Trespass (P.I. Johnson Carmichael Series - Book 2)

by Stephen Edger

  The room had been sound-proofed so none of the pounding music from the club could be heard. The room had been larger than he had expected, with several canvasses hanging around the room. Clearly this was the office of a man who had enjoyed the finer things in life. Carmichael had spotted two crystal decanters on a trolley at the edge of a large oak desk at the far end of the room. Stratovsky had carried the glass of whisky through and placed it on the desk across from where he was sitting.

  ‘Please sit,’ the Russian had said. His voice had been softer than Carmichael had expected, and his grasp of the language had been exceptional. ‘What can I do for you, Detective…?’

  ‘It’s Carmichael,’ he had replied confidently.

  ‘And you are a sergeant?’

  ‘No. Detective Constable.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ he had replied, doubt in his tone. ‘It is rare that I am visited by a junior grade. What is it I can do for you? You want to be sergeant? I can arrange it.’

  He had suddenly wondered what he had expected to gain by going straight to the horse’s mouth. There was no reason why Stratovsky would have been overcome with fear at his presence and confess all. What had he been thinking?

  ‘I know you have a shipment of weapons due in this weekend, and I thought I would provide you with the opportunity to tell me where and when they will be arriving.’

  Stratovsky had burst out laughing and had only stopped when he had seen that Carmichael was serious.

  ‘I thought you were joking. I know nothing about any shipment of weapons. I think you must have me mistaken for someone else. I am just a club owner.’

  ‘We both know that’s a lie, Janus. I know all about the little empire you and your brother are building here in my city. They say confession is good for the soul. Why not relieve yourself?’

  Stratovsky had laughed again, ‘You are a very funny policeman.’

  ‘Don’t underestimate me, Janus; that would be dangerous.’

  The Russian’s mood had seemed to change, ‘I think it’s time you leave.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ he had said, staying seated. His heart had been racing as he had tried to think of a way he could extract a confession.

  ‘This is my club: leave now or I will have you thrown out.’

  An idea had struck him and he had stood up and moved to one of the canvasses, a picture of a Russian revolutionary on horseback. He had quickly yanked it from the wall and slammed it down on the corner of the desk, tearing the canvas. Stratovsky had leapt to his painting’s defence, snatching it out of Carmichael’s hands, but he had been too late to save it.

  ‘You will pay for that!’ the Russian had declared.

  ‘You can tell me what I want to hear or you can watch me destroy your property. The choice is yours.’

  Stratovsky had leapt at him and the two had begun to throw punches at one another. The Russian had certainly been stronger than his slight frame had suggested but he was in no way a match for Carmichael and his pent up frustration. It had seemed like Stratovsky had had an axe to grind too. The little Russian had punched Carmichael’s cheeks, chest and arms and when that had failed to cause him too much distress, he had started to kick out at him, inflicting cuts and bruises up and down both of his legs. Carmichael had responded in kind, sending the Russian tumbling with every punch to the face and solar plexus.

  The Russian had seemed to realise his error of judgement, and had crawled across the floor towards the emergency-call button beneath his desk, which would have sent an alert to the bodyguard waiting just outside the door. Carmichael had stopped him reaching it, slamming a foot down on the Russian’s outstretched hand, crushing multiple bones at the same time. Stratovsky had let out an anguished cry but only Carmichael had heard it. He should have just left at that point, but his blood had been up and he had been out of control, lifting the Russian and throwing him into a nearby wall. He had repeated the action, throwing him into the side of the desk. It was this move that had been the catalyst for what would follow. The crash had sent two of the desk drawers flying out of their pedestal, the contents spreading in front of the winded Russian.

  They had both seen the gun at the exact same moment, but the Russian had been closer to it and had soon had it in his hand, the hammer already cocked. The first bullet had narrowly missed Carmichael’s left ear, instead embedding itself in the wall behind him. He had dived for cover, his mind-set suddenly altered. It was no longer rage, but survival.

