DCI Isaac Cook Box Set 2

by Phillip Strang

  ‘Over two years. No one else would stick it, not with the money they pay, nor what we have to put up with from the customers.’

  It was clear that the manager didn’t have to put up with anything. She was a hard woman, her function to cycle the sales assistants, to make sure the profit margin was adhered to, to do whatever was necessary.

  Wendy didn’t like her. The sort of person who pretended to care about the store and its workers, but didn’t for either. It was typical of an attitude all too common in the overpopulated metropolis. There was always someone more desperate, willing to put up with working under such conditions, used to being cheated, not expecting any different.

  Kate Baxter handed over a photo. ‘Is that the sandal?’

  The manager lifted her feet off the stacked shoe boxes and put them on the floor. She took out a pair of glasses from her handbag and put them on. Then she studied the photo for longer than was necessary.

  ‘We sell a lot of shoes here, but yes, they came in a week ago. We put some of them in the window, sold out in two days.’

  ‘Good value?’ Wendy asked.

  ‘Better than most. Old stock, last year’s fashion statement. Nobody will pay top money for them now, but if you’re on a budget, or just tight, they’ll do fine for the weekend, or in the office.’

  ‘Who did you sell them to?’

  ‘Not everyone pays with a card; some still prefer to pay cash, although for the life of me I can’t see why.’

  Wendy did. Impulse buying with a card was dangerous; cash was the moderator to prevent the purchaser from transitioning from wise to foolish; the reason she left her card at home, apart from Saturday. One day of temptation out of seven was better than seven out of seven.

  ‘Those that paid cash?’

  ‘Not a chance. You’ve seen it outside, chaos, and the sales assistants have a high turnover.’

  ‘How long do they last?’

  ‘Most only stick it for three to four days. Those that are any good soon find somewhere else paying better. Can’t blame them, something I should do.’

  The manager was someone who complained a lot, treated the employees abysmally, and siphoned money off the top as she discounted stock to maintain the cash turnover, probably with the de facto blessing of senior management, who wanted results, not scrupulously honest people.

  ‘Those that paid with a card?’ Kate said.

  ‘I’ve already sent them. Check the emails on your phone.’

  One thing the woman was, she was efficient, Wendy conceded. She checked her phone, Kate checked hers. The email with the attachment was there.

  ‘What’s so important about them, anyway,’ the manager asked.

  ‘One of the women who bought them from your store was murdered,’ Wendy said.

  ‘Takes all sorts,’ the manager’s reply. She had no interest in a dead woman, only the money she had handed over.

  Chapter 5

  Kate Baxter, her work done, returned to her regular duties. She had proved herself, and Wendy was determined to put her name forward as a possible member of Homicide when the opportunity presented itself.

  At the station, Bridget followed through on those who had bought sandals in the same colour as the dead woman’s. It had been a popular line, and the list contained over forty names. The process of elimination would take some time which suited Bridget as long hours and computers were her forte. Isaac knew she would be working late that night.

  The day had not been without progress. There was Rose Winston, confident that the man who had hurried by had a limp, and one of the names from the shop could well be the murdered woman’s. Whether she had been a local was still open to question, as no one had come forward, even after her face had been displayed on signs outside the cemetery. Usually, the next of kin would have been informed before taking such a step, but without identification, the decision had been made to circumvent standard procedure.

  Isaac’s concern as the senior investigating officer in Homicide was that the woman’s death had been calculated and calmly executed, which suggested that the man was used to killing, or he had no compunction about what he had done. The probability of another murder remained, and if he was local, then he had to be apprehended quickly, and if it was professional, then why, and who was the assassin.

  Larry and Wendy had had a busy day, not that it was over, and at eight in the evening, while it was still light, they were outside the cemetery at the Harrow Road entrance, Brad on his own; Rose with her mother.

  The mother, Wendy could see, was not as firm as her husband, and the two intended lovers spoke to one another. It was sweet, Wendy thought, young love, innocent and pure, unsullied by the realities of the world, the cruelty, the degradation, the hurt, the disappointment. Although, on reflection, she knew that Brad had experienced more than his fair share, although Rose had not.

