DCI Isaac Cook Box Set 2

by Phillip Strang

  The four sat down.

  ‘What can we do for you?’ the husband said.

  ‘Mrs Landis, you bought a pair of sandals at a shop in Brompton Road, Knightsbridge, opposite Harrods,’ Wendy said.

  ‘For our daughter, a present.’

  ‘And your daughter, where is she now?’

  ‘I gave them to her the day I bought them. Such good value and I know that Megan loves the colour.’

  ‘Can’t resist a bargain, my wife,’ Landis said.

  ‘Your daughter?’ Wendy said, more than a little alarmed.

  ‘We’ve not seen her for a few days, not since I gave her the shoes. She goes to university, up north. We told her to find one nearer to here, but she was adamant.’

  ‘We need to contact her.’

  ‘I could phone her if it’s important.’

  ‘It is, very,’ Larry said. ‘Now, please.’

  The woman picked up her phone and dialled. ‘Hello, dear. Two police officers here that want to talk to you, no idea why.’

  Wendy took the phone and spoke. ‘Megan, Sergeant Wendy Gladstone. Your mother gave you a pair of sandals?’

  ‘One size too small, but don’t tell Mum.’

  ‘I won’t. Can you take a photo of them and send it to your mother’s phone number now.’

  ‘I can, but what’s this about.’

  ‘I’m pleased that you’re fine. We’re trying to identify a woman. The only clue we have is that she purchased sandals similar to yours at a shop in Knightsbridge.’

  ‘I’ve certainly got mine. Two minutes and you’ll have a photo.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Wendy said. She ended the call.

  ‘That’s it,’ Larry said as he got up from the chair; breakfast was on his mind and soon.

  ‘We have a right to know why you’re asking,’ Landis said.

  ‘It’s not a good story. Are you sure you want to hear?’

  ‘We’re over the age of twenty-one, not old fossils.’

  ‘No offence intended. A woman was murdered in Kensal Green Cemetery. The only clue we have is that she was wearing sandals the same as your wife purchased for your daughter.’

  ‘And you thought…’ Deborah Landis put her hands up to her face, ‘our daughter?’

  ‘It’s a process of elimination. We didn’t assume anything, just eliminating the possibilities.’

  ‘Bad news for someone then.’

  ‘Thankfully not for you and your husband.’

  ‘But someone else. How sad.’

  ‘Unfortunately, we see it all too often,’ Wendy said.

  ***

  Larry phoned the café, told them twenty minutes and a full breakfast, heavy on the bacon and sausages. Wendy knew he’d be in trouble that night when he got home, but she wasn’t his keeper, not even his senior, and she wasn’t about to say anything, considering that he ordered for both of them. What’s good for one is good for the other, she thought, and besides it was to be a long day, with, as Deborah Landis had said, a sad ending.

  The other address in Notting Hill, St Marks Road, close to the railway line, wasn’t as good a house as the Landis’s; however, it was neat and tidy, even though it was a busy road and the traffic was noisy.

  Not even a police sign on the vehicle would allow them to park on the street; instead, they parked in the forecourt of a petrol station directly across the road, Larry showing his warrant card, saying that he’d be back in ten minutes for the vehicle.

  ‘You purchased a pair of sandals in Knightsbridge, is that correct?’ Wendy said. There was to be no sitting down in the house. It was clear that the woman they were talking to was the grandmother from the Indian subcontinent who had been brought over to England to look after the children while their parents were out at work.

  ‘I don’t speak good English,’ the hindi-speaking sari-clad woman said.

  Larry picked up his phone, dialled Challis Street, asked to speak to Jasmine Chandra, a sergeant at the station. He explained the situation to her, then handed the phone to the woman.

  A beaming smile lit up on the woman’s face, animated gestures with her hands before she disappeared into another room. After a while, she returned, handed the sandals over to Larry, and then the phone.

  Larry spoke to Jasmine, found out that the daughter had bought the shoes, but she was at work. Also, the old lady could give them a phone number if they wanted it.

