by Ken McCoy
‘So she must be quite tall then, to be taller than you.’
‘Bottle-black hair,’ said Simeon.
Sep looked to Adam for confirmation. Adam shrugged. ‘If Simeon says it was bottle-black, it was bottle-black.’
‘You mean dyed black?’
‘Didn’t like her,’ said Simeon.
‘Nor me,’ said Adam. ‘She was very haughty.’
‘Haughty?’ said Sep. ‘Now that’s a term you don’t hear much nowadays.’
‘They say it a lot in Brooklyn,’ said Adam, ‘about women from Queens – hoity-toity, if you know what I mean.’
‘Yes, I know hoity-toity. Anything else?’
‘No.’
‘And that man,’ said Sep, indicating the photo of Bazza Winnie was holding, ‘did you hear him speak?’
‘Talk like Auntie Deck,’ said Simeon.
‘Auntie Deck? Who’s Auntie Deck?’
‘In the jungle,’ said Simeon.
Sep was giving this some thought when Winnie beat him to it. ‘Ant and Dec,’ she said.
‘Ah,’ said Sep, ‘they talked like Ant and Dec. So the man was a Geordie. That’s more than we got from Fiona.’
‘Well, he did his time in Durham Prison,’ said Winnie, ‘so his accent wouldn’t have stood out. He’d have been normal to them.’
‘She had a brown mark,’ said Simeon, jabbing a finger in his left temple.
‘You mean like a birthmark?’ Winnie asked.
Adam shrugged. ‘I didn’t notice that, but if Simeon said she had a brown mark, I believe him. He has a problem, but he knows stuff like that.’
‘Only a very little mark,’ said Simeon, looking at his hands. ‘Like my little fingernail.’ He waggled the aforesaid nail to illustrate his point. Sep looked at his hands which were large and pale and very clean.
‘What is it you do at work?’ Sep asked him.
‘I sweep and mop and polish.’
‘I bet you’re good at that.’
‘I’m very good, aren’t I, Adam?’
‘Very good indeed.’
‘You must be to do work like that and keep your hands so clean,’ observed Winnie.
‘Wear gloveses on my hands and I wash them all the time—after toileting and stuff.’ Another mini-speech.
‘Gloves,’ corrected Adam.
‘Auntie Deck man. Don’t like him,’ said Simeon.
‘You’ll never see him again,’ Sep assured him.
‘He’s dead, Simeon,’ said Adam.
‘I’m very glad,’ said Simeon.
‘So am I,’ said Sep. ‘Did either of you have much to do with Mr Santiago?’
‘I work at clean and tidy,’ said Simeon. ‘Adam work on his televisions.’
‘He means computers,’ explained Adam. ‘I work in IT, which is how we both came to work there. I worked for a firm that serviced the computers at the New York Stock Exchange, in fact I was the one who serviced them.’ Now that he was on a familiar subject his conversation became more articulate, even boastful. ‘I’m very good with computers.’
‘You mean he valued your services so much he gave Simeon a job as well?’
‘Simeon’s very good at what he does, best they’ve ever had, according to Mr Santiago.’
‘And do you both still work there?’
‘Yes, we do.’
‘Doing the same sort of work as before?’
‘As before, yes.’
‘What sort of IT work do you do?’ Sep asked Adam.
‘I work mainly in software design.’
‘Anything in particular? By that I mean a piece of software that a rival company might want to get their hands on.’
Adam was ahead of him. ‘You mean kill Mr Santiago for?’
‘I do, yes.’
Sep spotted a hint of anxiety in Adam’s eyes and wondered why. ‘Killing Mr Santiago wouldn’t do anyone any good,’ said Adam. ‘All our work is highly protected. No hacker could get into our systems.’
‘I imagine you’re a valued employee.’
Adam became immediately defensive. ‘Both Simeon and I are valued employees. We both do the best we can.’
‘I’m sure you do,’ Sep said. ‘Anyway, thank you for your cooperation. You’ve been most helpful.’
‘Blimey, they were hard work,’ said Winnie. ‘How come you knew all that Bible stuff? And where will I get those bloody baseball cards from?’
