End of the Line

by Robert Scragg

  ‘Friend of yours?’ Bell said, a smirk curling the corners of her mouth.

  ‘Oh, we’re BFFs,’ Porter said, trying to decide whether Bell’s mix of banter and bluntness grated on him or made him gravitate towards her.

  ‘I’ll leave you all to it if you don’t mind. I want to take a look inside for myself.’

  ‘It’s not a nice one,’ Porter said. ‘Hope you haven’t eaten recently.’

  ‘Oh, I’m tougher than I look,’ she said as she trotted up the half a dozen steps and disappeared inside. He had no doubt that she was, and that she’d probably had to prove it more than most.

  Off to the left-hand side, he saw the rest of his team where they’d been waiting patiently for him to finish the conversation. It suddenly occurred to him that he hadn’t thought of Holly, or Henry Kamau, since he got here. Maybe Milburn was right about him needing to be on this one. Keep his mind off things. To an extent anyway.

  He still needed to work out how far he could stick his neck out to keep close to Holly’s case, without falling afoul of Milburn. If anyone had asked a few hours ago, he’d have gladly told them where to shove this one. Now though, it had already sunk its hooks in. The violence, up close and personal. The sheer audacity to do that to another human in front of that many people, albeit virtually. Porter didn’t care who the three men were, or why they’d done what they did. Just that they had to be stopped.

  ‘What now then, boss?’ Styles asked.

  ‘Now?’ repeated Porter. ‘Now, we brief those three.’ He nodded to the rest of his team. ‘Then we crack on before Bell comes back out.’

  ‘She rubbed you up the wrong way?’

  ‘Like sandpaper on sunburn.’

  Porter felt his phone buzz. He glanced and saw Evie’s name flash up. As guilty as it made him feel, he rejected the call. He’d promised some time together, and she’d be expecting that to be him unloading the contents of his head and his heart. There was plenty in both to unpack in light of today’s revelations, but he needed a clear head. He’d call her back once they left the scene.

  ‘Come on,’ he gestured Styles over to where the others stood. To say Gus Tessier stood wasn’t entirely accurate. He loomed, towering over everyone except Styles, but he had Styles beaten hands down when it came to width. Half-French, half-Ghanaian, he was the Met’s answer to the Mountain from Game of Thrones, but with a much nicer temperament. Next to him stood Kaja Sucheka, literally half his size. She’d only been on the job a little over a year, coming in via the fast-track scheme, but had impressed Porter. Not many had the level of single-minded determination she possessed. He wondered where it came from, what drove her to push herself so hard. There was usually a story behind folk like that, but she kept her cards close to her chest. The final member of the team, Dee Williams, stood side on, looking over at the latest news van to pull in over the road. Dee was quiet, often too quiet in briefings, but had a great eye for detail. Still no sign of Glenn Waters.

  ‘You lot look like a B-list version of the Avengers, poised and ready for inaction,’ he said, dipping under the tape.

  Tessier laughed, a low rumble. Once you got past the intimidating size, Gus was one of the nicest, happiest people Porter had ever met. This line of work tended to rough you up around the edges, but Tessier’s mood seemed impervious to anything and everything.

  ‘Don’t know about superheroes, boss, but Nick’s more of an Inspector Gadget with arms and legs like his.’

  ‘Don’t make me get physical, Gus,’ Styles said. ‘I mean it, please don’t. Wouldn’t end well for me.’

  ‘What’s it like in there?’ asked Kaja. ‘Is it as bad as it looked?’

  ‘Let’s just say be thankful Facebook doesn’t have an option to smell the videos too,’ Porter said, still sure he could catch a hint of the slaughterhouse scent from inside. ‘You’ve all seen it, I presume?’

  Nods all round, serious faces to match. Just the memory alone was enough to strip away any of the previous humour.

  ‘First things first: Kaja, Gus, I need you two to work your way up both sides of the street. Shops, takeaways, pubs – customers and CCTV. Not often we get an exact time for a murder, so let’s make the most of that. Dee, let’s get chapter and verse on our victim. Both sides of him as well. This whole Stormcloudz malarkey all feels a bit showy. What was he like when he wasn’t in front of the camera? Nick, see what you can find on this Brotherhood. I need to check in with Milburn, then grab our CTU friend when she comes back out. Everyone good with that?’

