DCI Isaac Cook Box Set 1

by Phillip Strang

  He reflected on what had been, when he had been an upright citizen with a loving wife, and a daughter the apple of his eye, but he could only blame himself for his current predicament. He could have just given them the formulas and the drawings, the completed solution; sometimes he wished he had, but what then? An accident, insufficient research into stabilising the weapon, whether it was used for peaceful purposes or not?

  Liz Hardcastle had been a decent person, but he had pushed her in front of a speeding train. Bob Robertson had been a good man, but he had died at his hands. There would be more, he knew that, as certain as he was aware that those who had tortured him in the past would return. Didn’t they have Robertson’s computer? Proof that their monitoring equipment had picked up the formula that had been entered into the search bar.

  There was one thing Big Greg knew, even if it cost him his life: he had to protect his family, even reveal himself to them if it was necessary, and inevitably kill for them.

  It had been a long walk, twelve hours slogging down back streets, attempting to avoid the main roads, but finally he reached his destination, a charitable institution that he had used once before. He entered, spoke briefly to the man in charge, and walked up the stairs.

  ***

  It had been three weeks, an eternity according to Isaac’s boss, not so much time according to Isaac and his team. Since Bob Robertson’s death, and Big Greg’s admission to Katrina Ireland, nothing more had happened. Further searching by Larry and Wendy had found that the man was known in other areas of London, although for the last five or six years he had always been close to Challis Street.

  Some others, especially those who lived on the street, spoke of him when asked, although they had not been able to shed any light on the man except that he kept to himself, recited poetry, and was forever writing. Big Greg’s notebook had been looked over by experts, yet they had gained little from it, other than the formulas and the drawings were complicated, the meaning of them obscure, and what he had written was disjointed and fragmentary, almost as if they were in code.

  Others, in a location some distance from London, were not in the same situation. They had the stolen computer, old and worthy of scrapping, but very little else apart from a formula in the search bar.

  Katrina Ireland, the happiest she had ever been, had made significant improvements to the hostel, now named in honour of the man who had set it up. She’d even been interviewed by a local radio station, and although she had been nervous, she had done well.

  She would have preferred it if they hadn’t mentioned her past history, but they had. On reflection, she had to admit that it wasn’t such a big deal: a woman redeemed and brought back from the brink. A local newspaper wanted to run a similar story, but she had managed to talk them out of it. Her past was behind her, and whereas it could not be blocked from her memory, she did not want to be reminded of it too often. One of the homeless men, after becoming aware of her background, had propositioned her, only to be evicted from the hostel.

  She knew she ran a tough ship, but she also ran it with kindness; be nice to her, and she’d be nice in return. The local vicar had expressed concern about her past as apparently some of the old biddies in his congregation did not like the idea of a former prostitute running a hostel or of her taking church funds if they were available, but Katrina had met with them and they had relented, even embraced her like a lost daughter. Katrina had been moved by the women’s change of heart towards her, as her relationship with her mother were non-existent and not likely to change. She had even started going to church every Sunday, the hostel demands permitting. The vicar quoting Luke 15:10 – ‘In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents’ – the first time she went seemed to be directed at her.

  The first that Isaac knew of the latest development was when he received a phone call at home. ‘Someone’s been through the office,’ Katrina said.

  Isaac assumed it was someone in the hostel, but he owed it to the woman to investigate personally, rather than send a local uniform over. It took him only ten minutes to get there, as it was a Sunday and the traffic was light. He found Katrina out on the street, waiting for him.

  ‘Anything missing?’ Isaac asked. Apart from the worried look on her face, he had to admit that she looked well, a healthy glow on her cheeks.

  ‘Not that I can tell, certainly not any money, not that there was much in there anyway.’

  ‘One of your guests?’

  ‘Not a chance. It’s not that I trust them totally, but they’d be after petty cash, and besides the door is double locked and whoever opened it didn’t break it down.’

  ‘Anyone see anything?’

  ‘Unlikely. It’s the time of day when the place is empty. Those who stayed last night have gone, and tonight’s guests haven’t arrived yet. I had someone helping with the cleaning of the place, but they’d gone as well.’

  Isaac and Katrina walked up to the office. It was clear that someone had looked through it, and they had been methodical. No throwing of papers on the ground, no rifling through drawers and spilling the contents on the floor. ‘The computer?’ Isaac asked.

  ‘They’ve not touched it, nor the cash.’

  ‘What were they after? What do you reckon?’ Isaac asked.

  ‘What you’ve already got.’

  ‘The notebook.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Are there any more?’

  ‘I’ve not seen any. Do you think Bob was killed because of it?’ Katrina asked.

  ‘It seems possible, although we can’t make any sense of what’s in it.’

  Even though the intrusion in the office had seemed minor, Isaac phoned Gordon Windsor, asked him to get his team over to check out the room. Katrina regretted that she had made a fuss as she had work to do, and the computer would not be available, at least not until later in the day.

  ‘It’s better to be safe than sorry,’ Isaac said.

