Non-Suspicious

by Ed Church

  ‘Excellent idea,’ he said. ‘I’ll drive.’

  Chapter 32

  Saturday, 23rd April 2016

  M1 southbound, Derbyshire

  Brook came off the motorway at the same services he had visited on the way up and found an empty bay next to a yellow VW camper van. It reminded him of the film Little Miss Sunshine. There was no urgency to his pit stop this time. Harry Wilson had joined Victor Watson on the list of victims. Killed in the lounge. With the tea. By the Tourist. If only this was all a game of Cluedo.

  The detective’s stop in the Sheffield cul-de-sac had been dominated by a phone call from the press officer at work. She wanted to know if he’d found a next of kin for the lonely World War Two veteran in the churchyard. ‘It would make a great story. Real tug-on-the-heartstrings stuff. Not to mention that the publicity might actually help you find a next of kin.’

  Brook didn’t like the idea of extra attention on a case he was struggling to get to grips with. All the same, short of mentioning murder, conspiracy and cover-up, he could think of no official reason to knock back the request. In the end, he managed a compromise. ‘Can you just hold fire for a few days? I’ve got a couple more leads to chase up. Always best if the next of kin doesn’t find out through the press if possible.’ That seemed to do the trick. For now, at least.

  With the Defender’s tank still half full, Brook focused on his own refuelling in a window seat of the food hall, examining the card from Harry’s bedroom as he ate:

  ‘To Harry… Happy Christmas… 21st December… VICTOR… See you soon’.

  It wasn’t exactly a wealth of information. And, it went without saying, if it was from a different Victor then it offered nothing at all. But Harry didn’t seem to be suffering from a surfeit of friends. Brook flipped the evidence bag and looked at the envelope facing out the other side – the Peak View address and the stamp of a snowy robin with the Melbourne frank on it (he liked how so many hot parts of the Commonwealth still chose frosty Christmas scenes). He looked at the date on the frank… ‘15.12.15’. Then he looked inside the card once again… ‘21st December’.

  Now, what was that all about?

  Even in Brook’s most hungover state, he rarely got the date wrong by more than a day or two. Six days? That was quite a stretch. If the wrong date were part of some in-joke between Victor and Harry, then he would never know now. If not, why was it even in there at all? Especially in that strange position, beneath the printed ‘Happy Christmas’ and to the top left of ‘VICTOR’. The name wasn’t brilliantly written, the first two letters somewhat bigger than the rest.

  What was he missing? Was there a unifying reason for the little anomalies? He imagined the 21st December date in different forms. 21/12. Or 12/21 in some countries… 2112… 1221… The number 2112 felt vaguely familiar, though his brain could just as easily be playing tricks on him. He soon gave up and shoved everything back into a pocket. There were more pressing matters.

  Brook took out his phone and laid it on the table. He had been quietly considering his options from the moment it was compromised by the Tourist seeing his name and number on Debbie’s Post-it Note. One possibility was to simply change the number, but someone with the right connections and authority could still trace and track a handset even with an old number (and Deputy Commissioner Barnes would hardly be lacking on that front). Brook didn’t like the idea of effectively carrying a location beacon for the other side to keep tabs on him. Of course, given that his number was hardly top secret at work, it was quite possible they already were.

  On the back of his food receipt, he transcribed the few phone numbers he would actually miss from his Contacts. Then he went into Photos and sent all the ones he wanted to keep to his e-mail account – everything related to the case and a handful of others of friends and family. That was all he needed to do. It took about five minutes.

  Before he got rid of the phone, there was one last call he wanted to make… DS Chris Beckford in Homicide. That bald weirdo of surprise churchyard appearances and CCTV stealing fame. Brook would play it dumb, of course. Totally dumb. Just an innocent call from the dumb local DC investigating the dumb non-suspicious death. Enough to try and get a feel for the man. As he picked up the phone, it began buzzing in his hand – a number he didn’t recognise on the screen. Brook twisted to look around the food hall, then scanned the car park before answering.

