by Lee Weeks
‘Did he look like he slept rough every day?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well he won’t be able to get into most of the hostels with a dog so he’ll be on the streets somewhere. The Dogs’ Trust care for the dogs on the street. They might know this man,’ Robbo said. ‘Did he say anything?’
‘Nothing. He ran for it when I tried to approach him to bring him in. I pushed too fast. I was trying to catch him off-guard. I messed up.’
‘No, you misjudged – you didn’t mess up,’ corrected Carter.
Robbo was making notes as they talked.
‘We don’t know if he speaks English then. We need to find him and to know exactly who uses that building,’ he said. ‘There must be a mainstay of sleepers in there.’
‘The foreigners tend to stick together. The drinkers do too,’ said Hector.
Robbo made notes. ‘Right. People stay in their social groups,’ he said. ‘I’ll get hold of Social Services for the area and see if they have had any information about Parade Street.’
‘Hannover Estate is a rough one,’ said Carter. ‘Looks like the gangs are rife in there. There was graffiti everywhere.’
‘We know them,’ Robbo agreed. ‘The Hannover Boys are a well-established gang. There are sparodic outbursts of trouble in there. There has been a lot of activity there recently. Robbery around the neighbouring streets and the usual muggings, phone theft.’
‘What about the serious stuff?’ asked Carter.
‘They are thought to be responsible for three murders in the last two years – gangland turf wars – a beef about territory. Twelve rape charges down to them but didn’t make it to court. Gang rapes are their speciality. Five of them are in prison for the rape of two girls held hostage in a flat in the tower block. They were kept for thirty-six hours. Both families had to be given witness protection and moved out of the area. The girls were thirteen. Mahmet Balik is the man behind most of these attacks.’
‘Jesus – well within their capabilities then: murder, rape. Balik seems to be unchecked,’ said Carter.
‘Mahmet Balik and his deputies,’ said Hector. ‘I was part of the Met’s drive to sort out the gangs on that estate when the Trident Operation changed brief to include the gangs. I had to help a family there. The fourteen-year-old daughter had been caught carrying weapons for male gang members. She’d been passed around as a piece of meat within the gang, sexualized from the age of twelve. She was in a mess. Already on crack. We had to relocate the whole family because they lived in fear of reprisals. Mahmet Balik was the main one they were scared of. He’s escaped a murder charge a few times now. There’s been insufficient evidence to get him but he’s getting cockier all the time.’
‘Okay. We need house-to-house in there then. Let’s see what people are saying on the estate,’ said Carter. ‘We also need to find Olivia on CCTV on her way there, if we can.’
‘We have her car reg now,’ Robbo said as he went across to pour coffee into five mugs. ‘We have patrol cars looking out for it.’ He handed the mugs out.
Carter took his coffee and sipped appreciatively. Robbo was a coffee connoisseur. He had been given a machine that made it from pods for Christmas but it was still unopened in its box. He preferred to grind his mix of coffee beans and brew it in a cafetière. That and Haribo gummy bears were his biggest weakness, and added to his thick waistline. It didn’t help that he never wanted to move from his office. His agoraphobia was never completely under control. It took managing – it didn’t like surprises.
‘So . . .’ said Robbo. ‘Not only did she come to a derelict building in a condemned street, she came in a suspender belt and stockings.’ He turned to Willis. ‘She went in there by mistake? Was she meeting someone? Did someone take her in there?’
‘We looked in the drawers in her bedroom,’ said Carter. ‘Bondage gear and ball gags and some sort of complicated-looking harness.’
‘That’s why she went in there then, was it? The thrill of a lifetime?’ asked Robbo.
‘Maybe . . .’ said Carter. ‘She wasn’t careful what she wished for.’
‘What about the body itself?’ Robbo turned to ask Willis.
She walked across to the whiteboard and the crime-scene photos. A map of the area was pinned up and a close-up of Parade Street.
