What Doesn't Kill You (A DI Fenchurch novel Book 3)

by Ed James

  ‘Just let me do it on my time, okay?’

  ‘As long as you do it.’

  The doctor appeared from the room two down, his designer stubble not quite obscuring a long scar running from his left ear. ‘Sirs . . . My name’s Dr Gold. I’m afraid to tell you that Mr Shelvey has just passed away.’

  Fenchurch dumped his cup on the window ledge and shut his eyes. Another one lost to complacency and laziness . . . Stupidity and sloth . . . He reopened them, settling his focus on Temple, then shifted it to Gold. ‘Was it poisoning?’

  ‘Possibly.’ Gold slid a hand through the rasping stubble. ‘It’s not my position to give a cause of death. I will comply with the pathologist—’

  Fenchurch stepped closer, towering over the doctor. ‘The duty doctor thought it might be poisoning.’

  ‘And he should’ve known not to feed his suspicions to detectives.’ Gold rested his hand on his chin, tapping two fingers and a thumb against it. ‘I’ve arranged to transport the body to Lewisham for the autopsy. As it stands, I cannot comment on any of it.’

  ‘Aren’t you supposed to be a specialist in poisoning?’

  ‘My specialism is none of your concern.’ Gold ran his hands down his blue trousers. ‘Due process dictates that I’m unable to give a cause of death.’

  Fenchurch got in his face. ‘This is a murder case. I need to know what’s happened to him.’

  ‘Then I suggest you contact the pathologist’s office.’ Gold turned on his heels and marched off, his white coat flapping behind him.

  Fenchurch clenched his fists, tempted to give chase and force an answer out of him.

  Temple blocked the way, like he was reading his violent thoughts. ‘This isn’t your fight, okay? You’ve caught a murderer. Take that as a victory, okay?’

  ‘I can’t just do that, Paul. That evil bastard dying in a holding cell isn’t justice.’

  Temple smiled at him. ‘I know it’s not, but it’s not your fight any more.’

  ‘You pig scumbag!’ Barbara Shelvey was powering down the corridor, her brother and Anna Xiang trailing in her wake. ‘You killed my boy!’

  Give me strength . . . Fenchurch raised his hands up to placate her, his training kicking in. ‘Mrs Shelvey, I’m very sorry for your loss.’ Not as sorry as I am that he didn’t get a trial and life in prison. ‘I want to—’

  ‘I’m going to get your bloody badge for this.’ Mrs Shelvey stopped in front of him and prodded him in the chest. ‘You killed my son!’

  ‘Your son was in custody, and I assure you I had no access to—’

  ‘You’re lying!’ She cracked her rings off Fenchurch’s chest, digging into muscle and bone. ‘You lying scumbag!’

  ‘Come on, come on.’ Pete Morris grabbed his sister’s arms and tugged her back. ‘This isn’t the time or place, Barb. Okay? Come on.’ She let him lead her down the corridor.

  Fenchurch’s shirt was torn where her gemstone had connected with him.

  Xiang shook her head slightly. ‘You better make sure you’re clean, Fenchurch.’

  ‘You care to repeat that?’

  She held his gaze for a few seconds, then waltzed off down the corridor, heading for the lifts.

  When she was out of sight, Fenchurch slumped back against the windowsill, almost knocking his discarded tea over. ‘Remind me why I do this job again?’

  ‘Because when you stop hitting your head against the brick wall, there’s that surge of relief.’ Temple smirked as his eyes rolled back in his head. ‘My god.’

  Fenchurch almost laughed.

  His Airwave blared out. Reed.

  ‘Kay, I could use some good news, if you’ve got any.’

  ‘Not sure what it is, guv.’ Reed paused on the line. ‘Remember DS Grove from yesterday evening?’

  ‘Feels like a few weeks ago, Kay.’

  ‘Well, I put in a call with her. She’s CO11, the Public Order Control lot. She’s just got back to me. Turns out she managed the protest Shelvey got arrested at. Fancy a trip over there?’

  Chapter Eleven

  CO11 was near the top of New Scotland Yard, not quite at the Commissioner’s level, but close. Not sure they’d get such a lofty position when they moved to the new building. London was waking up through the windows, the sun rising between buildings still glowing in the darkness.

  Reed was waiting by an office, fiddling with her phone. She looked up at Fenchurch’s approach, pocketing her mobile. A frosty glare on her face. ‘Guv.’ She held up the Post, the photo of Fenchurch beaming out. ‘Take it this is what you were speaking to Liam about?’