  ‘I suppose so. What about Big Greg?’

  ‘We’re still looking.’

  ***

  A smile crept across the man’s face, and not for the first time. He remembered that first shower, the hot water on his body, the lathering of the soap. He had maintained his secret for a long time, but he had realised in that hostel that he needed to take direct action against those who threatened him. No more hiding away, no more sleeping under a bridge and eating scraps from a bin. There was money, he intended to use it. The case that he had taken into the hostel contained all that he needed. He had hidden it well for many years, and the clothes would suffice, although they smelt musty. He’d wear some, dry clean the others, and then swap until the process was complete.

  He remembered walking into the barber’s shop. ‘Take it all off, trim the beard,’ he had said. Those who had threatened him and his family would remember a man with a full head of fair-coloured hair, clean-shaven and a fastidious dresser in a suit. Now his hair would be cropped short and he would be dressed casually: a pair of jeans, a tee shirt, a comfortable jacket, and Adidas footwear.

  He had walked out of that barber’s shop unrecognisable, even to his wife if she encountered him, which she may well do if he was to protect her. He knew they’d come for her, especially after he went for them, but this nightmare had to stop.

  Two weeks was the maximum time he had allotted for the transformation. Every morning, Big Greg visited a gym, and every afternoon he would run for one hour, as he always had in the past. The weight he had put on, at least forty pounds, would have to go, although he knew that it would take more than a couple of weeks.

  The hotel where he was staying was of a reasonable quality, and there was a laptop in his room which he had purchased new. He was adept with technology; they’d never trace his logging on, nor where he was.

  There were a few days to go, and then he’d deal with those who had been the bane of his life. He would do it for his family, for his country, but mainly for himself
. It felt good to be back, he knew that.

  Chapter 9

  There was nothing that annoyed Isaac Cook more than a murder investigation that had stagnated, and the current case was par for the course. Yet again, a murder, a murderer and then nothing.

  Apart from Katrina Ireland’s encounter with Big Greg, there had been no further leads. It was known the man had moved south of the city after leaving her on the bench, as a witness had attested to seeing him shuffling along in that general direction, and then no more.

  At least the situation was different to previous murder investigations in that the body count was not accumulating: this time there was only the death of Bob Robertson. The one advantage: Commissioner Davies had no reason to pressure DCS Goddard to pressure Isaac. In previous cases, the distraction of fending off criticism and maintaining his position as well as protecting his team had only hampered the investigation. Sure, criticism was always there, that was part of the deal when working for a large organisation, and if it’s constructive, then there’s always something to be gained, but with the commissioner and his lackey, Goddard, it was far from helpful and certainly not welcome.

  And it was a Tuesday, the day of the week when Isaac would climb the stairs from his office with its view of nothing, apart from the windows of a building on the opposite side of the street, to where Detective Chief Superintendent Richard Goddard sat with his panoramic view over the city. In the distance, the London Eye, one of London’s premier tourist attractions. Isaac had been on it once, taken an old girlfriend, but it had been overcast that day, and not only outside the capsule but inside too.

  It was another failed outing with Jess O’Neill, another attempt at reconciliation that was thwarted by too much history, too many attempts to meet up, too many issues clouding the mind of the other. Isaac was invariably involved in a case, and Jess was always concerned about the next episode of the soap opera of which she was the executive manager, or a casting issue, or whether the decline in the ratings was permanent, or just temporary.

  Whatever the reason, once the capsule had returned to the ground, they had gone their separate ways. It was a strange situation in that they still loved each other in their own way, but it had not stopped Isaac spending two nights with a woman in a fancy hotel in Montego Bay in Jamaica on his recent visit there. He had met her in Kingston, the capital of that vibrant country, they had hit it off and met up on an occasional basis during the two weeks that he was there, and now she was coming to London, supposedly on business, but he knew that she wanted to meet up with him again.

  A holiday fling with all the attendant passion, the time to devote to the relationship, the lack of care about the cost, and the hotel in Montego Bay had not come cheap. If she was coming to London assuming that his lifestyle was five stars, his car a Mercedes and his flat luxurious rather than its modest two bedrooms, then she was in for a rude shock.

  Not that he could blame her for wanting to come. Jamaica may have been idyllic for a tourist with British money, but it was a tough call if you had to live there on a minimum wage.

  Wendy, his sergeant, was out of the office most days, attempting to find Big Greg, knowing full well that he was no longer anywhere near Challis Street. She was monitoring all those who approached the charitable institutions across London, although with no bites so far. There had been two false alarms, as a tall man from the street was not so common, but the first, in the east of the city, had turned out to be a man with a strong foreign accent, the second an alcohol-sodden illiterate, neither of whom fitted the description of the man they were looking for.

  Bridget had compiled a case for the prosecution, which was tight apart from the name of the murderer. Big Greg was clearly not a name, and any attempt to unravel the man’s secret had been in vain. The man only answered to Big Greg, not Greg, nor Gregory, not even Big, which created another problem.

