by S W Kane
‘What about the name Edward Blake, do you recognise that?’
Calder stared at him blankly. ‘No. Should I?’
‘His phone was found at the scene and he’s now missing.’
‘I don’t know what to say. I’ve never heard of either of them.’
‘What about urban explorers, ever had any problems with them?’
‘Ah, an arty-farty name for trespassers,’ said Calder. ‘There have been problems in the past, but nothing recently that I’m aware of.’
‘I see. What about your neighbours at Marsh House – are they in favour of the redevelopment?’ Kirby asked, changing the subject.
Calder pursed his lips slightly before smiling. ‘They’ve made no objections, if that’s what you mean. In fact, I’d say they’ve been very helpful.’
His voice was really quite magnetic. Kirby knew a high court judge with a similar timbre to his speech, who every time he summed up had the court eating out of the palm of his hand. ‘The security firm that you use, Emeris, have you been happy with them?’
‘They were suitable for a derelict property and kept costs down, but not for a development of this scale. We have a new firm taking over next week.’
‘Okay, but you’ve had no trouble with people breaking in recently?’
Calder shook his head. ‘None, to my knowledge.’
‘And you would know – I mean, if someone had tried to break in, you’d be informed?’
‘Of course I would. You can’t seriously be suggesting that someone working for me has done this?’
‘I’m not suggesting anything, Mr Calder. Tell me, are there any other access points to the site, apart from obvious ones?’
‘What do you mean?’ Calder looked surprised.
‘Just that. Do you know of any other means of entering the site, apart from the two main entrances – perhaps via an old service tunnel, or something like that?’ Kirby watched the man’s face carefully, looking for any kind of recognition, but saw nothing.
‘I don’t.’ Calder started rubbing his fingers again.
‘What about Raymond Sweet? He must have caused you a few problems.’
Calder flashed the smile again. ‘We made him an excellent offer that he chose to decline, which is his prerogative, of course. He’s making a huge mistake in my opinion.’
‘Your investors can’t be very pleased.’
‘The situation will resolve itself. They always do. I’m just not sure how easy Mr Sweet will find living on a building site for the next few years. Still, we’ll do our best to accommodate him. Once the project is completed, you must come to our launch, Detective Inspector. You never know, you might fancy moving in yourself.’ He chuckled.
‘On my wages, doubtful.’ Calder was a smooth operator; Kirby had to hand it to him. ‘I’ll let you know when we’ve finished down there,’ he said, standing up, his eyes drawn to the view again. ‘And then you can give your people the go-ahead.’
‘Excellent,’ replied Calder, and he swivelled in his chair to face the river again, his back now to Kirby. ‘Give my best wishes to Idris. My secretary will see you out.’ He emphasised the name Idris, the Welsh accent now unmistakeable.
Kirby stopped by the door. ‘Pardon me?’
‘I said, my secretary will see you out,’ he said, over his shoulder. ‘And to give my best wishes to DCI Hamer.’
Against his better judgement, Kirby had almost warmed to the developer, thinking that his initial impression had been wrong. But now he left with a nasty taste in his mouth; using Hamer’s first name had been deliberate, so perhaps he was an arsehole in Armani after all. On his way out of Patricey’s offices, he stopped to look at a scale model of the proposed new development for Blackwater. The water tower and chapel were the only two buildings left from the original asylum, the rest of it demolished and replaced by fancy apartments and landscaped gardens. The model also showed what was planned for the lower ground levels, which included a gym, cinema, casino, car park and sports facility. One area lay blank, as though earmarked for something, but with no indication of what. It was where the lake currently lay.
‘Excuse me,’ Kirby said to the man at reception. ‘Can you tell me what’s going to be built there?’ He pointed to the void in the model.
The man shook his head. ‘That’ll be phase two of the project. It hasn’t been announced yet.’
Kirby left the building wondering what plans Calder had for the lake. It seemed a shame to fill it in, if that was the intention.
His phone started ringing as he stepped on to the pavement. It was Anderson.
‘We’ve found Simmons. And guess what?’
