I Know You (DI Emma Locke)

by Louise Mullins

  ‘Good.’ He takes a large gulp and licks his fat lips. He winces. ‘Too sweet.’

  ‘Do you want another?’ Would the added pills make the tea too bitter without the sugar?

  ‘No, don’t bother. It’ll do.’

  I turn back to the open kitchen doorway and freeze, noticing the shadow of three or four people guarding the front door, my only escape. Before I’ve got time to open my mouth to ask Marcus who he brought with him there is the familiar scrape of metal as the lock turns and the door flings wide. ‘Hello? Police. Stand back!’

  Faith. She got the meaning of my eye-movements when I answered the door to her earlier, trying to keep my voice steady, praying she’d know immediately something was wrong while I flicked my gaze from left to right and up and down. She must have given them her spare key to avoid them having to break the door down to gain entry.

  Marcus drags me backwards by my hair. I shriek as pain shoots through the roots, causing my eyes to water. His grip loosens, hair uncoiling from between his fingers as he shoves my head forward. I instinctively land on my elbow instead of my face, and scurry upward in time to see him drop the knife. The metal clang reverberates long after he’s legged it upstairs. I listen to his heavy footsteps above me as he darts into my bedroom, slams the door shut with four officers charging after him. A heavy object being dragged towards the door, not quickly enough to prevent access.

  I bolt outside, meeting a line of police, two of them carrying guns, trained on the upstairs window Marcus is leaning out of, trying to determine if jumping is worth the risk of a broken ankle. A bulletproof-vested officer tugs him back and turns him round. Two other officers’ heads bop up and an arm stretches out to pull the window shut. By the sound of the scuffling feet and swearing panic Marcus is struggling to evade being apprehended.

  The blue lights blink from a van waiting for Marcus to be thrown inside and driven to custody. I watch from the doorway as he is escorted away from the house, hear one of the officers mention testing the prints on the knife, swabbing it for traces.

  I don’t know what I’ll do if my son’s blood is discovered on it.

  DS MAGUIRE

  Croydon, London

  Marcus stares at me, lips clamped shut, hands glued together, not giving away a flicker of guilt, regret, or remorse. Unashamed that his mother, having been awoken from her afternoon nap, has to attend the station and sit in with him while he is being interviewed. What’s more though is that despite the life adversity Marcus has witnessed, he’s never experienced poverty or bereavement himself. If I was to compare him to any of his friends, he’d appear to be the most privileged.

  He looks just as I find him: like a kid wearing adult clothing. Scared, troubled, and angry. Though not because his father, Dejuan, left the country, never intended to commit to his mother, or ceased contact with them both four months ago. Not because his mum’s either working a night shift at the hospital or she’s sleeping after one. Not even because most of his mates have recently been nicked and locked up for various misdemeanours. But because he knows that whatever led him to Honour’s was wrong, despite the fact he won’t divulge his reason for holding a knife to her throat and forcing his way into her house.

  ‘Can you explain how your fingerprints came to be on the jewellery box, bedside cabinet, and door handle of Miss Bennet’s bedroom? Can you explain how your fingerprints came to be on the bathroom windowsill which we believe you used to enter her home on the 16th of October 2018?’

  Silence.

  ‘Can you tell me what you were searching for in Miss Bennet’s bedroom when you unlawfully entered her house? And did you find it?’

  Nothing.

  ‘Were you planning on leaving something in Miss Bennet’s house? Did you? And if so, what was it?’

  I leave several seconds after each question in the hope that he will reply to at least one of them.

  ‘Had you ever entered Miss Bennet’s home before that day, lawfully or unlawfully?

  ‘Why did you disappear immediately after Miss Bennet’s home was broken into? Where did you go? And who were you with?’

  He bites the inside of his cheek, his lips pursing as he does.

  ‘Where did you get the knife that we found you in possession of today, Mr West? Is it yours? Did you bring it with you? Or did you find it inside the house?

  ‘Were you intending to physically harm Miss Bennet with the knife?