‘The area around the body was heavily scuffed – marks associated with kneeling, stamping, bootmarks, palm-prints, belonging to several different people,’ she said as she pointed to the diagram on the board. ‘Her collarbone was broken. Her jaw too. She had genital lacerations, not sure how deep they went – probably caused by an instrument. The amount of blood at the scene indicates that she was alive, her heart was still pumping blood around, for the duration of the attack. Large deep head wound, fractured skull and possible brain damage.The ligature around her neck was probably not sufficient to kill; although it might have cut off the blood supply to her brain and caused her temporary unconsciousness.’ The office went quiet.
Pam stopped typing. ‘Let’s hope so. Poor woman.’
‘Poor woman with a lot of money to spend on getting laid.’ Hector ruffled a sheet of paper in the air. ‘Were talking over a hundred quid a month on sex sites.’
Robbo walked back round his desk to take a call. Carter waited expectantly.
‘What’s up?’
‘They’ve found her car.’
Chapter 4
Carter parked the BMW behind Olivia Grantham’s white Fiat 500. Her car was parked at an angle, one tyre forced against the pavement. It was under a tree and covered in pigeon excrement.
‘Anyone see anything?’ Carter asked as he showed his badge to the patrol officer.
‘The owner of the grey Ford over there said he parked here at 8.10 last evening and he didn’t see it then.’
Carter squatted down by the driver’s side and felt beneath the wheel arch.
‘I checked there, sir,’ the patrol officer said. ‘No keys.’
Carter stood and peered in through the windows.
‘No sign of her shoes, coat. Nothing left on the seats. But, it looks messy and there is a definite print on the driver’s door frame,’ he said as he cupped his hands against the glass to keep out the glare. ‘Some kind of substance on the back passenger’s window; smears on the seat covers. Someone’s been in here who shouldn’t have. Plus . . .’ He stood and looked down the street. ‘She wouldn’t have walked from here – too far.’ He looked back at the car and up at the tree above it. ‘She didn’t park it here either. Even if she only intended to park here for an hour, she wouldn’t have left it here like this. Not at that time of night when the pigeons are roosting, and she’d have parked it straight.’
Carter moved round to the back of the car and looked through the rear window, before stopping to listen to the noise of people coming from further down the street.
‘What’s down there?’ he asked.
‘The Church of Light, sir. It’s a multi-denominational church,’ replied the officer.
Willis began looking it up on her phone. ‘It’s also a bad-weather shelter run by a religious charity called Faith and Light,’ she said, reading off the information.
Carter turned to her. ‘Did you remember seeing any religious stuff at Olivia’s flat?’
Willis shook her head. ‘No, no crucifixes, no Buddhas. Not sure what else to look for. What does multi-denominational look like?’
‘Let’s find out,’ said Carter as he locked up the car.
They walked down the road and crossed a car park to a flat-roofed, two-storey block next to a small steepled church. Three people were sharing a cigarette in the church entrance.
Willis kept reading the information from her phone:
‘It has accommodation for up to twenty people sharing rooms.’
‘That must be in one of those buildings behind,’ Carter said, glancing around the car park.
The smell of breakfast greeted them as they opened the door into the hostel. It was coming from a small ca
nteen, just a handful of tables, straight ahead. Immediately to the right was a busy area where there were three PCs and people sitting around waiting to use them. There was the noise of dishes and chatter. The place was busy.
‘Hello, mate – sorry to interrupt. Who’s in charge here?’ Carter asked a young man waiting for the computer.
‘Simon. Over there.’ He nodded in the direction of the café counter and to a dark-haired man in a white overall disappearing through double doors behind.
‘Appreciate it.’
They walked behind the counter and through to the kitchen beyond. There were two women inside, clearing up, loading a dishwasher. The man they’d followed in was about to start drying pots from the draining board.
Carter showed his warrant card. ‘Simon – are you in charge? Can we have a word?’
‘Yes, of course.’ His voice was soft public school. He put down his tea towel, took off his overall and hung it on a row of pegs to the right of the door.’ We can talk in my office.’ He had curly dark hair, long on the top, almost shaved at the sides. He had a pensive look with a ready-made frown line across his forehead. His dark eyebrows and brown eyes gave him a Spanish look, although his skin was too pale to be Mediterranean. He was very young-looking, thought Carter.
