by Dal Maclean
Salt looked up at him, from one of the chairs in front of Ingham’s desk. Scrivenor sat in the other, glowering.
“I’m just the messenger, Guv,” Des said, wounded.
Ingham hadn’t even called Will on his pacing. She appeared to be locked inside herself, thinking fiercely.
“It’s a load of shite,” Scrivenor muttered to his lap. And that finally stopped Will dead. His imperturbability was legend, but this was a different man. A very angry man.
“Do you know her?” Will asked. Scrivenor looked up, startled.
“We worked that case,” Ingham put in. “In 2006, wasn’t it Alec?” Her expression was inscrutable.
“You did?” Will repeated. Why did that feel suddenly like too much of a coincidence?
“An’ it wiz fuckin’ mental frae start to finish.” Scrivenor glowered. “Not that I wiz there at the finish. Ah went down wi’ scabies just before we caught her.” He shook his head in memory. “It wiz fuckin’ agony.”
“Tell me about it,” Will ordered. “The case,” he added, knowing Scrivenor. “Not the scabies.”
“Ah thought you did criminology!” Scrivenor accused. “How can ye no’ ken the Ricky Desmond case?”
Ricky Desmond? Fucking hell!
“I was still at school,” Will said “And it wasn’t on the uni curriculum.” Because although it had been a huge news story, it had been routine as murders went. Will did remember though, endless tabloid headlines and TV news coverage. But it had been solved very quickly. “I was a kid. I didn’t pay attention to the name of the killer. But I know who Desmond was.”
Comedian, actor, light entertainment maestro, chat show host, presenter of endless charity telethons, award-winning actor, charity darling. Suave and witty, but always kind.
“A national treasure.” Ingham sounded bitter. “The Queen’s favorite entertainer, no less. We had the full three-ringed circus. Press meltdown. Management hysteria. Statement in the Commons. MPs grandstanding. You’ve no idea how insane it got.”
Knowing how political the MPS was, Will could imagine. Ricky had been a part of the British cultural landscape since before Will was born. He felt almost as resentful as Scrivenor at having this shoved in their way now, and desperate to resurrect the possibilities that had just been snatched away.
“Was Joey Clarkson connected to the Desmond case?” he asked.
Scrivenor blinked and shook his head.
Ingham sighed. “Will . . . .”
If Will had been alone, he’d have punched something.
“Daria worked through a Clarkson-owned company,” he reminded her.
“Ah. So she wiz run by Joey,” Scrivenor said.
“Yes,” Will replied, slightly mollified. “So . . . tell me about June Winton.”
“Teenage hook—”Scrivenor gave a martyred sigh. “Sex worker.”
Will frowned. “So she was a kid?”
“Aye on paper,” Scrivenor said darkly. “In reality, she wiz as hard as nails. She’d been on the game for years . . . had a wean . . . a baby at fifteen. Worked the street. Hated everyone. Loathed men.”
“So you met her?”
“Ah heard the tapes. That wiz enough.”
“So. Could she be out early?” Will asked.
“She got life with a minimum of twenty-five years,” Ingham said. “She wouldn’t even be eligible for day release yet. And I think they’d have mentioned if she’d escaped.”
Her whole youth spent in jail with monsters. She must have been terrified. Or maybe she fitted right in.
“Then the lab got it wrong,” Will said with decision.
“Aye,” Scrivenor said. “The bigger the database gets, the more mistakes.”
“I made them triple check, Guv,” Salt said. “I know the tech I spoke to. He’s dead-on.”
“Then, it could be material contamination,” Will suggested. “Like the Phantom of Heilbraun.” They all gave him blank looks. “Ten . . . twelve years ago. There was a huge police hunt for Germany’s most dangerous woman. She was connected to six separate murders . . . multiple thefts. Her DNA was found at forty plus crime scenes. Then they discovered the swabs used to collect evidence had been accidentally contaminated by a single worker at the factory.”
For a few seconds they all tried to connect the possibilities to June. Then Will sighed. “But our samples are thirteen years apart. Unfortunately.”
The acknowledgment seemed to embolden Salt to add more bad news.
