JM04 - Deadly Justice

by DS Butler

  Anyone coming into the shop would have been put at risk. But he supposed Tyler was right when he said people contemplating ending their lives weren’t thinking clearly.

  Maybe it didn’t even cross Syed’s mind that he might be risking other people’s lives. Mackinnon leaned back and took another sip of Kingfisher beer. What made somebody decide that they’d had enough?

  The team would know more soon. They would dig up every last detail of Syed’s background. Maybe he had been jilted? Or his business was doing badly? Or maybe he had been diagnosed with an incurable disease? Whatever it was, they would find out.

  10

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING, MACKINNON got to work just in time for the early briefing. Even at this time of the morning it was still warm, and the cloudless blue sky promised another hot day.

  With a couple of minutes free before the meeting, Mackinnon grabbed himself a coffee before heading down the corridor towards the incident room which had been allocated to the investigation.

  In the incident room, jackets already lay discarded over the backs of chairs. The mechanical drone of the air conditioning sounded in the background, but somebody had opened the windows.

  There was a constant argument in the station between those who preferred open windows and fresh air and those who preferred the air-conditioning, who argued that fresh air was all well and good but it wasn’t particularly cool at the moment.

  There were more tourists on the streets this summer, attracted to London by the Olympics. On his way to work, Mackinnon had seen a Chinese family on the tube, waving little flags, and a group of school children with the Olympic circles painted on their cheeks.

  As Mackinnon laid his jacket over the back of his chair, he heard DC Webb complaining that he was sure the recent rise in prices at his local were because of all the tourists.

  Tyler was heading up this investigation. His first major case. Although a suicide wouldn’t normally be considered an important case, the presence of the toxic gas had far-reaching consequences. It was potentially a politically delicate case, and Mackinnon had heard gossip around the station that Tyler might not be the best man for the job. But the DCI had made his decision, and the more Mackinnon got to know Tyler, the more he realised they didn’t disagree on absolutely everything. Most things, but not everything.

  DI Tyler was already in the room, standing at the front between a whiteboard and the blue felt board. The boards were covered with notes about the operation. Tyler looked very pleased with himself.

  The head and shoulder shot of Syed Hammad, sporting a wispy moustache, was posted on the right hand side of the blue felt board. It looked like a blown-up passport photograph. Syed stared out of it, his eyes wide with a look of surprise.

  The familiar faces of DC Collins, DC Charlotte Brown and DC Webb were gathered near the front of the room.

  Charlotte was nursing a cup of coffee. She looked like she’d had a late night. There were other people in the room that Mackinnon didn’t know quite so well. A new indexer was working the case, and there were a few other members of support staff that Mackinnon had seen around but hadn’t actually worked with before.

  Collins slumped in his chair, looking half asleep. His eyelids fluttered, and his linked hands rested on his stomach. His legs stretched out in front of him.

  As Mackinnon sat down, Tyler looked up from the front of the room. He nodded at Mackinnon.

  “All right,” DI Tyler said. “Let’s make a start. DCI Brookbank won’t be attending, so I’ll be leading the briefing this morning.”

  He nodded then looked down at his logbook.

  Mackinnon didn’t envy Tyler the responsibility of this case. Although they’d barely scratched the surface, Mackinnon had a bad feeling about this investigation.

  Over the next few days, they would get to know everything about Syed Hammad. They would find out things even his closest family wouldn’t know. They would unravel his secrets, his financial records and his love life… Anything that could give them an indication as to why he would have killed himself.

  If it was suicide.

  After Tyler had made some preliminary remarks, he set up the laptop so it projected on the screen behind him. In silence, they watched the short video recording of the scene.

  Syed Hammad had been found at the foot of the stairs, apparently overcome by the gas. Tyler looked around at everyone in the room.

  Mackinnon sat forward in his chair, studying the position of Syed Hammad’s crumpled body.

