by Jay Nadal
Diane seemed to be assured by the explanation, but still looked alarmed.
Karen questioned their movements last night, and Diane explained that they had held a birthday celebration in a small Italian restaurant in Holborn, before returning to the house shortly after midnight. Karen asked for the name of the restaurant and the names of the guests, before nodding in Jade’s direction, who briefly stepped out of the room to organise for an officer to make their way to the restaurant to secure any CCTV footage, and to investigate the background of the guests.
“Was anyone else here last night?”
Diane stiffened, afraid to tell them about Ben. She hesitated for a few moments before muttering Ben’s name.
“And who’s Ben?”
“He’s my son. Jack isn’t his father. He was at the party last night. He’s not feeling well, so I’ve left him asleep in his bedroom. I’ll break the news to him when he wakes.”
“Okay, we’ll also need a swab from him. DS Whiting can do that at the same time, so you’ll need to wake him.”
Karen asked a few more questions before leaving. She was particularly keen to find out what time Diane had last seen Jack, as well as what time she had gone to bed. Both questions had met with vague responses that did nothing to reassure Karen.
As Karen went back to the car to retrieve her jacket, she scanned the scene once more. The lack of security still bothered her. She cast her eye back towards the house, and that’s when she noticed movement in an upstairs window. From her position she could see another man, a young man. She assumed it was Ben. What she hadn’t expected to see were cuts and abrasions, and the swellings around his face. She made a mental note.
9
The attack on Taylor replayed in Karen’s mind. The lack of security at his house was sheer stupidity or misplaced bravado. For someone with Taylor’s reputation, his personal protection would have been paramount in her opinion, but that hadn’t been the case when she’d looked around the house and grounds.
She ducked into a coffee shop on her way back to the station. Other than a cup of coffee this morning, she’d had nothing to eat or drink. The start of a headache was forming as her stomach rumbled. She needed time to think, away from everyone. Karen ordered herself a black Americano, and a sausage sandwich. Had Jade been with her, she would have been appalled by the saturated fat that seeped through the bottom of the bread. But as far as Karen was concerned, an indulgence every so often was something she looked forward to. Karen pulled back the top layer of bread and applied a generous amount of tomato ketchup. Air bubbles trapped in the bottle erupted as the sauce spluttered out accompanied by farting noises. She looked around smiling to see if any customers had noticed.
Despite having left a scene splattered in red, the sight of red sauce on her plate didn’t bother her. As officers, they’d developed a stronger resolve to blood and gore. They weren’t impervious to it but seeing the worst of humanity became normalised and accepted. Seeing blood on a pavement following a stabbing would horrify members of the public, but officers became blind and unattached, focusing on the crime rather than the emotional or sensory component.
She felt satiated after devouring the sandwich. Ordering another cup of coffee, she flicked through the emails on her phone. The majority were circulars, internal memos, and meeting reminders. Thankfully, DCs Brad Martin and Steve “McQueen” Nugent were back in the office having attended the convenience store this morning. Nugent had compiled a report on the system, and had emailed her with the early stages of the investigation. She rolled her eyes. If one of those two were going to take the lead, it was Nugent. DC Brad Martin was the weak link in her team in terms of capability and competence, though she wouldn’t say that to his face. A worrier and constantly fidgeting, he annoyed the hell out of her. He was just weird, but then again, they no doubt said that about her. She was tough, aggressive, serious at work, but fair, and that often led to friction. The fact she didn’t smile much and had a dry sense of humour only made her more aloof in their eyes.
By the time Karen returned to the office, it was the middle of the afternoon. The team bobbed up from their individual workstations to see her arrive. Jade had returned from taking a statement and swabs from Diane Murphy and her son and had dropped them off with forensics.
