Non-Suspicious

by Ed Church

  Word of Jonboy’s activities had eventually reached the Senior Management Team and a Superintendent had hauled him in for ‘a meeting without coffee’ as the expression went. For fifteen minutes, Jonboy had launched a vigorous defence of himself against the scurrilous accusations, while wearing pristine full dress uniform. And a massive chicken head.

  Only several years of good service and the suggestion the Met had ignored some underlying ‘issues’ from Jonboy’s own tour in the desert saved him from the sack. Nevertheless, it was thought best for everyone that the public and Jonboy be kept on opposite sides of CCTV cameras after that.

  The hipster-bearded barman took Brook’s order, grabbing a new pint pot and filling it with the golden ale. The detective must only have looked down for a second or two to sort out the payment. But that was all it took. On looking back up, he realised someone had almost fully covered the distance from the entrance…

  Brook began to raise an arm to protect himself from the rapidly approaching figure, but it was too little too late. A great Welsh bear hug came crashing through his half-hearted defence and engulfed him.

  ‘Number One!’ roared the booming South Wales baritone, no doubt to the total confusion of everyone else in the pub.

  ‘Christ. You walk like a fucking cat,’ wheezed Brook, as the bear hug turned into some hefty pats on the back. Jonboy adopted a Karate Kid pose in his British & Irish Lions rugby top.

  ‘It’s all the training, boyo. Just takes over, doesn’t it?’

  Then he lost his balance and grabbed hold of the bar. Brook’s theory about Jonboy nipping into a couple of pubs en route from the tube was looking pretty solid. The barman had no idea what to make of it all.

  ‘I’ll have what he’s having,’ said Jonboy upon regaining his balance. ‘I trust him.’

  He grabbed his pal’s shoulder.

  ‘That’s lucky,’ said Brook.

  At about an inch taller than Brook, and with fifteen pounds of extra padding, Jonboy was certainly built for bear hugs. His upcoming fortieth birthday drinks would no doubt add a couple more pounds all on their own. And with a laissez-faire approach to the combing of hair and shaving of stubble that surpassed even Brook’s, the pair of them looked more like a couple of bouncers who had fallen on hard times than the Met’s finest.

  A snug off the main bar provided a handy place to discuss the case in relative privacy (their only company a framed photo of a young Prince Charles pulling a pint in the same pub). Jonboy had remembered to bring the laptop Brook requested – saved from being crushed in the bear hug by virtue of being in a backpack. Not that the old computer didn’t have enough damage in the form of a scratched screen and several missing keys.

  ‘Told you I wouldn’t forget,’ said the Welshman.

  ‘Bloody hell, Jonboy. Did you crack the Enigma code with that thing?’

  ‘Oi! Even old wrecks have something to offer. Just look at…’

  ‘Don’t say the Defender.’

  ‘…you.’

  ‘That’s better.’

  Over the course of the next couple of hours and several more drinks, Brook walked his old friend through the entire investigation until Jonboy knew the case almost as well as Brook himself. Every statement and exhibit… Every connection and anomaly… Every bit of forensics and CCTV… (When the footage from The Junction was on the screen, he used his phone to take a photo of Victor – he didn’t want a scratched disc deleting the last ever images of the man).

  It was towards the end of their third pint that Brook finally slumped back, happy there was nothing left to tell.

  ‘So what do you think?’ he asked.

  ‘I think you’ve got yourself quite a situation.’

  ‘I knew I could rely on you for a pearl of wisdom.’ He checked his watch. ‘I’ve got a call to make while you figure it all out…’

  Standing with his back to the pub in the slightly quieter surroundings of the street, Brook re-dialled the number for New York Cabs and introduced himself.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Mehmet’s sister. ‘He did mention it. Said some copper might call ’bout booking details for chap he took to Peak View. Obviously, you’ll get Data Protection paperwork to me at earliest opportunity.’

  ‘Obviously,’ agreed Brook, going along with the pretence.

