Blunt Force

by La Plante, Lynda

  ‘Who?’ she asked quickly.

  ‘I’ll come to him in a minute. We believe he was involved in the £175,000 payroll robbery at the Daily Express newspaper, and the £225,000 robbery outside Williams & Glyn’s Bank. Then a £200,000 payroll robbery at the Daily Mirror, where a security guard was shot and killed.’

  ‘You think he committed the robberies?’ Jane asked, genuinely shocked.

  ‘Not directly, but he was involved in the planning and took a cut of the proceeds.’

  Jane thought for a moment. ‘Those three robberies all happened before I joined the Flying Squad.’

  ‘I’m aware of that. We have made some headway in attempting to track down the proceeds of the three robberies I mentioned, but we are having problems with tracing the cash from a more recent one.’

  Jane licked her lips. She couldn’t think why Elliott was telling her all this. It was beginning to frighten her.

  ‘Everything we’re discussing has to remain strictly between us. You must not repeat any of it to anyone. Do you remember the bent lawyer involved in the Shoreditch Security Express robbery?’

  She nodded. ‘Anthony Nichols. He helped the Ripley brothers and two others plan it. He also murdered George Ripley’s stepson, Carl, and got sent down for life.’

  ‘I heard that it was some very neat detective work on your part that led to the arrests and the recovery of the guns and money from the Shoreditch robbery.’

  Jane relaxed. But she still didn’t understand what Elliott wanted.

  ‘Are the Ripley brothers and Nichols connected to the bent officer you’re after?’

  ‘Yes and no. We were working on turning Nichols into an informant, but it’s proving difficult. He wants a reduction in his prison sentence and early parole. And, in any case, his evidence could be easily challenged and discredited in court. So we’re looking at other ways to arrest and charge our man. That’s where you come in.’

  ‘Is Dabs involved?’ she asked.

  He laughed. ‘No, not at all. Dabs is doing some important ballistics work for me, but that’s all.’

  Jane could hardly say the name, and almost whispered it. ‘Is it DCI Murphy?’

  Elliott made a gun with his hand and pointed it towards her. ‘I’m going to need you to help me bring him down.’

  *

  Returning to her flat, Jane poured herself a large tumbler of whisky. She then lit one of the cigarettes from her stash and thought about what Elliott had told her. Apparently Nichols’ cellmate had asked to speak to Operation Countryman officers and revealed that Nichols had been boasting about a ‘bent cop’ on the Flying Squad who had tipped him off the night Jane was working undercover as a waitress at a wedding, where Nichols and the Ripley brothers were finalising details for the Shoreditch robbery. Nichols had not revealed the police officer’s name, but Countryman were almost certain it was DCI Murphy he’d been talking about.

  She took a drag of the cigarette. ‘That two faced-bastard,’ she said to herself.

  At the time, she had suspected that Nichols recognised her. She shook her head and almost laughed, remembering how she had gone to Murphy, afraid she could have blown the undercover operation. Now she knew she would do all in her power to help arrest and convict him.

  The phone rang. It was Spencer.

  ‘Do you want to know the latest?’

  ‘Just tell me, Spence.’

  ‘OK, here you go: Farook has a teenage daughter called Yasmin. And guess what?’

  ‘She was on your list.’

  ‘Correct. I mean, I don’t know how many Yasmins there are in the world, but it’s a fucking big coincidence. The thing is, if Farook is our man, we mustn’t tip him off.’

  ‘Did you take Yasmin’s phone number down when you listed her as one of the girls?’

  ‘No, that’s when I realised that they were no longer clients and were not on their books, so I tossed them aside. The rest of the girls’ names I took from a stack left on the desk.’

  ‘Who gave you the name Yasmin?’ Jane asked.

  ‘I talked to Michael Langton. I had to wait an hour before he came out of his therapy session.’

  ‘How did you get around to asking about Yasmin?’ Jane asked.

  ‘I was going through my notes, and I had written down that Michael Langton had said that Farook was a lovely guy, very religious, with a very beautiful daughter. But he didn’t give me a name.’

  ‘You didn’t bring that up at the meeting with Tyler,’ Jane replied curtly.

