The Secret Fear

by Solomon Carter

  “Where do we start?” said Simmons.

  “I know where you start. There was trouble at Hamlet Court Road this morning – before we found out about the murder.”

  “Smundle and Grint?”

  “Yep. I want you to go and give them a little talk.”

  “Guv, those two were begging in shop doorways a hundred yards from the body. They’re hardly likely to sit there and beg if they’d killed the man.”

  “You might think that, so might I, but we have to cross them off. Besides, those boys are out of their minds on booze and barbiturates more often than not. They might not even remember killing their favourite chippy owner.”

  Simmons stayed doubtful.

  “Besides, our esteemed DCI won’t be happy unless we eliminate them from our inquiries,” said Hogarth. “Look. Just think of it as a cultural experience.”

  Simmons looked at his shoes and sighed. Hogarth’s eyes gleamed.

  “We’ve still got access to PCSO Kaplan, you know. She met those boys this morning. If you’re a good boy I might send her with you to hold your hand.”

  “Guv,” said Simmons, scowling.

  “Have I gone too far, Simmons?” said Hogarth. “Whoops. Well that’s just me all over, isn’t it? Get it done. Then we can put Melford’s disturbed mind at ease.”

  Hogarth downed the rest of his coffee. It was still hot. He made a face and dumped the carton in the waste bin before straightening out his blazer.

  “And if you see Palmer, tell her to give me a call. I’d rather she stopped doing the Scarlet Pimpernel routine until we make some progress with this case.”

  Simmons nodded. He tried to guard his excitement from Hogarth’s gleaming eyes. He was looking forward to seeing Kaplan again. Hogarth gave him a knowing grin as he turned for the door – he’d been a hormonal young cop once and he could read Simmons like a book. A Ladybird book.

  “But no romantic meals, Simmons,” said Hogarth as Simmons opened the door. “I want the full SP on Messrs Smundle and Grint on your return.”

  “I do get to go home at some point, I take it?”

  “Of course, you do. I just thought you might enjoy Kaplan’s company first.”

  Before Simmons could shoot back a response, Hogarth winked and Simmons decided not to say a word. The DC opened the door to leave and Hogarth caught a whisper of Melford’s name in the office outside before Simmons shut the door. “I really don’t know what’s wrong with him today.”

  It seemed the DCI’s list of admirers was dwindling fast.

  Twelve

  It was dark by the time Palmer reached Hamlet Court Road. She’d intended to go back to the station, at least she did at first. But a stain of guilt had been left by her visit to Miray Atacan. Palmer had ended up digging into personal territory and, with Yusuf Yuksel’s intervention, she had strayed further still by using the Atacan name. With Yuksel at least she could claim she was being proactive about the case. She was taking a lead. Doing the job. But her talk with Miray had taken her to the past Hogarth seemed afraid of facing. And had taken her onto the outer edges of his almost-relationship with Miray Atacan. It hadn’t been a simple relationship. It had been an almost-affair with a woman who seemed to have been the squaw of a brutal gangland killer. Ferkan Atacan. The tittle-tattle of Miray’s past with Hogarth blended nicely with the story. Palmer felt she hadn’t strayed too far into dangerous waters, but Hogarth was a detective of the highest order. There was a chance he would consider her questioning had gone off topic into his personal involvement with Miray. He would be entitled to be angry, and defensive. But it was better for him to get angry with her than realise the real reasons for her interest. The infantile crush Palmer had tried to smother bubbled to the surface at the worst possible times. Today it had expressed itself in jealousy of a woman from Hogarth’s past. A woman he had probably never even slept with... Palmer bristled at her own stupidity. Here she was, a detective sergeant in her late thirties, having feelings for a spiky, unkempt, ex-Met detective with a highly dubious track record with women. Guilt-stricken and anxious, Palmer decided to keep busy until the dust had settled. When she next faced Hogarth she would do so with her head held high, with some tangible progress in the case as an offering. More than that, she wanted to allay his fears about the Atacans. But since her chat with Miray, her own worries on that score were beginning to mount. Miray Atacan was still a woman under male rule. It didn’t make sense. Old man Yuksel was no Atacan, and Izmir didn’t seem the type to control anyone. But the clearest answers had to be found where Sen had died.

