by Tim Ellis
‘Maybe you could get a job as a motivational speaker.’
‘Maybe I could. But before I do that, we need to find out what information Kommisar Erik Klein has got for us; we need to find out why Europol are dragging their feet with our request; we need to contact Doc Riley and find out what she found on the post mortem of the latest victim; we need to . . .’
‘Ignore me, Richards. I’m just tired. You’re still young, you can work a full day on a couple of hours sleep, but these old bones get weary . . .’
‘You sound like an old-aged pensioner.’
‘I feel like one this morning. Maybe I need a full English before the press briefing.’
‘Of course, you’ve got the press briefing at nine o’clock. Maybe I could . . . ?’
‘I don’t think so. We all know where that will lead.’
‘No, no. I promise I won’t undo any of my buttons.’
‘You can’t help yourself, Richards. As soon as you hear the click of a camera shutter, see the glare from a flashlight bouncing off the backdrop, or someone shouts “Lights, Camera, Action,” your clothes fall off as if they had a life of their own.’
‘No, it’s not like that.’
‘It’s exactly like that.’ Parish turned back to the Chief. ‘So, there you have it, Sir. At the moment we’re stuck in a maze with no idea how to get out. Unless we can find something soon, the Review Team will relieve me of the case. I suppose it had to happen sooner or later. Maybe a fresh pair of eyes will find what I’ve missed.’ He stood up. ‘Come on, Richards. Let’s go over to the greasy spoon and get some brain food for breakfast.’
‘I hardly think a fry-up could be considered brain food – more like heart-attack food.’
‘There are worse ways to go.’
***
She gave Yoda and Sushi the money she’d promised them, and told them again to get out of the squat as soon as they could. Next, she grabbed all her stuff from the room she’d been occupying, which wasn’t very much at all, and threw it onto the back seat of the Mercedes.
The squat had served its purpose, but now it was time to move on. She drove onto the A40 and headed west. The one thing she was certain of was that she needed the underground to stay in touch with the people she worked for and paid her. She’d already travelled east to the Epping Terminus of the Central Line and that had ended in disaster. Now, it was time to go in the opposite direction. She knew nothing about Uxbridge, but that was where she was heading. From the Uxbridge Terminus she could access the Metropolitan and Piccadilly Lines on the underground.
In the first Estate Agents she walked into on the High Street, she found a two-bedroom detached furnished bungalow on Redford Way with its own garage to stash the Mercedes in. She paid cash up front and rented the bungalow for three months. It was within easy walking distance of the tube station and the local shopping centre, which suited her just fine.
She parked the Mercedes in the garage, and emptied it of her belongings and the black plastic sacks full of evidence from the Baker Street Robbery.
Eventually, she was settled in and realised she hadn’t had any sleep for about three days. So, after a shower, she crawled into the bed and fell into a deep sleep almost immediately.
It didn’t last though. After approximately an hour-and-a-half she was woken up by somebody banging on the front door.
After throwing her dirty clothes over her naked body she staggered to the door and opened it. A man in his late sixties was standing on her doorstep. He had thinning grey hair, grey eyebrows and a grey moustache, and wore an Army camouflaged jacket with grey jogging bottoms.
‘What?’
He produced a laminated photo identity card. ‘Norman Milliken. Honeycroft Hill Neighbourhood Watch team.’
‘You’ve got to be fucking joking.’
‘In what way?’
‘I was asleep. What do you want?’
‘I’d like to come in and explain the Neighbourhood Watch Scheme to you, and . . .’
‘Fuck off.’ She slammed the door in his face. At Epping she’d let a woman into her life who had been working for MI5. Well, not this time. This time, everybody better keep their fucking distance.
‘I’ll give you the literature and you can make up your own mind then,’ she heard him shout through the door. A small booklet fell though the letterbox onto the hall runner.
She picked it up, walked to the kitchen and dropped it into the bin. While she was there she thought she’d make herself a coffee, but then realised that she had no coffee, no sugar and no milk. Neither did she have any food. She couldn’t do anything without sustenance, so she went back to the bedroom, stripped off the dirty clothes and put on clean ones. Then she left the bungalow with her rucksack and walked to the local shopping centre.
Before she did her food shopping at the supermarket, she found a cafe in the middle of the Mall that offered free wifi, which was just what she needed. After ordering an extra-large Americano and two brie an bacon paninis she found a table, sat down and took out her laptop.
There wasn’t anything on the internet about a break-in at the Police Evidence Warehouse in London – how odd. She hacked into the Government computer system and checked the archives for passport number 3459 in the name of Jack O’Donnell. It was there, but Mr O’Donnell was an alias. She knew that, because the application form described his job as a bank clerk – MI5 operatives were always bank clerks, or something similar.
Once she’d shopped for the essentials, she made her way back to 14 Redford Way, put the shopping away, made a coffee and began opening the seven black sacks. As she emptied the sacks, she laid out the contents in neat piles on the floor of the living room.
