Stanley grinned. “A common nickname for someone called Smith is ‘Smudge’ or ‘Smudger.’ Maybe she lip-read Smudge as Judge.”
Kingston had more to add.
“Another positive is the Graham Smith mugshot. We can put it into an album for Fiona Simpson to view at the Yard. If she picks him out it’s a massive leap forward, as we’ll have one of the gang positively identified.”
“I want Fiona Simpson taken up the Yard tomorrow morning,” Murphy said. “It’s Sunday, so she won’t be opening up until midday—plenty of time to get her up there and back.”
“I’ll give her a ring after the meeting and arrange to pick her up in the morning, early,” Kingston agreed.
Murphy shook his head. “I want you here in the office with me tomorrow, planning the surveillance operation starting Monday morning.”
“We’ll need to call in support from the other Flying Squad units if we’re going to carry out static and mobile surveillance on all the suspects,” Kingston suggested.
“I know. We can also ask the central surveillance unit at the Yard to help out. I want the rest of today and tomorrow spent finding out where Graham Smith and George Ripley live, and double-checking the addresses we have for O’Reilly and Tommy Ripley.”
“Are we going to arrest Smith if Simpson picks him out?” Stanley asked.
“It’s an option, but not one I’m keen on pursuing. Right now I want to know more about them, and in particular their finances. That snooker hall will have cost Tommy Ripley a good few quid. I want to know if he paid cash or got a loan. Same with George Ripley, as their businesses could be a front to launder the proceeds of their crimes. The Leytonstone robbery was a disaster for them, and they made peanuts out of it, so my guess is they’re planning something big.”
Jane looked in her pocket notebook.
“According to Rachel Wilson, George Ripley did say on Friday in the cafe, ‘If yesterday hadn’t been a total fuck-up I could have paid our Tina’s wedding off in cash.’ But then again, she might have made it up,” she added with a straight face.
“If we nick them on the plot, we won’t need her as a witness,” Murphy retorted. “Cam, draw me up a list of all the phone numbers we’ve got so far that are connected to our suspects and I’ll ask for authority to wiretap them. Colonel and Bax, concentrate on George Ripley, Stanley and Cam on Tommy and O’Reilly, Teflon and Tennison, take Simpson up the Yard and revisit the Wilson twins. All of you see if you can find out more about Carl and the man in the camel hair coat.”
“Does that mean I’m manning the phones tomorrow?” Dabs asked.
“Yes, but I want you to do a full forensic report on everything we have so I can use it as supporting evidence when I apply for the wiretaps. Anyone else got a question? Good, now get to work. We need to nail these bastards before they have a chance to organize another job. Next time somebody might get killed.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Jane looked at her watch as Teflon drove to the Broadwater Farm estate; it was half past four, and she figured she could still get to her parents’ for supper by six. She wondered if Tony would be there and what state of mind he’d be in. She hoped he wouldn’t be, in case he inadvertently let slip he’d recently seen her.
“Thanks for agreeing to see the Wilson twins with me today,” she said.
“No problem. It will give us more time to concentrate on our other enquiries tomorrow.”
“I’ve got to go with the Colonel to meet his informant, but that’s at 7:30 in Brick Lane, so I should be back at the office before nine. Then we can collect Fiona Simpson and take her to see the albums.”
“The man she saw in the driver’s seat of the Cortina has to be Graham Smith.”
“I just hope she picks him out.”
“Even if she does, Murphy won’t arrest him yet. He wants them all bang to rights, cash and guns in hand on the plot, so he can put them away for a long time.” He paused, then gave her a side-on glance. “You’ve done well, Jane.”
“Thanks.”
She smiled over at him and for a moment their eyes met. She quickly turned away, feeling herself flushing. He was a handsome man, and she couldn’t help being attracted to him, but another relationship with a police officer—let alone one of the Flying Squad—was definitely not in her plans.
Why don’t I ever meet anyone nice outside the job? she wondered.
