by Ali Knight
‘I’ve never been rumbled before—’
‘Let me finish, Maggie! He could easily discover us, and when he does he’s not going to like it. That’s bad for us, and probably very bad for his wife.’
I had to admit Rory had a point. No one liked being followed, not least by someone their spouse had hired. The consequences for their safety were important to think about.
Silence fell in the room. We were all thinking the same thing. If Gabe was involved, how much danger did that bring to the Blue and White?
‘There’s something else,’ Simona added. ‘Is Helene hiring us just a lot too convenient? Has she set the whole thing up?’
‘If there’s one thing I hate, it’s being used,’ I muttered.
‘You and me both,’ Rory answered.
‘Maybe we’re reading this all wrong,’ I added. ‘Maybe Helene hired us to protect herself.’
Simona made a noise. ‘She doesn’t need protecting,’ she added.
I made a decision there and then. ‘Until she sacks us, we keep going. We’ve seen no evidence that he could turn violent, but we’ll need our wits about us.’
Rory threw his hands in the air and slumped back down in his chair. ‘You’re a fucking fool,’ he muttered.
Well said, Rory, but not well enough. My problem was, I was stubborn and contrary. I was getting paid good money, and I wanted a result. And I wanted this kind of result. Truth was, I liked hanging out in expensive bars in Mayfair and Marylebone where the drinks were doubles and the nuts and Japanese crackers complimentary, waiting on crowded West End streets being jostled by tourists from around the world who had paid a fortune just to come to see and experience London. It was what I worked for, and I didn’t want it to end. And I wanted to discover the truth. My competitiveness and insecurity all played a part. But most of all it was professional pride. I found Gabe intriguing, attractive even. I didn’t want him to beat me. I didn’t want to be played. In the end it was as simple as that. I didn’t want to be outsmarted. Not by a man; by a rich, powerful man, even less.
I’ve watched toddlers fight to get ownership of a swing, yank a toy from another’s grasp. It doesn’t matter at that age whether they’re boys or girls. But by the time those children are teenagers, it’s the boys who grab that seat, it’s the men who get the toys, the reins, the controls. What I’d seen of life told me I couldn’t win if I didn’t fight.
CHAPTER 23
Helene
Five weeks and two days before
It takes twenty years to build a reputation and five minutes to lose it. And the bad publicity surrounding what happened to poor Milo could have pulled this company to the floor. And there Gabe was, a rabbit in the headlights, frozen into inaction. He needed to act swiftly, he needed to be resolute. But since we got the call that Milo’s body had been discovered, Gabe had sat on a kitchen chair, staring blankly at the fridge, as if he might find a set of instructions as to what to do stuck there with a magnet. A man you worked with had been bludgeoned about the head! Move!
I was trying to formulate an appropriate response; there were so many moving parts that needed to be coordinated – the staff, the community groups not just in Vauxhall but all across the capital that we worked with – they all needed reassuring. Gabe should give an interview to the local news, I believed.
I understood that Gabe was shocked and upset by what had happened, but it was as if this news had completely knocked him over, it was as if a bomb had gone off behind his eyes and rendered him mute.
But all of this paled into insignificance once Alice got up and asked us why Poppa looked so odd. I told her what had happened and she collapsed into hysterics.
And out tumbled a story that Gabe and I knew nothing about. That when we thought she was out with Lily on Friday night the two of them had spent the night at some kind of rave in Vauxhall with Milo himself, and Alice had gone to the protest meeting on the estate last night.
That finally got Gabe moving. He was furious, channelling his grief for Milo into anger at his daughter – telling her it was dangerous and she was being naïve. That she didn’t understand drug dealers and muggers out for her phone. And I felt like retorting she’s a woman – unlike you she knows everything about personal safety because she feels the danger. And an even darker thought bubbled up, like gas from a badly digested meal: unless your memory has failed you, Gabe, the greatest danger Alice experienced was where she was supposed to be safest – at school.
