Non-Suspicious

by Ed Church

  ‘The nuts.’

  ‘Oh yeah, they’re good.’

  ‘And the caramel.’

  ‘Oh my God, that caramel!’

  Sandy bit her lip. Brook was glad to have at least made her smile after all the problems that he and Kev had caused.

  ‘Brook!’ As if on cue, Kev called over from the car.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Get a fucking wriggle on. I’ll update you on the way to the pub.’

  Sandy raised an eyebrow.

  ‘The pub?’

  ‘Well, you know. They all serve coffee these days, don’t they?’

  ‘I think I’d rather have a pint,’ said Sandy.

  Chapter 7

  DS Kevin Padmore took over the driving duties while DC Brook Deelman slumped his big frame into the passenger seat.

  ‘Did he have any more to say?’ asked Kev, turning the C-Max around.

  ‘Not really. I think you upset him with your Long John Silver comment.’

  ‘Yeah, well. He started it with his big gold coin nonsense.’

  Brook thought it was time to move on.

  ‘You said you had an update.’

  ‘An update and a favour to ask, I suppose.’

  ‘I’m all ears,’ said Brook, realising too late he had teed Kev up a treat.

  ‘I bet Victor Watson never said that! You know, with the missing top bit of−’

  ‘I get it.’

  At least it cheered Kev up. Brook allowed his colleague a moment to savour his punchline while the C-Max bounced gently over the endless speed bumps.

  ‘Anyway,’ continued Kev, ‘I just got off the phone to the on-call DCI. I wanted to keep him up to speed on this one.’

  You mean you wanted to get your version of events in first, thought Brook.

  ‘That was quick,’ he said instead.

  ‘Yeah, we were at Hendon together.’

  The silent training school bond that cut across rank.

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Well, he thinks it’s borderline, but he’s happy enough to go with a call of non-suspicious.’

  Brook doubted Kev had gone into too much detail about the various anomalies that he now seemed content to wish away.

  ‘He’s just a bit concerned with the whole war veteran thing,’ Kev went on. ‘Wants us to make sure we do things right in case there’s any extra interest.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Look, the job’s going to have to stay with CID until we find his next of kin anyway. And, while we’ve got it, he’s just keen we make sure it’s a cast iron non-suspicious. Make sure there’s nothing weird on any CCTV, no related 999 calls that have been missed, no pattern of similar incidents, no witnesses – genuine ones, I mean. All simple stuff. What do you think?’

  It wasn’t hard to read between the lines. A DCI who was far from comfortable with the death being classed as non-suspicious, but was doing his best to back his old friend while simultaneously ‘covering his arse’.

  ‘I think it sounds like the DCI wants someone to tick a few boxes without looking too hard,’ said Brook. For the sake of harmony, he avoided saying ‘the DCI and you’.

  They came to a halt at a red light where Liverpool Road met Upper Street. The pause allowed Kev to turn to his passenger.

  ‘Well, if there’s something there then we can re-assess, and if there’s not then… there’s not,’ he said, somewhat meaninglessly.

  Brook looked straight ahead. On the far side of the junction, early morning commuters were silently disappearing into Angel tube station like worker ants returning to a burrow.

  ‘I can guess what the favour is,’ he said. ‘You need someone to do the honours with the investigation.’

  ‘Well, you do have a head start on everyone else by knowing the case.’

  ‘I’m also about to start four days off.’

  ‘Hey, no-one can force you to do it. But, on the plus side, it’s all red ink. Authorised by the DCI. Most people would bite my hand off.’

  Red ink – another way of saying overtime paid at double time. From the days when the overtime ledgers were filled out by hand.

  Brook nodded.

  ‘Does that mean you’ll do it?’

  ‘It means the lights have changed.’

  ‘Oh…’

  Kev raised a hand of apology to the car behind and moved off through the junction, past the burrowing commuters. The C-Max was heading south now, towards Smithfield meat market and the morning pubs.