“For now, I’m not going to tell Rachel, or Emma, anything about the suspects we’ve identified or what we know about them,” she said, bringing her focus back to the job in hand.
“I agree with you. Looking ahead, it might be better not to put Rachel through the experience of giving evidence in court against men like them. I’ll park here in Willan Road; it’s only a short walk to Tangmere House.”
“Kingston was very quiet at the meeting,” Jane remarked as they got out of the car.
“According to the Colonel he had a massive bust-up with his wife last night.”
“I hope it wasn’t too serious,” she said, hoping he’d say more.
“Keep it to yourself, but apparently when she got home last night, Katie decided to tell her boyfriend she was having an affair with Kingston. He then phoned Kingston’s wife while we were all in the pub, so no surprise all hell broke loose when he got home.”
“Bloody hell,” Jane said, wondering what else Katie had said.
“Kingston’s a good detective and a decent bloke—but he’s only got himself to blame when it comes to his home life. His wife is a lovely, attractive woman. For the life of me I can’t understand why he goes out looking for a burger when he’s got steak at home.”
Jane didn’t much like what the analogy implied about her, so she quickly changed the subject.
“I know Murphy wanted you there when I speak to the twins about their family, but I was thinking it might be best if I spoke to Emma alone.”
“That’s fine by me. I could go through the cars section in Exchange & Mart with Rachel while you do that,” he said. “What a surprise—looks like the lift’s working.”
A young couple stepped out of it as they entered the foyer. Jane winced at the thought.
“I’d rather walk up the stairs.”
Teflon smiled, turning away from the lifts. “You might be right.”
When they got to the right floor, Jane knocked on the door of flat 68 and it was quickly opened by Emma.
“Hello, Jane, please come in.”
“Thanks. This is my colleague Lloyd Johnson.”
Emma shook hands with him.
“How’s your investigation going? Were the men in the cafe involved in the robbery?”
“The investigation is progressing well, and thanks to Rachel’s information we have some interesting leads.”
Emma looked pleased. “That’s good news. She’s in the living room doing some drawings and will be eager to know what’s happened. I’ve been sewing and stitching a little present for you.”
“You didn’t need to do that.”
“It’s not much, just a way of thanking you for offering to help us with the council.”
“Get out of that one,” Teflon whispered.
Rachel was sitting in an armchair with her back to the living room door and wasn’t aware anyone had entered the room. She was drawing in an A4 sketchbook. Emma walked in front of Rachel and signed that Jane and her colleague had come to see them. Rachel jumped up with a smile as she signed “hello,” then gestured to them to sit down on the sofa. As they sat down, she showed them her drawing of a man’s face. Jane was astonished by how lifelike it was, and her eyes were instantly drawn to the pair of boxing gloves on a chain around the man’s neck.
“Is that M2?”
Rachel nodded and turned back a page, revealing another drawing, then wrote M2 next to it with a pencil.
“They’re brilliant, Rachel, and they’ll be very useful to us,” Jane said.
“Definitely better than most police artists’ impressions,” Teflon r
emarked.
“She has a photographic memory,” Jane said.
Rachel flicked back another page, which had a drawing of a young man with hair down to his shoulders.
“I take it that’s the good-looking man who wears the polo shirts with a crocodile on them?” Jane asked.
Rachel had a twinkle in her eyes as she smiled, and nodded her head repeatedly with a childlike innocence.
Emma looked at Teflon. “She likes him . . . a lot.”
Rachel frowned at her sister and handed Jane the sketchbook.
Jane opened her shoulder bag and took out the Exchange & Mart paper Kingston had given her. As Jane spoke Emma signed to her sister.
“I’d like you to go through the cars for sale section with my colleague Lloyd and see if you can identify the car the man in the camel hair coat was driving.”
Rachel nodded and signed to Emma.
“She said she can try and draw it if you want.”
“Look through the magazine first, then if you don’t see the car do the drawing. Meanwhile I’ll help Emma make a nice cup of tea for us all.”
