Love Sex Work Murder

by Neal Bircher

  The big shiny solid oak door creaked open on its ancient brass hinges as behind her Alyson’s mother came in with a pot of tea. It was a Wedgwood teapot, enclosed in a homemade woollen cosy, with matching cups and saucers, a silver jug of hot water, silver milk jug, silver sugar bowl containing a mix of brown and white sugar lumps and a small silver spoon, and it was all presented on a highly decorative, and even more highly polished, antique silver tray. All of the items had previously been owned by Alyson’s maternal grandmother. She had died three years before after spending the final years of her life in this house being looked after by Alyson’s mother and father.

  Alyson’s mother – Deidre – pulled out the middle of a set of three Victorian rosewood nested tables and set the tray down on it. Alyson didn’t look around. Her mother peered over her half-moon reading glasses as she gave the tea pot one last gentle swirl. Then she set out two cups and saucers, added the requisite quantity of milk to each, and then poured the steaming hot tea on top.

  “Sugar, dear?”

  “Yes, please, just one.”

  Deidre cleared her throat. “I don’t know. I just can’t imagine what he was thinking.”

  Alyson continued to gaze out of the window, not wishing to join in the conversation.

  “I mean, what about all those lovely holidays you had? And the house … And his job too; he had a good job there, didn’t he?”

  Alyson was most definitely not going to turn around.

  “Your tea’s here, dear.”

  “I know.”

  “I just can’t believe that he’s been so foolish … and with an older woman too!”

  Alyson spun around.

  “Just shut up mum! You haven’t got a clue about anything have you? When was the last time you lived in the real world? When did you ever have to do a day’s work in your life? When did you ever get drunk or let your hair down for five minutes? You spend your whole life fussing about dust on the mantelpiece or agonising over whether dad might want peas or broad beans with his lamb chop for tea, when he comes in from a job that he can’t stand anymore, but that he keeps doing day-in, day-out just to provide you with a big house to polish, and nice frocks to wear to the vicar’s tea parties, or whatever it is you do with those stupid idle “ladies” from the village who are just has clueless as you are! How can you ever know about anything when your biggest worries in life are whether the people from the parish council will admire your geraniums when they come round to play croquet, or whether that fucking piano is due for a fucking tuning? Just shut up! You haven’t got a fucking clue,” was more or less what went through her mind, but her actual response rather more succinct, albeit delivered with every bit as much venom:

  “His loss, mum … most definitelyhis loss.”

  The Jacket

  DI Wilson felt that Nick Hale’s missing black jacket was worthy of some investigation. He had been wearing it on the night of Barry Timson’s murder, and a fortnight later he no longer had it, claiming to have lost it on a Tuesday night out in London. If he had been party to the killing, then the disappearance of an item likely to yield forensic clues would be too much of a coincidence. If Wilson could locate the jacket, or ascertain that Nick was not telling the truth about its loss on the Tuesday in question, then he would have another piece for his jigsaw.

  Other than searches of Nick’s home and workplace, as well as possible dumping grounds over a large area covering Nick’s home, Gail’s home, and the murder scene – all of which had been carried out – Wilson had two possible lines of inquiry. There was Norling Household Waste & Re-Cycling Facility – or, to anybody who wasn’t employed by Hanforth and Norling Borough Council, “the dump”, which Nick was known to frequent, and there was Nick’s “alibi”: the night out with Andy Hilton. Dave Ferriby was charged with investigating both, and he enlisted keen young DC, Nigel Simms, to help out. Ferriby sent Simms to the dump whilst he himself magnanimously volunteered to check out the pubs in Soho that Nick claimed to have visited on the night he lost the jacket.

