gang because Finn’s dad’s famous for being a hard man. No one believed it when Finn turned Ollie down. You don’t say no to Ollie and Finn’s just a little kid, not even eleven. He stood up to Ollie. They all said that took guts.’
Ferguson straightened, nodding at Marnie. ‘You and I are going to Cloverton first thing tomorrow to interview Jacob Collins and Aidan Duffy, and anyone else we think may have information pertinent to this investigation.’
‘Is there a reason we can’t go sooner?’
‘I’ve arranged the interview for tomorrow morning. It’s been a long day and I was hoping, perhaps optimistically, that we’d be busy arresting Ollie Tomlinson with what’s left of it.’
Ron returned from his desk, saying, ‘Bevan’s not been home since he took off from your place, boss. He’s not due at work until ten p.m. We’ve got eyes on the ambulance station, and his flat. No reason to think he’s absconded, unless he knows he was seen this morning.’
‘Bevan didn’t see Sol,’ Noah said. ‘He was watching the flat for a while before he posted the envelope through the door. He must’ve thought the coast was clear.’
‘Are we still keeping these cases separate?’ Ron asked. ‘If he’s threatening you, boss—’
‘He didn’t threaten DI Rome.’ Ferguson checked her watch. ‘Any more than he threatened Valerie Rawling or Mazi Yeboah. He was paying tribute, that’s what he’d like us to call it. The threat implied by the faked newspaper clipping was directed at Stephen Keele.’
Stephen’s name had never been spoken in front of Marnie’s team.
Welland would have bitten through his own tongue before he did that.
Ron and Colin looked sideways, at the board. Only Noah met her eyes, disliking Ferguson’s tactics as much as Marnie did. She’d told him about the conversation at Cloverton with Aidan, given him the same information she’d given to Harry Kennedy. It was stripping her bare to keep telling everyone her business. Perhaps that was Bevan’s intention. And Ferguson’s too.
‘We should look for Finn in Bevan’s flat,’ she said. ‘Since he’s our chief suspect.’
‘We’ll get a warrant,’ Ferguson agreed. ‘In the morning.�
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‘Tonight,’ Marnie said. ‘Why not right now?’
‘Insufficient grounds. So far all we have is the envelope of clippings, and a stolen car. We can link him to the assaults, possibly even to the murder. But we’ve nothing to suggest he’s involved in the kidnap or false imprisonment of a child.’
‘His connection to Jacob Collins,’ Noah said, ‘suggests it to me.’
‘We’ll find out, first thing tomorrow.’ Ferguson clapped her hands at the team. ‘Good work, everyone. Get some rest. We’ll start over in the morning.’
Marnie said, ‘Let me give you a lift home.’
Noah didn’t argue, wanting the chance to talk with her about what had unfolded at the station. ‘We didn’t tell her about the scrapbook. The other child in the cage.’
‘I didn’t think it was the right moment to add a new mystery face to the board.’ Marnie ran the heater, turning out of the station car park in the direction of Noah’s flat. ‘How’s Sol?’
‘Hungry. Dan says he’s eaten his way through the fridge already. We could order Chinese, if you’d like to hang around for that?’
‘Thanks, but I need to get home.’
To Ed, not to the place Huell Bevan thought was home.
‘Her tactics are all wrong.’ Noah rolled his shoulders. ‘Ferguson’s. She’s going to mess this up if she isn’t careful.’
‘Or she’ll shake something loose,’ Marnie said equitably.
‘At Cloverton, I meant. From what you’ve told me about Aidan, he’s smart enough to play her. He’ll probably enjoy it, too.’
‘Perhaps. But she won’t be happy until she’s satisfied herself on that score.’
‘Never interrupt your enemy when she’s making a mistake.’
‘Napoleon?’
‘Hmm. The Louboutins were the giveaway.’ He put his head back against the seat rest. ‘She’s punching above her weight.’
‘I’m worried she hasn’t got started yet. That this is just a warm-up bout.’
