Author: Peter Robinson
Category: Other
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‘Illegal?’
‘That would be my guess.’
‘But what was he doing up here? I mean, if he came by boat he’d have landed on the south coast, wouldn’t he? Kent, Hampshire, somewhere like that. It’s a bloody long way up here, and I doubt he had a wallet full of money with him.’
‘There’s not a lot of people who arrive here by boat, and they’ve usually come from France. He may have travelled by an overland route, or via Ireland, say. Besides, it’s hardly as far from Kent to Yorkshire as it is from Iraq, or wherever he came from, to Kent. Anyway, Dr Galway said he’d probably been stabbed about an hour to an hour and a half before his body was dumped in the bin, so he could have been driven here from as far away as Newcastle or Leeds. Maybe even Manchester, at a pinch.’
‘Hardly,’ said Annie. ‘You’d never get across the bloody M62 that fast, even on a Sunday night.’
Banks smiled. ‘Maybe you’re right. Anyway, the point is, we know he’s not local, and he could have come from anywhere within the radius of about an hour’s drive.’
‘That includes Blaydon’s house.’
‘Outside Harrogate?’
‘Yes. It’s all well and good thinking of them coming up here to find and kill the lad, but what if that wasn’t the reason? What if something happened at Blaydon’s house that led to his death, and they came up to dump the body?’
‘Nice theory, but it doesn’t really work with the timing, Annie. As far as we know, they arrived at Le Coq d’Or around seven-thirty and left about eleven. If they had kept the body in the car boot all that time, the hypostasis would have been advanced to the point of being observable to the naked eye. And fixed. It wasn’t.’
‘Blaydon’s driver could have driven off and dumped the body as soon as they arrived at the restaurant.’
‘At half past seven? It was still broad daylight then. And what about Mrs Grunwell and the others on the street who heard something around eleven?’
‘Maybe they’re mistaken? Maybe it was something else they heard? Remember, nobody saw anything. Besides, if Blaydon left the restaurant around eleven, he hardly had time to kill the boy and dump him on the East Side Estate before his car was spotted on its way out of town. Especially if the lad had been on his back for an hour or more before his body was dumped.’
‘We’ll check the times with the restaurant. We also really need a push on discovering who the boy was and where he came from.’
Annie spread her hands. ‘We’re doing all we can. Gerry’s been in touch with all the refugee and immigrant agencies in the area, official and unofficial, asylum-seeker hostels and the rest. We have his picture out in the media and we’ve put out a request for all officers working in high-concentration Middle Eastern areas to put out the word, canvass the mosques and so on. It’s a lot of ground to cover. Takes time. I don’t see what more we can do. For Christ’s sake, somebody must be missing him.’
‘Maybe not, if he travelled alone,’ said Banks. ‘Sometimes families send someone on ahead. Maybe he was hoping to contact a relative in the area? An uncle, grandparent, someone like that, who’s already settled here.’
‘But no one’s come forward yet.’
‘That’s the problem. Maybe they don’t watch the news or read the papers. Maybe they don’t speak English too well. Maybe they’re afraid of the authorities. I can’t say I’d blame them. Anyway, keep at it. What’s the latest on this other case?’
A mother with two children – one in a pram – took the table next to theirs and smiled apologetically, as if she already knew that her arrival would be interrupting a serious conversation. But the children seemed quiet and well-behaved, the baby sleeping and the toddler working on a colouring book. Their mother spent most of her time staring at the screen of her mobile as she sipped her cappuccino. Banks and Annie lowered their voices, though both of them knew it was unlikely that anyone could overhear. The coffee grinders and espresso machine, along with the constant comings and goings, saw to that.
‘Bloke called Howard Stokes,’ said Annie. ‘I got Gerry on it this morning. Turns out he was a long-term heroin user. Usual pattern of recovery and recidivism. On and off the wagon. Back and forth between heroin and prescription methadone, depending on how much money he had. A few drug-free stretches. A couple of brief jail sentences for drug-related offences when he was younger, but nothing for years. Rehab clinics and so on, but nothing seriously illegal. No known dealing. No complaints against him. No recent arrests. Personal use only. And as far as we know, he didn’t resort to muggings or petty theft to feed his habit. Way it seems is he started in the late sixties and never stopped. Strikes me he never heard the bell announcing the end of flower power. From what we could tell at the scene, he didn’t pay much attention to his health or personal hygiene.’