  ‘Why the school?’ Larry asked Maeve Winston.

  ‘Why we don’t pay, is that what you’re asking?’

  ‘If you want to protect your daughter, surely you would give her the best opportunity.’

  ‘Tim and I, we came from humble stock, working class. We could afford better, but we’re not snobs, nor do we want Rose to be. Committed Labour voters all our life.’

  Larry wasn’t sure of the woman’s rationale. It seemed that Tim Winston’s middle-class aspirations and his working-class beliefs were out of kilter, and how could the father then complain when his daughter went out with the brother of a criminal and a woman who sold herself. To him, even though he was a detective inspector, and not able to afford the best school where he lived, he intended to place his children where it would be to their best advantage.

  And even if Tim and Maeve Winston weren’t cloth-capped Labourites, him driving a Jaguar for instance, it still made no sense to deprive their daughter.

  Both gates at the cemetery had been closed off, and entry had been restricted at two other entrances, although they were further away, and not many people would be walking through. However, there were sufficient uniforms present to keep the curious onlookers at a distance.

  Isaac arrived, not to take an active part, but with his inspector and sergeant at the cemetery he had cancelled the evening meeting at the office.

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector Isaac Cook,’ he said as he shook Maeve Winston’s hand.

  Wendy was sure she swooned on meeting the tall black police officer. He was an attractive man, a ladykiller in his youth, not the murdering type, and he had seduced a few in his time. Now he was married to Jenny, as white as he was black, and a child was on the way.

  The group moved inside the imposing gates of the cemetery. Wendy called them to order. ‘Rose and Brad, we need to recreate this accurately. No being coy because we’re present, and Rose, disregard your mother. If she doesn’t like it, she’ll have to close her eyes.’

  ‘Mum’s alright; Dad wouldn’t have been.’

  ‘I’m not that comfortable,’ the mother said. ‘But I’ll not interfere. After tonight, you and I will need to sit down and have a good talk.’

  Rose whispered to Brad, ‘They’re just worried about me, that’s all.’

  ‘Something I never had. A violent father who thankfully left us; my mother’s decent enough, but she drinks.’

  Rose, even though she was young, felt motherly towards Brad, although she didn’t understand why.

  The instruction was that Brad and Rose were to act as they had on the night when she had pretended to be staying at a friend’s house.

  Brad had no difficulty in putting his arm around Rose and kissing her, although Rose kept looking over at her mother.

  It was always tricky when dealing with children; the need for a responsible adult to be present, a parent.

  ‘Mrs Winston,’ Isaac said. ‘If you don’t mind, can I have a word with you.’

  Wendy could see that her DCI had sensed the situation, and he could play a part in taking the mother away, letting the daughter relax.

  ‘Okay
, Rose, your mother’s not looking now,’ Larry said. ‘Show us what happened on the night.’

  ‘I didn’t want to walk through,’ Rose said. ‘Not after the movie that Steph and I had watched.’

  Brad put his arm around Rose; she responded and puts hers around him, leaning over to give him a kiss.

  ‘We walked down the path, over to Kilburn Lane,’ Brad said.

  A member of Gordon Windsor’s crime scene team was present as an observer. The area had been checked and heavy rain had removed the possibility of further evidence.

  The group moved forward, Brad and Rose in front. Allowances had to be made, as it wasn’t dark and Rose wasn’t scared, just embarrassed; Brad Robinson appeared to be enjoying himself. Over in the distance, Isaac and the mother walked.

  ‘It was here,’ Rose said, ‘when the man walked by.’

  ‘The limp?’

  ‘I didn’t see it,’ Brad said.

  ‘If you were to the left of Rose, you would have been looking ahead or towards her,’ Larry said. ‘She would have been looking in your direction, the direction of the man and the grave. That’s why she saw the body and not you.’

  ‘Why the limp?’ Wendy asked. ‘How can you be certain?’