  ‘Hello..?’

  ‘Hi Brook, it’s Danny from the pub. I helped you with the CCTV?’

  The detective relaxed.

  ‘Danny. Hi. How can I help?’

  ‘I just thought I’d give you a heads-up. Not my fault, but the manager’s just had a bit of a barney with one of your colleagues. He wanted to see the same CCTV you took the other day.’

  ‘Was he a tall, bald guy by any chance?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s him. It was in the middle of the lunchtime rush, so he and the manager didn’t exactly hit it off. Is there a problem with the disc?’

  Brook didn’t answer. He was beginning to see the outline of how this little operation worked. Barnes as the boss man, the Tourist as the hitman, and DS Beckford as the handyman, assessing what evidence was left behind and sweeping it away where possible. Even though Brook already had the footage from the pub, Beckford had gone there to find out exactly what it showed. Exactly what scraps of evidence were out there.

  ‘Are you still there?’ asked Danny.

  ‘Yeah, sorry about that,’ said Brook. ‘He’s a strange one. I’ll have a word with him. Sorry if he caused any trouble. But thanks for the call.’

  ‘No worries, mate.’

  Interesting. Very interesting. If he’d wanted to speak to Beckford before, he definitely did now. He swirled his remaining coffee and looked through the window at the Defender and the Little Miss Sunshine camper van as he dialled the main Homicide number. A female detective answered and Brook introduced himself before getting down to the reason for his call.

  ‘I was hoping to speak to one of your DS’s there. Chris Beckford.’

  ‘You’ll have a bit of a wait, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Maternity leave.’

  ‘Sorry… Chris Beckford.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s right.’

  ‘Chris Beckford is a woman?’

  ‘That’s normally how it works with maternity leave. DS Christine Beckford. She’s always called herself Chris. It does create a bit of confusion.’

  Brook made his excuses and hung up. He hadn’t seen this one coming. There were only two possibilities. Either Sandy Sanderson had somehow recorded the wrong name in the scene log, or it was the bald guy’s warrant card that was ‘wrong’. A fake. He recalled the phone call he’d taken in front of them… ‘Tell them to keep it warm. I’ll be back in two minutes. Yeah, nothing for us here.’

  What a great bit of acting and manipulation.

  Yes, they were all linked – Barnes, fake Beckford and the Tourist.

  Each with their role in the killings and the cover-ups.

  All the while, Brook had been staring out at the Little Miss Sunshine camper van. It was the only yellow vehicle in the car park. Unusual colour. Memorable too. A little voice in the back of his head was trying to tell him something. Maybe he would make one more call before ditching the phone. He tapped on the number for Peak View…

  ‘Nick, it’s Brook.’

  ‘Oh, hi. Did you miss something?’

  ‘Not sure. I might be imagining things. But I have this vague recollection of seeing something on the CCTV that didn’t really register at the time. I won’t be able to check until I’m back in London so I thought you might be able to help.’

  ‘I think I can manage that,’ said Nick, keen as ever. Brook heard the lightning-quick clatter of fingers on a keyboard. ‘Right… What am I looking for?’

  ‘Go to the point when you first see Logan Baird on the camera at the front.’

  ‘Got it.’

  ‘Now rewind from there, i
t won’t be more than a minute, and keep your eye out for a yellow flash at the top of the screen where you can just see the edge of the road.’

  ‘Hang on… Yep, I see it. It’s a yellow car driving past.’

  ‘Okay. Good. I’m less sure about the next one. But go to the point when he leaves and walks off to the left on the pavement. Tell me if there’s another yellow flash at the top of the screen.’

  ‘Right… One moment… Watching him leave now…’

  Nick was doing a good job of ramping up the suspense.

  ‘Yep, there it is. Just after he goes out of shot. Another yellow car going past.’

  ‘I’m thinking they’re taxis,’ said Brook. ‘I hadn’t even considered how he got to and from your place.’

