by Ed James
Mulholland looked him up and down, slowly, a bitter smile flashing on to her lips. ‘Even so, it was very sudden at the end.’
Fenchurch tried to swallow but something stuck. ‘Fuck cancer.’
‘Indeed.’ Loftus stared off into the distance. He looked genuinely upset, like the emotion was enough to cut through his usual professional composure. ‘You know, the last time I saw Alan, he said, “Don’t be sad that it’s over, be glad that it happened.” I’ll take that to the grave.’
Mulholland’s phone burst out, the slick funk of ‘Maneater’ by Hall & Oates. ‘Sorry, sir.’ She walked off, ignoring the disgusted looks.
‘We need to celebrate his life.’ Loftus watched Mulholland walk away frowning as she talked into her mobile. ‘We get so lost in the everyday, in the cases. This job insulates us from emotion until we can’t feel anything. Right now, we’re running twelve murder cases tracing back to this super-strong ecstasy. I’m sure you’ve heard of it, Simon. Blockchain.’ His jaw pulsed again. ‘I suspect that’s what Dawn’s been called away for. Or someone else has had acid thrown over them.’
Another one. Some poor sod with a face burnt by whatever corrosive substance some vermin could get hold of. Kerosene, acid. If they were lucky: reconstructive surgery and PTSD. If they weren’t . . . And all for the most stupid of reasons: looking at a drug dealer’s girlfriend; scratching a drug dealer’s car.
Fenchurch clenched his jaw. ‘It’s been a shit summer, sir.’
‘Horrendous year. And I thought 2016 was bad. This one’s even worse.’ Loftus tapped Fenchurch’s arm. ‘I see your daughter is here. That’s progress, yes?’
‘Well, she’s living with us again, so yeah.’ Fenchurch felt a tickle of pride and happiness as he nodded.
‘Simon.’ Mulholland beckoned him over as she pocketed her phone.
‘See you later, sir.’ Fenchurch strode over to Mulholland. ‘What’s up?’
‘I need you to visit a crime scene. A murder.’
Called to a murder scene on a Saturday is bad enough, but when they’ve just turned your mentor into ashes . . .
Fenchurch felt his back quiver. ‘Dawn, I’m at a funeral.’
‘I’m asking you, Simon. As a favour.’ Genuine fear twisted her forehead. ‘I’ve got half of my team out on secondment to the drug squad and we had another acid attack in Hackney just half an hour ago.’
Fenchurch caught a flash of the training course he’d been on, photos of faces twisted and scarred, swollen and distorted by some little arsehole splashing a tiny amount of acid or kerosene on to their skin. Wouldn’t wish it on his worst enemy.
What would Docherty want?
That’s all it comes down to.
Fenchurch sucked in a deep breath. ‘Give me a minute.’ He stomped off, kicking up pebbles, the veins in his head pounding, towards Abi and Chloe standing near Dad’s cronies. He shot a glare over to Mulholland, though she was oblivious. ‘Love, I’ve been called in. A murder.’
‘Simon, it’s fine, okay?’ Abi ran a hand down his arm. ‘I know she rubs you up the wrong way, but right now someone’s son or daughter is dead and you need to bring their killer to justice.’
Fenchurch kept his focus on Mulholland, the throbbing in his temple getting worse. ‘Today’s hard, you know?’
‘I know. Chloe and I are going to hospital to be with Baby Al. You come when you’ve caught them, okay?’
Fenchurch nodded slowly. She’s right.
It’s what Docherty would want. What he’d expect.
Chapter Two
A lone woman stood at the side of the road, thigh-high boots and a tight dress, ponytail hanging down her back.
Fenchurch let his window down as he slowed. ‘Bloody hell, Kay, you look like you’re on the game.’
‘Thanks a lot.’ DS Kay Reed clacked round the side of the car and got in. Almost took the door off. She tugged at the seatbelt and eventually got it to click into place, then started fiddling with her boot straps. ‘Just on my way to my sister’s baby shower and—’
‘You’re wearing that to a baby shower?’
‘What’s wrong with it?’
‘Abi said you had a thing on. Didn’t realise she was talking about your outfit.’ Fenchurch looked at her short skirt again, like she was out in Newcastle or Bristol.
Reed’s glare told him not to push it. ‘So I’m swapping trains at bloody Bank and I get a call from that witch.’