  Tyler said, “We were first alerted to the situation by a Mr. Mitch Horrocks, who owns the cafe next door to Syed Hammad’s property. He told the attending officers he came to investigate after seeing a group of teenagers acting suspiciously by the newsagent’s. According to Mr. Horrocks, this particular gang of youths has caused trouble along this shopping parade in the past.”

  As Tyler summarised a few of the witness statements, Mackinnon’s mind wandered. Had this whole thing been some kind of elaborate setup to punish this gang of kids? A punishment gone wrong? The team found the newsagent’s had been broken into twice last year, and Syed Hammad had complained on multiple occasions about shoplifters. Could Syed have miscalculated and been overcome by the gas?

  Tyler’s voice broke through Mackinnon’s thoughts. “The suicide note…” Tyler nodded at the screen behind him, which displayed a blown up image of a printed note on a piece of generic A4 paper. It said:

  I’m sorry. I can’t go on with this on my conscience.

  Mackinnon frowned. “Where was the note found?” Mackinnon asked. He hadn’t heard any mention of the note yesterday. From the start, Tyler said it looked like a suicide. Maybe he was right.

  “It was in the inside pocket of his jacket,” Tyler said. “He wasn’t examined properly until late last night as we had to be careful of the body releasing gases and so on.”

  “Strange place to keep it,” Mackinnon said. “I would have expected him to leave the note where someone could see it, not hidden away in his pocket.”

  Tyler nodded. “We’ll get to that in a minute; first things first.”

  Tyler took his time, asking everyone individually to give their reports. He picked on people randomly, trying to make sure people were paying attention.

  From the team’s feedback, it seemed people in the area hadn’t seen very much at all, or if they had, they weren’t prepared to share the information with the police.

  When Charlotte’s turn came around she had slightly better news. “Vincent Pearson and Robert Baxter were admitted to St. Bart’s. Their symptoms match those expected after inhaling hydrogen sulphide gas, but they are recovering well. The hospital thinks they’ll both survive, but the doctors say they aren’t up to questioning yet.”

  “There’s a surprise,” Tyler muttered.

  “Robbie Baxter is only fourteen, so we will need a parent or guardian present when we question him,” Charlotte said. “But Vinnie Pearson is twenty-two, and I’m hoping to speak to him later today.”

  Tyler’s mouth set in a firm line. “Good. We can go over potential interview questions after the briefing. I think DCI Brookbank will want to be involved.

  “As for the other houses, businesses and residents...” He zeroed in on Mackinnon. “How did you find Mitch Horrocks?”

  Mackinnon filled the team in on Mitch Horrocks’ odd behaviour, then said, “I think he had some trouble in the riots last summer and he blames it on Vinnie Pearson and his gang, although no one was ever charged.”

  After other members of the team gave feedback from various witnesses, Tyler sighed, and perched on the table. “Wasn’t he close to anyone? No one noticed he was suicidal. How depressing.”

  Mackinnon wasn’t sure if Tyler was referring to the state of their investigation or the fact that Syed Hammad had no one to turn to.

  “Kathy Walker, who owns the hairdressing salon, said she didn’t think Syed was the type. They weren’t exactly close, but she did see him most days.”

  “Ha
rdly bosom pals then. Let’s move on to family,” Tyler said.

  Part of the victimology involved establishing a family tree for Syed Hammad. A family liaison officer had been assigned, and so far they’d found out his parents were deceased and he had a brother living in Pakistan.

  Collins looked down at his notebook and reeled off some new information. “Syed Hammad was engaged to a woman living in Pakistan. Her name is Fatima Abdullah. She’s been informed of his death and is obviously distraught.”

  “Right,” Tyler said. “Will we need a translator because I’ll need to plan resources accordingly?”

  Collins shook his head. “She speaks English.”

  Tyler nodded and picked up his briefing notes. He pulled at his tie, loosening it a little and opened the top button of his shirt. It was hot in here already and it wasn’t even half past eight yet.