  ‘Has the knife been used to harm anyone that you are aware of? Have you harmed anyone with the knife? Did you use the knife to kill Steven?’

  I’m relieved when I reach the final question.

  ‘Do you have anything you would like to say regarding the charges that have been brought against you?

  ‘Interview terminated at 7.16 p.m.’

  I exit the interview room and stand in the doorway to oversee Benson escorting Marcus down the corridor to a holding cell. I walk in the opposite direction, to the incident room. Hodges greets me at my desk. ‘Not a word from Marcus.’

  ‘Now there’s a surprise.’

  ‘What are we requesting the CPS agree with us to charge him for?’

  ‘Unlawful entry, false imprisonment, and assault.’ He nods and picks up his phone.

  Pierce swivels his chair round, nudging me with his elbow. I glance at his computer monitor and my gaze is instantly glued to the screen. To the screenshot of the handwritten preliminary report from a lab technician.

  ‘There’s blood on the knife. Steven’s.’

  ‘But that’s not the one Marcus had on him.’

  ‘No. This is the hunting knife found in Leighton’s sock drawer when CSI searched the place after he was lifted inside Marley’s flat.’

  ‘We have the murder weapon.’ I feel elated. But then I note Pierce’s frown.

  ‘There are no fingerprints on it,’ he says.

  We can’t prove Leighton used the knife to kill Steven because he could be holding onto it for someone else, he could have been threatened to hide it, or he might not have known it was there. He could claim he’d been set up by the real perpetrator. Although I find that hard to believe, I can’t disprove the notions if he was to use one or more of them as part of his defence strategy. And we can’t add possession of a weapon onto Leighton’s charge sheet to allow us to question him about it because he wasn’t carrying it in a public place.

  Although Natalie described the man who leapt from the black Golf outside the chicken restaurant to repeatedly stab Steven as: ‘short and stocky, with dark hair,’ she did not specify his skin colour. We haven’t focused exclusively on a tall Caucasian man with blond hair, but we were right about the colour, make, and model of the vehicle the perpetrator was driving being the complete opposite to the car Natalie described. The confirmation bias led us to suspect the driver’s skin colour was white, that the individual was an adult male, and that he drove to the crime scene alone intending to attack Steven due to the similar descriptions derived from several witnesses to the drive-by that led to Natalie’s murder.

  But the public assume Natalie was shot for speaking to the police. They’re not aware of the information she disclosed to us unless she spoke to them in the few hours between leaving police custody and returning home. So, who did she speak to during those hours?

  Her mum? Carmen could have unconsciously divulged certain aspects of the crime to her brother, Keenan, over the phone.

  Her boyfriend? Leighton. Natalie said he didn’t arrive to meet her outside the chicken restaurant as planned. Although his mum is adamant that he was home that night, it wouldn’t be the first time a mother had given us a false alibi for her son. And we can’t dispute it because we weren’t able to capture anyone of interest from CCTV footage at the scene of the crime or within a two-mile radius of it.

  We haven’t been able to locate the other members of the crew and unless Marcus, Leighton, or Jerome give us their names, we can only observe their own behaviour.

  There’s also the possibility someone o
n the Murder Investigation Team leaked the descriptive information Natalie disclosed to me and Pierce to one of them.

  Pierce himself, or Rawlings?

  *

  It’s late. The sky above the windblown trees has turned a livid blood-orange. Beyond the clouds a lone starling soars upward and vanishes into a floating sea of indigo.

  I revert my attention from the window when a message alert notification from the internal software program blinks at me from the corner of my computer screen. I open it to reveal the edited version of the live camera footage from yesterday’s 6 a.m. raid on Marley’s flat, sent to me from Leanne. It’s Rawlings’ job really, to ensure we’ve got a concrete stack of slabs with which the jury may throw at Marley and his companion, Leighton. Unless he rats out his friend, wrongly assuming his confession will offer him a lesser sentence.

  If I had a pound for every kid who was brought in here for questioning and who thought that having recalled a US crime drama they’d watched and considered to be factual they could snitch on someone in exchange for reduced charges . . .