  ‘Just a sec. I know exactly who that will be… One of their cards is here somewhere… Got it. They’re called New York Cabs. All sorts of different vehicles but they put a yellow paint job on them all.’

  ‘Nick, you’re a bloody genius,’ said Brook, as he took down their number.

  Time to finally ditch the phone.

  After entering the wrong passcode enough times to block the handset, Brook turned it off, snapped the SIM card in half and dropped the whole lot into his takeaway coffee cup, pressing down the lid. Then he visited the Gents and chucked it in a grubby bin.

  Heading over to one of the ubiquitous little phone shops in service stations, he used cash to buy their oldest iPhone and a pre-paid SIM, persuading the guy to put some charge into it while he got another coffee. A text to Jonboy was the phone’s inaugural message (‘Hello, mate. New number. Long story. Free for a beer later? Brook’) while the honour of the first call went to the number Nick had just given him… New York Cabs.

  A gruff-sounding Yorkshireman answered and Brook explained he was a police officer trying to find someone who had visited Peak View Care Home earlier. It was about the death of an elderly resident and the contact number this guest had left was a digit short (all true, in a way). He had a hunch they had used New York Cabs to get to and from the care home…

  ‘Would it be possible to find out if I’m right in thinking that?’

  ‘No need to find out, pal,’ said the Yorkshireman.

  ‘Oh, right. You remember the booking being made?’

  ‘Never mind booking. It were me what drove ’im.’

  Brook’s fortunes were suddenly looking up.

  ‘Did he say much?’

  ‘He certainly did, pal. We had quite a chat...’

  Chapter 33

  As victorious homecomings went, returning to a bland London chain hotel after one night away was not quite in the ticker tape and marching band category. But there was a certain quiet satisfaction in a job well done. He lay back on the bed and flicked through some Saturday evening television in a fruitless search for a history or wildlife documentary. There seemed to be no shortage of excruciating game shows. He paused long enough on one to see a contestant guess that the biggest country in South America was ‘Africa’. Once the answer was revealed, she promised the host that Brazil was going to be her second guess. The television went off. Truly, evolution had come to an end.

  The silence in the small room led naturally to another mental check of everything that had happened in Sheffield. Barnes had assured him that the local police could scarcely be less interested in Harry Wilson’s death. That was good to know. To have some northern version of Deelman poking around would have seriously tested his patience.

  Talking of Deelman – which he seemed to be spending far too much time doing these days – he was still none the wiser as to what had made him drive up that little street overlooking Peak View. For a moment, he had been convinced he was coming for him. That they were going to have this out in a… what was it?... a ‘cul-de-sac’.

  Obviously, he had no concerns about losing such a confrontation. But, at the same time, it was an unnecessary complication. At least at this point. It was why there had been a degree of relief when the detective simply drove straight past, seemingly lost in thought. Still, if Deelman refused to give up, despite being way out of his depth, then it looked increasingly likely that a meeting was what it would come to. Well, a meeting or a confrontation. He was easy either way.

  In a sense he had already made the invitation. It was just a case of whether Deelman was smart enough to find it. If he was, then by now he should already be in touch with New York Cabs. No doubt he would be congratulating himself on being so clever.

  His phone started buzzing beside him on the bed… Barnes.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Just to let you know it looks like he’s ditched his phone.’

  ‘Smart guy. I presume you can still track his vehicle on the ANPR cameras.’

  ‘On his way back to London last time I checked. But once he’s out of the vehicle, I won’t be able to give you any updates.’

  ‘What’s your point?’

  ‘That you might just want to watch your back.’

  ‘I assure you, it’s not me who needs to watch their back.’

  ‘Look, I told you before. He’s a serving police officer. You can’t just–’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have it under control.’

  ‘Is there something you’re not telling me?’

  ‘It’s under control.’

  ‘That’s not an answer. Give me an answer.’

  ‘The biggest country in South America is Africa.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘It’s an answer.’

  He hung up and turned the TV back on. Barnes really needed to trust him more.