  ‘It’s easy money, that’s all I’m saying. Milk it for fuck’s sake. It’ll take you no time at all to find a next of kin and bottom out those extra enquiries. Then you’re getting paid double bubble for putting your feet up and drinking coffee. As for whether it’s ticking boxes or looking hard, well, there’s no need to overthink it. What you find is what you find.’

  ‘And that will be that there was no foul play.’

  ‘If that’s what you find.’

  Which I’m sure you will, in exchange for all that lovely red ink.

  The coded request was clear. Brook chose not to address it directly. While far from a model officer, he retained enough integrity that being paid handsomely to find nothing was not really his thing. That said, the whole incident was increasingly… intriguing. And when most workdays were of the Groundhog variety, that simple fact had a value all of its own.

  Neither detective spoke again until they were rumbling over the cobbles in front of Smithfield’s vast 19th century halls – still standing in defiance of the property developers keen to turn it all to dust. Dotted all around, historic pubs that had grown up to slake the thirst of meat trade night workers. Pubs and workers that, for generations, had enjoyed a symbiotic relationship with night duty coppers in search of an after-work pint.

  ‘You going to do it then?’ asked Kev, trundling to a stop by the kerb.

  Brook was busy removing the radio, handcuffs, baton and CS spray from his jacket.

  ‘Yeah, I’ll do it,’ he said. He couldn’t deny it any longer – the case and its curiosities had piqued his interest. Just enough to overcome the white noise of apathy and exhaustion that accompanied most of police life.

  ‘Great,’ said Kev.

  ‘You sure I can’t tempt you with a quick one?’ asked Brook. It seemed the polite thing to do, even though he already knew the answer.

  ‘Nah, you’re okay. School run in a couple of hours.’

  Brook nodded. He always found it difficult to picture Kev as a husband and father. He hauled himself out of the passenger door, turning to drop his kit onto the seat.

  ‘There’s a spare key taped to the back of my office pod if you can throw that lot inside. I’ll just have a couple here then get my head down for a few hours at the station. Not much point going home just to come straight back in.’

  ‘Okay, mate. Give me a bell if there are any problems.’

  Kev left it vague as to what problems meant.

  ‘Will do. Cheers for the lift.’

  Seconds later, Brook was pushing open the door to the Fox & Anchor and entering a pub that had changed little since his thirsty predecessors crossed the same threshold in an age of smog and street urchins… Polished oak, brass, leather, glazed tiles and ornate mirrors. Half a dozen customers were inside, a couple in yellow tabards, one in the process of taking off a long white coat covered in the bloody smudges of his trade.

  Brook ordered a Guinness and downed half of it instantly… Decompression. Vasodilation. A wave of endorphins. God, it felt good. Taking a seat along the back wall, he flicked through the pub’s copy of The Sun – about as challenging a read as he wanted at the end of a night shift – then took out his phone and tapped on the internet icon. He was curious to look up the ‘other’ Victor Watson. The West Ham United legend that Kev had been waxing lyrical about in the churchyard.

  As it turned out, he had not been far off with his claim of three hundred league goals. The exact figure was 298, scored between 1920 and 1935. For someone as p
rone to hyperbole as Kev, the addition of two goals was definitely acceptable – especially as ‘Vic Watson’ had bagged a load more in FA Cup matches, and four in five games for England. He had died in 1988 at the ripe old age of ninety. These Victor Watsons seemed to live a long time.

  Two more pints and a fried breakfast later, Brook found himself blearily entering a combination code and opening the grey metal door of his police locker. He removed a foam camping mat, sleeping bag and pillow, then took his little bundle to the furthest corridor of lockers and laid them out. With any luck, uniform Late Turn wouldn’t disturb him until around 2pm.

  DC Brook Deelman left his jacket, jeans and shoes in a pile at the end of his makeshift bed. Then he turned off his phone, lay flat on his back and closed his eyes. The events of the last few hours flickered through his mind, over and over, like an old Pathé newsreel on a loop. At last, the repeating images came to an end, the grainy numbers counted down from ten to one, the screen went blank and sleep claimed him.

  Chapter 8

  He hadn’t slept well.