  Fenchurch ignored her flapping it at him. ‘My bloody father.’

  ‘You went along with it, though.’

  Fenchurch snatched the paper from her. ‘What if this is just for nothing?’

  ‘You’re a stupid bastard. Putting her through this.’

  ‘Sergeant . . . It was my—’

  ‘Guv, I’m talking to you as a friend.’ She tucked the paper under her arm, shaking her head. ‘Whether it was you or your father, you’d better help Abi, okay?’

  ‘Of course I will.’ Fenchurch tapped at the door, his gut feeling like it was a few storeys lower.

  DS Michelle Grove sat in her thin office, just enough room for a desk and two chairs. She’d swapped the riot gear for a plain grey trouser suit and a pink blouse. Her dark hair was just a few shades lighter than the black frames of her glasses, offset with neon-lime flashes on the arms. She looked up and beckoned them in, standing to give Reed an air kiss. ‘Kay, good to see you again.’ She sat and yawned into a giant beaker of coffee. ‘That was a shambles yesterday. We were there till eleven.’

  Fenchurch took the right-hand chair. ‘Heard they charged the attacker.’

  ‘Not that the Met gets any credit for it.’ Grove sipped from her cup and yawned again. ‘Anyway. You said you wanted to know about the cabbies storming City Hall?’ She chuckled, her fingers snaking around the cup. ‘Our former mayor called them Luddites?’

  ‘I remember.’ Reed looked like she was hiding a smirk. ‘So you arrested this Steve Shelvey?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Another glug of coffee, leaving a ring of lipstick around the lid. ‘The whole operation was a complete nightmare, I swear. One of those drop-your-drawers things. Everyone across London was there. I had nineteen in full riot gear, none of them trained and no time to knit them together. Meanwhile, a bunch of cabbies were kicking off by City Hall.’ She bit her lip. ‘Full-blown, hardcore EDL taxi drivers battering us. Batons out, tear gas, that kind of thing. They’d already blocked the streets surrounding City Hall, including Tower Bridge. Hundreds of them and not many of us. Nightmare, I tell you.’

  Fenchurch unclenched his hands and feet. ‘So you arrested this Shelvey guy . . . ?’

  ‘Did we? Oh yeah, we did.’ Grove slid her glasses down her nose and peered over them at Reed. ‘Shelvey lamped a guard. We got it on three CCTV cameras and about ten Body-Worn Videos.’ She pushed her specs back up. ‘We caught him, locked him up and did him with a load of public-order offences. Assault, that kind of thing.’

  Fenchurch raised his eyebrows. ‘So why’s he still not locked up then?’

  Grove switched her gaze between them, her elbows grinding on the wood. ‘What’s your interest in this guy?’

  Reed glanced at Fenchurch. ‘We believe Mr Shelvey raped and murdered a woman.’ She swallowed hard. ‘Then he died in custody this morning . . .’

  ‘Shit.’ Grove rubbed her eyes. ‘Shit.’ She swivelled her chair round to face the window, arms folded. ‘You didn’t hear this from me, right?’

  Reed did that zip-and-key move again. ‘Lips are sealed, Michelle.’

  ‘The reason Mr Shelvey isn’t locked up is one of those borrowed cops took it upon himself to beat the shit out of him as he arrested him.’

  Oh, shit . . . Fenchurch slouched back in his seat. ‘How badly are we talking here?’

  ‘Brutal. He saw Shelvey attack the guard and lashed ou
t.’ Grove drank some coffee, her hands shaking. ‘We’re trained to restrain people in a sensible manner, but he went right over the top. Battered the guy with his baton. Five strikes to the back of the neck. Almost broke his vertebrae.’ She spun back round to face them again, her lips twitching. ‘The IPCC were in quick as you like. I expected them to take months, but it was over in weeks. They sacked him.’

  ‘You going to give us a name or keep teasing us?’

  Grove laughed at him. ‘He got a deal and didn’t face any criminal charges. Left the job at Christmas, back in May.’

  ‘He’s back on the force?’

  Grove twisted her coffee cup like an offender’s neck. ‘That’s enough punishment, apparently.’ She tore off her glasses and rested them on her desk. ‘Works in this building, as it happens.’

  Fenchurch raised his eyebrows, pleading with her. ‘What’s his name?’

