‘What the fuck, Delroy?’ she said, rattled.
‘Nestor’s dead.’
Delroy had never been inside Berlin’s gaff. He was surprised at how normal it seemed. It was just one big room really, but comfortable, a few paintings, a polished table and a yellow vase filled with bright, cobalt irises. One wall was taken up with bookshelves. A small, sleek, high-end computer was balanced on a pile of old hardbacks beside the couch. The palette of the room, as they would say in the Sunday papers, was blue and yellow.
Berlin poured him a mug of coffee.
‘What happened to you?’ he asked, pointing at her face.
‘What happened to Nestor?’ was her reply.
Delroy shrugged. Fair enough. It was none of his beeswax if someone had taken a pop at her. They were probably trying to get a rise out of her, he thought, then immediately felt guilty about having such an uncharitable reaction. That was the trouble with Berlin: you never knew what she was thinking, but she always seemed to know what you were thinking. He gulped his coffee to cover his disloyal thoughts.
‘They fished him out of the Limehouse Basin earlier this morning,’ he said.
‘You’re joking,’ said Berlin, astonished.
Delroy shook his head. ‘Our liaison officer at the local nick gave me the heads-up.’
‘How did he die?’ she asked.
‘They don’t know yet if he jumped or was pushed.’
He watched as Berlin tried to take it in. ‘That’s no bloody coincidence, turning up in the same spot as Juliet Bravo. Gina Doyle, that is,’ she said.
‘She wasn’t using that name anyway,’ muttered Delroy as he finished his coffee.
‘What? Gina Doyle?’
‘Yeah. They can’t find any trace of her under that name,’ he said, holding out his mug for a refill.
‘How do you know?’ she asked, pouring a shot of Scotch into her own coffee and ignoring his empty mug. Delroy noticed she was immediately distracted from the fact of Nestor’s death. He got up and poured his own coffee.
‘Coulthard’s always walking away from his desk without logging off.’ He looked sheepish, a kid caught peeking through the keyhole. ‘He keeps getting email from someone calling themselves Tinderbox.’
‘Flint. The weasel-faced DS working the murder,’ said Berlin.
‘Oh yeah, I hadn’t thought of that.’ Del laughed. ‘Of course, it has to be. Yeah, he called Coulthard yesterday. And here’s the strange thing. Tinderbox emailed him a post-mortem photo of Doyle’s daughter.’
‘Jesus, Del, this is too fucking much. Why would Coulthard want a photo of my dead informant?’
‘Yeah,’ said Delroy, ‘I can’t get a grip on it all. That’s Coulthard for you.’ He took a mouthful of the strong, aromatic coffee. He was usually a Nescafé man; but this stuff was dynamite.
‘I heard about that doctor in Hackney,’ he said.
Berlin didn’t react.
‘He’s the one, isn’t he?’
‘The one what?’ she challenged.
‘The one who treats your diabetes,’ said Delroy, his tone measured.
‘He’s the one, Del,’ she said, resigned.
‘How’s that going then, getting your treatment sorted?’
She gave him a small smile. ‘It’s in hand, Del, thanks for asking.’
Delroy nodded. He put down his mug. ‘I’d better get going. It’ll be chaos at work today.’
She followed him to the front door. ‘So what are they saying about Nestor?’
‘Not much. He was pissed. Went back to the office late. They’re not giving anything away. Early days in the investigation, I suppose.’
‘I suppose.’ She paused. ‘Del,’ she said.
‘What?’ he said, instantly on guard. He knew that tone.
‘Ever come across a DCI called Dempster in your former life?’ She said it casually.
Jesus Christ, he thought, she’s moving right on. She knew that before he joined the Agency he’d worked as a civvy with Police Complaints. Her reaction to Nestor’s demise was like her reaction to everything: it had gone missing. He loved her to bits; she was fierce, loyal and smart. At work she had often covered for him, borne the brunt of Coulthard’s hostility. But she was so fucking weird.
‘Why do you ask?’ he said.
