Bev bit a lip to mask a cynical smile. That was bullshit. The DI was only here so she didn’t lose face with the squad. Shields knew she’d be as welcome inside as bird flu.
A uniform was posted outside. It transpired he wasn’t the old lady’s only company.
“Come in, Sergeant. We’re having tea.” Maude’s invitation didn’t include Shields explicitly, but at least she wasn’t banned from entering.
“Did you sleep OK, Mrs Taylor?” She certainly sounded perkier.
“Come through, dear. I slept well, considering, and I thought I told you to call me Maude.”
Bev was expecting to see Jude Eastwood from family liaison. Instead, Grace Kane looked up from her tape recorder on a low table, Mont Blanc in hand, Hobnob crumbs on her classy ivory blouse.
“Sergeant Morriss. Hello. I didn’t expect to see you here.”
“Snap.”
“Mrs Taylor has kindly offered to help with my series.”
“You’re a reporter?” Shields’s tone suggested the profession was on a par with serial killing.
Maude waved vaguely at a couple of chairs. “She’s more of an author, aren’t you, Grace? I’ve been helping with a little research.”
Old photographs and letters littered the table and floor. Sophia at various ages was in most of the shots. Bev picked one up, gently fingered its edges. “What exactly are you hoping to learn here, Ms Kane?” She kept her tone casual but the antennae were twitching.
“Background, attitudes, how society treats the elderly, that sort of thing,” the reporter offered.
“I thought you were mainly interested in violence against old people.”
“That’s right.” Grace switched off the recorder and capped her pen. “Look, I can see I’m in the way. You need to talk to Mrs Taylor. I’ve got more than enough for now.”
The jade suit was Joseph. Bev followed it through to the hall. “Grace. Perhaps you could let me have a look at some of your stuff? It’ll be useful for when we get together.”
“We can? That would be so cool. I’ll get it in the post later today. Thank you so much.”
The girl spoke as if she were in a teen movie. Made Bev feel quite old.
Maude appeared to have thawed towards Shields; they were chatting about the weather when Bev got back.
“Pleasant girl, isn’t she?” Maude’s fingers were toying with Grace’s business card. Its twin was in the jacket Bev wore yesterday. “Very professional,” Maude added. “Awfully thoughtful as well. When I mentioned last night, she got really upset. Asked if there was anything she could do to help.”
“Did you talk much about Sophia?” Bev asked.
“A little.”
They stayed for half an hour or so. Maude wasn’t able to add much to her previous account. She’d had a look around and was pretty sure nothing was gone. Her feeling was that the intruder had only just broken in before he felt the business end of her stick.
“Any idea why he was here? What he was after?” Bev asked.
Maude picked at the skin of her hand. “I’ve thought about that, but I don’t have any idea. All Sophia’s money is invested. She had no jewellery to speak of.”
“All Sophia’s money,” Bev echoed. “Is her estate large?”
“Substantial, rather than large, Sergeant. Around £600,000, I’d say.”
Bev exchanged glances with Shields. “Do you know who stands to inherit?”
“There are bequests to various medical charities.” Maude Taylor’s voice suggested more.
“And?” Bev prompted.
“The bulk of it will come to me.”
“We’ll check it out, natch,” said Bev. “But somehow I can’t see Maude in the role of killer granny.”
Oz nibbled on a curly fry. “How about the DI?”
Bev snorted. “Neither use nor ornament. Barely opened her mouth.”
They were in the Kozy Caff surrounded by blue rinses and beige crimplene. The board on the far wall said Friday special – half-price pensioners. Tasty.
“That’s not what I asked.”
Bev sneaked a glance at Oz. Was he being iffy? He didn’t share her antipathy towards the DI but it was a fact: the woman’s attitude hadn’t helped. Interviewing was all about connecting and empathising. Bev knew she was damn good at it. In Shields’s presence, Maude had appeared inhibited if not downright intimidated. There’d been a couple of times Bev felt the old woman might have been holding back. Oz was still waiting for an answer.