‘Mulholland?’
‘I should be so lucky.’ Reed kicked off her boots and got a pair of trainers from the back seat. ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Just you wait, guv, soon as Mulholland’s made full DCI, Ashkani will get her old job.’
Fenchurch set off but tried not to give her any satisfaction.
Reed huffed as she reached down to tie her laces. ‘I’m still on Crete time. Got off the plane at ten last night. Not supposed to be back on until Monday. Dave was right — we should’ve taken those extra two nights.’ She sat back and let out a breath. ‘How was the funeral?’
‘Rather have been in Crete, Kay. Maybe not with you and Dave. Even a baby shower—’
‘Guv, I could’ve flown back.’
‘Kay, you’re enough of a nightmare having had a holiday.’
‘Would’ve given me a chance to get away from my kids, though.’ Reed sat back, arms folded. ‘You haven’t answered my question: how was the funeral?’
‘Not a dry eye in the house and all that.’ Fenchurch honked at a clown sitting at the lights. ‘Dad and his cronies will be giving him a good send-off, I hope.’
‘Hope doesn’t come into it, guv.’ Reed raised her pencil-thin eyebrows. ‘They’ll be six pints in already. “Hey, do you remember when he got dog shit all over his fingers and nose?”’
‘Already had that. Never stops making them laugh.’
‘Oh, I’m being a bitch.’ Reed let out a sigh. ‘It’s good that people remember Docherty.’
Fenchurch tightened his grip on the wheel as they set off again. ‘Listen, we had some bad news about—’
‘Abi called me.’ Reed reached over and stroked his arm. ‘I hope he’s going to be okay, guv.’
‘Kay . . .’ Fenchurch took a back lane and pulled up just at the start of the Minories. Three storeys of generic buildings on either side of a long straight street, yellow cranes bunching up at the end. Every day was a working day in the City, even down here on the fringes. He turned off the engine and let the traffic hurtle past.
The Hotel Bennaceur was just up the road, the door for once staffed by a uniform with a clipboard rather than a bouncer with an earpiece and an anger-management problem.
‘Let’s get on with it, then.’ Fenchurch got out and locked the car. He passed the Third Planet, a rowdy bar filled with Arsenal and Spurs fans shouting at each other like they’d bothered to attend the match. A couple of them near the window watched Reed walk past, leering at her like they were on a building site.
She snatched the clipboard from the Crime Scene Manager. ‘Is DS Ashkani here yet?’
‘No sign of her, Sarge.’
Fenchurch grabbed a crime scene suit from the pile. ‘When she deigns to honour us with her presence, tell her we’re inside.’
Always the hard part, waiting outside the crime scene. Waiting for the details to crystallise. The victim could be anyone, could’ve had anything happen to them.
218 was stencilled on the door’s pale-white wood. Very arty, like the rest of the place. White walls and coffee-coloured floorboards lined the corridor. Classy, probably described as a boutique hotel online. Fenchurch hated to think how much they charged for it.
Fenchurch sucked in a breath and nudged the door open.
A small room, the Scenes of Crime Officers getting in each other’s way. Wall-mounted TV and posh furniture. A camera flash caught Fenchurch through his mask and he had to blink it away. He navigated a path through the SOCOs over to the bed.
A woman lay on the white bed sheets, naked, her skin
pale. Late twenties, maybe. Dark hair, eyes shut, but it was like she was smiling. Pink handcuffs around her wrists tied her to the bed frame. No obvious signs of attack, but her head was leaning over to the left. And the faint smell of diarrhoea.
‘No clothes, no wallet, no phone.’ Could tell by the depressed posture that it was Mick Clooney, the lead SOCO, pointing at the body. His mask betrayed yet another new eyebrow piercing. ‘Got a wedding ring, though, Si. She’s someone’s wife. You need to find her husband.’
‘Or her wife, Mick.’ Fenchurch took in the body again. The gold wedding band was outshone by the platinum engagement ring’s huge diamond. His eyes kept going back to the face, though. Seemed familiar, but he couldn’t place it. ‘Kay, do you recognise her?’
‘No.’ Reed stood next to him, her suit crinkling as she frowned. ‘Know what you mean, though. Is she off the telly?’
‘Nah. It’s something else.’
