by Dan Laughey
‘But Patel wasn’t attacked that day.’
‘Like you said, Inspector, we got more than we bargained for. What we witnessed that morning was a catastrophe. To cut a long story short, Sergeant Gray – one of those officers who must have been in the know on the assassination ploy because we filmed him being briefed by the two hit-men recruited to murder PC Patel – well, Gray fell into a heated disagreement with these hit-men just moments before Patel was due to pass by on his regular Kirkgate beat. What they were bickering about remains a mystery because Sheila and I, operating our candid camera through an upstairs window of an adjacent warehouse, were too far away to hear.’
‘So Gray was already there, before PC Tanner entered the fray.’
‘Correct. Reports at the time were misleadingly. It was the commonly held belief that Tanner was the first to confront the men. The truth was quite different. Whether senior policemen interfered with the information before it was released, or whether the confusion resulted from an innocent mistake, is a matter I have mulled over for long periods ever since. But like every other detail in this case, it makes little sense.’
‘Then what happened?’
‘Well, true to form, Frank Tanner arrived on the scene. You see, Sheila knew Tanner and had asked him to drive his van in the vicinity of the parish church that morning, knowing as she did that something nasty was planned. Tanner was not our source, by the way, but Sheila knew him well enough to trust him, so she shared our inside knowledge with him. She wanted a police witness to the incident. Though why Tanner agreed to her wishes is another mystery. The man was effectively signing his own death warrant.’
‘Where’s Tanner now?’
Rothwell shrugged. ‘He left the force at the first opportunity, changed his identity, made a fresh start. That was the last I heard of him.’
‘And I take it eyewitness accounts of Tanner being the first to be shot were accurate.’
‘Correct, Inspector. Tanner’s arrival unnerved one of the hit-men. He panicked and pulled out a gun concealed inside his jacket pocket.’ The professor stared into his handkerchief. ‘Suddenly he fired. Down went poor Tanner with a thud.’
‘You must’ve been stunned.’
‘Well, yes and no. We were half-expecting bullets to be honest, but we did not anticipate the first man to fall. And when the second fell, we more or less fainted with the shock.’
‘Gray?’
‘He died soon after.’
‘Sounds like a botched job,’ remarked Sant.
‘That is exactly what it was. Neither Gray nor Tanner were meant for the firing line, of that much I am certain. And I assume the Cortina was the getaway car to whisk away the intended victim, dead or under threat of being shot.’
‘Did Patel appear eventually?’
‘He did, though by now the hit-men had lost their composure. No surprise, I suppose, with two of their own bleeding to death under their feet.’
‘Are you sure the hit-men were police?’
Rothwell nodded. ‘Almost certain. Sheila was too. In fact, Sheila thought she knew who they were, but I have to confess that their identities escaped me. I did not know the names and faces of senior officers like she did.’
‘Who did Sheila say they were?’
‘You will have to ask – ’
‘I can’t,’ said Sant. ‘She’s dead.’
‘Quite. How sad. The fact is she never revealed her suspicions to me. You see, we were workmates. Close in a professional sense, but not a personal sense. I do not think she trusted me entirely. Perhaps I am not the trustworthy type,’ he said meaningfully. ‘Perhaps she wanted to keep the knowledge to herself for journalistic ends, so she could reveal her exclusive in some other publication when the time was right. Having said that, she never did reveal what she knew – not to me or anyone.’
‘Apart from Chloe.’
‘Well, yes. I think it likely.’
Sant waited for eye contact, then asked: ‘Didn’t you approach Chloe about this?’
The left eyelid twitched forlornly. ‘Sadly, no.’
‘Have you still got the film?’
Rothwell shook his head. ‘Sheila promised to keep the video cassette safe somewhere, vowing to use it as evidence against those officers one day. On my advice she chose wisely not to reveal the footage whilst it was hot, in the immediate aftermath of the shootings. This may appear ridiculous, Inspector, but forty years ago the institutions we place so much trust in – the police, the courts, even sections of the press – were corrupt. Dangerously corrupt. If Sheila or I had sought protection in any one of these beacons of public interest, believe me: we would have been in deep water. And as for our precious video, would we have seen it again? I suspect not.’