“Cash is a motive as often as not. Shields ordered the check.” And questioned Bev on why she hadn’t extracted the information earlier. She took one of Oz’s chips, regretted going for the cheese salad. “Like as if I wouldn’t.”
As every cop knew, good liars practised a lot. And the most plausible practised the most.
Oz took a sip of coke. “Nice time last night?”
Where did that come from? She went for another chip, her other fingers crossed. “Frankie was on top form. How about you?”
“Interesting. I bumped into a friend.”
“Talking about bumping into people. That reporter? Grace Kane? She was at Taylor’s place, sniffing round.”
Her hand reached for another fry. Oz sighed and swapped plates.
“So? That’s what reporters do.”
She wondered whether to share her thoughts. According to Grace, the man who’d raped and beaten her grandmother was still at large. Was there an unwritten agenda in there as well? She’d run a check, maybe mention it then.
“Don’t talk to Danny Girl about journos,” Bev said. “She went ape-shit when we left. Asked who else I’d tipped off. Implied I was on the take.” She glanced round. There were no ashtrays. Shit. “I’m gonna have to do something about it, Oz.”
“What? Danny Shields or your smoking?”
Bev was stowing the roses in the boot of her motor. She’d already recorded her thanks on Tom Marlow’s answer phone, and paid off Vince with the promise of a pint or six at the Prince.
A hand tapped her back, a tad too close to the butt. She whirled, eyes flashing, and barely recognised Mike Powell at first. The hair was longer and blonder. But it wasn’t that. He was smiling. At her.
“Hello, stranger.” Made a change from a peremptory Morriss.
“How’re you doing?” she asked
Staying at home, suspended on full pay, seemed to be working wonders. Had he had his teeth whitened? And he hadn’t bought the suit in a charity shop.
“I’m good,” he said. “Yourself?”
“Can’t complain.”
“Makes a change.” He raised a hand. “Joke.”
“What time’s the disciplinary?” That wiped the smile off his face. For maybe a second she felt sorry for him. Almost. He fell into step as she headed for Highgate’s main entrance.
“I see the guv’s having a hard time,” Powell said.
“It’s mainly the News. Matt Snow. He’s a shit-sack. You know that as well as me.” Having said that, they’d left Byford alone for a couple of days. The paper had been going big on a paedo judge scandal.
“Will he go?” Powell asked.
The snort was one of her best. “’Course not. It’ll take more than a media mauling to get rid of the guv.”
“Not just that, though, is it?” He lowered his voice. “A little bird tells me he’s toying with the idea of an early out.”
“That little bird?” said Bev. “Shoot it.”
He shrugged, apparently indifferent. “The disciplinary’s three o’clock, by the way. And it’s just a formality.”
They were at the swing doors. “Shame,” she said. “You’d think they’d at least let you put your case.”
“Still a lippy tart, I see.”
She opened a door and stood back. “After you, Mike.”
The welcoming committee wasn’t exactly out in force. Just one friendly face waited to greet him. Bev watched as Powell strode over. “Danny. How’re you doing?”
“Danny!
How’re you doing?”
The impersonation was pants but no one was listening. The rest of the squad was either on the knock or touring the streets with E-fits and clipboards. The CID office was empty, bar a cheese plant and a picture of the Queen touching gloves with the Chief Constable. Bev slung her bag on the floor and slumped into a chair. Powell and Shields. What a thought. Just how far back did that go? She closed her eyes, took a few deep breaths. There was no point jumping to conclusions. She sat up and put the odd couple on the back burner. There was work to do.
By the time she’d finished it was gone six. A rare weekend off beckoned but she was loath to leave. She sat back, surveying the screen, her notes and a stack of files. She’d spent nearly five hours going through five days’ worth of reports and witness statements.
She ran her hands through her hair, leaving it even more mussed. The case wasn’t at a crossroads, it was in a cul de sac. No one they’d interviewed knew anything about the attacks, let alone the murder of Sophia Carrington. They needed conclusive evidence, connections. The diagram she’d worked on hadn’t helped. Sophia’s name was dead centre, but the links were tenuous: victims’ ages, areas they lived, stuff nicked, that was about it. There had to be something else, surely? She screwed up the paper, slung it in the bin; it missed.