‘And the cause of death?’
‘So far it looks exactly like what it says on the tin: a typical heroin overdose. Either he underestimated the power of the stuff he took, or someone gave him a high enough concentration to kill him. A hot shot. We might find out more after Dr Galway’s done the post-mortem. I’ve also checked with the drugs squad, and there’s been a couple of heroin overdose cases recently around the county. It seems there’s some unusually powerful stuff about.’
‘So it could have been an accident? Just his bad luck, then?’
‘Seems that way. Of course, somebody could have slipped him a fatal dose. He could even have done it himself. But why? From all I could gather, he seemed a harmless, pathetic old sod.’
‘Better dig into his background a bit deeper. A heroin user makes all kinds of dodgy connections, from fellow addicts to dealers and even drug cartels. What about forensics?’
‘CSIs haven’t had a chance to get to it yet. They’re still on the East Side Estate. This is low priority in comparison. I found a mobile number on a slip of paper in his wallet. Gerry tried to run it down this morning, but no luck. It’s pay-as-you-go and dead as a dodo.’
‘Can we get a list of calls to and from the number?’
‘I wouldn’t hold your breath.’
‘He was found in one of the houses on Hollyfield Lane, right? On the old estate marked for demolition and redevelopment.’
‘Yes. Number twenty-six. Rehousing everyone is proving a slow process, especially if it’s to be affordable. Stokes was on his pension, for example. Then there’s planning, environmental assessments and the rest of the red tape. It seems Stokes was a legitimate tenant, by the way, and not a squatter.’
‘If Stokes was on a pension, where did he get the money to feed his heroin habit? You said he hadn’t resorted to crime.’
‘Dunno,’ said Annie, ‘but it might be worth following up.’
‘You think so?’
‘No need to be sarky. There is one other interesting point.’
‘Yes?’
‘The owner of the property.’
‘Blaydon?’
‘No. The Kerrigan brothers. On paper, at any rate.’
‘Tommy and Timmy? Are they, indeed? So they’ve branched out from nightclubs and amusement arcades into rental properties.’
Annie smiled. ‘I thought you’d find that interesting. They rented it out at a fairly exorbitant rate, too. However, with the new project going ahead, they’ll stand to make quite a bundle, especially if they’re in cahoots with Blaydon. And Hollyfield abuts Elmet Hill, which is already quite posh and “desirable”. There’s only that little strip of parkland and Cardigan Drive separating them. As you know, Elmet Hill isn’t so far from The Heights, either. Anyway, according to Gerry, there’s been a bit of friction between some of the residents up the hill and the people living on Hollyfield. Especially arguments over the park that separates the two. The hill residents sort of see it as their own property. They’ve even got a Neighbourhood Watch, night patrols and everything. They argued that crime was on the increase. I checked, and it’s true. There’s been a couple of break-ins recently, and a sexual assault.’
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��Hardly surprising,’ said Banks, ‘the way we’ve had to cut back on coppers on the beat and patrol cars. I remember that sexual assault. Girl called Lisa Bartlett, right?’
‘That’s right. Month ago. Gerry investigated it. Sixteen years old. She was on her way home from a dance at the comprehensive. She walked most of the way along Cardigan Drive with a couple of friends, but they peeled off just before The Oak, at the corner there, and she was left to walk the last few yards alone.’
‘Remind me. Where exactly was she attacked?’
‘She was taking a shortcut through the pub car park and a little stretch of waste ground beyond, leading to Elmet Court, when someone jumped her from behind.’
‘I remember now. She didn’t see her attacker, did she?’
‘No. Couldn’t give Gerry any sort of description. The poor kid was terrified.’
‘She wasn’t raped, though, if I remember right.’
‘Nope. That’s some consolation. He ripped her blouse, fondled her breasts and grabbed her between the legs before she thinks he must have heard someone coming and ran off.’
