Deadlock

by Graham Ison

  ‘Absolutely, Charlie. I know how to keep a secret,’ said Tash.

  Like hell you do, thought Flynn, as he stood up. It’ll be all down Superior Drive and halfway around Camden Town before I get back to the office.

  ‘Thanks very much for your help, Tash. I’ll be sure to let Mr Brock know how helpful you’ve been.’

  But Flynn hadn’t finished yet. He crossed the road to the house immediately opposite the one owned by the Steeles.

  The woman who came to the door was quite a bit older than Natasha Stephens and carried a bit more weight.

  ‘Yes?’ The woman sounded as though she’d been plagued by door-to-door salesmen and was now confronted by yet another one.

  ‘I’m a police officer, madam,’ said Flynn. ‘I’m so sorry to interrupt your afternoon, but this is rather important.’ He showed her his warrant card and, seeing the distressed expression that came over her face, quickly added, ‘But it’s nothing for you to worry about, Mrs … er …’

  ‘Wilson, Helen Wilson,’ said the woman. ‘My husband cycles to work in the City every day, and one hears so much about cyclists being injured or even killed by those big lorries that I was scared you’d come to tell me he’d been in an accident.’

  ‘I do understand, madam,’ said Flynn sympathetically, ‘but he’s not been involved in an accident as far as I’m aware. However, that said, you might want to dissuade him from cycling. Get him to go on the bus or the Underground. The Northern Line should get him there.’

  ‘He says he does it for the exercise,’ said Mrs Wilson, ‘but I keep telling him that it won’t do him any good being the fittest man in the cemetery,’ she added, making a statement that was, of itself, contradictory. Somewhat belatedly, she opened the door. ‘You’d better come in, Officer. I’m sure you didn’t come here to offer my husband advice about the dangers of cycling.’

  ‘I shan’t keep you a moment,’ said Flynn, stepping into the small hallway, ‘but I’d like you to look at a couple of photographs.’ First he showed the woman the print of Sarah Parsons. ‘Have you seen this woman before?’

  ‘Oh yes, I most certainly have,’ said Helen Wilson scornfully. ‘She’s the flibbertigibbet who lives with Daniel Steele. She moved in straight after his wife moved out. He didn’t waste any time, you know, and she couldn’t wait to get her claws into him.’

  ‘Do you happen to know her name, Mrs Wilson?’

  ‘It’s Sarah something, I believe, although she tries to pass herself off as his wife. For all I know they might be married now. But to be honest, Sergeant, the Steeles weren’t the sort of people we wanted to socialize with.’

  ‘Is this the Rachel Steele you knew?’ Flynn produced the post-mortem photograph of Daniel Steele’s estranged wife.

  ‘Yes, that’s her,’ Mrs Wilson said without hesitation. ‘What’s happened to her? Has she been in an accident?’

  ‘I’m afraid she’s dead, Mrs Wilson. Murdered. Her body was found in Richmond Park last Tuesday morning. I’m part of the team investigating her death.’

  ‘Oh, my goodness!’ exclaimed Mrs Wilson. ‘The poor woman. How awful.’

  ‘D’you happen to know how long ago it was that Rachel Steele left the marital home?’ Flynn asked.

  Helen Wilson assumed a pensive expression before saying, ‘About a year ago, I suppose. Perhaps a little longer.’

  ‘Have you any idea why they split up?’

  ‘I did hear they’d gone their separate ways,’ continued Helen Wilson almost enthusiastically. ‘He thought nothing of having women in the house long before Rachel moved out permanently. But at the same time, she was not above taking strange men home. It was almost as if they had an arrangement not to tread on each other’s toes, if you know what I mean.’ Pausing briefly for breath, she added, ‘Not that I’m a nosey neighbour, Sergeant, but you can’t help noticing.’

  ‘It’s inevitable in a small community like this,’ agreed Flynn airily, as though Camden Town was a village instead of an overcrowded area of London. ‘Well, thank you for your assistance, Mrs Wilson. I’ll not hold you up any longer.’

  I was in the incident room when Charlie Flynn reported back to me at about six o’clock and confirmed what I’d thought all along: that the woman Natasha Stephens thought was Rachel Steele was actually Sarah Parsons, whom Daniel Steele was passing off to us as Stephanie Payne, and as Rachel Steele to anyone else who was prepared to believe him. And that he’d been lying about continuing to share the property with Rachel.

