Make Them Pay

by Graham Ison

  Forcing Adekunle into the kitchen, the man ordered him to bring one of the chairs back to the living room. Once there he instructed Adekunle to strip naked, before securing him to the chair with several lengths of rope that he took from a shoulder bag.

  ‘And now, Samson, you’re going to tell me all I need to know.’

  ‘Like hell!’ exclaimed Adekunle, but it was destined to be his last act of bravado.

  Three days later, the man parked his car a yard or two away from the camper van. It was exactly where he had instructed the driver to park, on the grass verge and facing north, opposite 21 Bendview Road. That he had selected that address was merely coincidental; the man had no idea who lived there and cared even less. It just so happened that that was the house opposite a suitable grass verge.

  Taking a jerrycan full of petrol from his car, he placed it on the grass close to the van. Creeping stealthily along the left-hand side of the vehicle he slid open the door to the rear of the driver’s seat. Taking out his pistol, and moving rapidly he got in and sat down immediately behind the driver.

  Hearing the noise, the driver turned in alarm. ‘Wer sind sie?’ The sudden intrusion caused him to pose the question in his native language.

  ‘Who are you?’ translated the man mockingly. ‘I’ll tell you, my friend. Right now, I’m your worst enemy.’

  The woman turned in her seat. ‘My God, it’s you,’ she said in faultless but heavily accented English. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I’ve come to settle a debt,’ said the man, fitting a suppressor to his pistol. ‘In a manner of speaking.’ He fired a round into the back of the man’s head.

  The woman cried out in horror as the gun turned towards her. ‘Nein, liebchen, bitte.’ But her plea was to no avail. Roughly seizing the woman’s hair, the man turned her so that she was forced to look out of the windscreen. Then he fired a round into her head too. ‘And that’s for you, you whore,’ he said. He had actually enjoyed killing Adekunle and these two.

  Removing the suppressor from his pistol, he pocketed both. Gathering up the shell cases that had been ejected, he alighted from the camper van. Unscrewing the cap of the jerrycan, he spread its contents liberally over the interior of the vehicle and the two dead bodies. Finally he threw the jerrycan into the van, struck a match and ignited the fuel before returning to his car and driving away.

  TWO

  The sign on my office door informs any interested party that the occupant is DETECTIVE CHIEF INSPECTOR HARRY BROCK HSCC(W).

  I’m attached to a unit called Homicide and Serious Crime Command West that has its headquarters at Curtis Green, a turning off Whitehall in central London and which was once a part of New Scotland Yard. But that was before our beloved parliamentarians claimed the building for themselves and shifted the police to a concrete pile in Broadway that has all the aesthetic charm of a grain silo. Not many people know the whereabouts of Curtis Green, including a large number of police officers, and we’re responsible for investigating weighty crimes from Westminster to far-flung Hillingdon and all the dens of iniquity that lie in between.

  So much for my professional side. As for my social life, what little there is of it, I’m in a wonderful relationship with a gorgeous blonde resting actress called Gail Sutton and we’ve been together for a few years now. I’d met her while investigating a murder at the theatre where she was working. The victim had been Gail’s friend and fellow dancer.

  As Gail and I had both been married before, we’d decided against risking matrimony again. We even lived apart; I had a flat in Surbiton and Gail lived in a townhouse, a mile or two away in Kingston, although I seemed to spend more time at her place than at my own.

  Gail had been married to a theatre director called Gerald Andrews. I’d never met the guy, but from what Gail told me, he sounded a thoroughly dislikable character. However, the union had ended in divorce when, feeling unwell, she’d returned home early from Richmond Theatre one afternoon – she’d been appearing in a revival of Noël Coward’s Private Lives – and surprised her husband in bed with an attractive young woman. The girl, an exotic dancer, usually performed in the nude and this occasion was no different. I’d often thought, since hearing the story, that Andrews must’ve been crazy to let a girl like Gail escape. Just to emphasize the separation, Gail had reverted to using her maiden name.