‘Winnie, I’ve got no idea but it’s what you’re good at.’
‘Sep, don’t patronize me like you patronized them.’
‘I wasn’t trying to. I was just trying to put us all on a level playing field. As far as the bible stuff’s concerned, we were about to interview a lad called Simeon, so I looked it up. It’s the only quotation I could give you. I figured it would give him confidence, knowing that I knew he was named after a famous saint.’
‘Famous? I’ve never heard of him.’
‘Neither had Simeon, but he has now. I just gave the lad a leg-up in life and he’ll remember that and he’ll remember who gave him that leg up.’
‘I think we need to understand a bit more about his mental problem if Simeon’s going to be part of the investigation,’ said Winnie. ‘Anyway, how do you think it went?’ she asked, over her left shoulder. They were driving home in her van which she’d had converted to accommodate his wheelchair. He was sitting diagonally behind her.
‘Like you said, they were hard work and we need to pay them at least one more visit,’ said Sep. ‘They were running out of steam back there. Next time we go they’ll know us as friends and they’ll be more cooperative.’
‘I thought they did OK. Adam seemed pretty grounded to me.’
‘I agree, but I think they can do better,’ said Sep. ‘Adam was hiding something when I asked him about the software he was designing. I might have pressed him on it but I know bugger-all about software, or hardware come to think of it. Mrs Hardacre was mentioned in James Boswell’s notes. Her name’s Olivia Hardacre and as far as I know she never worked for Santiago.’
‘Really?’ said Winnie. ‘So, all we know about her is that she’s tall and pretty with a birthmark on her face.’
‘And she’s hoity-toity,’ added Sep.
‘Did you get the impression that Adam was a little bit … er …’ she twirled a finger around her temple, ‘… you know, as well as his brother?’
‘Sandwich short of a picnic you mean?’
‘Well, half a sandwich, but not quite full shilling.’
‘I think so, but not when he talked about computers and suchlike, otherwise he wasn’t quite your normal Jack the Lad I’ll grant you that.’
‘Well, it could be,’ said Winnie, ‘that Adam’s an ultra-bright, high-functioning bloke, who prefers to channel all his enormous brainpower along the very narrow IT pathway, to the exclusion of all the interesting other stuff— well, interesting to us, but not to them. Some academics despise such stuff as being a waste of brainpower. Such a combination would make him a computer genius, would it not?’
‘You mean and therefore indispensable to Santiago TechSys?’
‘I think he’s got something inside his noggin that Santiago valued highly.’
‘Winnie, you might be on to something. The Piper brothers might be the key to everything. Maybe we should check their backgrounds.’
‘I’m guessing their background is back in Brooklyn – you’d have to check with the NYPD which might mean giving them what you have on Snowball.’
‘NYPD? Is that the North Yorkshire Police Department? If it’s the American NYPD I’m giving them nothing on Snowball. That’ll open a real can-of-worms.’
‘I think you know which NYPD I mean.’
‘I do and that’s a complication too far. I’ll give that a miss, unless it becomes absolutely necessary. You know, James Boswell might have been killed by his girlfriend’s husband, likewise Charlie Santiago. Bloody hell! Why can’t men be more faithful?’
‘Why indeed?’ sai
d Winnie too wholeheartedly for Sep’s liking.
‘There is another alternative,’ he said.
‘What’s that?’
‘All I do is concentrate on proving that James Boswell wasn’t involved with a prostitute, which is all his wife really wants. Then I step down and apply for my transfer. That’s all Mrs Boswell wants out of this.’
‘I thought you’d already proved that to her.’
‘To her, yes, but she’s going to need more. I haven’t proved it to her friends and family and not to the parents of her daughter’s friends when she starts school. All I’ve given her is my very strong opinion, with which she agreed most gratefully.
‘Whoever killed Santiago and attacked us is of no interest to her. OK, whoever murdered him is a job for the police but not for me. Personally I’m happy to believe it’s this Bazz character, even though we know he can’t have killed Santiago, with him being banged up at the time.’