‘He’s supervising the investigation into my doctor’s murder.’
Delroy sighed and offered her some heartfelt advice. ‘Mate, you are already in a world of trouble. Coulthard has been tasked to prepare a report on your shenanigans with the dead informant. Now Nestor goes off the edge in the same location. Just try to keep your head down, yeah? Don’t go getting mixed up in another investigation.’
He gave her a brief peck on the cheek and left.
Too late, mate, she thought, I’m already in it up to my neck.
It was still dark but there was no way she was going to be able to sleep now. She poured herself another Scotch. If Nestor was murdered, there must be a connection to the Doyle operation. Why else would you leave the body in the same location? Likewise if it was suicide. Why do it there?
She thought about the impact Nestor’s death might have on what was laughingly referred to as her career. Coulthard would probably step up into his job and then there would be no holding him. Seized with a sense of foreboding her gaze fell on the bread bin. She grabbed her coat. Maybe she was just hungry.
26
PREOCCUPIED, BERLIN DIDN’T notice Doyle until he cleared his throat. She looked up and he pointed to the empty chair at her table.
‘Do you mind?’
She looked around Pellicci’s. There was plenty of room at other tables.
‘Suit yourself,’ she replied.
He took off his coat and scarf, hung them over the back of the chair and sat. Nino brought him tea and toast. Berlin watched and waited.
Doyle sipped his tea. He looked terrible. She thought about Juliet Bravo, the way she was so intent on bringing this man down, urging Berlin to pursue him at all costs. Her own father. Berlin wondered what he had done to make his daughter hate him so much.
Doyle put his cup down with a sigh.
‘I hadn’t seen my daughter since she was sixteen, Miss Berlin.’ He looked up at her. ‘It is Miss Berlin, isn’t it?’
‘How do you know who I am?’ she asked.
‘Your firm leaks like a sieve, Miss.’
Berlin wasn’t surprised and saw no point in pretending outrage or walking out. ‘I’m sorry for your loss, Mr Doyle,’ she said.
‘Thank you. Much appreciated,’ he said, and seemed to mean it. But it was clear he hadn’t sat down just to exchange pleasantries.
‘So what can I do for you?’ she asked.
Doyle hesitated. ‘What was she like?’ His face was soft, vulnerable. ‘Gina, I mean.’
Berlin was taken aback. This was the last thing she’d expected from him. ‘I … look, I hardly knew her. She was my CHIS, a covert —’
‘I know what it means,’ he said, and reached across the table to grip her arm. It wasn’t a threat, it was a plea. ‘Miss Berlin, I know she was grassing me up. You must have wondered what a father could do to a daughter that she would stoop so low.’
She was surprised again, this time by his perspicacity.
‘I think I know why,’ he continued. ‘She always blamed me for it. It must have been because she thought …’
He choked up. Berlin could feel his clammy palm through her coat.
‘She thought I was responsible for her mum.’ He hesitated. ‘For her mum leaving that is, without taking her.’
The investigator in Berlin kicked in. ‘And were you?’ she asked.
Doyle raised his hand to God and shook his head. ‘On my life.’
Berlin had the feeling he thought she knew more than she did. This gave her a tactical advantage.
‘So if you know what her motivation was, what do you want from me?’
‘I just want to know what she was like, as a grown-up.’<
br />
Berlin couldn’t think of a reason to deny him this simple, sad request. ‘She was smart, confident, well turned out. She said she was something in the City.’
Tears welled up in Doyle’s eyes. ‘That was my Gina. Sharp as a tack. I always knew she’d do us proud. But why did she wait all these years to have a go at me? That’s what I don’t understand. Why now?’
It was a bloody good question, thought Berlin. Maybe the Agency’s campaign had given her the opportunity she had been waiting for; Gina had probably realised illegal lenders weren’t a priority for the police. She would have done her homework. But a dedicated team and a hotline would make all the difference.
Berlin pushed her plate away. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Doyle, I really can’t discuss it with you any further.’
She rose to go, but he held on to her arm.
