by Jane Casey
Too bad. There were more important things than manicures.
Being out of the office all day meant that I had to deal with what seemed like thousands of emails. I skimmed through them, trying to keep track of cases that had no press attention, no clamour for a result. Princess Gordon’s death had passed almost unnoticed, and not just because it had been solved so quickly. There was no media interest in a young black woman being beaten to death by her partner, even if she had been pregnant. But she was just as dead as the Gentleman Killer’s victims.
DS Burns had come up trumps with the number for Method Management, the company that looked after Kirsty Campbell’s apartment building. I was gratified to discover that they had an emergency hotline number and I rang them straight away, even as I was reading through the rest of my emails, to ask about Kirsty’s property. I explained who I was to the bored-sounding man who answered the phone.
‘Is it possible to check if Kirsty had any issues with her flat, or the building? Any complaints?’
‘In what period?’
‘Let’s start with December and January.’
‘I’ll have to look it up. Do you want me to call you back?’
‘I’ll hold on.’
He put the phone down beside his keyboard and I listened to the tapping, hoping he was doing what I’d asked rather than updating his Facebook status.
‘I’ve just got to go and check something.’ He didn’t wait for me to reply, dropping the phone again with a clatter. His chair squeaked as he pushed it away from his desk and I imagined him walking across the office, giving him a crumpled white shirt that was pulling out of the waistband of wrinkled trousers and scuffed shoes. My version of him needed a haircut and had a weakness for pies. He was probably whippet thin and bandbox neat in real life.
While I waited I dealt with the remaining emails. Just as I was getting to the end, a new one popped into my inbox. It was from James Peake, the DS on the Maxine Willoughby case, which in itself wasn’t that odd; I had given him my card when I was distributing them to all and sundry after the meeting. The bit that made my heart sink was the subject line. Drink?
‘You still there?’
‘Yep,’ I said, dragging my mind back to Kirsty.
‘Just to say, I’ve had to speak to my boss about releasing this information and he wants me to make sure you realise that we aren’t liable for anything.’ Anyfing.
‘That’s not why I’m ringing. I just want to know her concerns.’ I wiggled my pen between my fingers, tapping the end on the desk. The tapping was getting faster the longer he delayed.
‘He wants to speak to you.’
‘Fine. Give me his number.’ I would speak to anyone if they could just tell me something helpful.
The phone didn’t even ring before he picked up with a sharp-sounding ‘Hello?’
‘This is Detective Constable Maeve Kerrigan.’
‘I’m Kevin Montrose, the owner of Method Management.’
Good for you. ‘I’m investigating the murder of Kirsty Campbell.’
‘So I’m told. Just so you know, there was no damage to the property and no sign of forced entry.’ He sounded anxious as well as sharp. Something was up.
‘I’m aware of the lack of damage.’
‘There was going to be an investigation of Miss Campbell’s concerns and we were actively engaged in organising that at the time she died.’
‘I see. And what were those concerns?’
‘According to the file, Miss Campbell raised some issues about the quality of the locks used on the external doors and the internal front doors in the building. She was also concerned about the window locks and the provision for escape from the property in the event of a fire. Obviously we are very careful to maintain smoke alarms and carbon monoxide monitors in the properties we manage, as I informed her.’
‘When did she contact you about this?’
‘Twenty-seven one.’
It took me a second. ‘The twenty-seventh of January? Three days before she died?’
‘I believe so.’
‘Was there anything else?’
‘She said she had been advised we should have CCTV fitted on the outside of the property, to cover the front and rear exits and the car park area. There is a bike rack at the flats too and she was worried about bikes being stolen from there. I told her a determined thief won’t be put off by locks or CCTV but she wasn’t impressed.’ He gave a thin laugh. ‘And she wanted us to install a video entryphone so the residents could see who they were buzzing in to the building.’
‘That’s recommended on the Metropolitan Police website.’
‘Well, they can come up with the money, then. I told her it would cost a fortune and I also told her she’d have no chance of persuading everyone else in the building to pay their share. The landlords don’t want to be bothered with that sort of thing and the owner-occupiers have enough to worry about with the basic charges.’ He sounded smug as he said it, and since his company set the charges, I could see why he might.
‘Anything else?’
‘Letterbox shields on the back of the door to stop people fishing through the letterbox. Security lighting outside. And she wanted the doorframe reinforced on her flat.’
‘It sounds as if she was desperately concerned about her security.’
‘Something had made her aware of potential security issues.’ Montrose’s version was a much blander, safer one than mine.
‘Did you speak to her yourself?’
‘The call was transferred to me at Miss Campbell’s request.’
‘How did she seem? Was she upset?’
‘No. It wasn’t an unpleasant call. She was calm. It was as if someone had given her a list and she was just working through it. She didn’t seem to know or care if it would be expensive to make those changes.’
‘Maybe she thought it was worth any money to be safe in her own home,’ I said. ‘But she wasn’t safe. And you had no intention of making any of the changes she requested.’