‘I told Welland I had your back.’ Noah touched the bruises on his face. ‘He might have warned me what was incoming, though. She takes no prisoners.’
Unlike Carole, with her caged children.
And whoever was holding Finn.
Marnie was watching the car’s mirrors. Noah was watching, too. For Huell Bevan because he wasn’t at home and they didn’t know what he wanted, not really. Only that he was after victims to appease, and to punish. Ferguson imagined that this ended when they had him behind bars, but she wasn’t tuned to the city’s heartbeat the way Noah was, and Marnie.
All of London strummed with show-offs and strays, fear and bravado. What Bevan was doing hadn’t started with him, and it wouldn’t end there. Pain didn’t stop because you benched its latest player. Bevan had passed it up the line, that’s all, a new friction plucking at the city’s strings, the whole of London one long dirty neon bruise, aching and echoing to this new tune.
Ed was on his way out when Marnie got home. ‘Work, sorry . . .’ He pulled on his coat, his face drawn with worry for someone else he was trying to help. Not enough Ed to go round.
‘I’ll be fine,’ Marnie told him. ‘Go.’
Alone in the flat, she sat in her usual spot and roll-called her blessings, bringing them close enough to people the empty space at her side. After a while, she reached for her phone and dialled Sean Welland’s number, hoping for news of his dad.
‘He’s here,’ Sean said, ‘if you’d like a chat.’
‘Only if he’s okay with that. I wasn’t expecting to speak with him.’
‘You’d be doing me a favour. Stir-crazy doesn’t start to cover it.’
Marnie waited while Sean handed the phone to his father.
‘I’m in a holding pattern,’ Welland grumbled, ‘for the surgeon with the steadiest hands. Cheer me up and tell me about someone else’s shitty day.’
He sounded so like his usual self that Marnie shut her eyes, smiling. ‘How long have you got?’
‘For you? All night. How’re things in the trenches?’
‘Don’t you mean on the high seas? Frigates and destroyers, remember?’
‘You’re under fire,’ he deduced. ‘That didn’t take her long. How’s the team holding up?’
‘We miss you. I miss you. Sorry to be selfish, but I really do.’
‘Nice to be wanted by someone who isn’t wielding a scalpel . . . How’s DS Kennedy?’
He was asking for an update on Lancaster Road. What could she tell him? Not about the shoebox, or Aidan Duffy, or Stephen. She didn’t want that sort of worry in his head.
‘Harry’s good. You said he would be, and you were right.’
‘Harry?’ Welland echoed. ‘That schoolboy charm has a sell-by date, just so you know.’
‘I’ll try to remember that.’
‘I heard about Kyle Stratton. Hope you’re getting reinforcements in the hunt for your vigilante.’
‘Vigilantes,’ she amended. ‘Stuart Rawling made a fresh statement, and an eyewitness says two people attacked Kyle. We have a suspect, Huell Bevan. But he’s gone to ground.’
‘Let’s hope you find him before anyone else becomes intimately acquainted with his assorted weaponry . . .’ Welland paused. ‘You sound like you’ve been on the blunt end of it yourself.’
‘Those honours went to Noah. He’s on the mend, but assorted weaponry is right. And we think whoever’s doing this has Ollie Tomlinson involved.’
‘The kid from the cage?’ He breathed a heavy sigh. ‘You’ve got your work cut out.’
‘I’m keeping busy,’ Marnie agreed.
‘Tell DS Jake he has my sympathy, as someone else about to take up space in our overcrowded, underfunded health service.’
‘I’ve not forgotten about the whisky,’ she promised. ‘Get Sean to send smoke signals as soon as you’re ready for visitors.’
‘I will. And in the meantime? Do what you do best, Detective Inspector.’
Sol was taking up most of the sofa when Noah got home, one hand buried in a bag of popcorn, the other propped behind his head. Eyes on the TV but not watching, flicking to Noah then past him, to the hallway; he’d moved the sofa, to have a clear sightline to the door.