  ‘For Christ’s sake! It was only when I was going through my notebook afterwards, and it just triggered something that I thought I should check out.’

  ‘So what did you say to Michael Langton?’ Jane asked.

  Spencer sighed irritably. ‘I just thanked him for seeing me and said that I was checking into something and asked if I was right that he had mentioned Farook had a daughter. He came straight out with it and said he had never met her, but he knew her name was Yasmin. I’m not stupid, I didn’t keep on at it and quickly changed the subject, all right? Is that OK with you, Jane?’

  ‘Sorry, Spence. This could be a huge breakthrough. But I don’t think there’s anything we can do tonight. I’ll be back in the station first thing.’

  ‘OK, I’ll see you then.’

  Jane replaced the receiver. Surely it was too much of a coincidence. But then coincidences do happen. She took another slug of whisky, feeling energised. She went over to her briefcase to look at one of the leaflets Harry Bellamy had left in the incident room. It listed the locations and times of his lectures. Bellamy was at Liverpool and she reckoned he might still be there. She called the contact number on the leaflet, which was the box office line for bookings. It rang for a considerable time before it was eventually answered. Jane asked if Mr Bellamy was still lecturing and was told that he had just finished. She then gave her name and home phone number, saying that it was urgent that Mr Bellamy contact her that evening. Replacing the receiver, she lit her second cigarette of the night.

  It was a while before the phone rang. She knew it was Bellamy by his deep-toned voice. He obviously recalled who Jane was, even though she had not given her rank.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, I’m fine, and grateful to you for returning my call. I need to run something by you. When you gave a talk in the incident room, there was something you said, which I wondered if you could just clarify for me? You said that you doubted the murder of Charles Foxley had been committed by someone connected to his work because the atrocities were rage-driven, so that would rule out, for example, the designer Sebastian Martinez, suggested as a suspect by DI Miller before we learned Martinez had killed himself six months prior—’ Before Jane finished, Bellamy was laughing.

  ‘That DI Miller is an interesting man. The night before we were brought in to give a briefing, I had shown Miller my notes and had handed him my slides. I didn’t realise he would take it upon himself to actually use them! But that’s par for the course, I guess. My intention was to highlight that there is a difference between rage motivated by revenge and simple anger. That kind of rage can become obsessive and involve inflicting as much pain as possible – which is why I did not believe the murder had been committed by someone close to Foxley, or even in his industry.’

  Jane had grabbed her telephone notepad and was scribbling as fast as she could. ‘Can you give me an example, Mr Bellamy, of the type of person capable of committing that kind of act?’

  Bellamy covered the mouthpiece for a moment and Jane could hear him talking to someone, saying that he wasn’t going to be long.

  ‘I’m sorry . . . Right, because the disembowelment was accurate, he might have been a butcher and able to gut animals. I recall that the weapon used in the disembowelment was never found, but the cut-throat razor was left at the scene. I do not think that this was a spur of the moment act but pre-planned. I do not believe it was a female, but a man driven by rage at what he considered a betraya
l for which he was exacting a horrific punishment.’

  ‘Thank you for your help. I’ll say goodnight.’ Jane was grateful to Bellamy for calling her immediately after his lecture, so she ended the call, even though she could have asked further questions. Right now she needed to look deeper into Farook’s background.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Jane was surprised to see that Spencer was already at the station when she arrived at 8 a.m., looking very smart in one of his favourite tweed suits with a pristine white shirt and floral tie. He beamed at Jane as she took off her coat.

  ‘On your desk, Sergeant Tennison, you will see copies of Farook’s criminal records. He’s had a couple of assault charges, but I’m still trying to check the electoral register and so far it’s a blank. If he is a foreign national he wouldn’t be registered to vote.’

  Jane glanced down the record sheet. ‘Well, it appears he can certainly handle himself. What about previous employment?’

  Spencer shrugged. ‘I’m coming up with a blank. I’ve no idea how long he’s worked for Mandy Pilkington, and I’ve got nothing on the housing register either.’

