The Marlow Murder Club

by Robert Thorogood

  ‘Oh, like those badges they wear at rowing regattas.’

  ‘That’s right. Just like that.’

  ‘I see. Well, I’ve no idea whether Stefan was particularly religious. I don’t go to church that often, so I wouldn’t know. But you’ve not answered my question. Did you find a suicide note?’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t discuss operational details with a civilian.’

  ‘Which is all I need to know that you didn’t find a suicide note. Because he didn’t take his own life. Elliot Howard killed him.’

  ‘You really must stop saying that. Mr Howard can’t have done it.’

  ‘Oh, you mean because he was at choir practice?’

  ‘How on earth do you know that?’

  ‘After Antonia told me about the argument in his office, I went and talked to Elliot Howard.’

  ‘You did what?!’

  ‘I had to see him for myself.’

  ‘Was that wise?’

  ‘If we only did what was wise, nothing would ever get done, would it? Anyway, that’s when he told me he’d been at choir practice when I heard the gunshot.’

  ‘Yes, he said the same to me.’

  ‘Oh, so you’ve spoken to him, have you?’

  ‘I had to follow up on the lead after you’d told me about him.’

  ‘I bet you didn’t like him, did you?’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘It’s his tone, isn’t it? Like he’s playing with us.’

  DS Malik was about to agree with Judith before she caught herself.

  ‘Less of this “us” if you don’t mind, Mrs Potts. I’m happy to talk to you as the witness who found the body, and because you knew the deceased. But you mustn’t go around thinking you can do the work of the police.’

  ‘Of course,’ Judith said. ‘That’s your job, I completely understand. But tell me, have you found the gun yet?’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I imagine you’ve not, have you?’

  DS Malik didn’t immediately know what to say.

  ‘You see! There’s no suicide note and no gun! Because the murderer took it away with him afterwards. And even if Elliot Howard was at choir practice when Stefan was killed, he’s still involved. Somehow. I’m sure of it. Is it possible he hired a hitman?’

  ‘I don’t think that’s likely.’

  ‘But it’s a possibility, isn’t it?’

  ‘Mrs Potts, Marlow’s won the “Best in Bloom” prize every year for the last seven years. And the last time I was called to an incident there, it was because two swans were taking a walk down the High Street and had stopped the traffic. I can promise you, there are no hitmen in Marlow.’

  The door banged open and an out-of-breath police officer stuck his head into the room.

  ‘Sarge, a guy’s just been shot dead in Marlow.’

  Chapter 9

  The murder had happened in a bungalow on the Wycombe Road, a perfectly ordinary street that linked Marlow to High Wycombe with suburban houses on both sides and smart hedges and cars on driveways.

  Once she arrived, DS Malik got out and saw a squad car already at the scene, lights flashing. It was parked on the driveway next to a white van and an old Prius that she could see had a taxi’s licence plates.

  There was a male police constable guarding the front door.

  DS Malik took a deep breath to steady herself. The truth was that she wouldn’t normally head up a case this serious. After all, she was only a detective sergeant. But her boss, Detective Inspector Gareth Hoskins, had signed himself off work with a stress-related illness three weeks before, and DS Malik was therefore the Acting Senior Investigating Officer. Just as she was the Acting SIO in the Stefan Dunwoody case.

  DS Malik had spent the previous three weeks reading and re-reading her copy of Blackstone’s Senior Investigating Officers’ Handbook on the off chance that a big case might land in her lap. But she knew that it was one thing to be ‘book smart’, it was quite another to put her knowledge into practice in the real world.

  Just follow the rules and regulations, she said to herself as she approached the front door of the cottage. Just follow the rules and regulations.

  ‘Good morning, Constable,’ she said with a confidence she didn’t feel. ‘So what have we got?’

  The constable explained how the dead man inside the house was called Iqbal Kassam. He lived on his own and was a taxi driver.

  ‘Who discovered the body?’

  The constable said that a young delivery driver had arrived with a package for Mr Kassam, but when he’d got to the door, he’d seen that it was already open. So he’d stepped into the hallway to put the package on the side table, which was when he’d seen into the bedroom where Mr Kassam was lying, blood all over the pillows, stone-cold dead.

