TAKEAWAY TERROR: The DCS Palmer and the Serial Murder Squad series. Case No.8
Page 3
Jack Bernard’s mother was a widow in her mid-forties, sharp-faced with little make-up and plain dressed in a grey trouser suit and trainers. She invited them in; they were expected as Gheeta had rung beforehand to arrange a convenient time.
They refused the offer of tea or coffee and sat in the kitchen.
‘You do know I’ve been through all this before with the police, don’t you? I can’t think of anything I can add.’
Palmer turned on his killer smile, guaranteed to melt an iceberg.
‘I know Mrs Bernard, and believe me the last thing we want to do is to cause you further grief. The truth is that Jack was not the only delivery lad to have been targeted by that particular hit-and-run vehicle.’
‘He wasn’t?’ she asked, wiping a tear with her hand.
‘No, nor the only fatality. Two other lads were killed and another two were targets but managed to jump out of the way. So you see it puts a totally new light on the whole thing. It brings Jack’s death out of the hit-and-run accident scenario and into the realms of a serial murder case, and that puts it firmly into my department’s remit. So we will be starting again from the beginning and using all our experience in this area to bring the killer to book.’
‘Oh my God, three of them.’
She was visibly shocked. Gheeta now took over.
‘We have all the reports and case file documents from the original investigation, and if I might just recap, Jack worked for Deliver-Eat on various shifts delivering meals, mainly in the evenings. Is that correct?’
Mrs Bernard nodded positively. Gheeta continued.
‘On that last day he left here to go to work as usual, yes?’
‘Yes, evening shift. He went about five o-clock.’
‘To work for Deliver-Eat?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did Jack work for any other delivery companies that you know of?’
‘No.’
‘Or maybe directly for a takeaway?’
‘No, he liked his job and the company. They always treated him fairly so why would he move? He didn’t earn a fortune but he did okay. He’d only just got that scooter, his pride and joy.’ She smiled at the recollection. ‘It’s at the police pound, or what’s left of it is. I can’t claim the insurance money until I get access to it for the insurance assessor to look at it. Be handy money too, pay off the funeral debt. Awful really, when you see your son off to work and you get back a body, a signet ring and his mobile.’
Palmer noticed Gheeta’s eyes flash directly at Mrs Bernard. He also noticed how she tried to conceal an amount of excitement in her voice.
‘Do you have Jack’s mobile?’
‘Yes, it’s a bit crushed but I can still look through the photos. He liked taking selfies of himself with his mates and their scooters, or mopeds or whatever they’re called.’
Gheeta gave a reassuring smile.
‘Would it be possible for me to have a look at the phone? We won’t be taking it away, but I might be able to find some new evidence.’
‘Of course, just a minute.’
Mrs Bernard left the room.
‘If the SIM card is intact guv, this could open up the case.’
‘Yes, just what I was thinking,’ lied Palmer, who had no idea what a SIM card was.
Gheeta gave him a raised eyebrow.
‘Of course you were, guv.’
Palmer had brought Gheeta Singh into his squad purely because of her knowledge of cyber and IT and was quite prepared to give her the go-ahead on anything to do with those spheres of police work. Her knowledge and expertise had paid dividends in the past cracking open cases, and maybe she was onto something in this case too.
Mrs Bernard returned with a rather battered mobile phone that she handed to Gheeta.
‘Take it away if you think it will help.’
‘Shouldn’t need to, Mrs Bernard. Let’s have a look.’
Gheeta flipped open the battery lid and pulled out the SIM card.
‘That’s all I need.’
She powered up her laptop, slipped the SIM card into one of the side USB ports and tapped away on the keyboard.
‘That’s good, it’s all working perfectly. What I’ll do, if I may, is copy the information now to work on back at the office, so I won’t need to take it away and the phone will be just as it is now.’
‘Yes, please do. If it helps nail the bastard do whatever you like.’
Gheeta already had, and the information was downloaded in seconds. She took the SIM from the USB and put it back into the phone, which she passed back to Mrs Bernard.
‘That’s it, that’s all we need.’
Palmer leaned forward and lay a reassuring hand on Mrs Bernard’s arm.
‘May I ask you a personal question, Mrs Bernard?’
‘Of course.’
‘Did Jack take drugs?’
Mrs Bernard’s eyes widened aggressively.
‘No, no he did not. He hated all that stuff, said he’d seen too many of his friends ruin their lives with drugs. No, he did not take drugs.’
Palmer nodded.
‘Okay, just ticking off the boxes. We have to ask these questions, I’m afraid.’
He stood to go.
‘Well, I think we have all we need to get on with, thank you Mrs Bernard. If you think of anything that might be relevant, just give my Sergeant a call please.’
He nodded to Sergeant Singh who passed Mrs Bernard a contact card. They expressed their condolences again and left.
The families of the other two victims were adamant that their sons worked for Deliver-Eat, which was surprising as Court had denied knowledge of them. This bemused Palmer as their phones both had the Deliver-Eat app installed. Gheeta downloaded their SIM information.
