by J. D. Weston
“I know you’re involved.”
“In what? If you can tell me what I’m involved in and you’re right, I’m an honest man. I’ll hold my hands up. But if you can’t, Detective, then I suggest you leave and expect your pretty, little, white boss to tickle your pretty, little, white balls in the morning, because I’ll make a complaint to people so high you’ll be back walking the streets before Monday morning.”
He wanted to say it. He wanted to blurt out that Sheikh was at the centre of it all. That it was his fault that the men had died. His fault that the girls had died, and that Jennifer Standing was scarred for life. That he’d pay. One way or another, Myers would make him pay.
But he had nothing. Nothing but a gut feeling that he’d been told a thousand times wasn’t enough.
“I didn’t think so,” said Sheikh. “Now get out of my sight.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Three tall, glass towers dominated the London Docklands area. They were visual landmarks, icons of London, and the surrounding apartments housed the wealthy, and provided them with the shiny, glitzy lifestyle they sought.
The apartments were clean spaces with smooth, bright walls and crisp, shiny surfaces, and the surrounding waters reflected the image across its surface. Harvey had been to a few of them working for John and for all their lavish style, the apartments had felt like well-appointed, cold prison cells. They lacked the freedom of the outdoors, the green fields and forests, and the ability to step outside and breath the air.
The apartment building Miles Stein had divulged was on Westferry Road on the west side of the Isle of Dogs. There were three identical apartment blocks in a row. On one side of them was the road and the residential population of the island, and on the other was the River Thames.
Harvey passed the entrance to an underground car park and parked his bike between two cars outside the next apartment block. He stowed his helmet and removed his gloves, then made his way to Clover Court. The building was seven storeys of brickwork designed to be sympathetic to the old warehouse and dock building that had once been there. Only the south end of the building had two more levels and they were of glass and steel. It was a culmination of old and new.
Like Sergio’s apartment building, the apartments were accessed via a card reader that all residents were provided. When activated, the card reader would release an electro-magnet at the top of the door and the door would open.
It wasn’t the first time Harvey had encountered such a door system. He would often wait for somebody to enter or exit and to hold the door for him. However, his cargo pants and boots were still damp, and he could smell the river on himself. People would remember that smell should they be asked, should the situation develop into an event worthy of memories being recalled.
He ventured into the underground car park.
All security systems had flaws. The flaws were, Harvey found, typically design features such as enabling access in an emergency. An electro-magnet relied on a consistent electric current to maintain the connection. A card reader allowed a brief breaking of the current to disengage the lock long enough for somebody to enter or exit. Therefore, the key to accessing a building that relied on card reader access was to kill the electricity to the door.
Harvey found the electricity panel with other services including the dry-riser inlet and the fire alarms system on the wall two parking bays down from the underground doors to the basement. There were no markings to identify which of the fifty or so switches would isolate the doors, so Harvey flipped the master switch.
The lights went out, the hum of an extractor fan waned then silenced, and the electro-magnet above the door clicked off.
Harvey entered the building, pulled a fire extinguisher from the wall to hold the door, then returned to flip the switches back on. He returned the fire extinguisher and, save for a brief moment of darkness on basement one, nobody would be any wiser. The buildings had security cameras in place, but it was a well-known fact that men did not stare at monitors for twenty-four hours a day. The cameras were used, if ever, in retrospect of a crime.
Harvey could handle being seen in retrospect. It was a small price to pay. He chose to use the stairs to apartment 701. The apartment listings fixed to the wall in raised lettering displayed only two seventh-floor apartments. The ping of an arriving elevator would alert somebody.
On the seventh-floor landing, he stared through the fire escape window into the hallway. There were two doors, both of matching light oak and polished to a sheen that reflected the bright walls and artwork.
According to more raised lettering on the walls outside the apartment, 702 was to his right, and if he stood with his back to the wall and peered through at an angle, he could just make out half of the front door.
He looked through the window to the left, his hand poised on the handle. It was clear. He heard no voices and saw no movement, so he opened the door just as the elevator’s digital ping sounded.
Harvey released the handle and pulled himself into the corner out of sight. A shadow passed by the window. Harvey waited for another, but none followed. He heard the faint ring of a doorbell and he peered right. The acute angle limited his view to the arm of a tall man who was waiting for a door to be opened.
He heard the click of the door and a woman’s voice. It was stern and authoritative and spoke above the man when he tried to speak. But the distance and the heavy door muffled the conversation. Harvey pressed his face against the glass for a better view. The man was wearing a grey kurta and his slick, black hair and the intonation of his voice suggested he was of foreign origin.
The conversation became heated. He raised his voice, but Harvey could only make out a few words. He waved his arms, gesturing as he spoke, and Harvey caught a brief view of the woman. She wore expensive looking heels and a conservative, blue dress that was cut just above the knee. Her hips were narrow, and the cut of the dress concealed her ample chest. Long, brown hair hung across her shoulders, but Harvey could see no more. She turned and he watched her stride back into the apartment. The visitor held the door open and he cocked his head with interest as her hips swayed from side to side like the pendulum of a clock. He moved to one side and stepped into Harvey’s view as she returned. And when she returned, she was joined by another woman.