  There were no “customers” at the dump when DC Simms arrived in the middle of a cold Thursday afternoon. There was just one employee: an unshaven Eastern European man of about 30, sitting in a makeshift hut, smoking, listening to a recovered radio, and surrounded by a clutter of other pre-owned items. The man took a long drag on his roll-up and eyed Simms’ warrant card with suspicion. His side of their conversation was monosyllabic, but Simms was able to establish that hehad been on duty on the Sunday in question, he did not recall ever seeing Nick, and he didn’t recognise any of the cars in Simms’ photos. Useful. Simms had a wander around. The dump was situated on the small and inappropriately-named Buttercup Lane Industrial Estate. To access it, local residents (and in theory nobody else) drove down a bumpy tarmac road, passing faceless industrial units and parked-up vans and lorries for about a quarter of a mile, and then, just before the road petered out into a track that eventually led to the canal, pulled off to the left to pass between two vast and very battered metal gates. The attendant’s hut was almost immediately on the left after those gates, and then straight after that stretched a long low concrete wall that had a twenty foot drop on the other side, over which the residents threw whatever they had come to dispose of. High above was a corrugated iron roof, protecting them from the rain as they did so. Simms watched a maroon Volvo saloon come in. Its driver, a man in his seventies, parked up tidily, and then one-at-time took three neatly-tied black bin liners from his car’s boot, placed them on the wall, and then gently pushed them over. Then he leant over to observe where they had landed, turned away – seemingly satisfied, shut the Volvo’s boot, and slowly drove on. Cars exited from the far end of the yard, which ran parallel to the bumpy tarmac road, and then turned back on themselves to get away. Simms observed that the Volvo had been watched by a CCTV camera, perched up on the roof, as it came through the yard’s entrance, and that as he disposed of his bin liners its owner had probably also been captured on a second camera that was pointed at the middle section of the concrete wall.

  Simms was not surprised to find that the footage was captured on state of the Ark video tapes, nor was he surprised that cameras didn’t always have film in them, or that there was not much of a cataloguing system, or indeed that tapes were randomly recorded over. He was however pleasantly surprised to find that one tape did have the previous Sunday’s date written on it – along with a lot of older dates, but none more recent. He took the dump’s whole stock – of twelve tapes – and went back to the station.

  Dave Ferriby meanwhile took the train into London, and then the Bakerloo line to Piccadilly Circus, from where he walked into Soho to visit Nick’s supposed drinking haunts. First up was the Good Doctor: large, loud music, a not-very-nice smell of food, and an indifferent Australian barmaid – no black jacket, and nobody who recalled ever having seen Nick. The barmaid knew nothing about CCTV records, but at DC Ferriby’s request reluctantly called the bar manager, who was not on the premises. Ferriby ordered himself a bottle of lager to drink while he waited. The bar manager however arrived after no more than thirty seconds, scurrying in through the front door with a guilty look on his face. He was gaunt, unshaven, and twitchy. Ferriby guessed that he had been at a bookies shop that was next door, and that he probably spent much of his time, and more of his money, there. He retrieved the – neatly catalogued – DVD for the night in question, and handed it over with a trembling hand. Ferriby eyed him condescendingly. “Thank you.” The man darted back out into the street, and Ferriby finished his lager. Then he nodded to the sullen barmaid and left.What a dump!

  His next port of call, the Admiral Nelson, was a different proposition altogether. Small, dark, clearly centuries old, and serving only drinks – not food, it was far more to Ferriby’s taste. So much so in fact that he chose to indulge himself in a double Scotch before getting down to the nitty-gritty of investigating murder. The man who served him was a tall and imposing moustachioed figure who spent the time that he was
not serving customers inspecting and, if necessary, re-polishing with a tea towel, the many and varied types of glass stacked neatly behind and above his shiny polished bar. Ferriby smiled. It was enough to make him want to order another drink. After some deliberation though he resisted the temptation, and instead got down to doing what he was being paid to do. The man with the moustache, who was of course the licensee, and whose name was Bernard Lester, had been on duty on the evening in question, but could not recall seeing Nick. However, unlike the Aussie girl, he genuinely studied Ferriby’s photograph for quite some time, and was clearly disappointed that he wasn’t able to be more helpful. There was also no black jacket left behind, which didn’t surprise Ferriby. Likewise there was no CCTV, which, although inconvenient, did rather satisfy him; a bit of traditional discretion in an old English pub wasn’t necessarily such a bad thing. An offer of another drink – on the house: Mr Lester’s way of trying to compensate for being unable to usefully assist Her Majesty’s Constabulary’s investigation – brought a positive beam to Ferriby’s face too. But he politely declined, as he had work to do, and having a chat with Andy Hilton was a (marginally) greater draw than another drink in the Admiral Nelson.