In reply to our barrage of questions, Alice had started shouting that Friday night had been the best night of her life and she had felt that for the first time she had really lived but it was all ruined forever. Then Alice did the thing I hate – the flopping on the sofa and the screaming – and I was made out to be the cold bitch by trying to get her to calm down while her dad ranted and raged just like a spoilt kid, just like her.
Her furious little face was scrunched up, as his was, and they looked so shockingly similar, mirror personalities. I was the interloper, forever the outsider in their intergenerational spat, as their helixes of DNA spun and twisted round each other. I appealed for calm as I tried to put my arms around Alice’s shuddering shoulders. She pushed me violently away and I watched from the door as they gathered energy for round two.
I needed a bloody cigarette and wondered why I had bothered to give up. If this didn’t send him into the arms of that bitch from the Café Royal nothing would.
Maggie had saved me. She was the saviour of this whole family. The Blue and White had given us all an alibi for last night, which meant we would escape intrusive and hurtful investigation and my husband didn’t even know it, could never know it. The feeling of a sense of threat tightened around me. It turned out we all knew Milo, some of us better than others. But he united us all, and now he was dead. Why was Milo killed? Was it a crime of passion? It seemed impossible, yet the alternatives were almost worse – was he not the man he seemed?
‘If anyone calls at the house or on the phone, don’t answer,’ Gabe said.
Alice stopped her screaming and stared at him, still as a puppet in a shadow theatre. ‘Why?’
‘Because it might be the press.’
‘The press?’
‘Journalists who want—’
‘I know what the press is—’
‘Well then—’
‘He’s been killed and all you can think about is what they write about us? Poppa, you’re a monster—’
‘I don’t mean it like that, as you well know—’
We were interrupted by the doorbell. There was a stunned silence then Alice was up and moving across the room, giving both of us a look of such withering hatred I was momentarily stunned. ‘It’s Lily, for fuck’s sake.’
I opened my mouth to correct her appalling language, and stopped myself. Now is not the time, I counselled.
The wailing and exclaiming started anew in the corridor, long teenage hair flying in the wake of sobbing, Lily calling over and over, ‘I can’t believe it, I can’t believe it’, and I felt my old enmity for such emotional vomiting. I wanted to say, but you hardly knew him, you knew him less than I did, far less than Gabe. I felt contempt for their Twitter and Insta generation, the empty public competition to be more affected than each other. And then I was appalled at my cynicism and I wanted to cry with them. They were young and emotionally green, they were privileged enough to have the freedom to feel. The tragedy was living a life, as I used to, where it served you better to not feel anything at all.
I left them to it and headed out the back door into the summer morning. It was so blue and beautiful, but I saw none of it. I shed a tear for young Milo in silence and alone. By the time I came back inside, Lily had left and Alice was locked in the bathroom. A long while later she emerged, pink and lethargic, her phone dangling from puckered fingertips.
‘You OK?’ I asked. She stared at me, the steam and the fighting having robbed her of energy to speak. She blinked at me, her eyes expressionless discs. For a terrible moment I wo
ndered if she had already forgotten who Milo was.
CHAPTER 24
Alice
Five weeks and a day before
The day I had to give a statement to the police I hadn’t slept well and was nervous – I wanted to make sure I told them as much as possible and remembered everything that might help them catch Milo’s evil killer.
In the end it was straightforward. Two policemen came round to the house and we sat in the study because it seemed the most sensible place. The first policeman, DI Reed, had huge muscled arms and was very big. He led the interview and the second, Burton I think his name was, was small and tired and never said anything much. He looked like he was half asleep to be honest, which I didn’t think was very respectful to Milo. I felt they should have impressed upon me that they were working night and day to reach a conclusion and get someone behind bars.
Helene sat in on the interview with me. She suggested it and I was happy about that. I didn’t want to feel intimidated. The way the police look at you it’s as if you’ve done something evil or wrong even when you haven’t.
DI Reed asked all the questions, so I stopped looking at the other man. He asked me how I knew Milo and for how long and where I’d been with him. I stumbled when I had to describe the party and tried to keep it vague – what if they asked about the drugs? Could they arrest me for what happened that night? For what I took? Was that against the law? I mentioned more than once that I was eighteen in case he thought I had been drinking.
