DCI Isaac Cook Box Set 2

by Phillip Strang

  As Larry walked away, he could hear Pearl talking to the child, asking if he wanted a glass of milk, a visit to the bathroom. The child may not have been hers, but she still cared in her own way.

  ***

  Wendy’s address, even though it was walking distance to the cemetery, was further away than Larry’s, almost five hundred yards.

  The house appeared empty, no light on inside, not even a sound when she placed her ear against the front door. To her, it looked more promising than Larry’s address.

  A white-painted house with a bay window, it was in good condition, and the street was well maintained, although there were roadworks at one end of it, a house being renovated two doors away.

  Wendy knocked on the front door four times, each time harder than the previous one. Eventually, a stirring, a light at the rear of the house. The door opened, a woman dressed in black stood in front of Wendy. Whatever it was that she had disturbed, she didn’t like the look of it.

  ‘What is it?’ the woman, in her fifties, jet-black hair combed straight and down to her waist, said.

  ‘Sergeant Wendy Gladstone, Challis Street Police Station. I need to speak to Flora Soubry.’

  ‘Don’t know why. I thought it was someone from down the street complaining, no idea why, but people can be difficult when they don’t understand.’

  ‘If you have problems with them, it’s nothing to do with me. It’s Flora Soubry that I need to see; one question.’

  ‘Come in. We’re odd, that’s what you’ll think.’

  A house in total darkness, heavy curtains closed, a woman in her fifties, her hair jet-black and down her back. Yes, Wendy thought, it was odd, but no different than some other houses she had been in over the years: devil-worshippers, mad all of them, and then those who were dressed as characters out of nursery rhymes, not forgetting the house with swingers, the couples pairing off with whoever. She had been younger then, following up on a complaint, the swingers not only inviting her in but asking her to join them. She had beaten a hasty retreat, arranged for a couple of policemen in uniform to sort it out. They had returned to the station after a couple of hours to a rousing cheer from the others; Wendy had updated her colleagues on what she had seen there, and whereas there was no proof that the two had succumbed, one of them a lay preacher at his local church, it hadn’t stopped the ribbing.

  In the back room where the light had first appeared, five women sat around a table, a Ouija board in the middle.

  ‘A séance?’ Wendy said.

  ‘We communicate with the dead,’ one of the women said.

  It seemed more benign than some other situations she had seen over the years, although Wendy didn’t like it. Summoning spirits, attempting to communicate with the dead, didn’t sit well with her. She’d do what she had come for and then leave.

  ‘I’m looking for a Flora Soubry,’ Wendy said.

  ‘That’s me,’ a woman with a high-pitched voice said, her hand on the board. Wendy found it hard to imagine that this woman, clothed in black, the same as the woman who had answered the door, could wear colourful clothing and footwear, although out of the house all of them would have been indistinguishable from the majority, and London was awash with the eccentric, the mad, the weird, and now, one murderer.

  ‘You bought a pair of sandals from a shop in Knightsbridge?’

  ‘A week ago, a good price.’

  ‘Do you have them with you?’

  ‘I do. In the other room.’

  ‘Can you show me?’

  The woman got up from the chair, taking her hand away from the board, and opened the door to her right. In the other room, the women’s everyday clothes on hangers. She knelt down, picked up the sandals.

  Wendy took a photo as proof and went back to the other room. ‘Do you believe in this?’ she said, looking down at the Ouija board.

  ‘We do,’ one of the other ladies said.

  ‘Why are you here?’ Flora Soubry asked.

  ‘A woman who bought the same sandals as you, the same size, was murdered. The sandals are the only clue we have.’

  ‘How tragic. Can we help?’

  ‘Communicating with the dead, hardly investigative, not sure it’s even admissible as evidence,’ Wendy said.

  ‘Everyone is sceptical until they have proof.’

  Wendy left the house. The five women had a new focus for that night; finding out the identity of the dead woman. They couldn’t fail any more miserably than Homicide.