  Chapter 34

  Brook stood in the doorway to The Lamb and cradled a dimpled pint glass – the same type from which Victor Watson had been drinking in the footage of his final night. It wasn’t the only thing making the detective think of poor Victor. He was staring at the original gates to the old Foundling Hospital, thirty yards along the street to his right. Black iron railings between stone gatehouses – the only part of the orphanage still standing according to the eccentric Theodore.

  Beyond the gates were lawns, paths and some kind of bandstand. No trace of the old building. But they were the gates all right. The same ones through which an infant Victor Watson was taken on the day of the 1923 FA Cup Final, wrapped in a West Ham scarf and with a strange gold medal. Brook had wanted to come back to where it all began.

  The detective was in a good mood – and not only because his jacket was now considerably less cumbersome (the investigation’s array of discs and paperwork re-homed in a new Lonsdale shoulder bag slung across his back). The phone call with the cab driver who remembered the Tourist had gone surprisingly well.

  Mehmet his name was, though from his accent he was clearly anything but a new arrival in Yorkshire. More importantly, he had a good memory. Apart from his passenger repeating the same line he had given Debbie – about going to Peak View to meet an old army friend of his late grandfather’s – it turned out they had talked mainly about football on both journeys. Not what Brook was expecting.

  Mehmet explained he was a fan himself, so had been happy enough with the topic. He said his passenger was looking forward to watching Spurs play West Bromwich Albion back in London on Monday night before leaving the country. He apparently only made it to a couple of games a year, but he loved the pre-match atmosphere in The Elbow Room pub before heading over to the stadium…

  GOT HIM.

  A time, a venue, and right next to Brook’s regular north London patch. Just two days from now this whole thing was going to come to a head.

  ‘Did he say where he was actually from?’ Brook had asked.

  ‘He just said he’d moved around a lot,’ Mehmet had replied.

  Even a good memory couldn’t provide an answer that wasn’t there.

  Apart from telling Brook that the passenger had asked to be picked up and dropped off at a street corner in the city centre, Mehmet didn’t have access to the full booking details – the name and number that had b
een provided. Those would be with the dispatchers, but… he lowered his voice… if Brook waited until 9pm then his sister would start her shift and she wasn’t too fussed about all that ‘Data Protection Act’ stuff. Brook decided he would happily wait to avoid the extra paperwork.

  The detective stopped staring at the Foundling Hospital gates to look at his watch. 7.20pm. Jonboy was late. Given that his route from the tube would take the former Royal Military Police officer past two other pubs, Brook wasn’t entirely surprised. Alcohol and Jonboy had been closely interlinked ever since he first clapped eyes on him – blind drunk, in his boxer shorts, and handcuffed to the Borough Commander’s chair amid a growing puddle of drool (drinks with old army friends, it seemed, could get even messier than police ones). The fact he had somehow saved Jonboy’s skin had turned a stranger into a friend for life.

  Brook finished his first ale and headed back into the 18th century pub for a fresh one, making his way round to the side of the horseshoe-shaped bar so as not to have his back to the entrance. An extra level of caution was definitely prudent when in the business of pissing off a murderer and the second most powerful cop in London.

  After tapping a quick text of ‘You lost?’ he tried to recall the last time he had seen Jonboy. A couple of months ago, maybe. Their last really big session had been at the England v Wales game in the Rugby World Cup. He remembered Jonboy threatening to arrest an Englishman who took a shine to his inflatable sheep (for the offence of ‘cultural appropriation’). Still, such antics were small fry compared to the famous meltdown that had seen him shuffled into the CCTV office.

  The death of two old friends in Helmand Province seemed to have been some sort of trigger. In any case, Jonboy had come to work drunk for a week and decided to conduct various police activities while wearing a giant chicken head from a fancy dress shop (it had been kicking around the locker room for years after some prank or other). The drug addict whose flat was searched by a giant police chicken was probably still telling friends about his bad trip.