‘Was anyone coming?’
‘No idea. It’s possible. She was in the car park behind The Oak, and anyone drinking there from Elmet Hill would probably take the same shortcut on their way home, too. But Lisa didn’t see anyone, and no witnesses came forward. She just took her opportunity to break free and run off. She was only about a hundred yards away from her parents’ place. Gerry handled it, but I don’t think she’s got anywhere yet. The case is still open.’
‘I can’t say I blame the locals for setting up their own security. It might be worth chatting with whoever’s in charge. Anything new on Stokes’s time of death?’
‘Nothing concrete. That’ll have to wait until the post-mortem. But Doc Burns said it probably happened sometime Sunday, maybe late afternoon, early evening. He couldn’t be any more specific than that.’
‘Even so,’ said Banks. ‘We know that the Kerrigans had dinner with Connor Clive Blaydon in Eastvale at Le Coq d’Or on Sunday evening, starting at half past seven.’
‘It’s a bit of a stretch, though, isn’t it, to connect the two events in any way?’
‘Maybe. But DI MacDonald says they’ve got their eye on Blaydon for a number of possible criminal enterprises, including involvement in prostitution and drugs. And we know that Tommy and Timmy are up to their necks in anything criminal that happens in the area, and even if they’re not, they make sure they get their cut. Don’t you think it’s a bit suspicious that the three of them were dining together when this Howard Stokes died in one of the Kerrigans’ properties in an area where Blaydon’s planning a new development?’
‘Well,’ said Annie, ‘when you put it like that, I suppose it is. And let’s not forget, we also think the young lad we found was killed on Sunday evening, too. I’m not saying he’s connected with Blaydon or anything, but you said your DI MacDonald did bring up the possibility. And as I said earlier, maybe they were bringing the body up with them to dump it on the East Side Estate. Somewhere you might expect to find a victim of a drug war. When you add it all up, it’s one hell of a coincidence. It’s just a pity no one actually saw the car.’
‘Blaydon, the Kerrigans, a dead junkie and a murdered Middle Eastern youth, all in the same night in the same small town? I don’t think that can be much of a coincidence.’
‘So what next?’
‘We keep pushing. When the CSIs finally get around to it, I’d like you to ask them and technical support to make comparisons between the evidence found at Stokes’s house with the boy’s body. Fingerprints, DNA, fibres, whatever they’ve got. Just in case. If we’re talking county lines, maybe number twenty-six Hollyfield Lane was the trap house, and maybe the boy was the runner. You never know. But first I think I should pay a visit to Le Coq d’Or and see what Marcel has to tell us about Sunday night.’
Annie looked at her watch. ‘If I were you, I’d time it for dinner,’ she said. ‘Who knows, you might get a free bowl of snails.’
The following lunchtime Paul Danvers and Deborah Fletcher turned up at Zelda’s hotel. She was about to go shopping, but she couldn’t put them off. They insisted on coming up to her room to ask her ‘just a few more questions’. She told them the maid was due any moment, and she would meet them in the cafe off the lobby. She didn’t want the police poking around in her room, even though she had nothing to hide. They agreed, and she grabbed her shoulder bag and set off for the lifts.
Danvers and Debs, as she had come to think of them, were already sitting outside at a table by the riverside walk, coffees in front of them and buff folders laid out on the table. Ever the gentleman, plump Danvers half-stood and nodded when she arrived. She sat down and ordered a coffee she didn’t want.
‘How are you today, Ms Melnic?’ said Danvers, pronouncing her name correctly this time. ‘Feeling better?’
‘I’m fine, thank you.’
‘Enjoying your time in our capital?’
‘I’ve been here before, you know. I lived here once. Remember?’
‘Ah, yes, the pavement artist days. Well, you’ve left those behind you now, haven’t you? Found yourself a famous artist.’
‘Can we get on with the questions?’
‘By all means.’ Danvers took a sip of his coffee, making an unpleasant slurping sound. ‘What have you been up to since we last talked?’
‘Up to? I don’t know what you mean.’
‘It’s English for “been doing”.’