  But with typical male chauvinism, Andrews had resented Gail’s justifiable objection to his philandering – something that she’d long suspected – and had done his best ever since to thwart her attempts to get decent acting parts. Consequently, she’d been hoofing, as she called it, in the chorus line of a second rate revue called Scatterbrain when I met her.

  My own tale of marital woe was a result of my marriage to Helga Büchner, a nymphomaniac German physiotherapist who’d massaged my shoulder back into working order after a physical confrontation with a gang of youths in Whitehall when I was a uniformed constable. Contrary to the predictions of my colleagues at the nick, the marriage – but not the nymphomania – lasted sixteen years. However, well before that a tragedy occurred that marked the beginning of the end.

  Against my wishes, Helga had continued to work at the hospital after the birth of our son Robert. She had left him with a neighbour while she went to work, but the boy had fallen into the garden pond and drowned. He was four years of age.

  The day that the superintendent had called me into his office to break the news is forever etched in my memory. The police are very good when it comes to personal tragedy.

  ‘I’ve got some bad news for you, Harry,’ said the superintendent. ‘I’m afraid your son has died.’ Without any frills, he went on to tell me exactly what had occurred, just as though he were giving evidence. But that’s the way we coppers prefer it. ‘Take as much time off as you need,’ the superintendent had said. ‘I’ll square it with the guv’nor. Give me a bell if there’s anything you want.’

  The death of our son, together with the ensuing adultery on both sides, finally succeeded in cancelling out the promise of ‘until death do us part’. It was inevitable really; Helga had been carrying on an affair with a doctor at the hospital for quite a few months before I found out. It was no comfort that a colleague told me that the husband is always the last one to find out.

  The last murder in the HSCC West area of responsibility had fallen to a colleague of mine and I knew that I was next on the list. Consequently, I’d decided to take the weekend off secure in the knowledge that it would probably be the last free time I’d have for a while. I’d hoped to spend some of that time with Gail, but she’d gone to Nottingham to visit her parents George and Sally. George was a property developer whose only overt vice was an obsession with Formula One motor racing and the land speed record, both of which he talked about incessantly. Until his wife Sally, herself a former dancer, told him to shut up.

  As a result I was condemned to spending my temporary freedom mooning about the flat, and doing some essential shopping in Kingston.

  Strangely, and to a certain extent unnervingly, things continued to be very quiet for me. Murder and mayhem in that part of the capital for which HSCC West was responsible seemed to have died. To coin a phrase.

  I took advantage of that lull to call Gail and suggest a quiet dinner somewhere.

  We took a taxi from her place to a restaurant a few miles away that served good meals and had a decent wine list. We both knew it well and had been there on several occasions in the past.

  ‘Ah, Mr Brock, how good to see you again,’ said the unctuous proprietor, almost bowing. ‘And you too, Miss Sutton. A table for two?’

  The owner knew I was a police officer hence, I suspect, the excessive servility. He also claimed to have seen several of the shows in which Gail had appeared and was convinced he’d seen her on television, but she’d never appeared on TV. I’d come to the early conclusion that he was a consummate liar with an eye to the main chance: money and staying on the right side of the law. But he employed a first-rate
chef and that was all that mattered.

  ‘You seem to have had a lot of time on your hands recently, darling,’ said Gail, once we were settled at a discreet table. A candle illuminated the space between us.

  ‘Don’t tempt providence,’ I said, little knowing that she’d just tempted it once too often. We ordered an aperitif and mulled over the menu.

  We enjoyed our meal, despite frequent solicitous enquiries from the proprietor wishing to know if we were satisfied. My only regret was that I could no longer complete my enjoyment with a cigarette. But Gail was unsympathetic; she was always encouraging me to give up the habit, even though she occasionally smoked herself.

  ‘A nightcap at my place?’ asked Gail.

  I knew what that meant and readily agreed. Somehow, I finished up staying the night. Again.

  On Thursday the seventeenth of July, a red and white California T5 Volkswagen camper van parked on a patch of grassland just off Bendview Road in Richmond, Surrey. The tourists, if that’s what they were, had probably stopped there because the location afforded a magnificent panoramic view of the curve in the river Thames, from Richmond Bridge in the north to Marble Hill Park in the south.

