Team Spirit (Special Crime Unit Book 1)

by Ian Mayfield

  ‘I was going to.’

  ‘Do it!’ Sandra harangued her. ‘Ask his friends, or better still his friends’ wives. You might find out what exactly’s been going on, put you out of your misery.’

  ‘Sooner ask him straight.’ She stood up, loosening the towel and starting to rub herself dry.

  ‘Then why don’t you?’

  ‘If he’s still talking to me.’

  Sandra couldn’t believe her ears. ‘If he’s still...? Christ on a broomstick, Nina, anybody’d think you were the one going over the side.’

  A horrible thought occurred to her.

  ‘No. All right?’ Nina said indignantly.

  ‘That’s more fucking like it!’ Sandra grinned. ‘Go home and talk to him, or phone, even.’

  ‘What if he’s with her?’

  ‘Listen, he’s proved he’s stupid. But,’ she hoped there was a twinkle in her eye, ‘I don’t think he’s that stupid.’ Nina didn’t answer. ‘Just give him a call. What’ve you got to lose?’

  Nina discarded the towel and tugged a pair of dark blue briefs up her legs. Sandra had barely enough time to avert her eyes. ‘My marriage.’

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake.’

  ‘You’re right,’ she barked, flinging the bunched-up towel at Sandra in a half-hearted way. ‘You win. I’ll talk to him, you cow.’

  She did up her bra, pulled a black t-shirt over her head and scuttled across to the mirror to do her make up. When she was sure Nina wasn’t watching, Sandra puffed out her cheeks and let out a long, silent sigh of relief.

  ‘I saw that, bitch.’ Nina’s reflection glared out at her. But for the first time in days, there was a faint smile there.

  Tuesday

  The blown-up Polaroid of Debbie Clarke had been overshadowed - if that were possible - by the return to prominence on the board of the prison photograph of the man who, according to Macmillan, was one half of the engine behind Thrall. Kim found her eye deflected by its subject’s baleful stare, and drawn back instead to the picture of Debbie. Something about it bothered her, though she couldn’t say what.

  ‘Michael Philip Quaife,’ she said to the half dozen members of the team who were present. ‘He’s just done three years for armed robbery; released on licence four months ago. He’s been identified by a Miss Grace Carmichael as the man who threatened her in Lewisham on Friday. Miss Carmichael is Mark Watkins’ cousin. She recognised him as a face in the crowd from the time of the murder enquiry and the trial. NCIS have confirmed he was active around that time.’ She explained to her audience the nature of Quaife’s threat.

  When she’d finished Sophia stood up. ‘Any questions?’

  ‘Why?’ Jeff piped up, voicing what everyone was thinking.

  ‘Why draw attention to himself, you mean?’ Kim said. ‘Me and Marie have been wondering that since yesterday and haven’t come up with anything that makes sense. We talked to the DC who took the complaint. He knows Miss Carmichael, or at least he knows her significant other: solicitor, quite often represents people who pass through that nick. Didn’t pick up on anything we didn’t, though.’

  ‘Is it possible,’ Zoltan suggested, ‘Miss Carmichael knows something about the fire or about Debbie Clarke? Or Quaife thinks she does?’

  ‘She reckons not,’ Kim said. ‘Obviously she knows Luke Benton and Debbie, but not well enough, it seems like.’

  ‘What do we know about Quaife’s movements since he got out?’

  ‘His probation officer found him a bedsit in Motspur Park,’ Sophia said. ‘As far as he’s concerned he’s still there. He was complying with his licence requirements and doing some casual jobs, including, would you believe, a roadie for a heavy metal band.’ This got a chuckle. ‘I say was,’ her face clouded, ‘because his landlady says he moved out two weeks ago, leaving no forwarding address. And since he’s neglected to inform the probation service, it’s likely he’ll also miss his next appointment with them.’

  There were no other questions, so she asked Marie for a summary of progress on tracking down the people from the squat. So far there was precious little. Meredith and his cronies had gone to ground. It was starting to get people down, and the conference broke up in discontent. Nina Tyminski came and stood by Kim’s shoulder, following her gaze. She was staring at the two photos.

  ‘What’s on your mind?’

  ‘I dunno,’ Kim said. She pointed to the picture of Debbie’s body. ‘You sent the exhibit in. What did the lab say?’