  ‘Looks like the village idiots have come out to play,’ said Williams, looking east along Blackheath Road. Porter turned, saw the group of four men loitering under a street lamp fifty yards beyond the journalists. They’d all clearly gotten the memo, jeans, T-shirts and jackets zipped all the way up. Strung out across the pavement, they were currently blocking the way for a pair of ladies, each wearing a long abaya dress, edges brushing the ground, hijabs covering their heads. Porter saw the men’s mouths moving, but they were too far away to hear what was said. Body language didn’t leave much to the imagination. One man, front and centre, arms out at his sides in a what’s the problem? gesture. Ladies looking from the ground to each other, then back again. Trying to walk around the men, failing as the barrier of arms shuffled sideways, forcing them out into the road.

  ‘Gus, do me a favour,’ asked Porter, ‘have a quiet word, will you?’

  Tessier’s smile was still there, harder around the edges though. ‘Thought you’d never ask.’

  He clapped hands together that would put a Yeti to shame and strode towards the group. One of them clearly spotted him before he’d even crossed the road, human barrier dissolving, relieved women scurrying through, not realising or caring why they’d been allowed safe passage.

  ‘Right, let’s crack on then, shall we?’ Porter announced.

  ‘Before we do, boss,’ Sucheka cut in, ‘while you were inside, I watched the clip back again. Spotted something I missed first time around. Something I think we all did. Look,’ she said, pulling out her phone, screen paused on the courtroom scene, the only figure visible, Ross Henderson, already dead. Could be worse, she could have made him watch the actual beheading again.

  ‘Look,’ she repeated, tapping play, sliding one finger along the progress bar to fast forward.

  ‘What am I missing, Kaja? He’s not moving any time soon.’

  ‘He isn’t, but somebody is. There. You see that?’

  She paused it again, finger hovering over the table that the tripod had been set up on. Porter and Styles leant in at the same time, millimetres away from a clash of heads.

  ‘Watch,’ she said, sliding the footage back and forward, five seconds either way.

  Movement in shot. Not a person, a shadow. Flowing into shot from the side, ebbing away again just as quick. She pulled it back ten seconds again.

  ‘Now, listen this time as well as watch.’

  A few seconds of silence. Rustle of fabric. Laboured breathing, heavy nasal. A heaving sound, someone retching, once, twice. Faintest of scrapes, followed by what sounded like a scuff of shoe on carpet. A voice next. Male.

  ‘Ah, Jesus.’ Not a voice he recognised.

  ‘That’s the first officer on scene. PC Macken. That’s him over there,’ she said, pointing to a uniformed constable standing by the cordoned off west entrance.

  ‘Maybe I’ve got baby brain from lack of sleep, but so what?’

  ‘Macken was first on the scene. First to enter. First copper anyway.’

  Styles’s eyebrows raised as the penny dropped, same time for him as for Porter.

  ‘So, whose shadow was that?’

  ‘Exactly,’ Sucheka said, beaming at the reveal. ‘Everyone’s been so fixated on the actual murder. There’s almost an hour of footage with just Henderson in the chair that nobody had bothered with.’

  Porter called Macken over and asked him to talk them through arriving at the scene. Macken had a weathered face, tired eyes, and w
as probably regretting answering the call that brought him to the scene.

  ‘Wasn’t just me. There were four of us, two cars. Three of us went in, one on the front door.’

  ‘And there was no sign that anyone else was still in the building? You didn’t see or hear anything else in the courtroom?’

  ‘No, sir. Door was locked when we got here, and no sign of anyone else inside.’

  ‘And whoever was on the front door, you’re sure they didn’t budge until the place was sealed off?’

  ‘Sure as I can be,’ Macken said.

  Porter thanked him and sent him back to his post, poor fella looking hangdog, like he’d cocked up the case somehow.

  ‘The three blokes we saw looked calm as you like. Didn’t even flinch while that poor bugger got butchered,’ said Styles. ‘Whoever’s shadow that was, I can’t see them getting all squeamish once the show was over.’

  ‘Someone else was in the building.’

