Doyle wasn’t as young as he used to be, but he was still fit and agile and when he looked up at his bedroom window, he knew that he’d have little trouble reaching it. He remained lithe and relatively athletic and the drainpipe looked as though it would be strong enough to bear his weight well enough. As he cautiously shinned up it, it creaked and groaned a little, here and there, but it held firm. He placed his knee on the bedroom window sill and peered in. There was no sign of life inside and it did not look as though anything had been disturbed. In truth, Doyle would have been hard pressed to have known it had been.
He tried the window, although he knew it was locked. As expected, it didn’t move so, using the butt of his pistol he smashed it, high up, near the latch. He cleared a big enough space with his elbow, his jacket protecting him from being cut to ribbons, to allow him to gingerly insert his hand and to free the lock. He slid up the sash window, and nimbly slipped inside, with a grace and agility that would be worthy of a man half his age. His eye scanned the bedroom, and he peered further on, into his living room. It was empty and he felt secure enough to put his gun away. Reaching under his bed he pulled out a large brown holdall, matching the one he had taken to Micky Johnston’s flat all those months ago, only slightly bigger. Inside this, ready packed, was his armoury, collected from various jobs over the years. The sawn off shotgun was there, still in its usual carrier bag cover, as was a small Smith and Wesson model 586 revolver and a Browning FN Vigilante. There was enough ammunition to start a small war and to finish it as well. He scoured beneath the assortment of switch blades, butterfly knives and knuckle dusters, to make sure that his pride and joy was there. Wrapped in a cloth, as lovingly as if they had been the swaddling clothes warming the infant Jesus, was his big IMI Desert Eagle Magnum. It made him feel like Clint Eastwood just to hold it in his hand. It was comforting. Reassuring. With it, he felt that he could take on the whole world and he suspected that, today, he would probably have to. But he had no time to enjoy the pull of its power now. Yanking open his chest of drawers he thrust whatever clothes came to hand into his bag. On top of this, he piled his wash bag and phone charger, Bellini would want to get in touch. The corner of his living room, poky as it already was, was what he euphemistically referred to as his kitchen. From its single shelf he pulled down a tin and pulled out the tea bags from it. Beneath them was concealed his money. It wasn’t a lot, it would never have made a comfortable pension, not enough to retire on to the coast, but, such as it was, he needed it now. He didn’t want the those bastards from the Old Bill to pocket it when they turned over his place and he wouldn’t put a trick like that past them. That was enough. It would do. It would have to, he didn’t have much time. In truth, Francis Doyle did not have many more possessions that he could have taken, even if he was so inclined and those few that he did have, he would not miss. If he’d had a passport he would have taken it just in case but that wasn’t an option. As he returned to the bedroom once more, he felt in his pocket to reassure himself that Bellini’s key and money were still safe. They were.
Before he drew the zip on the holdall, he placed in it, right at the top for ease of access, his guidebook from the Tower of London. He knew that it would have been wise to lose it, to leave it on the tube perhaps, or to drop it down some grating into the sewers. But he hadn’t wanted to. There was still a lot more to read and he wanted to finish it.
He slung the handles of the holdall over each arm so that it lay on his back like Mallory’s ungainly antique rucksack. At the still opened window, he half slid, half climbed down the drain pipe, feeling the friction sharply sting and burn his palms. He was less concerned about discretion now, it didn’t matter much if he was seen anymore, and he traversed the walls and crossed all the yards in less than half the time that it had taken him to get in. Within minutes he was at the station and made towards the nearest tube station entrance. As he walked onto Waterloo’s bustling concourse, he thought that he could hear police sirens emanating from the general direction of his flat, wailing and howling plaintively in the distance across the busy London traffic and the constant dull roar of the trains. It may have been just his imagination.
Chapter Twelve
Chief Superintendent David Goodwin was far from being a happy man. Everything that could go wrong had gone wrong. Really wrong. To lose one copper was a disaster but to lose two, to refrain from paraphrasing the great Oscar, was a catastrophe. The public needed to see a strong police force if they were to retain any confidence in them. And his manor, it seemed, could now rival the worst of anything the mean streets of Chicago had to offer in the roaring 20s and 30s. He had less than a year to go to his retirement and he needed a catastrophe like this like he needed a hole in his head. The top brass upstairs were going to ask questions. Of course they were. Hard questions and a lot of them. In fact they’d started already and they would see that the buck well and truly stopped with him rather than them. Goodwin didn’t have many answers. Charlotte Ashworth murdered in her bed?. He couldn’t believe it. It had been a crazed attack, the work of a psychopath, a madman. He’d never seen its like in all his many years on the force. This was not a gangland execution. Not a clean, sanitized, clinical death. There was something deeply, bitterly personal about it. It couldn’t be a man who’d done that to her, it must have been a monster. A devil from hell. Goodwin hadn’t liked Ashworth much, although he’d never admit it publicly now. Few members of the squad had. She’d got too far, too soon. It had all been too easy for her. She’d served her apprenticeship in a university, not getting dirty on the streets, pounding the beat day after day, night after night, like he had. There were rumours that she had slept her way to promotion. He knew that such rumours abounded almost automatically when good looking female officers were advanced. He also knew that she hadn’t slept with him. He had tried to persuade her to once but she had refused. Nicely. Tactfully. If she wasn’t married, maybe. That seemed to make it worse. But despite all of this, he accepted that she was a good copper. And he wouldn’t want to see this happen to anyone, especially not when it was down to him to clear it up.
