The Stranger Within

by Tara Lyons

  ‘Hardly, guv,’ Clarke chuckled. ‘New case. DCI Allen was about to phone you himself, but found me—’

  ‘I’m leaving the house now, give me twenty minutes and I’ll be at the station for the briefing.’

  Hamilton supported the phone between his cheek and shoulder as he slipped each arm into a thick wool, long-line black coat, wrapped a scarf around his neck and pulled a black woollen hat over his close-shaven head. He tapped his pockets, making sure he had his keys and wallet, set the alarm and left the house. While Clarke continued talking, Hamilton double-locked the front door as, for a change, his wife had left for work before him.

  ‘Limited details at this time, guv. It’s straight to the crime scene for us.’ Clarke proceeded to give Hamilton the address while he climbed in the car and entered the postcode into his satnav. ‘A wine bar in Soho … you’ll probably have to pass the station.’

  ‘I’ll collect you on en route.’ Hamilton rolled his eyes as he ended the call and reversed out of the driveway.

  Twenty minutes later, the pair turned off Shaftesbury Avenue — down the wrong way of a one-way street — and onto Greek Street, parking near The Palace Theatre. Usually a hive of activity, the area was understandably quiet at 7.30am on a Friday morning; except for the inquisitive people who had wandered out onto the street, or those stopping on their way to work in an attempt to uncover why a police cordon had been erected.

  Hamilton instructed the uniformed police on duty to keep the civilians as far back as possible. His biggest pet hate was social media, due to its instant power in sharing people’s most intimate, terrifying or private moments with the world. He and Clarke walked away from the crowd, along the side of the theatre — its red-brick facade dominating the road — and towards The Empress wine bar.

  Another uniformed officer greeted them at the entrance — a petite, tanned woman with blonde hair pulled back so tightly her eyebrows seemed to stretch up. The Empress was a small black building with a large neon sign spelling the words “cocktails and dreams” on the tinted windows. Hamilton couldn’t see inside, but the officer informed him it was the flat upstairs he wanted.

  ‘I think SOCO are almost finished, sir,’ she said, pointing out the silver case packed with obligatory gloves and shoe covers. ‘But take that front door and head up the stairs.’

  He nodded his thanks and followed the officer’s directions, Clarke in tow. Reaching the narrow landing, they were met with a howling screech and gushing cries just as pathologist Audrey Gibson stepped out of the room in front of them.

  ‘Morning, Inspector, morning, Sergeant,’ she said, pushing wisps of fiery red hair from her face and nodding over Hamilton’s shoulder. ‘That’s the wife in the kitchen. She found her husband about an hour ago when she came home.’

  ‘Have a chat with her, Clarke,’ Hamilton instructed before returning his attention to Audrey — flushed cheeks glowing from her otherwise pale-white skin. ‘May I?’ He gestured to the room she stood in the doorway of.

  A tall and slender man lay face down on the spotless cream carpet — spotless, that is, except for the claret stain made by the river of blood flowing from the gaping hole in his head.

  ‘I’d estimate time of death was less than four hours ago,’ Audrey informed him; another wail from the kitchen sent a shiver down Hamilton’s spine.

  ‘Is that the murder weapon?’ he asked, pointing at the solid bronze sculpture of an embracing couple, already packed into a clear evidence bag.

  ‘There’s brain matter all over the base of that statue, so with this answer I don’t feel like I need to estimate…’ She smiled. ‘Yes, it’s the murder weapon, Inspector.’

  He peered around the room and surmised that nothing seemed to be disturbed; a large flat-screen TV, Xbox console and laptop had been left behind in, what seemed, their rightful places. He thanked Audrey, who was ready to leave for the mortuary, and joined Clarke in the kitchen.

  ‘Guv, this is Maureen Kane,’ his partner said while walking the small length of the kitchen to meet him at the threshold. ‘She came home about an hour ago and found her husband, Henry Kane, dead in the living room.’

  Maureen bawled at the reality of the word “dead”, and Hamilton walked further into the room, pulling a chair from underneath the small oval table to join the distraught woman. She made no attempt to look at him, kept her face down, black hair hanging loosely forward, reminding him of something from a horror movie.