  ‘Colin, we sent a warning to airports about Daniel Steele recently.’

  ‘Yes, we did, sir.’ Wilberforce turned and played a brief tattoo on his computer keyboard. ‘Tuesday the eleventh of June, twenty-two forty hours, sir. No result as yet.’

  ‘Send another message, Colin,’ I said, quickly recovering after Wilberforce’s lightning display of efficiency, ‘amending the name of Steele’s travelling companion to Sarah Parsons, date of birth unknown but probably about the same age as Steele. Charlie Flynn has a photograph of the woman that you can send.’ I paused. ‘I suppose you can do that on a computer.’

  ‘Of course, sir,’ said Wilberforce smugly, as though I had questioned his competence. I’ve no idea how these computer gadgets work, but he should know that by now.

  I went into my office to find Detective Superintendent Patrick Dean seated in my armchair.

  ‘There you are, Harry.’ Dean was a small man with a bald head and spectacles, a combination that had deceived many a villain until it was too late. He had started his CID career in the East End, and like all the good detectives in the force clawed his way slowly upwards and now found himself in Homicide and Major Crime Command West, and my immediate boss. One thing was sure: he was no textbook detective. It would be a foolish villain who tried to have Pat Dean over. And the same went for any junior detective who tried to pull the wool over his eyes.

  ‘You don’t often drop in for a chat, guv’nor,’ I said, but knew instinctively that wasn’t why he was here.

  ‘I’m sorry to put this on you, Harry,’ Dean began, ‘but another woman has been found. This time on Ham Common. I originally assigned it to Seb Mould, but the similarities are such that it looks like the work of the guy who topped Rachel Steele. Sorry to lumber you, Harry, but it’s better if you handle it. If you need any extra manpower, just give me a bell. I’ll leave you to liaise with Seb.’ He paused at the door. ‘By the way, Harry, there seems to be a grave shortage of decent coffee in your part of HMCC.’

  It was beginning to look as though we had a serial killer on our hands, but Pat Dean was too experienced a detective to say so. He would never make a rash judgement of that sort until the evidence became irrefutable.

  I walked down the corridor to Seb Mould’s office. He was a DCI who headed up another Murder Investigation Team on HMCC West.

  ‘Hello, Harry.’ Mould was seated behind his desk, and was eating a banana. I think he must’ve heard that I detested the smell of bananas. ‘I’ve got a dead body for you, old boy.’

  ‘You’re all heart, Seb,’ I said, sitting down opposite him. ‘Pat Dean’s just dropped in to break the good news to me. What’s the SP?’

  ‘Well, now, let’s see.’ Sebastian Mould spoke with what my mother used to call a cut-glass accent. Apparently he’d been commissioned into a hussar regiment and had the longish hair to go with it, but after a few years, he’d tired of the army and joined the police. He tugged briefly at his luxuriant moustache and pulled a file across his desk. ‘We thought we had an unidentified female at first. She didn’t have any documents on her: no credit cards, no driving licence, nothing.’

  ‘That’s different from Rachel Steele, Seb. Her credit cards and driving licence were left in a shoulder bag by the body, together with a substantial amount of cash.’

  ‘I don’t think robbery was the motive here either, Harry,’ said Mould. ‘It was simply a case of her not owning credit cards or a driving licence in the first place. Apparently there are some peopl
e who manage without them.’ He shook his head as though unable to comprehend life without such necessities of modern existence. ‘In any case, she had about seventy-odd pounds in cash on her person, so I don’t think it was a robbery gone wrong.’

  ‘But from what you said just now, I take it you have identified her.’

  ‘Yes, she had a few previous convictions for shoplifting and drugs, and we identified her from her fingerprints. In fact, she was a hoister in a big way – mainly from Oxford Street shops – to feed her drug habit. She eventually went down for a year in the nick before becoming a reformed character. But all that makes her a bad financial risk, which is probably why she hasn’t any credit cards. Her name is Lisa Hastings, aged twenty-seven, five foot nine tall, with long brown hair.’ He looked up. ‘And significantly, she had been wearing a bra but it was missing when the body was found, and she’d been stripped to the waist, presumably so that her attacker could get the bra off. It wasn’t found in the surrounding area. Our CSM is liaising with your Linda Mitchell and comparing notes, but it looks very much like the same killer.’

