As they filed away, he heard their chatter start again as the door closed behind them.
“He’s one of those bloody coppers,” said one.
“He was giving you the eye, Tracy…”
Simmons blushed. This job was bad for his sex life. At this rate he’d be lucky if he ended up with a stony-faced WPC for a wife. But beggars couldn’t be choosers.
Simmons reached the blank door where Marvin the runner had disappeared. He carefully pulled it open, and saw lines of narrow apartment doors running along either side. They were far less well spaced than the others he’d seen, so the rooms had to be bloody poky. He heard music and chatter coming from behind some of the doors. They were the staff either between shifts or waiting to start work. This end of the business looked far from grand.
Simmons kept the door pushed close to the jamb, allowing himself a glimpse of Marvin’s back as he reached the doors where the corridor ended at the back wall. The runner stopped and knocked on the last door and waited. Simmons listened to him whistling as female laughter broke out from behind another door. It was soon clear the door wasn’t going to be opened. Marvin stepped to the right and knocked on the door beside it. He got the same result. No answer. Simmons watched as he knocked again. Why bother with that, Simmons wondered. But Marvin waited. Then Simmons saw him looking around. Simmons’s brow dropped low over his eyes. He watched the young man pull a set of keys from his pocket and he inserted a key in the furthest door. Marvin opened the door carefully.
“Eh?” whispered Simmons.
The young man ducked inside and shut the door behind him. No more than thirty seconds later, he reappeared in the corridor, glancing in all directions. Marvin shut the door behind him and started on the next door along – the other one he’d knocked on before. He opened it up and repeated the whole process. When Marvin re-emerged, a peal of laughter behind a closed door jerked him upright. Simmons watched him recover as he realised there was no threat of being found out. They were having too much fun for it to be good. Simmons caught a hint of pungent skunk weed on the air.
Marvin closed the door and started marching back down the corridor towards Simmons. Simmons reeled away from the door. He looked around. He had to stay out of sight, and somehow place himself behind the runner once again. He heard a male voice singing in the men’s washrooms, and the sauna hut was still strictly off limits until Hogarth or Dickens gave the all clear. Simmons eyed the bright white doorway of the female washrooms. He moved without a second thought. He jumped into the doorway and pressed himself close to the tiles at the edge. Marvin stormed past him, looking pleased with himself, whistling a tune Simmons half-recognised from the radio.
Simmons eyes raked over the young man for clues as to what he had been doing. He had no swag bag. No obvious booty. Nothing. So had Marvin had been thieving for cash? Runners didn’t get paid well in the mainstream film industry – and in a parochial soft porn market, Simmons guessed the kid was barely on the minimum wage. Simmons got ready to move after Marvin when the door to the main corridor opened again. He was forced to hold back. But it wasn’t Marvin. A couple of young women appeared, talking excitedly about something. Simmons shut his eyes tight, grimaced and swallowed. Unless he moved out of the female washroom it was only going to get worse. He stepped out into the common area. The two young women stopped walking and fell silent as they met his eyes.
“Uh,” said Simmons.
One girl put her hands on her hips and took on a moody air. She looked ready to tear a strip off him. Simmons side-stepped them like a crab and grabbed the door to follow Marvin.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I’m with the police.” But it was too late. By now both girls were shaking their heads.
Simmons gritted his teeth and moved fast. The door at the other end of the corridor was shutting, and he didn’t want to lose Marvin. Not after suffering another humiliation. If that little sprat really was up to no good, he was going to pay. And if it was connected to Hogarth’s supposed murder case, so much the better.
***
With his phone pressed to his ear, Hogarth paced around the reception area and the corridors which broke away from the main stairwell. He looked through the porthole windows, and out through the reception towards the gym.
“He’s still not answering,” said Hogarth. “Didn’t he tell you where he was going?”
Palmer shook her head. “But he’s not here, is he?”
“Well we can’t stand around here waiting all day. Melford’s given me a deadline, and I intend to beat it. Simmons will have to make his own way back to the nick.”
