Death Trap

by Patricia Hall

  He parked on the corner and walked down towards the cafe, scanning the melee in search of someone he recognised, but it was not until he passed an unmarked car parked halfway across the pavement that he spotted DS Eddie Lamb sitting in the driver’s seat smoking contentedly behind the wheel.

  ‘Whatcher?’ he said, opening the passenger door and slipping inside. ‘What’s going on here then? I thought you’d got the owner of Poor Man’s Corner safely locked up.’

  ‘We have,’ Lamb said. ‘It’s Slim Hickman, the bloody DCI. He’s got a bee in his bonnet about bloody West Indians. Says drugs are getting out of control and we’ve to raid as many cafes and clubs as we’ve got manpower for. It’s a complete waste of time, if you ask me. There’s no point rounding up a few people with a spliff, you need to go for the suppliers, and no one will do that because they’re getting too big a pay-off themselves. Around here every other kid at any sort of knees-up is high on ganja.’

  ‘Not just round here either,’ Barnard said. ‘I was offered some at a party myself tonight. They didn’t know I was a copper.’

  ‘So what did you do?’ Lamb asked.

  ‘Made an excuse and left,’ Barnard said, with a laugh. ‘What would you have done?’

  Lamb nodded and did not pursue it. ‘What are you doing round here anyway?’ he asked.

  ‘My girlfriend lives round the corner,’ Barnard said, bending the truth slightly. ‘You know that. I’ve just dropped her off.’

  ‘Going well, is it?’

  ‘Not so’s you’d notice.’ Barnard admitted. ‘You could help me out with something she’s worried about, though, Eddie.’

  ‘What is it this time? She’s already making a nuisance of herself about her bloody landlord.’

  ‘Yes, well, she and her friends are moving out as fast as they can. No, this is about the old woman in the bottom flat who died. Fell over, or something in the garden. Do you know if you’ve got the PM results yet? Was it natural causes? She’s got it into her silly head that there was something suspicious going on. I’m sure it’s just imagination but I could reassure her if you know what really happened.’

  ‘Diabetic coma, it turns out,’ Lamb said. ‘Silly old moo must have forgotten to take her insulin. Nothing suspicious about that. She’d had it for years.’

  ‘Had she just forgotten to take it or had she run out?’ Barnard asked. ‘Surely her doctor would check up on her.’

  ‘Well, we didn’t do much of a search, did we?’ Lamb said. ‘We reckoned it was natural causes, and it’s as good as, isn’t it. I expect the place has been cleared now and her insulin’s gone to the tip. She was an old woman, for God’s sake, she was going to go one way or another. What’s your bird worried about? There was no sign of a break-in, the son didn’t seem to think anything had been taken. What’s the problem?’

  Barnard shrugged. ‘She thinks the son’s up to something,’ Barnard said. ‘I’ll tell her what you said, anyway. Tell her you’re satisfied. So, you’re OK for Tuesday night’s game are you?’

  ‘Yep, I’ll see you in the usual place,’ Lamb said as Barnard let himself out of the car. ‘Take care, mate.’

  Barnard watched as two police vans accelerated away into Portobello Road and turned in the direction of the nick and Lamb turned his car to follow them. He picked up his Capri and cruised down towards Notting Dale, where the cafes and clubs were still in full swing and the pavements crowded. In Westbourne Grove he suddenly braked and jumped out of the car close to where a group of teenagers were standing on a street corner.

  ‘Ben Mackintosh,’ he said as he grabbed one boy by the shoulder. ‘I thought it was you. Don’t you know your mother is going frantic about you? What the hell are you playing at?’

  Ben wriggled out of Barnard’s grip and turned to face him, backed up by half a dozen of his mainly older friends. ‘What it to you?’ he asked, his Jamaican accent strong. There was an accompanying groan of support from behind. ‘Me on mi own now. Dere people aroun’ here who look after us better dan Nelson ever could. Him an old fool, mi father, and look where it got him. Set up by de police, going to jail for something him never did.’