There were an assortment of different sized evidence bags and cardboard boxes containing, hair, fibres, unfired bullets, a knife, a bunch of about fifteen keys, fingerprints, a newspaper, one black leather glove, plastercasts of footprints, cigarette butts, three empty bottles of beer and half a dozen cups. There were files, notebooks, and lots and lots of photographs.
The photographs helped her to visualise exactly what had happened during the robbery. She placed them in order starting in the kitchen with the leather goods shop, through the living room and doubling back with the tunnel down from the leather goods shop and under the Chicken Inn Restaurant, and then into the hallway with the hole through the concrete wall and into the bank vault itself. Yes, the photographs were very helpful indeed. There was even a photograph of Box 253, but it was empty.
There was a stack of old mail on the kitchen worktop. In among the rubbish she found the menu for a local pizza delivery service. She rang the number and ordered an all-day breakfast pizza with a side order of chips and dips, and two tins of cola. That should keep her going through the morning.
She looked through the notebooks, but it was hard going. Most of them were police notebooks and it was clear that some of the detectives had left school far too early. Some of the writing was indecipherable.
Finally, she began skimming through the files. Halfway down the stack she struck gold. The file contained a book of statements by the people who had been renting the safe-deposit boxes on September 11, 1971. She quickly flipped through the pages . . .
There was a knock on the front door.
She grabbed her money and weaved her way down the hallway. ‘Who is it?’
‘Pizza delivery.’
She opened the door on the chain to check. He looked harmless. After opening the door fully, she swapped money for food.
He began rummaging in his pockets for change.
‘Come back about seven tonight and give me my change.’
‘My shift finishes at five.’
‘You’re not very bright, are you?’
His face reddened. ‘Oh!’
‘Nobody’s forcing you.’
‘Are you sure you mean me?’
‘Let’s not have a debate about it. Are you going to be here at seven, or not?’
‘You bet.’
‘And it’s just between you and me – understand?’
‘Sure.’
‘And don’t get any ideas I’m running a brothel here, or that I want paying.’
‘I wasn’t thinking anything like that.’
‘Good. And eat lots of proteins, so that you’re up to the task.’
He grinned. ‘Sure will.’
‘You can go now . . . Oh, what’s your name?’
‘Roger, but people call me Roadrunner.’
‘Why?’
‘You’re not very bright, are you?’
She smiled – she hadn’t smiled for absolutely ages. ‘Because you run about delivering pizzas?’
‘That’s right. And what’s your name?’
‘Bronwyn.’
‘I’ll see you at seven, Bronwyn.’
She shut the door.
Hopefully, he wouldn’t be put off by the awful scars on her body.
While she was eating the pizza, chips and dips, and swilling it down with cola, she found the place where the statement of the owner of Box 253 should have been, but it wasn’t there. It had been torn out, and all that was left was a corner piece with a ragged edge.
After everything she’d been through it looked as though she wasn’t going to find out the truth after all. If the one important thing in all this evidence was missing – why did the bastards at MI5 want to remove it all from the evidence warehouse?
There must be something else here that she hadn’t seen, but what?
And then – like an epiphany – she saw it.
Each statement had been written by a heavy-handed police officer, and the indentation from the writing on one page had passed through onto the next.
Her heart was thrashing about as if she’d run a marathon.
A pencil, that’s what she needed.
She had a pen, a tablet, a laptop, a combat knife and a dozen other essential objects, but she didn’t have one measly fucking pencil. She would have to go to the shops and get one – nothing else would do.
Chapter Twenty
‘Dancraft, Martin Dukes speaking?’
‘Yes, hello. My name is Mrs Jerry Kowalski.’
Earlier, she’d had the conversation with Ray about her project involving Joe and Shakin’, and the death of George Peckham. She’d decided that the best course of action was to tell him everything. Well, nearly everything. She didn’t tell him about the man assaulting her and threatening to kill her in the alley, because she knew what he’d do; she didn’t tell him about Bronwyn and the two phones; she didn’t tell him that Bronwyn had broken into the police evidence warehouse; and she didn’t tell him that she had one last phone call to make; but she did tell him that she had given up trying to find out what was contained in Box 253, which was mostly true.
‘Hello, Mrs Kowalski. What can I do for you?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Well, if it’s any help, we sell pace sticks?’
‘What is a pace stick?’
‘It’s a hinged stick carried by a Warrant Officer or a Non-Commissioned Officer drill instructor as a symbol of authority and as an aid to military drill. When the stick is opened out, it’s used to measure the length of the marching pace.’
‘I see.’ She didn’t really, but it wasn’t why she was ringing. ‘I’m looking for a man . . .’ Which wasn’t a complete lie.
‘A particular man, or will any man do?’
She laughed. ‘I think any man will do at this stage, but we might be able to narrow it down.’
‘Is this man a soldier?’
‘Yes . . . possibly.’
‘He’s not in trouble, is he?’
‘Oh no, nothing like that. But maybe you don’t keep records . . .’
‘We keep records.’
‘From September 1971?’
‘That’s going back a ways. I’d only just established the company by then.’
‘I found one of your cards in a house, and I was wondering if it was a clue.’
‘What was the man’s name?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You’re not giving me much to go on. We don’t . . .’
