Time to Die

by Alex Howard

  It was these kinds of streets that had made Enver a boxer. He had been a quiet, pudgy child and he had never really fitted in with the other Turkish kids. He used to think it was because, like Mehmet, his parents were Turkish, although from Rize province, not Cappadocia, and the other kids were from North Cypriot backgrounds. Now he was older, much older, he thought it was probably nothing to do with that, he just didn’t join gangs. He wasn’t that kind of person. Because he lacked the protection, the security, of being in a gang, he signed up for boxing classes that were held by the ABA in the local church hall. It was there he discovered he had a talent for it.

  How far he would have got he would never know. He’d had a good amateur record and when injury stopped him, he’d had eight pro fights, winning all of them. It was a promising start. He had been known more as a puncher than a boxer, that’s to say he was ponderous in the ring but one good blow from Enver could, and did, end fights. ‘Iron Hand’ was the right fighting name for him.

  He looked at Hanlon and thought that in her dark jeans, training shoes and black bomber jacket, she maybe looked more like a female bouncer from one of Tottenham’s tougher clubs than a police officer. To his annoyance, he was still acutely aware of her body under her tight-fitting, expensive-looking shirt. Less controversially, he was also acutely aware of his own body. He could feel his stomach pressing against his belt. He was wearing a cheap, dark blue suit, made of a slightly shiny, cheap fabric, and a garish patterned tie. And I suppose I could be the fat, Turkish club owner, not a very successful one at that. Some dive in King’s Cross. All I lack is the cheap aftershave and the two-tone shoes and maybe a gold tooth and some Samsun cigarettes.

  There was a parade of three shops in the street between the houses. The kind of shops you find in a place like this – a Bargain Booze, a Pakistani grocer and a newsagent. There was a tough-looking, battered pub at the end of the road. Mehmet’s address was above the newsagent. They went round the back, into the service lane behind the shops, with overflowing green plastic wheelie bins and piles of stacked-up empty boxes and plastic crates. There was a strong smell of rotting food and urine. Between a couple of the shuttered and graffitied back doors to the retail premises there was a flight of metal stairs that gave access to the roof above the shops where the flats were.

  Hanlon led the way, almost floating up the stairs, while Enver, his knees protesting, panted up after her. The stairs seemed interminable. Over a low parapet the roof spread out in front of them, left and right like a terrace. Facing them were the backs of the flats, each with its own door. Outside the middle flat, sitting leaning forward on an old plastic chair, was a scrawny white-haired pensioner in a string vest, once white, now a piss-coloured yellow, and stained, grey baggy trousers, smoking a cigarette. Faded blue and green marks, old tattoos long since blurred, discoloured the slack skin on his thin arms. A smell of cabbage and old, rancid fat was exhaled by the open doorway. He screwed his face up inquisitively as Enver and Hanlon appeared over the parapet and stood framed against the skyline.

  ‘You’re with the Environmental Health as well? Cos your mates left half an hour ago.’ The old man hawked phlegm and spat a large green gob of mucus offensively close to Enver’s shoe. His tone was aggressive and unpleasant.

  He and Hanlon exchanged a quick, worried glance. Hanlon wordlessly strode to the far left door.

  ‘We’re police,’ said Enver, producing his warrant card. The old man spat again. He was unimpressed.

  ‘Screaming and shaartin’, jabbering away in their facking lingo. Paki Turk bastards, coming over here. They should be arrested. Forrin bastards.’ The pensioner’s red-rimmed, rheumy eyes were full of hate. ‘Taking our jobs!’

  Enver shook his head and went to join Hanlon. Her face was devoid of expression, stonier than ever. Hanlon tried the door, locked, on its latch. She shrugged and rang the bell. They listened to its buzz. It had that mournful sound that a bell makes in an empty house. A bell that there is no one to hear. They looked at each other. They both knew nobody would answer.

  The pensioner filled them in on events, like a solo, senile, Greek chorus. ‘Three big bin bags they took away, the caarncil done. Oh, they can find the money for the effnics.’ He repeated the word for emphasis. ‘The effnics, for the gippos, what abart the whites, that’s what I say. Bet it was food what they was hoarding. Attracts the rats, hoarding does.’ The old man smacked his lips on the word ‘hoarding’ as if it gave him pleasure. He overemphasized the ‘h’, Hoarding, for emphasis. ‘Facking forrin hoarders. Oi, you, I’m talking to you.’ He pointed a shaking finger at them. ‘No bleeding respect. Not these days.’