  ‘Mrs Kane,’ he spoke softly and lightly touched her shoulder.

  When she finally looked up, Hamilton’s breath hitched at the sight of her beauty. Despite the sadness in her bloodshot and watery eyes, he couldn’t ignore the woman’s porcelain skin, smooth and blemish-free, which was accentuated by her full red lips.

  ‘I shouldn’t have left him alone,’ she said, shaking her head.

  ‘Where were you, Mrs Kane? And what time did you arrive home?’

  She sighed. ‘I visited a friend last night … had a few too many glasses of wine and … it was Henry who said I should stay over, safer than jumping on the tube. But … I don’t like being away from him, so I got the first train home. And then …’ Maureen covered her face as the tears fell.

  ‘I understand this is difficult, Mrs Kane,’ Hamilton said in a low voice, bending slightly to try and see her face through her hands. ‘But the more information we can ascertain now the better.’

  Maureen lifted her head again, her eyes closed while she inhaled deeply before fluttering her long lashes, blinking away the tears. ‘I got home about six-fifteen … and it was so quiet in the flat, I thought Henry was still asleep. I hated the thought of disturbing him, so thought I’d lie on the couch … you know, watch some TV while I waited for him.’ She paused to wipe the silent tears falling. ‘And then … then … I saw the blood. I saw Henry.’

  ‘Did you move your husband, or touch anything?’ Hamilton asked.

  She shook her head. ‘No. Yes … I picked up the statue. We bought it on our honeymoon in Hawaii, we used to say it was the two of us hugging, but then … then I saw all that … stuff on it. I screamed. Dropped it and ran in here.’

  ‘Is that when you called 999?’

  ‘Yes. And I haven’t been able to go back in that room since. That’s awful of me, isn’t it? I’m a coward, leaving my Henry all on his own.’

  ‘It’s totally reasonable, Mrs Kane, and probably the best thing you could have done. It means the crime scene won’t have been contaminated too much, hopefully. Do you have any idea who would have done this?’ The beautiful face frowned. ‘I mean, nothing seems to have been stolen from the living room — though we’ll need you to confirm that — so I’m doubtful this is a robbery gone wrong.’

  Maureen gasped. ‘No.’

  ‘Is there access from the wine bar to your flat?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, pointing to a black door behind her, which Hamilton had noticed and already assumed would lead back downstairs. ‘Those stairs take you to the office behind the bar.’

  Hamilton stood up, walked around Maureen and twisted the handle. The door swung open to reveal a dark staircase, equally as narrow as the one he and Clarke had just climbed.

  ‘Oh my god,’ Maureen exclaimed. ‘That should have been locked. Henry always locks that door. He hates the idea of opportunists from the bar wandering up here.’

  Hamilton murmured to himself and eased around the kitchen, looking for any signs of disturbance, though he didn’t expect to find much.

  ‘Clarke, make sure that door and this room is dusted for prints, too, if it hasn’t been done already. Mrs Kane, in addition to checking your flat, we’ll need you to confirm if anything is missing from the wine bar — which will need to stay closed for the time-being.’

  ‘Yes, of course, I … I guess I’ll need to contact the staff. We don’t own the bar, we just manage it … about a year now. The flat came with the job.’

  ‘You’ll be appointed a Family Liaison Officer shortly, and they’ll
be more than happy to help with the task of informing people. But what I will need from you before I leave is any surveillance footage from outside the building, from the bar itself and if you have any up here.’

  Maureen’s eyes widened, the bloodshot vessels highlighted further. ‘I never dealt with any of that stuff … I mean, I didn’t t-think …’ she stuttered.

  Hamilton sat back in front of her and cupped her shaking hands in his own. ‘It’s okay, don’t let this side of things worry you, that’s my job. Are there cameras in the office downstairs?’

  ‘Yes. But there’s no cameras in the flat.’

  Clarke reappeared, reassuring him SOCO had already collected evidence from the kitchen, and a team had already been sent downstairs to the office and bar area. Hamilton requested his partner join them, retrieve the CCTV footage when possible and meet him outside at the car.