The second woman’s dress was cut far less conservatively. It was short enough to reveal her patterned stocking tops and a slice of bare, white flesh above. The top half revealed most of her small bust and her long, blonde hair reached her naval. But, once again, Harvey couldn’t see her face. She stood with much less confidence than her host. Her feet shuffled the way a schoolgirl’s might in a display of her insecurity. She folded her hands together in front of her and held her stylish bag tightly.
The man and the host exchanged another short burst of bitterness and then the three of them walked to the lift and the door to 702 closed of its own accord.
Harvey didn’t see the woman who had answered the door. Nor did he catch a glimpse of the man’s face. His attention was elsewhere. He was struck dumb by what he saw.
The woman in the revealing dress with the slice of white flesh topping tasteful yet tantalising stocking tops wasn’t a woman. It was a young girl. Harvey’s blood ran cold.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Getting into the office out of hours was a habit that Myers had broken only days after he had been made detective. It was only when he couldn’t sleep or was well into a case that he spent any additional time there.
He wasn’t into this case. He couldn’t care less who had killed the newlywed Mrs Cartwright, and Carver’s words had stripped any meaningful resolution from the killer he had spent months hunting. And he cared less about Donald Cartwright being in danger than he did about what films were showing at the weekend.
They all deserved it one way or another.
In fact, the only thing he really cared about at that moment in time was seeing Rashid Al Sheikh behind bars. Not for the purposes of solving a cr
ime, although the recognition would help his case with Allenby. But his reasons were far more personal. To stand in court and watch the smile fall from his smug face would be a highlight of Myers’ career.
But for that to happen, Myers needed more on him. And to get more on him, Myers needed to be in the office while nobody was there.
He filled the coffee machine and hit the power button. The coffee would do him good and should he be found there, somehow the act of making coffee would add weight to the lies he would need to tell.
The police force was, in terms of security, on top of their game. Myers had sat in on briefings and lectures about how the digital data on suspects was gathered and stored. Although Myers didn’t fully understand the ins and outs of what had been said, he understood the concepts. Cables connected the various police stations and the data was all stored in a data centre. The access to files was limited by rank, which meant that Allenby could access more data than Myers and Myers could access more data than Fox.
But as advanced as the security systems were, the transition to being fully paperless was a slow one, and that worked in Myers’ favour. There were too many old dogs like him who preferred to use paper files that were then scanned and stored in digital format. Those digital files had to be stored somewhere, and as long as the individual knew where they were kept, the stripes on their shoulder played no part. The risk was the same for anyone in breach of the security policy.
The file store was located in a locker that was outside Allenby’s office. Once per week, a contractor came and collected the files, and Myers had seen a hundred times Allenby fetching the key from her office and unlocking it for them. Then, when they were done, she would lock the locker and return the key to her office.
All Myers had to do was find where she hid the key. He made fresh coffee and let it percolate. Then he wandered over to the window to check the car park. There were a handful of cars all with the light bars and identification numbers on top. There was a riot van that was mainly used at weekends when drunken idiots needed a ride and a sticky, blue mattress to sleep on.
Myers’ car was parked beside the duty officer’s, who he knew to be in the evidence room, as the man had called out something about the late hour when Myers had entered.
He moved fast.
He opened Allenby’s door and glanced around, half-expecting to see her waiting behind her desk with her feet up and her fingers linked like a Bond villain.
But the office was empty.
He tried the little monkey pot she kept on her desk but found only a handful of paperclips embedded into a ball of blue tack, some broken pencils, and used ballpoint pens. He glanced around the door. All clear.
He moved behind her desk and sat in her seat. In a childish whim, he had the urge to break wind in her chair, and somewhere inside, he smiled at the thought.
He tried her top drawer. It was stacked full of paperwork, but nothing of any significance. The forms and papers related to the office management more than any crimes or suspects, so he checked beneath the pile then closed the drawer.
The second drawer was locked.
He pulled hard on it, feeling for how sensitive the lock was, but nothing budged. In the end, it was an old trick he had learnt as a child that was the answer. The desks weren’t designed for the police force. They were just standard desks that any office might have, only older and duller, in Myers’ opinion. He opened the top drawer, and, with a little force, he was able to remove it, leaving the top of the locked drawer below exposed. And there, hanging on a small hook, were three keys. The first one was for Allenby’s locker in the changing room. Myers would recognise one of those keys, with the square-shaped ring-hole, in the dark. The second was unmarked. But the third was clearly labelled ‘Hard Copy Locker’. He remembered the term being used in a briefing. The digital files were soft copies and the paper files were hard copies. Hard copies were scanned and destroyed.