  With no warning, in one fluid motion that Enver guessed took under a second, Hanlon drew her right knee up to her chest, pivoted on her left leg and lashed out with her right foot. There was a very loud crash and the door flew open.

  Hanlon, followed by Enver, strode in. Enver remained by the door as Hanlon moved carefully through the flat, touching nothing, anxious not to contaminate what they both felt would be a crime scene. It took less than a minute to ascertain the flat – one bedroom, lounge, kitchen, bathroom – was empty. It was as they had suspected, as they feared. The small galley kitchen was a wreck. There was smashed crockery and cutlery on the floor to the right of the sink. On the work surface a jar of instant coffee had smashed, milk and soft drink bottles lay on their sides. There were other food items on the floor too, stepped on and squashed on to the cheap linoleum. The kitchen was directly in line to the door. Hanlon guessed that Mehmet had answered the door and then been slammed backwards into the kitchen where the struggle had taken place. She could imagine it happening, the door opening and the attacker’s shoulder thudding into the body of the unsuspecting man. It’s how she would have done it.

  There was a sizeable pool of blood on the countertop. Hanlon examined it, careful not to touch anything. The epicentre of the blood was on the edge of the work surface. The cheap wooden laminate had splintered under a terrific impact and Hanlon could see shreds of skin and some coarse black hairs adhering to the surface of the counter. She guessed that it was Mehmet’s forehead that had been slammed down into the wood at hairline level. The force of such a blow, hard enough to break chipboard, would probably have killed him, certainly he’d have lost consciousness. She crouched down to look further. The other two, Nur and the little girl would be easier to subdue, particularly once they’d seen Mehmet’s skull cracked open, his body slumping to the floor.

  ‘Ma’am,’ called Enver.

  She left the kitchen and joined him in the doorway of the neighbouring room. They didn’t go in. Inside the small living room were more signs of a struggle, less dramatic, equally depressing to the two police. The old sofa was beige. On the floor was a bloodstained cushion. A coffee table had been upset. Broken glass from little dainty cups shone in the sun coming through the windows. On a battered old sideboard was an embroidered lace cloth and a plastic model of the Sultan Ahmed mosque in Istanbul. There was an electrical cable coming out. It would light up. A souvenir of life in Turkey. Hanlon looked at the cushion. She guessed that the blood probably belonged to the wife, Nur. She shook her head sadly. The other room was the bedroom. She could see a cot from where she was standing that would have belonged to Baby Ali. There was a small mattress on the floor where Reyhan would have slept.

  She went back into the kitchen.

  On the floor, puddled with blood which had dripped off the counter, underneath the jutting ledge of the work surface, by the skirting board, was a small scrap of paper, torn, she guessed from a Turkish newspaper. Two words. Crouching down, she read them. Enver was putting his phone back in his pocket.

  ‘Everyone’s on their way, ma’am,’ he said.

  She nodded and they both went outside into the fresh air. Three bags. Three bodies. Hanlon’s eyes narrowed. Someone knew they were coming and at what time. Someone had tipped them off. It had to come from their end, from the team investigating the Baby Ali murder. There
really was no other possibility. She was glad now that she had told no one about her thoughts that the Baby Ali murder was connected to the Essex killing. They knew now they were not looking for a single perpetrator. Two men had done this. Paedophiles were normally organized, usually highly so, and they did operate in groups, but violence like this – direct, professional – from a paedophile was unheard of. This had more the hallmarks of organized crime. It was no sex attack. It was an efficient, organized hit. It was the sort of thing the Andersons of this world did.

  ‘Sergeant, what does “on sekiz” mean in Turkish?’ she asked, referring to the words on the paper.

  ‘Eighteen, ma’am.’

  Hanlon nodded. She thought so. The images of memory obligingly lined up in her head. The pencilled eighteen on the bunker wall. The lock gate. Now this. The same number. The same killer. Different victims. There could be no shred of doubt now that they were the same perpetrator. Better make that plural. Well, she’d have to report this to Corrigan. He wouldn’t be best pleased. Serial killings and a police informer. Not good. The unusually blue skies and hot sun overhead gave an almost Mediterranean feel to the roof in contrast to the darkness of the scene within the flat.

