by Sarah Flint
‘Send a photo of him to Charlie’s phone,’ Hunter instructed Bet. ‘You’ll be able to recognise him from when he ran away, won’t you?’ he turned towards her, waiting for the image to pop up on her screen and Charlie was immediately aware that the question was more of an instruction, than an actual enquiry.
‘Sending it now,’ Bet confirmed over the airwaves. ‘And guess what he’s got?’
Charlie’s phone pinged and a photo started to download, but before any of them had a chance to give Bet their thoughts, the answer became clear. Staring out at them all from her phone screen was Karl Ferris, the man wearing the hat and grey jacket who had just run away, and there, in the centre of his forehead, as clear as day, was a red inkblot birthmark.
*
Karl Ferris’s wife was timid and easy to brush to one side. She tried initially to block their entry but, at the sight of three burly bodies, put up little resistance to their progress. They were police officers and they had followed a man who was wanted by the courts and seen him enter the flat. They were coming in whether she liked it or not. Naz stayed at the rear, while Paul, Charlie and Hunter quickly spread out, checking each room individually, but there was no one else about. Karl Ferris was obviously hiding.
As they were about to start a comprehensive search of each room, Charlie heard the sound of the dog van pulling up outside.
‘Wait a minute, guv,’ she said, smiling. ‘The dog unit’s just arrived. Let’s see if the handler wants to put their dog through its paces.’
Hunter nodded his agreement, striding outside to give the handler their brief. The German shepherd took no persuading. Straining on his leash, he yelped and squealed his enthusiasm as his handler unclipped the lead and issued his instructions.
‘Find him, Ace.’
With a bark, Ace took off, running through the flat, stopping and sniffing, jumping across the furniture, his nose pressed into every nook and cranny. As he entered the bedroom, his movements became more frenetic, letting out a low whine as he jumped on and off a double divan bed pushed up against a wall. A few seconds later and the dog was barking continuously and loudly, its teeth snapping just a few inches away from the mattress. The handler clipped the lead back on, holding Ace to heel as the eager dog barked and growled with its scented discovery.
Charlie stepped forward and pulled open the two side drawers of the divan before slamming them shut and lifting the edge of the mattress, but all seemed intact. Ace continued to bark, straining at the lead and attempting to jump on to the bed, so she tried it again, this time lifting the whole mattress and bedding high up and propping it against the wall. As she did so, a long thin gap became visible within the bed frame against the wall, where the two far drawers had been removed. And lying within the gap was the figure of Karl Ferris, his hat pushed far back on to the top of his head and the inkblot birthmark as clearly visible as on the CCTV when he dismounted the bus and made off in the direction of Florence Briarly.
14
It was still raining when Thomas walked out of Jason’s flat later that morning. Not a heavy downpour, just a light spring shower. He turned his head heavenwards, letting the water cover his face with a layer of fine spray, and rubbed his hands across his skin, feeling its freshness replacing the sweat and dirt. He felt alive, more alive than he’d felt for years. He was taking back control. The last few nights were moulding his future. Soon, Catherine would have a husband in whom she could be proud, and Emma would have a father, but for now he just needed to finish the job.
Most of the stolen gear remained hidden under several old blankets in the boot of his car, only the rucksack having been transported into Jason’s to begin the celebration. Unloading too many bags into a crack house in the middle of the night would invariably arouse suspicion. Leave it to the daylight, when it would seem more natural, and there were fewer cops sniffing around, the majority being kept busy on routine calls.
The car was as he’d left it, and the area was quiet, the rain keeping the locals confined to barracks. Grabbing the remaining two holdalls, he made for the flats.
‘This should keep these two busy for some time,’ Jason laughed as Ebony and Ivory immediately started to squabble over the pickings. He waggled a stained, yellowing finger at the girls. ‘Choose a few bits each and then Tommy can shift the rest. I don’t want this amount of gear lying around waiting for the cops to find.’