  ‘Okay, Mrs Kane, you’ve been very helpful, but just to clarify, there was no one your husband had any trouble or issues with? Maybe someone he’d thrown out of the bar recently that you can remember?’

  Maureen frowned and shook her head. ‘No. No, it’s not like that in here. We don’t run a tacky, boozy place. We serve people who want a few drinks with colleagues after work and those catching a show at The Palace. Being in central London, but running a calm establishment, is exactly what drew Henry and me to The Empress. He loves it here … loved. I mean loved.’

  ‘And the name of your friend?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘The friend you stayed with last night. We’ll need that person to collaborate.’

  The crying woman flinched. ‘I don’t understand … am I suspect? You couldn’t possibly think I would hurt Henry?’

  Hamilton stood and raised both hands outwards in front of him. ‘It’s procedure, Mrs Kane, and something that needs to be done. I’m sure you understand?’

  Nodding, she said, ‘Yes, of course. Susie Richmond. She lives in Paddington … Sussex Gardens. Number forty-two.’

  ‘Okay, thank you, I’ll send an officer to speak to Susie at some point. Unless you want us to contact her sooner, perhaps you’d like her to come and sit with you, once I’ve had an officer take an official statement from you—’

  ‘What do you mean sit with me? I can’t stay here. Are you all leaving now? What about Henry?’ the woman said without taking a breath.

  ‘Yes, I’m leaving, but uniformed officers will be here for a while. As I said, to take your statement and then shortly after that a Family Liaison Officer will arrive. As for your husband, he will be taken to the mortuary now for the post-mortem.’

  Maureen nodded quietly, her entire body shivering as her focus returned to the floor once again, and Hamilton couldn’t be sure if she had taken in all that he had said.

  2

  When Hamilton and Clarke arrived in the incident room at Charing Cross Police Station over an hour later, the team were waiting to be briefed. All except Rocky, who seemed glued to his computer screen and oblivious to the fact they’d walked in, until Clarke not so subtly cleared his throat.

  ‘Sorry, guv,’ Rocky said, and swung his chair around the desk to join them. ‘I was just tying up those loose ends from the last case that you requested.’

  The young lad, as Hamilton saw him — although at the mature age of twenty-eight and currently finalising a divorce, Rocky was anything but a “lad” — ran a hand over his head, through the long, unruly, brunette hair and nodded at his superior. The team had just closed a triple-murder investigation involving a group of friends from Brunel University, but Hamilton understood from the look on Rocky’s face that was not the case he had been referring to. Rocky joined Hamilton’s team a couple of months ago and had worked two cases with a passion and eagerness that never faltered — as well as alerting him to a possible issue within his own team. Although the rookie had transferred from Hertfordshire, he was born in Ireland and left Drogheda as a teenager with dreams of joining the force and working in London.

  ‘We’ll catch up later regarding that,’ Hamilton replied to Rocky before addressing the team as a whole. ‘Let me update you all about this morning.’

  He stood in front of a clear white board, where each new investigation began with little to no clues, but a lot of speculation. As frustrating as this period sometimes was, it could also be one of the most beneficial times in a case, Hamilton thought. With no obvious suspects at this point, his team’s ideas usually went off in different directions, with each of them thinking independently about the murder case. It was then up to him to bring that all together and make them work — and think — as one.

  ‘Clarke secured the CCTV footage, so I want the first priority to be someone looking over them,’ Hamilton said.

  ‘You think it could be a disgruntled punter?’ Rocky asked, his mind clearly refocused on the new investigation.

  He shrugged. ‘I don’t know if I’m convinced on that, but we can’t discount it — it’s not like it would be the first time a drunken customer has wanted to dish out some revenge.’

  ‘I’ll trawl over the CCTV with Clarke,’ Rocky said. ‘It might be worth going back at least a week or so to try and identify anything that would confirm or deny that theory.’

  ‘Also, if the Kanes were only managing the bar, it could be a case of mistaken identity,’ Dixon offered. ‘Perhaps the killer was actually looking for the owner of The Empress.’