  The encounter with his first target was still playing on his mind.

  He adjusted the mirrors of his hire car and checked his documentation was all in order, on the off chance he got pulled over. Getting your fake IDs mixed up might not get you shot by the British police, but it wouldn’t exactly keep you under the radar either.

  He was cross with himself for not putting the events of yesterday behind him and focusing on the second target. Little things had been bugging him all night. Rather than continue the losing battle to draw a line under it, he decided to allow himself a few minutes to indulge the thoughts that had been eating away at him. Maybe then it would be easier to move on…

  He chose to think about what had gone well first. No point being entirely negative. He was satisfied that nobody in the pub had cause to remember him. He was also confident that no-one could tell he was following his target in the street. And, yes, he was as happy as he could be that nothing in the churchyard had been captured on camera. So that was three little ticks.

  A bigger tick was the relative ease with which he had got his hands on the thing he wanted – other than the target’s demise. That gold medal. Or whatever non-precious metal it really was. The target had unwittingly been very helpful in always having it on him.

  Then there was the whisky. Yes, he was happy enough with that. A pre-planned decision to splash some cheap whisky over the dead target and leave the near-empty bottle under his hand. In his experience, cops tended to stick with their initial assessment of a scene through a mixture of pride and laziness. If it helped paint the picture of a stumbling alcoholic then it had done its job.

  His decision to remove the key to the communal door was a little more ‘left-field’ but he had a hunch it might help. The item itself was obscure enough that its absence would never look like a theft. At the same time, if frustrated night duty officers left the task of gaining entry to the day shift, then there was a greater chance of bored cops simply going through the motions. Apathy accompanied any task handed down from a previous shift – it was human nature. And he hadn’t been in the target’s home so couldn’t be sure what secrets it held.

  Anything else in the ‘plus’ column? The broken wrist. That had worked out surprisingly well. In fact, it fitted so well with the story he had presented with the whisky and the nasty fall that he was almost annoyed with himself for not thinking of it in the first place.

  That was about it on the positive side of things. Now for the stuff that had been bothering him. The stuff that had prevented him getting a good night’s sleep in his anonymous chain hotel.

  It started with the fatal blow. The hybrid martial arts move by which he had slammed the target’s head into the side of the tomb. At first he thought it had gone well – death was certainly instant. But a closer inspection suggested he might have overdone the force by a newton or two. The break of the neck looked a bit too severe. It tested the boundaries of accidental impact. Maybe adrenalin had got the better of him.

  Then there was the main thing he had to mentally address. He couldn’t avoid it any longer. The fact he had come within half a second of being knifed by a target in his nineties. How could he have let his guard down so badly? The target’s calmness alone should have alerted him. Even if no-one else had given him a second glance, the target must have spotted him. In the pub, maybe even in the café the day before. How else could he have shown so little surprise at their meeting?

  All that sang-froid should have told him he might come up against a plan – basic, but very nearly effective. He tried telling himself to focus on the fact he had reacted in time, taken care of the threat. It provided scant comfort. A younger version of the target would surely have killed him.

  He looked again at the target’s fountain pen flick knife. It was nicely crafted – unrecognisable as a knife to the untrained eye. He had considered keeping it. Posting it to a safe address to pick up at a later date. The spoils of war. But the more he looked at it, the more he thought of his mistake. No, it would be disposed of. Perhaps he could make his negative thoughts disappear with it.

  There was just one more thing in the ‘minus’ column. Nothing comparable to the previous mistake, but he may as well complete the self-analysis. His clothes. The pale chinos, light blue shirt and navy sports jacket, purchased after arriving in the country two days ago.

  He preferred to kill in locally bought clothes – ones that would never have to pass through an airport’s myriad security measures on the way in or out – and he had thought these would be pretty unremarkable for spring in London. But everyone in the pub had been wearing either ‘smart’ (variations on the office suit) or ‘casual’ (Arsenal tops and polo shirts). He seemed to be the only one wearing ‘smart casual’. There was a difference. He looked like… like a tourist.