  ‘I see. Tell me about the delivery person who found the body.’

  ‘He’s pretty shaken up.’

  ‘Could he be our shooter?’

  ‘We’ve taken his clothes in for GSR analysis, but I think the body’s been there a few hours.’ He nodded at the van in the driveway. ‘There’s a tracking device in that. He was able to show me his route this morning. He’d been nowhere near Marlow until 12.37 p.m., which is when he found the body and called it in.’

  ‘See if you can speak to the other people he made deliveries to this morning. Let’s make sure his story stacks up.’

  ‘Yes, Sarge.’

  DS Malik pulled out a pair of crime scene gloves and put them on.

  ‘What about the scene?’ she asked.

  ‘No signs of a break-in. No signs of a struggle, either. Or any kind of theft as far as we can tell. The body’s in the bedroom with a bullet through its skull.’

  ‘Okay,’ she said, ‘let’s see Mr Kassam.’

  Once inside, DS Malik took a moment to check her surroundings. The bungalow was modest, the mismatched furniture looked like it had all come from a second-hand shop, but it was tidy and clean. Far tidier, DS Malik knew, than her husband would keep a house if he lived on his own. She saw a little bookcase by the front door that was crammed with books on boats and sailing. There was also a bronze statue on the hall table that depicted an old-fashioned ship under full sail.

  The constable coughed and nodded towards an open doorway to the side of the entrance lobby. She went over, entered, and saw a man she presumed was Mr Kassam lying in a double bed, blood all over his face and drenched into his pillows and sheets.

  DS Malik approached the body and saw a blister pack of pills, a half-empty glass of water and a leather-bound copy of the Quran on the bedside table. She picked up the pills. They were a brand called Diphenazine.

  ‘I looked them up,’ the constable said from the doorway. ‘They’re prescription sleeping pills.’

  ‘Thank you,’ DS Malik said, putting them down and making a mental note to check Mr Kassam’s medical history with his GP.

  Looking at the body, she could see that Mr Kassam appeared to be in his thirties, had a thick black beard and curly black hair. He also had a bullet hole in the centre of his forehead, and the back of his head had been blown off, blood, bone and brain spread out in a shocking mess of gore on the pillow.

  A shiver ran through DS Malik’s body.

  This was her second gunshot death in three days.

  And the second bullet fired into the centre of a forehead.

  But DS Malik knew that now was not the time for speculation. Initially her job as Acting SIO was to ‘identify, secure and preserve’ the scene. Theorising could come later. So she made herself focus on the physical evidence in front of her.

  The constable had been right. There were no signs of a struggle. The duvet was tucked up neatly under the victim’s chin, his arms still to his sides underneath. He’d not kicked out in any way.

  This wasn’t just a murder, it was an execution.

  A high-pitched whine and scratching noise started up somewhere in the house. Like an animal in pain.

  ‘What’s that?’
she asked.

  ‘No idea,’ the constable said, nonplussed.

  DS Malik headed back into the sitting room. The strange keening sound was louder here. It seemed to be coming from behind a set of curtains. DS Malik pulled them back to reveal French doors that led onto a little walled garden.

  There was a sleek-looking Dobermann pinscher dog outside on the grass, whining. The poor creature looked distressed, but DS Malik knew that Dobermanns could be vicious. How could she secure and process the scene with a dog like that in the garden?

  ‘Sarge,’ the constable said, entering the room from the main door. ‘I think there’s a woman outside spying on us.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘There’s a woman in the garden hiding behind a bush.’

  ‘Okay, keep the scene secure,’ DS Malik said and left the house at speed.

  Outside, it took her eyes a few seconds to adjust to the sunshine, but she could see that a laurel hedge separated Iqbal’s front garden from the street, and there were a few bushes near a little gate that led onto the pavement. A bush snapped back and DS Malik saw a flash of clothing as someone went out of the gate and disappeared behind the hedge.

  As DS Malik strode after the figure, she reached into her handbag and put her hand around a little extendable truncheon.