  A brief walk to Tottenham Court Road and then a few stops on the Central Line took Ferriby into the mass of concrete, commerce, and cockiness that is “The City”. The office of merchant bank Ingemann Harper was a huge, faceless, and very square block near Liverpool Street station, and Ferriby took a moment to look up and take in its magnitude, before striding confidently in through the rotating doors of its front entrance. Once inside he was immediately impressed by the ability of the door that he had just come through to shut out the noise of the world outside. He was less impressed by the marbled opulence of the grand five-star-hotel-like entrance hall in which he found himself. Ahead of him – some way ahead – was a huge marble reception desk, manned by two smartly dressed young women, one white, and one black. Flanking the desk were two beefeater-like uniformed middle-aged male security guards, also one white, and one black. Behind the desk, and to the left as he looked at it, rose a spiralling wide marble staircase, to Ferriby, giving the place something of the feel of a Saturday night game show studio set. Immediately behind the receptionists a glittering marble wall was adorned with the company’s name in enormous gold capital letters, the two words separated by some kind of crown-based insignia. Ferriby knew nothing of the company’s history but presumed it to be an old British bank called W.G. Harper or something like that that had been taken over by maybe a Dutch company. Snapping himself out of his little trance he chuckled at himself for even thinking about such things. Why would he care? All the marble was sombre coloured – mixed hues of grey and brown – but polished to the point that it shone under the glare of a hundred fancy lamps dangling from an unfeasibly high ceiling. To Ferriby this hall had a message: It said, “We’ve got loads and loads of money … and we’re looking down our noses at you, you peasant!”

  Ferriby ambled towards the desk, and at the same time two bespectacled city types skipped down the marble staircase and past him before propelling themselves through the revolving door, and out into the city street. Neither of them caught Ferriby’s eye, but he was aware that both of the security guards were most definitely looking at him. Of course they were: here was a bloke with a scruffy haircut, a cheap jacket that could be described as an anorak, a well-worn pair of blue jeans, and a carrier bag packed with loose DVDs. He felt self-conscious; it was one thing to be too poor to be welcome, but it was quite another to look like a weirdo. All the same, as he presented himself to the desk there was a smile on his face – a smile that was possibly being interpreted by the guards as something sinister. But it wasn’t sinister: it was a genuine symptom of the warm feeling that Ferriby had through knowing that he was about to experience one of the few pleasures of his occupation. However unwelcome, poor, scruffy, creepy, or even booze-smelling he might be, he had a little warrant card in his pocket that could open practically any door that he pleased – something no amount of money or old boys network membership could ever achieve.

  Both receptionists had been studying computer screens, and when Ferriby stopped at the desk, one looked up for the first time. She was slim, blonde, better than averagely attractive, and gave no indication of being in any way nonplussed by Ferriby’s incongruous appearance – which in a strange way was something of a disappointment.

  “Good afternoon, sir, how may I help you?” Her voice wasn’t even very posh. A name tag told Ferriby that her name was Melanie.

  “I’d like to speak to an Andrew Hilton, please.”

  “Certainly, sir, is he expecting you?”

  Now, this might surprise her: “No, he won’t be. My name is Detective Sergeant Ferriby. I’m from the Metropolitan Police. I just need to have quick chat with him.”

  It didn’t seem to surprise her at all, or even interest her. What’s more, the warrant card was able to remain hidden away in his pocket as, with an air of confident efficiency, Melanie called up Andrew Hilton.

  “Hello, it’s Melanie on reception. There is a gentleman here to see you.” Then she listened while Andy Hilton presumably asked her who the gentleman was, before continuing, “… Detective Sergeant Ferriby (Her eyes turned up towards Ferriby for confirmation and he nodded back); he said he needs to speak to you.” Then came a very short pause, before, “Yes, I shall let him know.”