  ‘Well, no point delaying your investigation then. Let’s take a look…’

  Paperwork bypassed. Just as Mehmet had predicted. Some 150 miles north of Brook, the taxi dispatcher brought up the details on her screen and relayed them in the same Yorkshire accent as her brother.

  ‘Right… Well, there’s no address as such, because pick-up fer’t first trip to Peak View were a street corner in city centre. And then it were same trip in reverse an hour later. I can give you street corner if you like.’

  ‘I’ll come back to that. How about a name and phone number?’

  ‘I’ve got phone number he gave, though we didn’t have to use it to find him or ’owt. He were always where he said he’d be.’

  The dispatcher began reading out the number as Brook fumbled for a pen in his jacket. Halfway through he stopped fumbling. There was no need to write it down – he already knew it off by heart. Up until a few hours ago, it had been his.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, managing to hide any surprise in his voice. ‘And how about the name that he provided?’

  There was already a sense of inevitability about the coming answer.

  ‘He said his name were… Brook Deelman. Hang on a sec. What were your name again?’

  ‘Detective Constable Brook Deelman.’

  ‘Ooh, blimey. Either someone’s playing a game with you or that’s got to be world’s biggest coincidence then.’

  ‘I think I’ll go with your first guess,’ said Brook, experiencing yet another step-up in paranoia. He should be getting used to it by now.

  He thanked the dispatcher for her help, looked up and down the street once more, then headed back inside to the snug, retaking the seat across from Jonboy.

  ‘How did that go?’

  ‘Good news and bad news, I suppose.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘The good news is I needn’t have worried about him seeing that Post-it Note with my name and number.’

  ‘And the bad news is he already had it,’ said Jonboy, one step ahead.

  ‘Yep. Gave my name and number when booking his taxi.’

  ‘Christ.’

  ‘There’s me feeling smug for discovering his chat with the cab driver and the pub he’s going to be in… He always wanted me to find out. It’s not a slip-up, it’s an invitation.’

  The pair weighed up the shifting playing field.

  ‘Right,’ said Jonboy at last. ‘Better make it count on Monday night then. Surveillance team, arrest team, search team for any vehicles or properties linked to him, interview team, briefing beforehand. Get Homicide back on board now that you know Beckford doesn’t work for them…’

  ‘Nice idea. But totally impossible to organise without Barnes getting wind of it all.’

  ‘What’s your master plan then?’

  ‘I’m just going to fucking nick him.’

  ‘Bloody hell, boyo. That certainly simplifies things. So what’s my role?’

  ‘You sure you want to be involved?’

  ‘Course I’m bloody sure. Only so much CCTV a man can look at.’

  They both took a long swig as if to confirm their agreement. It was Jonboy who spoke first.

  ‘You do realise there’ll be the mother and father of all shit-storms after this? Whatever happens. I’ve got the excuse of being mental already, but it might not be great for your career.’

  ‘True. But when the Deputy Commissioner is relaying your personal details to a murderer, I think you have the right to respond as you see fit. Beyond that, we’ll just have to see how it pans out.’

  ‘Nicely put. But you still haven’t given me a role.’

  ‘I suppose you’re the entire cavalry, you fat bastard.
’

  Jonboy headed back to the bar for another round.

  ‘It’s the horses I feel sorry for,’ he said.

  Brook let his mind drift to Monday night. Jonboy was not wrong when he said his actions would stir up a shit-storm. A borough DC unilaterally nicking a multiple murder suspect on the back of a secret little op with the Met’s resident mental bloke was not exactly official procedure. But the arrest would still be lawful. And the aftermath should force the truth to the surface. When Jonboy returned with the fresh pints, he had clearly been doing some thinking of his own.

  ‘Right then,’ he said, sliding the ales to their respective sides of the table. ‘Two points. One detailed and one general.’

  ‘Let’s hear the detailed one first,’ said Brook, making a start on the new pint.

  ‘So… Victor told the barman in The Junction it was his birthday,’ said Jonboy.

  ‘Yep. Thursday just gone. The 21st April.’