  The presence of the vehicle had first been noted by the crew of a patrolling police car at a quarter past eleven the previous night. The crew had paid it scant attention other than to note that lights were on behind the curtained windows. The driver’s colleague saw that the van was rocking slightly and made a coarse comment.

  At ten to one in the morning of Friday the eighteenth of July, the crew of the same police car received a call from the despatching sergeant at Richmond police station to a fire in the camper van they’d noticed earlier. Acknowledging the message, the operator turned on the blue lights and the driver accelerated away.

  When the police car arrived the van was burning furiously, the flames leaping some ten feet into the night sky. The fire brigade was already in attendance, but despite the efforts of its crew little could be done to save the van or the occupants. By the time the firefighters had quelled the flames all that remained of the vehicle was a blackened burnt out shell with blown-out windows and deflated tyres. Black smoke still rose into the air and black flecks of debris were spirited away in the slight breeze.

  And that’s when it got complicated.

  ‘Well, that’s it, mate. We’ve done our bit,’ said the fire chief, ‘but you might be interested to know that there are a couple of charred bodies inside.’

  ‘Wonderful,’ said the police car driver, hands in pockets as he surveyed the smoking debris. ‘That’s all I need. We’ll be lucky if we get off duty by seven.’

  ‘Well, it’s not my problem, pal. By the way, the van’s got German number plates.’

  ‘Even better,’ said the PC. ‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you? Anything else to cheer me up?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said the fire chief, laughing as he removed his helmet and wiped his brow with a grubby handkerchief, ‘there seems to be a strong smell of petrol. More than I’d expect in the circumstances.’

  ‘What are you suggesting?’

  ‘Could’ve been started deliberately, but it would need an arson investigator to say for sure.’

  ‘It’s all too much for me, mate.’ The policeman turned to his colleague. ‘Better put in a call for the CID,’ he said.

  I just hate being woken up at half past three in the morning by my mobile phone playing a silly little tune. However, it’s one of the penalties of my job that wherever I go, it goes. My late father tried to encourage me to become an accountant, but I knew that I’d’ve died of boredom if I’d pursued a career in bookkeeping. After leaving school, I spent three weary years as a clerk with a water company, but on my nineteenth birthday, I decided that the commercial world was not for me and I joined the Metropolitan Police. Even now I’m not sure I did the right thing, but I might as well hang in there for my pension.

  Not that the old man was a great judge when it came to career choice; after a lifetime spent driving an Underground train on the Morden Line, he died of pulmonary emphysema four weeks into his retirement. He left me nothing but a pile of pornographic magazines, a clapped out vintage motorcycle and a crop of unpaid bills.

  However, back to the present problem. Hoping to reach my wretched phone before it disturbed Gail I grabbed at it, but managed only to knock it to the floor.

  ‘Damn the bloody thing!’ I muttered, leaping out of bed, stubbing my toe, and only just restraining myself from using an obscene epithet.

  ‘What are you doing, darling?’ asked Gail in her sleepy, sexy voice as she turned and stretched sensuously. She always stretches sensuously.

  ‘Trying to answer my bloody phone,’ I said, as I scrabbled about on the floor in an attempt to find it. ‘Harry Brock,’ I snapped, having finally reunited myself with the small black box that is the bane of my life.

  ‘It’s Gavin Creasey, sir, at the incident room.’

  ‘D’you know what bloody time it is, Gavin?’ I asked, somewhat testily. Sitting naked on the floor with my back against a bedside cabinet is not a position conducive to good humour when conversing with a detective sergeant.

  ‘Yes, sir, it’s twenty-five to four. In the morning, that is.’

  ‘I hope this is important, Gavin.’

  ‘A burnt-out Volkswagen camper van has been found in Richmond, sir. There are two dead bodies inside. And you’re next on the list.’

