Spider Trap bak-9

by Barry Maitiland

  Kathy, meanwhile, made her way back along Cockpit Lane to the local police station, where McCulloch had arranged facilities for the investigation.As she came to the area closed off to traffic for the markets,she heard a loud throbbing bass rhythm behind her and turned to see an electric-blue Peugeot convertible approaching. The front window slid down, ragga music booming out, and a beefy brown arm followed, draped with a large assortment of gold jewellery. The hand formed itself into the shape of a pistol, aimed at a young man tending the first of the stalls, who gave a quick flash of bright white teeth before the car roared away down a side street.

  The goods on sale in the market were cheap and cheerful, the kind of things that a poor neighbourhood most needed-children’s shoes and clothes, toiletries, parkas, CDs, plastic buckets, cutlery, gloves, small electrical appliances. Almost all the customers were West Indian,the traders too,rubbing their hands and stamping their feet to keep warm as they spruiked their goods. As Kathy threaded through the crowded stalls she felt people looking at her. She wondered if they knew she was police, or if it was just the physical difference, her pale skin and blonde hair, an ashen northerner in a snow-bound Caribbean market.

  She took the right fork where Cockpit Lane divided in front of the church of St Barnabas, and after a couple of blocks came to the police station, where she made some phone calls and picked up a car. An hour later she was in North London, at the offices of the Youth Justice Board with whom Dana and Dee-Ann had been registered.

  She was met by a male senior manager and a younger woman, who was a Youth Offending Teams caseworker. The man wasn’t familiar with the murdered girls and Kathy suspected he was primarily there to protect his department from fallout. He told her that Dana and Dee-Ann had shared the same designated YOT manager, who was currently on maternity leave. Their deputising manager was also absent, on stress leave. Mandy, by his side, on secondment to the YOT from the National Probation Service, looked barely older than the two victims but had worked with them in the past and was, the man assured Kathy, very conversant with their cases.

  The two spoke to each other in a professional private language that Kathy didn’t altogether follow, full of acronyms and special meanings, and she had to ask them to elaborate so that she could take notes. It seemed that between them, Dana and Dee-Ann had pretty well covered the full gamut of custodial and noncustodial sentences, community orders and programs available to the courts. They’d been ASROd and OSAPd, undergone Anger Replacement Training and Personal Reduction in Substance Misuse counselling, been curfewed, locked up and paroled. After the last breach, Mandy explained, the YOT had recommended electronic tagging, but the magistrate had instead put them on the Think First program, from which they’d promptly absconded. They had been missing now for three weeks and an arrest order had been issued.

  Satisfied that Kathy seemed sufficiently baffled, the man told her apologetically that he had other business to attend to, but said that Mandy could fill in the details. He made Kathy promise that if there were any residual issues she would email him immediately. After the door closed behind him, Mandy was silent for a moment,then she said,‘I’ve never seen him in here on a Saturday before. Do you fancy a cup of coffee?’

  ‘I’m dying for one,’ Kathy said.

  ‘There’s nothing in here, but there’s a decent caf across the street.’

  The place was bustling with shoppers taking a break.

  ‘Nothing worked,’ Mandy said.

  ‘What was their background?’

  ‘Oh, you know-abusive families, dysfunctional peer groups, disadvantaged neighbourhoods. They first met when they were fourteen, and they would say it was the first good thing that ever happened to either of them. Apart they were desperate, together they became like two different people,a bonded pair,almost a single personality.I hadn’t come across anything quite like that before.For a while they might be docile, completely absorbed in each other’s company, whispering secrets, but then they’d wind each other up, get into a kind of hysteria, and do crazy, stupid, dangerous things together. So then we decided to separate them, keep them apart. Dana immediately became violent and aggressive, while Dee-Ann went into decline, self-harming and then attempting suicide. So we gave up and put them back together again.

  ‘They were totally infuriating,destructive apart,manic together, uncontrollable either way. But when they were together they could also be full of fun and life, good with the other kids. They loved music and dancing. I’m really sad at what happened to them.’