  Chapter 6

  An impasse. That was how Isaac saw it. As the senior investigating officer, it was his responsibility to deal with the murder investigation, the reason that Jenny was mildly annoyed that night.

  She had been excited to tell him about her day and how they were going to decorate the baby’s room, or whether they should buy a house instead of staying in the two-bedroom flat in Willesden.

  He was distant, although he had tried to be interested, a woman’s death troubling him. Eventually Jenny, tiring of the stilted conversation, left him and went to bed.

  He went and sat in the living room, picked up a book, scanned the first few pages, tried to read it but couldn’t. From the other room, the sounds of Jenny asleep. It was where he should be, where he went. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Rough day, not getting any better either.’

  Jenny rolled over, looked at him through semi-closed eyes and gave him a kiss. ‘It’s what I signed up for,’ she said.

  And it was, they both knew that when she had first moved in with him. The long hours, the weekends away cancelled at the last minute, the romantic candlelit dinners in the flat, just the two of them, disturbed on more than one occasion. The lot of a police officer’s wife was difficult, and Isaac had had more than one broken romance when a lover had said she could deal with the long hours on her own, the uncommunicative nature of her man at the end of a long day, his indifference to violence and world events, but then couldn’t.

  It had only been Jenny who could; he knew that, and for that he was grateful.

  ‘A house,’ he said. ‘It’ll be better for the baby.’

  Another kiss, this time more passionate than the previous one. Isaac looked over at the clock on the bedside cabinet. It was after one in the morning, but sleep eluded him. He got up and went into the other room, opened the fridge, put on the kettle.

  A cup of coffee in his hand, a problem to ponder. He phoned Larry.

  ‘Sorry about the late hour,’ Isaac said. ‘I couldn’t sleep.’

  ‘That’s alright,’ Larry replied, even if it wasn’t. After a couple of months of tension between the two men on account of Larry’s drinking and slovenliness, he was pleased that his chief inspector was looking to him for help, rather than telling him what to do. The disciplinary still hurt, and if Larry had been more ambitious, he knew it would have had some bearing on his promotion opportunities, but he wasn’t.

  Sure, he had tried to knuckle down and study for the requisite qualifications, but his brain wouldn’t kick in, not only because of the demands of Homicide but because he had been no more than a moderate student at school, invariably receiving a could-do-better end of term report. He had come up through the ranks from uniformed constable to sergeant to inspector, the same progression as his DCI, but Isaac was a smart man, intellectually gifted, and he was going places, whereas Larry knew his race was over, and he’d see the rank of inspector alongside his name until the day of retirement.

  Larry went and made himself a cup of coffee too.

  ‘We’re clueless,’ Isaac said.

  ‘I know. Apart from a Buddhist chant and a man who may or may not have limped, we’ve got nothing.’

  ‘The limp?’

  ‘The CSIs will go over the place again, but don’t expect too much. They’re only watching their backs, worried that the young woman might be right.’

  ‘Discount it for now. What can we do?’

  ‘A name for the woman, otherwise the case is dead and buried, unsolvable.’

  An
ignominious outcome, Isaac knew, and not something he’d want to explain to Chief Superintendent Goddard. How would he go about it if he had to? A dead woman, a knife, two witnesses, one who had possibly seen the murder, and we’re stumped, he thought. It made him shudder: the first murder case in his career where he had failed. And he knew how it worked, the same as in life. A multitude of successes, one failure. Which of the two would they remember? He knew the answer.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ Isaac said. ‘Forget the early-morning meeting, focus on the other names you have.’

  ‘I was going to phone you early tomorrow and suggest it. I’ve already spoken to Wendy about it,’ Larry said.

  ‘Great, go with it. Do you need assistance?’

  ‘Leave it to Wendy and me. If we need someone, we have a name.’

  ‘Kate Baxter?’

  ‘She’s competent.’