“Patrick—the lab guy—said our crime scene samples both gave a complete profile. No mistakes. The blood an’ the vomit. Some of the blood was Daria’s; the rest was June’s. ” He shifted in his chair. “I looked up June’s sample taken in 2006, an’ it was complete too.”
“So what are we left with?” Ingham’s voice was curt. “A lab error now? Or a lab error then? Or someone got samples from June somehow and planted them at Daria’s scene?”
Will rubbed his face hard. “But why would a hitman plant DNA that couldn’t be there? Why not pick someone believable to frame?”
“No bloody idea,” Ingham snapped.
“To confuse us?” Salt offered.
“Aye well, gold fuckin’ star on their jotter,” Scrivenor muttered.
“To get us to do what we’re doing now?” Will suggested. “Paying attention again to June ?”
“So someone thinks there was a miscarriage of justice?” Ingham said. “And they decide to murder someone else, to send that message?”
She sounded angry. Unsurprisingly. Who wanted to come in to face this bullshit?
“Someone killing two birds with one stone? Getting rid of Daria and trying to get June out of jail?”
“No fuckin’ way,” Scrivenor crossed his arms mulishly. “There’s nae question uv June’s guilt. Her DNA . . . her blood wiz a’ over Desmond’s body. But even wi’oot that, she knew things about the crime scene we hadnae released. An’ they got a confession. It could nae have been more watertight. The Commissioner congratulated. . . .”
“Alec,” Ingham cut in. “It’s okay. Look. There are just two possibilities. It’s a lab mistake, or her DNA was placed at the new scene for a reason.” She looked at Will. “I’ll set up an interview at HMP Bronzefield. Go and see what she’s willing to tell you.”
“And Clarkson?” Will demanded.
Ingham rolled her eyes. “Yes! You can still talk to him. Just make it short and polite. Now,” she slumped back in her swivel chair. “All of you, fuck off and leave me in peace. Except you.” Ingham pointed at Will.
Salt and Scrivenor scurried out. Ingham expelled her breath in an explosive sigh.
“Tell me about your fashion party,” she ordered. “I need a bloody laugh.”
Scarlett was waiting for Will at the mortuary as arranged, along with the Family Liaison Officer he’d talked her into accepting the night before, though Will suspected that once Scarlett’s shock wore off, the FLO would be defenestrated.
“Nice suit,” Scarlett sneered in greeting, though her heart was clearly not in it. She wore combat trousers and a tight black top, the ring in her eyebrow joined by another in her nose, like a stereotype of a student-activist. “You look slightly less like a pig.”
The FLO snorted, then covered her mouth in embarrassment.
Scarlett had agreed to identify the body only if Will was with her, which had surprised him since he seemed to personify her loathing of the police. But he’d wondered, thinking it over, if the uniform he’d worn when they met had made him feel safer to her. A figure of authority, however much she may hate it.
“This is what’ll happen,” Will told her. “You’ll see her on the other side of a window. You can choose if you’d like her face uncovered when you go in. Or covered.”
Scarlett began to shake. “I don’t know. What’s best?”
“It’s up to you,” Will said. She looked at him with desperation, so he said, “Covered gives you a few more seconds to prepare maybe.”
“Uncovered
,” she said defiantly.
Or maybe she just wanted him there to have something to push back against.
Will nodded to the hovering mortuary assistant who left to prepare. “Would you like the Liaison Officer to go in with you, or . . . ?”
“You,” she snapped.
He let Scarlett lead the way through the door to the Viewing Room and then they were faced with the screen, and on the other side, Daria’s body lying on a trolley, with just her frozen, wax-face exposed. Her eyes had been closed and her hair hid the bullet hole behind her ear. She really did look like a movie star. Like a facsimile of one.
Scarlett groped backward until Will took her hand. She squeezed, vice tight and nodded.
Will said, “Out loud, Scarlett.”
She loosed a sound close to a sob. “That’s Daria Ivanescu,” she said. “My friend.”
“You sure this is a good idea, Guv?” Salt asked.
It was just after four in the afternoon and they sat in Salt’s car outside a grand, yellow-painted, double-fronted Georgian terraced house—a beautiful piece of architecture that should not belong to human filth like Joey Clarkson.