  ‘Not much.’ Nina made a face. ‘Bog all to go on, really. Taken indoors, using a built-in flash. The paper’s Kodak Instant; similar process but not actually Polaroid.’

  ‘Same result, though.’

  ‘Yeah, and just as common.’

  ‘Not so much these days. Speaking of which, why not use digital?’

  ‘Dunno. Traceable? Too slow?’ Nina peered at the picture. ‘Twelve obvious wounds that we can see, but without an actual body the pathologist wasn’t going to commit himself on what might’ve made them.’

  ‘I can imagine.’ Kim pointed vaguely. ‘That many wounds, there should be more blood.’

  ‘Well, it’s not set in stone. You know what a crap shoot it is trying to determine what sort of weapon’s been used, even when there’s an actual body to look at.’

  ‘Something’s wrong with this picture.’ Kim’s face was convulsed in an expression akin to pain as she tried to wrestle the information out of her subconscious.

  ‘You wouldn’t give it top marks for composition,’ Sandra, who was passing, said flippantly. ‘Mind you, with a naked dead girl, be hard to concentrate.’

  ‘Piss off,’ Kim said.

  Sandra stuck her tongue out at her and left the room. Nina said, ‘Only connection I can see at the moment, we’ve got a big dangerous bastard with a knife out there somewhere and a picture of a corpse with big knife wounds.’

  ‘That’s not it, though. There’s summink else. Summink about this actual photo.’ She stabbed her finger at it as if trying to goad it into giving up its secrets.

  ‘I’ll chew it over. Maybe if we blow it up more there’s a reflection of Quaife in the wet paint or something. But there’s no point getting obsessed.’

  ‘No, you’re right, I can’t stand here worrying about it,’ Kim said, staring. ‘We’ve got some neo-Nazis to find.’

  When Nina next looked across a few minutes later, she was still standing there worrying about it.

  Anne White justified Zoltan’s judicious reshuffling at twenty to four, thirty hours after he, who supposedly held her dear above all women, had banished her to the Hades of the phones to free up Lucky for other actions.

  ‘Meadow Music,’ a man’s voice said in her ear.

  ‘Hello,’ Anne said, the effort not to sound mechanical by now almost unbearable. ‘My name’s Anne White, I’m a detective from Croydon police station. I understand you buy and sell secondhand instruments?’

  ‘We do, yeah.’

  ‘I’m trying to trace a flute that may have passed through your hands. Do you by any chance keep records of transactions like that?’

  ‘Mmm... yeah.’ The man sounded worried, as though he were wishing he didn’t. ‘When are we talking about?’

  ‘This is it,’ Anne said. ‘Five years ago.’

  Silence on the other end of the line. She’d had a lot of that.

  She said, ‘Hello?’

  ‘Sorry,’ the man said, ‘you threw me. I’m just thinking, you’re lucky it’s not longer, because we’ve only been in business five years.’

  ‘You the manager?’

  ‘Owner.’ There was a faint sipping noise. Anne guessed he had a cup of tea. ‘A flute, yeah?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When exactly five years ago?’

  ‘February or the few months after.’

  ‘There are a lot of flutes,’ the man said cautiously.

  ‘This wasn’t just any old flute,’ Anne said. ‘That’s why I was hoping you might remember something.�
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  ‘What sort was it, then?’ She sensed his interest go up a scale. His was a relaxed middle class voice, the kind of voice you hear at small music venues, discussing authoritatively the merits of obscure indie bands over a pint of real ale.

  She gave him the details and the office number and he promised, genuinely hopeful she thought, to look into it and call her back. Two fruitless enquiries later the phone rang before she could start dialling the next number on her list.

  ‘When you told me what it was I thought it rang a bell,’ the voice, whose owner’s name was Roy Gillam, said. ‘I’m astonished it’s taken you this long to follow up.’

  ‘How d’you mean?’

  ‘I was suspicious when it was first offered to me,’ Gillam explained. ‘Böhm eight-key ivory flute, 1866. Beautiful instrument. Bloke who brought it in didn’t look as if he knew how to play with himself, never mind a flute. Took cash for it; he was asking... I dunno, five hundred, something ridiculous. Once he’d gone I looked it up and found out what it was really worth; that’s when the alarm bells started ringing. So I took it to the police.’