  The Russian had clambered to his feet to get a better sight of his combatant. Carmichael had been cowering by a small chest. Stratovsky had fired, but missed by inches. Carmichael had glanced up to see him re-cocking the hammer and had decided it was a do-or-die moment. He had raced from his hiding spot and had dived at Stratovsky’s ankles, causing him to fall before he could fire. Carmichael had clambered on top of him and the two had wrestled for control of the weapon. They both had a hand on it when there was a loud bang. At the same moment, Janus had released his grip on the weapon, causing Carmichael to roll off him. He had quickly checked himself for any sign of injury or pain, but finding nothing he had looked back at the Russian who had not moved.

  A crimson stain was spreading across the Russian’s shirt. His eyes and mouth were wide open in a permanent state of shock, but his chest had neither risen nor fallen. Carmichael had known he was dead immediately, but that had not stopped him rushing over to the body to check for signs of life. A wave of panic had swept over him as he had realised the implications of what had happened. The decision to come to the club and meet Janus had been his alone and had not been sanctioned by Saunders. He had known it would have appeared that he had gone to the club with the sole intention of killing the Russian, even though he wasn’t even certain which of them had in fact fired the fatal shot.

  He had always been praised for his pragmatism and his ability to make effective decisions in the most difficult of circumstances. He made the only choice he could have done. He had known that most of the clubs in the district had escape routes in place for emergencies, such as a police raid. It had not taken him long to figure out that the route out of this club lay in a small trap door beneath Stratovsky’s chair; it had revealed itself during the scuffle. He had dragged the body to the hole, opened it, climbed in, and pulled the body with him. The hole led to a small ladder down into an abandoned sewer pipe. It had still smelt disgusting, but had served its purpose in allowing him to resurface down by the River Thames. It had been dark enough that nobody had seemed to notice him carrying the body to a nearby parked taxi cab. The cab had been empty and, to this day, he had no idea where the driver had wandered off to. There were several casinos in the vicinity so the chances were that was where he had been.

  He had driven the taxi, with the body lying on the back seat, as far as Brixton, stopping off to collect a saw and a hammer from his flat. He had not known whether he would be capable of dismembering the body but he had realised it was the only way he would stand a chance of getting away with what had happened. It wasn’t just the fear of being convicted of murder that had focused his mind, but also the repercussions for the investigation: it would have set the task force back several years and revived questions of police brutality at a time when they were not welcome. He had climbed into the back of the cab and had spent at least twenty minutes praying for forgiveness. He had then located the wrist joint of the left hand and begun to rub the saw’s blade backwards and forwards. Blood had still squirted out of the veins as he had cut; the heart may not have been pumping it, but it had remained in situ nevertheless. The squeak as the blade had made contact with tendons had sent shivers down his spine like fingernails on a chalkboard. It had been unbearable and he had eventually put the stereo on so that the sound of loud music would drown out the squeaking. The wrists had been significantly easier than the feet and by the time he had taken the hammer to Stratovsky’s bloated face, he had managed to distance himself from his actions. In his mind, he had had been far from that taxi.

/>   He had placed the hands, feet and tools in a carrier bag, which he had dumped in a hospital incinerator the next day. He had managed to syphon some diesel from the taxi’s tank, and had sprayed this liberally over the seats, before dropping several flaming matches. It had ignited like a bonfire, burning out over several hours before anyone found it. The fire had practically extinguished itself by the time the fire brigade had arrived. He had been tucked up in bed by that point; not asleep but in bed nevertheless.

  He tried to push the memories from his mind and get back to the task at hand. He needed to find Matthew Green and as yet his efforts had been fruitless. He did the only thing he could think of: he phoned D.C.I. Jan Mercure.

  41

  ‘You want me to do what?’ Mercure said staring out the window disbelievingly.

  ‘Please, I just want you to phone them and find out where he is scheduled to be today. They won’t tell me but they would tell you.’

  ‘And what am I supposed to say is the reason for needing to know the whereabouts of one of their staff?’