  ‘But there has to be . . . unless the property is in his wife’s name, and maybe he’s never voted. People can stay underneath the radar, you know. What about births, deaths and marriages?’ Jane asked.

  ‘Nothing. Maybe he’s an illegal immigrant. I can go back and question Mandy Pilkington, but I’m edgy about tipping him off.’

  Jane hung up her coat and said she was going to pop up to the canteen. As usual, Spencer asked her to bring him down a bacon butty and another coffee.

  ‘You know, Spence, I sometimes feel as though I’m your personal waitress. How about you offering to get me a cup of coffee and a bacon butty for once?’

  Spencer pushed his chair back. ‘Yes, sarge! Do you want ketchup on your butty?’

  Jane grinned. ‘Yes please, and no sugar in the coffee.’

  Spencer sauntered out as a couple of the team came in, among them DC Gary Dors, who had the worst haircut imaginable. Jane looked over to him.

  ‘Gary, what possessed you to opt for the hedgehog style?’ She laughed.

  ‘Shut up! My brother did it . . . he’s got himself a pair of clippers. I only wanted a bloody trim,’ he replied.

  Dors hung up his coat as two other officers came in to sit at their desks. Jane went back to checking through Farook’s criminal record. She noted that he had spent time in Wandsworth prison ten years previously for GBH. She put in a call to Wandsworth, not realising the time: no one was available to assist her until the department opened at 9.30 a.m. Jane wondered if it was also too early to call Julia Summers and decided in the end to wait until she’d had her breakfast. Plus Tyler was not in his office to discuss bringing her in for questioning.

  By the time Jane and Spencer had finished eating, the incident room was quiet but the appearance of DI Miller forced everyone to seem as though they were busy writing or typing, and even DC Gary Dors picked up the phone and spoke to a dialling tone.

  Miller walked to Tyler’s office, knocking and opening the door at the same time. He turned.

  ‘Guvnor not in yet?’

  ‘He might be in the canteen,’ Spencer replied, knowing full well that he wasn’t.

  Miller pursed his lips and went into the office, closing the door behind him.

  ‘He shouldn’t be doing that, you know. He behaves as if he’s running the show, and if I was the guv, I’d give him a piece of my mind,’ Spencer said.

  He was almost overheard as the office door quickly opened and Miller asked Spencer and Jane to join him. They raised their eyebrows to each other as they trooped in. Miller had opened the file with their reports from the previous night.

  ‘Well, you two have been busy, haven’t you? Considering the snail’s pace this case has been crawling along at so far, this all seems very interesting. I would suggest, Sergeant Tennison, that you bring in Max Summers’ daughter, Julia, and waste no more time thumbing through stacks of these young girls’ photographs. Let’s put the screws on her.’

  Jane chewed her lip. ‘Er . . . DCI Tyler did warn us not to make problems with her father, Max Summers.’

  Miller banged the desk with the palm of his hand. ‘This is a fucking murder inquiry. If we upset any big-wig son of a bitch, so be it. I will personally take full responsibility.’

  He turned to Spencer. ‘Well, sergeant, you’ve certainly been pulling some rabbits out of the hat, haven’t you? Let’s see what Mr Farook has to say for himself, shall we?’

  Spencer was clenching his fists in frustration. ‘I think it is imperative at this point that we do not tip him off, or that he even thinks we are going after him for dealing drugs. I think we should wait until we have more information about his background, in particular his family. We mustn’t jump the gun.’

  Miller stepped back from the desk. ‘I don’t like the way you’re talking to me, Gibbs. Don’t teach your grandmother to suck eggs. We have to get a result, and my intention is to get that result in the fastest possible way. This means we re-question Langton at his care home or bring him in to the station to be interviewed. At the same time we arrest Farook and have him brought in for questioning. Meanwhile, I suggest that Tennison speaks to Julia Summers again. Most importantly – which should have already been done – do we know Farook’s home address, and name of his wife and daughter? We don’t actually know that the Yasmin from the modelling agency is Farook’s daughter. She could actually be thirteen years old, yet we don’t know, do we?’

  ‘I’ve been checking births, deaths and marriages, but so far we’ve found nothing,’ Jane said.