He escorted them through to a room off the kitchen and closed the door after him.
‘I’d ask you both to sit but there’s only one chair, which you’re welcome to. Please?’ He smiled. His eyes flitted from one detective to the other.
‘No need.’ Carter smiled. The room was small enough to have been a storeroom at one time. It had no window. ‘We won’t keep you long.’
He sat with his back to his monitor, his hands in his lap, waiting.
‘How can I help you?’
He pushed his hair away from his forehead. The floppy collar on his polo-shirt was half sticking up.
‘I’m Detective Inspector Carter and this is Detective Constable Willis. You are Simon . . .?’
‘Smith. How can I help?’
‘A woman died near here last night, Mr Smith – on Parade Street,’ said Carter. ‘Do you know it?’
‘Yes, I do. What happened?’
‘We don’t know exactly. Her body was found this morning after a tip-off from an anonymous caller. We think she went into the building early yesterday evening. What do you know about the street?’
‘There are problems there all the time, fights over drink. It’s where the younger drug addicts congregate as well as the older drinkers. It’s not somewhere you’d expect a woman to sleep. It’s too dangerous.’
‘We are pretty sure we know the identity of the victim,’ began Carter. ‘Her name was Olivia Grantham. She was a lawyer working in London Bridge. Does that name mean anything to you, Mr Smith?’ Simon shook his head. ‘We think several people would have seen what happened to her and might have been involved. Her car was parked just down the road from here. As this is the nearest homeless centre to Parade Street, we were hoping that someone here might know something. Did you notice anything that made you think that something wasn’t right yesterday evening or this morning?’
‘No, sorry. Last night there were the usual in. It’s always chaotic. And I’ve been rushed off my feet this morning. The cold weather is bringing everyone in for some hot food.’ He paused, looked at Carter’s face and shrugged. ‘Sorry. I tend to be so busy with the hostel I don’t have time to look a couple of streets away. But a lawyer sleeping rough? It wouldn’t be the first time – it can happen to anyone, you know.’
‘Yes. But she wasn’t homeless.’
Willis could see the tension building in Carter’s shoulders. He had the same problem talking to Sandford when they first started working together. Carter had an issue with posh accents.
‘We believe that there would have been a substantial amount of blood,’ said Willis. ‘Both from the victim and from fighting that seems to have gone on around the time she was killed.’
‘They would have been high on drink and other substances,’ added Carter.
‘It’s not likely to be someone from here then. Substance abuse is carefully monitored her. We don’t allow people in here who are high on anything.’
‘What about any of your staff? Might one of them be able to help us – they might have seen something?’ Carter’s stocky presence filled the small office, his feet planted wide in his expensive shiny shoes, his hands in the pockets of his overcoat. He tipped his weight slightly forward over the desk, where Simon was now sitting half-turned towards his PC monitor, his hands rested on a pile of papers on his desk.
He shrugged. ‘Ask them, by all means.’
Willis said little. She was trying to guess Smith’s background: expensive public school, family money. The kind of person you would expect to be in a job with a massive salary for doing very little. But this wasn’t the set of Made in Chelsea. This wasn’t the least bit glamorous.
‘How does it work here?’ she asked. ‘How does someone find you?’
‘People are referred to us, by their GP, by the local police, council homeless department, mental-health crisis management – several ways. There are forms to fill out and then they have to pay in advance for their next-day accommodation if they want to secure it. If we have room, we take them in.’
‘So who are the ones that don’t get a place in here?’ asked Carter.
‘They have to be sober and to be non-users. We can’t cope with addicts in here or dogs.’
‘Do you know of a man who has a light-coloured dog – one of those tough-looking breeds used for fighting?’ Willis asked. ‘We think he needs help – he got bottled.’
‘I don’t think I do – sorry.’
‘And you are sure you didn’t notice anyone behaving strangely last night?’ she asked.