  ‘And your schooling? All the hopes you mother and father had for you?’ Barnard said, knowing from the defiance on Ben’s face that he was wasting his breath.

  ‘Me got better prospects now dan all dat,’ Ben said. ‘Tell mi ma not to worry. Me be fine. Now leave me alone, whitey. You not needed round here. Not needed at all.’

  The group of boys surrounded Ben and walked deliberately away and Barnard knew he could not tackle them on his own. He turned on his heel angrily, knowing that the boy had made his call and his parents had almost certainly lost him to the burgeoning empire of King Devine.

  He walked back to his car slowly, uncomfortably aware that a white face in this part of town at this time of night was attracting attention. But it was not until he had got his car keys out that he sensed real trouble and spun round to face three burly men who had come up behind him quietly and with obvious intent. The first punch was flung before he could evade it and although he did his best to protect himself the assault was too fierce and he quickly found himself on the floor beside the car with fists and boots raining down as he curled up with his arms over his head.

  It was over quickly. The three black men, one of whom he vaguely recognised, though he could not remember where from, did not intend to kill him, he decided later when he had crawled the few feet to the car door, opened it and dragged himself across the two front seats, panting heavily. This was just a warning but he had no doubt that it would be worse next time. He lay there for some time. He could feel blood oozing from a cut on his head, and the rest of his body stiffening up. He tested each limb gingerly to see if anything was broken, but eventually decided that probably nothing was and he dragged himself upright in the driver’s seat and started the engine and drove very slowly back to Highgate to lick his wounds. It was already Sunday morning and he had a day and another night to recover, he thought wearily, and to come up with a convincing explanation at the nick as to why he was black and blue.

  FOURTEEN

  Kate O’Donnell had never been inside a prison before and realised very quickly that she never wanted to visit one again. The echoing, clanging spaces, the dull-eyed men sitting waiting for their weary wives and frightened children, and the wary warders watching every move, filled her with almost as much despair as she could feel in the air around her. She could take pictures of this, she thought, and horrify people outside, but she knew she would never get permission for that. She and Harry Barnard found themselves sitting across a bare table from Nelson Mackintosh in an equally bare visiting room that Monday afternoon sharing an agonisingly long silence. Barnard had called Kate that morning and said he had wangled a visiting order for the two of them to see Mackintosh, and urging her to make time to come with him.

  ‘He won’t open up to me if I go on my own,’ he had said. ‘He’ll just mark me down as another copper, even if I’m not from Notting Hill, but if you vouch for me we might get somewhere. Someone should tell him what’s going on with Ben. It’s best to tell Nelson first, I think. He can break it to his wife. And we can fill him in on the witnesses you talked to. I’ll check them out myself this morning to make sure they’ll stick to their story. Evelina’s probably already told his lawyer but it may not have reached Nelson yet. Can you do it? I really think it might be useful.’

  Kate had agreed reluctantly, but she knew that if she wanted Harry Barnard to stick with her on this she should comply. She told Ken Fellows that she would go back to Notting Hill to take more pictures that afternoon, and go straight home from there, knowing that she could fit a visit to Wormwood Scrubs into her schedule, but now, as Nelson Mackintosh stared at them in total silence, she wondered if Harry’s theory that her presence would help him held any water.

  Mackintosh seemed to have aged years since she had last seen him, and the skin around his eyes looked parched and grey. He sat immob
ile on his chair which was bolted to the floor and looked too flimsy to support his tall frame, his dark eyes blank, as if all the energy had been sucked out of him. The prison officers supervising visiting time seemed to hover unnecessarily close to them while Barnard had just told him gently that he thought Ben was involved with Devine, and Mackintosh had almost doubled up in pain as he absorbed the shock.

  ‘He’s a good boy, a clever boy,’ he whispered eventually. ‘It will kill his mother. Have you told her?’

  ‘Not yet,’ Barnard said. ‘We thought it best to tell you first.’

  ‘So leave it,’ Mackintosh said. ‘I’ll tell her myself when she comes to see me later.’

  Barnard nodded.