  My finger hovers over the mouse, the cursor pointing at a stack of crisp notes parked on top of the shoe box they were discovered in, retrieved from Marley’s flat, unaccounted for. A cheap branded shoe box like the ones Marcus’s sister, Leoni, uses to hold her rhinestones, glue, and fashion accessories in.

  Leoni knew Tyrell back in school. Had given him the number of a cannabis dealer. The individual who’d gone on to offer Tyrell skunk on tick in exchange for running the occasional eighth to one of his younger buyers, who then gave him Marley’s phone number. Tyrell was working for Marley at the time of his death. Although the house Marcus lives in with his mother and sister has been searched and nothing untoward flagged, Leoni does know Keenan: as Dejuan’s best mate, Carmen’s brother, and Jerome’s uncle.

  It’s a long shot, but Keenan’s employer has been under surveillance for weeks. Before that, undercover worked on befriending his associates to learn more about his – now deceased – girlfriend, Mercedes’, illicit earnings. Our own drug squad were responsible for the suggestion that Keenan was involved in a money laundering enterprise. That he was distributing drugs. And what better way of delivering them than via takeaway cartons straight to the user’s homes?

  The selling of drugs could still be continuing right under the undercover officers’ noses.

  My stomach clenches and I stand so abruptly my chair spins backwards into Hodges as he’s passing between the incident room desks.

  Mr Atkinson, the owner of the chicken restaurant, was due to go away on holiday when I last spoke to him. Before Natalie’s murder. Before Mercedes’ overdose in Thailand. Before Keenan disappeared.

  I head straight over to Benson and practically drag him from his seat.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘We’re positive Natalie falsified her description of the male driver to prevent us from uncovering the identity of Steven’s killer. The only other individual to describe the culprit’s car was Keenan, who’s missing and who works for Mr Atkinson.’

  ‘We can’t go to the chicken restaurant without a warrant. The place is under surveillance. We’ll jeopardise the drug squad’s case if we storm through the doors.’

  ‘A life sentence for murder trumps ten years for supplying class A drugs.’

  ‘You can’t!’ He stands in front of the door preventing my exit. ‘We don’t even know who’s running the joint while Mr Atkinson is away. We’re not going to get any names or inside intel from undercover until they feed back to their supervisors when they’ve finished. And that’s not going to happen until Mr Atkinson’s return from Spain. By which time the arrest team will already be preparing to raid the place. We can charge him once he’s been nicked. If we can prove he had something to do with Keenan’s disappearance.’

  ‘We know Natalie was protecting someone. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say love tops blood loyalty and friendship.’

  ‘Okay, we have Leighton in custody until 2 a.m. Let me lay our theory on him thick.’

  ‘Which is?’ I want to ensure he understands.

  ‘That Natalie was aware of Leighton’s plan to stab Steven under Mr Atkinson’s instruction.’

  SINEAD

  Newport, Wales

  Last night I slept on the sofa, going over and over the things I have done or have neglected to do.

  I failed Tyrell. Not through fear of what I might uncover had I dug deeper, but by allowing Pierce to bully me out of my job. Yet it’s clear to me now that I missed something vitally important. Something it’s taken me this long to admit. Even now I’m struggling to comprehend what this means, not for my future but for the future of the officer in charge of the investigation.

  I never believed the rumour mill surrounding Tyrell’s death which suggested he was killed by a rival gang for selling weed in the park to under-eighteens. I always suspected Marley was responsible for murdering him. His motivation being supposed disloyalty to the gang, which it often is in such circumstances. And now Marley has been charged for dealing cocaine, DS Maguire is in the best position to question him about Tyrell’s murder.

  There were similarities to Steven’s. He was attacked in a public place. The crime was frenzied, unprovoked, planned, the perpetrator was intent on killing him in a way that caused him as much physical pain as possible, and according to this morning’s online newspaper article published by the Croydon Echo, the eight-inch blade used to wound Steven was a hunting knife. Tyrell’s was meant for gutting fish. I can’t say for certain, but I’d bet that the weapon used to kill Steven was also purchased from the camping supply shop on the High Street. The chain-store is within a five-mile radius of the two lads’ homes.