  Melanie put the phone down, looked up at Ferriby and, smiling politely, said, “Mr Hilton will be right with you. If you would like to take a seat ….,” and she gestured to a series of three marble tables, each with two chrome and brown leather chairs placed neatly either side of them.

  Ferriby obeyed the instruction and sat in one of the chairs with his back to the wall, facing back towards Melanie and her colleagues. He didn’t have to wait long before a loud “ting” sound announced the arrival of a lift whose exit was just to the left of the grand staircase. The doors – stainless steel and very shiny – slid open silently, and Andy Hilton stepped out. Seeing that Ferriby was the only “guest” in the waiting area he headed straight to him. Ferriby stood to meet Andy Hilton and looked him over as he approached. He was about forty, with a thick crop of black hair, and bright, intelligent eyes. He wore an expensive-looking – but not flash – black suit, and a very worried expression. Ferriby shook his hand, a practice he reserved for non-criminals, and criminals that he was trying to fool into thinking that he didn’t know that they were criminals. Andy Hilton fitted into the former category. Ferriby had enough of an intuition for these things to be able to make that kind of judgement both quickly and reliably, and this man, he considered, was as honest as they come. Ferriby liked honesty in a person, and was even moved to afford Andy Hilton a warm smile to accompany the handshake, rather than his more usual “I’ve got your number, mate” kind of scowl.

  Ferriby’s chat with Andy Hilton was quite brief. First of all he explained the reason for his presence, which reduced – but didn’t eliminate – Andy Hilton’s look of anxiety, and then he asked him some questions about the Tuesday night of two weeks before. Andy Hilton gave clear measured replies to the questions, and generally backed-up what Nick had said. Yes, the two of them did indeed meet up for a few beers that night; yes, they had started at the Good Doctor, and yes, they had then moved on to the Admiral Nelson. But then they had also gone to another pub, one that Nick had neglected to mention. It was called the Wolf, and Ferriby was straight away itching to check it out. He stayed around long enough to finish off the task in hand though. Andy Hilton had no recollection of Nick’s clothing on the night in question, nor much recollection of the Wolf, admitting to being “the worse for wear” by the end of the evening, and presuming Nick to be in much the same state. He did however divulge another interesting tit-bit, and that was that Nick had phoned him only the previous day to arrange their night out. That didn’t contradict Nick’s story, as it was a question that Ferriby and DI Wilson had neglected to ask. But
it did lend credence to the possibility of him specifically arranging the evening in order to “lose” the jacket in an unsuspicious way. Ferriby was getting ever more eager to go. Andy Hilton told him that Nick had made no mention of any fight, murder, or illicit girlfriend. In answer to Andy Hilton’s own questions, Ferriby told him that yes, he was free to speak to Nick if he wished, and (slightly untruthfully) that, no, Nick probably wasn’t in trouble, just part of “routine enquiries”. Both men cringed a little at that cliché and a brief moment in which their eyes met was enough for them each to acknowledge to the other that they knew it not to be true. They exchanged a businesslike handshake before Ferriby quickly exited the revolving door and ventured back into the street, only just managing to curtail the urge to skip along the footpath.

  The Wolf was a real pub, much like the Admiral Nelson. It was small and cosy, and, with late autumn darkness beginning to close in outside, the yellow glow from its many ornate lampshades bade a warm welcome to its customers. It was therefore surprising that there were only two of them inside. They were be-suited office workers, although probably not, Ferriby observed, office workers from the City: their body language wasn’t cocky enough. There were as many staff members as customers: two men, each aged about 30, both wearing white shirts and bow-ties, and both Europeans of some kind; Ferriby wasn’t quite sure of the accent. He didn’t buy a drink, but got straight down to the business of asking his usual questions. Neither barman was the manager – he wouldn’t be in until the next day – nor had either been working on the night in question. They were both polite and willing to help though, and they could indeed locate the CCTV footage in question, taken from the pub’s one camera, which faced out onto the street from above the front door. Ferriby dispatched one of them to do so before, somewhat unnecessarily, given that he was in a public house, asking the other if he could take a look around.