‘Where does Tony Gordon fit into the picture?’
‘I think Dr Gordon sympathises with the same fascist sensibilities that drove the events of that fateful day. He may well be in touch with the ex-NF flag carriers who planned the Patel attack – racists still at large today. He knows more about the incident than he would care to admit, and it pains me to say it, but the most likely source of his information, believe it or not, was Chloe.’
Sant pinched his rugged nose. ‘So Chloe lets on too much to her tutor and Tony subsequently terrorises her into spilling more of what she knows; of what Sheila told her.’
Rothwell closed his eyes, then said: ‘He may think she has the video.’
‘Has she?’
‘I could not possibly know. I have not seen that cassette since we recorded those terrible events all those years ago. What Sheila did with it and who she shared it with is beyond me, but if anyone was in the know it would be Chloe.’
‘And that’s why she’s missing.’
‘Do you believe… she is dead?’
‘I don’t make predications,’ Sant said as he got up to leave.
‘Let us merely hope, then.’ He stood and faced Sant. ‘And as for Dr Gordon, what do you have in store for him?’
‘That’s for me to know and you to learn about, Professor. Keep your phone handy. I might call on your expertise again.’
Zach was worried. Why? Because he knew the difference between a bad smell and a stench. Rotten food, dirty linen, the personal hygiene of his housemates – all these things constituted the unpleasant. But the reek greeting his nostrils that evening was coming out of no overflowing bin or mouldy kebab from the night before.
Zach actually gave a damn about housekeeping. Greg just laughed it off as the after-effects of his latest vindaloo. Lewis talked about getting the Department for Environment to inspect the place – he was all talk, no action. And Ollie couldn’t give two hoots, his sense of smell permanently warped by the chemicals he snorted.
Zach’s uncontaminated nasal instinct led him squarely to the door of the cellar. The only time it got used was for the occasional house party. It was the only room big enough to accommodate a sound system and makeshift dance floor. Zach wasn’t really a dancer. Blowing whistles, getting high on pills? Whose idea of a good time was that?
The light switch, inconveniently, was located near the base of the stone stairwell. He treaded slowly down the steep steps, feeling his way along the spider-webbed wall as he went. Eventually his roving hands settled on the switch. He pressed down.
Pop!
The bulb had blown. Zach went back up the stairs in search of his torch. Be prepared! Boy scouts’ lingo! A minute later he returned, a little surer on his feet now he’d rehearsed the descent, more assured as he swept the flashlight across the cellar in search of the source of the stench.
Before long, Zach saw something move across the line of his vision. More than one thing – two, three, four, five of them, scuttling along the basement floor. Rats. Unmistakable rats. He traced their flight by the light of his torch. Then he swung the beam back to the corner of the room from whence the rats had scurried. A whole army of the wretched creatures were prancing around on top of each other, nibbling away at the floor til
es.
Zach concentrated on dulling his senses to the stink as he cautiously worked his way towards the rat pack. Then, stepping forward on tiptoe, he noticed the object of the rats’ fascination wasn’t the tiles. It was a long, slightly bent, black bundle of sorts, several heavy-duty bin liners chewed to shreds, but still concealing the contents inside.
Trying in vain not to breathe the same air as the filthy rodents in front of him, Zach stooped as close as he dared to the rancid bundle, directing his beam at the end most severely gnawed.
He turned away jerkily. Enough was enough. Lewis was right. It was time to call in the Department for Environment.
But that thought drifted away in the putrid air as curiosity got the better of him, thrusting him a few steps forward. Suddenly he stepped back on reflex, his sense of smell overcome by dread. It was a real-life version of a scene from the worst horror movie ever.
Zach – poor, poor Zachary – was staring down at a minging human head.