“Okay team; gather round,” Karen shouted across the floor, as she positioned herself alongside the whiteboard. “Any sign of the DCI?” she asked, looking around the team. The question was met with a collective shake of their heads. Typical, she thought. He would no doubt miraculously appear when she least expected it. She turned towards the board, and put a picture of Jack Taylor on the board, securing it with magnetic pins. “We’ve got a new case which requires our immediate attention. Jack Taylor was killed in the early hours of this morning. Often known as “Beanie” to his associates, he was the head of a crime organisation.”
Karen handed out printouts which included Taylor’s picture, and summaries of the activities involving him. The team took a few moments to scan through the details.
She crossed her arms and rocked back and forth on her toes and heels. “As you can see, he’s not your average run-of-the-mill criminal. Armed robberies, extortion and drug trafficking were key components of his business. What we need to find out is who wanted him dead?”
“That could be a big pond with lots of fish?” Jade offered.
DC Brad Martin shuffled around in his seat, head bowed, mumbling to himself.
“Brad!” Karen said firmly. “If you’ve got something to say, then say it, instead of muttering silent sweet nothings to yourself.”
Brad’s eyes widened. He hated being in the spotlight. Knowing his colleagues were staring at him, made him fidget more. Thin and gangly like Wainwright, the pathologist, Brad had a thin neck, a bulging Adam’s apple, and a thin protruding chin with a matching nose. The man’s nose reminded her of the shape of the Concorde’s nose, thin and bent down. He winced as the muscles in his neck tightened, a problem which flared up from time to time. He’d carried the injury for ten years but couldn’t remember how it happened, other than possibly falling down the stairs one night after a fight with his girlfriend.
Karen had never hung out with him other than at team dos. And even then, she never sat that close to him. He was pale, unhealthy, and pasty-looking. But she put up with him because he possessed a calculating mind which on occasion allowed him to be a brilliant problem solver.
“Yes, ma’am. We could talk of dozens of potential suspects, associates, enemies, rival organisations, or something even more random than that.”
Brad was always the one to state the obvious.
“Thanks for that, Brad.” She muttered as she turned towards the whiteboard. “We need to start looking into his final few hours, and then work back from there. Look for any falling out with anyone or another crime outfit. And whilst we’re at it, we need to check his banking history, phone records, and emails.”
“Forensics have retrieved his phones, ma’am. Three. And they are with the high-tech unit,” Jade confirmed. But Karen knew there would be little they could recover from the phones. In her experience they often came with sophisticated encryption software that no amount of technology could crack. Any unauthorised tampering with the phones would often lead to the software detecting it and wiping the contents of the phone clean.
“Ma’am, Jade asked me to look into the details surrounding the restaurant in Holborn. I spoke to the restaurant’s owners, and I also sent uniform over there to collect CCTV footage. Luckily for us they had a camera trained on the front door, and the rear kitchen door. The restaurant owners told us that everyone was well behaved at the restaurant until a former colleague of Taylor’s turned up.”
Having delivered his initial findings, DC Steve Nugent flicked the remote control on the TV monitor to play the CCTV footage they recovered. Steve was more commonly known as “McQueen.” He had earned the nickname having styled himself on his favourite actor Steve McQueen. He dr
essed in stylish, tight-fitting suits, with pencil-thin ties. The “McQueen look” continued with short mousy brown hair with a side parting, and piercing blue eyes. He was suave, smart and big on appearance and styling.
Karen admired him. He was known for getting the job done, and he came with bags of confidence. He had the balance just right, and to top it off had a natural manliness to him that attracted more than his fair share of female attention. She too found him attractive, with his chiselled jaw, and dashing smile. At thirty-nine years old, he was rugged and in his prime, and of all things, Karen groaned that she had to be his boss.
The CCTV footage played on the monitor. The team watched as various guests arrived. Some were familiar to them, like Diane Murphy and her son Ben, but others weren’t.
“There was nothing on the front door footage suggesting an altercation, or threat of violence,” Karen said. “And judging by the two burly men on the door, it was unlikely that anything would happen, unless a guest had a death wish.”