  ‘Tomorrow, a result,’ Isaac said. He hung up the phone and went back to bed, Jenny briefly acknowledging his presence. He was asleep within five minutes; Larry wasn’t. The coffee had woken him up; it wouldn’t let him go to sleep, not for some time.

  ***

  Janice Robinson sat on the bed in her squalid bedsit. The darkened street corner where once she had sold herself now replaced by the mobile phone at her side. And besides, soliciting on the street was illegal, selling herself from her phone was not, nor was bringing the client to where she lived.

  If she were cognisant, she would have said that her life was on a downward spiral with only one end, but she was not, having just injected herself with heroin, a momentary calm settling over her.

  It had been almost a year since she had seen her mother, three months since Brad and she had met. She missed him, cheerful and cheeky, able to make her laugh; her mother she did not miss.

  If the house had not been the way it was, then she would have not succumbed to debasing herself, but her mother’s live-in lovers, not all of them, but most, had seen the mother as acceptable when she was sober, her daughter when she was not.

  She had been fourteen the first time one of them snuck into her bedroom, held her down with his weight; she remembered it as if it was yesterday, but it wasn’t. It was seven years ago that first time, and Jim, her elder brother, had beaten the man senseless, kicked him out of the house when she had told him, but then he wasn’t there much, as he was invariably on an anti-social behaviour order, migrating between incarceration and freedom, and now he was in prison.

  A good student in her early teens, a broken young woman at the age of sixteen, she had moved from smoking marijuana to harder drugs in a short time; then to selling herself at seventeen to feed the habit. Twice she had weaned herself off, but memories came flooding back, the lost times of her youth, the wasted education, the futility.

  The bedsit she reasoned was better than the street. She was smart enough not to expect too much, not to assume that the man who had phoned would be any better.

  A knock on the door, a voice telling her to open up.

  Regaining her senses, Janice lifted herself from the bed, adjusted her bra strap; no need to overdress for what the man wanted. She opened the door, saw the man was dressed better than most; not overalls straight from work, smelling of manual labour and sweat, covered in grime. This man was dressed in a neatly creased pair of trousers, a blue open-necked shirt, a jacket. Even his shoes were leather and polished.

  Janice, if she cared, would have said that he was a better class of man than those that pulled up alongside her on the street, asked her how much, indulged in friendly banter, called her a hag as they drove off, not willing to pay her price.

  But this man hadn’t argued about the price, more than on the street, because of the cost of the bedsit, owned by a grubby immigrant who spoke poor English and took part of the rent in services rendered by Janice.

  The cost of the bedsit was only one factor in her higher prices. Having to service the landlord who was foul in his demands, aggressive in his lovemaking, was a payment that she did not make willingly, but did.

  ‘Janice,’ the man said.

  ‘Come in.’

  ‘I’ve been looking for you,’ he said as he sat on a chair by the side of the bed.

  Janice, accustomed to the procedure, removed her underwear. ‘This is what you’ve come for, isn’t it?’

  ‘In time. We can talk first.’ He made no attempt to move closer to her, to touch her.

  Janice, unused to such behaviour, sat up and pulled the sheet across her.

  ‘I prefer you naked,’ he said.

  ‘Are you one of those who like to watch?’ she asked. She didn’t care either way, only that they paid. The idea of sex no longer appealed to her; it was purely mechanical, the groaning on cue, pretending that the man on top or under her was satisfying her, whereas all he was doing was filling her with disgust. She felt nothing for any of the previous men, hundreds of them, nothing for this one.

  ‘How long have you been doing this?’

  Not another one trying to reform her, she thought. Not someone about to spout on about Sodom and Gomorrah, fallen women. She’d had enough of them, some even praying, but all of them taking her, and then crying afterwards, blaming her, hitting her for tempting them with the pleasures of the flesh, but this man appeared different. He didn’t look at her with wanton eyes, wanting her but incapable.

  There had been one, she remembered, who had been impotent, but it had been his wife belittling him that had been the problem. That had been in the past, when she had been prettier, when her face had been fuller, her lips rosier, not that she ever let them kiss her, her body firmer, her breasts rounder.