Hogarth strode out of the building, Palmer lingered inside a few more seconds. But Simmons didn’t appear. Palmer typed a quick text explanation of their departure and walked out into the cold day.
***
Simmons caught up with Marvin at the studio reception. The young man walked briskly out into the lobby and waved at the bubble-gum blonde behind the desk.
“See you soon, Gina.”
“Okay, Marv.”
Simmons waited long enough to prevent being too obvious, then he pushed through the door. The receptionist looked up at him, but he ignored her, and rushed out into the car park. He stopped his rushing when he reached the outside. He watched Marvin skip down the steps towards a bank of parked cars. Marvin opened the door of a battered old burgundy VW Golf, and jumped inside. Simmons pulled his mobile phone and looked around for Hogarth’s car. But it was gone. Simmons watched the burgundy Golf reverse out of its space and make a one-eighty degree turn before it pulled away towards the industrial exit lane. Simmons’ jaw dropped open. He stared at the empty space where Hogarth’s car had been and swore out loud Then looked down at his phone screen and saw he had missed a text.
Where did you go? Gone back to the station now. We tried to call you.
As Simmons read the text, his phone suddenly received a string of missed call messages. He’d missed the calls because he’d been deep down in the bunker-basement of the X-L building. But that didn’t matter now. He had found a lead, and now he had lost it. Simmons looked up at the overcast sky and issued a few more swear words through gritted teeth.
Seventeen
When Hogarth finally returned to the CID room Palmer looked up to read the runes in the lines on his face. The DI had been gone long enough that Palmer had started to wonder if he’d been sucked back into a DCI Melford black hole. But Palmer saw that Hogarth’s haggard face looked about as calm as it ever did. He walked in and tossed her a round roll in a greasy white paper bag.
“There you go, Palmer. Don’t say I don’t get you anything. One of Rosie’s canteen specials. Ham and egg. If you close your eyes and hold your nose it might even taste like ham and egg.”
“Cheers, guv.”
Palmer unwrapped the paper and looked at the soft brown roll. True. It didn’t look as dry as some of the usual variety.
“So, laughing boy’s not back then?”
Palmer bit into the roll and shook her head. Hogarth took a big bite but kept right on talking. “Do you think he’s alright?”
Palmer nodded and waited until she had swallowed. “Yeah. He’ll get a cab.”
“That’s not what I meant. I meant back on the job. He seems a bit jittery to me, Palmer.”
“Give him time, guv. It’s early days. He has every right not to feel himself yet.”
“I think he likes it there, don’t you?”
“What?” said Palmer.
“I don’t think he’s got a girlfriend on the go, has he?” said Hogarth, risking a mischievous grin.
“Maybe he’s asked Harry King if he can be in the next picture.”
Palmer shook her head. Hogarth’s face changed and he walked to his desk. He bit the roll as he pulled the old flipchart board from its place leaning against the wall, turned it round and kicked its long metal legs into place. Hogarth dumped his roll on the desk and picked up a thick black marker. He started writing.
“So, w
hat have we got?” he said.
He wrote in big capital letters. Bolshie Hogarth letters.
UNUSED LINE OF COKE
NO SEDATIVE IN BODY – UNCONSCIOUS?
CRACKED TILE – GLASS PARTICLE
WINE GLASS AND WATER
TRYING IT ON WITH CHRISSIE HEATON ETC
“Lana Aubrey gave us something else. Did you catch it, Palmer?”
Palmer recalled Hogarth transfixed at Aubrey’s naked photograph and suppressed a smile.
“I don’t think so, guv.”
“Marvin, the runner. The lad dropped a clanger there. The lad told me he worked until 9pm on Sunday night but Lana Aubrey said she saw him at ten. We need those timings looked at. Until we do, it’s another possible lead. It goes on the list.”
Hogarth scribbled a new note at the bottom of the list:
MARVIN LEAVES 9 OR 10?
He stared at it and looked at Palmer.
“What do you make of it?”
“It could be a mistake. One of them is wrong,” said Palmer.
“Or Marvin lied,” said Hogarth. “It could be important. Am I missing anything else?”