‘She’s been nagging at my non-existent as well.’ William Pratt was over the other side of the bed, the pathologist on his knees in front of the body, like he’d given her at least one of the rings. ‘Om-pom-tiddly-om-pom.’ He stood up in instalments, the click of his back louder than either of the cameras. ‘I’ve just settled on her having one of those faces. Om-pom-pom. Which is very different from one that you’d never tire of punching, eh, Michael?’ His eyes wrinkled up though his mask.
Clooney took a step towards him. ‘That joke smells worse than this room, William.’
‘Oh, the diarrhoea? Well, it’s common with corpses, you know, Michael.’
‘It’s a lot stronger than usual.’
‘And that remains a mystery, my dearest simpleton.’ Pratt reached out a finger and prodded the body, like the victim was an experiment. ‘The deepest of mysteries.’
Fenchurch joined him by the body. Still couldn’t place her. ‘Okay, so anything on the cause of death?’
‘Certainly nothing obvious.’ Pratt lifted her head. ‘Aha, there’s a blow to her left temple. And that smell, though, and the staining under the body.’ He reached over to lift the victim.
Clooney slapped his wrist. ‘She’s not yours yet.’
‘Sorry.’ Pratt settled for a prod of the victim’s buttock from the side. ‘I suspect the . . . effluent was perimortem, which is intriguing. But the clincher . . .’ He gestured at the handcuffs. ‘The presence of these probably means we can rule out suicide.’
Reed leaned low and stared at the cuffs. ‘Maybe she took a couple of bottles of pills and tied herself up just so she couldn’t run to the toilet and stick her fingers down her throat?’
Clooney folded his arms and tilted his head to the side. ‘You ever tried snapping cuffs on yourself?’
‘Mick, any new recruit will tell you it’s easily done. Hard part is getting them off before someone finds out.’ Reed smirked. ‘And you’re the expert at making the beast with one back, so you tell me how easy it’d be to get them off when you’ve tied yourself to a bed frame?’
‘Calling me a wanker?’
‘You are a wanker.’
‘Kay.’ Fenchurch waved her off. Then he joined Pratt around the other side of the bed. ‘So we’ve got suspicious circumstances, yeah?’
‘Well, yes. Om-pom-pom.’ Pratt pointed at the marks on her wrists. ‘It looks to me like someone forced these on. This wasn’t one of Mr Clooney’s danger wa—’
‘William, I’ve told you—’
‘Enough!’ Fenchurch peered at the victim’s left wrist. The cuffs had dug into the flesh, despite their fluffiness, and left a series of rings on the skin. ‘Sure she wasn’t just struggling when the poison or whatever it was kicked in?’
‘These are incredibly tight.’ Pratt’s eyes wrinkled again. ‘I doubt even Mr Clooney in one of his ten greatest auto-erotic sessions would be able to get them that tight.’
‘Look, if you wanted them that tight, you’d hit the cuffs off the—’ Clooney threw his arms wide. ‘Piss off.’
‘Snared.’ Pratt winked at him. ‘Regardless, though, Michael, you’ve raised a valid point. Could our poor victim here have got the cuffs that tight by knocking them against the bed frame?’ He reached over and shook them again. ‘It’s doubtful. No, someone has tied her up, very deliberately, and left her to die.’
Fenchurch shut his eyes, tasting the burn in his throat. The ants were crawling up his back again. ‘Poison?’
‘Could be anything, really. Om-pom-pom. Nothing is jumping out at me. Om-pom-tiddly-om-pom. Though there are a few things we can discount. I’ll not bore you with the detail.’
‘That’s what the post-mortem’s for.’ Reed’s eyes narrowed through her mask. ‘Could it be this super-strong ecstasy?’
‘Ah, the infamous Blockchain.’ Pratt scratched at his throat. His beard puffed his suit out like an old settee. ‘Had a number of young ladies and gentlemen on my slab at Lewisham who died of overdoses from that stuff but . . . Mm. I shall investigate, but my money’s on poison. Just . . . which one?’
‘If it was drugs, why would you take strong E in a hotel?’ Clooney was tapping a note on his tablet. ‘Safer to use the club toilets, right? If it’s a hotel, you’d just be chopping out lines of coke, yeah? And Tammy’s done the bog here. Clean, like she’d barely had a piss.’
‘Charming as ever, Mick. Om-pom-pom. Don’t ever change.’