His hands were clammy and hot, and his heart was beating hard. For all Myers’ inner thoughts and scalding mind, rarely had he ever actually gone out of his way to break the rules. If he were caught, there would be no talking his way of it.
He moved fast again, leaving the top drawer on Allenby’s desk. The hard copy locker opened with ease, but the doors were made of aluminium and were loud when they opened. He was presented with three shelves, each of which stored three to four piles of paperwork eighteen inches high.
He began to rifle through them. He knew the file. It was blue with his doodles on the front. He checked every file on the top shelf and worked his way to the middle shelf. He was just halfway through when he heard a car door being closed outside. He considered going to the window to have a look, but he had found a system of searching and was moving fast.
It was the last file on the middle shelf that had doodles on. He ran to the window and looked down. Allenby’s BMW was parked in her spot in the corner.
Damn it.
He ran back, pulled the file, and threw it onto his desk face down so the doodles weren’t visible. He closed and locked the locker, ran to Allenby’s office, and hung the key. He fought with the top drawer until it finally gave way and slid into its slot.
The office door banged closed.
He took a deep breath and left the little office, closing the door behind him as if he hadn’t heard a thing.
“Myers?”
“Oh, there you are,” he said, hearing the lie in his own voice. “I saw your car, but you weren’t here.”
“I’ve just arrived,” she replied, and the distrust was clear. “What were you doing in my office?”
“Oh, like I said, I saw your car and just popped in to say hi.”
“Right,” she said.
“I’ve put the coffee on,” he said, and then sat down at his desk, moving the file as if he was tidying up.
“I think we need to talk, Myers.”
That was a new tone. There was something much more in what she had just said. Myers felt his heart jump into life.
“Sure. Here or…” He looked toward her office.
“I had a call an hour ago,” she said.
Okay, so the chat had begun like a ball of snow at the top of a hill.
Myers said nothing. If it worked for the silent man, it would work for him.
“Rashid Al Sheikh.”
She was waiting for him to speak or to defend himself. But he played the game, expressionless.
“You went to his house.”
Sheikh was obviously hiding something if he made the call to Allenby.
“He’s filing a complaint. It’ll go above my head. I can’t help you.”
“I was just following up on-”
“You were harassing him. You were parked outside his house. Again.”
Myers sucked in air and felt his chest swell beneath his shirt. He’d reacted. He was crap at the silent game. The snowball was picking up speed.
“Do you know what a harassment charge would do to your career?”
“It wasn’t harassment.”
“He’s throwing in racism as well,” said Allenby. “I won’t let you bring me down. It’s not just your career you’re toying with, it’s mine as well. If I’m seen to have condoned this type of behaviour, I’ll be dragged into this. I warned you enough times, Myers.”
“So, what was I supposed to do?” said Myers, his tone a little too brash. “Am I supposed to let him get away with it?”
“I’ll remind you that I’m your superior, Detective Inspector Myers,” said Allenby, and then she paused to let the air cool. “I know you’ve had it rough. Everyone knows. But I can’t let this sort of behaviour carry on. You’ve been on the case for months and haven’t got a single piece of evidence on the killer so you’re looking to frame Sheikh. I know what you’re doing. At this point, you’re looking for a win. Any win. Your assignment was to track the killer, not harass government officials on a gut feeling that somehow they’re involved.”
“It wasn’t harassment,” he
said, and his voice dropped. He knew what was coming.
“You were drunk,” said Allenby. “You drove your car to his house and waited for him without talking to me. How does that make me look? I can’t have my detectives sitting outside the house of a government official, drunk, on a whim and a prayer. I can smell it on you from here.”
The snowball was out of control.
“Look, take a few days.”
“I don’t need a few days.”
“Take a few days and spend some time with Harriet. Clear your head. There’ll be an investigation if Rashid pursues the charge, in which case, I’ll call you in for the interview.”
“You’re suspending me?” said Myers, but he could think of nothing to follow it.
Allenby stared at him as if she was analysing his expressions, his body language, and his emotions. But there was nothing he could do to emulate a calm man. He was raging inside.
“I’ll call you in a day or so,” she said, and she glanced at his desk then back at him. “Leave your files.”
Chapter Forty
The black Mercedes pulled out of the underground car park. It was the same black Mercedes he’d seen at the leather goods warehouse. Harvey watched through the first-floor window of the stairwell as it turned right. Then he ran.
If the car had turned left, it would be heading for the city. But it hadn’t. It had turned right, which meant the driver was avoiding the one-way systems and security around Canary Wharf and was heading out of town.
He started his motorcycle and pulled on his helmet. He knew the route the car would take to leave the island, but he would have to ride fast to catch it to before it disappeared into the maze of East London and beyond.
The car would have to slow for the speed humps that plagued nearly every street on the island, but Harvey rode around them or between them. The driver would have to negotiate traffic lights and other drivers, which again, Harvey could drive around or circumnavigate.