  The Turkish flags at Authentic Kebab and at Yuksel’s Cash and Carry stuck in her mind. The shrine-like images to Turkey and Atatürk at one and their powerful President Erdoĝan at the other. The photographs on Yuksel’s office wall were telling her something too, but Palmer couldn’t yet see what. She had been so busy making things worse, her thinking had become muddled. She walked along past the Coop and the bakery. The bakery had been closed for hours now, but the Coop was busy with a queue of mums and alcoholics at the tills. The street was dark, punctuated by street lamps and streaking headlights. The people who walked past were briefly illuminated by window displays and car lights before they retreated into the darkness once more. Palmer eyed them as she walked. She didn’t fear any of them but she feared what she was about to do. She passed the always-raucous pub on the corner, a little red saloon bar called Fauntleroy’s where the boozers always seemed to think it was ten o’clock on a Friday night. Their music and chatter boomed out as she passed. She looked ahead and saw a squad car pulled up in the bay outside Authentic Kebab. The lights were off and the car was dark inside. She reached the squad car and saw it was empty. Poor show. Whoever had been assigned here was supposed to be looking after the crime scene pending further work tomorrow. Palmer heard a voice she recognised somewhere nearby. She couldn’t place it until she stepped back from the kerb and peered into the neighbouring shop fronts. A couple of doors down from Authentic Kebab was the Wimpy bar. Inside the Wimpy, she saw PC Orton. He was caught up in some banter with the man behind the counter. There was loud belly laughter as Orton held forth, gesticulating wildly as he spoke. Palmer tutted but she was grateful too. Orton’s negligence was her opportunity. She looked to the windows above the kebab shop and saw one was lit. Maybe Orcun Sen was home, possibly his son or both of them. But so long as she was careful there was no need for that to stop her. The front door was taped off and very unlikely to be unlocked. Journalists, sickos, or blood thirsty teenagers were bound to be interested in something like a murder. Instead, Palmer walked back past Fauntleroy’s, and took the dark side street of Annerley Road, passing the mirrored window of the exotic massage establishment and a hair salon. There was a narrow alley at the back which led behind the parade of shops. Palmer looked left and right. It felt like a long time since Alice Perry and her coven had stood on that very corner hoping to snatch an exclusive for The Record’s front page, but in reality, it was only a matter of hours. Palmer double-checked there was no one watching her, then down the alley she went, her flat shoes crunching into the hard-baked rutted mud. She found the back door to the takeaway and the flat above. Palmer tugged at the door, not expecting much. If her plan didn’t work, she intended to go home and face the music in the morning. But the back door gave. It opened into the small space she remembered from before – the tiny hallway outside the stairs to the Sens’ flat above. Palmer took a controlled breath then pulled the door closed behind her. She stared at the two doors immediately in front of her. TV noise wafted down from the flat upstairs. Even the TV seemed to be in Turkish. Palmer bit her lip with concentration and teased her fingernails at the edge of the takeaway’s corridor door. She was being wildly optimistic to expect the door to be open for her. It was too much to expect, but she hoped all the same. Palmer’s eyes widened when the latch clicked gently free of the lock. The door had been left unlocked. It was more than a stroke of luck. It was a sign of extreme police incompetence. But Orton
wasn’t to blame for this one. Whoever had left the scene last would carry the can. John Dickens, the crime scene manager, she wondered? Surely not... she pulled the door open into the darkness of the kebab shop. On one side was a hint of the toilet door in the corridor, and on the left, behind the greasy plastic curtain, was the darkness of the takeaway kitchen. Stainless steel reflected the dull half-light from the blurry shop window. Pinprick safety lights and electric standby lights studded the darkness. She was in. But the hard part was about to begin.

  SIMMONS AND KAPLAN walked down the steps onto the shingle beach nearest Hamlet Court Road. It was a way beyond Hamlet Court itself, but not much more than five minutes. Behind them were the old-fashioned beach restaurants of Westcliff’s Arches. It was still spring, so only a few were open, and none were busy. Their light poured onto the dark seafront as the Thames lapped at the beach, vast, calm and quiet. Franco, the street drinker with the beret and long grey beard had happily told them where to find Roly Smundle and Nev Grint. Even before DC Simmons stepped onto the sand, he heard the two men laughing. The duo was oblivious to their approach.