“Dickens and Marris. Did they give you anything new?” said Palmer.
Hogarth shook his head. “I tried just now. Dickens says the fluid on the tile contained some sugar, like a lot of booze does, but the alcohol content had evaporated. It was a clear liquid, so it could have been vodka. Marris can’t prove it yet. But no, we haven’t got a lot else there. Marris says the thickness of the glass particle suggests it probably was the bottom of a booze bottle too – fragmented upon impact. That’ll be the thing that cracked the tile. But there are no prints and we don’t know for sure what it was.”
Hogarth looked at Palmer’s uncertain face. “Hey. It’s another detail, Palmer. If we can get a handle on this investigation, these things will add up sooner or later.”
Palmer didn’t think much of it. Nor about the coke. But rather than make an issue of it, she took another big bite from her ham and cheese roll.
“For me, these two aspects are crucial,” said Hogarth. “The runner was there later than he said, too. That’s important.”
He underlined the line of cocaine, the lack of sedative and the last note of Marvin.
“The empty wine glass and the broken tile will come in somewhere, but the rest matters more right now.”
He looked at Palmer but she was busily inspecting the contents of her roll.
“Come on. Unless there was some skulduggery, these aspects don’t make sense,” said Hogarth. “And a death should be simple. It either makes sense or it doesn’t. Aimee Gillen was wired, but died unconscious. She was a cokehead who left a line untouched. And who broke that tile with a booze bottle? Aimee Gillen wasn’t drunk! That doesn’t make sense. And nor does this.”
Palmer looked up.
“Aimee Gillen was all but out of Harry King Studios, so think. More than a few people we’ve spoken to think she’d been arguing with her boyfriend. But when she’s all but out on her ear, she suddenly starts cracking on to every young girl in sight – but we’ve no evidence that she’d ever done so before. It’s as if Gillen had gone on heat. That doesn’t make sense either. We’ve got to square these circles, as soon as possible. Marvin should be an easier matter. He was there or he wasn’t.”
“Aimee Gillen was falling apart, guv. With Chrissie Heaton, Gillen could have been reaching out for companionship with another vulnerable person or simply to distract herself. Those rows with a boyfriend on the phone. Aimee Gillen might just have just been lonely.”
“No, Palmer,” said Hogarth. “The way Lana Aubrey reacted in her office made it sound like she was working hard not to make Aimee Gillen sound bad. Like she was trying to protect the woman’s reputation. Which suggests they think that Aimee Gillen could have been a sexual predator and Aubrey was just trying to airbrush it. I’m not sure I buy that, what about you?”
Palmer shook her head. It was true. Aimee Gillen had been all washed up, but the woman seemed intent on going down in a blizzard of cocaine rather than any other way. Hogarth was right. It didn’t make sense. So, Palmer tried to come at it from another angle.
“But in another way, it stacks up. Lana Aubrey backed up Chrissie Heaton’s story. The girl stayed with her that night.”
“And that also doesn’t feel right. Why not?” said Hogarth as he scratched his chin and stared at the flipchart. “Do you think we could be looking at some kind of love triangle scenario here – a crime of passion – with Lana Aubrey involved?”
Hogarth rubbed his chin again and shook his head.
He turned to face Palmer and pointed at her.
“Aubrey and Heaton had been speaking to each other. She knew Heaton’s story and Aubrey backed it up. What Aubrey said mirrored what Heaton told you.”
“Yes. Granted. But Aubrey is overworked and paranoid. They’re in the porn business and they think we’re trying to close them down.”
“Overworked. Her mobile phone is overworked, and her credit card is too. She wears Chanel glasses she doesn’t need and drives a Merc most MDs couldn’t afford.” said Hogarth. “I couldn’t care less about their grubby little business, so long as it keeps pervs off the streets locked up in their seedy little pits. Right now, I only care about this.” Hogarth flicked the flipchart. “It’s a conundrum, Palmer. The whole bloody thing. We need something to break it open. Where is Simmons? I could do with his RIPA report ASAP.”