  ‘Which is a week before the date he was abandoned on Cup Final day, and a week after the date he was believed to be born. But doesn’t actually match either.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘And he’s definitely got a thing for that date, hasn’t he? Because that’s the date when he was doing all that drunken singing in 2005 when the neighbour called the police. So why choose that date to celebrate on?’

  ‘I feel there’s a theory coming along in a minute…’

  ‘All in good time, Number One.’

  Jonboy took another sip of ale, enjoying holding court.

  ‘Right, I think you should use your new phone to check when Stalag IV-B was liberated. It must have been around then, so I’m going with 21st April. If you’ve got a floating birthday around that fortnight, then the day you got your life back would be a good time to celebrate it.’

  Brook entered the search into Google and scrolled down. As a former Royal Military Police Officer, Jonboy’s knowledge of military history was usually spot-on. Relevant details located, Brook read them out loud.

  ‘Stalag IV-B was liberated by Russian forces on 23rd April 1945.’

  ‘Bugger. Two days out. It would have been perfect, you see? His drunken singsong in 2005 would have been the 60th anniversary if I’d been right. Just a bit too perfect maybe.’

  ‘Unless he did somehow get out two days early on the twenty-first.’

  ‘You’re just trying to make me feel better now.’

  ‘Probably. So what’s the other point you mentioned? The general one?’

  ‘That, Number One, is far simpler… Why are these old boys being killed and what the bloody hell is going on?’

  Chapter 35

  Saturday, 21st April 1945

  near Mühlberg, Germany

  A hundred yards… Fifty… Twenty… Victor closed his eyes. The odds against a head-on collision with the overloaded lorry barrelling towards them were diminishing as quickly as the gap. At the last possible moment, von Eberstein either realised the danger or finally got his whisky-addled body to respond. He swung back to his side of the carriageway, miraculously managing a further adjustment to cling to the edge of the road surface. The lorry sped past within a matter of inches on its sagging suspension, horn blaring. Wherever von Eberstein was taking Victor to see Harry – and it clearly wasn’t the camp cooler – it was very much in the balance as to whether they would make it in one piece.

  Indeed, ‘balance’ was something of a key word in their current predicament. Even though Victor had heard von Eberstein arrive at the hut by motorbike – before bursting in wearing a helmet, scarf and gloves – he had still expected the Nazi’s offer of ‘I’ll drive’ to involve a change of transport to something four-wheeled. Instead, his choice of vehicle had remained the same. Not a motorbike as such – but a motorbike and sidecar.

  A shackled Victor was in the sidecar, trying hard not to lose his mind with terror as von Eberstein took another blind bend on two wheels. The passing blur of countryside suggested they were avoiding the local town of Mühlberg. While Victor clenched his teeth, the only thing silencing von Eberstein was the buffeting air-flow, whipping away his maniacal cries of ‘HAHAAAAAA!’

  At last the speed began to drop, accompanied by a shifting down through the gears as Victor’s hearing returned to normal. An old farmhouse, surrounded by a scattering of outbuildings, appeared to be their destination – an array of German military vehicles stationed in the courtyard. Von Eberstein rolled their three-wheeled deathtrap to a stop in front of them and lowered the top edge of the scarf covering his face and neck.

  ‘Exciting, no?’ he said with a grin.

  Victor raised his shackled hands to his face and wiped away an assortment of dead insects before staring back wordlessly.

  ‘So, now it is the Englishman with no sense of humour,’ said von Eberstein, dismounting from the motorbike. He motioned for Victor to get up.

  ‘Du willst Harry sehen, oder?’… ‘You want to see Harry, don’t you?’

  The prisoner clumsily exited the sidecar and reminded himself of the journey’s original purpose – his demand to check on Harry’s welfare. The fact they were now at a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere did not bode well for his friend.

  Von Eberstein kept a certain distance, a gloved hand on the Walther P38 sidearm holstered at his hip, just in case his passenger decided upon some suicidal act of fight or flight. For now, Victor’s only fight was against dizziness. He took a deep breath and nodded at his captor.

  ‘Harry,’ he said. ‘Jetzt’… ‘Now.’