“Can I have a coffee with milk and sugar please?” Teflon asked.
Jane followed Emma to the kitchen.
“Is something wrong, Jane?” a worried-looking Emma asked.
“What makes you think that?”
“You didn’t say anything about your investigation to Rachel and seemed eager to be alone with me.”
Jane realized Emma was more perceptive than she thought.
“Actually, there is something I need to speak to you in private about.”
“Do those men know it was Rachel who told you about them?” she asked, with a genuine look of concern.
Jane shook her head emphatically. “We haven’t spoken to them and only my team know about you and Rachel.”
“Was it them that committed the robbery and shot the police officers?”
“We don’t know for certain, and even with what Rachel told us we haven’t enough to arrest them—so there’s nothing for you to worry about.”
“That’s a relief. Can I tell Rachel?”
“Of course. What I want to speak to you about concerns yours and Rachel’s childhood.”
“There’s not much to tell, really. As you know, our parents died in a car crash and we were raised in a children’s home.”
“Was it St. Cuthbert’s in Tottenham?”
“Yes, why do you ask?”
“A colleague of mine spoke to a nun at St. Cuthbert’s. She told him about twin girls called Emira and Rasheda Osman, who were sent there in 1958 after a car crash.”
“I’ve never heard those names before.” Emma looked away nervously.
“The nun said one girl was deaf and the other had a deformed left hand as a result of the crash. To me, there can be no doubt she was talking about you and Rachel.”
Emma sighed and looked at Jane. “After the crash we were both in hospital for some time, then our uncle looked after us for a week while he finalized the arrangements for us to go to St. Cuthbert’s. The Mother Superior decided to change our names to Emma and Rachel Wilson. Rachel was withdrawn and isolated in a world of deafness, she needed me to support her, but after a year and a half I was sent to live with a family and Rachel remained at the home.”
Jane was stunned. “They split you up? Why on earth did they do that?”
“They liked to foster children out whenever they could, though some siblings were kept together.”
“After what you and Rachel had been through, I would have thought it crucial you were kept together.”
“I still remember one of the nuns at the home telling me no one wanted a deaf and dumb girl to look after. Even though I was eight by then, I knew she was expressing her own feelings as well. I missed Rachel terribly and asked my foster parents if they would take me to the care home, but they told me it wasn’t a good idea as it would make me miss her more, and the same for her.”
“You obviously kept looking for her, though.”
“Of course. I eventually found out she’d been moved from St. Cuthbert’s, but no one would tell me where. I was beginning to feel there was nothing else I could do. When I was twenty-one I worked as a seamstress at a dressmaker’s in Hackney and rented a single room in a bedsit. One day, out of the blue, a girl came up to me while I was in Woolworths shopping and started waving her hands at me. I hadn’t a clue what she was doing, until an older woman with her said she was using sign language.”
Jane smiled. “Oh my God! Was it Rachel?”
“No, the girl was with her mother and thought I looked exactly like a deaf friend of hers. It dawned on me she might have thought I was Rachel so I spoke to the mother, who told me her daughter had been a day pupil at the Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb in Lower Clapton. It turned out Rachel was sent there from St. Cuthbert’s, and it was a proper school where she’d been a resident pupil for years. The mother told me Rachel was still there and teaching sign language. I couldn’t believe we were living a mile apart in the same area and never knew it. I went straight to the school to see her.”
“It must have been a wonderful feeling when you saw each other again after all those years apart.”
There was a broad smile on Emma’s face. “It was beyond belief, Jane. It’s hard to explain the mixed emotions when you find someone you thought you’d never see again. We both cried floods of tears as we hugged each other and vowed we’d never be parted again.”
“If you were both living in Hackney, how did you end up on the Broadwater?”