  ‘Yes. Do you have any idea what they were doing south of the river?’

  ‘That was the first thing I wondered when I heard. I looked through their files. All I could find was the address of a cousin of Dee-Ann’s.I checked it on the map.It’s quite close to Cockpit Lane.’

  ‘Right.’ Kathy noted the details. ‘Any thoughts about who could have got so mad at them, to kill them like that?’

  ‘What, apart from the whole of our department? They could get anyone mad without trying. And there were the drugs, of course. They took terrible risks.’

  ‘Anything specific?’

  ‘They did get in trouble with the local bad boys around here, I know. One time they came looking for the girls in their hostel, and the police had to be called. I wasn’t involved, but it’ll all be on the police files.’

  The woman’s face was young, pretty and fearful, peering around the door.‘What is it you want?’ she whispered, barely audible over the insistent blare of the TV inside the flat. Reluctantly she let Kathy in. A small boy on the sofa barely gave them a glance before returning his attention to the screen. He gave a sudden chuckle at the sound of a cartoon animal shrieking in pain.‘Come through,’ the woman said, and led her into a tiny kitchen barely big enough to contain them. She closed the door against the din.

  ‘You know why I’m here, don’t you, Rosie?’

  The young woman reached for a box of tissues and wiped her eyes. She nodded her head.

  ‘I can arrange for someone to call, to talk to you, if you like. Were you very fond of Dee-Ann?’

  Rosie stopped sniffing at that. She frowned and shook her head abruptly.‘No. I hadn’t seen her since she was little. At first I was glad to see her again. I said they could stay for a while.’

  ‘Did she say why she wanted to come down here?’

  ‘I guessed . . .She didn’t spell it out,but I guessed she’d got into trouble in Harlesden and wanted to keep out of somebody’s way.’

  ‘Any idea who?’

  Rosie shook her head.‘I really didn’t want to know.’

  ‘Okay. So what happened?’

  ‘She came with her friend, Dana. It was a bit crowded, but we got on all right at first. They were nice to Jaryd, my little boy, and we had a bit of a laugh. I took them down the club and we had a good time.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Maybe two weeks ago?’

  ‘And which club was that?’

  ‘The JOS.’

  ‘J-O-S?’

  ‘The Jamaica Omnibus Service. That’s just its name, in Cove Street.Anyway,they stayed here for a few days.Then one afternoon I came back from work and found them in the room there, all doped up. I knew what it was from the smell, and there was this dirty glass pipe on the floor. My Jaryd was sitting next to them, watching telly like now.I went ballistic.I said,You’re smoking crack in my flat and my little boy is breathing it in! They just giggled. I was really mad. I grabbed their stuff and threw it out the window, then I kicked them both out. I couldn’t have them here after that.’

  ‘Did you see them again?’

  ‘The next Saturday night, at the JOS. But I looked away. I didn’t want to have anything to do with them.’

  ‘Were they with anyone there?’

  Rosie blinked. Her mouth opened, then closed again. It was the look of someone who had realised that the path she’d been following had taken her to a place she didn’t want to be.

  ‘I don’t know.’


  ‘Come on, Rosie. Just a name.’

  ‘No, sorry.’

  ‘You’d best tell me. I don’t want to make things difficult for you, but we’ll have to go to the station and get you to give a proper statement.’

  Rosie just looked at her.‘Who’d take care of Jaryd?’

  ‘We’ll get someone to look after him while we talk.’

  ‘No, I mean later.Who’ll take care of him when I’m dead?’

  Kathy looked at her carefully and saw that she meant it.‘Well, Rosie, the thing is, I won’t go away without a name. There must have been other people there. One of them might talk to us.’

  Rosie took a deep breath. ‘I think I saw them talking to one of the band, George Murray.’

  ‘Where can I find him?’

  ‘He lives on Cockpit Lane with Winnie Wellington- everyone knows her. But don’t tell him . . .’

  ‘I won’t say a word. Thank you.’