Jason swung round, clapping him round the shoulders. ‘You did well, Tommy. Even Rocky was impressed. Next time, I’ll give you a decent job. There’re a few good quality drums round here that could use decluttering, if you know what I mean? Too much gear! Too little space! But I’ll give you a break first. Let you make contact with that ghost wife of yours!’
‘Fuck off, Jason.’
He tensed as Jason rippled his hands out in the air in front of him, moaning and wailing, clearly playing to a sniggering Ebony and Ivory. The pleasure of the preceding praise was lost in a flash.
‘OK, OK. Don’t lose it again. I’m only joking.’ Jason stopped abruptly, producing a list from his pocket and handing it to him. ‘I won’t mention her again. Now, go and get rid of the gear at these places. I’ve negotiated a price. It’s a fiver for each bottle of spirits and a couple of quid for each box of fags. Don’t let them fob you off. I can shift this stuff anywhere if they want to argue about prices.’
Thomas eyed the amount they had. It was probably a few grands’ worth, but at those prices they’d be lucky to get a few hundred.
‘This can’t be right?’ He scanned the piece of paper, amazed at the list of names, many of which were small retail outlets, not unlike the one he’d nicked the gear from in the first place.
‘They’re the best ones,’ Jason snorted. ‘They know it’s all fucking hooky, but they can make a fortune selling it on, the greedy bastards. Sometimes they even know where it’s been nicked from, but they don’t care. And if it’s their shop that’s screwed the next time, well, they just claim off their insurance and buy it back.’
‘So it’s a win-win for everyone.’ Thomas smiled at the simplicity. Market forces. The same old basic principles of supply and demand. If there wasn’t a market for stolen goods, none would be nicked in the first place.
He loaded up what was left of the gear into the holdalls and headed for the door.
‘Don’t be too long now, Tommy,’ Jason was grinning again. ‘Rocky has an errand he needs to run, and he’s asked especially for you.’
‘Cheers, Jason.’ He slammed the door behind him with his dealer’s endorsement ringing in his ears. He’d get rid of the gear quickly and competently and Jason would reward him, exactly as he deserved.
*
Karl Ferris was repulsive. Charlie could barely deign to look at him, never mind speak to him. He was dirty, he was disgusting and he had a disconcerting way of staring out of one eye while the other roamed up and down her body. There was not a single redeeming feature to the man.
Now, as she ushered him into an interview room, she watched, with barely concealed revulsion, as he splayed himself across a chair, wiped his nose with the back of his hand and scratched hard at his scalp. After booking him in at the custody office in Brixton, she had written up her arrest notes slowly, wishing she could leave him locked up in a cell forever. He had been arrested on suspicion of being involved in the series of burglaries, culminating in the murder of Florence Briarly and the rape of Maryanne Hepworth, but what suspicion they had was tenuous, based as it was on two CCTV recordings and his history of violence, in the main towards women. They would need much, much more. To that end, the interview would concentrate on getting an idea of the man and his motivations, obtaining alibis and trying to trip him up.
An ID parade was being arranged for the next morning, before his attendance at court for skipping bail. Maryanne Hepworth and the manager of Sunny Meadows had been contacted and would be attending, but they’d drawn a blank on Glenys Jones, manager of Applewood House. Much as she’d love to know if
Karl Ferris was the rather unsavoury volunteer, she was fast coming to the conclusion that if Glenys remained elusive, they might never know.
With only a finite number of hours in which to keep the man in custody, they would then have to make the decision whether to keep him for further questioning after the court hearing or release him to the world and conduct surveillance instead.
A lot would depend on the interview that she and Paul would now be conducting.
They had been tasked to get an account of Ferris’s movements on the date of Florence Briarly’s murder and some of the other offence dates. It was highly unlikely he would give much, if anything, away, especially with the presence of a solicitor to keep his mouth firmly closed, but, with any luck, he might at least give them a few morsels to check out, or an alibi to be confirmed or disproved.
‘You’ve been arrested on suspicion of the murder of Florence Briarly, and a series of linked burglaries,’ Charlie started, speaking softly.