  Now, at the age of twenty-one, her skin was sallow and pitted, the colour of alabaster. It had been eight months since she had been to a doctor, as she knew what would be said. The lecture about her killing herself, the diseases she might have, the damage to her vital organs. It wasn’t what she wanted, but what did she care. Her life had run its full course, the only joy in her life was Brad.

  ‘I’ve another appointment,’ Janice said, which wasn’t true. The room was cold, not enough money to pay for heating, only for drugs and the occasional bite to eat.

  ‘I won’t need long,’ the man said as he sat on the bed. She arched her body in anticipation. Men liked that, she knew, believing that somehow paying for a woman was pleasurable for her, not understanding that it wasn’t, would never be.

  He ran his hand lightly over her body, his expression emotionless.

  ‘It’s a shame,’ he said.

  ‘Aren’t you capable?’

  ‘Once so pretty, but now, look at you lying there, waiting for me to take you.’

  ‘That’s what you paid for.’

  The man opened a small case that he had been carrying. He withdrew a towel.

  ‘You don’t need to shower first,’ Janice said. The man was clean enough as he was, even if his manner was unusual. But some were slow starters, while others were ready, barely in the door, and yet others had sulked away without doing anything, racked with guilt at impure thoughts, looking for a priest to confess to.

  ‘It’s not a towel. It’s what’s inside it that’s important.’

  Sensing that something was amiss, Janice drew herself up further. ‘I think you better go,’ she said. ‘You’re scaring me.’

  ‘There’s no need to be scared,’ he said. ‘It’s quite painless.’

  The bed was up against the wall, the only way out was over the man or the bottom of the bed. Janice Robinson, sister of Brad, sister of Jim, chose the latter.

  The man grabbed her as she attempted to get away, thrusting her down onto her back, the sheet falling away.

  ‘You would have been attractive once,’ he said. ‘Now you’re just a whore.’

  With one hand holding her down, he unwrapped the towel with the other. He picked up the knife inside and thrust it into Janice’s body four times in rapid succession, holding the towel over the knife and the body.

  He then took a shower be
fore walking out of the room.

  ***

  Six possibilities remained to identify the woman in the cemetery, assuming that a card had been used to buy her sandals. If not, then Larry and Wendy knew that they were in for a wasted day.

  Larry understood Isaac’s predicament, the reason for the late-night phone call, the coffee keeping him awake, the two glasses of whisky dealing with the problem.

  The plan was for them to fan out from Kensal Green Cemetery, focussing on the nearest addresses first, discounting the two they had dealt with the previous evening, and then widening the circle, eventually ending up at the last address twenty miles to the south.

  The first house, a mews close to Portobello Road, the haunt of the bargain shopper, not that there were many bargains, not after the daily deluge of tourists, the prices upping at first sight, and the antique shops were always pricey.

  ‘Can I help you?’ an old man said as he opened the door of the mews house.

  Larry did the introductions, both he and Wendy showing their warrant cards. It was still early in the morning, not yet seven, and most people would be asleep or thinking about work, the ideal time to catch them at home.

  After the houses in Notting Hill, the two of them would separate, aim to check every address by midday, hopeful of a result, although it would mean a very long night. Larry had to admit to still feeling tired after his disrupted sleep and his wife sending him off without breakfast for sins committed.

  It was the excuse he needed to visit his favourite café for breakfast; he was sure that Wendy would join him.

  ‘We’re looking for Deborah Landis,’ Wendy said.

  ‘That’s my wife. I hope it’s not anything serious. We don’t drive, don’t go far these days, broken no laws.’

  ‘It’s not that,’ Larry said. ‘If we could talk to Deborah, I’m sure we can resolve it very quickly, leave you alone.’

  ‘I’m Deborah,’ an elegant and upright woman said. In her seventies, yet looking younger, whereas her husband, crippled by age and ailments, looked close to eighty.