  ‘I don’t know…maybe say you have an update for him on the burglary he reported the other night. That way, he comes across as a victim rather than a possible suspect.’

  ‘And when they speak to him about this mysterious burglary?’

  ‘They won’t. Besides you’ll have him in custody by that point so it will be worth it.’

  Mercure considered the reasoning.

  ‘Let me think about it.’

  ‘There isn’t time, Jan. Please, look, just do this one thing for me and I won’t trouble you again.’

  ‘You must think I was born yesterday,’ she scoffed. ‘And we are not friendly enough for you to address me by my first name; it is D.C.I. Mercure to you.’

  ‘Sorry, Ma’am. I just need this break and I’ll have him.’

  ‘That’s what worries me the most. Say I do find out his schedule, what will you do with him when you have him? I wouldn’t want there to be any chance of him claiming he was coerced into a confession. That’s not how I do things.’

  ‘I promise I won’t hurt him,’ he lied.

  ‘I’m not sure I believe you, Johnson. Look, why not leave this with us, eh? It’s our job, not yours.’

  ‘I was hired to find out who assaulted Beth Roper. I’m not going to give up when I’m this close. I owe it to Lauren.’

  ‘She didn’t even pay you!’ Mercure mocked.

  ‘Are you going to help me or not?’

  ‘I can’t do what you want, Johnson. I’m sorry; you’ll just have to find another way.’

  Carmichael hung up the phone in frustration.

  Great, he thought, now what?

  As if his prayers had been answered, his mobile phone began to ring. It was Melissa.

  ‘Tell me you’ve got something,’ he pleaded.

  ‘Get ready to offer me a pay rise for my brilliance, boss.’

  ‘I’m listening,’ he said with anticipation.

  ‘He is at the Whiteley Shopping Village. Well, he’s at an address just around the corner, but you know where I mean.’

  ‘How the hell did you find that out?’

  ‘I phoned Friary House of course. I told them I was his wife and needed to find him as his father had suffered a heart attack and I couldn’t reach him on his mobile. The man I spoke to was only too happy to help me. Gave me his whole schedule for the afternoon. I’ll email it to you now, in case he’s moved on by the time you get to him. Am I brilliant or what?’

  ‘Melissa, I’m speechless. Consider that pay rise approved. Shall we say an extra fifty pence an hour?’

  ‘Ha! I’ll settle for an extra grand on that bonus you promised me.’

  ‘Done.’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘Melissa, there’s something else. A guy will be at the office at three to speak to me. Can you keep him occupied until I get there? It’s just in case I’m late. Oh, and once I’m there I’ll need you to leave us in peace for a couple of hours.’

  ‘Nothing serious I hope?’

  ‘Nothing for you to worry about.’

  He hung up the phone and checked his email. He located Melissa’s message and punched the post code into his satellite navigation system and hit the road.

  *

  The shopping village in Whiteley had opened earlier in the summer and was home to a number of bars, cafes, restaurants and popular high street retailers. Located halfway between the rival cities of Southampton and Portsmouth, the village was looking to attract the casual shopper and friends meeting for food and drink. Two years prior to its opening, the village had been a retail outlet offering significant discounts on designer clothing. Once the credit crunch had arrived in Hampshire the demand for discounted designer goods had ceased, hence the village’s recent rebirth.

  Carmichael had not been to Whiteley since it had reopened and he was surprised at how similar the layout seemed to what he had known. Despite Melissa’s suggestion that Matthew Green was due to be working on a property near the village, the coordinates on the satnav were advising him to drive into one of the site’s three car parks. He obliged and set out to try and locate the telecommunications’ company van. It felt like looking for a needle in a haystack, and having combed the car parks for the van, he decided to venture into the shopping village. He was starting to wonder whether the satnav had misled him when he spotted a van parked up at the far side of the village. It was neither in a car park, nor parked in a residential street, more abandoned at the rear of Marks & Spencers. He approached it slowly, conscious that he did not wish to spook his prey.