Hogarth idly tapped the flipchart notes with his finger. Palmer saw his tapping finger still seemed focused on the cocaine and the missing sedative. Palmer discreetly shook her head.
Eighteen
Hogarth crept into his own house at 9pm. He laid the car keys down on the side and was busy planning excuses for his lateness when he stumbled over a pair of Ali’s canvas pumps and stubbed his toe on the skirting board. He cried out in pain.
“Joe. Is that you?”
He grabbed his foot and smiled as the living room door opened. There was Ali, looking out on him from the glow of the living room. She’d done something with her hair. It was all swept and silky and sculpted. And if Hogarth didn’t know better, he would have guessed that her face had been lightly made-up. Next he noticed her sleeveless top – a black vest that emphasised her curves. His throat tightened and he swallowed. A bag of mixed feelings, postponed bad words, and awkward misgivings hit him low in the stomach. But her beauty was sufficiently compelling to quieten him.
He slid off his jacket and tossed it onto the bannister. Hogarth’s misgivings – so raw the whole time he was at work, seemed to evaporate. But they were still there – like a faint trace of gas in the air. But looking at her smile made the negatives seem like a warped fantasy.
“I thought you’d be home before now, Joe,” she said.
“Yeah. Sorry. This latest case looks to be another murder. I’ve got a job on convincing my team and my superiors, but I know I’m right.”
Ali leaned in the doorway and pressed herself to the frame. Hogarth’s eyes read the curves of her body. The single malt from the Old Naval Club wasn’t helping him think straight.
“You’ve been drinking whisky,” said Ali, grinning. “I can smell it on you.”
Hogarth took a moment to order his thoughts. If Norton was right – if that business card was real and Ali had lied, then he needed to keep the upper ground. So Hogarth gave her a half-truth to hold her off. “It’s a hard case, Ali. Sometimes I need to oil the wheels in the team, to keep morale high. I took them for a drink.” His excuse sounded inadequate, so he elaborated. “My injured Detective Constable is back on duty. I guess I’m mollycoddling him.”
That was an outright lie. Hogarth never mollycoddled anyone. But he soothed himself that this lie wasn’t as bad as the ones Norton had told him. Hogarth felt the old business card in his wallet. It was hiding, slid between the business cards of a couple of old contacts from the Met.
“You really are a rounder, aren’t you,
Joe?” said Ali with a smile. Her red lips made her teeth look ultra-white. Damn. She looked delicious.
“What do you mean?” he said, scratching the back of his neck.
“You have a nose for the truth, you tell it like it is. They don’t support you, yet you look after the people around you. And you look after me. I’ve made you a dinner. You are hungry, aren’t you?”
Her eyes sparkled at him. His mouth twitched with a hint of a dopey teenager’s smile. “Yeah. Always.”
“Beef bourguignon okay?”
“Sounds great,” he said. The voice inside his head was no longer mincing its words. You feeble bastard, Joe, it said.
“Come on then, I’ll dish up.”
He walked into the living room and gazed at his own reproachful eyes in the mirror above the fireplace. Hogarth knew where this was leading and so far he wasn’t fighting it. Ali had folded out the little dining table and set up the plates alongside an open bottle of red wine. Ali walked into the kitchen while Hogarth inspected the wine label. A minute later, Ali returned with a steaming dish in each hand, with her eyes trained on his. Hogarth watched as the meat and sauce were layered on his plate, but he was absorbed by the proximity of her body near his far more than his hunger. His heart thudded in his chest. He bit his lip. He couldn’t go through with this – not in good conscience. He looked up at her, his eyes passing over her bosom and shoulders before he settled on her eyes.
“Ali… what’s all this in aid of?”
She pulled her hair from her eyes. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“What?”
“I think we had our first row, didn’t we?”
Hogarth shrugged.
“We did, Joe. And it’s because I was being distant with you. I’m sorry. But I guess I got used to my own space. James abandoned me a long time ago and I suppose I got used to it. I took out my frustration on you. I took you for granted, and I don’t want to do that anymore.”
The Darkest Deed_A Gripping Detective Crime Mystery Page 15