  ‘I thought he had a future here,’ Mackintosh said. ‘But when your own people turn into monsters what chance do the young folk have. And you people . . .’ he gave Barnard a venomous look. ‘You people, the police, don’t seem to know right from wrong. Isn’t that a fact?’

  ‘Some do, some don’t,’ Barnard mumbled, giving Kate an embarrassed glance, which Kate had never seen before. ‘In this case . . .’ He shrugged.

  ‘In this case he does,’ Kate said firmly, keeping her reservations to herself.

  ‘One of your colleagues threatened to pick Ben up if I didn’t cooperate with them,’ Mackintosh said. ‘And I’m sure they could find something to charge him with just as easily as they have with me. From what you say, they won’t even have to make it up now.’ His shoulders slumped and Kate could see that he was close to despair.

  ‘We’ve got some good news, too, which we’ve passed to your lawyer,’ Barnard said. ‘Maybe he’s told you already?’

  Mackintosh looked blank.

  ‘Kate here has tracked down a couple of girls who say they saw Janice Jones that night, around the time she was killed, and that she was with two white men. They say they’re willing to give evidence, which is unusual. It could be just the evidence you’re looking for to get out of here.’

  Mackintosh looked at Kate, something like astonishment in his eyes now. ‘Why are you doing this?’ he asked.

  She smiled faintly. ‘Because my friend Tess Farrell liked your boy,’ she said. ‘And I trust her judgment. Because you helped us out when we were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Remember? And I met your wife too, and your friends at the cafe and they’re all sure the police have got the wrong man.’

  ‘You need to talk to my lawyer, Robert Manley,’ Mackintosh said, a faint spark of what might have been hope in his eyes. ‘He’s the only person who can get me out of here.’

  ‘Your wife is going to do that,’ Kate said.

  Mackintosh nodded. ‘He told me he’d heard in the neighbourhood that a white man was involved but he couldn’t find anyone to confirm it. And the police in Notting Hill don’t want to know. They’re very happy to pin it on a black man and keep me in here to placate the white gangs, to make it look as though they have the situation under control. They claim they’re cracking down on black crime, but they pick on me and leave the biggest black gangster in the neighbourhood untouched.’

  ‘Your wife will pass on what we told her to Mr Manley,’ Barnard said. ‘But she doesn’t know I saw Ben later on. It’s best you talk to her about that. He seemed quite adamant he wouldn’t be going home.’

  ‘I need to get out of here,’ Mackintosh said so explosively that the nearest warder looked agitated. ‘I’m due back in court tomorrow morning. He can apply for bail then and this new information should help. Will you talk to him as well?’

  ‘I could maybe see him this afternoon, if he’s free, and give him the details about the two witnesses face-to-face,’ Barnard said. ‘With a bit of luck you may be home tomorrow.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Mackintosh said. ‘But when will my son be home? If I prove my innocence, it’s no help if this business has pushed Ben into the arms of King Devine. How long before he’s sitting here instead of me?’

  Outside the massive gates of the jail, Kate looked at Barnard soberly.

  ‘Do you think he’ll get bail?’ she asked. ‘At least that would let him try to find Ben and get him home as well.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Barnard said. ‘But he’s right. The local nick will fight tooth and nail to keep him inside and pin this killing on him if it suits their agenda. I’ll go and talk to your two tarts again and see if I can get written statements out of them. They won’t be keen but they’ll be even less keen if a black lawyer turns up on the doorstep demanding evidence. If I do get anything written down, Manley will have to say he got it himself, though. If he identifies me I’ll be for the high jump. Neither the local nick nor my boss will wear that sort of interference. But it just might work if Manley plays ball. We only have to put a doubt into the magistrates’ minds. I guess they have a good idea how unreliable the local nick is. It can’t come as a surprise to them, I shouldn’t think.’