  He turned to the analyst, Evie Charlesworth, who was generating a timeline of events and looking at whether there were any similar cases recently. “Anything to add, Evie?”

  Evie reported on a few cases of toxic suicide in the last three years, but nothing recent. “I’m looking into similarities or potential links. But so far it looks like a stand-alone.”

  Tyler nodded. “Good, the last thing we want is cases like this springing up all over the country.”

  Towards the end of the briefing, Tyler paused to gulp down coffee, and then assigned actions to the team. He asked Charlotte to visit the hospital and talk to Vinnie Pearson if he was well enough for questioning, and he gave Mackinnon the task of chasing up CCTV footage from the incident. He wanted Collins to go back to East Street and speak to the only shop owner who hadn’t yet been questioned: Pete Morton, the manager of the mobile phone shop.

  “And I’ll be having a chat with Syed Hammad’s fiancée this morning,” Tyler said.

  While talking to the relatives of the recently deceased wasn’t a task anyone relished, it was important to talk to them as soon as possible after the death when details were still fresh in their minds. If anyone could give them a good indication of Syed Hammad’s frame of mind, it should be his fiancée.

  Once he’d finished getting updates from everyone in the room, Tyler raised his hands to indicate an open-floor. They tended to do this at the end of the briefings, particularly when the case was as perplexing as this. Taking a few minutes to brainstorm and come up with theories or new questions could take the investigation in a new direction and generate fresh leads.

  DC Webb said what everybody else was thinking, “Why go to all that trouble for a suicide? Why not just take some pills and drink a bottle of whiskey? Or even if he had his heart set on that stinking gas, why didn’t he do it in the bathroom? Why put other people at risk?”

  Tyler said, “I did suggest yesterday there could be religious reasons behind the method. In many religions suicide is a sin. Maybe by using that elaborate setup and not actually mixing the chemicals himself meant, from his point of view, he didn’t kill himself...”

  DC Webb snorted.

  Charlotte spoke up, “We can’t rule out the possibility that this was some kind of vigilante effort by Syed Hammad. We’ve got records of him complaining about harassment from a group of youths. It’s a huge coincidence that they are in the shop at the exact moment he tries to kill himself. Maybe this was an attempt to deter the gang that went wrong.”

  Tyler nodded. “That’s a fair point, but we do have a suicide note.”

  Mackinnon ran a hand through his hair. There was something about the note that struck an odd note. A suicide note was pretty clear evidence Syed Hammad had intended to take his own life and yet … there was something off.

  “The note was printed on a generic printer,” Mackinnon said.

  Tyler nodded. “We should have confirmation of the likely type of printer used by the end of today.”

  “But he didn’t have a printer in the shop, or in his flat upstairs?”

  Tyler paused, pursed his lips, then said, “No, he didn’t, and we need to find out where it was printed. At a friend’s perhaps, or the local library. He did have a computer, an old model and that’s gone to the high-tech crime unit for analysis.”

  As there were no more comments forthcoming, Tyler began to gather his briefing notes. “I shouldn’t have to say this, but I will anyway. None of this gets out to the press. There’ll be a lot of interest in this case, but everything released to the media will go through official channels.” He looked around the room, making sure he had made his point.

  There were murmurs and nods from the team, and Tyler drew the meeting to a close. “You all know what you have to do. Do it well,” he said with a wink. “Make me look good.”

  After the briefing, Mackinnon took a moment to call Fiona to let her know he had contact details for a potential carer for Luke.

  Fiona Evans sounded on edge when she answered his call. But Mackinnon liked to think her tone warmed a little when she knew it was him.

  “I can bring the card round after work, if you like?” Mackinnon offered.

  He could have given her the agency number over the phone, but he felt like he should go in person. He wanted to see how they were doing.

  11

  COLLINS TURNED HIS CAR into East Street. The street looked very different today, with people bustling along, going about their day-to-day business. The only sign that anything unusual happened yesterday was the police tape across the front of the newsagent’s.