  A Toblerone-shaped piece of white paper printed with DC CHRISTOPHER JOHNSON sat on top of a monitor. Fenchurch stopped by a desk. ‘You’re in early, Constable.’

  DC Chris Johnson looked up from his computer, the double-width screen filled with a spreadsheet. He was cut from the same lump of granite as his mate, Clive Naismith, but his skinhead had grown out into a patchy middle parting. His shirt strained to contain the glamour muscles bulging on his upper arms and torso. ‘Sorry, who are you?’

  Fenchurch flashed his ID, the lanyard straining against his neck. ‘DI Simon Fenchurch. And I still need that word.’

  ‘Can’t this wait? I’ve got to do the latest report before the eight o’clock command briefing.’

  ‘That sounds very important.’ Fenchurch propped himself down on the edge of the desk, folding his arms. ‘But this can’t wait. I need to ask a few questions about the demo in September.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about that.’ Johnson went back to his computer. ‘Now I need to get on with this.’

  Uniformed officers sat around, phone headsets clamped to their skulls. A glass meeting room was in the middle, empty. ‘I’m going into that room and if you don’t follow me in, your bosses will hear all about this.’

  Johnson let out a sigh but didn’t budge.

  Fenchurch walked over to the room and followed Reed in. He sat at the head of the table, crunching back in the sort of pink fluffy chair they were gradually replacing across the Met. ‘Is he coming, Kay?’

  ‘Still sitting there.’

  ‘And the Custody Officer?’

  Reed waved in a slightly different direction. ‘Waiting by the stairs.’ She patted Fenchurch on the arm and sat next to him. ‘Here he comes.’

  The door thunked shut and Johnson paced around the glass-walled meeting room like a caged lion, just a second or two away from lashing out. ‘Being stuck in a room with you pair isn’t helping me get that report to the Commissioner, you know?’

  Fenchurch motioned at the table. ‘Have a seat. Any of them.’

  ‘I prefer to stand.’

  ‘Suit yourself.’ Fenchurch unlocked his Pronto and stabbed the stylus off the screen, creating a new note. ‘Like I said, I need to ask a few questions about the demo in September.’

  ‘What you talking about?’ Johnson stopped his pacing. ‘Sure it’s me you’re after?’

  ‘You were there, sunshine.’ Fenchurch adjusted himself in the chair. Hopefully they’d get replaced by the time they moved to the new HQ. He motioned at the seat opposite. ‘We’ve spoken to the DS running the operation. Said you assaulted one of the protestors.’

  ‘I didn’t assault anyone.’ Johnson shrugged. ‘And besides, they was animals.’

  ‘Still don’t deserve to get their arms broken, though, do they?’

  ‘Eh? Who had their arm broken?’

  Fenchurch smiled. ‘Steven Shelvey.’

  ‘Don’t know a Steve Shelvey.’

  ‘Really? Cos he was the cabbie you decided to go all medieval on outside City Hall.’ Fenchurch got out the bundle of paperwork on Shelvey and started flicking through. ‘Thing is, he’s just turned up as a murder suspect in a case of ours. Interesting thing about this one is that the geezer died in custody this morning.’

  ‘What?’

  Fenchurch flicked to another page. ‘Did you kill him?’

  Johnson finally sat down, lumbering into a chair at the far side of the table, nearer Reed than Fenchurch. ‘I’m not answering that without a lawyer.’

  ‘That never looks good, especially when a cop has to do it.’

  ‘I’ve done nothing.’

  ‘If you’re playing that game, we might just have to pass it over to Professional Standards.’

  ‘Eh?’ Johnson glowered at both of them. ‘Thought you was Professional Standards?’

  ‘Major Investigation Team East, sunshine.’ Fenchurch opened the glass door, waving at the lump of gristle by the stairwell. ‘Come with me.’

  ‘That’s nothing to do with me! I was at my daughter’s school play last night, I swear!’

  Fenchurch stepped aside to let the Custody Officer get at Johnson. ‘Take him over to Leman Street, okay?’

  Johnson slumped behind the interview room table, blinking hard and fast. ‘Someone’s stitched me up.’

  ‘Constable, just quit it.’ Fenchurch tossed a paper file onto the table, the copy of Grove’s report. ‘The IPCC investigated your conduct.’

  ‘So? Doesn’t mean it was me. We was all covered in riot gear. Could’ve been anyone.’