  ‘Well, go back and look again. Somewhere there have to be records of where these people live, work and go to school.’

  Spencer had controlled his temper but his fists were still tightly curled. ‘Do you mind clarifying, sir, in exactly what order you would like everything to be done this morning? You have issued instructions for arrests and interviews, but could you tell us exactly how you want us to proceed?’

  Neither Jane nor Spencer had noticed the office door opening. DCI Tyler had overheard the last part of the conversation. He could see, open on his desk, the files from the previous night.

  ‘I’d like an update, please, DI Miller. Jane and Spencer, just wait in the incident room a minute.’

  They walked out of the office quickly, feeling like naughty children.

  As the door closed behind them, Spencer said, quietly, ‘Now’s the time for him to show his mettle. If he doesn’t get that little piece of shit by his scrawny neck and throw him out, I might just do it for him.’

  They both returned to their desks, hoping to hear raised voices. Everyone gathered in the incident room continued working, but the hoped-for fireworks never came.

  After fifteen minutes, Miller walked out. He was clearly angry. His lips were set in a tight line as he fetched his raincoat and carefully folded it over his arm. He didn’t acknowledge anyone or say a word as he walked out.

  Tyler beckoned Jane into his office. She stood at the side of his desk while he concentrated on her report, detailing her interaction with the Montgomery family, specifically with their daughter Annalise.

  ‘I just need you to make something clear for me, Jane. Why focus on this young girl called Yasmin? Because we haven’t had confirmation of Farook being her father, and right now we only have Langton’s uncorroborated word he’s a drug dealer.’

  Jane nodded, but remained standing. ‘I was acting on a hunch when I found out who Annalise was and, as I have written in my report, it was coincidence that when Detective Sergeant Gibbs listed some of the models working for KatWalk, he found the name Yasmin.’

  Tyler looked impatient. ‘You haven’t actually answered my question.’

  Jane thought for a moment. ‘It was Edward Montgomery’s reaction to learning about his daughter’s sexual assault. He said that if he could have got hold of Charles Foxley he would have strang
led him. Maybe Yasmin’s father felt the same. We just need to find out who her father is.’

  Tyler stood up. ‘Right, no need to continue. Your job this morning is to re-question Julia Summers, and I will send one of the officers into the agency to bring back the photograph of this young girl Yasmin. I don’t need to tell you we need to move quickly.’

  ‘I’ve already put in a call to Julia Summers, sir, and she is at home.’

  ‘Then I suggest you go there straightaway.’

  Tyler walked over to Spencer. ‘There will be two officers on round-the-clock surveillance at Mandy Pilkington’s address and they can tail Farook from there to establish his home address and other places he visits. I have one officer prepared to time the journey from Mandy Pilkington’s property to collect Michael Langton from the care home, drive to Charles Foxley’s flat and back to Mandy Pilkington’s. This is where we need the timeframe to be exact. There must be no signal given to Ahmed Farook that he is under suspicion.’

  Spencer nodded. ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘I want you to return to Michael Langton’s care home and arrange transportation to accommodate his wheelchair. I want him to be brought to the station for questioning.’

  *

  Jane rang Julia’s doorbell and waited. She was about to ring again when the door was opened, not by Julia but by a very tall, skinny, barefooted girl with giant rollers in her hair. She was wearing what looked like a man’s shirt and was holding a bowl of cereal.

  ‘Who are you?’ she asked, rudely.

  ‘Detective Sergeant Jane Tennison from the Metropolitan Police,’ Jane replied.

  ‘Oh wow, is it about that parking ticket?’

  ‘No, it isn’t. I’m here to see Julia Summers.’

  ‘You’d better come in then. She’s in her bedroom.’

  ‘And what is your name?’ Jane asked as the girl closed the front door with her bare foot.

  ‘Tanya Midhurst.’

  She sauntered down the hall in front of Jane, calling out for Julia as Jane went into the untidy sitting room. Jane found it hard to believe that anyone could live in such a mess of discarded clothes, food cartons and empty wine bottles. Tanya went into the small, equally disgusting kitchen and put her cereal bowl on top of a pile of other dirty dishes in the small sink.