‘I know what it means. I also understand its nuances of connotation, that perhaps what someone has been “up to” is not necessarily wholesome, but I still don’t know what you’re getting at.’
‘Let me put it bluntly, Ms Melnic,’ said Deborah Fletcher, coming at her from the side. ‘Why did you take it into your mind to pay a visit to Mr Hawkins’s house yesterday?’
So she had been seen. There was nothing for it but to tell the truth, or part of the truth. ‘I was curious, that’s all,’ she said.
‘About what?’ Danvers asked. ‘To see the damage? Like a motorist slowing down to look at an accident? I can understand that. Do you have a yearning for the macabre, Ms Melnic?’
It had been her comparison exactly: stopping to look at a car crash. ‘No more than anyone else. I knew Mr Hawkins. Not well. But I knew him. He was a good boss. Call it a sort of homage, if you will.’
‘Homage.’ Danvers pronounced the word with great relish and a pronounced French accent. ‘Yes. Homage. That will do nicely. So it wasn’t anything to do with trying to find out if there was anything, shall we say, suspicious, about his demise?’
‘You told me there wasn’t.’
‘Indeed we did.’
‘There you are, then.’
‘And just exactly where are we? You haven’t answered Deborah’s question yet.’
‘I think I have. You told me to stay in London. I had nothing better to do, so I thought I’d like to see the damage.’
‘How did you know where Mr Hawkins lived?’ Danvers asked.
‘I told you. We were all invited to a department mixer there just over a year ago.’
‘And you remembered the address?’
‘I’m a super-recogniser, Mr Danvers.’ Unfortunately, Zelda thought, that meant she could never forget Deborah’s sour and unappealing face.
‘You also have a good memory for places?’
‘So it would seem.’
‘Why are you so interested?’
‘I told you: I was curious. Wouldn’t you be? Your boss dies in a house fire. It’s not something that happens every day.’ Zelda was beginning to believe that they hadn’t seen her go into the pub, and she prayed that she was right. That would be harder to explain, especially if they had found out from the young man behind the bar what questions she had asked him. She remembered no one else entering while she was there, except that noisy group of four towards the end. It could be a cover for an NCA spy. And if Danvers’s men had que
stioned the bartender, he would surely have told them about the photograph she had showed him. She kept her fingers crossed under the table. ‘You’re taking an undue amount of interest for someone who told me just the other day that there was nothing suspicious about Mr Hawkins’s death,’ she said.
‘Situations change,’ said Danvers.
‘So now you think there was something suspicious? That he was murdered?’
‘I’m not at liberty to comment on that. Mr Hawkins headed an important department involved in some very sensitive work, as you well know. We’d be remiss if we didn’t cover every angle.’
‘Including treating one of his department members as a suspect, because I doubt you’re giving the same kind of attention to any of the others. What is it? Is it my background? Because I’m a woman? Because I’m a foreigner? Because I was forced into prostitution? Because I don’t jump every time you tell me to?’
‘For God’s sake, you don’t have to play all the special pleading cards in the deck. As far as we know, nobody else from the office paid a visit to Mr Hawkins’s burned-out house.’
‘Well, if that’s all that’s bothering you, I’ve told you: I was curious. They obviously weren’t. I’ll be going now. Goodbye.’
‘Wait a minute,’ Deborah called after her, but Zelda ignored her and carried on walking back to the lifts, then up to her room. She was shaking when she got there and flopped down on the bed to take a few deep breaths. What were they after? Did they suspect Hawkins was bent? Did they suspect her of being involved? Of killing him? They already knew she had been in Croatia at the time of the fire. Were they just fishing? If so, what for?
When she had calmed down, she told herself she had nothing to worry about. Even if the truth came out, she knew that she had nothing to do with Hawkins’s death, or his corruption, if that happened to be the case. Fair enough, she was withholding evidence and could get into trouble for that, but she was willing to bet that if she told Danvers who she thought Hawkins was involved with – the Tadićs, Keane – the whole gang would disappear like smoke in the wind. She would rather the authorities didn’t find out what she had set herself to do, or she would have to alter her plans drastically. But that was the worst that could happen.