‘See, this Blockchain, though?’ Clooney stuffed his tablet under his armpit, head tilted to the side. ‘Isn’t that something to do with Bitcoin?’
‘Full marks.’ Pratt was still staring at the body. ‘I would suggest some smart-arse drug dealer has paid for some product using Bitcoin as a currency in a dark web market. Then, when said dealer did some digging into Bitcoin, he discovered the wonders of the blockchain, hence christening the drug du jour Blockchain.’
‘Still don’t know what a Bitcoin looks like.’
‘Well, Mick, as I’m sure you don’t know from your pit of ignorance, it doesn’t look like anything. It’s a cryptocurrency, it’s entirely virtual. I’ll not bore you with the details, but the real innovation is the blockchain. Every transaction updates a shared and open ledger of who owns what. It’s completely transparent.’ Pratt looked up, his eyes full of wonder. ‘Ah, do you know the applications in medicine alone will—’
‘Just the time of death, William.’ Fenchurch folded his arms. ‘Any chance of that?’
Pratt narrowed his eyes. ‘Friday night.’
‘She’s been lying here overnight?’
‘That’s for certain. But . . . Mm. My calculations give me a time of death of around eleven thirty.’ Pratt fiddled with the body, prodding and poking again. ‘Now, our poor victim is quite cool.’ His eyes warmed up again, the wonder returning. ‘I validated the room’s heating schedule with the chap on the front desk and I have a jolly good idea of the room temperature in the intervening period. Om-pom-pom. But. Om-pom-tiddly-om-pom. I’m finding some intriguing anomalies on the body, which I shall have to defer until later.’
‘William, this might be an intriguing thought experiment to you, but I need to find someone who was in this room at that time. Am I looking at eleven p.m. or earlier?’
‘I’ll need to defer that until—’
‘William, I need to find someone who was in here when she was killed. When should I focus on?’
Pratt jerked down to a crouch and got eye level with the victim. ‘These bonds. This blood. And this blow to her skull. Hmm. I’d suggest we’re looking at an initial attack of twenty-one fifteen, give or take half an hour.’
‘You said she was poisoned. Do you—’
‘Yes.’
‘I didn’t even finish my thought, let alone my question.’
‘Well, my dear Inspector, I would suggest the most likely chain of events is that this poor woman was attacked at around nine fifteen last night. Then, two hours later, she died.’
Fenchurch’s skin prickled. ‘She was dying for two hours?’
‘All I know is tha
t she was poisoned during that two-hour period using an unknown toxin.’
‘William, I need the post-mortem fast-tracked.’
Pratt shot to his feet with a crack. ‘It’s a weekend, Simon. I’ve got a chess match at—’
‘I don’t give a shit about your chess match. I need to know how she died and when.’
‘I suppose I could postpone, but—’
‘Thanks, William. Let me know when and where.’ Fenchurch switched his glare to Clooney. ‘So, Mick, how—’
‘Forget it, Si.’ Clooney waved his hands around, taking in the number of his officers working away. ‘The body’s in a hotel room. Any DNA we find is very unlikely to be useful. Could be someone who stayed here three weeks ago or a cleaner or someone at the laundry or—’
‘Or it could be the killer.’ Fenchurch tried a slightly stronger glare. ‘Let me know what budget you need me to find.’
‘Yeah, good luck getting a penny out of that dragon.’
‘Don’t let Mulholland hear you calling her that.’
Clooney winked at him. ‘I didn’t call her it. You did.’
Chapter Three
See? Even Mick Clooney hates Mulholland.’ Fenchurch dumped his crime scene suit in the discard pile, ready for processing. ‘And he’s a wanker.’
He led back through the hotel to the reception area. White walls with tasteful artworks — a series of red-and-black variations on a theme which seemed to be the pyramids. Two desks at right angles. The empty reception desk, dark wood and marble, guarded access to the rooms. The other was the tall security desk, with two heads poking up above the partition.
‘I’ve told you a hundred times!’ DC Lisa Bridge sat next to the guard, her blonde hair tucked behind her ears. Legs crossed, arms folded. ‘I need access to all of the CCTV, inside and out.’
‘And I heard you the first hundred times.’ The red-faced security guard looked like he was sitting in a child’s seat. Must be close to seven foot. And his eyes naturally bulged like he’d seen a ghost. ‘It’s not simple. I need approval from the owners.’