And then, there was Tommy Windsor. Getting killed. On the same day. Was it a co-incidence? Probably. It was the last thing he needed but at least he could understand it. Tommy was engaged on extremely dangerous work and Bellini must have caught wind that Tommy was an undercover copper. That was a simple gangland execution for all the melodrama of its style and setting. He didn’t expect anything less from Bellini, that was his style, he thought. Always tended to the theatrical, the Italians. That’s why they had invented opera. They wore their emotions on their sleeves, that lot. And only a single shot had been needed, at an angle, through the chest. That spoke of a professional job. Francis Doyle more likely than not, he was Bellini’s number one enforcer. Goodwin tried again to see if he could manipulate a connection between the two killings. He wanted to find one desperately. It would have given him a starting point, but, try as he might, he failed. He couldn’t see that Bellini would have murdered Ashworth. Not in that way. He had nothing to gain from it. Yes, he must have known that she was after him, but he also knew, no doubt, that she wasn’t getting very far with it. There couldn’t have been any dark shadows in Ashworth’s private life could there? No, he doubted that. If she had been any more clean her fanny would have squeaked when she walked. But, then, what was the alternative? A freelance psycho on the streets? Taking down the police one by one? That’d do the latest recruiting drive a power of good, he thought. As if they weren’t having enough trouble already. Thank god she wasn’t black.
The bloody media weren’t helping matters. Plastering pictures of little Alice Ashworth all over the front page of anything that went to press and headlining the T.V. news bulletins with her. He could feel the media elevating fear to a crescendo. Calling this bastard Hannibal the Cannibal, based on Chinese whispers and hearsay. That had to have started within his team. He’d make bloody sure he’d find out who it was. And then things had got even worse wh
en they ran the story about Tommy on the news, without clearance and before he had even been able to pull in Bellini and Doyle. Bastards, he thought. Who’s side are they on? It’s just a story to them. But to Goodwin it was real. To Charlotte and Tommy it was real. To Steve it was real and to Alice it would stay real for ever.
By the time the police were ready to come for him, Bellini and his lawyer had arrived at New Scotland Yard, volunteering to help them with their enquiries into Tommy’s murder. Volunteering! They were downstairs now. He couldn’t keep them waiting much longer. And Doyle had had it away on his toes. They were watching the ports and airports, of course, but Goodwin didn’t hold out much hope.
He picked up his phone, dialled an internal number and made sure that the judge had signed the search warrants for Bellini’s home, the Mount of Venus and all of his other properties. Those they knew about. It wouldn’t matter much. They wouldn’t find anything worth while. Nate and the boys had had enough time to store away anything too incriminating and to become word perfect on their own alibis as well as Don Bellini’s. Goodwin called out loudly, through the open door of his office into the general work area beyond littered with overflowing desks, stacked filing cabinets and a multitude of blinking computer displays. Sergeant Dave Morris, now partly rehabilitated after his unfortunate incident with Micky Johnston, strained to hear him over the noise.
“Dave, you’re coming with me. Bellini’s downstairs with his brief for interview.”
“OK, guv. I’ll be right with you.” Morris hastily ended the telephone call he was on. Goodwin was not the sort of man to keep waiting, particularly if your past indiscretions had not been totally forgotten.
They trailed through the warren like maze of corridors that is New Scotland Yard and took the lift to the ground floor and the small, box like interview room, where Bellini sat in silence with his lawyer, Jack Loader. They were accompanied by a pretty, uniformed W.P.C. who left the room as soon as her superiors entered. Loader had known Bellini for years. They had been at university together, they had partied together, studied together and qualified together. And they had worked closely together pretty much ever since. Bellini’s world was a seductive one. It drew people into it insidiously and once it had them, it rarely let them go. Not that Loader wanted to go. Thanks largely to Don Bellini he had a nice, comfortable life. A little bit of work here and there and enough money to spare for the flash house in Esher, with a Porsche parked out side. Enough money to pay for the Armani suits and his gorgeous trophy wife. They all fitted in perfectly with his blond coiffured hair and coffee table magazine good looks. Those in the cleaner end of the upper echelons of service to Don Bellini were richly rewarded. Loader’s was a lifestyle that Francis Doyle would never be able to even dream of affording. He wouldn’t have wanted it. The lawyer was a man brimming with all the confidence that his position bought, the sort of man who could dominate a meeting simply with through the unspoken power of his presence. His was a confidence built on knowledge and success but he was never allowed to forget where the source of his power lay.