  “How the other half live, eh, Ecrin?” said Simmons.

  He smiled at her and Kaplan smiled back.

  “To be fair, most people might enjoy an evening drink by the seaside, although probably not like this...”

  She nodded to the two men who were sitting cross-legged on the beach, a couple of three-litre bottles of dodgy cider between them. They were stick men draped in baggy clothes smoking and talking louder than they realised. The men looked too far gone to attempt running away. But like old Franco, they seemed happy-drunk. It was too early in the evening for drunkenness of the other kind. Kaplan’s words had Simmons intrigued.

  “But you’re Turkish. That’s a Muslim country, isn’t it? Do you drink then?”

  Kaplan shot Simmons a questioning look.

  “First of all, I was born in this country,” she said, keeping her voice down. “I’m British. Second of all, I’m not Turkish. My family are Turkish Cypriot. It’s a very different thing.”

  “But isn’t Cyprus a Greek island?”

  “Try Wikipedia, DC Simmons. It’ll save me a lot of time explaining. And as for Turkish people not drinking. Well, it depends what kind of Turkish woman you’re dealing with. The religious kind or the secular.”

  “What does that even mean?”

  “Wikipedia, please.” Kaplan saw Simmons was bamboozled and took pity on him. “All you need to know is that, yes, I do like the occasional drink.”

  “You’re not traditional then?” said Simmons with a faintly hopeful smirk.

  “I’m wearing a police uniform, DC Simmons. No. I’m definitely not traditional.”

  Simmons smiled as he winced. His ignorance of Kaplan’s background was letting him down. Simmons decided he would dip his toe into Wikipedia, just as Kaplan had suggested. Next time, the young woman wouldn’t find him so ill-informed. As their feet crunched into the shingle, Roly Smundle stopped laughing and raised a warning hand to Grint. The other man fell silent. Both of them looked up to find Simmons and Kaplan almost upon them.

  “Evening, gents,” said Simmons. “Nice night for it.”

  “Piss off!” said Roly Smundle. “You’re not fining us for drinking...?”

  “Now, now. Mind your manners and we’ll think about letting you off, won’t we, Kaplan?”

  “Huhn,” said Kaplan, retreating back into her nervous shell as she came face to face with the job.

  “This one was never gonna fine us anyway, Nev. He wants something. Don’t you?” Roly glanced at PCSO Kaplan and grinned. “Or did you come down here on the beach for something else? Something between you and the new girl, eh? She is new, ain’t she? Never seen her on the beat before.”

  Kaplan’s eyes flared. “We came here looking for you, actually.”

  “Told you,” said Roly Smundle.

  “This is to do with the kebab man, right? Baba Sen?” said Grint.

  “You’re smarter than you smell,” said Simmons.

  “Screw you!” said Grint.

  “No thanks,” said Simmons, pleased to be jousting in front of Kaplan. “You were on Hamlet Court Road this morning pretending to be homeless again. Begging from people with less money than you.”

  “What do you know?” said Smundle.

  “You boast when you’re drunk, boys,” said Simmons. “I’ve heard you yapping about how much you pull in when you’re on ‘the-ham-and-egg’. That’s what you call begging, isn’t it?”

  “Sod this, Roly. The copper’s killing my vibe,” said Grint. “Get your stuff, let’s go.”

  “Wait,” said Simmons. “This is a murder investigation, boys. It’d be wiser to clear your names now rather than get dragged in later.”

  “You what?” said Roly. “You’re not fitting us up for anything.”

  “Best to protect yourselves by telling us the facts then.”

  The drinkers eyed one another in the dark before Roly dropped his bottle back to the sand with a gentle thud.

  “What time did you arrive at Hamlet Court Road?” said Simmons.

  “Early enough. Wanted to catch some of the commuter action. You know, the suits off to score the big money in the city. Some of ‘em draw cash before they go down to the station. A few throw us a coin here or there. If they’re flush, some give more.”

  “Lucky you,” said Simmons.

  The drunks managed not to bite.

  “What time is early?” said Simmons.