  He slowed the car to a crawl and pulled over in front of the parade of shops, managing to squeeze into a parking bay just ahead of the bus stop.

  He killed the engine, climbed out and walked towards the mobile phone store. The glass frontage was plastered with banners advertising special offers and deals for different networks.

  A bell rang as Collins pushed open the door. There was only one member of staff behind the counter, and a female customer stood in front of him, leaning over and studying a mobile phone.

  The man serving her was around five foot eight. Mid-thirties, Collins guessed. He had far too much gel in his hair, which stood up in little tufts. A gold earring glinted from one ear, and his skin, despite the fact it was still early in the morning, had a greasy sheen to it. The smile on his face was stretched too wide to be genuine.

  The man caught Collins’ eye, smiled, gave him a nod and said, “I’ll be with you in a minute.”

  Collins used the time to look around the shop, looking at the new, fancy models of mobile phones. It seemed to him, only a couple of years ago the trend had been towards smaller and smaller phones. The smaller the better. Now they seemed to be getting bigger. The phones most prominently displayed had large screens and were more like computers than phones.

  He stared at one particularly bulky phone. How was that supposed to fit in your pocket? He thought the whole point of these things was the fact they were supposed to be mobile.

  Unfortunately the female customer was rather taken with the mobile phone she’d been looking at and decided to buy it. The man behind the counter was grinning and almost bowing as he pulled out forms for her to fill in.

  Some ten minutes later, the woman, with her new mobile phone in a bright-blue carrier bag, strolled out of the shop, smiling.

  The man turned his attention to Collins. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting. How can I help? Are you looking for an upgrade?”

  Collins held up his police warrant card. “DC Collins, City of London police.”

  The smile slid from the man’s face. “Oh, I thought I was due a visit. You’ll be wanting to ask me about the stuff that went on at Syed’s place.”

  Collins nodded.

  “I don’t really know anything. Not much I can tell you.”

  Collins tried for a friendly tone. “What’s your name, sir?”

  “Oh, sorry. It’s Pete Morton. I’m the manager here.”

  “What time did you shut up shop yesterday?”

  “We close at five-thirty, and I went straight home,” Pete Morton
said and nodded furiously, almost as if he was trying to convince himself. “So I can’t help you because I wasn’t here when it happened.”

  “And where’s home?”

  “Walthamstow.” Pete Morton recited his address, and Collins wrote it down.

  “You weren’t here during the incident … but you know what time it occurred?”

  Pete Morton’s eyes widened slowly. He swallowed hard. “Well, yes, but only because everyone around here has been talking about it today.”

  Collins noted the flush in Pete Morton’s cheeks. Some people were better at concealing the truth than others.

  Pete Morton was hiding something.

  “Did you notice anything unusual yesterday? Anyone hanging about?”

  Pete Morton frowned. “Hanging about? I thought Syed killed himself.”

  Collins nodded, but stayed silent, using Mackinnon’s trick of letting the person he was questioning stew for a bit.

  “I mean,” Pete Morton continued. “That’s what I heard. He made some kind of chemical gas and topped himself, didn’t he?”

  Collins took a breath. “There was hydrogen sulphide gas at the scene. We are trying to talk to people who knew him, people who came into contact with him every day like you.”

  “Why?” Pete Morton’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “Am I at risk?”

  “No. The gas has dispersed. The levels were closely monitored last night, so you don’t have anything to worry about on that score, but we do want to find out as much as we can about Syed. It seems he didn’t have family in the UK, so we’re finding it quite hard to gather information. How well did you know him?”

  Pete Morton shook his head and looked down at the floor. “Oh, well, hardly at all. I said hello now and again. You know how it is.” He licked his lips.

  It was hard to find the right questions. Collins knew Pete Morton was trying to conceal something. But it was hard to tell whether his secret had any relevance to Syed Hammad’s death.