by Lee Weeks
‘So, would you have expected him to have behaved in this way? We have to presume he had something to do with the woman’s death. He was in that building when she died and he didn’t come forward with the information – the opposite. He tried to kill himself rather than answer questions. He had her phone.’
Simon turned away. ‘I am surprised and saddened if he did. I think he can’t have been thinking straight to get into such a mess. Maybe he was misguided in his aims or lied to. Maybe’ – he looked back at her – ‘this was someone else’s doing and he just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. We have trouble from the gangs from Hannover Estate.’
‘We’re looking into that. We’re trying to locate one of the leaders – Mahmet Balik. Do you know him?’
‘I have heard that name – he’s the light-skinned lad – about twenty. Charges were brought against him for the attack on Lolly, one of our regulars, but they were dropped – insufficient evidence.’
‘When did you last see any of the gang members hanging about?’
‘I had to tell them to get off church property. They were trying to break into the storage units we have behind the church.’
‘Did they succeed?’
‘No. Those buildings are burglar-proof. Doesn’t stop them from trying of course. They will try and thieve just about anywhere and from anyone. They are responsible for nearly all the violent crime around here as well as the drug dealing.’
‘Do you remember seeing anyone on Sunday evening when the woman was killed?’
He shook his head. ‘But, I see them here a lot. Most days I see one or another of them. There’s a hard core of about six lads. They hang around to intimidate people. In the evening they bring out their dogs – banned breed by the look of them – and they strut around the streets.’
‘Did you ever see any contact between any of the gang members and Toffee?’
‘No. Why would they have anything to do with him? He’s just the kind of person they hate.’
‘But he had money from somewhere. Have you any idea where he got it?’
‘Maybe he won it. I just have no idea.’ He shook his head. He looked exhausted. Zoe smiled, sympathetic – she could see he was struggling.
‘Why are you here? You can’t help him by getting exhausted. You should get back to the hostel.’
‘I know, but I feel I owe it to him. He needs a friend and he counts me as one. I feel I should have been a better one and then maybe he wouldn’t have got involved in all this.’
‘What do you think he’s involved in?’
‘Well, somehow, he knew that the woman had been killed, he had her phone and he had money in his pocket.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘It doesn’t look promising.’
‘No, it doesn’t. I hope he tells us the truth when he comes round.’
‘Yes, I pray he does. Would you like me to see your mum?’’
‘Sorry?’
‘I can see your mum. I’d like to help her. She had her faith knocked. I’d like to help her regain it.’
‘Oh . . . thanks . . . I’ll ask her.’
‘I can come and see her or she can meet me for a coffee and we can talk. Just ask what she wants. I’m more than happy . . .’
‘Yes . . . thank you. I’ll tell her.’
‘Great.’
‘What about your family?’
‘My family?’
‘Yes. I don’t want to take you away from them in your time off. Are you married? Kids?’
‘No, my time is my own. My sister drives me mad and phones me most days; she comes and helps me in the hostel as often as she can. Apart from that, I take the services at the church sometimes but my main work is running the hostel.’
‘Not much time left after you finish at the hostel, I expect?’
‘No, you’re right. I don’t have a lot of time for hobbies. Although I would like to make time in the future.’
She smiled at him. ‘What do you think about what happened on Parade Street, Simon?’
‘I think it was something that was always going to happen. It was a bomb waiting to go off. If we have people living like that – like animals – then they behave like animals.’
‘You think that someone was familiar with the area, with Parade Street and maybe your hostel?’
He shook his head. ‘People in the hostel could be anyone – you or I – they’ve just run into trouble in their lives. There isn’t a type. Almost ten per cent of our homeless are ex-armed forces. That’s a shameful statistic – an indictment of the way we don’t look after the people who serve us. Thirty per cent of people on the streets have mental-health issues – they shouldn’t be there. Ten per cent have come out of care homes – they’ve already had it rough enough. Thirty-two per cent are out of prison – do we want them to be so desperate that they reoffend?’
