Murder Of Angels - a crime thriller (Detective Inspector Declan Walsh Book 2)

by Jack Gatland

  By now they were turning onto Lombard Street, and the buildings were turning into a mixture of warehouses, red brick car sales frontages and small accountancy firms. It was an industrial district, and the streets were almost empty for the time of day, many of the offices long closed, or out of business.

  ‘We’re almost there,’ Stripe said, waving over to a gated entrance on the right. ‘Could you pull over in that car park? I don’t want my Dad seeing me pull up in this car. He’s told me off before for taking lifts.’

  ‘Sure,’ Dave turned into a small warehouse car park, pulling up in one of the bays. Like the other buildings around, it was shuttered up. ‘I wouldn’t want to meet your Dad like that.’

  Stripe forced a smile as he pocketed the fifty-pound note. ‘Thanks for the money, Mister,’ he said. ‘It’s a lot.’

  ‘It’s nothing, and it’s Dave, not Mister,’ Dave replied as he pulled out a roll of twenties from his pocket. There was probably two, three hundred pounds there. ‘And don’t worry about it. I have enough.’

  ‘Wow!’ Stripe said in admiration. ‘What did you do to get that? Rob a bank?’

  Dave smiled, but the smile wasn’t a friendly one anymore.

  Now it was a hungry one.

  ‘The question isn’t what I did to get it,’ he said. ‘It’s what you’d do to get it.’

  Stripe shivered, and it wasn’t just the rain sliding down his neck. Again, he’d been warned about this by Macca, that Dave was known for this, had form for getting young boys to do bad things. Macca had promised, sworn even that Stripe wouldn’t get to this point.

  So where was he?

  Luckily, Dave was so engrossed in his new, young friend that he didn’t notice the tall, blond man in the hoodie who walked up to the driver’s side of the car and, with one fluid motion opened the door and yanked him out into the car park.

  ‘What the hell! I’ll cut you, bitch!’ Dave stumbled to the car park floor and rose quickly to his feet, spinning to face the man now stepping back from him, but paused as he saw the other four teenagers walking up behind his attacker. He looked back to the car where Stripe was already getting out, backing away from the upcoming encounter.

  ‘You knew about this, you little shit!’

  ‘You’ve been a hard man to find, Dave,’ a voice interrupted the rant. It was a calm, self-assured voice with the hint of a Black Country twang. Dave spun to respond to it, but stopped as he saw the voice’s owner. ‘It’s almost like you’ve been evading my calls, forcing me to take a more extreme approach in gaining your attention.’

  Macca Byrne was only nineteen, but in the last couple of years he’d built up a tiny empire for himself between the areas of Digbeth, Bordesley and Deritend, all to the east of Birmingham, stealing the scraps from his father’s far larger and more lucrative table. There were rumours that he was making his move into the clubland area of Five Ways and Broad Street to the north; which was ironic as he wasn’t yet old enough to even drink in half of the clubs, although to do that would definitely bring him up against George Byrne, and Macca the son would likely lose that battle. Unlike the others surrounding him in their jogging bottoms and hoodies, Macca was well dressed in a three-quarter-length All Saints wool coat jacket over an equally expensive jumper and torn black jeans and Chelsea boots, also black. In fact, everything was black, even his dyed black hair; short and spiked out, framing a clear, intelligent face with an old scar that ran down the left side from the temple to the cheek.

  ‘Mackenzie,’ Dave said, his voice changing from anger to a more disdainful tone.

  ‘Never call me that,’ Macca replied. ‘My friends call me Macca. Everyone else calls me Mister Byrne.’

  ‘Whatever, Mackenzie,’ Dave squared up to face Macca. ‘I don’t talk with monkeys, I talk with organ grinders. Does your dad know that you’re hanging around in car parks?’

  ‘What my dad knows about me could be written on the back of a fag packet and still have space for chapter two,’ Macca moved in closer now, only a foot away. What he lost in height to the older man, he gained back in attitude. ‘And as for why I’m here? Well, I’m just doing my civic duty, ain’t I? Saw you about to molest this poor lad, had to step in.’

  ‘I was giving him a lift home,’ Dave said, the indignant attitude mixing with alarm now, as if finally realising that they had set him up.