‘Stranger than usual? No. It’s a difficult time for so many people. Lots of people who come in here are damaged. So many rough sleepers have mental-health issues.’ Simon shrugged again, his eyes went from Carter to Willis and he shook his head. ‘Sorry I can’t help. But – I’ll do my best and look into it for you.’
Carter took out his wallet and gave Simon a card.
‘Appreciate a call when you do.’
As they all walked back through the kitchen, Carter stopped to talk to the woman loading the dishwasher.
‘Excuse me, miss. I’m Detective Inspector Carter and this is Detective Constable Willis.’
‘Lyndsey,’ she said, looking at Simon anxiously.
‘Can we have a word, Lyndsey?’
She picked up a towel and dried her hands. She was a woman of mixed British and Asian descent. She had her long black hair tied back in a plait.
‘I’ll finish that’, said the older, auburn-haired woman who’d walked in with a tray of dishes. ‘Breakfast is over so you can sit in the canteen now.’ She was speaking with a Glaswegian accent. ‘I’ve just cleared the last of the tables. I’m Sheila, by the way.’ She set the tray down.
‘Thank you, Sheila. Could we have a chat with you too at the same time?’
‘No problem. Shall I bring out a cup of tea?’
‘Magic.’ Carter turned to Simon, who was still with them in the kitchen. ‘We won’t bother you further. Once we’ve finished talking to Sheila and Lyndsey, we’ll head off.’
‘Of course.’ Simon smiled, a little uneasy. ‘Sorry I couldn’t be more helpful.’ He went back through the double doors, in the direction of his office.
They went into the canteen and found a table, Sheila following with a tray with four teas on it. The PC corner was still busy with people waiting their turn.
‘Sugar’s on the table.’
‘Thanks very much.’ Carter took the teacups from the tray and waited for Sheila to sit down opposite Willis. Willis took out her notebook and pen.
‘Have you two worked here long?’ asked Carter.
‘I have,’ replied Sheila. ‘Lyndsey’s only been here a couple of weeks but she fits right in.’
<
br /> ‘How did you come to work here, Lyndsey?’ asked Carter.
‘I saw their advertisement for “volunteers needed” when I walked by the church one day.’
‘What about you, Sheila?’
‘I used to be homeless. I lived in a hostel at King’s Cross.’
‘So you’ve been through the system – you can advise people?’
‘Yes. I hope so. Everyone needs a helping hand in life, eh?’
‘Yes. Absolutely.’ Carter looked over at the people chatting by the PCs. Their voices were becoming raised.
‘You get to know people well? See the same faces?’
Sheila looked at Lyndsey and they both nodded.
‘This place has its characters,’ said Lyndsey. ‘You see the same people most days; you start to take an interest in what happens to them.’
‘I’m sure. Were you both here yesterday evening?’
‘Yes, we were,’ said Lyndsey.
‘We served Sunday lunch. We were out of here at six,’ Sheila added.
‘So you didn’t see the people who stayed here overnight?’
‘Not last night; Simon deals with things overnight on Sunday. We saw some of them at breakfast this morning.’
‘Can I ask you if you felt there was a strange atmosphere then?’
They looked at one another and nodded. ‘We kept asking, “What’s going on?”’ said Lyndsey.
‘What was it that bothered you?’ asked Carter.
‘The whispering. The worried faces,’ said Lyndsey.
‘The cuts and brusies too,’ Sheila added, shaking her head. ‘But there was so much of that secret stuff going on. No one would talk to us.’
‘What is it? What has happened?’ asked Lyndsey.
‘A woman was killed in the derelict buildings on Parade Street,’ Carter answered.
‘Dear God . . . was it Martine?’ Sheila gasped, looking at Lyndsey.
Willis shook her head. ‘It was a woman named Olivia. She wasn’t a rough sleeper. We think she was on her way to meet someone. Her car is parked just up the road. We are working on the theory that she was not meant to be in there – either she was forced or she was drugged – we’re waiting for the post-mortem results.’