Zoe was registering the passion mount in Simon’s gestures and in his voice. He stopped talking and blushed, smiled, embarrassed. ‘What I’m trying to say is . . . we are a very short-sighted society if we think that it works to turn a blind eye or to de-humanize the homeless.’
She realized she was concentrating on him and not on his words.
Spike stepped in front of the young woman who was wearing her shawl wrapped around her head. Her face was as pale as the moon – marked with craters from the ravages of a diet of drugs and hardship.
‘Martine?’ She stopped in front of him. ‘Toffee’s in hospital. He’s hurt.’
‘Will he be all right?’ She clutched an old backpack in her hand; the strap was broken.
‘Who knows? He would want me to keep an eye on you. You can bed down here with me.’
She looked from Spike to the bundle of rags and clothes in the doorway behind him. She tried to see who else was there in the gloom.
‘Mason here?’
‘No. Mason’s lying low. I’ve helped him all I can. I’m not putting myself out for the ungrateful bastard.’ Spike turned back towards the doorway. Martine turned and walked away. ‘Don’t go near him now. They’ll come for him first. You’re safer with me,’ he called after her. ‘Please yourself. If you see Lolly, tell her I have something for her.’ Spike returned to his corner.
Martine knew where she’d find Mason. She called his name as she got inside the car park. Sandy came out from behind the arch and wagged her tail as she walked across to Martine. Martine ran her hand over the dog’s back and thought how thin she felt. Sandy led her to where Mason was sleeping.
‘Mason?’ She sat beside him but he didn’t answer.
Martine pulled out her sleeping bag and Sandy began snuffling inside the space it left in the backpack. Martine delved deep into the side pocket and produced half a torpedo roll salvaged from a bin. She gave it to the dog, who devoured it in one bite. She laid her bag out next to Mason and tucked her knees under her chin as she waited, listening in the dark. The train thundered overhead. She heard the scuttle of a rat and Sandy ran off in chase. Martine leant over Mason and tried to look at his face. He was lying on his side, his face half hidden in his woolly hat. He was lit by the street light nearby. She looked at the wounds on his face that had curled in on themselves.
‘Mason, we need to get you to hospital.’
He groaned in his sleep. ‘I’ll be okay. Is Toffee coming back?’ he said – his voice breathless. ‘What are we supposed to do now?’
‘I’ll go and see him and find out – he can’t just leave us with this.’
‘Not now. Please, stay with me.’
Martine lay down and put her arms around Mason. Sandy returned and lay back down between them.
Chapter 13
Zoe phoned Carter as she was on her way home to get some rest.
‘Does Smith think Toffee could have been clever, sober enough to fool Olivia Grantham into meeting him?’ Carter asked her.
‘I don’t know. He’s fond of Toffee and that must mean he can talk to him. He says Toffee’s a clever man but off his face a lot of the time.’
‘Could he have afforded the fees on a dating site?’
‘That’s what Smith said when I mentioned it. He said there was no way, but then . . .’
‘Someone else in the hostel might have paid for him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Does he have any more thoughts on the murder?’
‘He thinks the gangs are responsible for all the trouble around that area.’
‘It’s true that they tend to know about it at least.’
‘Have they managed to find Balik yet, sir?’
‘No. We have increased patrols around the estate and neighbouring streets. It’s time we picked a few people up and brought them in for questioning. Smith must know where we can find Toffee’s friends.’
‘He says he hasn’t seen them in a few days.’
‘We need to get in there and talk to Sheila and Lyndsey, the volunteers. They know the people better than he does.’
‘I’m working on getting someone inside the hostel for us.’
‘Good. What about medical opinion on Toffee? What’s the chance of him pulling through?’ Carter asked.
‘The doctors have put him in an induced coma – apparently there was some swelling on his brain. It will be a slow process – but there’s hope.’
Carter came off the phone.