  Porter voiced what they were all thinking. A possible witness. There the whole time. Might still be now.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  They went through every room, twice. Checked cupboards, under desks. No sign of the mystery witness, but it did yield one important piece of information. A window at the back of the building had been broken from the outside, studding the carpet with diamante shards. A route in for some, if not all four men captured on camera. Kam Qureshi found matching fragments embedded in the soles of Ross Henderson’s trainers, confirming he’d used that route in, blissfully unaware at the time that it was a one-way trip.

  ‘You think they came in this way too?’ Styles asked.

  ‘Probably,’ said Porter. ‘Main door was locked. No other sign of forced entry.’

  ‘Good chance they followed him here then. Feels like a bit of a coincidence that they use the same route and rock up minutes after he gets started. With a bit of luck there’ll be some CCTV. Can’t be hard to spot three blokes in overalls, even without the masks.’

  ‘Or they knew he was coming here,’ said Porter. ‘Either way though, building’s clear now. Our witness is in the wind.’

  ‘Can’t say I’d stick around either if I’d seen that live,’ said Styles.

  Porter opened the shattered window frame, which led out onto a fire escape. He stepped through, rusty grated flooring ringing out underfoot. He stood still, surveying the ground below, head turning slowly from left to right. Greenwich High Road bordered to the east, running parallel to what used to be the car park when the court was still up and running. Looked like residential flats straight over and a hotel to the west, each with their own car parks slotted together like a concrete jigsaw.

  ‘There’s got to be a few cameras down there surely,’ said Porter, as much to himself as anyone. ‘The killers would have been boxed in on three sides. Funnelled out onto Greenwich High Road whether they were in a car or on foot.’

  ‘Easy enough to narrow the time frame on any footage we get,’ Styles said from behind him. ‘We know literally to the second when they left the main courtroom, and I can’t see ’em hanging round for the hell of it after what they did.’

  ‘You coming out?’ Porter asked, sidestepping to make room.

  ‘Nah, I’m OK, thanks. Not too great with heights,’ Styles said, taking an instinctive half-step back.

  ‘Bit of a bugger that you’re six-four then, isn’t it? Must suck to be you every time you stand up.’ He leant out over the railings, peering down, feeling that weird sensation some get inches away from a drop, as if the concrete below had some strange magnetic pull. ‘Besides, we’re only three stories up. Still a good view mind,’ Porter said, enjoying Styles’s obvious discomfort.

  ‘Beautiful,’ Styles agreed, ‘but I still ain’t coming out.’

  Porter suddenly realised he’d forgotten to call Milburn. ‘You head back down if you like. I need to call the super. Meet you back out front.’

  Milburn picked up on the third ring. ‘What have you got for me, Porter?’

  Porter ran him through Kaja’s find, the discovery of the entry/exit route, and what he’d deployed his team to do.

  ‘This one is big, Porter. Potentially huge, with the kind of exposure it had online. I need you on your game. I know the timing is shitty, what with the news about your wife’s case and all. If I had the manpower going spare, I’d suggest you take a few days, but we’re stretched thin enough as it is. You might want to think about speaking to Occupational Health again.’

  Unless Porter was mistaken, that sounded like genuine concern from Milburn. Porter had been forced into a number of sessions with a counsellor last year when things got heated with a suspect. Ended up with him snapping, laying hands on the guy, all caught on camera. He wasn’t one for opening up at the best of times, but those sessions with Sameera Misra had been like emotional waterboarding, attempts to dredge up what he’d rather keep stashed away.

  ‘I’m fine, sir.’

  ‘You might be now, but if you’re not, I need to know. Understood?’

  ‘Loud and clear.’

  ‘Right, in that case, I need you here first thing tomorrow. We’ll be doing a press conference at nine, so I’ll meet you here for seven to prep.’

  Porter glanced at his watch. By the time they finished up here, he’d be lucky if he managed more than five hours back home. Not like he’d have slept much anyway to be fair.

  ‘Seven it is,’ he replied.

  ‘Did that Taylor fellow find you?’

  ‘Yep, and he’s a she.’

  ‘Oh, ahm, all right then, well you can …’

  The rest of Milburn’s words were lost as Porter jerked his head around. A noise from the front of the building. Sounded like something from a football stadium. What the hell?

