William snorted. ‘That’s the sort of thing rich folks say.’
The smile left his lips as Ruby slipped a photo across the table.
‘This is her, pictured with her mother and sister. They’re in bits. It might bring a little comfort if we could find—’
‘Alright, alright,’ William raised his hands in mock surrender. ‘If I’d lifted some jewellery, and it was that hot, the first place I’d head to is Buster Turner on Bethnal Green Road.’
‘Cheers,’ Ruby said, grabbing her handbag from the seat beside her.
The café began to fill as an army of dust-clad builders piled in. Chairs and tables screeched as they took up the seats; the air filled with banter as they took the mickey out of the youngest member of the group.
Ruby handed William a battered card, along with some change for the telephone box. ‘If you hear anything else, give me a ring.’
‘Only for you,’ William breathed a weary sigh.
Ruby paused, feeling a pang of guilt as she turned to leave. She dug a newly purchased pack of cigarettes and lighter from her pocket and placed them on the table. ‘Here, it’s about time I gave these up.’
There was no point in telling him to go down to the shelter for a night. After a lifetime of incarceration, she knew he preferred to sleep under the stars. Had he not been arrested for a breach of the peace the night before, he may well have been a person of interest himself.
After paying for their food, she slid her phone from her pocket and called up DC Owen Ludgrove’s number. ‘You busy?’ It was a daft question. Every member of Shoreditch serious crime team was buried in work. But she knew the young detective constable would drop everything for her. ‘Meet me outside Buster Turner’s Jewellery Emporium on Bethnal Green Road. . . as soon as you can. Yeah, OK, see you in ten.’
She recognised the address, as it was one of the properties on Nathan Crosby’s books. Not only was her ex-lover head of a criminal organisation, he fronted it with legitimate businesses, such as real estate, pubs and clubs. William Burke had never let her down with information before. The fact that Buster was fencing jewellery had dictated her route – she would not be going in through the front door.
Chapter Three
‘Wouldn’t we be better off applying for a warrant?’ Luddy said, following Ruby through the litter-strewn alleyway, which led to the rear of the pawnbroker’s shop. ‘And why are we going around the back?’
‘Because the back is where all the fun happens,’ Ruby said with a grin. ‘I bet you were one of those kids who sat at the front of the bus on school trips, weren’t you?’ She knew she shouldn’t enjoy being such a bad influence, but she could not help herself. Ruby had always been trouble. Being in the police could not change that.
She pushed open the wooden gate, lifting it slightly from the hinges to make her entrance. Luddy followed her through, his face taut. A burst of sound emitted from his police radio, and he swiftly turned the knob to silence the voice of the controller.
Ruby rapped hard on the blistered back door. A gust of wind howled around them, sending a tin can bumping along the alleyway. Somewhere in the distance a dog barked, but it was all lost on Ruby, who was focused on the task ahead.
‘Best you leave the talking to me,’ she said to Luddy as the sound of footsteps grew from the other side of the door.
Masked in a halo of cigarette smoke, Buster Turner peered through the door. ‘The shop entrance is around the front.’
He was a greasy little man, his shoulder-length dark hair slicked back from his face. Two loose strands hung over his forehead, reminding Ruby of antennae. With his beady eyes and long pointed nose, everything about him was insectile.
Ruby raised her warrant card, her voice firm. ‘We’ve come to speak to you.’ She laid her hand on the door and pushed it open. ‘Now, if you don’t mind. We’ll only be five minutes.’
With a grunt of annoyance Buster turned, allowing Ruby and Luddy to follow him inside as he treaded lightly on the linoleum. The smell of sour milk and cigarette smoke hung thick in the air. To the left was a poky kitchen. A variety of dead plants dotted the window ledge, and a pile of used teabags took up residence on the sink draining board. Ruby turned her attention to the door at the end of the hall, reading the words SHOP scrawled in black marker pen over the blue paint. Buster entered the door on the right, following the sound of the tinny pop music playing from within. She should have asked DC Ash Baker along instead, she mused. He was old school and knew that sometimes you had to take a different approach. She felt a pang of guilt as the thought entered her mind. Luddy was studying for his sergeant’s exams, and she would not drag him into a situation that could damage his chances of promotion. She was a copper first, and would play this by the book. She glanced around the poky room, a veritable Aladdin’s cave: wall-to-wall with cabinets, their drawers stuffed with jewellery of every shape and size. One such drawer was laid on a wooden desk next to an eyepiece on its side, waiting for its owner to return.