Her instructions from Hunter had been to try to engage the man, to put him at ease and connect with him, while Paul would be the strong arm, if required. It was a strategy that had kept them both entertained, with Paul’s arm and wrist being more Russell Grant than Grant Mitchell and Charlie being more Sporty Spice than delicate pink Baby Spice or pouting Posh. Good cop, bad cop, Hunter had reiterated, much to their amusement. Nonetheless, Charlie would use what feminine wiles she had to get a result, and Paul would attempt to beef himself up to at least give the appearance of being macho.
‘You understand you’re still under caution?’ she spoke the words of the caution from memory, looking him straight in the face as she did so, trying to maintain eye contact.
Karl Ferris nodded and scratched his head again, freeing a few flakes of dried skin to drop on to the collar of his shirt and beyond.
‘Yeah, I understand,’ he drawled. ‘What the fuck’s all this got to do with me though?’
She tried to ignore the light dusting of dead skin that was now dropping on to the desktop. ‘Florence Briarly was found dead two days ago on Tuesday April 24th. She was last seen by her neighbour at around lunchtime on Monday the 23rd when she was on her way back from the shops.’
Karl Ferris closed his eyes and drummed his fingers on the table.
‘She went by bus to the shops and returned on the same bus. We can see her getting off very clearly on CCTV at 12.16. And you get off at the next stop and double back in her direction,’ Charlie continued.
‘Really,’ Karl Ferris opened his eyes and shook his head towards them both. ‘Is that it?’
‘Where were you heading?’
‘I don’t see that’s any business of yours.’
‘It is when you get on to a bus directly after an old lady and you can be seen paying a lot of attention to her, and then that same old lady ends up dead the next day.’ She kept her face directly at eye level with Ferris. ‘So where were you going to?’
‘A friend’s.’
‘What’s their name?’
‘I don’t have to tell you.’
‘No, you don’t have to tell us.’ She kept her voice low and reasoned. ‘And at the moment we’re just making enquiries, but it would help us to rule you out if you had an alibi that we could verify, because at the moment it appears that you followed our murder victim on to the bus and then tracked back when she got off to find her again.’
Karl Ferris drew his lips together and frowned. ‘I don’t even know who this old woman is that you’re talking about.’
Paul pulled a photo of Florence Briarly out of the file he was holding and pushed it towards Ferris, while she watched their suspect closely as he gazed down at the image of the old lady in her garden, a glimmer of recognition appearing across his face.
‘So you recognise her then from the bus?’ she asked.
Karl Ferris snorted, turning towards her with a scowl. ‘No. I recognise her from the TV. Her murder was all over the news, and her daughter and neighbour were doing an appeal. The old boy was ex-services, weren’t he? Kept going on about doing the right thing.’ He snorted again. ‘As if that was really going to work.’
‘So you do know exactly which old lady we’re talking about,’ Charlie persisted, noting immediately his reference to the armed forces. It seemed a strange thing to mention.
Karl Ferris said nothing.
‘Because it’s the same old lady that you tailed on to the bus two weeks earlier and tracked back to follow that time too.’ She leant forward staring directly at Ferris. ‘Were you tailing her on purpose, to see where she lived? So you could find out her routine and whether she lived alone?’
‘You’re talking bollocks and you know it,’ Ferris spat out, noticeably rattled. His hands were shaking and he moved them up and down over his face constantly, one moment covering the inkblot birthmark, the next placing them firmly on his knees.
‘Were you following her so that you could return on the night of the 23rd and break into her home? Because you like old people, don’t you, Karl. You like to talk to them, befriend them. You want to become friends with them, don’t you?’ Paul took over, leaning forward so that he was level with her, both singing from the same song sheet, both staring straight into his face
Ferris gulped loudly, breaking his gaze away from them and glancing down at his feet. Charlie held her breath, as his eyes flicked all around the room. Paul had the man on the ropes.