‘What?’ asked Kirby, watching a boat chug past on the Thames.
‘His name crops up in one of the hospice’s visitor books. The same hospice where Ena worked.’
CHAPTER 19
When Kirby got back to Mount Pleasant, Anderson was in the process of interviewing Raymond Sweet, so he had the pleasure of talking to the security guard all to himself. He still couldn’t get over Calder’s words: give my best wishes to Idris. He’d amended them when Kirby had asked him to repeat himself, but nonetheless the implication had been there. I know your boss.
Leroy Simmons looked worn-out and nervous. There was no rolled-up Carpworld magazine for him to fiddle with this time; his large hands lay flat on the table in front of him, idle. A man of his size would have no problem carrying someone like Ena, thought Kirby, as he started the interview.
‘Mr Simmons, you lied to us about when you arrived for your shift. I think you’d better start from the beginning.’
The security guard sighed and rubbed his face. ‘I ain’t supposed to do no double shifts, but Chips is a friend an’ I said I’d help him out. If Emeris found out they’d have my hide. So would Mr Calder.’
‘So you’re saying that Mr Monahan asked if you would do his shift on Tuesday night, as well as your own shift, which was due to begin on Wednesday morning – correct?’
‘Correct.’
‘And Mr Monahan is a friend?’ asked Kirby.
Simmons nodded.
‘Not much of a friend, I’d suggest. Because according to him, the double shift was your idea, not his. He said you were desperate for the money, and he agreed to swap shifts as a favour. What do you say to that?’
‘It ain’t true! I swear, as God’s my witness. It was him asked me.’
Kirby noticed that Simmons wore a silver cross around his neck; he could see it, as his shirt was undone. When they’d spoken on Wednesday he’d been in uniform with a shirt and tie. ‘Why would Monahan lie?’
‘Look, it ain’t none of my business what he gets up to in his own time, but he wanted the night off for something. I didn’t ask what, and, yes, I was glad of the money.’
‘Why did you disappear then? You knew that we’d talk to Raymond Sweet. Surely the sensible thing would have been to just tell us what happened?’
‘I need this job. I didn’t want my boss to find out, see?’
‘Tell us about Ena Massey,’ said Kirby, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms. ‘I think that’s something else that you’ve been lying about.’
‘What you on about?’ Simmons looked nervous. ‘I don’t know her, I told you.’
‘Are you sure about that?’ Kirby asked.
‘Course I’m sure. Seeing her lying there with her face all beat up, I’d have still recognised her if I’d known her. But I don’t. You gotta believe me.’
‘The thing is, Mr Simmons, Miss Massey volunteered at a hospice – St Elizabeth’s Hospice in Streatham. The same hospice that your father went to six years ago.’
Kirby watched the information register and thought of his own parents. He dreaded the day when one of them might have to be admitted to somewhere like that.
‘I never seen her there, honest to God,’ Simmons was saying.
‘Really? According to the hospice, Miss Massey visited your father on several occasions before he moved into
the hospice permanently. Are you saying that you didn’t know?’
‘No.’ Simmons’s hand went up to the cross round his neck. ‘I swear to you, I don’t know her. Truth is’ – he looked down, guilt etched into his face – ‘I didn’t always see eye to eye with my dad, God rest his soul.’
‘What are you saying?’ asked Kirby.
Simmons looked up. ‘I never visited him. I ain’t proud of it, and I pray for his soul every day, but I never visited him when he was sick. Knew the hospice would take good care, and they did. I don’t know who visited him.’
‘How come your name is in the visitors’ book then?’
‘What?’ Simmons looked genuinely surprised. ‘It can’t be.’
Kirby opened the file in front of him, took out the photocopied sheet and slid it over to Simmons. ‘Your signature is right there.’
Simmons peered at the list and shook his head. His large hands were now clasped, fingers flexing. ‘My son. That’s my son’s writing. Leroy Junior.’ He sighed. ‘I didn’t think he’d go. He never told me.’
‘Your son is also Leroy Simmons?’
