by Matt Brolly
Lambert heard the screaming and swearing all the way to the steel gates.
Chapter 41
Lambert parked the car in the station’s underground carpark. He was about to enter the lift when he heard someone calling for him. ‘Lambert,’ screamed the voice, full of accusation.
Lambert stood still and allowed the voice to approach. The man it belonged to looked unsteady. He wore a grey suit with mismatching shirt and tie, his brown shoes scuffed and unpolished. His wild eyes bore down on Lambert as he approached, and at the last second Lambert realised he wasn’t about to stop.
DS Harrogate went to shoulder charge him. Lambert managed to twist his body from the full force of the impact, DS Harrogate glancing his shoulder and stumbling two metres forward.
‘What the hell are you playing at, Harrogate?’
Harrogate kept his back to him for a few seconds before turning and attacking him again, his face contorted by his rage.
Lambert had had enough. As Harrogate approached, still too fast and unsteady, Lambert lent forward and jabbed him hard in his throat. Harrogate dropped as if he’d been shot. Lambert hunched down and lifted Harrogate into a sitting position. ‘Don’t panic,’ he said, as Harrogate made desperate attempts to suck in air, a pitiful rasping sound escaping from his throat.
A couple of uniformed officers glanced over, saw Lambert, and pretended they hadn’t seen anything. Lambert held Harrogate as his breath returned. ‘Get up,’ he ordered, pulling the man to his feet.
Harrogate leant over on his knees and dry heaved.
‘You want to tell me what the hell you think you are doing?’ said Lambert.
‘You were ordered not to approach Blake,’ said Harrogate, his voice a dry rasp.
‘Unless it was completely necessary. That doesn’t excuse an assault on a senior officer.’
Harrogate pushed himself up from his knees, his face ashen. He coughed and spat out a lump of blood-coated phlegm onto the pavement. ‘Report it if you want. You’ve fucked it up anyway.’
‘I haven’t fucked up anything. If you stop being so obstinate, there is a chance we can work together.’
Harrogate followed him to the offices.
‘Sit,’ said Lambert, shutting the door to his office.
Harrogate sat, his arms folded in a final show of defiance.
‘I saw your man,’ said Lambert.
Harrogate feigned surprise but Lambert knew he’d won the fight.
‘The driver. Lithe body shape. Weird bald patches on his scalp. Pointed nose.’
Harrogate sat motionless.
‘I could tell by the way he looked at me. How long has he been there?’
Harrogate blinked. ‘Five years.’
Five years undercover. It was no wonder Harrogate was so protective. ‘You’ve been handling him all this time?’
‘Yes. We’ve been trying to gather evidence on Blake’s operation. We’ve made some indirect arrests on the Croatians Blake works with but we can’t go in all guns blazing. They scare off easily, could easily change who they work with. That’s why you may have just fucked up five years’ worth of work.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘You don’t think so? You don’t understand how these people work. They’ll have Blake under surveillance twenty-four-seven. They see you go in, again, then alarm bells ring. You could have even put our man in jeopardy. I barely speak to him as it is. Way too risky. No wonder he was pissed at seeing you.’
Lambert didn’t buy it. He decided to give Harrogate another chance. He explained in detail the current situation, what Blake had done to Sackville, what he’d been accused of doing at the children’s home.
‘That doesn’t totally surprise me.’ The encounter had knocked Harrogate. For the first time since meeting him, Lambert sensed a begrudging respect. ‘Where do we go from here?’ he asked, as he stood to leave.
‘We work together. Inform each other of our movements. Something we should have done from the beginning.’
Harrogate hesitated, as if he wanted to share something. ‘Agreed.’
‘And don’t ever pull a move like that on me again, DS Harrogate.’