Sant arrived ten minutes after pacesetter Gilligan. The uniform he’d spoken to on the phone was inexperienced enough to sound genuinely disturbed by her first sight of a rotting corpse. Bless her selfless soul, preoccupied as she was with an even less hardened creature: the unfortunate Zach who’d found the body and hadn’t stopped vomiting since.
The officer hadn’t made much sense, understandably, but one thing that rang true was the address: number 16 Brudenell Mount, Hyde Park – the former residence of Oliver Mosley.
Sant hadn’t expected such a swift return.
He called Capstick and told him to get back on surveillance at Mosley’s current abode. For now Sant wasn’t tempted to issue an arrest and search warrant for the Granby Terrace address – this Mosley character was involved in something sinister, for sure, but he wasn’t the only man with ties to Chloe who was under suspicion. Capstick would get back-up if necessary, Sant decided.
The thrill of the chase gave the inspector a buzz he craved like a drug, pulsing through his throbbing veins like nothing else. But dragging him down at the same time was the stark vision of doom. Of what was left behind, each and every time, in the dampness of a handkerchief, the contents of an urn.
Hitting targets at the expense of other people’s misery was about as low as civilised society could manage. That was Gilligan’s bag. The Old Man had no compassion for the victims of crime, only a compulsion to tot up statistics. And as for Lister, the CC was an even colder shit. Sant’s outlook couldn’t be more different.
The inspector surveyed the scene from a distance. A couple of press photographers were brandishing cameras high above their heads, trying in vain to snap a blood-soaked technician. Gilligan was busy marshalling the media scrum, aiming a choice kick here and there at his least favourite reporters. The Old Man would be waiting with baited breath for the call from Lister to strike up his best TV pose for the crew wiring up centre stage.
Sant was actually thankful that Gilligan enjoyed the limelight. He suffered an aversion to any kind of publicity. Not that he was camera shy. For Sant, every slip of his name in a newspaper or flash of his face on the TV brought recognition not just for the good people of this world, but for the criminal fraternity too. What good was it fighting the war on crime if every murderer and drug dealer knew you from a mile off?
Three uniforms nodded as he entered the red-brick terrace for the second time in as many days, then directed him down the hallway to the cellar door. He thanked them before peering down at the movie-set beneath. No-one had bothered to fix the light because the cellar was now illuminated by floodlights fixed to every crook and cranny.
Forensic officers were busy with brushes, fingerprint powder, prints and other instruments of their trade, feverishly recovering any trace of feet or hands or hair or skin. As Sant caught sight of a knot of hair coming clean away at the roots from one end of the black bundle marking the centrepiece of the action, he went weak at the knees.
So this is it. Weeks of searching for Chloe Lee were finally unravelling under the heat of light-bulbs, the damp of sandstone walls.
That flash of despair was broken up by a reassuring voice.
‘Don’t ask me any how long questions,’ said Dr Wisdom. ‘All I’ll say for certain is we’re talking weeks, not days.’
This much information Sant could have deduced himself.
‘Months?’
‘Possibly, my boy. This is no ordinary case. Most cadavers are found in the first twenty-four hours, not twenty-four days or more.’
‘Is she who we think she is?’
‘No comment. Give me time and several strong coffees. All these dead people are going to my head.’
Wisdom was under no pressure to reveal autopsy details until the middle of next week. The weekend was fast approaching, and once the cadaver had been cleared into the investigative unit and transported to the lab, it would be Monday morning before Wisdom and his team could start work. Then came the cross-checks – dental and medical records, eye and facial measurements, DNA – all of which meant weeks, not days, before identification and cause of death could be ascertained.
Sant respected Wisdom because he knew these things, and he also knew that Wisdom knew how desperately he needed a few essentials about the body wrapped in the bundle.
After inspecting the premises he called Capstick again. It was almost midnight.
‘How’s the stakeout?’
‘Nothing much to report.’ Capstick yawned down the line. ‘Except Mosley’s choice of takeaway.’