  ‘Parking in an abandoned car park? That’s not quite a lift home now, is it?’ Macca grinned. ‘And there you were, in your shiny car with a strange child. Know what I think? I think you were offering money to this poor, innocent boy for services rendered.’

  ‘Cut the shit, Byrne,’ Dave was tiring of this. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘What I want is for you to send a message to the Seven Sisters,’ Macca turned and walked away a little at this, as if not wanting Dave to see his face. ‘I want you to tell them I know that they killed her.’

  Dave choked back a laugh. ‘Is this what all this is?’ he exclaimed. ‘You’re blaming my bosses for your junkie girlfriend dumping you a year ago?’ He shook his head. ‘She found someone better. Get over it.’

  Macca turned back and across the car, Stripe stepped back in fear. Macca was a vicious man, a psychotic man, but his expression was one Stripe had never seen in such a situation.

  Macca Byrne was ice cold calm.

  ‘Maybe your dad killed her?’ Dave suggested. ‘Maybe he was shagging her too? I heard that she’d get on her knees for a small bag of meth.’

  ‘Let me tell you what I know,’ Macca said calmly, ignoring the jibe as he walked back to Dave. ‘I know that Gabby was killed a year ago in North London, I know that she's buried somewhere in Epping Forest, and I know that those bitches called the hit. I want them to know that I know this, and that I will gain retribution for this.’

  ‘You’d better run this past your dad first,’ Dave continued, keeping up his unconcerned bluff. ‘You’re talking about fighting other gangs. Bigger gangs. Better gangs. And that’s a little above your pay grade, isn’t it? You’re more the dime bag junkies and the tween twinks world, right?’

  Ignoring the insult, Macca looked over to the blond man in his early twenties who’d pulled Dave out of the car. ‘I don’t need to ask my dad to send a message. Harrison here is going to ensure that it’s sent.’

  ‘What, you want this prick to babysit me while I tell Janelle Delcourt you’re wearing your tinfoil hat again?’ Dave laughed. ‘This is a joke. That junkie bitch made you into a joke. Jesus, George must be so disappointed in you. I’m Janelle’s right-hand man, not some kind of postman!’

  Macca thought about this. And then he reached into his pocket, pulling out some black leather gloves.

  ‘Yeah, you’re right, you are some sort of big shot gangster paedo,’ he said. ‘And I know that right now you want your shot at me, don’t you?’

  Dave shook his head. ‘Not my scene. I’m more a numbers kind of guy.’

  ‘You got a blade on you?’ Macca asked.

  Licking his lips nervously, Dave shook his head.

  'But I clearly heard you saying to my friend you'd cut him.'

  'Banter, nothing more.'

  Macca nodded at this and reached into his own jacket, pulling out a hunting knife in a sheath.

  ‘This is a nice knife,’ he said, offering it to Dave. ‘Take it.’

  Dave took the offered knife by the hilt, but didn’t remove it from the sheath.

  ‘I don’t want to fight,’ he said, tossing it to the floor. ‘And you don’t want any of this coming back onto you.’

  Macca faced Dave, currently standing defiantly and, with a quick motion, pulled the roll of twenties out of Dave’s jacket pocket. Turning to Stripe, Macca tossed the roll over.

  ‘Services rendered,’ he said to the small boy. ‘Now bugger off, before you become a witness to what we’re about to do.’

  ‘Wait, wait, wait!’ Dave had his hands up now, realising that he may have gone too far, and was now surrounded by angry teens i
n a deserted car park. ‘You can’t do anything to me if you want me to pass a message!’

  Macca laughed. ‘Jesus, you really are stupid,’ he said. ‘I didn’t say that you were taking a message to the Sisters, I said that you were the message.’

  And with that, he rammed a small butterfly knife into Dave’s gut.

  As Dave screamed out, falling to the floor and clutching at his bleeding stomach, the others in Macca’s gang, led by Harrison moved in, kicking and punching. Stripe, having seen enough, ran from the car park, running north towards Digbeth and safety.

  Macca Byrne and his dad scared him, but it was Harrison that filled his heart with terror. Because no matter what Macca said, Stripe knew that Gabrielle Chapman, Macca’s girlfriend hadn’t been killed in London and buried down south. He knew this because a year ago he’d had a massive row with his mum and dad and had run away for a week, hiding out in the Lickey Hills Country Park, about ten miles south of Birmingham. It had been a hot summer, and Stripe knew that he could easily hide out there until his parents had calmed down, or until the heroin had caused them to forget why they were angry in the first place.