Lambert found Kennedy and they took separate cars to Dalston. The former children’s home, St Matthew’s, was now a retirement home. Lambert had called the home earlier and requested a meeting with the owner, Joanne Kendrick, who had sounded bemused by the request. Kendrick was there to meet them as they arrived forty minutes later. A small, nervous looking woman, Kendrick carried more authority over the phone and Lambert was surprised that someone with such lack of presence could own such a business. It was possible she was just nervous because of their profession. The sight of a warrant card often did the strangest things to people. It made them act out of character, gave them a sense of guilt.
Kendrick’s office was cluttered and tired looking. ‘May I get you tea or coffee?’ she asked.
Both officers shook their head. Lambert remained silent, exchanging the occasional smile with the woman.
‘Well then. I’m afraid you’ve caught me slightly off guard this morning, DCI Lambert. I was surprised by your call and didn’t fully understand the gist of what you were telling me.’ Kendrick had regained some composure in the minutes they’d been in the office, her initial nervousness evaporating.
Lambert explained the situation again, realising how flimsy the reasons for being there were.
‘Correct me if I’m wrong, DCI Lambert, but your visit is to do with something that may or may not have happened thirty odd years ago?’
Lambert nodded. ‘I realise this takes a leap of imagination but it could be very relevant to a current murder investigation.’
Kendrick studied them each in turn as if it was all some elaborate joke. ‘You realise we bought this building fifteen years ago. And I don’t believe it’s housed children for well over twenty years. When we bought the place it was practically derelict.’
‘We’re trying to find details of the home’s occupants during the period that we mentioned,’ said Kennedy. ‘When you arrived were there any filing systems still here? Any records at all of the home?’
Kendrick rolled her tongue in her mouth and then proceeded to surprise them both.
‘It’s possible this might be your lucky day,’ she said. ‘After you called I spoke to my husband. I told him what you’d said, at least what I’d understood from it.’
Lambert leant forward, a wave of adrenaline filling his bloodstream.
‘Well I’m paraphrasing here but it went something along the lines of “maybe now we can get rid of all that stuff in the attic.”’
They waited in the home’s lobby as one of the staff went to fetch a ladder from the gardens. Kennedy looked like a bundle of energy, her legs bouncing up and down to some unheard rhythm. Lambert dragged his fingers across the cloth armchair, the fabric rough and pitted. He thought of the people who’d sat in the chair before, future residents waiting to be shown the home’s facilities with their children. The residents who’d touched the same fabric and no longer existed.
‘What are you hoping to find?’ he asked Kennedy.
‘A name?’
‘Don’t get your hopes up. I doubt they had great record-keeping and even if they did…’
‘DCI Lambert, we’re ready for you.’ Kendrick appeared out of the shadows, next to her a giant of a man clutched a retractable aluminium ladder as if it was made of air.
No introductions were made. Lambert followed Kendrick and the giant up three flights of stairs, flanked closely by Kennedy. They walked along a narrow corridor, across a threadbare brown carpet, until they stood beneath a small rectangular opening in the ceiling.
‘This could be a bit of a squeeze,’ said the giant, extending the ladder and leaning it against the wall. He climbed up, heaving with each step, and pushed through the opening. He hauled his bulk through the hole and disappeared from sight.
‘Use the place much?’ said Lambert.
Kendr
ick grunted a laugh. ‘I take no responsibility if you go up there. We haven’t used the place since we moved in. My husband didn’t know what to do with all the files that were left. We should have thrown them out. We called the council. They promised they would come for them but they never showed. We kept them just in case.’
A light appeared from above, followed by the grinning face of the giant. ‘Dusty,’ he said, clambering back down the ladder.
The loft area was bigger than he’d imagined. It was big enough for at least a couple of rooms and was piled high with dust-covered boxes. The boxes nearer the loft’s entrance were dated, the latest one from only two years ago which went against what Kendrick had told them about not using the area.
Lambert made his way to the rear of the space, banging his head on a low beam. Kendrick had warned them about the floor boards, and Lambert trod as lightly as possible. A flower patterned sheet covered a mound of shapes. Lambert lifted the sheet, the cloud of dust rising into the claustrophobic space. He took out a flashlight and examined the boxes below. In crude felt tip writing, someone had scrolled. ‘Files from St Matthew’s Children Home.’