‘Doesn’t Bazz being dead make life easier for you?’ Winnie asked him.
‘No, it’s the person who hired Bazz who’s the danger, which is why it’s probably a good idea to broadcast the news that Sep Black is off the case.’ He smiled and added, ‘It might be interesting to see who goes to Bazz’s funeral.’
‘It might be more interesting to find out who’s paying for it.’
‘The police in his case. If only to make sure he has a funeral, just to see who turns up. It won’t be a lavish affair.’
‘Well, I think we should go,’ Winnie said. ‘Phone cameras at the ready.’
‘Didn’t I just tell you that I’m off the case?’
‘You did, but I don’t believe you. You’ll be looking out for a tall, beautiful lady with a birthmark on her face. You’ll take the tracker and you’ll stick it on her car.’
‘In this chair? That’s Fiona’s job. You’re not coming. Anything else we’ll be doing?’
‘Yes, you’ll both stay in the background, with hats on and you’ll be looking out for Mrs Santiago and the Piper brothers and anyone else you’ve come across in the course of your investigation.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Because none of them have any reason to be there.’
‘That’s very good, Detective O’Toole.’
‘Does that mean I can come to the funeral?’
SIXTEEN
‘Have you had this valeted, Sep?’
‘Yep, washed, polished, valeted inside and out, vacuumed, even polished up the tyres. Forty quid, which includes picking up from the house and bringing it back when the job’s done.’
‘And all for a killer’s funeral?’
‘No, I have it done every month. Where’s the car park by the way?’
‘There’s an overspill park behind some bushes. I’ll drop you off and park your car there, away from prying eyes.’
‘Good. Officially, I’m not supposed to be here. I’m still on sick leave. They don’t know I can get about on a crutch nowadays. Apart from us, there’ll be three coppers there, Fiona definitely. More coppers than mourners, I should think. They stand out like … like …’ he tried to think of suitable simile. Winnie helped him out.
‘Like bollocks on a starving dog.’
‘Winnie! Do you have to be so crude? This is a funeral, which is a religious ceremony.’
‘Sorry, vicar.’
‘Let’s just say they stand out, all coppers do at funerals. We should stay in the background as if we aren’t actually with the coppers or his funeral party. Just take a few photos with that telephoto lens of yours. Make sure you get the ones first out of the chapel. They tend to be the ones closet to the deceased. I doubt there’ll be many – if any. I’ll be interested to see who’s talking to whom as well.’
Winnie got into the driver’s seat of Sep’s shiny Jaguar, his pride and joy, which he looked after like a baby. ‘I often wish I got looked after as well as this car,’ she commented. ‘Can you press a button or something to bring the hood up? My hat’s going to blow off.’
Sep pressed the required button, the hood came up and clicked into place as Winnie started the engine and roared off with unnecessary wheelspin.
‘Bloody hell, Winnie! You’ve just worn twenty quid’s worth of rubber off the tyres.’
The funeral was much more sparsely attended than they had hoped. Of the non-coppers, maybe three men and one woman, all of whom looked to be from Bazza’s strata of society and three other men, all in dark coats and black ties – the traditional garb of the undercover copper at a funeral. There was no social chatter outside the chapel. The four, possibly genuine, mourners headed for a nearby car park, followed by the three men in black coats, plus Fiona, who had a GPS tracker in her pocket.
‘Just a thought,’ said Winnie. ‘With Bazza’s name being Zermansky, shouldn’t this be a Jewish funeral?’
‘I doubt if Bazza was the devout type. Maybe he was corpus-non-grata at the Jewish cemetery’
‘Your lot are a bit conspicuous for undercover coppers,’ commented Winnie, standing beside Sep on the steps of the crematorium. They’d viewed the service from a room next to the chapel which ran a CCTV relay of the service, usually for when the chapel couldn’t hold all the mourners, which was hardly the case here. Winnie had already photographed all the mourners as they left
‘There’s no one more conspicuous than an undercover copper at a funeral,’ said Sep.
‘Not like when you were an undercover copper, Mr Jimmy Lennon.’