Willis was sitting on the chair opposite him. He studied her face. It looked like she hadn’t slept for days and she had a drawn look that he didn’t associate with her. She must have been the only person he knew who had lost weight over Christmas, not gained it. He wondered if she was pushing herself too hard and if the problems with her mother were getting to her.
‘He’s still unconscious,’ he said, to interrupt her thoughts. ‘They’ve put him in a coma. Damn . . .’ Carter stood and picked up his phone from the desktop. ‘Let’s see how far they’ve got with Olivia’s PC. Then we’ll grab a drink – talk things through over a beer.’
‘Can we leave it tonight, guv? I’d rather go and see Olivia Grantham’s body again. I want to get more of an idea of the attack on her and the kind of person we are looking for.’
Carter nodded. He was used to Willis’s ways. He enjoyed working with her. They made a good team. If they were a jigsaw puzzle – then he was all the middle bits, whilst she was the edge pieces.
‘No wonder you’re single.’ He smiled.
She shrugged and gave him a look that said: ‘What can I say?’
‘We’ll have to find you a nice pathologist to hook up with. You could talk bodies way into the night.’
‘Don’t seem to be many of those that are the right side of forty,’ she said as they walked along the corridor towards Robbo’s office. Willis walked with her hands in the pockets of her black work trousers.
‘Don’t forget Mark.’
‘Yeah . . . don’t think that will work. Mark doesn’t know it yet but he’s gay.’ Willis smiled.
‘Oh, Mark knows it; he’s just keeping his options open.’
As they reached Robbo’s office, Robbo was busy whizzing from one desk to the other on his expensive Italian blue-leather chair. Pam was sorting the papers on her desk – she was getting ready to leave for the night.
‘Let’s go through it again, Hector,’ Robbo was saying as they walked in. ‘Carter? Willis? Come in, have a seat. We’re going through Olivia Grantham’s last twenty-four hours.’ Robbo began drawing a timeline on the board behind him. ‘Olivia went out Saturday for the evening with one of her girlfriends – Marcia Adams. An old schoolfriend. We have her statement. She said she met Olivia for drinks at 8.30 in a wine bar in Covent Garden. They parted at eleven and, so far as she knew, Olivia went straight home. There was no mention of what Olivia intended to do the next day, beyond catch up on household chores at home. She didn’t think Olivia was seeing anyone. She was aware that Olivia was on dating sites, but she didn’t know which ones. She knew she met men from them sometimes.’
Robbo continued with his timeline: ‘We know that at eleven o’clock Sunday morning, she took a call from an unknown number and that lasted thirty-two minutes. She made a call to the same number at three in the afternoon, which lasted only five minutes.’
Carter spoke: ‘I would think that was the call that reassured her enough to go to Parade Street. Maybe she was having second thoughts before that. After the call she made at three, did she make any more, or did she get any?’
‘None,’ answered Hector.
‘But she didn’t put a name to this number – why was that?’ said Willis.
‘He could have been someone she knew well – he could have told her he was on a temporary number, told her his phone wasn’t working – something like that?’ Hector said. ‘We know he’s phoned her a couple of times on it. She must have thought it wasn’t worth adding to a contact.’
‘My feeling is she knew him.’
‘Or . . .’ Carter began, ‘. . . she might have been getting braver. This could have been a very convincing person on the other end of the phone – well-spoken, professional; maybe she thought: “How dangerous can it be?” Was she pushing her own boundaries?’
‘Could it really have been Toffee?’ Robbo asked.
‘On the phone he could get away with it – he’s articulate. He’s definitely well-spoken. He might have been able to fool her,’ Carter answered. He looked at what Hector was working on – Olivia’s bank statements.
‘Found anything interesting? asked Carter.
‘Just looking into the sites she subscribed to.’