Simmons nodded. ‘He’s Jason Leroy. We don’t talk much. You ask me, he’s signed as Leroy as a dig at me.’
Karen McBride had barely seen her mother in thirty years and had despised her, and now here was Leroy Simmons, who’d left his father to die in a hospice without ever visiting him. Kirby wondered what it was they’d fallen out over that had led to such a grievance.
‘So you never once visited your father at St Elizabeth’s Hospice, or came into contact with Ena Massey?’
‘No. I wish I had. I’d have thanked her if I’d met her. Thanked her for doing what I should’ve done. God rest that poor woman’s soul.’ He crossed himself, the gesture oozing shame. ‘Who’d want to kill a fine person like that?’
It was a very good question: who would want to kill an elderly woman who by all accounts was a saint? A sudden thought popped into Kirby’s mind. ‘Did your father leave a will, Mr Simmons?’
‘A will? Not that I know of – why? I doubt he had anything to leave: lost most of it on the horses.’
So that was it, the sin of gambling. Not easy watching a loved one betting their livelihood away – or their pension. ‘Is that what you fell out over, gambling?’
‘It’s a sin.’ Simmons began to shake his head slowly. ‘A love of money is the root of many evils. Same as drugs or drink, it pierces your soul and eats you up. He was deaf to all that, stubborn fool.’
‘We’ll need to contact your son to corroborate what you’ve just told us.’
He nodded.
‘Tell me a bit more about Raymond Sweet,’ said Kirby. ‘Do you see much of him?’
Simmons shrugged. ‘Not much. He comes to visit me once in a while. We play cards, chit chat, you know. Truth is, I appreciate the company sometimes.’
‘Did you play cards with him on Tuesday night?’
Simmons nodded. ‘Will you have to tell Emeris?’
Kirby ignored him. ‘What time were you and Mr Sweet together?’
‘Dunno, I suppose about eight ’til eleven, or thereabouts.’
‘Can anyone corroborate that? You and Sweet could have killed Ena together – you both have access to the asylum. Why should we believe you?’
‘I ain’t done nothing!’ cried Simmons. ‘Please, you got to believe me. I never seen that lady before I found her laying there, honest to God.’
‘When you’re not playing cards, what do you and Mr Sweet talk about?’ Kirby was intrigued what the two men had in common, apart from loneliness.
‘This and that. I fear for him once they start knocking that place down. It’s his home – his only home. He ain’t got no other place to go. Tells me I’m the custodian of something very special, that I have a great responsibility to look after it. I goes along with it, makes him happy.’
‘Has Mr Sweet ever mentioned Ena Massey? Perhaps he knew her when the hospital was still functioning?’
‘Uh-uh. I never heard her name until I heard it on the news. And that’s the truth.’
Kirby questioned him for another twenty minutes, then stepped into the corridor just as Anderson was coming out of the interview room where he was questioning Sweet.
‘Anything?’
Anderson let out a long sigh. ‘He says there’s a ghost.’
‘Oh Christ.’ Ghost stories about Blackwater were ten a penny. ‘What kind of ghost?’
‘He’s only seen it from a distance – a “dark shape”, calls it “the Creeper”. But get this, he says he saw it on the night of the murder, down by the lake.’
‘What time was this? He didn’t mention it yesterday when we spoke to him.’
‘It was when he returned from the fish and chip shop. He went to the lake before going back to the lodge. He only saw it for a second and didn’t think anything of it.’
‘What makes him think it’s a ghost and not a real person?’ asked Kirby.
‘He says it knows its way about, plus it’s always alone. Trespassers are never alone, according to him, and for the most part they’re not familiar with the grounds.’
‘You think there’s anything to it?’
‘Honestly? Fuck knows. I believe he thinks he saw something, but whether it actually exists is open to conjecture. You’ve met him, he lives in his own world.’
‘What did he say about Ena? Did they know each other?’
‘Now this is more tangible. Yes, they did know each other. In fact, she treated him for a number of years – along with Dr Brayne, who ran the place – but he hasn’t seen her since the place closed down. He gave the distinct impression that he didn’t like her.’