‘Because you don’t have any other friends, do you?’ Paul let a small sympathetic smile flicker on to his lips but kept his face neutral. ‘And that’s why you can’t tell us the name of the friend you were visiting? Because there isn’t one.’
*
‘Nice job,’ Charlie congratulated Paul as they made their way back to the office, afterwards. ‘You piled the pressure on well. He was lying, you could tell because he suddenly got nervous. He’s up to something.’
‘I thought the same.’ Paul looked as if he was allowing himself an imaginary pat on the back. ‘Trouble is, we still don’t know what.’
They lapsed into silence as they walked. After that point in the interview, Karl Ferris had refused to answer any more questions, choosing instead to make no comment. They’d asked him about his movements on the night of Maryanne’s rape and on the various dates when the series of break-ins had occurred and given him every opportunity to account for his whereabouts, but he’d refused to utter another word, sinking down into his seat and barely looking up at anything further that was said. His stance reminded her of how he had appeared when seated at the rear of the bus, unengaged, vacant, almost as if his whole persona was in a different location… until Florence Briarly had caught his interest.
Something was going on inside his head. There was definitely a secret that he was keeping, but as yet they had no idea what.
A lot would now be resting on the identity parade. Maryanne Hepworth would be their main witness. She would get the chance to pick Karl Ferris out and, if she was able to do so, it would link her case with the others definitively, and him further to Florence Briarly’s murder. Every single member of the team would be holding their breath, praying that she succeeded. Until then they would continue to interrogate his Oyster card for the details of his travels and scan every single minute of any CCTV that they could find. His flat would be searched and his wife interviewed, but it would remain to be seen whether any of these would yield further evidence.
As they entered the foyer of Lambeth HQ, Charlie’s attention was drawn to the numerous photos of senior officers standing resplendent in ceremonial dress, not unlike those proudly displayed by members of the armed forces.
She stopped for a few seconds, her heart starting to pound as she stared at the uniformed figures. It had been strange that Ferris had mentioned the fact that George Cosgrove was ex-military and the gist of what he had said on TV. It had bothered her when he had said it – and it was still bothering her now.
15
‘Hey, Tommy, my man. Meet me on Brixton Hill j
ust outside the video store in half an hour. I’ve got something to collect from a friend and I need some wheels.’
Rocky’s voice was loud and clear and there was no point in arguing. Besides, a few more brownie points would do him no harm.
As Thomas drove, he could feel the wad of notes burning a hole in his back pocket. Four hundred and fifty quid cash in total, the proceeds of his sales. Jason would be expecting that later, but first he would get this done.
The video store was a well-known meeting place, and as he approached, he could see Rocky leaning against a lamp post outside. He wore a pair of designer sunglasses, with a single diamond in the frame, reflecting the sun, which now hung low over the roofs.
The smell of cologne followed Rocky into the car, its mellow cedarwood scent instantly replacing the stench of cannabis. Within seconds, the stereo was blasting out grime music and his passenger was keeping himself amused at the sight of other motorists swivelling round to locate the source of the commotion, only to turn away the second he caught their eye.
‘Head towards the front line and I’ll direct you,’ Rocky shouted over the racket.
Thomas did as instructed, arriving at the ‘front line’ in Coldharbour Lane within a few minutes. It was the street in which he’d first met Jason so many years before and was the main place in which illicit drugs were bought and sold. The regular dealers were out in force, flitting in and out of shop doorways, plying their trade to home-coming commuters, while being careful to avoid the eyes of the CCTV cameras. Rocky seemed to know the majority of the dealers, waving and gesturing as they edged past slowly. It made Thomas aware that he was still a relative newcomer to life on the streets. He would have to take care.
Passing through a set of lights, they approached the ‘barrier block’, a vast imposing wall of brick and concrete, towering skywards to his right. Rows of wavy, coloured brickwork ran along the length of it, the architect’s attempt, no doubt, to make the estate appear more colourful and welcoming. A few windows were dotted along the wall at random but were insufficient to prevent the vast concrete block appearing like a huge fortress rising up from the street below.