  “About seven. That’s plenty early enough for me,” said Roly, grinning.

  “And you?” Simmons asked the other man.

  “I’m always with him, same time, same place. We’re a double act, everyone knows that,” said Grint.

  “Seven o’clock then,” said Simmons. “Can you prove that?”

  “Why would we need to prove it?” said Roly. “We ain’t done nothing wrong. You need to prove we’re guilty of something, not the other way round.”

  “I can prove you were begging on Hamlet Court Road this morning and that you’re drinking on the beach. Both are against the law,” said Simmons. “Now, can anyone vouch that you arrived at seven am?”

  “Yeah,” said Grint.

  “Who?” said Roly. “The newsagent, remember. The foreign geezer asked us to move away from his precious stack of newspapers. Thought we wanted to nick his dailies, the numpty. Ask him.”

  “Who?”

  “I dunno. Brown skin. Indian, Sri Lankan, whatever. The fella is always rude but he saw us turn up. He watched us while he was getting his newspaper bundles delivered.”

  “Which way did you come?” said Simmons.

  “What are you on about?” said Grint.

  “Up the street from the bottom of the hill – from the palm trees and all that, or down from London Road at the crossroads?”

  “What does it matter?” said Roly.

  “It matters,” said Simmons. “Baba Sen’s kebab shop is further down the hill. Trust me. It matters. If the newsagent is the only man who saw you, he’s your alibi or he’s not.”

  “We came from the crossroads, like always. Before that, we were sitting on our backsides outside the KwikMart. That’s the only way we’d come.”

  Simmons looked at Kaplan. “I’ve seen them there before,” said Kaplan. “It makes sense.”

  Simmons nodded. “Then you might be in the clear. The other way round, you’d have walked right past the kebab shop. And who knows how long that might have taken you? Hours maybe.”

  “As if?!” snapped Grint.

  “Like I said. Your rude newsagent might have saved you a lot of grief. You could be in the clear, boys,” said Simmons.

  “We always were in the clear, bruv,” said Roly. “Best you move along and leave us alone, now, eh?”

  Simmons snorted. “Best you take your slosh bottles and get off the beach. The signs say it’s illegal. Now off you go.”

  The drunks swore under their breaths a
nd grabbed their scruffy belongings from the sand. As they started to turn away, Roly Smundle’s face was struck by light from a promenade street lamp. Big earnest eyes were visible in his skinny unshaven face. “Thank you for vouching for us, darlin. We’ll remember that.”

  “I’m not your darling. My name is PCSO Kaplan.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Respect and all that., sweetheart,” Smundle started to climb the steps from the sand up onto the pavement. “Hey! One thing you should know about us and Turkish Baba,” said Smundle, looking back over his shoulder. “We loved that old geezer. He always gave us plenty of free food. Chicken, chips, doner meat, whatever. He was a lovely man. We’d never have harmed a hair on the man’s head.”

  “He was bald as a coot,” said Simmons.

  “Now who’s disrespecting the dead?” said Roly. “We’ll be there at the ceremony – because we loved him, man. True story.”

  “Ceremony? What are you on about?” said Simmons, his jacket flapping in the estuary breeze.

  “The big man. Orka? Orcun? He told us about it. The shop’s going to do a little funeral-style shindig, a reading, so the punters can bring flowers and whatnot.” Roly looked at Simmons’ blank face in the dim light.

  “You didn’t know, did you? Locals loved Baba Sen. Including us. You’re way off base accusing us of killing the man. He was a good man. Believed in God. Hurting a man like that is bad karma, man.”

  The pair turned away, swaying with the booze, clinging to their moral superiority before Kaplan’s firm voice called after them.

  “That newsagent,” she said.

  “Yes, sweetheart?” said Roly, stopping at the beachside railings.

  “He’s not Indian or Sri Lankan.”

  “No?”

  “No. He’s Turkish.”

  “Really? Another one?” said Roly, grinning to his companion.

  “Yes,” said Kaplan. “There’s a lot of us about.”

  The smirks faded. Roly Smundle and Neville Grint looked at Ecrin Kaplan with new eyes and then turned away, new smirks fast replacing the old ones on their faces. Simmons and Kaplan watched them go. Simmons broke the silence.