‘Miss Berlin, I want whoever killed my girl. Never mind what she was trying to do to me. I think you want that too, because in a way, see, we’re both responsible. So maybe we can help each other.’ Doyle searched her face.
She glanced at his hand on her arm.
He let go.
Doyle waited for her to say something, for a flicker of emotion. It never came.
He took out a pen, wrote a mobile number on a newspaper lying on the table and nudged it towards her. She didn’t touch it, just pushed in her chair, went to the till and paid Nino.
As she opened the door to leave, Doyle spoke again. ‘You’re local. Berlin was the jeweller. Used to be just down the road.’
She closed the door and walked back to the table.
‘It was Berlinsky once,’ he said.
‘You’ve got the wrong Berlin,’ she said.
‘My father knew yours,’ said Doyle, very quietly.
He spread his fingers, displaying his rings.
She picked up the newspaper and walked out.
27
WALKING HOME ALONG Bethnal Green Road Berlin felt as if something or someone, or perhaps fate, was snapping at her heels. It was all getting too close. The shop was still there, but no longer a jeweller’s. They had lived above it. She crossed over so she didn’t have to pass by; the business had been her father’s, and before him her grandfather’s. He had scraped together the key money after he arrived from Russia.
Community. A warm, suffocating web. Doyle had invoked her father, and with him the dead weight of a shared history. She walked past the Underground station and there was the plaque on the wall. There was no escape.
Berlin had heard the story so often it felt like a memory.
It was 1943. People were heading down into the station, which was being used as an air-raid shelter. It wasn’t even finished yet and no trains stopped there. The crowd was quite orderly until they heard the boom of unfamiliar explosions. New artillery was being tested by the army in Victoria Park, but the crowd didn’t know that. They thought it was an air raid and panicked.
A woman carrying a baby fell, but the crush behind her pushed forward. The stampede down the steps left one hundred and seventy-two dead at the scene, including sixty-two children. One casualty died later in hospital. You could say they were killed by friendly fire, thought Berlin.
Her father’s recollection had remained vivid. He was fifteen when it happened. He had just started work in his father’s business. A skinny kid, a ‘runt’, was how he described himself.
He was halfway down the steps when the stampede began. Halfway between heaven and hell, as he put it. He would tell her he felt the suffocating pressure on his chest, a sensation of sinking beneath a great, irresistible weight as the oxygen was squeezed from his lungs.
As he spoke he would rest his hand lightly on his chest and breathe more deeply and as a child, she would place her own little hand on her own chest, fearful that she might run out of air. Even now she felt her chest tighten.
Then he would raise his arms above his head and describe how his arms were outstretched as he sank beneath the wave of bodies. It was at this moment in the story that, as a child she had realised that if he had kept sinking, she wouldn’t be sitting there listening to him. Her first intimation of not being.
But he didn’t sink. He had felt a hand grasp his. It came from above, became two hands which slid down around his wrist, gripped and pulled with such might he feared his shoulder would leave its socket. Her father had kicked and thrust his way up, using the bodies beneath him for purchase. The hands didn’t let go until they had dragged him over the railings and he lay gasping for breath on the pavement.
When he looked up, he saw his saviour was a tall, rough-looking boy, probably not much older than himself. The lad was inspecting his own stomach. The spikes of the iron railings had dug deep into his flesh as he’d hung over them, pulling her father to safety. Blood seeped from the livid gashes. The lad tugged his shirt down and grinned at Berlin’s father, still lying at his feet.
The din of the chaos around them seemed to come from far away. The cries of those trapped beneath the dead were fading. The siren wailed, and the lad was gone.
She unlocked her front door, stepped inside and slammed it behind her. But she didn’t feel safe. She’d flown under the radar for years, now suddenly everyone wanted a piece of her. Coulthard was on her case, Dempster had her at his mercy, Doyle knew her family. Christ, Dempster might even have a key to her bloody flat.
She turned around and walked out again.