  ‘I can’t, not really. Other than what I saw.’

  ‘A limp isn’t always noticeable, not in the dark.’‘

  ‘I saw him before Brad. I saw him over near where the woman was.’

  ‘You’ve not mentioned this before.’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe I just forgot.’

  It was understandable, Wendy conceded. A young woman disobeying her parents, late at night, a scary movie. Too many issues for a young mind to comprehend.

  ‘What did you see?’ Larry asked.

  ‘I think I saw the murder. I can remember something. I thought it was a statue or something like that, but now I think it was the man and the woman.’

  Wendy messaged for Isaac to bring the mother back; if Rose was going to get emotional, hysterical even, the result of the realisation, delayed shock, then it was for Maeve Winston to console her daughter.

  ‘Can you remember any more than that?’

  ‘Nothing more, only that he moved away and onto the path. It was just the way he walked, as though he had hurt one of his legs.’

  ‘We never found any indication of a limp,’ the CSI said.

  ‘A kick to the shin?’ Larry said.

  ‘The woman fought back, is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘It’s possible. Any sign on the woman’s sandal or on her feet to indicate that she did?’

  ‘Pathology might be able to tell you, but as for the sandal, it wasn’t the best quality, new as has been recorded, but one wear and there would be scuffing. Nigh on impossible to be certain, but she could have reacted.’

  Maeve Winston arrived, took one look at her daughter and put her arm around her.

  ‘I saw the woman die,’ Rose said to her mother. She was tearful but bearing up.

  ‘No more tonight,’ the mother said.

  ‘No more,’ Wendy agreed.

  ‘We’ll give Brad a lift,’ Maeve Winston said.

  ‘Thanks, Mrs Winston, but I don’t live far. I can walk.’

  Brad Robinson walked away in the direction of Compton Road and his mother, almost certainly the worse for wear after an encounter with alcohol. He was sad, but he didn’t know why.

  ***

  Isaac would have said that the day was over and that the team would meet at Challis Street in the morning at six, except that as the activity at the cemetery was winding up, Bridget phoned from the office.

  Larry was too hungry to continue without sustenance, and Wendy was too tired, but both issues were resolved by Larry buying a McDonald’s cheeseburger, and Wendy joining him, taking the opportunity to rest, closing her eyes for five minutes. Isaac, younger and definitely fitter than the other two, drove straight back to the office, grabbed himself a coffee, a biscuit out of the tin that Bridget always kept filled. Bridget would want an audience for what she had discovered. He didn’t intend to steal her thunder.

  Twenty-five minutes later, Larry and Wendy walked into the office.

  Bridget handed folders to the three police officers once they were all in Isaac’s office. ‘Of the credit cards that were used, I’ve eliminated virtually all of them.’

  ‘How?’ Isaac asked.

  ‘It’s not conclusive, and we may have to go back over some of them if what I’m giving you isn’t sufficient, but if I have a name, then there is Facebook, as well as the purchases made with cards issued overseas, Chinese, Japanese names, others I can’t pronounce.’

  ‘Those remaining?’

  ‘One lives in Hammersmith, probably too far if you hold to the local angle. Another lives south of London, twenty miles.’

  ‘The others?’

  ‘Two in Notting Hill, one in Bayswater, another in Paddington, and two close enough to the cemetery to walk to, to even walk through.’

  ‘Have you tried phoning?’ Larry asked.

  ‘Not yet. I phoned you as soon as I had something tangible.’

  Bridget was right, Isaac knew. She had done her work; now it was over to him and the other two.

  ‘Tonight?’ Isaac said.

  ‘The two close to the cemetery,’ Wendy said, not that she wanted to as she was ready to go home, but she had known her DCI for a long time, from when he had been a constable in uniform. She knew he’d not agree to leave it till tomorrow.

  ‘Larry, you take one; Wendy, you take the other. Keep me updated.’

  Isaac opened up his email and read those that needed answering, deleted those that were either unimportant or spurious. Jenny was waiting for him, wanting to tell him about her visit to the gynaecologist, although she would understand, she always did.