On the radio, Kylie Minogue was singing about a locomotive, and Buster dragged his chair from behind his desk as he took a seat, leaving Ruby and Luddy to stand.
‘What do you want?’
Luddy opened his mouth to speak, but Ruby beat him to it. This was her world, and she knew exactly how to deal with people like Buster Turner. ‘We were making some local enquiries and saw your gate was open. You should be careful, there are some very dodgy people about.’
Buster narrowed his eyes in a mistrusting glare. ‘Your concern is noted. Do you need me to see you out?’ He leant forward to rise from his chair.
Ruby shook her head, satisfied she had come up with a suitable excuse for coming through the back entrance, in case he made anything of it later. ‘Now that I’m here, I’d like to speak to you about some stolen jewellery. A silver designer bracelet was taken from a young woman who was found murdered in the park last night.’ She produced her phone and drew up the picture of the missing piece. ‘There’s a pair of matching earrings too. They’re quite distinctive, little silver keys with the numbers “21” on them. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about those, would you?’
‘I run a respectable establishment,’ Buster said, impertinently. ‘I do not take in stolen goods.’
‘And the Pope doesn’t pray,’ Ruby said, poking some of the jewellery on the desk with her index finger.
Tiny beads of sweat glistened on Buster’s forehead, and Ruby knew it was not from the two-bar heater weakly warming the room. ‘My clients go through a strict signing in process, providing photographs and ID,’ he added, his eyes darting from the jewellery and back to Ruby.
‘What about the camera-shy customers who give you an extra cut?’ Ruby said, arching an eyebrow.
Buster remained tight-lipped, and Ruby’s frustration grew. Playing nicely was getting her nowhere. She exhaled sharply; she didn’t have time for this.
‘I think it’s time you went,’ Buster said, his hand drawn to the lip under his desk. He was probably trying to alert the gorilla working behind the front counter, and that was an encounter Ruby could do without.
She planted her hands firmly on his desk, her words like bullets. ‘Do you want me to turn this place over?’ She pointed at the jewellery to drive her message home. ‘I don’t care about your stolen gear, I’m only interested in the bracelet and earrings. I know you’ve got them.’ Ruby was bluffing; well aware she was placing all her trust in a man who could be bought for a cooked breakfast and a ten-pound note. But it was too late to back out now. ‘I can nick you for obstruction and close the place down for a search, or you can provide me with a statement, help us with our enquiries. What’s it to be?’ She glanced at Luddy, who was standing with his arms folded.
‘This is police oppression,’ Buster sneered. ‘I’m going to report you for this.’
‘Fine, if you want to play it that way,’ Ruby said, knowing his arrest would give her the automatic right to conduct a premises search. But given her intel
ligence source, her justification was thin. ‘You can make your complaint in custody while we’re arranging for a solicitor to deal with your arrest.’ Despite her cool veneer, Ruby’s heart was hammering. Everything was riding on a bluff. It was the only way to deal with a snake like Buster, and William had never let her down before.
‘I’ll take my chances. In fact, I’ll contact your superiors now rather than waste any more time,’ Buster said, picking up the phone on his desk and dialling the first of three nines.
Ruby pressed the receiver to hang up the call. ‘Go ahead, but first let me call your landlord, Nathan Crosby. He’d be very interested to hear one of his tenants is involved in a murder enquiry.’ The irony was that, despite Nathan being a lawbreaker himself, he did not appreciate attention being drawn to his businesses. He would not be pleased, and of that Buster Turner was well aware.
‘You wouldn’t,’ Buster said, recoiling from the desk phone as if it were a pit of snakes.
Ruby began searching through her list of contacts on her mobile phone. ‘I’ve got his number on speed dial.’ She waved it in his face, watching him visibly wilt. ‘It’s your choice. What’s it to be?’