‘Kennedy,’ he whispered, opening the first box. He flicked through the contents, stacks of letters and bills, and handed it to Kennedy, an excitement in his movements. He passed file after file to Kennedy, unsure what was causing his urgency, until he found something that made his heart stop. It was a file marked, ‘Residents’.
He opened the cover. On the first page was a black and white photograph of an unsmiling girl. Next to the photo, in uneven typeface, were the girl’s details. The unsmiling girl was called Janice Raymond. She was seven years old. She had no siblings. She had no parents.
Lambert held the file, fighting a surprising urge to grieve for the girl who would now be many years older than him, and flicked through the rest of the pages, the names of boys and girls, either orphans or from troubled households. It was probably his imagination, but he saw the loneliness, the sense of abandonment in each photo.
He handed the file to Kennedy, and took the next one of out of the box. It was the same again, dated the previous year. The discovery had energised him, and he scanned through the contents of the box, and on to the next one. He didn’t know why, but he was sure he’d made an important discovery.
Trying to keep the excitement out of his voice, he said, ‘Call Devlin. We need to get these back to the station.’
Chapter 42
It took them nearly two hours to retrieve all the files and pack the car, even with the giant’s help. Matilda was covered in a film of sweat, her mouth coated in dust which had a sour metallic taste.
‘I could murder a drink,’ said Devlin, taking her by surprise.
She drove to a drive-in, and ordered two supersized meals. ‘It’s going to be a long afternoon and evening,’ she told Devlin, as they sat eating the burgers and fries, sipping on their oversized iced drinks. All the time, she kept thinking about Janice Raymond, the first unsmiling little girl in the photos.
‘Right, bin that, we’re off.’
It was late afternoon. The good weather had returned, the people of London unsure which set of clothing they should be wearing.
Her phone rang as she parked beneath the station building. ‘Go get some help to carry the files,’ she mouthed to Devlin, before taking the call.
‘Matilda Kennedy,’ said the voice on the other end.
She checked the number on the phone, which was from an unknown caller. ‘Who’s calling?’ she said, maintaining a neutral tone whilst thinking something was off.
‘It’s me. The one your childish press calls, the Watcher.’
She was about to signal to Devlin but stopped. ‘What can I do for you?’ It was probably a hoax. She was surprised someone could obtain her mobile number, but it wasn’t unheard of.
‘You can speak to your boss, DCI Lambert. Reiterate the warning I gave him.’
Blood thundered in her ears. ‘What warning was that?’
The man paused. ‘Just tell him I called.’
‘Tell me what the warning was,’ she said, desperate to keep the man on the phone.
‘Only him, Matilda. No one else must know. Oh, and Matilda, do ask him why he has been checking up on your daddy.’
Chapter 43
Charles Robinson’s flat was more modest than he’d expected. Situated in Hither Green, it was a part of a three storey new-build near the station. After leaving Kennedy at St Matthew’s, Lambert had called Robinson’s chambers and had arranged to meet the barrister at the flat. The man had sounded resigned on the phone, as if the fight with Sackville had taken all his energy.
Robinson greeted him at the door. He was casually dressed, in light cords and a pullover. His lack of business attire seemed to rob the man of his charisma. He looked smaller than Lambert remembered, his skin more wrinkled, his hair thin and dishevelled.
‘Lambert,’ said the man, by way of greeting, his rich Welsh tenor lacking its usual vibrancy. He extended his hand which Lambert shook, maintaining eye contact, trying not to fixate on the bruise spreading on the man’s face.
‘Mr Robinson, thank you for seeing me.’
‘Do I need my lawyer?’ said Robinson, laughing to himself as he retreated down the hallway to an open-plan living room.
The flat was deceptive. Robinson’s living room extended in both directions, broadening into the width of the building. Expensive looking oak floors spread across the expanse which was lined with immaculately arranged bookcases. ‘May I get you something to drink?’