  Wendy took the number, but it wasn’t needed. The sandals had been seen, and the dead woman was not of Indian extraction.

  Two checked, four to go. A breakfast first, though.

  As they left the house, the woman thrust a bag of home-made cakes into their hands. They were sweet, more to Larry’s palate than Wendy’s, but they would finish off the breakfast nicely.

  Chapter 7

  An anonymous phone call to emergency services was regarded with suspicion – prank

  calls still occurred, but not as much as in the past thanks to call identification technology and virtually everyone using a mobile phone.

  Regardless, a patrol car had been dispatched to the address. Every call to 999 had to be followed up, documented and filed.

  The house had long since been converted into small flats and bedsits, with paper-thin walls. It wasn’t their favourite part of London for the two officers assigned to check it out. It was, however, a place where people minded their own business – too many questions could lead to a physical beating or a brick through a window, even a car with four slashed tyres.

  A police car was a prime target, so much so that one officer stayed with the vehicle, the other checked out the address. No point having to explain back at the station how the car came to have graffiti sprayed down both sides, and where the wiper blades were.

  There should have been three police officers, but staff levels were down, and no one was that much interested in taking the phone call seriously. Across the railway line, on the other side of the road, loomed two circular gas towers, no longer in use, but not demolished. Behind them, although not visible from where the car was parked, the Grand Union Canal, still plied by houseboats.

  Another one hundred and fifty yards, the murder site of the, as yet, unidentified woman.

  Sergeant Connelly, a tall man, strong and broad, stayed with the vehicle. An ominous quietness in the area; he didn’t like it. And he certainly didn’t like the street. A couple of dogs scavenged on the other side of the road: unleashed, probably dumped by someone who didn’t want to feed them anymore, an unwanted Christmas present that had passed the cute stage. He’d let the authorities know but didn’t expect them to do much about it.

  The two men had been a team for nearly two years. At first, it had been difficult, the plain-talking burly Connelly, a stream of expletives whenever he spoke, and Fahad Khan, a moderate Muslim who neither drank alcohol nor swore, although he’d light up a cigarette with Connelly, even share a joke with him.

  Connelly would have admitted to being prejudiced against other religions, other people, especially after his brother had been close enough to a terrorist attack in Manchester to receive shrapnel to his upper body and lose an eye.

  But Fahad Khan had won him over, assured him that he was as appalled as he was, and wasn’t that what they had had in Northern Ireland, religious intolerance.

  Connelly wasn’t so sure that it was precisely the same, but he had to concede to Khan on that point. And then five months after they had teamed together, a car accident, petrol dripping down onto a hot exhaust, a woman inside screaming.

  Connelly, brave and without thought, had opened the car door to let the woman out, struggled with the seat belt and the steering wheel that was pinning her down. The petrol igniting, the rear of the car aflame, unable to get the woman out, unable to leave her. He swore, as he always did, exerted himself to no avail. On the other side of the vehicle, with Connelly at his limit, just about to be forced back, his offsider scrambled into the car, releasing the seat belt, allowing Connelly to pull the woman out.
>
  Five minutes later, the car interior was an inferno, and a crew from the nearest fire station were smothering the vehicle with foam. After that Connelly, with newfound respect, tempered his bad language, and during Ramadan, he’d make sure not to eat or smoke in his colleague’s presence.

  Fahad Khan knocked on the door of the building. A smaller man than his offsider, he pushed against the front door; it opened with little trouble.

  Inside, a downstairs flat. Upstairs three bedsits. He knew what the building was used for. That was one of the downsides of being a police officer: having to confront the seedier side of life.

  Number 3 at the top of the stairs the caller had said before he hung up. A false alarm or not, no man wanted his name associated with prostitution.

  At the top of the stairs, an open door. Khan took one look inside, saw clearly that it wasn’t a false alarm.

  ***

  Isaac stood outside the room. He was wearing coveralls and shoe protectors. On his hands, nitrile gloves. It was a crime scene, and Gordon Windsor was adamant that no one unnecessary was allowed in the house. He commended Connelly and Khan on arrival, pleased that they had acted correctly and not contaminated the crime scene, other than Khan climbing the stairs, looking in the room; acceptable for an emergency call out.