‘I know it sounds terribly strange, but I’ll know the name when I hear it. You see, I fell in love with him and . . .’
‘. . . You want to contact him after all this time?’
‘Yes. There was a child . . .’
‘And you’re seeking retrospective child support?’
‘No.’
‘The records from 1971 aren’t on computer. I’ll need to go to the storeroom in the cellar and find the ledger for that year.’
‘I’d be ever so grateful, Mr Dukes.’
‘I’ll call you back in about half an hour and we’ll see what we can find. What’s your number?’
She had no idea. The phone was one of the two that Bronwyn had given her. ‘Just a minute.’ She eventually found it and told him what it was.
‘I’ll speak to you soon.’
The call ended.
She was standing by the glass frontage in the main atrium. Joe and Shakin’ had bought her a latte and were sitting at a table in the cafeteria.
‘Well, what did he say, Mrs K?’ Joe asked when she reached the table.
‘He’ll ring me back in half an hour. I had to stretch the truth a little bit. Well, a lot actually.’
‘I’m shocked,’ Shakin’ said. ‘Are you shocked, Joe?’
‘Sure am. Shocked to my very core, Mrs K.’
She sat down and took a sip of her coffee. ‘I’m sure you’ll live with it if we get top student.’
‘It’s what they call a moral dilemma, ain’t it, Joe?’
Joe nodded. ‘A moral dilemma – definitely. Ah, to sleep, perchance to dream; Aye, there's the rub, For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil . . .’
Her brow furrowed.
‘He’s doing Shakespeare’s Hamlet with the Amateur Dramatic Society,’ Shakin’ explained.
‘I didn’t know you liked acting, Joe.’
Shakin’ shook his head. ‘He doesn’t, but there’s a babe who does.’
‘A babe,’ Jerry smiled. ‘So what’s this babe look like, Joe?’
Joe cupped his hands in front of his chest. ‘She’s got . . . Yeah well, let’s just say that she’s not unlike you in the mammary department, Mrs K.’
‘I’m flattered, Joe.’
‘We’d better get back,’ Shakin’ said. ‘Everybody’s migrating.’
‘I’ll wait for the phone call, and then I’ll be up,’ Jerry said. ‘If Professor Moorgate asks where I am, tell him I’m having women’s problems and I’ll be in as soon as I’m feeling better.’
‘Women’s problems!’ Shakin’ said. ‘They let you get away with murder those things. I wish I had women’s problems.’
Joe laughed as they headed off. ‘No you don’t. You just wish you had women problems.’
‘Yeah, that’d be wicked.’
It wasn’t long before the phone vibrated.
‘Mrs Kowalski?’
‘Yes.’
‘I have the purchase ledger from 1971 open on the table in front of me.’
‘Yes?’
‘September, you said?’
‘Or possibly August.’
‘I have one purchase from the London area during September, and nothing in August or October. As I said, I’d only just started the company and word was spreading slowly. Of course, now we sell pace sticks all over the world, but back then . . . Anyway, there was one sale in September 1971.’
‘Who to?’
‘A Miss Ruby Kerr from 22 St Paul’s Road in Camden . . .’
‘A woman?’
‘Yes, but she was buying the stick for a Robert George De Lacy – Is that the man you’re looking for?’
‘Yes, I think it is.’ She wrote down the details on the front of her notebook. ‘And Ruby Kerr bought him a pace stick?’
‘No.’
&nbs
p; ‘Oh?’
‘As well as pace sticks we also sell other military accoutrements. Miss Kerr bought Mr De Lacy an officer’s swagger stick.’
‘Yes, I remember now – he was an officer.’
‘So, we’ve identified your man, Mrs Kowalski?’
‘You’ve been very kind, Mr Dukes.’
‘All part of the service. I hope you find the father of your child.’
‘Thank you. So do I.’
She ended the call.
Who was Robert George De Lacy? Who was Ruby Kerr? And what did they have to do with the Baker Street Robbery?
She called Bronwyn.
‘Yes?’
‘I followed up on that business card.’
‘Oh yes.’
She told Bronwyn what she’d found out. ‘Does it make any sense?’
‘Not at the moment.’
‘How did the break-in go?’
‘Not according to plan, but every cloud has a silver lining.’
The call ended.
Well, that was it. Unless Bronwyn came up with something before tomorrow’s lesson, the top student award would go to another group.
***
She’d made Stick come with her for moral support and pushed him forward. ‘Knock.’
‘Me?’
‘You’re not scared, are you?’
Lydia O’Brien watched them with a quizzical smile etched on her face as if she had a front-row seat at the theatre.
‘No, I’m not scared.’
‘Well, knock then.’
Stick gave a short knock on the wood.
‘Come.’
They’d driven back to the station, made coffee and deposited themselves out of the way in the incident room – there was nowhere else to go. At eight o’clock she told Stick to go down to the Operations Room to ask the Duty Inspector if they’d received any calls about the dry-cleaning tags – he was gone half an hour.
‘Where’ve you been?’ she asked when he returned.
‘Down to the Operations Room.’
‘For half an hour?’
‘I was talking to people.’