‘Dan’s out. That’s cool, yeah?’
‘It’s cool.’ Noah had asked for a couple of hours to speak to Sol alone. Dan was out with a group of friends who’d see him home safely. No one was taking any risks. ‘Have you eaten?’
Sol shook his head. ‘Just . . .’ Holding up the popcorn.
‘Give me a hand in the kitchen?’
‘Sure.’ Rolling upright, planting his bare feet on the floor. He was wearing a clean set of sweats, looking less burnt-out than he had at Marnie’s place.
In the kitchen, Noah made turkey sandwiches while Sol took the tops off a couple of beers.
‘I’ve been hearing compliments about you all day. That e-fit you gave us? Oscar-winning.’
‘You caught him, yeah?’
‘Not yet, but we’ve ID’d him. Thanks to you. You want mango chutney on this?’
‘Yeah.’ Sol sucked beer from the backs of his fingers, watching Noah. ‘Your boss okay?’
‘Yes.’ He passed one of the plates to his brother, taking one of the beers in return.
They ate at the kitchen table.
Sol picked his sandwich apart before putting it back together and taking a big bite. Noah kept his phone at his elbow for texts from Dan, but it was more likely the gang was watching the flat now, if they’d seen Sol return here earlier in the day.
‘You let Mum and Dad know you’re okay?’
Sol nodded. A mouthful of beer, another of turkey, wiping his mouth with his thumb.
Noah let him eat most of the sandwich before he asked, ‘So is it drugs?’
Sol dropped his head forward, showing the bony back of his neck. The hand that wasn’t full of sandwich reached for his beer.
‘Or money?’ Noah moved the bottle closer. ‘Or is i
t both? Did you steal someone’s stash?’
‘This’s your boss asking?’
‘It’s your brother. It’s me. I need to know what’s going on. I want to help.’
‘You could leave it,’ Sol said. ‘That’d help.’
‘Wouldn’t help Dan. Someone followed him, took a photo as a threat. Who’s looking for you?’
‘You know who.’
‘Your gang,’ Noah surmised. ‘I don’t know names, you’ve never given me names.’
‘Yeah?’ Sol took a swig of beer. ‘Wonder why.’
Noah looked at the photos on the fridge. Snaps of him and Sol as kids, all wide white grins and skinned knees. Sol’s smile was irresistible, always had been.
‘Remember Rojay, your best friend when you were ten? You said it freaked you out what happened to him. Watching him getting run into the ground. Used up and spat out.’
Sol blew a tuneless note from the neck of the beer bottle. ‘Rojay was a fool.’
‘He wasn’t even twenty.’
Another tuneless note, indifferent. ‘Died doing what he loved, though.’
‘Dealing drugs and getting slapped around?’
Sol shrugged, as if Noah had put a hand on him and he was shaking it off. Noah didn’t want to put a hand on his brother’s shoulder, but he was close to wanting to put a fist in his face.
‘Look. You’ve got out. That’s what you told me, and I believe you. Only they’re not happy. You’ve pissed them off and they’re taking it out on me, and Dan. Your mess, but we’re in the middle of it. So. Help me sort it out.’
Sol finished his sandwich and his beer. Then he shoved his body back in the chair, feet sprawled under the table. ‘You were the one said I’d to come back here.’ Spoiling for a fight now.
‘To sort it out,’ Noah enunciated each syllable. ‘We’re sorting it out.’ He thumbed the screen of his phone until it brought up a notepad. ‘Give me names. Addresses if you have them. And give me the reason. Drugs or money, whatever it is.’
‘I ain’t doing it,’ Sol said. ‘I’ll fuck off, yeah? I’ll do that. But I ain’t playing your game.’
Police informant, was the game he meant.
‘I’ll help you. But you have to come in.’
‘I ain’t doing it. You’ll have to arrest me, man.’ He laughed as he said it, but not with his eyes.