“And on that note –” she muttered.
The phone rang as she was on her way out.
“Sarge.” It was Oz. “I popped into the Goddard place on the off-chance. Guess what?”
It looked as if the daffodil theory had legs. Way Oz told it, he’d finally found Joan Goddard in; she’d been at her son’s in Bath for a fortnight. She’d come across the daffodils in the kitchen sink the day she was released from hospital and assumed a friend or neighbour had left them. Under Oz’s gentle questioning, she realised she’d never given anyone a spare key.
The daffodils had long since been thrown out. But a link, however tenuous, remained. It might be a tad premature to crack the Moet, but… She hit a button on her mobile. “Frankie, my friend. What you up to tonight?”
A couple of hours later, Bev and Frankie were ensconced in a Moseley wine bar. With chunky leather seating and fuck-the-diet food, it would be Bev’s local if her offer on the Victorian terrace in Baldwin Street was accepted. A good cause for celebration.
And Frankie was another. A night out with her was better than a week in Rome. Frankie was human Prozac, happy pills on legs. Bev relaxed just listening to her. Frankie’s Italian accent was a moveable feast. She laid it on shamelessly for her own ends, and right now she was using a JCB. She’d come up with a solution to the Danny Shields scenario: the final curtain.
“I’m-a gonna send-a the boys round, Bev.” She laughed, tossing back a cloud of blue-black hair that Rossetti would have died for. Bev had tried the tossing-hair thing once; she’d ended up in a neck brace.
“What about a horse’s head on her pillow?” Bev put in hopefully.
Frankie flapped a hand. “That is so last week.”
They laughed, but Bev caught the concern darkening her best friend’s eyes. She’d listened to Bev’s blow-by-blow account of the confrontations with the DI, the mounting hostility, the constant undermining of Bev’s work. Frankie had made all the right noises but, like Bev, couldn’t come up with a reason for the woman’s arsiness. She tended to suspect Shields was insecure; aware, perhaps, her body was in better shape than her brain.
“Professional jealousy, Bev. No one can accuse you of using female charms to open doors.”
“Frankie!”
“You know what I mean,” she winked, and grabbed their empty glasses.
Bev watched as Frankie sashayed to the bar, all thigh and cleavage. Christ, the girl turned more heads than an osteopath. Unlike Shields, she had a sweet nature to go with it. Maybe Bev would take Frankie’s advice: be so nice to the bloody woman she might change her shitty tune.
Bev’s mobile beeped a message. It wasn’t a number she recognised, but a puzzled frown gave way to a cat-like smile when she read the text: miss u sergeant morriss! when can i see you again? Tom x
Of course she had to tell Frankie: she wanted the full works. They swapped man stories till it was time to hit the road. Frankie was shrugging into a full-length red leather trench coat when she mentioned she’d bumped into Oz in Blockbusters.
“Oh?” Bev’s radar was on alert. “When was that, Frankie?”
“Last night. Didn’t he mention it? I asked him to give you my love.”
Last night. And she’d told Oz she’d been out on the town with Frankie.
It was dark when he arrived. The gates were locked. Not that it mattered. He made sure he wasn’t being watched, then shinned over the wall. He knew the way with his eyes closed. No one had been since his last visit. He removed the old stems and wrapped them in paper. He’d bought a bottle of water for the fresh flowers.
The golden petals appeared a dull grey in the blackness of the night.
14
Monday, one week since Sophia Carrington’s murder, the early brief at Highgate.
“Why leave daffodils at the crime scenes?”
It was the guv’s question but Bev had been asking herself the same thing. She’d kept tabs on the inquiry over the weekend via calls to the incident room. Not difficult, nothing had shifted.
“Could it be a ruse? To throw us off the scent?” Bev asked.
Byford sighed. “Are you trying to be funny?”
A Morriss-glare silenced a couple of sniggers. “I mean it, guv. There may be no significance. Just toe-rags trying to be smart-arses. You know, let’s take the piss out of Mr Plod.”