  Anne shifted in her seat, the hairs at the nape of her neck stirring.

  ‘They said there was no proof it was lost or stolen, there was no insurance claim, no reward offered, no report of any stolen flute. So they treated it as lost property.’

  ‘Kept it for six months, and...?’

  ‘Nobody claimed it, so it reverted to me. I sold it on at a handsome profit.’

  ‘Would you still have copies of receipts and things?’

  ‘Oh, yeah.’

  ‘I must say,’ Anne remarked, ‘you’ve got a good memory, considering how long ago it was.’

  ‘It was only about a week after I opened,’ Roy Gillam said. ‘First exciting thing that had happened. Plus it was tarnished. Bloody shame, an instrument like that. Spotty, as if it had been in water.’

  Or as if, Anne thought, someone had run it under a tap to try and get rid of semen.

  ‘This memory of yours,’ she asked, ‘wouldn’t extend to a description of the man who sold you the flute, would it?’

  ‘I dunno.’

  ‘Tell you what,’ Anne said, ‘would it be OK if I dropped by? Give you time to think.’

  ‘Yeah, all right.’ He sounded bright. ‘We close at five.’

  ‘Hopefully I’ll see you before then.’

  Grinning, she hung up. Several pairs of eyes were staring curiously at her from surrounding desks. Beyond the back of her head, she could feel Zoltan’s adding to their number. She suppressed a shiver.

  In the heavy afternoon traffic it was touch and go whether she’d make it to Camberwell before Meadow Music closed. She arrived with ten minutes to spare, but there were double yellow lines outside and she had to drive several hundred yards to find parking. By the time she’d hurried back to the shop Roy Gillam was behind the door, bolting it. He was a handsome man of about her age, similar in stature to Zoltan but thicker set. He wore jeans and a grey sweater over a blue and green plaid shirt. He grinned as she knocked on the glass and displayed her warrant card.

  ‘I had an idea you’d be a blonde,’ he said as he let her in. ‘Don’t ask me why.’

  ‘You look like the kind of person it isn’t easy to surprise,’ she smiled, once again feeling Zoltan’s discomforting presence in her mind. She shut him out with an effort.

  ‘Here you go,’ Gillam said, returning from a brief disappearance with a mug of tea and a grubby receipt book. He handed her both. ‘Bit of a Luddite, I’m afraid, never been able to get along with Quicken or anything like that. But I do keep transaction records for five years. I can get you the register receipt as well if you want. It’d just mean ploughing through about a million miles of till roll.’ He motioned to the book. ‘But the details of what I buy and sell are all in there.’

  A thick elastic band marked the place. The writing on the carbon was faint, but still just visible. ‘What’s that?’ she said, pointing. ‘Pegley?’

  ‘“D. Pegley”,’ Gillam confirmed, placing his index finger close to hers. Its tip was calloused from guitar playing. ‘I don’t suppose for a moment it’s genuine.’

  ‘Probably not. Did you have any luck blowing away the cobwebs of time for that description?’

  He frowned. ‘It’s difficult,’ he said sorrowfully. ‘I thought perhaps if you gave me a few suggestions you might jog my memory.’

  ‘OK.’ She took her pocket book from her handbag and cast an eye quickly over the amalgamated description of the tall burglar. She settled into her chair and looked him in the eyes. Hazel, she noticed. ‘We can but try. People tend to remember what somebody said or did more easily than what they looked like. You said he seemed a bit dim. Does that mean he looked sort of vacant, he had an accent, or what does it mean?’

  ‘It actually means he was too thick to realise he could’ve sold that flute for upwards of ten times what I paid him for it. Just the way he looked and behaved. I got the impression he wanted to pawn the thing, but didn’t really know how to go about it.’

  Not an experienced thief, then, she thought, making a note. ‘Young?’

  ‘Oh, yeah.’ He nodded. ‘Late teens. And he did have a London accent, come to think of it.’

  ‘Narrows it down,’ she said. ‘Good. Right, was he tall?’

  ‘No,’ Gillam said, after some thought. ‘No taller than me.’

  ‘And you’re what? Five nine?’

  ‘Exactly right.’ He grinned again. ‘How’d you guess?’

  ‘Same way you knew I was blonde,’ Anne said.