‘No thank you. I won’t take up much of your time.’
‘Please sit,’ said Robinson, pointing to one of the sofas. An oil painting hung over a mock fireplace, an impressionist depiction of a ship in a storm. Everything in the room was pristine but cold. It reminded Lambert of the lobby of a five star hotel. ‘This is about Eustace?’
‘Partly.’
Robinson rubbed his eye. ‘I told that young officer, I didn’t want to press charges.’
‘No, that’s fine. I’ll leave that between you two. It was more to do with Moira.’
Robinson collapsed into the chair opposite. ‘Maybe I do need my lawyer.’
‘If you want to make this more formal, Mr Robinson, then that’s fine with me, but I don’t think it is necessary.’
Robinson hesitated. He crossed his arms, hugging his body. ‘Ask away.’
‘You told me that your relationship with Moira ended some time ago, but that wasn’t the case?’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘That bruise on your face for one. Eustace knew it was still going on, didn’t he?’
‘Looks that way. You must think I’m some sort of monster, but Moira assured me that her physical relationship with Eustace was dead long before I came along. Moira was looking for something that he couldn’t provide. I understand why he wanted to do this to me,’ said Robinson, rubbing his eye again. ‘Naturally he’s devastated at what happened to his wife and I’m a reasonable target, I accept that.’
‘You lied to us, Charles.’
Robinson rubbed his chin, nodding. ‘I shouldn’t have done that. I panicked and I apologise.’
‘So you were still in a relationship with Moira?’
‘Of sorts.’
‘Of sorts?’
‘It was purely a physical thing. No romantic mini breaks or the like. We only saw each other one or two times a month, normally at her suggestion.’
‘And Moira was a willing partner in this?’ asked Lambert, sitting upright and leaning towards Robinson.
Robinson straightened. ‘What do you mean, willing partner?’
‘I don’t want to pry, Charles, but from what I understand things with you and Moira were a bit more adventurous then the relationship Moira had with her husband.’
Robinson smiled, as if privy to some private joke. ‘Yes, things were “adventurous” as you put it. Moira and Eustace didn’t have a sex life, so anything would
be adventurous in comparison.’ Robinson sighed, his breath catching. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. Moira loved Eustace. She didn’t love me.’
‘Charles, I have to ask you, and this is important. Did Moira end things with you before her death?’
Robinson looked confused. ‘You have a way about you, Lambert, I’ll give you that. No, we’d planned to meet later this week. Today in fact. I was supposed to meet…’
‘Go on,’ said Lambert.
‘Nothing, we were supposed to meet.’
Lambert considered ending the meeting. He wanted the next part of the conversation recorded, but needing answers now he pressed on. ‘You were seen loitering outside Moira’s library, Charles. We have an independent witness. You used to wear a hoodie.’
Robinson stood up and began laughing. He walked over to a side cabinet and helped himself to a glass of brandy. ‘Join me?’
Lambert shook his head.
‘Role play, Mr Lambert. Moira took to it splendidly.’
‘Role play?’
‘It was her idea. She wanted me to stalk her.’
‘Come on, Charles.’
Robinson gulped his brandy in one. ‘I swear. She knew I was there. I used to follow her home when Eustace was out. I had to stop at the library when Moira thought one of her colleagues was becoming suspicious.’
‘You have any way of verifying this?’
Robinson poured a second brandy. ‘Of course not.’
Lambert rubbed his forehead. ‘Okay, Charles. So you would follow her home. Then what?’
‘She had a key cut for me. I would be waiting in the flat for her.’ He started rummaging through some of the drawers. ‘Here,’ he said, throwing over a set of keys.
Lambert caught the set of keys. ‘You know how this looks, Charles?’
Robinson finished his second drink. He looked like a man defeated. ‘Why do you think I panicked?’
‘Why didn’t you tell us about the keys, Charles?’
‘My mistake. I was in shock, and I wasn’t thinking straight.’