The interview room was Spartan. The police liked it that way. No distractions to put off the less focused, criminal and copper alike. It had no carpet, just a cheaply tiled floor and a Formica topped table bolted to the ground, to prevent it being used as an offensive weapon. There were four plastic stacking chairs, two confrontationaly placed on each side of the table. Affixed to the wall, within easy reach of the table was the twin cassette recorder and microphones, which thanks to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 recorded every syllable of every word of every interview. Every official one anyway.
Bellini offered his hand and Goodwin who shook it limply. It was all very civilized. Before coming into the station, for that’s all Scotland Yard really is despite its literary reputation, no more than a glorified cop shop, Bellini had taken another hit of his heroin, this time in the presence of Loader. He no longer cared who saw him but Loader found it extremely distasteful, this was not the good old Don of their days together at the L.S.E. in the Strand. This was something altogether darker and more sinister. And more worrying too. In his experience heroin users were not the most reliable or predictable of people and right now Bellini really needed to keep his head. He had told him that and as he did so, he had thought, just for a fraction of a second, that Bellini was going to hit him. He had tried to talk him into going to ground for a few days but that only seemed to irritate him more. He was calm now, that was something to be grateful for, and he seemed very confident. Loader prayed that he could keep up this façade but he knew that he would have to get him out as soon as possible. It hadn’t helped that that old bastard Goodwin had kept them waiting for more than three quarters of an hour without even the offer of a cup of coffee. Well, at last the show was getting started now.
Goodwin was a tall man, imposing. He towered over Bellini but he knew that he would not be able to intimidate him. He pulled two virgin cassette tapes from a box on the floor and discarded their cellophane wrapping in the waste paper basket. Sitting down he pressed the button to start the tape. He recorded the date and time as procedure dictated.
“Taped interview with Donald Bellini, accompanied by his solicitor, Mr. John Loader of Loader Associates, to discuss the murders of Detective Inspector Charlotte Ashworth, Mr. Stephen Ashworth and Detective Sergeant Thomas Windsor. Officers present: Chief Superintendent David Goodwin and Sergeant David Morris.”
Loader interrupted, “I would like to place on record that my client has come here as a volunteer to assist you with your enquiries; furthermore, he is neither under caution nor arrest and that he is free to leave at any time.”
“Yes. We acknowledge that, Mr. Loader. Thank you for your co-operation, Mr. Bellini.”
“In addition, my client wishes to state as a matter of record from the outset that he is not involved in any of the crimes you mentioned. Nor has he any knowledge of them. He is not, and never has been, a criminal. As you are aware, Chief Superintendent, Mr. Bellini has no criminal record whatsoever. He is, in fact, a well respected business man and who serves as a patron of his local community.”
“Then he’s going to be of great help to us, isn’t he? We’re looking for a brutal, sadistic killer.” Both men knew that, legally speaking, Loader was right. Despite the extent of his nefarious activities, Don Bellini had always been clever enough to escape a successful prosecution.
“He intends to be of considerably more help than your facetious manner, Superintendent. Mr. Bellini has come to you because Mr. Windsor, whom we now believe to have been a police officer, presumably investigating my client’s business affairs, all of which, I may add, are respectable and perfectly legal…..”
“Of course, of course,” Goodwin interjected, trying to put an end to Loader’s unmitigated droning.
“…..and perfectly legal.” The solicitor was unfazed. “This Mr. Windsor was retained by my client on an ad hoc and occasional basis to perform certain low level administrative and general duties.”
“Like making tea and delivering smack?”
“I resent that implication.” Bellini smiled nonchalantly as he spoke for the first time.
“At no time did Mr. Windsor identify himself as a police officer.” Loader took up the offensive, once more. We would like to have copies of all reports he submitted in order that we may refute any accusations made against my client.” Loader and Bellini had, earlier that afternoon, come to the definite and correct conclusion that Tommy must have been a renegade, an officer seduced by the criminal life he had been sent to expose. He had to have been. It was what Bellini initially suspected as soon as he had heard the story break on the lunchtime news. It was the only possible, logical conclusion that could be drawn. The only one that fitted all the facts. There was no way the Met. Could condone even an undercover officer actually participating in crimes the way Tommy had done. They assumed, quite correctly, that any reports Tommy had submitted would have been heavily expurgated. If not, Bellini w
ould have been arrested or called in for questioning, months ago. Goodwin could pretend that he held all the aces in his hand but both Loader and Bellini were too sharp to let him bully them with threats that they all knew he could not back up.
But Goodwin’s took his turn to smile. “Copies of his reports? Yes. I’m sure they’d be very useful to you but, as you know, they have to remain confidential. For the time being. Mr. Bellini, can you tell me when you first became aware that Sergeant Windsor was a police officer?”
“Not until this afternoon when I saw it on the news.” This was true but, of course, Goodwin didn’t believe him. “I hope his moonlighting won’t cause any trouble. I didn’t think that the Met. allowed second jobs.”
Goodwin drew a veil over the jibe and said, with mounting impatience, “Come on Don, you can do better than that.”
Lost in Shadows Page 17