  ‘Had she got any previous for prostitution, Seb?’

  ‘Nothing on her file, Harry, but that doesn’t mean that she wasn’t on the game.’

  ‘Where exactly was she found?’

  ‘A few yards in from Ham Gate Avenue. It’s quite dense there; I should think she was taken to the edge by car and then persuaded to walk into the undergrowth. She probably thought she was on a promise of a few quid to buy drugs.’ Mould paused. ‘But it seemed that she was unlucky, not realizing, of course, that her male companion had felonious intent.’

  ‘It’s really a part of Richmond Park,’ I said, half to myself. ‘What time was she found?’

  ‘Half past eight this morning by a couple of schoolkids who were practising off-road rough-riding on their bikes on their way to school. They came across the body and rang the police immediately.’

  ‘Where from? Where did they telephone from, Seb?’

  Mould glanced at me with a despairing look. ‘They each had a mobile phone, Harry,’ he said, in a tone of voice a teacher might have used to explain something to an extraordinarily dim child. ‘Kids do these days, you know. One of them rang the police and I’ve no doubt the other one was on his phone to a newspaper trying to negotiate a price for his story.’

  ‘Have the boys been interviewed, Seb?’

  ‘No. Once Pat Dean said he was handing it over to you, I left it. Didn’t want to queer your pitch, old boy. I got my incident room skipper to send all the stuff he’d got on his computer to your chap. Should be there by now.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, and returned to my own incident room.

  ‘I’ve got everything that Mr Mould’s team have done so far on the Lisa Hastings job, sir,’ said Wilberforce.

  ‘Which I don’t suppose amounts to very much, Colin.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dare offer an opinion, sir,’ said Wilberforce, with a perfectly straight face.

  ‘Not much! Where’s Dave Poole?’

  ‘He’s getting the SP from Mr Mould’s bag carrier, sir. The stuff that’s not on the computer.’

  ‘And the commander?’

  ‘I understand he’s gone across to the Yard to see the Assistant Commissioner, sir.’

  ‘At half past six? Must be important,’ I said. The commander was usually out of the office on the stroke of six like a rat up a drainpipe. ‘What’s that about, I wonder?’

  Wilberforce, a master of tact and diplomacy, decided it was a rhetorical question and took a sudden interest in his computer. But I’ve no doubt he knew, and that meant that Dave would know, and Dave would tell me.

  ‘Is Miss Ebdon about?’

  ‘She’s gone out to Richmond to interview Tony Miles, sir. One of the men identified in the wine bar at Richmond as having known Rachel Steele.’

  ‘When did she go, Colin?’

  Wilberforce glanced at the time shown in the corner of his computer monitor. ‘About half an hour ago, sir. She took Steve Harvey with her.’

  ‘And has the next team gone to the wine bar?’

  Wilberforce swung back to his computer and scrolled down a page or two. ‘Miss Ebdon detailed three teams, sir. She said that it wouldn’t be a good idea for her to go again tonight, not after she took Max Roper to the nick.’ He laughed. ‘Particularly as one of the side effects was to break up Roper’s engagement, is what she said.’

  ‘Who has she sent, Colin?’

  ‘She thought men and women pairings would be best, so she detailed Nicola Chance with Terry Gibbons, Mr Driscoll with Sheila Armitage and Liz Carpenter with Ray Furness.’

  ‘Time you were off, isn’t it, Colin?’ I asked, glancing at the clock. Wilberforce should have been off-duty at six o’clock.

  ‘Gavin Creasey asked me to do an extra hour for him. Apparently he’s got something spoiling at his kid’s school that Marion said he would only miss at his peril.’ Wilberforce chuckled. ‘I wouldn’t want Gavin to get beaten up again.’

  It was a standing joke on the team. Creasey always claimed that he was the personification of obedience because he was in fear of his wife, but everyone knew that he and Marion were blissfully happy. A rarity for a CID officer.

  SIX

  Tony Miles’s flat formed part of a tastefully converted Victorian house in Weber Drive, Richmond, not far from the River Thames.

  ‘I’m Detective Inspector Ebdon and this is Detective Constable Harvey. Mr Miles, is it?’