“No, ma’am,” McQueen agreed, as he pressed the fast forward on the remote control. “But check this out.”
The footage switched to the rear kitchen doors. Nothing happened for minutes. The team grew impatient, shifting in the chairs, and sighing loudly.
“Get on with it, McQueen,” Karen demanded.
He gave her one of his alluring and reassuring smiles that pacified her.
He paused the footage as a man with short hair and a beard, wearing a black leather jacket, approached the back door. They watched as he peered in, looking back, before stepping through the double doors. Karen made a note of the timestamp as McQueen fast-forwarded the tape again to where the man reappeared through the doors and walked off. Karen made a note of that time too.
“Have you got a name for this person?” Jade asked.
McQueen nodded. “The restaurant owners were reluctant to say much to begin with, but they said he was an associate of Taylor’s. His name is Dean Macholl. Apparently Macholl would always be there when Taylor was meeting his other associates. But they pointed out that he hadn’t been seen for a few years.”
“Is he known to us?”
McQueen confirmed that in response to Jade’s question. “He’s just been released from a Belgian prison. He did five years for robbery. Going from his case file, it was suggested that Macholl and Taylor were involved in an armed robbery of a bookies that went wrong. It resulted in a cashier being shot and fatally wounded. It was never confirmed if both were involved, but rumours on the street suggested that it was Taylor who had orchestrated the raid. After that point Macholl disappeared off the face of the earth before popping up in front of the justice system in Belgium.”
“So, were there no convictions?”
McQueen shook his head. “Descriptions were vague. Three white males in balaclavas. Again, rumours on the street suggested that Darren Finch, a small-time drug dealer, may have been the third accomplice. Nothing confirmed, ma’am.”
Karen moved closer in to the monitor and looked at the frozen image of Macholl captured outside the rear doors. “And do we know what happened inside? He was there for no more than ten minutes.”
“This is where the restaurant owners clammed up. There was a heated argument between Taylor and Macholl.”
“That’s good enough for me. That gives us a starting point. Do we know where Macholl is?”
McQueen nodded, handing her a slip of paper. The address was an apartment between Bethnal Green and Shoreditch.
“Good work, Steve. I want you to come with me. Jade and Brad, I want you to work on identifying the other faces in the video. Go back to the restaurant if you have to.”
McQueen was already grabbing his jacket before Karen had finished dishing out the instructions.
10
Columbia Road was a mixture of modern and old. A narrow cobbled road formed the dividing line between trendy, three-storey, modern suburban living, that rubbed shoulders with older apartments, and small two-storey terraced properties. Much had changed over the past one hundred years. The ground floor of the smaller terraced properties had been converted into retail units where newsagents, knick-knack shops, and eateries stood side by side and offered an eclectic ambience to the street.
As Karen and McQueen made their way down the street, Karen couldn’t help soak up the history it offered. They walked past the Royal Oak pub, and she noticed a sign above the doorway which referred to its existence as far back as 1923. It looked like a proper East End boozer, and she wondered what tales this old establishment had been privy to.
She imagined that it had been a meeting point for many during the Second World War. A hub for the local community, a place of safety and support. In her mind, she imagined soldiers in green tunics, the Home Guard, wardens and police officers in their dark uniforms, milling about in between the raids. She wondered how many of the houses had Anderson shelters scattered in their back gardens, whilst other families huddled on the platforms of underground stations, protected from the barrage of bombs during the Blitz. How many must have survived after thousands of bombs had obliterated London?
As they walked, the sounds of modern-day life filtered into her awareness, planes criss-crossing the sky, cars and commercial vehicles trundling along the narrow streets, and the sound of muted conversations. But back then, the sounds must have been harrowing. Air-raid sirens, and the sound of emergency vehicles as they raced from one fire to another. The images in her mind sent a shiver down her spine. London had suffered in so many ways, no more so than when Londoners heard the dull and thunderous rumble in the skies above, as hordes of German bombers clouded the skies.