  ‘I hope not,’ Kate said. She gave Barnard a faint smile. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  Barnard dropped Kate off in Portobello Road, where the market was in full swing and she planned to take more photographs so that she had something to show Ken Fellows the next morning. Then he parked the Capri and walked to the address Kate had given him just a few houses down from where Janice Jones’s body had been found. He knocked on the door, hopeful that it was late enough in the afternoon for the occupants to be awake. Sure enough, the door was quickly opened by a heavily built blonde with suspicious pale blue eyes and a creased and worn complexion without a trace of makeup.

  ‘I don’t do business here,’ she said before Barnard could open his mouth.

  ‘I wasn’t looking for that,’ Barnard said quickly, hoping his denial didn’t sound as heartfelt as it was as he took in Denise’s blowsy appearance. ‘I’m a friend of Kate O’Donnell’s and I’m here because of what you told her about the murder of Janice Jones.’

  Denise Baker’s eyes widened slightly. ‘You a copper?’ she asked.

  ‘Just a friend of the man they’re trying to fit up for the killing,’ Barnard said. ‘You told Kate you saw her with a couple of men. Do you think you could identify them if you saw them again?’

  Denise glanced up and down the quiet street suspiciously and then waved Barnard through the door into the untidy living room. ‘Connie and me, we both saw her. She was with two blokes. I thought they were coppers at first but they can’t have been, can they?’

  ‘You must meet a lot of the local coppers in your line of work. You’d have known them, surely?’

  ‘Most of them,’ Denise said.

  ‘So, were you close enough to get a good look at these two?’ Barnard pressed her.

  ‘Not then,’ Denise said. ‘But I think I’ve seen them again. Same coats, one big bloke and one smaller, and the small one had a bloody big dog on a chain, an Alsatian, you know the kind. I saw them marching up towards the Gate this morning when I went out to get some milk. It was them with Janice that night. I’d swear it was. They didn’t have the dog, but it was them all right.’

  ‘Would you swear to that in court?’ Barnard asked.

  Denise looked at him uncertainly for a moment and then nodded. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘I guess I would. She didn’t deserve that, little Janice, did she? She was only a kid.’

  With Denise Baker’s signed statement in his pocket, and hardly able to conceal his elation, Barnard drove the half mile to Westbourne Grove and pulled up outside Robert Manley’s storefront legal practice. The door was open to allow a West Indian woman to push a large pram out, and when he went in he found himself face-to-face with a tall, distinguished-looking black man in a smart suit, white shirt and soberly striped tie. ‘Mr Manley?’ he asked.

  The man nodded. ‘And you are?’

  Barnard hesitated but decided quickly that this time he could not conceal his profession. ‘DS Harry Barnard,’ he said. ‘Though I’m not here officially. I work in Soho but I happen to be a friend of Kate O’Donnell who’s a friend of Mrs Mackintosh, Mrs Ne
lson Mackintosh.’

  ‘Ah, yes, the young lady photographer. I met her at Nelson’s cafe. She said she was helping Evelina find Ben. She gave me something the boy had written which will be very useful if this ridiculous case ever comes to trial. I hope to get it thrown out long before that, of course.’

  ‘I’ve got something which may help you do that,’ Barnard said.

  ‘Then you’d better come into my office,’ Manley said. ‘He’s before the magistrates again tomorrow and I am hoping at least to get him bail.’

  It took little more than ten minutes for Barnard to pass on what Denise Baker had told him and to hand over her written confirmation of the facts.

  ‘It sounds very much like the pair of thugs who have been terrorising tenants, including those in the house where Kate O’Donnell lives,’ Barnard said. ‘Denise says that she could identify them if necessary. And she has a friend who will back her story if you need her. I don’t think it would take the local nick long to track them down.’

  ‘I’m sure it wouldn’t,’ Manley said coldly. ‘If that is what they were willing to do. My impression is that they would much rather pin this girl’s death onto my client. So I don’t expect much help from that quarter. Fortunately, I’ve already established an alibi for Nelson. He was undoubtedly in the cafe with a group of friends at the time the police say the girl was killed. Of course, the police will say his friends are lying but I’m sure with this extra evidence I can persuade the magistrates otherwise. They at least are not totally prejudiced.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Barnard said.