  From the other room there came the sound of something falling over, with the unmistakeable thump of real life, rather than TV babble. Rosie jumped to her feet and Kathy left her to it.

  She returned to her car and put a call through to Brock, telling him what she’d learned. She heard him discussing it with someone else, McCulloch perhaps, repeating the names, then he came back on.

  ‘Come and pick me up, Kathy,’ he said. ‘We’ll visit George Murray together.’

  She drove through the winding streets, congested now with Saturday traffic, and spotted Brock waiting at the kerb outside the police station, a big man in a long black coat around whom pedestrians were making a wide detour. ‘Where are we going?’ she asked.

  ‘The far end of Cockpit Lane. Winnie Wellington, eh? Who would have guessed she’d still be around . . .’ He seemed lost in thought, staring out of the window.

  ‘You know her?’

  ‘Oh yes. The Tinker Queen of Cockpit Lane. A character.’

  ‘Bob McCulloch was telling me that you used to work here once.’

  ‘Did he? How did he know that, I wonder?’

  ‘He said his DCI told him.’

  ‘Really? Well, yes, I did, ages ago. It feels odd coming back. Like meeting an old friend again after a very long time, trying to square what you see with what you remember. The place doesn’t seem to have changed much, though.’

  ‘Bob thought you must have got out as soon as you could.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t really like that. I came a sergeant and left an inspector, so I suppose it couldn’t have been that bad.’

  Maybe it’ll rub off on me then, Kathy thought.

  She turned into the Lane opposite the school. Parking was difficult with so many visitors to the market and she stopped on a double yellow line behind the police van near the railway footbridge.

  ‘Bren should be here by now,’Brock said,as they went out onto the bridge to watch the activity below. They made him out talking to a group of scene of crime officers,while uniformed men in boots stood waiting nearby, stamping their feet in the snow.

  ‘What do you think it is?’ Kathy asked.‘If it wasn’t for the hole in the forehead I’d have said it was ancient.’

  ‘We won’t know until Sundeep Mehta’s had a look.’

  ‘But in any case, it’s nothing to do with Dana and Dee-Ann, surely?’

  ‘If their killer did throw the gun onto that land, I want to know about it. The boy’s still in a coma, apparently. I’d like to talk to him, find out what he thought he was doing. Maybe he saw something.’

  They turned back to Cockpit Lane and made their way past the school towards the market, in full swing now, people cramming into the narrow aisle between the stalls. Brock pointed to an elderly woman at the first stall, her brown face crowned by a halo of fine grey crinkled hair.

  ‘That’s Winnie. She’s been selling pots and pans here for years. She seemed old when I was here. I’m amazed she’s still at it-and firing on all cylinders, too, by the look of her.’

  They watched as she called to passers-by in a high, piercing voice, then turned to scold the same young man Kathy had seen at the stall earlier, who stood with head bowed, unhappily kicking at the metal frame.When Brock stopped in front of them the old lady abruptly cut off the angry flow and smiled sweetly at him.

  ‘What can I do for you, sir? A nice set of stainless steel pots for dat wife of yours?’ She snatched up a frying pan and brandished it at him.‘You won’t see prices like this in Woolworths,I can tell you.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re right.Winnie Wellington,isn’t it?’

  She lowered the pan and squinted first at Brock, then at Kathy, with fierce probing eyes.‘Are you Witnesses? Because we’re good Catholics here . . .’

  Brock shook his head and showed her his warrant card.

  ‘Coppers? I wouldn’t have thought dat-it’s the beard, I s’pose. Coppers don’t usually have beards.Well, there was one I remember, long ago. I used to tell him, if you want to get on you’d best cut off the beard.Dey don’want no Rastas in Scotland Yard.’Her face split in a laugh.

  ‘I think that was me,Winnie.Twenty-odd years ago.’

  ‘Is dat right? Oh my! But your beard is white now, like my hair. Are you taking this young lady down memory lane? Maybe she’s your daughter?’

  ‘We work together.’