‘Why?’
Anderson shrugged. ‘Said she kept putting him to sleep. When I asked him to elaborate, he said he couldn’t remember and clammed up.’
‘Did he know anything about the letters and rings?’
‘Nope.’
He told Anderson about his conversation with Simmons.
‘Bollocks. I suppose they could both be lying.’
‘There’s nothing from Forensics yet to connect either man to Ena, or to Keats Ward. And why would Simmons call it in if he was the perpetrator? If he’d wanted to hide a body, there are plenty of places he could have done so quite easily, where she wouldn’t have been found for months. Same with Sweet.’
‘We need to speak with Monahan again and find out why he wanted the night off. He could have come back.’
‘I don’t see how,’ said Kirby, feeling frustration growing. ‘I know he had the keys and the passcode to the main gate, but we’d have seen him in one of the surrounding streets by now. We know he didn’t come in through the main entrance or Daylesford Road.’ He paused. ‘There’s got to be another way in. Something we’ve overlooked.’
‘Every inch of that perimeter’s been searched,’ said Anderson. ‘There’s no way in other than the breach on Daylesford Road, and we’re pretty certain that she didn’t get in there. Her clothes would have snagged if she’d been dragged through, plus there would be drag marks of some kind. There’s nothing.’
He was right. Kirby had even been in touch with the Port of London Authority to see if there had been any reports of unregistered vessels on the river that night – there hadn’t. The fact remained, however, that Ena Massey had been taken to Blackwater by someone, and that someone had also managed to leave. The question was, how?
‘Let’s go back to Marsh House,’ said Kirby suddenly.
‘You think Palmer is hiding something?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know, but I can’t think where else to look.’
CHAPTER 20
Anderson swung the Astra into the driveway of Marsh House and pulled up by the front door. A rabbit’s paw hung from the ignition keyring – not his own work – and it swung gently as the car came to a halt. It was the only thing about Anderson’s Astra that Kirby liked.
‘Well, Palmer’s car’s here at least,’ said K
irby.
‘Luck of the paw,’ said Anderson, grabbing his keys and climbing out of the car. The rabbit’s paw had an almost mythical status at MIT29; God forbid it should ever go missing – the place would go into lockdown.
While Anderson rang the bell, Kirby wandered around to the side of the house, where a gate led to a path that ran the length of the house. At the end, he could see another gate, which he presumed must lead into the garden. He tried the first gate and found it locked. There were paw prints, probably a cat’s, but no sign of human activity. The murderer could have come this way before the snow on Tuesday night – that’s if they had a key.
Kirby turned and looked back towards the road. The secluded driveway had one large electronic gate, which, like today, had been open the last time he was here too. He wondered if Palmer closed it at night or whether it was permanently open. The house was fitted with several security lights, but without those on, anyone on the drive would be difficult to spot from the road.
It took Palmer several minutes to answer, and he looked surprised to see them.
‘This is DI Anderson,’ said Kirby. ‘May we come in for a bit?’
‘Please . . .’ He held the door open and they went in. Palmer led them into the kitchen. ‘Coffee?’ he asked.
Kirby recalled the coffee from his last visit as his eyes rested on the Gaggia in the corner. ‘Thanks.’
Anderson shook his head. ‘Gives me acid.’
‘How’s the investigation going?’ asked Palmer, as he put coffee in the machine. ‘Do you have any leads?’
‘A few,’ said Kirby non-committally. ‘We’re trying to trace a young man who we believe was in Blackwater on the night of the murder – you might have heard his name on the news, Edward Blake.’
‘Yes, I did hear something. Is he a suspect?’
‘He’s certainly someone we’d like to talk to. I don’t suppose you know him, do you?’
Palmer shook his head. ‘No, sorry.’
Kirby watched as Palmer wiped an espresso cup with a tea towel and placed it on the tray of the Gaggia. ‘We identified the victim as a woman called Ena Massey – she used to work at Blackwater. Does that name ring any bells?’