Will had imagined Joey would live in a huge brutalist box somewhere exclusive, surrounded by walls topped with broken glass and patroled by thugs with rabid guard dogs. But Holmbury View in Clapton was quietly, classily residential, one of the best addresses in a rapidly gentrifying part of East London.
Will supposed that living here was even more of a statement of Joey’s confidence in his own untouchability, than a fully manned fortress.
“We have good reason to talk to him,” he said. Then he asked Salt for the third time, “You sure you’re up for it?”
Salt, after all, had been knifed by one of Joey’s thugs the day Sanjay was killed, both betrayed by some police officer Joey had bought and paid for.
“I’m fine, Guv.”
He could feel Salt’s anxious eyes trained on his profile, but he kept his gaze on a transit van parked on the other side of the narrow road, which could be bursting with Joey’s goons. He didn’t believe for a second Joey would genuinely leave himself unguarded.
Salt had called ahead to Joey’s offices in Clerkenwell, mindful of his trigger-finger use of litigation. But to their surprise, his PA had called them back and suggested they interview Joey at his home. There had to be a reason.
Will’s stomach squirmed with a mix of worry and knife-sharp anticipation, like he imagined it’d feel waiting to meet some big celebrity. He stepped out onto the pavement and Salt followed, their car doors thudding closed behind them in the quiet of the street like a statement of intent.
A short set of steps led up almost immediately from the low garden gate, to the large Georgian front porch. Will didn’t second-guess himself before ringing the bell.
The door was opened after a few seconds by a woman.
She was middle-aged and not pretending to be anything else. Bottle blond. Very tanned. Short-haired. Medium height. Unremarkable. Before he’d researched her, Will had expected Joey’s wife would be glamorous and expensive; a boasting point, like the house. But he’d read instead about Pauline Clarkson, Joey’s childhood sweetheart and the daughter of another East London gangster family whose operations had been merged with their union. Like aristocracy.
Will whipped out his warrant card and introduced them.
“You better come in then,” the woman said, unperturbed. “’e’s expectin’ you.”
She had an uncompromising East London accent, all glottal stops and broad vowels. Down-to-earth, like the pink velour tracksuit she wore. She led them down a wide hall past the open doors of two huge reception rooms, the hall walls lined with framed photographs—some of family, others of Joey, public figure and concerned citizen, with his human props. Chatting with celebrities at some event, in VIP boxes at sporting events, handing over checks to a charity organization.
No one seemed to care he was a gangster, so long as the police couldn’t actually prove it.
They emerged at last into a massive, light-filled dining kitchen at the back of the house. It had parquet floors, cast iron column radiators, and a vast wall of Critall windows and doors looking out onto a landscaped garden that could have been groomed by hand with scissors. Two walls were lined with obviously bespoke dark-green painted units, and in the middle of the room there sat a glowing pale wood island unit, that looked like designer furniture.
It was one of the most beautiful rooms Will had ever seen.
A man in shirtsleeves sat at the island on a tall red leather stool, sipping from a mug as he read from a laptop. He had thinning gray-brown hair, combed back from a high forehead and his eyes, when he looked up, were pale and sharply intelligent. Assessing. Pitiless.
When he smiled in welcome though, his whole face transformed with unnerving charm.
“Officers,” he said.
“Mr. Clarkson,” Will acknowledged. “I’m DI Foster and this is DS Salt. South Kensington MIT.
Salt ducked his head and began to take notes.
Joey said, “Nice ta meet ya. You’ve met my wife, Pauline.” His accent was also unadulterated, unaffected East London. “Paw, ‘ows about a cuppa for our visitors?”
The woman silently went to pick up the kettle sitting by a huge Belfast sink. A pile of half-peeled vegetables waited beside it.
“You have a beautiful house,” Will said.
He could hardly believe those were more or less the first words he’d said to Joey Clarkson. In the darkest watches of the night after Sanjay died, he’d imagined the moment he could unleash the force of his loathing. What he’d say.