  There were registers of the homeless, the missing, filed by organisations and concerned relatives. Bridget had poured through all the information that she had managed to obtain, but even the name Greg was suspect. Larry and Isaac had discussed on several occasions what it was that forced a man such as Big Greg to give up a perfectly normal life and to take to the street, with its deprivations. One of the locations under a bridge that the man had favoured was neither clean nor healthy, and the smell of stale urine, stale alcohol, and faecal matter from dogs and people, not too careful where either deposited it, was overpowering. Larry had wanted to wear a mask in there when he questioned the people lying on the ground or propping themselves up against a wall, but that would only have raised their distrust. Those that he had found there had, bar one or two, given up on life, and as long as they had a brown paper bag with a bottle inside, or the opportunity to shoot up heroin, the discarded syringes testament to the fact, then they were fine. Big Greg had apparently not given up on life, and apart from how he lived and looked, the man had seemed normal. The only assumption, and it was weak at best, was that the man was genius level, borderline mad.

  ‘What’s the deal with this murder? How many weeks is it now?’ Goddard asked from his side of the desk. There had been the handshake on entering, the usual general chat about the weather, the family, the poor state of the economy. Isaac had regarded the man as a friend, still did, and as a mentor. It had been DCS Goddard, then an inspector, who had taken the young Isaac Cook under his wing and had put him into plain clothes and then into Homicide. The two men had a long history where both of their careers had been on the line, where both had felt the wrath of their seniors. At least with this case there was no escalating murder count, no politician attempting to distort the evidence and looking for a cover-up. There had been a few of those in the past, and whereas he, Isaac Cook, remained idealistic, he knew that his senior had sold out.

  Not that Isaac could blame him. There had been a time when he had felt that professionalism and competency and delivering results were the way to the top. But now, even more so than before, there was another factor, missing in his case, apparent in Goddard’s, and that was licking the boots of those who controlled an officer’s ascension in the Met.

  It had not been difficult with the previous commissioner, as he had been a decent man. But now Richard Goddard had to get past Alwyn Davies, the new commissioner. Goddard, as much as he tried, was not Davies’s type of man, never would be. The problem was that Davies, a man who abhorred sycophants, or at least he said he did, cherished those who stroked him the right way and covered up his shortcomings, and Isaac knew he had a few of those. The general consensus in the police force was that the commissioner had no clue what he was doing, which raised the question of how he had obtained the position in the first place.

  There were some that thought it was part of a larger plan to split the Met, form it into smaller units, even privatise it, and the best way to ensure a satisfactory result was to drive it down into oblivion, and Davies was certainly doing a good job at that.

  The forces were rallying in the Met. On the one side were those who wanted it to stay the way it was, only with competent leadership, sans Alwyn Davies. Isaac belonged to that group. Others wanted the splitting, the privatisation, but Isaac thought they were motivated by self, not out of any belief that law and order would gain from it, even if it could. The level of lawlessness in society was not looking good. Some areas of the city were under the control of gangs, even around Notting Hill, which sat right in Challis Street Police Station’s area of operation. So far their impact had been controllable, but not for much longer if the police force continued to be stripped of its best officers, and other areas of London had been entirely taken over by the gangs, some just hooligans with knives and guns, other with a religious intent, willing to kill at random those that they despised.

  Richard Goddard, Isaac knew, sat somewhere in the middle. A decent man who cared about law and order, a man who hoped to be the commissioner one day, and whose plan was being thwarted by the forces of evil, or at least that was how Isaac saw them. How
could any right-minded person in the police force want to dilute the most respected police operation in the world, namely the London Metropolitan Police? Even he, Isaac, had considered his options. He should have been a superintendent by now, Goddard a commander, and they had both played the game, but politics had got in the way.

  ‘We’ve no further information on the murderer,’ Isaac said. ‘The team’s out looking.’

  ‘The case against this man, watertight?’ Goddard asked.

  ‘The man admitted to killing him.’

  ‘Will it hold up in a court of law?’

  ‘Probably not if he changes his story, but we’ve not caught him yet.’

  ‘I give you a simple murder case, one murder, one murderer, and you can’t find him. What is it with your department?’

  Isaac had been through this rigmarole before: the negativity, the criticism, and eventually the acquiescing and being able to sit down and hold a rational discussion about the Homicide department and its current workload, which was always an oblique way of discussing budgetary concerns, and the latest state of the investigation.

  ‘The case is proceeding well,’ Isaac said, although he was not convinced that it was.

  ‘Rubbish. You’ve no idea where or who this man is. We’ve known each other for a long time, you can be truthful with me.’

  ‘It’s true, the man has disappeared, and there is still the unknown about who he is, what he is. We’ve checked out the notebook that was with Bob Robertson, and then there is the computer theft at the hostel: both very suspicious.’

  ‘Do you think the man was hiding out?’

  ‘It’s crossed our minds, but on the street, living in those conditions? If he’s educated, the assumption would be that he had some money to live better.’

  ‘Where’s a better disguise than on the street?’ Goddard said.