‘Why would he do that, Sergeant? Why would Court deny they worked for him? Pretty obvious the apps would say otherwise?’
CHAPTER 8
The next morning in the Team Room Claire was uploading the forensic and pathology reports whilst Gheeta uploaded the contents of Jack Bernard’s phone into a mainframe computer and set about searching it for clues. She scrolled down the contents until she found what she was looking for – the Deliver-Eat app – and opened it.
‘Right then, let’s see what we can find in here,’ she murmured to herself.
Across the corridor in his office Palmer re-read the Crime Scene Officer reports from the three death scenes. There was one fact that was a constant and soon stood out. He finished his reading and walked across to the Team Room.
‘How much is a normal takeaway meal, twenty quid for two?’
Claire answered without interrupting her inputting.
‘No, that’s a lot. We have an Indian every now and again and it’s about twelve pounds, plus three for delivery.’
Palmer sat down in one of the government contract steel chairs in front of the progress board. The sciatica stabbing his right thigh told him that was a bad move. Too hard a seat.
‘And if a delivery lad delivered four an hour over a five hour shift, he’d take about three hundred quid in an evening.’
Claire turned away from her keyboard and laughed.
‘They don’t do it that way, Sir. If you’re having it delivered you pay by card on the phone when ordering.’
‘Mrs P. pays by cash at the door.’
‘They must know you as a reliable regular customer, not likely to be a hoax call. They get a lot of those and asking for card payment weeds them out.’
‘I see. So for a delivery chap to have over three hundred pounds in his pocket would seem strange, wouldn’t it?’
‘Very strange. Why?’
‘Well, according to the crime scene inventory all three of our victims had over three hundred notes in their pockets.’
He thought for a moment.
‘Claire, give Mr Court at Deliver-Eat a call and
ask if his lads collect money. Don’t tell him why we want to know.’
He busied himself trying to find a position on the government contract steel chair that wouldn’t aggravate his sciatica whilst Claire made the call. He still wasn’t comfortable when she came back with the answer.
‘They don’t collect any money at all. The only cash their delivery boys are allowed to accept is in the way of a tip.’
Palmer nodded.
‘So, we have three lads killed, each with a bundle of cash in their pockets which can’t be accounted for. Where did it come from?’
Gheeta sat back in her chair.
‘Well, with the swab evidence from Reg Frome there was more than food in their pillion boxes. I think I may have the answer, guv, watch the screen.’
The large screen on the wall above the computer terminals lit up with the Deliver-Eat London street map.
‘This is the street map off the hard drive I copied from their terminal at the Deliver-Eat offices.’
She tapped her keyboard.
‘And this is the day Jack Bernard was killed. His call number was 102.’
The screen showed a myriad of numbers all over the screen.
‘And 102 is not shown.’
‘It was his day off, Court told us that,’ said Palmer.
‘Right, but if I overlay the details from Bernard’s mobile Deliver-Eat app onto that map, it tells a different story.’
The number 102 added itself to the map in various locations.
‘Bernard was indeed working, and he must have been working for Deliver-Eat because his jobs were being sent to his Deliver-Eat app.’
‘His mum said he was working,’ said Palmer.
Gheeta nodded.
‘Yes she did, and she was right. He was getting jobs on his app from Deliver-Eat but they weren’t registering on their big screen or on their system. Basically it is very simple to do – with a couple of clicks you can take 102 off the screen but continue to work him.’
‘So somebody inside Deliver-Eat would have to do that wouldn’t they?
‘Yes.’
‘Okay.’
Palmer stood up and rubbed his right thigh, the government contract steel chair having won in the sciatica battle. He knew the importance of Gheeta’s words.
‘We have somebody inside giving out non-registering jobs where money is collected. I think we all know where this is leading.’
Claire gave the answer they already knew.
‘Definitely drugs.’
‘Give me five minutes guv,’ Gheeta said, working her keyboard. ‘I’ll get a list of the addresses 102 – that is, Jack Bernard – picked up from and delivered to.’
‘Okay, in the meantime I think I’ll take a wander down to Organised Crime and have a word. Don’t want to be treading on their toes, and this little scam looks to be very well organised.’
Commander Peter Long, head of Organised Crime at the Met, sat back in his chair and thought for a moment. His office was a glass cubicle in the corner of the OC Team Room. It was a busy room; it was a big department, with several teams working on several cases. Ever since Romania and Bulgaria had joined the EU and their citizens gained right of entry to the UK organised gangs from those two countries had whooped with joy and expanded their drug routes across the channel to take advantage of the UK’s growing population of cocaine- and heroin-dependent idiots.
‘I think you should carry on with it, Justin,’ Long said to Palmer sitting opposite. ‘After all, it’s a serial murder case which is your expertise. And okay, it looks like drugs are involved, but they are involved in most crime these days, especially cocaine.’
He sighed.