  ‘Sir, I’m going to have to call you back,’ he said, hearing Milburn squawk as he took the phone away from his ear, not happy at the notion that something else trumped him in the pecking order.

  Porter stooped back through the window frame, stray bits of glass crunching under his soles. Even inside he could hear it, albeit more muted. What was it? Singing? Chanting?

  He took the stairs two at a time, jogged across a surprisingly deserted mosaic-floored reception and burst out into a cacophony of chanting.

  Where before four men had stood and hassled the two women, a crowd had gathered, easily ten times that size. Mainly men, but a few female faces peppered their ranks. Several amongst them held up signs, scrawled on card, flexing like wobble-boards. Slogans like Britain for the British, and Your government’s looking out for immigrants, but who’s looking out for you?

  Some wore T-shirts, sporting a red, white and blue lion that Porter recognised as the English Welfare Party logo. Front and centre, a tall, wiry man led them in their chants, conducting his orchestra.

  ‘Turf out the terrorists!’

  ‘Pack ’em up, ship ’em off!’

  Directly opposite, a huddle of press, like kids in a sweet shop, cameras panning from the mini-mob, over to the front of the building, tape and all. Several officers had made their way across the road. Sucheka, Tessier and Styles amongst them. Porter trotted down the steps, ducked under the cordon like a boxer entering the ring and headed over to join his colleagues. When he reached them, he found Taylor Bell, all five foot and change of her, arms folded, addressing the ringleader.

  ‘I’m going to have to ask you to have to move on, sir.’

  The man paused mid chant. ‘Just exercising our right to free speech, Officer.’

  ‘It’s Detective, but we’ll let that slide for now. You can all exercise that right, as long as you do it somewhere else.’

  Porter couldn’t place the accent. Sounded like a mash-up between Scottish and Geordie. The man had a face like a rat sucking on a lemon. All teeth and angles. The lines across his forehead were canyons, carved deep from a lifetime of scowling. Something about the way he carried himself though. An energy about him that worried Porter. Something that could spill over if provoked.r />
  ‘It’s a free country,’ snapped a rosy-faced woman off to his side.

  ‘That it is, madam,’ Bell said, ‘but I’m guessing you haven’t applied for permission to protest, and you’re blocking a public walkway, so again, I’m asking you all to head home, or anywhere else you prefer, just can’t be here.’

  ‘Those savages butchered that boy in there,’ said Rat-Face, ‘and you’re more bothered about hassling us than finding them? That’s what’s wrong with this bloody country. You’ve all got your priorities wrong. That’s how the likes of them stroll in here and do what they want, and we’ve had enough! You lot are part of the problem.’

  That drew a chorus of agreement from the crowd, a mix of yeahs and too fucking rights.

  ‘You’re the problem here,’ Porter cut in. ‘I didn’t catch your name, Mr …’

  ‘Didn’t give it,’ Rat-Face shot back.

  Porter kept his tone as level as possible. ‘The longer we’re here asking you to leave, the more it distracts us from finding whoever did this.’

  ‘We know who bloody did it, mate,’ said Rat-Face, firing tiny grenades of spittle to accompany his angry words. The crowd behind him responded with grumbles and murmurs of agreement. There was an energy to them, something that crackled, emotion ready to spill over. This needed diffusing, and fast.

  ‘Sir, we want to find them just as much as you do,’ said Porter.

  ‘Oh, I doubt that very much,’ said Rat-Face, mouth twisting into an ugly smile.

  ‘Be that as it may,’ Porter continued, ‘nothing else is happening until you turn around and leave, all of you.’ Behind him, car doors popped open, closed, scuffs of hard soles on concrete. He turned to see a dozen more uniformed officers marching towards them. Cavalry with perfect timing. He looked back at Rat-Face. Saw his eyes narrow, assessing options. Saw his mouth set in a hard line of acceptance.

  ‘We won’t take this lying down,’ he said. ‘Not any more. We have to protect ourselves. Pretty bloody clear you lot can’t or won’t.’ He spat the words out like bullets, holding Porter’s stare for a long three count, before turning to walk back into the crowd. Those around him turned to follow suit. Porter felt the tension seep out of the situation.