  The SS-Sturmbannführer ushered Victor ahead of him to the oak front door.

  ‘Knock,’ instructed von Eberstein.

  Victor obliged, a little awkwardly due to the iron bindings on his wrists. The internal screen to a spyhole slid open, paused for a moment, then slid shut again. There followed a series of clunking and scraping noises as locks and bolts were released. Finally, the door opened, revealing yet another dramatic Nazi uniform with double lightning strikes on the collar (judging by his waistline, this new SS man had done pretty well out of the war). Victor was trying to figure out his rank from the various insignia when he snapped a salute. Well, somewhere beneath SS-Sturmbannführer then.

  ‘Please. Enter, Lance Corporal,’ said von Eberstein, pushing Victor firmly between the shoulder blades. The prisoner stepped inside, his threadbare Middlesex Regiment uniform brushing past the saluting Nazi.

  ‘To your right,’ said von Eberstein.

  Despite the vast amount of whisky he had consumed in the hut, the adrenalin of the journey seemed to have restored some clarity to his actions. The fact he was even still upright was a minor miracle in itself.

  Victor followed the instruction and headed down a dim passage, ancient flagstones beneath his worn-out boots. As von Eberstein’s footsteps followed him, his mind began to race… Was this whole adventure really to reassure him of Harry’s welfare? Or was he here to join Harry in being tortured? Or perhaps in being dead.

  The Englishman passed an unoccupied room on his right, a huge elk hide on the floor in front of a fireplace. Next came a kitchen on the opposite side. A silent elderly couple in peasant clothes were peeling potatoes. Victor guessed they were the tenants of the farmhouse, kept on to cater for these strutting SS officers. The husband and wife stared blankly at the stranger.

  ‘Heil Churchill!’ said Victor, before von Eberstein shoved him in the back again.

  There was only one door remaining. At the far end of the passage, a few inches ajar. Victor could hear music and some low level German chatter mixed in with the occasional laugh. There was too much competing noise to make out many individual words, but the general atmosphere seemed to be one of bonhomie. He reached the door and stopped.

  ‘Enter,’ ordered von Eberstein behind him.

  The door made no sound as it swung on its hinges, the music and chatter continuing undisturbed. The fire was lit in this room, even though the spring day scarcely required it. At the far end, three high-backed armchairs w
ere arranged in an arc around the crackling flames.

  While the smoke from the fire disappeared up the chimney, the haze hanging in the air came from the cigars being enjoyed by each of the armchairs’ occupants. A gramophone in the far corner was playing a female German singer.

  Von Eberstein nudged Victor again and he stepped closer to the three chairs, starting to pick up bits of the conversation now. It sounded like the unseen men were chatting about matters of finance or business. A bottle-carrying hand appeared to the side of the centre chair as its occupant reached left, then right, to top up his companions’ Cognac.

  As each recipient leaned over to offer his glass, Victor saw their SS uniforms. Both noticed the new presence in the room and stared back at the prisoner. The occupant of the centre chair had no such angle from which to view the new arrival.

  For a moment there was no discernible activity from the final member of the Cognac club. Then Victor heard the hiss of a cigar being extinguished and the wispy smoke above the middle armchair began to dissipate. Its occupant slowly stood up and turned around to face Victor over the back of the chair…

  ‘All right, Vic?’ said Harry.

  Chapter 36

  Sunday, 24th April 2016

  North London

  Brook could swear the hill got steeper every day. Steeper and longer. He used to barely notice it ten years ago. But he was still determined not to take the bus for the half-mile journey from Kings Cross to Grovebury police station. Which was why he now found himself trudging the familiar route once again. It felt as if the bailiffs for his sleep debt were finally banging on the door.

  The day ahead held a couple of tasks – the first, retracing something he had already done; the second, preparing for something he was yet to do. Top of the list was re-visiting Victor’s flat to see if he and Kev had missed anything that first night. The second activity was checking out The Elbow Room pub ahead of the Tourist’s invitation to talk, ingeniously made via New York Cabs.