  ‘Tell SOCO when they get here and start work there’s a piece of paper under that counter I want bagged as evidence. I don’t want it overlooked.’ That would annoy them, she thought, being told how to do their job.

  ‘Why take the bodies away, ma’am?’ asked Enver in a puzzled voice.

  Hanlon had worked paedophile and rape cases before in Special Crimes. Enver hadn’t. Because the woman and daughter probably weren’t dead yet, thought Hanlon. That would come later. That was the reason. Baby Ali had been assaulted numerous times but there was no DNA trace. Hanlon guessed that mother and daughter wouldn’t be found. There would be no need for caution on their abductors’ part. She didn’t feel like going into it now.

  ‘I’m not sure, Sergeant.’ she said. ‘What I am sure of is that we’re looking for two powerfully built men. Three bodies carried down in a single trip. One presumably carried the man; the other, mother and daughter. That’s a lot of kilos. I don’t think it was the woman who abducted Ali that was involved. She wouldn’t be physically capable.’ Her voice was distracted. ‘Anyway, Sergeant, I’ll leave you to it. Right now, I’ve got things I need to do. I don’t have to tell you your job. Do what needs doing. Tell whoever arrives to call me on my mobile or text me. I’ll be back in the office later anyway. I can’t see that I’ve got anything to add that you can’t help them with.’

  Enver registered the fact she was leaving without surprise. Like she said, it didn’t need two of them to stay, but he was interested to notice his regret. There was something very reassuring about Hanlon’s presence. More than that, he relished her presence.

  ‘Do you know who did this, ma’am?’ asked Enver. He looked hard into Hanlon’s long face. It was as expressionless as ever, her eyes flinty-grey, impenetrable. He realized that was as much of an answer as he was likely to get.

  ‘Oi, you two!’ shouted the old man. They had forgotten about him. ‘What was it then, rats?’

  Hanlon, suddenly letting her anger off its leash, strode over to him. She’d had enough. ‘Hello, darlin’, come to make an old man happy,’ he leered at Hanlon. She leant forward until her face was over his and he was suddenly aware of the sun being blocked out by her long, tangled, black hair that haloed her face. It was like a terrible eclipse. He looked up and saw her features transfixed by rage. It totally unnerved him. He had never seen anything like it. She looked inhuman, devoid of any feelings other than fury, her face a mask of pure anger, and then to his mental fear was added physical and he gasped in agony as Hanlon’s long, shapely, immensely strong fingers crushed the ulnar nerve near his elbow, the so-called funny bone. It’s painful enough when you bang it on something; this was drawn-out pressure that hurt him like nothing he’d experienced in seventy-five years. He thought he was going to throw up with the pain. He cowered backwards in his seat as the pain mounted.

  ‘I know where you live,’ she hissed. ‘Do you want me to come back and visit you? When there’ll be just you and me? Do you?’ He shook his head emphatically, pleadingly. Her face, a gorgon’s mask, the features of Medusa, was almost touching his. He looked into her pitiless eyes as tears trickled down his face. ‘My colleague will ask you some questions, I suggest you be helpful.’ She released her grip.

  Enver had seen her stoop momentarily over the old man and then, a couple of seconds later, stand up. He had absolutely no idea what had happened. He could see even at this distance the terror on the man’s face. It was almost pantomime-like in its characterization of fear. He wondered what on earth she’d said to him.

  Hanlon walked past him, radiating aggression and rage. ‘Get a witness statement off him now he’s in a cooperative mood. Remember to secure the crime scene. Nobody up here but police,’ she snapped. ‘I’m off to see Whiteside.’

  Enver watched as she climbed gracefully down the steel staircase. Again, for the second time since he had met Hanlon, he felt a stab of jealousy directed at the other sergeant. He walked over to the old man who gave him a frightened, placatory smile. He cowered away from Enver, trying to make himself small in his chair.

  ‘No hard feelings, eh, son,’ he said, in a wheedling voice. ‘No ’ard feelings.’