And then there was the silent assassin, the flying bomb, often known as the doodlebug. She imagined the fear as each one approached. The most noticeable aspect of doodlebugs was their sound, unlike any ordinary plane. It had a strange tearing and rasping sound, more like a two-stroke motorcycle. It soon gained a sinister and disturbing quality and prompted ignoble reactions. If the motor cut out when the weapon approached, then it was likely to drop nearby, and everyone raced to the shelters; if it continued its flight, they could breathe a sigh of relief knowing it was another part of London that would fall victim.
Macholl was staying in a small and unassuming one-bedroom apartment in one of the older blocks. Karen and McQueen were greeted by an eye-watering, bright yellow, communal front door, framed by two glass brick pillars on either side. At least it appeared to be safer than she expected. She had imagined being confronted by feral youths who hid their faces with black hoodies and congregated in large groups, playing drill music on their phones, and acting suspiciously.
Karen pressed the button for Macholl’s apartment, and the intercom crackled into life.
“Yeah?” came a man’s voice.
“Is this Dean Macholl?”
“Who’s asking?”
“I’m Detective Inspector Heath, and I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
The front door buzzed open, and she glanced over her shoulder towards McQueen. “Do you want to hang about here, just to make sure we’re not interrupted or caught off guard?”
McQueen shook his head and glanced around. “I don’t think we’re about to get jumped. Besides, I’m not going to let you see an ex-con, a violent ex-con, on your own.” He humorously waved his arm, suggesting that she lead the way.
They left the hustle and bustle of the street behind them as they walked through the silent corridor. Karen scrunched her nose at the faint musty smell that mixed with disinfectant. It was a dark corridor, with cold concrete floors, and smooth walls painted in a neutral magnolia. It was better than some apartments she’d visited, where litter, and black refuse sacks sat outside each doorway, occupants too lazy to take them to the communal bins outside. She was also surprised by the absence of noise. There were no muffled sounds of screaming children behind doors, or deaf residents with TVs turned up too loud.
Macholl’s place was on the ground floor. From experi
ence many in his position often took ground-floor apartments, as it offered a means of escape, that was safer than jumping out of a first- or second-storey window.
Dean Macholl stood in the doorway of his apartment when Karen and McQueen arrived. He glanced at both, his eyes narrowed with suspicion.
Karen and McQueen pulled out their warrant cards, and introduce themselves, before Macholl invited them in.
It was a small apartment, and Karen noticed a bedroom to her left, which also housed a sofa, and a kitchen off to her right which appeared clean, and tastefully decorated. It had white units, with varnished wood work surfaces. There was one doorway further on, which she assumed was the bathroom.
Macholl led them into the bedroom and sat himself on the end of the bed and offered them the sofa. It was sparsely decorated, a double wardrobe, a two-seater settee, and a bed, together with a bedside table. There were none of the personal effects that would have made it homelier, like photo frames, lamps, and prints on the wall. It was stark and bare.
“What can I do for you?” he asked with a smile.
Karen noticed that he was a tall man, at least six foot plus, with salt-and-pepper hair, and hazel eyes. When he smiled, lines creased the skin around his eyes, which left him looking weathered, but distinctive and charismatic. His grey beard added to his maturity.
Karen and McQueen sunk into the two-seater sofa, and looked at each other in an awkward silence, as their shoulders rubbed, and their legs touched. The proximity to each other wasn’t something they were used to.
“I’d like to ask you a few questions about an incident yesterday.”
Macholl smiled in Karen’s direction. It was a knowing smile as if he’d expected the visit.
“We’re investigating the murder of Jack Taylor.”
Macholl nodded. “So I hear.”
“How did you hear?” Karen asked.
McQueen took out his notebook and pen, to take his mind off the fact that the sofa was so lumpy and uneven, that it was sinking into the centre, making him lean closer into Karen.