  ‘Excuse me?’ she called out as she stepped into the street.

  The person slowed to a stop and turned to look at DS Malik.

  DS Malik let go of the truncheon and took her hand out of her handbag as she saw that she was talking to a very solid-looking woman who was about fifty years old. She had ruddy, sunburnt cheeks and was wearing dirty walking boots, a tatty, wide-brimmed hat, and various little bags and frayed dog leads hung off a belt tied tight around her waist. A jolly farmer type, DS Malik thought to herself.

  ‘Me?’ the woman said, pointing at herself as though she was the last person in the world DS Malik would want to talk to.

  ‘That’s right. You’ve been spying on us.’

  The woman put her hand to her chest in another show of mock surprise and this time mouthed the word ‘Me?’

  ‘Could you please tell me your name?’

  ‘Sure. No problem. But why do you want to know?’

  ‘Just tell me your name.’

  The woman thought for a bit. Looked up at the sky. Wrinkled her nose. Basically, she had a good rummage around for an answer.

  ‘Okay. My name’s Denise.’

  DS Malik could see that the woman was lying.

  ‘It is?’

  ‘That’s right,’ the woman said with a confident nod of her head.

  ‘And your surname?’

  ‘My surname?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m Denise … Denison.’

  ‘Your name is Denise Denison?’

  ‘Yup,’ the woman said and beamed, delighted with her cunning.

  ‘You think I’m going to believe that?’

  ‘Of course. It’s like I said. I’m Denise Denison.’

  ‘Then I’m going to make this very simple for you. My name’s Detective Sergeant Tanika Malik, I’m at this property investigating a suspicious death, and you need to tell me your real name at once or I’ll place you under arrest.’

  This got through to the woman.

  ‘You’re not saying Iqbal’s … dead? Are you?’

  ‘So you know Mr Kassam?’

  ‘Yes, yes I do. And I’m Suzie Harris,’ she said, all attempts at subterfuge forgotten. ‘I live at 14 Oakwood Drive.’

  ‘Thank you, but why didn’t you tell me your real name the first time around?’

  ‘You never tell the Old Bill your real name,’ Suzie said, as though it were a truth universally acknowledged.

  DS Malik sighed.

  ‘Can you tell me when you last saw Mr Kassam?’ she asked.

  Suzie took a moment to gather her thoughts.

  ‘Yesterday, I think. When I came to walk Emma. That’s his Dobermann. You see, Iqbal works nights. Sometimes. As a taxi driver. So I give Emma a once-around-the-block every morning.’

  ‘Can you tell me why you were hiding behind a bush in his garden?’

  ‘That was only because I saw the police car. I wanted to know what was going on. But are you serious? You’re telling me he’s dead? He can’t be. What happened?’

  DS Malik didn’t want to share any details, but she knew that in any murder there was a ‘Golden Hour’ immediately after the investigation started when the chances of catching the killer were at their highest. There was no one else who lived with Mr Kassam to talk to, and she could see that there was only one neighbouring property, and the garden was overgrown, the curtains drawn, and there was a ‘For Sale’ board up by the pavement. There was no one living there.

  Suzie was currently the only witness they had who had even remotely known the deceased. So DS Malik explained how it looked as though an intruder had got into Mr Kassam’s house and shot him while he slept.

  ‘But that’s not possible,’ Suzie said, once she’d absorbed the news.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Iqbal was about the nicest person in the world. Ask anyone who knew him. He was kind, he never lost his temper. All he wanted to do was earn enough money to buy himself a nice boat he could keep on the river.’

  DS Malik remembered the sailing books and the little statue of an old sailing ship in the house.

  ‘Then what about family? Do you know who his next of kin might be?’

  ‘No idea. But he was from Bradford originally, that’s what he told me. And he spent some of his childhood in Marlow. That’s why he ended up back here.’

  ‘Do you have any contact details for his family?’

  ‘I think his parents died some time ago. And he was an only child.’

  ‘So he’s got no immediate family?’

  ‘I don’t know. There’ll be cousins, I suppose. Maybe. Somewhere.’