But they didn’t seem interested in me, only my relationship with Milo. I felt so sad, when I think about the potential that has been snatched away from me and him. I believed that I was in love with him. I don’t care if that sounds presumptuous or naïve. I know how I felt. It was such a different feeling from Mr Dewhurst, Milo felt like an equal to me, he was closer to my age for one, and my poppa liked him. I bit back tears. What a tragic waste.
DI Reed asked about the last time I saw Milo, the night of the protest meeting.
‘In his kitchen,’ I said. ‘There were lots of people there at his house, we were trying to have a conversation but kept getting interrupted.’
‘What were you talking about?’
I swallowed. ‘We were just talking about this and that, talking about the party. Remembering the funny things that happened.’
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Helene looking at me and then looking away. I wondered if she didn’t approve.
‘Did he sell you any drugs?’
I took a deep inhale but Helene interrupted me sharply. ‘Don’t answer that.’
‘He didn’t take drugs or sell me any,’ I said firmly. ‘Milo said to me quite clearly he was against hard drugs.’
Helene asked DI Reed in a tone of outrage, ‘Are you telling us he was a dealer?’
‘It’s a line of inquiry we’re—’
‘Rubbish! He wasn’t a dealer. Not in any meaningful sense. This is a distraction, or slander at worst,’ Helene added.
‘Please, Mrs Moreau, if we can continue. Did he say he was worried about anything, or anyone?’
I answered straight away. ‘Not that I know of,’ I said.
I had to name the people at his house, but apart from Larry and a couple of other familiar faces, I knew no one.
‘What time did you leave?’
‘I left about nine thirty and came home.’
‘Did you go out again?’
I shook my head.
There was a pause and I thought that was the end of his questions. ‘So you came home at nine thirty. That’s an odd time to leave,’ DI Reed continued.
‘What do you mean?’
I sensed something wasn’t right because Helene stiffened beside me. ‘Well, it’s neither here nor there, neither early nor late. Did you guys have an argument?’
I realised I was gripping the seat really hard. I tried to keep my voice level – how dare he insinuate! ‘No. Nothing like that. I wanted to stay longer but there were so many people there I thought another time would be better to talk.’ I caught a sob in my throat and had to put my hand over my mouth. ‘But there never would be a next time!’
Helene put her hand on my back and murmured comforting words. A tissue was put in my hand and I balled it and shredded it and wiped my eyes.
Then before I knew it the chairs were being moved and legs were being stretched.
‘Thank you for your time,’ DI Reed said as he stood. ‘Do you have anything else you want to say or add?’
I shook my head and we all began to move towards the door but DI Reed spoke again.
‘One more thing. Did he ever talk about a woman he was seeing? A girlfriend?’
I shook my head and that would have been the end of it, but at that moment I glanced at Helene and it was her face I remember – like her oldest friend had betrayed her over something hideous and she was trying to recover.
CHAPTER 25
Maggie
Five weeks and a day before
Dwight was the kind of blunt, plain-speaking man I’ve always respected. So when he phoned the next day he just got right down to it.
‘Did you know the daughter, Alice Moreau, knew Milo?’
‘Alice? I saw her with him briefly at some official function in Vauxhall.’
‘Turns out they were more friendly than that. She went to a party with him, stayed the night at his flat, was at the public meeting and back at his flat again on the night of the murder. The way she talked, I think she’d got a crush on him.’
This sat awkwardly with me. No one liked being blindsided. It was as if Dwight was calling me out on not doing my job properly. I hadn’t seen Alice at the meeting, but I hadn’t been looking for her; I hadn’t even considered that she might have been there. ‘I didn’t know that.’
‘Fill me in, Maggie, what’s she like?’
‘She lives at home, insulated from the day-to-day problems any normal person has to face. She’ll never have to worry about money for the gas meter, so to speak. She’s interning at her dad’s company. She’s strait-laced, well-educated, I’m sure.’ I tailed off, there was little more I could add.