  ‘Why should that concern me? It’s just a fire, isn’t it?’ I was doing my best to avoid getting involved in this distant tragedy, hoping that it was an unfortunate accident, but I knew instinctively that I was on a hiding to nothing. ‘What’s the SP?’ I asked, culling a useful bit of jargon from the sport of kings that, when used by a CID officer, was a request for the details.

  Creasey explained, in a masterpiece of brevity, what had occurred, including the comment by the fire chief about an excess of petrol fumes. Then he added the crippler. ‘The commander has directed that you investigate.’

  That was all I needed. The day had started early and badly and could only get worse. The one redeeming feature was the thought of the commander being roused in the wee small hours, and the earbashing that he would undoubtedly have received from his harridan of a wife at being disturbed by something as trivial as a couple of dead bodies in a fire-ravaged camper van.

  I’d never met Mrs Commander, but I’d seen her photograph on the commander’s desk, and that was enough. I’d always regarded it as an awful warning against matrimony.

  ‘Dave Poole is on his way, sir,’ continued Creasey. ‘Doctor Mortlock is the duty Home Office pathologist and he’s en route to the scene as I speak. And I’m just about to raise DI Ebdon and the rest of the team.’

  ‘Don’t bother Miss Ebdon, Gavin. There’s no point in all of us turning out, at least not yet,’ I said. ‘And arrange for a traffic car to pick me up,’ I added, finally admitting that I was lumbered.

  ‘Right, sir. Would you by any chance be at Miss Sutton’s place?’ Creasey enquired with cunningly feigned innocence.

  ‘You know bloody well I am,’ I said. It was an open secret among my team that I spent a lot of my time at Gail’s house. And knowing how CID officers’ minds worked they’d probably deduced that much of it was spent in her bed. And they’d be right.

  ‘I’ve been called out, darling,’ I said to Gail, who was now wide awake. ‘It seems that a couple have been barbecued in a camper van in Richmond.’

  ‘I’ll make you a cup of tea,’ said Gail, completely unfazed by this momentous announcement. Slipping out of bed completely naked apart from Chanel Cristalle, she sashayed across the bedroom and made for the door. Deliberately waggling her voluptuous derrière, she glanced over her shoulder and shot me a lascivious smile. I do wish she wouldn’t do that just when I’ve been called out.

  I drank my tea, pecked Gail on the cheek and left. Reluctantly.

  ‘Mr Brock is it?’ asked the traffic car driver, as I sleepw
alked out of Gail’s house.

  ‘That’s me.’

  ‘Where to, guv?’

  ‘Bendview Road, Richmond.’

  The traffic guys, known to us of the Department as the Black Rats, got me to my destination in a hair-raising siren-filled seven minutes.

  ‘Sorry it took so long, guv,’ said the driver, grinning broadly. ‘Always have to be a bit careful at night. People tend to take chances, jumping traffic lights and that sort of thing.’

  ‘Yeah, thanks a bundle,’ I said, shakily alighting from the car. If the journey had taken less time, it would’ve been positively suicidal. I know I shouldn’t have worried – the Met’s drivers are among the finest in the world – but I’m only human despite what my subordinates might tell you.

  The road had been closed and police officers, male and female, normally scarce during the daytime, seemed to be there in abundance, most of them doing not very much.

  ‘And you are?’ An officious uniformed inspector approached me clutching a clipboard and waggling a pen. He was what the Metropolitan Police likes to style ‘the incident officer’.

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector Brock, HSCC West,’ I said.

  ‘Right, sir.’ The inspector carefully recorded my details without which an investigation couldn’t possibly begin. Once again, I reflected that solving crime is easy, but paperwork’s the tricky bit. ‘Your people are already here, sir,’ he added helpfully.

  ‘I should hope so,’ I muttered, ducking under the inner tape.

  ‘Morning, guv,’ said Dave Poole, all bright and perky as usual.

  Of Caribbean origin, Detective Sergeant Poole is my assistant, what in the trade we call a bag-carrier. What I don’t think of, he does, and we enjoy an excellent working relationship, unlike that invention of fiction, the oppressive senior officer who is always rude to his subordinates. That most definitely does not work in practice.