  Statistically, the area had a high probability that the emergency call was a false alarm; local kids pranking, nothing better to do, excited to see activity.

  It was remarkable, Connelly thought, that after the body had been discovered, the street had filled again. Up the road, two women gossiping. A group of children, ages eight to ten, he guessed, trying to fix a bicycle. None of them could have known that a murder had been committed. It was as if they had sensed it, but then, it was a high crime area, a place where people learnt to mind their own business.

  He knew that if he spoke to anyone in the street, he would only receive bland answers. Not that he intended to; that was for Homicide.

  ‘Not something you see every day,’ Connelly said.

  ‘She was on the game,’ Khan said, having learnt to use the talk of the street. He should have been appalled, but he wasn’t, just jaundiced that so much depravity existed.

  Windsor came out of the room and over to where Isaac was standing. ‘Well, DCI,’ he said, ‘it seems that you’re starting to ratchet up the count. How many this time? A new record?’

  Isaac understood where Windsor was coming from. One murder leads to another. Too many recently. He had hoped for an easy solution to the body at the cemetery, but it wasn’t to be.

  ‘A name?’ Isaac asked.

  ‘Janice Robinson. Does it mean anything to you?’

  ‘It does.’ Isaac took out his phone and made a call. ‘Sunbeam Crescent, as fast as you can,’ he said.

  ‘Female, twenty-one, heroin user, in reasonable health considering, possibly malnourished,’ Windsor continued.

  ‘We know who she is. What else?’

  ‘Four knife wounds to the chest area. A prostitute.’

  ‘Was it professional or a client?’

  ‘Come in and look for yourself.’

  Isaac, used to crimes of violence, walked over to the woman’s body, looked down at her lying on her back, her face in repose as if she was asleep.

  ‘Attractive once,’ Windsor said. He and Isaac were used to murder. Neither would be fazed by what they were seeing; neither would have any trouble eating afterwards, sleeping that night.

  ‘Blood?’

  ‘Not as much as you’d expect. Whoever did this put a towel or something similar over the top of her and the knife.’

  ‘The weapon?’

  ‘It’s not here, surprising really. An amateur wouldn’t have thought about that, and the man had the nerve to take a shower afterwards.’

  ‘Fingerprints, hair?’

  ‘With the number of men she’s serviced? We’ll do our best, and we should get something off the body. Hopefully, we can disseminate the most recent. It should help, but if the man’s not got a criminal record, details on the database, then it’s going to be difficult.’

  ‘There should be evidence of him on her,’ Isaac said.

  ‘No sign of seminal fluid. He might have looked at her, but that’s it. No sexual activity, not from him.’

  ‘Professional? I asked you before.’

  ‘I can’t tell you, not from what we have here. Covering the body with a towel to restrict blood splatter indicates some forethought. But the man could have been a fanatical cleanliness freak, as can be seen by his showering.’

  ‘A professional wouldn’t have concerned himself; an arrogance on his part, thumbing his nose up at us.’

  ‘Why is it so important. And what would a hired killer want with a woman of easy means?’

  ‘You’ve read the report on the Jane Doe?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Brad Robinson, the fifteen-year-old youth who found her with his girlfriend, Rose. Janice Robinson is his sister, or she was.’

  ***

  Neither Larry nor Wendy saw the body when they arrived at the scene. The woman was dead, she was the sister of a witness at another murder, that was enough for them to know.

  ‘Did anyone see anything?’ Wendy asked.

  ‘Around here?’ Larry’s answer. ‘No answers, no talking, and definitely not to us.’

  ‘The other houses? Prostitution?’ Isaac asked.

  Larry was the man who knew what happened in the area at street level, more than either Wendy or Isaac. ‘I’m surprised she was hawking her wares here,’ he said. ‘Not that they would care either way what she was up to, but there are families here. There was a drug dealer up the road, he died two years ago. At number 68, there’s Old Seamus O’Riley, but he’s doing five years for robbery with menace. Apart from that, no one I know, and they’re not likely to talk.’