  He wouldn’t leave the office until Larry and Wendy had phoned in.

  Bridget shut her laptop, stood up, said goodbye to Isaac and left the office. She was going home, her work for that day complete.

  ***

  Larry knocked on the door of a house very similar to Brad Robinson’s, only two streets away and built at the same time, monuments to the working class and to successive governments attempting to make society encompassing, not shuffling those less fortunate out to suburbs so far from their places of work that some of them would spend two to three hours a day travelling.

  The door was opened by a child of five or six, dressed in pyjamas and with bare feet. ‘No one’s here,’ the boy said.

  Larry, not easily deterred, was aware that the child delegated at such a tender age to lying for a parent had been sent to deal with unwelcome visitors.

  ‘I saw them in the upstairs window,’ Larry said. ‘Tell your mother to come down here now. Tell her it’s the police.’

  The child walked away and up the stairs. On the top landing, he shouted out, ‘It’s the police.’

  It was a house of crime, although what sort of crime Larry didn’t know. The address and the name on the card weren’t known to him.

  ‘Tell him to come back with a warrant,’ a woman’s voice said from the front bedroom. ‘We’ve done nothing wrong.’

  Larry wasn’t concerned whether they had or not, not that night. Back at the station the next day, he’d ask someone to check out the address where a child was forced to lie, and a mother locked herself in her bedroom. He walked into the house, shouted up the stairwell.

  ‘Pearl Harris, Detective Inspector Larry Hill, Challis Street Police Station. I’m not here about a crime. One question, that’s all.’

  The door upstairs opened, and a woman of African or Caribbean background descended the stairs. ‘I’m Pearl Harris,’ the not unattractive woman said. Larry thought her to be in her late twenties or early thirties. She was dressed in a pair of old jeans and a shirt too large for her, clearly belonging to the man upstairs, put on in a hurry.

  ‘The child?’ Larry said.

  ‘Nothing to do with me. He belongs to him upst
airs.’

  ‘Who’s he? Someone special?’

  ‘Ben, Ben Swinson. He’s my de facto.’

  ‘Where’s the child’s mother?’

  ‘She took off, left Ben with him. I do the best I can with him, not a bad kid, not really. Why are you here?’

  Apart from finding out that social services would need to visit, which he did not say. ‘Did you purchase a pair of sandals at a store in Knightsbridge?’

  ‘They weren’t much good, the strap broke after two days, and they won’t give you your money back. There should be a law about it,’ the woman said. ‘Good money for rubbish.’

  Larry could have said buyer beware, caveat emptor, as Wendy had said the no return policy was clearly stated in the shop’s window, but did not. ‘Do you have the sandals? Can I see them?’

  ‘What’s so important, disturbing people at night?’

  ‘The sandals first.’

  Pearl Harris opened a cupboard under the stairs, showed them to Larry. Upstairs a husky voice: ‘Haven’t you got rid of that copper yet? A man’s got needs.’

  ‘Horny,’ Larry said, judging that crudity wouldn’t be amiss.

  ‘Always, not that he’s much good.’

  ‘You’ve had better?’

  ‘Much better, but I better get back up there. You never know…’

  ‘He hits you?’

  ‘Not Ben. He’s a decent man, looks after me, looks after the kid. Do you want me anymore?’

  ‘Not as long as you’re alive, I don’t.’

  ‘What’s this about?’

  ‘Another woman who purchased the same shoe as you was murdered. One door we’ll knock on, and the woman won’t be there. I’m glad it’s not you.’

  ‘You’re not bad for a policeman,’ Pearl said.

  ‘All heart, that’s me,’ Larry said.

  She was a pleasant woman, he decided, trying her best, although Ben upstairs was probably skirting on the edge of illegal, and Pearl’s history could well be suspect. He’d let others deal with it, although the child was well looked after, clean and well-fed, but where was his mother?’

  ‘Best of luck with your search. Sorry about the woman, too much of that these days,’ the woman said as she closed the door.