‘That’s not so. We listed them as I’ve just proved since it was all in the file, and we were working on a costing when her body was found.’
‘Do you have the costing on file?’
‘I think we didn’t complete it. Under the circumstances—’
‘I would have thought the circumstances would have made it more urgent, not less.’ And it’s ‘in the circumstances’, you greasy little twerp. ‘I was at the flats today, Mr Montrose. Do you know what I saw? No CCTV. No security lighting. No video intercom at the front door. I didn’t examine the locks but I bet they’re the same ones that were in use when Kirsty Campbell was alive.’
His silence told me I was right.
‘If you were taking her seriously, you would have gone ahead with the changes the tenants agreed to make. You would have done a proper costing and circulated it to all the residents and it is possible that not all of the security measures would have been adopted but some of them would have gone ahead. You heard she was dead and as far as you were concerned the problem had gone away.’
‘She didn’t die because the locks weren’t adequate,’ he blustered. ‘There was no sign of a break-in at the address. We were in close contact with the officers who were investigating the murder back in January and they were absolutely clear that there was no damage to the building, the locks, the doors or the windows.’
‘What about the fact that the front door lock was broken?’
‘What about it?’
‘That had been reported to you, hadn’t it? Not just by Kirsty. By the other residents. You’d had complaints, I gather, before the murder.’
‘A couple.’
‘When was the first one logged?’
‘Four days before the murder.’
‘Four days,’ I repeated. ‘And you hadn’t got it repaired.’
‘We were bringing in a technician.’
‘From where? China? While the door was broken, the tenants were at risk of burglary or worse
. And Kirsty died.’ My voice had risen and I glanced around, suddenly self-conscious. The room had emptied out while I was talking. With the exception of the new detective, Dave Kemp, I was on my own. ‘What was the hold-up?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘Pretty standard, was it?’
‘I’m not sure I should answer that.’
‘This isn’t a civil court, Mr Montrose, and you’re not in the witness box. I’m just trying to find out the facts. I’m not going to sue you on Kirsty’s behalf.’
‘There are no grounds for suing us.’ The reply came too quickly. I really doubted Kevin Montrose slept well at night.
‘Did Kirsty mention being afraid of anyone or anything in particular?’
‘No.’
‘Did she mention where she’d got this list of security measures?’
‘No.’
‘Did she mention anyone else at all? Other residents? Friends? A boyfriend?’
‘No. The police asked me all this at the time.’
‘Well, I’m asking you about it again.’
‘Is that because of the other girls?’
I didn’t answer him straight away, wondering how to play it, and he went on.
‘I saw it in the paper. Now there are three of them. Terrible, isn’t it? You know, you’re giving me shit about not having sorted out the security measures, but it seems to me the Met are more at fault than anyone.’ He was angry, and getting more confident by the second. ‘If you’d caught him back in January, two women would be alive who aren’t now. That’s a lot worse than being a bit slack about fixing a door.’ He hung up almost before he’d finished saying ‘door’, afraid that I’d find some way of hitting back so he wouldn’t get the last word.
‘Pillock,’ I said under my breath anyway and put the phone down so I could click on James Peake’s email. I’d been putting it off while I was on the phone but I hadn’t forgotten it; I’d seen it out of the corner of my eye the whole time I was enduring my conversation with Kevin Montrose. It didn’t take long to read it.
Thought we should meet up to discuss the case.
Might be useful to talk about it one-to-one.
JP
I felt less tense. Just a friendly invitation to go for a drink. And perhaps an indication that he felt as enthusiastic about Andy Bradbury as I did. Maybe there was something he wanted me to know about how the new inspector had been handling the investigation and he couldn’t say so directly on his work email. He’d never grass Bradbury up to a senior officer like Una Burt or God himself, no matter how annoying Bradbury was to work for. I was low enough to the bottom of the pole to be unthreatening, yet I could pass the word on to the bosses that Bradbury was out of his depth. It all made perfect sense. I rattled off a reply suggesting that we meet the following night and leaving the venue up to him. It meant we would be meeting on a Saturday, which made me slightly uneasy, but I would be working all weekend and so would he. He would know it was strictly business.
I sent the email without another thought about it, except the vague relief that I wouldn’t be left to my own company. So much for wanting to enjoy spending time alone. I checked my phone again, hoping for a message from Rob, but there was nothing. I’d had a text to say he’d arrived, but that was it so far. Punitive roaming charges meant he was unlikely to use his mobile. I couldn’t help looking, though.
‘What are you doing?’
I must have jumped a foot in the air. ‘N–nothing.’
Derwent was standing directly behind my chair. I hadn’t heard him coming; the carpet had made his footsteps completely silent. His face was shadowed, his expression equally dark, and I twisted awkwardly in my chair to keep him in view. He was looking at my desk, and the notes I had written while I was on the phone with Kevin Montrose. Kirsty’s name straggled in capitals across the top of the page, and the rest was a tangle of dates and phrases. It made sense to me, but I doubted anyone else could follow it. Nonetheless, I pulled a file across the page to hide it from Derwent’s view.