‘Sign yourself up to all of the ones she was on, Hector. Ask Intel for a cover.’ He turned to Robbo. ‘Could it have been some gang-rites thing? If so, the rough sleepers must have been in on it. Toffee said it went wrong. What was the plan? To lure her in there, rape, kill. What did they steal from her? Toffee had her phone. I can’t imagine she took her bag in there, but it’s gone – probably from the car. No money was withdrawn from her bank account. Did they get paid to do it? Did someone pay Toffee to organize it?’
Carter nodded to Willis that he was ready if she was. She stood up and picked up her coat.
‘We’re going to take another look at Olivia Grantham’s body and talk to Harding, if she’s there.’
‘Pam, have you got any photos of the men Hector’s been phoning?’ Carter asked before leaving.
‘Yes . . . some.’ She pulled out a file from her desk and handed it to him.’
When they got outside, Willis went towards where the BMW was parked.
‘Let’s walk.’ Carter started along the main road. She stayed where she was for a second. ‘Yeah – I know, but I want to talk things through with you,’ he added, then waited for her to walk alongside him.
‘Any news about your mum? The lovely Bella Donna?’
Willis shook her head and looked at her feet. The pavement was saturated, but her new Chelsea boots, which her housemate Tina had got her for Christmas, were keeping her feet dry. The socks Carter gave her for her birthday were keeping them toasty warm. It was the kind of luxury that Willis could never have afforded herself. All her money went into savings accounts. She planned to buy a flat next year.
‘I’ll go tomorrow.’
‘Is she still in bad shape?’
‘She’s still on a drip. Not sure what else. Have to see when I get there. They say she nearly bled to death.’
‘Nearly, huh? Bad luck.’
‘Yeah.’ She smiled at the same time as she sighed heavily.
She carried on looking at the wet tarmac.
‘You take as long as you need tomorrow, Eb. Get it done and then get back to the job – focus.’ Willis looked across at him; she looked confused, hurt. ‘You’re just quiet, that’s all. I need participation, verbal. I need you on the same planet as the rest of us.’
‘Yes, guv.’
She looked away; he knew it was to hide her hurt. But a jolt back to the real world wouldn’t hurt. Carter also knew that Willis was used to tough love and she knew he cared.
They reached the Whittington Hospital and rang the bell to let them into the mortuary. They were answered by Mark.
‘The doctor’s not here, I’m afraid.’
They stepped under the fluorescent striplights of the corridor.
‘No problem. Can we take another look at Olivia Grantham?’
‘Sure.’ Mark led them through to the storage area and opened up the fridge. He wheeled out the body.
Carter stood back to observe as Willis walked around the body.
‘Good job in making her look good for her family,’ Carter said.
Mark nodded, pleased. ‘Thanks. It took me ages to cover the bruises.’
‘What was he like, the dad?’
‘He didn’t really speak much. He looked numb.’
‘Did you take casts from these bites yet?’ asked Willis.
‘Not yet. We’re waiting for the specialist to come over tomorrow and do it.’
Willis took the latex gloves now being offered to her by Mark as she examined the bite wounds on Olivia’s breast.
She pressed the wounds with her hand, to see the depth of bite. ‘These are from a dog. A dog first bites then tears.’
‘Can you take a cast from a dog?’ Carter looked at Mark for a reply.
‘Yes, I don’t see why not.’
‘Balik’s dog, maybe?’ Carter said to Willis’s back as she disposed of her gloves in the bin. ‘Or that lad with the hat had a dog. We need to find him. He should be easy to spot with half his face hanging off. What happens if he doesn’t get that fixed?’
‘It will get infected,’ Mark answered.
‘And?’
‘And it’s serious – life-threatening. Infection kills people on the streets every day,’ he added.
Harding walked in as they were finishing up and Mark was zipping the body bag back up.
‘Evening, Dr Harding,’ Carter greeted her.
She had on civvies: animal-print skirt tastefully stopping just on the knee, black boots stopping just below, a dark brown turtleneck sweater, and black-leather coat to mid-calf.
‘Must be difficult,’ Carter said, as he pointed to Olivia Grantham’s body, more to see how she reacted than with sincerity.