  Peter had tested his blood again in his cell earlier that morning. Five point eight, which was good. His initial panic at his predicament had died down to a general unease coupled, strangely, with boredom. Peter felt he was a survivor. He had survived the illness and death of his father. He had survived type-one diabetes; every day was, in a sense, a triumph. Sixty odd years ago, before synthesized insulin, he’d have been dead too. He would survive this.

  He had nothing to do in the cell other than stroke the brown and white spaniel and eat the food that was provided. So far it was supermarket packed sandwiches together with bottled water. Breakfast had been sausage sandwiches. He didn’t like cold sausage but as a type-one diabetic he had to eat. He had given the dog its food that came in a bowl at the same time as his evening meal. There was a small, circular drain in the corner of the cell under the shower and the dog had, rather cleverly in Peter’s eyes, decided to use that as its toilet. Cleaning up after the animal was simply a question of sluicing it away.

  Beneath the unremitting light from the bulb that never went out, he was measuring time by the amount of insulin injections he was giving himself. It was four a day. He had kept aside an old hypodermic needle and he made a scratch on the wall every time he injected himself. His body had developed a rhythm over the past couple of years and he knew that his timings were pretty accurate. Besides, the blood-sugar levels themselves would let him know if he was miscalculating time. Without this diabetic clock he would have no idea of how long he’d been there. By counting the scratches, he did. There was no clock in the cell, he didn’t have a watch, there was no natural light, and there was no background noise, nothing at all to provide a clue. All he had to measure the passing of time were the scratches on the wall. So far he had three of them, which meant he’d been there under twenty-four hours. Friday evening, Friday night, Saturday morning. By his reckoning, this made today Saturday afternoon. He wondered what would happen when his insulin ran out. He had seven days’ worth of NovoRapid insulin, more or less, the dose varied according to the amount of carbohydrate in his meal and what his blood-sugar levels were before he ate. He used the NovoRapid three times daily after meals. Usually at home and at school, he would calculate the dose of insulin by weighing his food. Here in the cell he didn’t have any scales but fortunately, either by accident or design of his captors, he had the carb levels printed on the packaging of the sandwiches.

  He also had a week’s supply of Glargine, the slow-release insulin he took at night. If he was in the cell longer than a week, he’d be in trouble. Well, he thought, perhaps I’ll be free by then. I certainly hope so.

&n
bsp; What he couldn’t understand was why he was there, why he was being held captive. Peter had tried various scenarios: kidnap, mistaken identity, terrorism; none of them made any sense. Why would anyone want him? The main thing, he decided, was to be brave, not to cry.

  Having the dog helped enormously. He whispered his thoughts in its ear and shared his food with it. Perhaps when all this was over, his mum would let him keep the dog. Assuming they let the dog go with him. He was trying to think of a good name for him. It had to be worthy of the animal, something with a ring to it, something defiant.

  And all the while the CCTV camera watched him. And fifty miles away in London, Lord Justice Reece periodically logged on to see how he was doing. He was looking forward to giving the boy what he needed, but anticipation was a huge part of the pleasure. He had rehearsed various scenarios in his head many times. Soon, he’d be able to put them into practice. It was what set us apart from the savages, in the judge’s opinion. Deferred gratification.

  He had to fly to Brussels that evening, but he’d be able to view the boy whenever he wanted on his laptop until they were finally together in the coming week. An Internet feed was such a boon. The wait would only increase the pleasure, particularly now he could see what Conquest had arranged for him. Conquest had surpassed himself. The child was perfect, perfect in every way.

  The judge thought back to when he was a child the same age, a very different child. He hadn’t been good-looking. ‘Blubber lips’, that’s what the other boys had called him at his boarding school, as had most of the teachers. His parents had been equally dismissive. At home, the judge had felt like an unwelcome guest who’d overstayed his welcome. But the judge had survived the bullying and the beatings. He’d survived through hard work, intelligence and the fierce will that they would not crush him. Every exam passed with an A grade, the scholarship to Pembroke, the first-class degree, all were battles he had won to get back at them. And now his time had come. They would dance to his tune. Those prefects who had beaten him, who had devised excruciating torments for him, and were now the Establishment, let them dance and grovel. Those good-looking boys who would never have reciprocated the judge’s schoolboy passions, let them dance the way he wanted them to dance.