It was like snapping my fingers to wake a sleepwalker. His attention jumped to me, and his face hardened. ‘Covering up your work? Afraid I’ll copy you? Don’t tell the teacher, will you?’
‘What’s up?’ I said calmly, ignoring his tone. My heart was racing.
‘I was going to ask you the same thing. You’ve been avoiding me. Screening my calls.’
‘No, I haven’t.’
He leaned across me and snatched my phone off the desk. ‘Voicemail. No new messages, no saved messages.’ He showed me. ‘But I’ve called you eight times and left messages every time. That means you’ve been deleting them.’
‘It was an oversight.’
‘It was a big fucking mistake, I’ll tell you that for nothing.’ He leaned in and I could smell the doublemint chewing gum he liked, and something else that was sour underneath it, as if he hadn’t eaten for a while. ‘Don’t ignore me.’
‘I was busy. DCI Burt—’
‘Don’t give me that. Don’t mention her name.’ He was still leaning over me and now he knocked the file to one side so he could see my notebook again. ‘Kirsty Campbell. The girl who died in Lewisham in January. Are we investigating this now?’
‘We aren’t.’
He straightened up as if I’d pushed him, staring down at me with surprise and enough hurt for me to feel sorry for him, and guilty, and unsure of myself.
‘What are you saying? You are but I’m not, is that it?’
‘The boss asked me to work with Burt on it. She’s had me running around today. I didn’t have time to call you.’ And I hadn’t wanted to face his anger. It was like standing at the door of a blast furnace. The heat of it was withering. He stared at me for what felt like endless seconds.
‘Whose idea was it? Who cut me out?’ He grabbed the arms of my chair and turned it around so he was right in my face. ‘Who told you not to talk to me?’
‘I did.’
I had never, ever been so pleased to hear Una Burt’s voice. She was at the door to the office, quite far away, but there was something reassuringly calm about the way she said it.
‘You.’ Derwent had turned to see her but he was still leaning towards me, his face inches from mine. I pressed my head back against the seat, trying to make more space between us.
‘That’s right. If you want to intimidate anyone, try me.’ She stomped in and across to her desk, putting her handbag down on it with a thud. She wasn’t even looking at Derwent any more. She’d turned her back on him, which was more than I’d risk when his eyes were so wild. At long last, he straightened up and I sucked air into aching lungs, realising I’d been unable to breathe while he was in my face. Behind her, Dave Kemp shrugged into his coat and headed for the door, careful not to look at any of us as he mumbled a goodbye. Sensible not to want a ringside seat. I wished I could do the same.
‘What gave you the right to tell her not to answer my calls?’
‘She’s engaged with a sensitive case. It wouldn’t be appropriate for her to speak to you about it.’
‘I work with Kerrigan. We’ve got cases together. And I know all about sensitive cases. I know all about this one.’
‘I’m sure you do.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ He came out from behind my desk and started moving towards her with that faltering sleepwalker step that told me he was blinded by rage. The red mist. A killing fury. Call it what you wanted, but it was controlling Derwent now, making the decisions for him. His rational mind had stepped out of the building, along with Una Burt’s sense of danger, apparently. I stood up too, not really sure what I could do. Clobber him with something, maybe. I started to look around for a suitably heavy object and came up short. The stapler wasn’t going to do it. I really wished I had my Asp, the extendable baton that I’d used to win friends and influence people while I was on the street. Twenty-one inches of steel tended to end arguments pretty quickly.
‘Was this your idea?’ Derwent demanded, stil
l getting closer to Una Burt, who was reading a file, completely unconcerned, as if nothing was going on. ‘Was it your suggestion to shut me out?’
‘It was Godley, if you must know.’
‘No, it wasn’t.’ Derwent stopped.
‘It was.’ She twisted around to look at him and I felt even more uncomfortable when I saw how much she was enjoying this. ‘He was quite clear about it. You’re to be kept well away from this investigation.’
‘Why?’ The way he said it was almost plaintive.
‘I think you know.’
I heard footsteps in the corridor and Godley appeared in the doorway. He stopped dead. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Just finding out why I’m not in the gang, boss.’ The bitterness in Derwent’s voice was searing.
‘It’s not like that.’
‘It is,’ Derwent insisted.
‘I have a small team working on this inquiry. I don’t need another DI.’
‘But you need Kerrigan. And her.’ He pointed at Una Burt.
‘And Harry Maitland. And one or two others.’ Godley moved a little closer to Derwent. ‘I’ve got officers coming out of my ears on this one. I don’t want to take people like you away from the other cases that are going on. They matter too.’
‘I’ve asked you. I’ve begged you.’
‘Not going to happen. And you need to leave now, before you make a serious mistake.’ Godley took another step forward. Because he was so civilised, I tended to overlook the fact that he was tall and physically fit. He’d done his time on the street too, back in the day. Standing near Derwent, his eyes watchful, Godley looked as if he could handle himself in a fight. I saw him shift his feet to adjust his balance and I suddenly felt sorry for Derwent – sorry and scared.