Chapter Four
Ruby wrapped her fingers around the steaming mug of tea. She was trying to ignore the fact Downes had omitted the sugar. It was such a rare event that he made a brew, it would not do to appear ungrateful. Their shift had ended hours ago, but given they had recovered the stolen jewellery from Buster Turner nobody would be going home tonight. Her methods of persuasion had improved the pawnbroker’s memory, and by the time she left, she was equipped with an evidence bag containing the seized jewellery and a statement giving up Danny Smedley as the person who pawned it.
‘I don’t understand why we can’t just go and arrest this guy,’ she said, glancing around Downes’s office. It was bigger than hers, but the extra space only served to house the clutter he had accumulated over the years. Old sporting trophies, group photos of police colleagues, and spare sets of clothes he had forgotten to take home and wash.
‘DCI Worrow wants to get it right and, for once, I agree with her. They’ve got eyes on Smedley, he’s not going anywhere tonight.’
Ruby threw up her hands in exasperation. ‘We’ve got stolen jewellery and a positive fingerprint ID. If we bring him in now, he’ll cough to it.’
‘You know what he’ll say in interview: that he found the jewellery in the park. We need time to build a case against him, and if he puts a foot wrong in the meantime, we’ll catch him in the act.’
‘I hope you’re right,’ Ruby grumbled. ‘Nothing back from the post-mortem yet?’
Downes shook his head. ‘Not yet.’
‘In that case, I’ve got some enquiries to make.’ Ruby shoved her arm through the sleeve of her blazer.
‘Where are you off to?’
‘Intel gathering. I want to know the motivation behind this murder.’
‘Step lightly, don’t go tipping anyone off,’ Downes said.
Ruby arched her eyebrow in a knowing glance. ‘I’ll be on my radio if you need me.’
* * *
As she entered Nathan Crosby’s club, she could not work out if she wanted to see her daughter or not. Building their relationship was taking longer than she had hoped. It seemed to suit Frances, Nathan’s mother, who had taken to motherhood forty years too late. Ruby pushed past Nathan’s staff as she made her way to the back office, giving the secure door three tentative knocks. It was further than most people were allowed to go, but her association with Nathan gave her the concession.
‘It’s me, Ruby,’ she said, pressing down the leather-lined door handle. The little touches meant everything to Nathan, and despite his humble upbringing, every inch of his living space was designed and furnished to the highest quality.
Ruby cautiously opened the door to find him sitting behind his executive mahogany desk, feet up. It was a vast improvement on the cheap furniture that graced her office back in the nick. Her workspace smelt of print toner and takeaway food. Nathan’s carried the scent of leather, freshly polished wood and the faintest hint of cigar smoke. It was something that his father would have approved of, but Ruby knew better than to mention Jimmy Crosby’s name. She tilted her head to take in the view on all four shiny screens on his wall. One of the cameras was trained on his door, and only then did she realise that he’d seen her approach. ‘They’re new,’ she said, knowing that a separate room downstairs was manned by his in-house security firm.
‘Drink?’ Nathan said, taking two cut-glass tumblers from a cabinet behind his desk.
‘I’m on duty,’ Ruby replied. ‘Make it a small one.’
The corner of Nathan’s mouth twitched into a smile. He pushed the glass beneath the ice machine before filling it with a generous helping of rum. Ruby took it without saying a word. They sat in amicable silence. Their gaze on the screens, they watched sweaty bodies mill about on the dance floor, merged in a kaleidoscope of colours.
‘How’s Cathy?’ Ruby said, her eyes appraising him as he leant back in his chair. His maroon shirt and black trousers complemented his muscular form, and she sent herself a mental reminder that she was here on police business.
‘Same as usual,’ Nathan said. ‘But you didn’t come here for that, did you? I hear you’ve been terrorising my tenants.’
‘I persuaded him to help me with my enquiries, that’s all.’ Ruby gave him a wicked grin. She knew he loved her rebellious streak, her inability to play by the rules. There would be no reprisals from Nathan tonight. ‘What can you tell me about Danny Smedley? I take it you know about the murder?’