  ‘Too close to home?’

  ‘Has a door-to-door been conducted?’ Wendy asked.

  ‘I was leaving that up to you,’ Isaac said.

  ‘You’d be wasting your time,’ Larry said. ‘If they had seen something, and they may well have, they’ll not talk, and if they do, don’t trust it.’

  ‘An aversion to the police?’

  ‘There’s that, but they’d be scared, not sure who it is, and if the man can murder one woman, he can kill another.’

  ‘A serial killer?’

  ‘How would we know?’

  The three moved away from the front of the house and walked up the street. The two women who had previously been gossiping disappeared inside one of the houses, two of the children following.

  ‘See what I was saying,’ Larry said. ‘It’ll be quiet in the street for a couple of nights. At least one benefit.’

  ‘It’s Brad Robinson’s sister,’ Wendy said. ‘It’s not a time for humour.’

  ‘Apologies. Have they been told?’

  ‘Wendy, do you want to do it?’ Isaac asked. The most challenging part of a police officer’s job, telling the next of kin. He had done it enough times, so had Wendy and Larry.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ Wendy said. ‘Confirmed?’

  ‘A driving licence. It’s her. The mother can identify her. Later today if you can, before Pathology’s checked her out, done what they need to do.’

  ‘Before we move on,’ Larry said. ‘Professional?’

  ‘It could be. The man had minimised the blood splatter, but the knife wounds weren’t precise.’

  ‘So, it’s either a professional wanting to appear to be an amateur or an amateur who had read up on the subject, had a thing about prostitutes.’

  ‘The man showered afterwards which tells us a couple of things,’ Isaac said.

  ‘No criminal record, or none that we can prove, or else he’s got a phobia about blood.’

  ‘Or he’s a cleanliness fanatic.’

  ‘Rose Winston,?’ Wendy said. ‘Is she at risk?’

  ‘We don’t know,’ Isaac said. ‘Make sure she and her family are updated. And ensure tha
t her house has a uniform and a patrol car patrolling the streets nearby.’

  ***

  Due to the sensitivity of the situation, Wendy drove to the Robinsons’ house in Compton Road; Larry headed to the school that Brad Robinson and Rose Winston attended.

  He found the administrative office, explained the situation to a pleasant rosy-faced woman in her fifties who broke down in tears after being told what had happened.

  Larry waited in the office while the woman went off to find the two of them.

  The first to arrive, Rose. She looked even younger in her school uniform than when he had first met her outside the cemetery. No wonder her father was upset with Brad Robinson. On the night of the first murder, with makeup on, lipstick applied, she could have passed for seventeen, but at the school she looked no more than fourteen.

  ‘Inspector Hill, you wanted to see me,’ Rose said. Larry found that he liked her; a credit to her parents, someone who would do well in life. What she saw in Brad, he wasn’t sure, other than he was a good-looking young man, but from the wrong side of the street.

  ‘Take a seat, Rose,’ Larry said.

  She complied.

  ‘Did you ever meet Brad’s sister?’

  ‘No. Never. Brad told me that he and she were close, and he sometimes saw her.’

  ‘You know what she did?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘There’s no easy way to say this. She’s been murdered.’

  The young woman said nothing. Tears started to roll down her cheeks. After what seemed an eternity, the door of the office opened, and Brad walked in.

  Rose got up from her chair and flung her arms around his neck. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said.

  Brad looked bemused, not sure how to react.

  ‘It’s Janice,’ Larry said. ‘I’m afraid she’s dead.’

  The colour drained from Brad’s face and he slumped, Rose holding him up. Larry took hold of them and sat them down on a couple of chairs.

  ‘I’ll get some tea,’ the rosy-faced admin lady said. The universal cure in England for all ailments, Larry thought. For him, a stiff brandy would have been better, but not in a school, and not for children. And that’s what they were, even if they believed they were on the cusp of adulthood.