“When Rachel started working at the Tottenham sorting office it made sense to apply to Haringey Council for accommodation. We’d been orphans at St. Cuthbert’s and I’d spent my teenage life living with different foster parents in Haringey. I applied to the council and they immediately offered us a flat on the Broadwater Farm—we didn’t know what the estate was like.”
“The nun at St. Cuthbert’s also told us your father, Mehmet, was being chased by police when he crashed the car with you and your sister.”
Emma’s eyes narrowed at the mention of her father, but there was also a sadness in her face.
“Did the nun tell you he killed our mother and a police officer?”
Jane nodded. “I can understand why you and Rachel didn’t want to tell me the truth about everything that happened . . . It’s OK.”
“Rachel lost her memory as a result of the car crash. The nuns said it was best I never told her how Mama died, and they led her to believe she was killed in the car crash. My father beat her to death in front of us. I’m glad Rachel doesn’t know the truth, and as long as I live I’ll never tell her.”
Jane was shocked. “You witnessed the assault on your mother?”
Emma nodded. “We cowered in a corner, holding each other tight, as Mama screamed in pain and begged him to stop. The last thing I remember was the way she tried to reach out to us as she lay on the living room floor in a pool of blood. I put my hand out towards her, but he stepped between us and shouted to go to our room.”
“Did you see him shoot the policeman as well?”
Emma looked close to tears as she recalled the painful events of her past.
“The bastard didn’t care about anyone but himself—our lives were ruined because of him. He’d take a belt to us if we misbehaved, Mama would cry and he’d blame it on us, then when he hit Mama with a belt, we just accepted his behavior as normal—”
She paused and took a deep breath before continuing. Jane could see the hatred for her father in her eyes.
“But when I saw what he did to Mama that day with his fists, I realized he was evil—just like those men in the cafe.”
“I’m so sorry, Emma . . . I can’t begin to imagine what effect that must have had on your lives.”
“My father was punished by God for his sins,” Emma continued. “But the reality is he got away with nearly killing me and Rachel, and murdering Mama and the policeman. I’m glad he died, but part of me
will always feel he should have been tried and sent to prison.”
“I understand now why you wanted Rachel to tell me about the men in the Bluebird cafe.”
Emma looked imploringly at Jane. “Promise me you’ll never tell her the truth about our father and what he did to Mama. It would break her heart.”
“You have my word on it. We’d better finish making these drinks and take them through, or Rachel will wonder what’s going on.”
As they walked into the living room Rachel signed to Emma, asking if everything was all right.
“We were just chatting about your drawings, then I showed Jane some of my dress patterns.”
Emma handed her sister a cup of tea. Jane could tell from the look on Rachel’s face she suspected her sister wasn’t being truthful. She handed Teflon his coffee.
“Any luck with the car?”
“Looks like your Camel Hair Coat Man was probably driving a Jensen Interceptor.”
“That’s a sports car, isn’t it?”
He grinned and shook his head. “Saying that would be sacrilege to a Jensen owner. The cars are classed as GTs, which means Grand Tourer, from the Italian gran turismo—luxury high performance cars that are designed for long-distance driving, like Aston Martins, Ferraris and Maseratis. Jensen stopped producing cars in 1976, but a new one back then would have cost you around eight grand.”
Jane smiled. “I didn’t take you for a car buff.”
“I’m not, but my dad is. He gets Classic Cars magazine every month and lets me have them when he’s finished. I like to dream about cruising an alpine road in an Aston Martin.”
Rachel signed and Emma translated.
“She said, ‘You never know, one day you might win the pools or Premium Bonds and be able to buy one.’ ”
“I’d get stopped by the police every five minutes if I was driving a Jensen—or any expensive car for that matter,” he said wryly.
Emma signed while Jane explained to Rachel that her information about the men in the cafe had proved useful and was still being followed up, but there was no direct evidence to suggest they had committed, or were about to commit, a robbery. Rachel smiled and signed that in some ways that was a relief. She was worried about using the cafe after telling Jane what she had lip-read.
The Dirty Dozen Page 31