This raised a half-smile from Sep. In a previous undercover case in his guise as Scottish ne-er-do-well, Jimmy Lennon, he had scarcely recognized himself in a mirror. Maybe one day he’d use it again, but now was too soon after that momentous time – a time that had turned his life completely around, including bringing Winnie into it.
‘Did you get any decent pictures?’ he asked.
‘Yeah, I got everyone.’
‘What about the woman?’
‘Yeah, I got her … and the one who came out later.’
‘Really? I didn’t spot her.’
‘I know, that’s why you brought me. I got a decent profile which should show if she’s the one with a birthmark.’
‘Left side?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is she quite tall?’
‘She is.’
‘Let me have a look.’
Winnie brought up the screen and handed the camera to him. ‘This other woman— do you know who she is?’ he asked her.
‘I don’t, no.’
‘It’s Mrs Santiago. We need to know why she’s at the funeral of the man who broke into my house and tried to kill us.’
He was scrolling across the various shots when they heard the explosion. The shock wave shook the bushes like a sudden gust of wind. A large pall of smoke appeared, followed by darting flames. Everyone, including the police and mourners, turned to look. The three mourners looked but chose to carry on, as if the incident came as no surprise to them. The police ran towards the explosion.
‘It came from our car park,’ said Winnie, taking Sep’s arm and encouraging him into a hurried hobble on his crutch towards the explosion. They rounded the line of bushes and saw an upturned car blazing amid a cloud of black smoke. It had obviously been blown into the air and had landed on a small Vauxhall. Sep stopped and swore, violently.
‘It’s my bloody car! The bastards have blown up my bloody car!’
Winnie helped Sep towards where they stood among the group of policemen. No point concealing their presence now.
‘Is that your car, sir?’ called out Fiona, without taking her eyes off the blaze.
‘Yeah. Who else?’
‘Thought so. Mine’s the one underneath it. Bloody hell! I can’t even park next to you in safety.’
‘There was someone in it,’ called out a policeman. ‘He’s been blown out the far side.’
The group ran round to the far side of the blazing Jaguar to where a man’s body was lying with his legs half out of the car. A policeman
made a wild rush for him and made a grab at his feet before abandoning the attempt and retreating back through the flames, setting himself on fire in the process. Sep and Winnie arrived just as his colleagues were rolling him on the ground, trying to smother the flames with their coats. Sep shook his head in disapproval.
‘That wasn’t very clever. The man’s obviously dead.’
‘Why obviously?’ asked Winnie.
Sep nodded his head to his left. ‘Because his head’s over there’ He pointed at a human head lying on the ground on its side and facing them. ‘The explosion will have blown the hood off my car and his head with it.’
A policeman produced a fire extinguisher from the police car with which he sprayed the burning copper, whose flames had been all but extinguished and who was screaming curses at his latest saviour.
‘Just get me a fucking ambulance!’
Sep went over to take a closer look at the dead man’s head and noticed the strange, jagged pattern cut into his shaven hair and, more noticeable, the large, round hole in his left earlobe filled with a black plastic disc with a skull pattern on it. Sep had seen all this before. He stared at the dead face and nodded to himself. Yes, it was him all right – couldn’t be anyone else. He called back to Winnie.
‘Yeah, I know him.’
‘What? You recognize a dead man’s head?’
‘I recognize his haircut and that thing in his ear. He’s that East European guy who works at the valeting place – poor lad. When they brought the car back I mentioned that I was coming here to a funeral. Wish I’d kept my big mouth shut now. If he’d been done for stealing my car, he’d have got three months or maybe a slap on the wrist and community service. They wouldn’t have chopped the poor sod’s head off.’
‘It’s hardly your fault, Sep. Can someone cover that poor man’s head up?’
A policeman took off his coat and covered up the severed head. Muted curses were still coming from his foam-covered, but now extinguished colleague, DC Dickinson.
‘Well, the dead man won’t have planted the bomb,’ said Sep. ‘The bomb was for me. It was just his hard luck to try to steal my car.’
‘Why would anyone want to kill you? You can’t even walk and they should know by now that you’re giving the detective game up.’