  ‘One last thing. You say you walked Mr Kassam’s dog every morning?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘So you have a key to Mr Kassam’s property?’

  ‘No way, you’re not putting that on me. Iqbal was security conscious. Very. I could only access his garden, and I did it through there.’

  Suzie pointed to a gate in between Mr Kassam’s bungalow and the empty property that was for sale next door.

  ‘You’re sure he never gave you a key?’

  ‘Quite sure, thank you.’

  ‘Then can I ask, where have you been this morning?’

  ‘Well, one of my clients picked up her black labs from me at about eight o’clock. I’ve been looking after them overnight. But since then, I’ve been at home.’

  ‘Was anyone with you?’

  ‘No. I live on my own. And if I was involved in any way in whatever happened here, do you think I’d turn up at Iqbal’s house right after the police? You might think I’m stupid, but I’m not that stupid.’

  A grey van with a satellite dish on the roof pulled up on the street outside the house and DS Malik’s shoulders sagged. How did the press find out about a crime so quickly? She’d have to get the constable to see them off, but she was also aware that she had to get Mr Kassam’s dog off the premises.

  ‘Okay, then I’ve got two favours to ask. Firstly, would you take Mr Kassam’s dog in for us? Just until we can find someone who’s happy to look after her more permanently.’

  ‘Sure. I’ll look after Emma. What’s the other favour?’

  ‘That’s the local press over there,’ DS Malik said, indicating a reporter and camera operator getting their equipment from the back of the van. ‘I’d appreciate it if you didn’t speak to them.’

  ‘Then you’ve nothing to worry about. My lips are sealed.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  DS Malik accompanied Suzie down the side of the house, and saw how happily Mr Kassam’s dog welcomed her. Suzie also made a great play of fussing Emma; it was clear her connection with the dog was natural and authentic.r />
  Once Suzie had left with Emma on a lead, DS Malik headed back inside and returned to the body. If it wasn’t for the blood everywhere, Mr Kassam could well have been asleep. And the bullet hole in the centre of his head of course. It was clearly murder, but was Judith right? Was this the second murder? It didn’t seem possible, but there was no denying the similarities between the two deaths.

  DS Malik was about to turn away when the sunlight through the window flashed on something inside Iqbal’s mouth. She’d not seen it the first time as his mouth was almost completely closed.

  ‘Constable, have you got a light there?’

  The constable came over with a torch.

  ‘Could you shine it at the victim’s mouth?’

  The constable did so. There was a faint glow as it shone on a small object inside. What was it?

  DS Malik reached in and carefully pulled out a short silver chain.

  On the end of it was a small bronze medallion with flowery swirls carved into the edges. It looked identical to the medallion they’d found on Stefan’s body. It even had a word carved across the front. But this time the word wasn’t ‘Faith’, it was ‘Hope’.

  Understanding came to DS Malik in an ice-cold rush.

  Judith Potts was right.

  Stefan had been murdered. With a bullet to the centre of the forehead. The killer had then struck again by murdering Iqbal in exactly the same way. And then he’d left a bronze medallion behind at the second scene just as he’d done at the first.

  But this wasn’t the end of it, DS Malik knew. Because the old saying was ‘Faith, Hope and Charity’, wasn’t it? With the first two killings they’d had ‘Faith’ and ‘Hope’, but they hadn’t had ‘Charity’ yet, had they?

  The message from the killer couldn’t have been any clearer.

  This wasn’t going to be the end of it.

  There was going to be a third murder.

  Chapter 10

  Judith was fizzing with excitement when she got home. Who was this second person who’d been shot in Marlow? She decided she’d only have a short wait until the local television bulletin came on after the six o’clock news. It was bound to be featured. But until then, what should she do?

  Judith looked at all of the old newspapers, periodicals and magazines that lay littered around her drawing room. The mess was getting untenable, she knew. And as she looked at the piles of paper, her fingers went to the chain she wore around her neck day and night. As she pulled out the key that was on the end, her eyes slipped to the door to the side of her drinks table. She couldn’t stop herself from looking. And thinking.