‘And I have more than enough on my plate with going after the big boys. You carry on, and give me a shout if you need help.’
Palmer nodded.
‘Okay, but I need to cover my back with Bateman. I don’t want him throwing a fit and saying I’ve exceeded my department’s brief and should have handed it over to you as soon as I knew it was drug-related. So I’ll copy you in on all our daily reports, keep you up-to-date.’
‘Bateman is a pain in the arse.’
‘We can agree on that.’
They both laughed. Assistant Commissioner Bateman was Senior Officer for both of their departments. A product of the fast-tracking from university programme instigated by the Home Office and never having had the experience of years on the beat and real interaction with criminals that Palmer and Long had behind them, Bateman sat in his plush office on the fifth floor along with the other Assistant Commissioners and Home Office liaison staff, pushing paperclips around his desk and coming up with systems and schemes that just seemed to generate more paperwork that he viewed as necessary for the running of his department. In truth it just kept officers glued to their desks filling out reports and forms rather than out catching criminals.
His main purpose was keeping his departments within their prescribed budgets, and one of his aims was to integrate Palmer’s Serial Murder Squad into Long’s Organised Crime Squad, and then put both under the CID Office control and get rid of Palmer and Long. But when he came up with early retirement packages for them both, he met with two immovable objects; and such was the esteem that both were held with inside the force and with the political masters, he had to back down. Battle lines were drawn and regular skirmishes ensued.
‘He will no doubt try to push this case over to you Peter, so be prepared.’
Long thought for a moment.
‘But what if I’m already involved? Then he can’t.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘If I have a man on your team working with you.’
Palmer gave a long smile. Long stood and opened his office door and called out into his team room.
‘Knight! Come in here for a minute, will you?’
DS Knight looked up from inputting a case report onto his computer, shut it down and came over to the office. Long ushered him in and shut the door. Knight was a twenty six tear old Detective Sergeant, smart appearance, fit, cropped hair and glasses.
‘DS James Knight, meet Detective Chief Superintendent Palmer, Serial Murder Squad.’
They shook hands.
‘Heard a lot about you, Sir,’ said Knight. ‘Nice to meet you.’
‘Sit down, Knight.’
Long pulled a chair from the corner and put it by the desk. Knight sat down.
‘How long will you be doing that case report?’
‘Another hour or so.’
‘And then?’
‘DI Kirby wants me to do some discreet surveillance on a target for him.’
‘Does he? Okay, forget that – you are going to work with the Serial Murder Squad. They have a case that would seem to be involving drug mules delivering under the guise of fast food deliveries. Three have been murdered. Seems to me that we could have somebody trying to get a foothold in somebody else’s manor. You know all the main players in the drugs game, so when you’ve finished your report get your things and join DCS Palmer upstairs. I’ll clear it with Kirby. Happy with that?’
Knight was very happy with that.
‘Yes sir’.
‘Good. Off you go then.’
Knight left the office.
‘He’s a good officer, Justin. Been working on the drugs scene for three years – qualified firearms officer too. One of those I’ve in mind for promotion to team leader soon, competent and sensible. I want him back in one piece.’
Palmer rose to leave.
‘If he’s that good I might keep him.’
‘You bloody won’t. Now bugger off and catch a serial killer.’
Palmer stopped at the door.
‘Oh, you’d better tell him to warn his wife she might not see much of him for the next few days or maybe weeks until the case is over.’
‘He’s got a partner not a wife.’
&nb
sp; ‘Well warn her then.’
‘It’s a ‘him’ not a ‘her’.’
Palmer thought for a moment and then shrugged in a resigned manner.
‘Times change quickly Peter, don’t they eh?’
‘Indeed they do Justin, indeed they do.’
CHAPTER 9
It was four in the afternoon when DS Knight appeared at the Team Room door. Palmer and Singh were putting Deliver-Eat details and Court’s name on the progress board, linking them by felt tip to the three victims. Claire was gathering as much information on the deceased and the two who escaped as she could find on police files and social media and inputting it into their databases in the hope some links might emerge.
Palmer did the introductions. Knight looked around the room.
‘Where is everybody?’
Palmer laughed.
‘This is everybody.’
‘Three of you?’
‘That’s right. We don’t have a case load like OC – serial killers are, thankfully, few and far between. But if needed I am allowed to pull in other officers to help or co-opt specialists, like yourself.’
He let Gheeta bring Knight up to speed with the facts so far. The most recent was the information she had pulled out from Bernard’s Deliver-Eat app on the pick-up and delivery addresses for the day he was killed. Palmer and Knight stood watching the big screen as she scrolled down the information.
‘Ten different addresses he delivered to but only two pick-ups, both from the same place – 39 Glebe Street, just off the Charing Cross Road. I’ve checked it out, it’s an Indian takeaway called The Curry Leaf.’
‘Are you kidding?’
Knight looked very concerned as he glanced at Palmer.
’The Arif brothers.’
Palmer hadn’t the slightest idea what he was on about.
‘Who?’