It was the only conclusion she’d drawn, in between viewing houses and catching up on chores, not to mention a Thai takeaway and a Jude Law DVD. Oz had been playing it cool. So cool he hadn’t even phoned. Unlike Tom Marlow, who’d called last night. They’d hooked up for a quick drink. She didn’t know if it was going anywhere but it was fun finding out.
“As cunning plans go,” Byford said, “it’s working.”
She smiled. At least the old boy still had a sense of humour. She wondered if he’d heard back from the hospital.
“Either way, where does it get us?” DI Shields’s low profile was lifting. She sauntered over to the murder board. “We’re no further forward.”
“It strengthens the connection,” Bev protested. “It’s almost certain the attacks are down to the same gang.”
“Is it? I don’t see it. We know flowers were found at the homes of two victims. We have no way of knowing who left them. And even if it is some sort of macabre calling card, I don’t see any signatures. We’re no nearer a name, let alone an arrest, than we were this time last week.”
Bev barely heard the phone. DC Carol Mansfield picked up on the second ring. A nod and a note and she replaced the receiver. “I reckon we are now.”
Bev wasn’t in on the interview but a two-way mirror and covered speakers provided a ringside seat. The guv and Shields were in action but the star had yet to perform.
Fat Boy was one of two yobs hauled in by uniform after a stake-out at a condemned high rise in Edgbaston. They’d been spotted sneaking in. According to the tip-off that prompted the stake-out, the place was a death trap and the stupid buggers were risking their necks.
Officers Flavell and Dilger had turned up expecting nothing worse than a bit of verbal. Two hours and full back-up later, Flavell was in A and E receiving treatment for knife wounds and one of the ugliest kids Bev had ever seen was lolling on an orange plastic chair in Interview One. Think Shrek with acne. His equally aesthetically challenged squatmate was posing in similar fashion next door.
It wasn’t threatening looks that had got them banged up. Apart from assaulting a police officer, one of the youths had lit what the response unit imagined was a diversionary fire in a room on the ground floor. Among the ashes, officers had found two wedding rings and a charred scrap of paper with a couple of numbers printed on it. All that was left of a
pension book.
“A name would be good,” Shields said. It was the sixth time she’d asked. Bev didn’t envy the DI. A silent suspect was the hardest to crack. Shields and the guv had been at it for more than an hour. Bev and DC Darren New had fared equally badly with Shrek 2. No one had come up with so much as an initial. Bev squinted at the DI’s pad. It had the date in the top right-hand corner. That was it. Shields slowly circled the room, then whacked the table with the flat of her hand. Water sloshed over the side of a glass and a tinfoil ashtray full of butts bounced. The youth didn’t bat an eyelash. Bev was equally unmoved. No percentage in losing control.
“It’ll be easier if you talk to us, son.” The guv leaned a little closer.
The youth ran a slobbery tongue round tombstone teeth and spat in Byford’s eye.
By the middle of the afternoon, Ena Bolton and Joan Goddard had identified the rings. The pension book was a no-no, not enough numbers to establish ownership. Thank God pension books were being phased out. Paydays at the post office were an open invitation to light-fingered low-lifes, old dears turned into walking cash dispensers. Not that the Shrek boys were putting their hands up to anything. Neither youth had opened his mouth except to gob or stick in an Embassy Regal.
But as soon as the dabs match came through, criminal records came up good. Or bad, depending how you looked at it. Robert Carl Lewis and Kevin Joseph Fraser had spent more time in court than a magistrates’ bench. It was minor stuff: shoplifting, taking without consent, criminal damage. Only tender years and soft beaks had spared them a custodial. They’d just turned eighteen.
“Illegal entry, assaulting a police officer, receiving stolen goods.” Shields was pacing the floor “And that’s for starters.”
Murder and GBH could be the main course. “We’ve haven’t tied them into the attacks yet,” Bev said.
“We will. It’s only a question of time. They’ll crack.”
Bev had serious doubts about that. According to records, the youths were borderline special needs. Somehow she couldn’t see either of them having the brain cells to run a bath, let alone orchestrate the events of the last few weeks. They might have netted a couple of small fry – there was still a Big White out there. Maybe two.
Dead Old Page 13