‘She says she came home at about ten. Does her story check out?’
‘Hang on.’ I asked Simona for the notes that she had jotted down while being outside the Moreau house the night of the murder. ‘Yeah, that’s what we’ve got, give or take fifteen minutes.’
Dwight didn’t thank me for my help. ‘The Moreaus are keeping secrets from you. Welcome to policing.’
I slammed down the phone, furious with Helene and pissed off at Dwight.
Five minutes later I phoned him back. ‘I want to see Milo’s flat.’
‘Nothing doing at all, Maggie! Why are you so interested in the detail of Milo’s death?’
‘Come on, Dwight, he’s connected to a case I’m doing, don’t run down my job.’ We argued back and forth for a while, with me trying to tell Dwight I might have something useful to add to the investigation, and him almost laughing at my ego-fuelled presumption. I like to think in the end I convinced him by being a professional and with my razor-sharp debating skills, but he only agreed once I said I owed him a ton of drinks and would buy them for him.
I got down to the station in double-quick time and as he drove us to Vauxhall we talked. ‘What’s the working theory? Was Milo’s murder anything to do with the redevelopment of the estate?’
‘Lots of residents think so. The bad feeling and paranoia around here is running high; my officers have heard every theory going about his death, from Polish builders desperate to keep their jobs to serial killers. One guy spent twenty minutes trying to convince an officer that it was an MI5 cover up, because their big building on the river there isn’t real, it’s here on this estate and Milo found out about it. Everyone living in Reg Jones House is a spook in disguise.’
I smiled as we walked up to Milo’s door. ‘Problem is,’ Dwight continued, ‘Milo was a controversial figure. He was born and lived all his life here
, the council flat was his mum’s before she died. Some of his neighbours hated him, said he was too noisy with his constant parties, others claimed that he was some kind of Ghandi for council house occupants – the little guy facing down the corporate raiders. There is talk that he was a dealer, but also records show that he had beef with the drug dealers on the estate. Called the local station many, many times to report dealing in the stairwells and in that playground that he looks out on; he used to get angry when they didn’t respond immediately.’
‘So would I,’ I said in defence of Milo.
Dwight looked resigned. ‘Everyone has sympathy with that, but drugs is just one of a myriad problems there – you should see the call sheets about antisocial behaviour, joyriding, noise issues, dangerous dogs. The drugs squad busted thirteen Vietnamese guys running a dope farm from a council flat. It goes on and on.’
‘Careful,’ I said, ‘I grew up on an estate like this, so did you.’
‘And what did we do?’ Dwight parried. ‘We left. Maybe that social dream has failed.’
I didn’t agree. I watched a young guy in a grey hooded tracksuit a distance away with a small, muscled dog with a gold chain-link lead. The man was bending down with a little black poop-a-scoop bag to pick up his dog’s mess. I would have argued the point with Dwight, but I was conscious of being short of time. ‘Do you see this as a drug-related crime?’ I asked.
We were at the door of Milo’s flat now, ducking under the tape. Dwight was silent for a long moment, weighing up his answer. ‘No, not really.’
‘Someone murdered him. That’s fact, not speculation. What’s the CCTV on the estate show for the night of the murder?’
‘We’ve got the film from every camera that was working in a wide radius from Milo’s flat. The estate’s very well covered, the only problem is that some of the cameras are out of action because of the building work.’
‘And?’
‘So it’s possible to leave Milo’s flat and be away anywhere without ever coming into view of a camera, if you know what you’re doing. According to some of Milo’s friends, there was a woman he might have been seeing, but if he was, it was very hush hush, as no one can describe what she looked like. It’s all a work in progress. But at this moment a drug dealer nicknamed Bee-Sea, short for Battersea, is in custody. Some low rent grassed him up. He’s done time for GBH, ABH, pimping, etc. I could go on. Believe me, he’s quite capable of murder. It would be our pleasure to put him away. So you get ten minutes in here.’