  He chastised himself one more time for everything he had done wrong, took a deep breath and made his peace with it all. It had gone okay. That was enough. And he was now glad he had allowed himself a couple of minutes to work through it all in his mind.

  Besides, on a brighter note, his police contact had been in touch to say he couldn’t see anything to worry about. One of his men had made sure any prospect of Homicide involvement had been nipped in the bud and the whole thing was now being handled by a couple of local detectives – ‘an idiot’ and ‘a drunk’. That made him smile.

  He took out his phone and called up the map option, ignoring the hire car’s satnav that could be downloaded and linked to him. He was going to do things right today. The ‘From’ box at the top showed ‘Current Location’. He clicked on the ‘To’ box and typed his destination…

  ‘Peak View Care Home, Sheffield’

  Chapter 9

  As a general rule, Brook avoided police station canteens. A passing superior wanting ‘a quick word’ about a case was a great way to make your food go cold. It was why he now found himself at the back of Alfredo’s. An over-keen new recruit had scuppered his plans for five hours’ sleep at around the four-and-a-half hour mark. But a shower, strong coffee and fresh t-shirt from the outdoor market (plain black, XL) were all helping the process of making him feel human again.

  He thumbed the passcode into his phone and checked the home screen – two texts, one missed call and one voicemail. Not bad (zero was the ideal). He listened to the voicemail first, which turned out to also be the source of the missed call. The voice of a Safer Neighbourhoods PC explained that DS Kev Padmore had sent an e-mail requesting some door-to-doors in Victor Watson’s block – to see if anyone knew a next of kin – and had asked him to update Brook. The enquiries were drawing a blank. Fair enough.

  Text messages next. The first was from Jonboy, sent just after Brook turned his phone off:

  ‘Number One! I trust you are sinking a few in the early house by now. Think I might have found your dead bloke. Before he was a dead bloke, I mean. Seems to leave The Junction at 9.52pm and enter the churchyard at 10.04p
m. All wide angle stuff obviously. Might not be him but matches your description. Off home now. Have asked day shift to download it for you. P.S. Donuts.’

  This was better. The footage would all be fairly distant – from the street cameras fixed high up on lampposts – but Brook was confident he would be able to tell if it was Victor. Plus, the timing made sense if he’d been watching the match on which he placed a bet. Yes, this was progress.

  The next text was not so positive. From a colleague in Robbery Squad – Brook’s regular gig when not working nights. It told him one of his prolific offenders awaiting sentence had received ‘two years’. Brook tossed the phone down. Two years for three violent robberies? Knock off half for the time he would spend out on licence and the little shit was looking at just one Christmas behind bars.

  ‘One Christmas what?’ said a Polish-accented waitress looming over Brook’s shoulder.

  ‘Hmm?’ he replied, looking between the brunette and the plate of pancakes, maple syrup and crispy bacon she was placing in front of him.

  ‘You say One Christmas,’ she explained.

  ‘Really? Wow. Talking to myself. Bad sign.’

  ‘Polish Christmas is best Christmas,’ she said matter-of-factly, before moving away to another table. Brook couldn’t help but smile at the deadpan delivery. And the smell of his second breakfast was lifting his spirits still further.

  He caught the waitress’s eye as she headed back into the kitchen and silently ordered another coffee (Brook was well aware that hard-bitten detectives were supposed to drink black coffee, but since his stomach was usually recovering from some kind of alcoholic excess, he preferred the balancing alkaline effect of a splash of milk).

  As usual, he enjoyed the café’s vast array of sports photos as he set about the pancakes. Ali, Foreman, Frazier… Maradona, Pelé, Bobby Moore… Jonah Lomu, Francois Pienaar… James Hunt, Niki Lauda. Then there were the teams: Brazil 1970… A.C. Milan 1994. He found himself pausing on the Uruguay World Cup winning side of 1930. The sepia tint and fixed expressions gave the image a 19th century feel, yet Victor Watson would already have been seven years old at the time. It felt as if his long life had spanned two worlds before its unceremonious ending last night.