  By a process of deduction, they arrived at a hazy description of the youth. Anne knew she could place no great store on it. Memory plays tricks, fades, jumbles, confabulates, over the course of five years. But it had certainly not been the tall young man described by most of the victims. If it was anyone, it must be the accomplice, the one who’d raped Miranda Hargreaves.

  That was something. And she had the receipt, for what it was worth. She looked up the address on her phone and was mildly surprised to find it existed. She closed the map app and speed dialled. ‘I’d like a name check, please,’ she said to the PNC operator. ‘It’s Pegley - Papa, Echo, Golf, Lima, Echo, Yankee, initial D-Delta. Possibly an alias.’

  ‘Male or female?’

  ‘Male, IC1, age between, say, 18 and 30.’ Might as well leave a margin of error.

  ‘Call you back, yeah?’

  She had a few minutes to wait while he ran the details through the computer. Pessimistically she started the car and pointed it back in the direction of Croydon. As she passed Meadow Music Roy Gillam was pulling the shutter down. She tooted, and he looked round, but didn’t see her. The phone rang as she drove on.

  ‘Four surname matches,’ the operator said. ‘Only one D. Pegley. Record for burglary and possession of controlled substances.’

  ‘Can you give me his vitals?’

  His name was Darren James Pegley and he was twenty-two. He was white, five feet eight inches tall, slim with brown hair and blue eyes. Distinguishing marks, surgical scars on his left arm from where a break had been repaired with pins. No known tattoos, piercings or other identifiers. ‘D’you want his inside leg?’ the operator said.

  ‘No, thanks,’ Anne said, oblivious to the witticism. It was him. If Roy Gillam’s recollection was anywhere close, it had to be. Pegley was the right age, the description and previous fitted. After five years there’d be no trace of fingerprints on the receipt, but there would be a sample of his handwriting on file and that could be compared with the signature. She couldn’t believe he’d used his own name. She said, ‘What’s the last known address?’

  The operator told her. She couldn’t believe that, either.

  She’d returned to Croydon in confident mood. It was past seven. Jeff had gone home, but a weary-looking Jasmin was still in the office, as was Zoltan.

  ‘You’re that sure it’s him?’ Zoltan said. ‘From a five year old description?’ />
  ‘I checked again. There are no other stolen Böhm flutes in the PNC, then or since.’ Anne said, ‘Pegley has form for burglary, his age and build tie in with the rapist’s, and his record starts not long after the attack on Miranda Hargreaves. Remember he comes across in her statement as a bit of a novice? Worth giving him a pull, surely.’

  ‘For handling, possibly. No sex offender record?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘We’d be pushing our luck.’

  She patted her notes. ‘He was born and brought up in Croydon, which places him close to most of the attacks. Also, listen, there’s a Michael Bayliss cross-referenced as a known associate. They went to school together; they might still hang out. Bayliss only had a juvenile record, and it’s been expunged now he’s an adult, but I talked to a DC at Gipsy Hill who remembers interviewing him a couple of times. Bayliss likewise is a burglar, no previous for sex offences, but get this: his MO is ground floor entry, and he looks for low security access, open windows, drop catches. Sash windows.’

  ‘So do most burglars.’

  ‘I know. But,’ she smiled, ‘how many are six foot four and described as gaunt?’

  ‘What is gaunt?’ Jasmin said.

  Zoltan told her what gaunt was.

  ‘Tall and thin,’ Jasmin said, with suppressed excitement. ‘Again and again the victims say this.’

  ‘Where is he now?’ The DI stroked his beard.

  ‘There’s an address for the family on the Monk’s Orchard,’ Anne shrugged. ‘I checked but they’ve moved. That’s why I reckon we should pick up Pegley. He might be willing to tell us.’

  ‘Did you try here?’ His finger tapped the bagged receipt with Pegley’s address on it.

  She shook her head. ‘Camberwell reckon he’s moved out. His mum still lives there, though, so I thought I’d better not call round.’

  ‘Good plan. Don’t want her broadcasting the fact we’re after him. Where’s he moved to?’

  ‘Still in Camberwell, flat in Glazebrook Road.’

  Zoltan said, ‘Well, there’s no way he can know we’ve taken an interest, so at this point it’s not worth ruining his evening, or ours. Especially yours, Jasmin. You look all in.’