  And it was there, deep in the Lickey Hills, that Stripe had seen Macca Byrne’s right-hand man Harrison drive up late one night with someone else and bury the dead body of Gabrielle Chapman.

  3

  Returning Home

  It felt strange returning to Tottenham North’s Crime Unit, especially when the last time that Declan had been there he had been told to leave on an indefinite suspension. But he was no longer suspended and, with Monroe beside him, he pulled his Audi into a free space in the police car park.

  Before he turned the engine off, he looked to Monroe.

  ‘I still don’t get why Derek would say such a thing,’ he said. Monroe shrugged.

  ‘He’s on some strong meds,’ he replied. ‘Perhaps he’s having hallucinations.’

  ‘He took me in, you know,’ Declan climbed out of the car, looking around the car park. ‘When I left the Military Police and started as a Detective Constable, he was the one that mentored me.’

  ‘On your father’s recommendation.’

  Declan thought back for a moment.

  ‘In the cottage, after the call you kept saying ‘your friend’ when talking about Derek. Not ‘our friend’. But you worked with him too.’

  ‘Aye, I did. But not everyone you work with is your friend,’ Monroe was already walking towards the back entrance to the Crime Unit. ‘Let’s see what he says before we pass sentence.’

  Declan nodded, following Monroe into the Crime Unit. ‘Are you saying you’re not my friend, Guv?’

  ‘Christ no, laddie. I only help you out because of some sad Stockholm Syndrome level devotion to your late father. Didn’t I already tell you that?’

  Declan laughed, but the smile soon faded as the weight of what was about to happen struck him. Although Derek Salmon had helped Declan when he first joined the police, and although in the eight or so years that they’d worked together he’d never seen Derek perform any kind of illegal act, his recent worldview had been shaken by the discovery of his late father’s secret study in his Hurley-Upon-Thames house; a small, hidden room that held a crime wall, covered in images.

  One that held a picture of Derek Salmon upon it.

  Added to that, Declan’s most recent case had shaken his belief in his own father when one suspect had hinted that the officers on a case twenty years ago may have been less than clean; officers that had included then-DC Salmon and then-DS Monroe, now staring at him from the open doorway.

  ‘Are you coming laddie, or shall I just hold the bloody door open all day for you?’ he asked. Declan smiled apologetically, entering the building. Monroe stopped him though, pulling out a handkerchief and dabbing it at Declan’s auburn hair.

  ‘What are you doing, Mum?’ Declan asked.

  ‘You’ve got paint in your hair, you bampot,’ Monroe folded the handkerchief up and stuffed it back in his pocket. ‘Can’t have you looking like an eejit when we see your old boss, now.’

  If it felt strange pulling up in the car park, it felt damn right unnatural entering the actual offices of Tottenham North. Even though Declan had spoken to DCI Farrow since the suspension, the last time he’d actually stood in his office was shortly before he placed his items into a stationery box and left after being effectively fired from the police over a month earlier.

  ‘Good to see you looking healthy,’ Farrow said, emerging from his office and shaking Declan’s hand. ‘You’ve lost weight since I last saw you.’

  ‘More toned up what I had,’ Declan replied. In actual fact, all he’d really added to his routine was running along the Thames when he could, although he’d noticed that there was a distinct lack of burger vans and kebab shops around Temple Inn, which restricted his lunch time options far more than Tottenham ever did.

  ‘Well, whatever it is, keep it up,’ Farrow added. ‘Sorry to hear about Patrick.’

  He looked to Monroe, shaking his hand as well. ‘Glad you’re looking after this reprobate.’

  ‘Well, after you threw him on the scrap heap, someone had to help the poor wee bugger,’ Monroe replied conversationally, his Glaswegian accent seeming to deepen as they entered Farrow’s office. Farrow winced a little at this as he returned to his desk.

  ‘There was nothing I could do about the suspension,’ he said as he sat back down, indicating for the others to join him. ‘Higher voices were demanding it.’

  ‘All the way to Heaven, I hear,’ Monroe continued. As much as he wanted to join in, Declan kept his mouth shut. Monroe and Farrow were both DCIs, and Monroe had a slight seniority advantage.