  The van was empty, and as he moved his hands across the cool bonnet, he realised that it had been parked there for some time. Presumably Green was working on a property nearby. He was about to venture off to the residential street nearby when he heard something overhead. Looking up he saw a man in blue overalls and a hardhat hanging from a telephone mast. The man was wearing headphones and so probably wasn’t even aware that Carmichael was there. The man was wearing a tool belt too, but from where he was standing, Carmichael couldn’t be certain if it was Green or not, so decided to drop back a bit and casually observe him from the solitude of a park bench in the shopping village.

  He had been watching for over an hour before the man finished fiddling with the cable box on the mast and began to climb down. He looked quite comfortable using the rungs on the mast and it made Carmichael realise that this nimble man would have had no difficulty climbing up to the open window of Lauren’s flat. The engineer banged on the back door of the unit he was nearest to and spoke to a woman. He had no idea what they were discussing, but the engineer’s thumbs up signal suggested that, whatever the problem had been, it was now fixed.

  The engineer turned and started to head back to his van. Carmichael knew that the time was right and marched forwards. He covered the ground just as the engineer put his tool belt in the back of the van.

  ‘Can I help you?’ Matthew Green asked as he saw a man approaching him.

  Carmichael didn’t answer, instead pushing Green’s shoulder hard causing him to crash into the open door at the rear of the van.

  ‘Hey,’ he started, but was punched hard in the face. He fell to the floor in a heap.

  ‘You know who I am?’ Carmichael shouted, leaning over.

  ‘No, no,’ Green whimpered, folding his body into the foetal position to protect himself.

  ‘I’m your worst nightmare!’ he declared and began to kick him in the back and sides.

  Green offered no resistance, instead cowering and hoping the pain would stop.

  ‘Your name is Matthew Green, right?’

  ‘Yes,’ he cried.

  ‘And your brother is the convicted rapist and murderer, Nathan Green?’ he spat.

  ‘Yes,’ Green whimpered again.

  ‘I know what you did and I’m here to get the justice that two beautiful ladies deserve.’

  He kicked him again and then bent down and lifted him up by the lapel
s of his overalls.

  ‘Look at me, you fucking scumbag,’ he declared as Green tightened his eyes shut, tears streaming down his cheeks.

  ‘You raped Beth Roper in nineteen eighty-nine. You followed her home and you raped her. Did it make you feel good? Huh? Make you feel like a big man? Just like your lowlife brother?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Don’t give me that, Matthew! You forced yourself on her, you cut her, and you made her taste your semen. And then you did the same to her daughter. Why Matthew? Was it because she saw you all those years ago? I bet that shocked you, right? You were fucking her mum when she came out and caught you? Were you scared that she would recognise you and report what you did? Was that it? Huh? Was that why you broke into her flat, tied her up and raped her too?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he pleaded. ‘Please, I’m not who you think I am.’

  ‘You are exactly who I think you are! A sick fucker, just like your brother.’

  ‘Please, you have made a mistake. Nathan was sick, but I am nothing like my brother!’

  ‘She saw your eyes you know. That’s what made her come looking for the man who attacked her mother. Your eyes. But the thing is, she didn’t realise it was you. She thought it was your brother, so there was no need for you to kill her. It’s such a waste!’

  Carmichael released Green and he crumpled to the floor once more, pulling out a pressed handkerchief to dab his tears.

  ‘You might as well admit it you know; I’ve got all the proof I need,’ Carmichael bluffed, hoping to trigger a Benold-like confession.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Green began. ‘I don’t know who you are or what you want but I can assure you I am not the gentleman you are looking for. Please, you must believe me. The things you described…I could never…do those things.’

  Carmichael was about to kick out at him again when something stopped him. The man on the floor before him suddenly looked nothing like the images of Nathan Green that he had been studying. That man was confident, smirking; arrogant even. This man, was humble, weaker somehow. Despite facial similarities, they appeared to be polar opposites. He began to question everything he believed: it had to be him!