  ‘Yeah, sure, I’m Tony Miles. Come on in.’ Miles, a tall, well-built, perma-tanned man with a shock of blond hair and overpowering aftershave, was probably a year or two younger than Kate. His T-shirt was, Kate suspected, deliberately tight in order to show his upper body and arm muscles to advantage. She immediately recognized Miles as a man who had a very good conceit of himself. ‘Max told me that a gorgeous lady detective would be coming to see me,’ he said. ‘And here you are.’

  ‘Did he also tell you that I arrest people who don’t cooperate, Mr Miles?’ asked Kate, as she preceded Miles into his sitting room. She knew how to deal with men like him if the necessity arose.

  Miles laughed. ‘Take a seat and make yourself comfortable,’ he said, as yet undeterred by Kate’s frosty riposte. ‘I’m sure I can persuade you to have a drink? You look like a G and T sort of girl to me.’ He crossed to a cocktail cabinet and, taking out a bottle of gin, held it up and waggled it to emphasize his suggestion.

  ‘No,’ said Kate firmly.

  ‘Oh, of course not. Sorry. Mustn’t drink on duty, eh?’ His laugh was almost a sneer.

  ‘I don’t mind drinking on duty, sport,’ said Kate, deliberately hamming up her Australian accent, ‘but I’m particular about the company I drink with.’

  She signalled to Harvey to hand her the briefcase he’d brought with him. Taking out her own smartphone, she brought up the video taken from Rachel Steele’s. She leaned across the coffee table that was between her and Miles and began to play the video.

  ‘Once you’ve taken your eyes off my cleavage, mate, have a look at this,’ said Kate. The video showed Miles tightly embracing Rachel Steele, his arm around her waist, and it was quite apparent that Rachel was not averse to the attention that Miles was giving her. At one point she leaned in much closer to Miles, put a hand firmly on his butt and began squeezing. It was clearly not a selfie. ‘That is you, isn’t it?’ Kate asked, rather unnecessarily.

  ‘Yes, it is.’ Miles looked up, smiled and ran a hand through his hair.

  ‘Who took that video?’

  ‘Max Roper, the one who told me you’d be coming to see me. He’s a workmate of mine.’

  ‘How well did you know Rachel Steele?’ asked Kate.

  ‘Hardly at all, really. I’d only met her that night in the wine bar, and she immediately struck me as a good-time girl. Just my sort of woman, actually. A crowd of us get in there most nights when we come off the train, especially Fridays. It’s a relaxation after a hard week’
s work.’

  ‘I imagine that slaving away in human resources must be exhausting,’ observed Kate drily. ‘How many times have you seen this woman, before or since that video was shot?’

  ‘Two or three times, I suppose, but she was usually in the company of another man.’

  ‘The same man each time?’ asked Harvey.

  ‘No; as I implied just now, she was the sort of girl who liked a bit of variety.’ Miles glanced at Harvey as if noticing him for the first time. ‘Bit like me in that regard,’ he said, switching his gaze back to Kate again and smiling. ‘It was a different guy each time, and I think she went home with one or two of them.’

  ‘When she went home with you that evening, I presume she stayed the night.’ Kate had taken a chance on that having happened, not that it was much of one, but she made it sound as if she had already discovered it to be the case.

  ‘Have you been having me followed, Inspector?’ The question had taken Miles by surprise, and he was unable to disguise his shock at Kate’s apparent omniscience. Suddenly the egotistical man-about-town pose vanished as he realized that, although this detective was an extremely attractive woman, she was not to be trifled with. Harvey was also taken aback by his DI’s directness, but he managed to conceal his surprise. Being new to HMCC, he had a lot to learn about Kate Ebdon.

  ‘I’d remind you that I’m investigating Rachel Steele’s murder, Mr Miles,’ Kate continued, ‘so I’d advise you to stop playing to the gallery and answer my questions. And from now on, cut out the smart remarks. If you can manage that.’

  ‘Phew! You get straight to the point, don’t you, Inspector?’

  ‘I don’t have time to mess about, mate. What time did Rachel Steele leave you on the morning of Saturday the twenty-fifth of May?’

  ‘How did you know the date? You are having me followed, aren’t you?’ Miles said accusingly.

  ‘The date the video was shot is logged on the phone,’ put in Harvey mildly. ‘Therefore, if she stayed with you that night, she must’ve left the following morning. So perhaps you’d tell my inspector at what time she left.’