  ‘Another copper? Well, there’s been some improvements in twenty years, at least.’ She winked at Kathy, then her face became serious. ‘I don’t suppose I need to ask what brings you back to Cockpit Lane. Those poor girls?’

  ‘That’s right.We’d like to talk to both of you,Winnie.’

  The lad at her side frowned and eased back, and for a moment Kathy thought he might bolt.

  ‘It’s Saturday market!’Winnie complained.‘My busiest day.’

  ‘And this is murder. Let’s go into the shop. It won’t take long.’

  She shrugged and had a word to the stallholder next to her, then led them towards the door of the shop behind her stall. The sign over the front window read WELLINGTON’S UTENSILS EST. 1930. Seeing Kathy look up at it Winnie said, ‘I’m not that old. My daddy started the business in Trench Town, in Kingston, and then brought it here, and I took it over from him.’

  ‘You’ve been here a long time, have you,Winnie?’

  ‘We came over in 1948 on the Empire Windrush, the first boatload from Jamaica.’

  The front shop had every imaginable metal container stacked on the bare wooden floorboards, shelves and counter-shiny saucepans, galvanised laundry tubs, zinc washboards, colanders, hip baths, watering cans. They stood surrounded by them, like grey ghosts,as Winnie closed the door and said,‘Well,how can we help you?’

  Brock handed them photographs of the two murdered girls, taken from their police records. Kathy saw George’s sulky indifference falter for a second.

  ‘This is dem, is it?’ Winnie said. ‘So young. Ah haven’t seen dem before.You, George?’

  ‘Dunno. I may have seen ’em around.’

  ‘Where exactly?’

  ‘I can’t remember.’

  ‘You play in a group at the JOS, don’t you, George?’ Kathy asked.

  He blinked.‘Yeah, so what?’

  ‘George?’ Winnie was peering at his face suspiciously. ‘What do you know about this?’

  ‘Nothin’. I don’t know nothin’.’

  Brock turned to Winnie.‘Are you two related?’

  ‘No, George works for me on the stall, and rents a room upstairs. He’s a good boy, Mr Brock.’ She put out a hand to touch George’s arm but he flinched and pulled away.

  ‘Are you from around here, George?’

  ‘Kensal Green.’

  ‘Not far from Harlesden, where these two girls came from. You do know them, don’t you?’

  ‘I’ve seen ’em down the club, that’s all,’ he protested, ‘but I don’t know nothin’ about them.’

  ‘They liked your music, didn’t they?’ Kathy said.

  ‘Yeah, they liked good music.’

  ‘So wh
o else did they meet there? Who bought their drinks?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve no idea.’

  ‘George, you tell the truth now!’Winnie sounded alarmed.

  ‘It is the truth!’

  ‘Oh no it’s not. I know when you tell me lies. I can read it on your face.’

  Still George refused to say any more, so Brock said, ‘I’d like to have a look at your room, George. Would that be all right with you?’

  ‘No!’George yelped.‘It’s not all right with me.’

  ‘We can sit here and wait for a search warrant, but it would be a lot better if you did it voluntarily.’

  ‘George!’ Winnie admonished, and his shoulders sagged. He shook his head resignedly and said,‘You do what you want.’

  ‘Thanks,’Brock said.‘Will you lead the way,Winnie? I’d like you to be present too.’

  ‘Don’t you worry,’ the little woman said fiercely, heading around the end of the counter towards a flight of stairs at the back of the shop.

  They climbed past the next floor and up to the attic, where George led the way into his room beneath the slope of the roof. A dormer window was cracked open, despite the cold. Winnie switched on an overhead light and Kathy looked around, surprised at the neatness. She thought that anyone conducting a sudden search of her flat would find it a good deal more untidy than this. There was a keyboard and some CDs and sound equipment on a table near the window, and posters and notices stuck to the walls. Some were printed and others handmade with felt pens on coloured paper, like mock-ups for the printer. On one of these she read:

  War amongs’ the rebels,

  Madness, madness, war.

  George saw her studying it and, when she caught his eye, he said truculently,‘Linton Kwesi Johnson,yeah?’