  ‘I know you’re lying, son.’ Fenchurch held up the report. ‘Your helmet came off. Four officers identified you. So did six cabbies and a journalist. And it’s all on video.’

  Johnson shook his head. ‘They were lying.’

  ‘I’m more inclined to believe them than you.’

  ‘Suit yourself.’ Johnson splayed his hands on the table, his thumbs smoothing over the surface, and glanced over at his lawyer. ‘Look, that Shelvey kid had his face covered in a hanky. He broke ranks and was about to throw something at the building. City Hall. What if it’d been a bomb?’ He put his hands together, interlinking the fingers. ‘The order came over the radio, so I took him down. Disabled him and took his weapon off him.’

  Fenchurch scribbled it onto his Pronto. ‘What was he carrying?’

  ‘Hammer. A big one, too.’ Johnson pulled his hands apart to about a foot’s distance. ‘Could do a lot of damage with one that size.’

  Fenchurch doodled a picture. ‘What happened next?’

  ‘A couple of CO11 officers came over and took him off me. That’s the last I saw of the geezer.’ Johnson smoothed down his parting, not quite in the centre. ‘When I let go of him, he was fine, just a scratch and a bruise.’

  ‘You’re saying someone assaulted Mr Shelvey?’ Fenchurch left him a bit of space. Johnson didn’t fill it. ‘You’re saying police officers assaulted him?’

  ‘This is what I told the IPCC. Nothing to do with me.’

  ‘But you were disciplined for the assault.’

  ‘So why am I back on the force, then, eh?’ Johnson flicked up an eyebrow and grinned at them. ‘They offered me a decent little number if I fell on my sword.’ He rubbed his slimy hands together. ‘Shut the whole case out without going to court, make the cabbies think they’ve got justice.’

  Fenchurch ran his hand across the report. ‘Says here that five officers saw you lay into Mr Shelvey with your baton.’

  Johnson waved his hands away from his body. ‘I didn’t beat anyone up.’

  ‘You were seen.’

  ‘My client isn’t answering that question, Inspector.’ The lawyer didn’t even look up, just kept scribbling in his pad.

  Reed cleared her throat and gave Johnson the once-over, a snarl on her face. ‘You’ve got history with Frank Blunden, haven’t you?’

  ‘He’s a source. That’s all.’ Johnson slumped back in his chair. ‘This is you stitching me up now, ain’t you?’

  ‘We’re not the dodgy ones here, Constable.’ Reed unfolded a photocopied sheet, smili
ng coldly. ‘You visited Leman Street at midnight last night, didn’t you?’

  ‘Eh? What you talking about?’

  ‘This is the visitors’ log.’ Reed held up the page, scribbles and signatures filling the grid, one row highlighted in acid yellow. ‘Correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s your name and badge number there.’

  Johnson smoothed down his hair again, then whispered into his lawyer’s ear. His eyes wobbled about until he nodded. Johnson coughed, elbows on the table. ‘Sergeant, I work in the Management Information department. I get stats for the bosses. They ask some difficult questions, so I have to dig behind it and see what’s going on. That’s why I was here.’

  ‘That’s a lot of digging, though.’ Reed flicked through the rest of the sheets, at least one yellow line on each page. ‘Five visits in the last week. Including last night. At midnight. Clocked out after the suspect died.’

  ‘Yeah, so what? I popped in on my way home to speak to a couple of the AFOs.’

  ‘Firearms officers?’

  ‘Yeah, the geezers up on the fourth floor. Friendly lot. Not.’ Johnson scratched at his chin. ‘They ran an obbo on Mansell Street a couple of weeks back. Supposed to be off books, helping the Americans or something, but the stupid buggers put it through an official cost centre, so it showed up in the stats. The Commissioner spat out his tea when he saw it.’

  Fenchurch leaned across the table, getting close to Johnson. ‘You happened to be in the station at the time that suspect died. You expect us to believe you’re not involved?’

  ‘Speak to them!’

  ‘We will, don’t you worry.’

  ‘So can I get back to my report?’

  Fenchurch raised his eyebrows, grinning. ‘Not for a very long time . . .’

  Chapter Twelve

  Fenchurch walked around the interview room, his knees grinding, little threads of gristle snapping with each step. ‘Where the hell is he?’

  Reed kept staring at her notebook. ‘Chill, guv, okay?’

  ‘If he’s—’

  The door ground open and Clive Naismith entered the room, running his tongue around his teeth, stretching out his lips. ‘You called for me, guv?’