‘For what it’s worth, I don’t believe it was a planned attack. He raped that girl because the opportunity presented itself. Then he was stupid enough to try and fence her jewellery on my patch.’ The smile he was wearing dissolved from his face. ‘That girl wasn’t much older than Cathy. If he comes around here again, I’ll slit his throat.’
‘We’ve got eyeballs on him. We’re bringing him in tomorrow,’ Ruby said, taking a sip of rum.
Nathan nodded, then slid his mobile phone from his pocket and sent a text. Perhaps he had already given the order to kill and was calling his men off. Ruby licked her lips, enjoying the feel of the heavy crystal tumbler as she rested it on her palm. Would it have been such a bad thing, one less rapist and murderer on the streets? ‘The thing is, I need evidence. If you happen to come up with any witnesses, let me know.’
‘No need,’ Nathan replied. ‘If you’re not able to get him under your own steam, we’ll mop up after you when he’s released. Just let me know the time and place, and we’ll be happy to oblige.’
‘You know I can’t do that,’ Ruby said.
‘Ditto,’ Nathan replied.
It always came down to a stalemate between them. ‘I was thinking I might go back to the flat tonight. The tenants next door are having barneys every night. I’ve not had a proper night’s sleep in ages.’
‘It’s your place, I don’t know why you don’t move in there.’
Ruby had been considering it. Nathan had gifted it to her months before under the guise of an inheritance from a long since dead aunt but she knew how it had been funded, and felt she was selling out. Either way, it seemed daft to have two flats, and she knew she would make up her mind soon.
Nathan stood, a signal that her time was up. ‘Babe, it’s not as if I’m gonna ask for it back. We’ve got Cathy. We’re in it together, whether we like it or not.’
Ruby nodded, knowing the bond of having a daughter would always keep them in contact.
‘And do you… like it?’ Ruby said, stepping towards him until they were just inches apart.
‘You know how I feel about you.’ His voice was gentle now, comforting.
‘I’ll think about it,’ Ruby said. ‘The flat, I mean.’ The proximity of his body was making her flustered.
A sharp knock at the door made Ruby jump, and she quickly pulled away.
‘What?’ Na
than said, his tone sharp as the door parted.
A gravelly voice responded from the other side. ‘Sorry, boss, your three o’clock is here.’
Nathan’s expression changed from someone she grew up with to a face made of stone. He swore under his breath. It was obviously someone he did not want Ruby to meet. ‘Get Mike to stall him, take Ruby out the back.’
He turned to face her. ‘Sorry, babe, next time you want to visit, call me first. I can’t have you coming around here unannounced.’
‘Don’t worry, I’m going. I know when I’m not wanted,’ Ruby said, her frustration growing at the barriers that rose in every direction she turned. She thought of Lisa’s mother in the throes of grief. The fact Danny Smedley was still free after causing such devastation filled her with disgust.
As she left the club, she was hit by the sting of cold night air. She lifted the collar on her jacket, strengthening her resolve. She would speak to DCI Worrow, appeal to her better nature. Danny Smedley would not sleep another night a free man.
Chapter Five
‘Skin white as snow, lips red as blood, hair dark as ebony wood,’ the doctor recited the words as he slid the comb through the wig’s short tresses. It shone beneath the surgical spotlight and was as black as the fairy tale suggested. He smiled in satisfaction. Gone were the nasty synthetic blonde strands. In their place was a bobbed wig made of real human hair. He had been pleased with his efforts. His skills with the scalpel had easily transferred to scissors, and he had worked diligently, trimming each strand of glossy black hair until it was just the right length. Her skin, once pockmarked and ashen, was now ivory white, free from unsightly hairs and blemishes. He had spent all night transforming it to the perfect tone, so engrossed in his work that he had forgotten to eat. If it weren’t for the rats squeaking for food, he could have kept going until dawn. They gathered around his feet, whiskers twitching, as they rose on their hind legs. Their black beaded eyes shone with anticipation as they sniffed the air for food. In the last twelve months, they had become his closest allies. Sometimes they kept him warm as he slept – a pulsating blanket of fur. Like him, they appreciated the music that echoed around the derelict chamber. He moved towards the record player, setting it into life once more.
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