“Fanks,” Joey said with a huge smile, like a normal human being, bursting with pride about his home. “Me an’ Paw wiz both brought up round ‘ere. We weren’t gonna bugger off just cuz we made money. But it’s come to meet us . . . know what I mean? Fifteen years ago, they wiz callin’ Clapton Road, the Murder Mile. Now Clapton’s second on the Sunday Times ‘best places to live in London’.” He laughed. “Mum’d never ‘ave believed it. Shows it pays to be loyal though, ay?”
Pauline called, “You gonna down that, and ‘av a fresh one, or keep playin’ wiv it?”
“I could go anuvver, dahlin’.” He gulped his tea obediently and walked to the sink to hand over the mug. It was painfully domestic and if Will didn’t know what they were, he’d even have found it sweet.
“So,” Joey said, as he returned to his seat. “You’re DI William Foster. I seen ya when Max was killed, but not up close. ‘Andsome fella, ‘aint he Paw?”
“Very pretty,” Pauline said, pure sarcasm.
Well. Game on.
“Thanks for leaving flowers,” Will said.
Joey had sent him a vast designer bouquet when he resigned after Sanjay’s murder. No expense spared, for that, or for the taunting wreath Joey’d sent to Sanjay’s funeral. “You really shouldn’t have.”
Joey tipped his head in acknowledgment. His narrowed eyes lit up with interest. Enjoyment. “Well, you know. How often d’you hear about an honorable copper?” He watched Will’s reaction closely but Will kept everything reined in. Ingham would’ve been very proud. Joey leaned back. “So. You wanna ask me about that poor girl?” he said.
The wording was provocative, considering how many “poor girls” they all knew Joey had used and destroyed.
Pauline handed each of them a mug of tea from a tray, put out a plate of expensive-looking biscuits, and went back to the sink to peel vegetables.
Clearly there were no secrets from her.
So Will trotted through his questions on Daria’s employment and got the expected answers.
Joey was very happy to try to help. When his PA told him about Salt’s call, he’d asked the managers at TPH what they knew about Daria, and they’d reported that they’d taken her off their books a few months before. Joey himself knew nothing about Daria Ivanescu. TPH Enterprises existed purely to provide bar staff for clubs and pubs. He had no idea what the peopl
e he hired out did in their spare time, but he’d never judge someone for doing sex work.
“I’m just a businessman,” he finished, with mournful innocence. “Though the Met’s been tryin’ to pin all kinds of disgustin’ fings on me for years. It’s ‘arassment.”
Why not go for it?
“D’you recall the Ricky Desmond case by any chance, Mr. Clarkson?” he asked.
Behind him, Will heard what sounded like a knife clattering into the sink.
“Call me Joey. Will,” Joey said with a sharp-toothed grin. “I feel like we know each uvver by now. Everyone our age remembers Ricky. Ain’t that right Paw?” He didn’t wait for a reply. “Why d’you ask?”
“Just a connection to Daria’s case.” Joey’s shark eyes remained fixed on him. “Were you involved in your current business in 2006, Mr. Clarkson?”
Joey smirked. He seemed to appreciate the euphemism, but Will thought he sensed new caution in him.
“2006?” Joey tapped his lower lip theatrically. “The ol’ man wiz still alive then, but yeah, I wiz runnin’ his clubs for ‘im, an’ I’d opened ‘Tina’s’.” Tina’s was a strip club, known to be Joey’s favorite, and named unironically after his mother.
“Did you know June Winton?”
Joey gave a considering moue. “’Ang on. Ain’t she the bint who killed Ricky?”
“Did you ever suspect there might have been something untoward about her conviction, Mr. Clarkson?”
Joey blinked slowly, like a lizard in the sun. “Not many coppers’d use untoward,” he said. “I like that.”
Without warning, the kitchen door pushed open, and as if they’d been waiting in the wings for their cue, a girl in school uniform strode in, followed by a slim woman in her thirties in a gray nanny’s uniform, and taking the rear—Joey’s chief enforcer, Eddie Butts.
Joey rose to his feet, beaming. “‘Ow wiz your day, luv?”
The girl went straight to him for a hug. She was small, with neat features, long, dark hair and a heart-shaped face. Will estimated she was in her early teens, a bit old to have a nanny.
“It was okay,” she pouted. “But Magda wouldn’t let Eddie and I get a McDonald’s.”