‘VPH pizza tonight?’
‘Subway, sir.’
Sant was about to ring off, then remembered something. ‘You know that dust-free patch you measured in the loft of Sheila Morrison’s former council house?’
‘The place she lived when she called herself Susan Smith?’
‘That’s the one. What were the dimensions?’
‘Eight inches by four and a half.’
‘Thanks, partner.’
Then he called Holdsworth before he forgot what he was trying to find out. She was clearly bamboozled by his request to measure the dimensions of a VHS cassette with and without its casing.
Holdsworth arrived an hour later with cheeseburgers, though Sant’s hunger wasn’t helped by the spate of murders he’d confronted over the past week. Holdsworth filled him in on the Marie Jagger investigation, what little was known about the woman resonating with the equally mysterious man-with-a-van James Miller; the man who had dumped Jagger’s body on the canal-side before his own body was found sixteen hours later.
Sant revived the image of the dead Miller in his mind.
‘Anything from ballistics?’
Holdsworth brushed her hair back. ‘I was just about to tell you. The National Firearms Centre reported back a few hours ago.’
‘And?’
‘Patience, Carl.’
Sant sighed. ‘Sorry, Holdsworth.’
‘Forensic examination of the markings on the two nine-millimetre Luger bullets found on Miller show they were fired from the same handgun used in the bus shootings – in all probability a Glock.’
‘That seals it,’ he said. ‘At last we have indisputable evidence confirming the links between our murder enquiries.’
Holdsworth rubbed her hands together, then passed her tablet to Sant.
‘What’s this?’
‘The dimensions of a video cassette, cased and uncased.’
He squinted at the bright screen. ‘No case.’
‘Sorry?’
‘The patch me and Capstick found in Sheila Morrison’s loft – a VHS tape without its casing was probably stored there.’
‘Significance?’
Sant swallowed the last of his cheeseburger. ‘We know Chloe visited Sheila Morrison’s ex-home during the summer. Why? Well, this was no nostalgic trip down memory lane for her, nor was she there to enjoy Miss Rhodes’s dubious hospitality. The reason she was there was to get one thing: the tape.’
‘What was it doing there?’
‘Sheila Morrison left it hidden there after she moved out.’
‘What’s so special about it?’
He told Holdsworth what Professor Rothwell had told him about the film he and Sheila had made of the 1984 police shootings, a video recording of which Sheila had supposedly kept secure to this day.
‘Sounds unlikely,’ she said. ‘You sure the professor’s not telling porkies?’
‘That was my first impression. Now I’m starting to believe him.’
Holdsworth left shortly after one but Sant stayed, desperate as he was for an ID on the victim beneath his feet. He was kept mildly amused by Gilligan frantically trying to contact Lister in the hope of getting consent to release more juicy titbits to the media, his endeavours proving futile. The chief constable was clearly in need of all the beauty sleep he could get prior to his important public engagement – whatever that was.
The clock ticked by and it wasn’t until the early hours of Saturday morning that Wisdom gave Sant a short nod to signal he was ready, though it was one of those grudging nods peppered with reservations and qualifications.
‘So what’s the verdict?’ enquired Sant, his nerves frayed under the weight of expectancy.
Dr Wisdom was unmoved by at the impatience in the inspector’s voice. No detective would rush him, no matter how hard they tried, because the Home Office pathologist demanded precision above all else.
‘Is she Chloe?’ Sant persisted.
‘This is a complicated task – make no mistake about it. What we’ve got in front of us is a cadaver more than twelve weeks old.’
Sant did a quick calculation in his head, but counting backwards whilst staring into the face of death was no easy feat.
‘The position of the body,’ continued Wisdom, ‘and the fact it was inadequately wrapped in a thin plastic material has hindered us. Rodents have torn away much of the skin and outer flesh, rendering a simple identification impossible. The rats won’t have helped us when it comes to DNA analysis of her vagina either.’