  Hamilton nodded in agreement. It wasn’t a hypothesis that had crossed his mind, and he liked her way of thinking. The newest member of his Murder Investigation Team, joining them at the beginning of their last case, Dixon was the one person Hamilton hadn’t fully clicked with. But despite setting off on the wrong foot — thanks to an off-the-cuff joke from Dixon about throttling her children — they had worked together well on the previous investigation, and he found she offered fresh ideas with a straight-to-the-point approach.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Dixon, I want you to find out everything you can about The Empress and the owner of the building. Also look into the last person to manage the wine bar — it could be them with the grudge.’

  Lastly, he turned to his computer wizard of a sergeant, Kerry Fraser. After Clarke, Fraser was the longest serving member of the team and more efficient than all of them put together when it came to digging into the lives of victims and criminals. She had the potential to make one hell of an inspector one day, Hamilton felt.

  ‘Fraser, I want you to find out who the Kanes are. Where did they come from before managing this wine bar? Who are their family? Are they in debt? Also, before I left the crime scene, I instructed PCs Goldberg and Williams to visit a Miss Susie Richmond. I’d like you to liaise with them at some point this afternoon and check that the woman confirms Mrs Kane’s whereabouts.’

  Satisfied that the team were busy with their assigned duties, Hamilton entered his office, sat down at the desk, and pulled out a thin file from his top drawer before studying its contents. Although it wasn’t much — a still CCTV image, information regarding the arrest of a Pete Campbell and a single sheet of paper — it was all he had. It wasn’t the arrest that troubled him — he’d added it purely for timeline purposes — but rather the image of Fraser collapsed on the ground on Stratford High Street and a man stepping over her. It had been due to this mystery man knocking her out as to why they nearly let Pete Campbell slip through their fingers just over a month ago. The picture was grainy, and only showed the man from behind, but it was clear to Hamilton that the unidentified male was tall, muscular — weighing at least fourteen stone — and had a razor-short haircut. The paper contained his own handwritten notes: Johnny and drug-addict friend.

  All this information had been given to him by Rocky, who had found Fraser crying in her home after an anonymous delivery of rotten flowers. And although the lad hadn’t wanted to break his colleague’s confidence, Hamilton was glad he had. Hard work from his team is something Hamilton expected, and a trait Fraser had in abundance. Despite the fact she hung bac
k in the office more than being out in the field, her work was imperative to making arrests, and he knew that many of them wouldn’t have happened without her — and her computer skills. However, over the past month, Hamilton had seen a change in Fraser; she hadn’t been making many witty remarks or contributing her opinion to cases as much. It was one of the reasons he hadn’t approached her yet about the information Rocky had gathered together. Guilt gnawed at his insides like a rat, the feeling of betraying a colleague almost overwhelmed him, but he told himself he needed more information before he could confront Fraser.

  Rocky had agreed with Hamilton’s way of thinking, and the pair decided to look into Fraser’s friend, Johnny, with the hope of giving her peace of mind regarding his whereabouts. However, due to their mammoth case load, it had been almost a week since he had discussed the situation with Rocky; though he knew these were the loose ends the constable had referred to in the incident room.

  A knock at the door pulled Hamilton from his thoughts and he slipped the folder back into the drawer before inviting Dixon into his office.

  She smoothed her long, jet-black hair behind her ears as she stepped into the room. Born in Marrakesh, Dixon’s all-year-round sun-kissed glow made Hamilton shiver for a holiday; the countdown to his fortieth birthday and Christmas looming meant the temperature had dropped considerably in London. She stood tall and slender — an athlete’s figure — with boundless amounts of energy, as though she was ready to give chase to a suspect at any second. Dixon’s family had left Morocco when she was only two years old, and she had explained to Hamilton that she rarely visited her extended family. London was her home; Amersham to be exact — where she lived with Warren, her husband of ten years, and their two children, Sabrina and Ali. At the moment, everything Hamilton knew read like a background check on a stranger — he was still to uncover a deep knowledge of the person behind the sergeant title.

  ‘Guv, I’ve tracked down the owner of The Empress wine bar … Joseph Wilde. I’ve just spoken to him on the phone, he was shocked but grateful that I’d told him about the break-in and murder, said he’s going to head over there to see Mrs Kane, but it will take him about an hour.’