  Then there’s Alex Peters’ reporting discrepancies. Apparently irrelevant details omitted from files. Like the fact our only suspect had a vague alibi we couldn’t disprove, vanished two days after Tyrell’s murder, reappearing only when Keenan’s brother, his mate, was charged with drug offences. Probably to get rid of his own supply from the house he shared with his mum and dad. And when I questioned Pierce over who sold him the weed that I caught him smoking he told me it was unmarked. Meaning unrecorded seized property. The last batch confiscated during Keenan’s brother’s arrest.

  I dial through to Pierce, but his mobile number goes straight to voicemail. Then I call the Met, wait an age to get put through to Croydon CID, and a further four minutes listening to a pre-recorded message about their new non-urgent email facility before I’m finally transferred to DS Maguire. Gone are the days I could hit a button and gain instant access to any one of my colleagues. Most of them have long since voluntarily retired, transferred to another force, been imprisoned, or have been killed in a deliberately lit house fire.

  I miss my days on the beat. The camaraderie, the challenges, the satisfactory arrests, the pride and victory after removing another offender from the street.

  ‘Detective Sergeant Maguire? It’s Sinead Griffith, from Newport.’

  There is a rustle and a click.

  ‘I think Mr Atkinson was working for someone with investigative skills. A detective. A senior officer maybe. Someone with inside knowledge of Tyrell’s murder, who worked the case, but who’s no longer on the force’s payroll. Whoever was responsible for Evesham’s murder. Either carrying it out or ordering it. Ex-Detective Superintendent Robert Callahan perhaps?’

  I hear steady breathing then a familiar voice. ‘Thank you,’ says Pierce before the line goes dead.

  ‘What the—’

  I realise what I’ve said and to whom and I shiver.

  DI LOCKE

  Newport, Wales

  I’ve never been one for early mornings but as SIO it’s my job to prep the arrest team and coach them in the same way I guess an army sergeant might brief his or her soldiers, readying them for battle.

  I could almost sense the aura of triumph when Jones stomped into the incident room looking elated at his discovery. Thanks to the
‘Have You Seen This Man?’ tweet our social media operator posted on Twitter, shared to Facebook by a member of the public, and viewed by an individual, who until the recent fallout regarding co-managed building construction regulations worked for Whitechapel Properties, we had a name.

  The man, a mason, contacted me midday yesterday to identify the ex-BT van driver’s image, saved from the PC’s vest-cam footage. Jones confirmed it with Newport City Council’s tax office, and double checked the information with HMRC.

  I turn to the room of alert faces.

  ‘Alun Newell is a Welsh-born Caucasian male, and a resident of Newport. He owns a vehicle dealership just off Usk way, near the docks, and close to the car auction.’ I point to the printed photograph of the man Sellotaped to the whiteboard.

  ‘We believe Alun Newell assisted Alex Peters in the incident involving the hit and run to Sinead’s car. We know that Mr Newell has recently purchased several vehicles from Birmingham, Swindon, Bristol, and Newport according to the Vehicle Operator Services Agency. VOSA to any of you who, rather than ask your partners to go, get your own cars MOT’d.

  ‘Being a modern businessman, Mr Newell offers car finance, provided by his friend, Edward Johnston, whose company gives him access to customers’ personal details of contact, such as their full names, maiden names, dates of birth, and, most important of all, home addresses. He therefore had both the means and the opportunity to discover and disclose Sinead’s place of residence.’

  I take a breath and scan the room. ‘Having spoken to Sinead this morning I can confirm that she purchased her car from Newell’s Autos.’

  ‘Mr Newell appears to be a legit car salesman. He has trader’s insurance with a recognised broker and two trade plates registered to the business address written on the whiteboard.’

  I address the room with a roaming eye.