28
DEMPSTER READ THROUGH the witness statements a third time. They all basically agreed. The woman had stood up, levelled the gun, shouted ‘murderer’, then fired. The thing everyone remembered most clearly was the sound of her neck breaking as she hit the oak table. She was Merle Okonedo, recently released from a psychiatric ward. It was her other connections that interested Dempster.
He leant over the crumbling brick parapet of the Limehouse Police Station. A station had stood in West India Dock Road since 1897, when the manor belonged to dockers and seamen from every corner of the globe. Hard as nails. Heirs to a maritime tradition of piracy and mayhem on the high seas. The police could barely hold the line.
Nothing much had changed. The current station reminded Dempster of a truncated version of Soviet constructivism. It had been started in 1940 and finished after the war. Just in time to meet the post-war tide of crime from East End gangs that reached its zenith in the sixties with the Krays. They had set a standard in dress sense, manners and loyalty that the current denizens of Poplar could only aspire to. But in terms of cruelty, they had well caught up.
The narrow balcony he was standing on was a refuge for smokers now that the pubs and cafés were smoke-free zones. He was freezing his bollocks off out here. They’d given him a broom-cupboard sized room on the top floor, well away from the Lazenby Incident Room. They didn’t know him and they didn’t trust him. The feeling was mutual.
The DCI leading the team had told him point blank they weren’t going to pursue any connection between Okonedo’s death at the town hall meeting, which they regarded as an accident, and Lazenby’s murder. They weren’t exactly sweating over that, either. Their attitude was that Lazenby was a maverick doctor pandering to junkies and should have been struck off years ago. What a bunch of numpties, thought Dempster. The DCI had as good as told him that Lazenby was bound to get it sooner or later from one of his scumbag patients. You reap what you sow.
The Lazenby team had already lost two detectives to the suspicious death of an infant: his smacked-out mother had decided to warm up his bathwater by putting the tin bowl on the cooker. With him in it.
Dempster watched a young mum across the road. She looked to be about fourteen, with a toddler in a pram. She’d stopped to talk to a mate and the kid was making her pay by chucking his teddy out on the ground, then wailing if she didn’t pick it up and give it back to him.
He sucked the smoke deep into his lungs and felt it stirring his brain. He tried to put the pieces of the puzzle together. A dead woman clutching a fake pistol and a doctor killed with
a real one. She died during a struggle to disarm her, but he died during a robbery. There was no sign of a struggle. Someone walked in, blew him away, took the drugs and went out the back.
The body had blocked the door from the waiting room, but whoever did it knew they could get out fast through the room used by the addicts to shoot up. It had been left to Catherine Berlin to push the door open and move the body.
He contemplated Berlin’s role in all this. It was clear from the get-go that she hadn’t killed Lazenby, unless she had the presence of mind to run out of one door and then back in the other, to establish she had arrived after his death. Then there had been the hand print. No killer ever stepped over a body to leave their mark in blood spatter on the wall.
But it had been useful to let her think, if only for a moment, that she might be in the frame. It had put her off balance just long enough for him to push her in the direction he’d wanted her to go. By reputation, she wasn’t easily moved.
His thoughts drifted back to Merle Okonedo. He couldn’t believe it was sheer coincidence that had brought her to the public gallery of the town hall the same day Lazenby was murdered. The debate was about the management of addicts in the area. Bonnington was campaigning hard to have Lazenby shut down once and for all. If Okonedo was so hostile to Lazenby’s practice, why didn’t she just wait until after the Trust voted? If he lost, it would all be over.
Okay, she hadn’t been thinking straight. After all, she’d been treated for – he flipped back through the file – severe depression, following the death of her junkie brother. But she was thinking straight enough to know that waving a starting pistol around at the town hall would get her cause, which was Bonnington’s cause, maximum publicity.
Dempster didn’t think Merle had anticipated a dummy gun would lead to her death. A dozen eye witnesses had seen Bonnington engage in a heroic struggle to disarm her and in the mix she’d toppled over the balcony. It was an accident.
In Her Blood Page 8