  ‘So, Derek Salmon,’ Farrow changed the topic. ‘He’s all yours. Please take him off my hands.’

  ‘What happened?’ Monroe asked. ‘I mean, we’ve heard he admitted to murder, but what the hell?’

  ‘I thought the same too,’ Farrow admitted, opening a folder on his desk. ‘I even said I felt the joke was in poor taste. He damn near took my head off for suggesting he was lying. But then I only knew him for a few months. The pair of you have known him for years.’

  ‘And he called for DI Walsh by name?’ Monroe was already pulling out his notebook. ‘Mighty strange. I wouldn't call for Walsh if my life depended on it. Tell me about Angela Martin.’

  ‘Wasn’t my case, so I knew little I’m afraid,’ Farrow said, indicating Declan. ‘Maybe…’

  Declan spoke now. ‘She’s Danny Martin’s daughter.’

  ‘Jesus!’ Monroe exclaimed, almost rising from his seat. ‘And you thought you’d wait until now to tell me that?’

  ‘Yeah. Sorry.’

  ‘Who’s Danny Martin?’ Farrow asked.

  ‘Danny Martin was, well maybe still is an enforcer for Johnny and Jackie Lucas,’ Monroe muttered. 'I knew he had a kid, but I didn't put the two together.'

  ‘The East End gangsters?’ Farrow nodded. ‘Now that makes a little more sense. You think this could have been a gangland killing then?’

  ‘We didn’t think of any kind of killing,’ Declan shook his head. ‘DI Salmon and I worked the case, but it was nothing more than a missing person. Angela simply disappeared. There was talk that she had a secret second boyfriend in the Midlands, and she dabbled in a ton of dodgy shit as well, so we assumed she was running away from her father’s life of crime. Either that or she was making a run from some serious debt collectors.’

  ‘And there was no suspicion of foul play?’

  ‘Well, she hung around with some seriously dodgy people so everything she did hinted of foul play, but not regarding the missing person’s report,’ Declan looked to the floor. ‘But then I suppose that if Derek had done this, he’d ensure that there wouldn’t be.’

  ‘Don’t sentence the man until we know the crime,’ Monroe muttered, looking back to Farrow. ‘I understand that he’s asked for us to take this case on, but Temple Inn doesn’t have custody cells. Can we ask for Mister Salmon to stay
here for the moment? And if possible, could we question him now?’

  ‘Of course,’ Farrow picked up a phone, tapping a number on it. ‘I’ll have him placed in Interview Room Three right now. And as long as I don’t have to talk to him, you can keep him as long as you want here.’

  Monroe and Declan rose from their chairs.

  ‘Thanks, Alan,’ Monroe said. Farrow nodded, indicating Declan.

  ‘He might be a pain in the arse to deal with, but Walsh there is a damn good investigator,’ he replied. ‘If anyone can work out what the hell’s going on here, it’s him.’

  Declan nodded once to show thanks for the compliment, but as he left Farrow’s office with Monroe, he couldn’t help but visualise his father’s crime board; a board that had links to both Johnny and Jackie Lucas on it.

  Danny Martin worked for The Twins.

  Derek Salmon had confessed to his daughter’s murder.

  What if it was true?

  Derek was waiting for them in Interview Room Three. Alone, he’d seemed to waive his right for a solicitor, sitting on one side of the table as Declan and Monroe walked in and sat down at the other. The room itself was unlike the glass walled Interview Room at Temple Inn; for a start the walls were an off-white, green colour and, as the room was slightly below ground level, there was a window high up on the right-hand wall looking out towards the street, too high to see through. Declan had sat in this same room, on this same chair many times over the last decade; and during most of those interactions, Derek had sat next to him, rather than across from him.

  ‘Alright Declan?’ Derek asked, looking to Monroe. ‘Guv?’

  Declan couldn’t reply, shocked at how ravaged Derek’s face was. The weight loss was visible and turned him speechless for a moment.

  ‘Sorry,’ he eventually said, realising how rude he must seem. Derek smiled sadly.

  ‘I know,’ he replied. ‘I feel that way every morning when I look in the mirror.’

  Monroe leaned forwards, as if scared that someone would overhear in the empty room.