“I want you to know, if you use the cafe on Monday morning, I might be in there working undercover as a waitress. If I am there it’s important that you don’t do anything that might give away you know me.”
Rachel looked anxious and signed quickly.
“She’s worried you told Nick about her.”
Jane shook her head. “Don’t be. He doesn’t know that you’ve spoken to me and, like I promised you, he never will.”
Rachel sighed with relief and signed, asking if Jane would like her to stop using the cafe for a bit.
“It’s entirely up to you, Rachel, but I’d be grateful if you’d continue going in and lip-reading what the men talk about.”
She looked at Emma for advice.
“I think you should if it will help their investigation, but like Jane said, it’s up to you.”
Rachel licked her lips as she thought about it, then agreed that she would go to the cafe on Monday morning.
As Jane and Teflon walked towards the stairwell to leave, Emma called out to them.
“I wasn’t entirely truthful with you about why I needed to get away from the estate. We did suffer abuse from some local teenagers, and occasionally a few adults. We even had ‘weirdos’ and ‘psycho twins’ painted on our front door. I genuinely feared reporting it to the police would make matters worse, so we chose to ignore it and tried to avoid the people responsible when we were coming and going from the flat. Then one day everything suddenly changed. Someone had repainted our front door and the abuse stopped. If the kids saw us coming, they’d walk off or look the other way.”
“Sounds like ‘someone’ had a word in their ear and told them to stop. Do you know who it might have been?” Jane asked.
“At first, I didn’t, but after a few weeks I discovered it was Uncle Asil, our father’s brother.”
Jane looked perplexed. “The same man who abandoned you twenty-two years ago?”
Emma nodded. “He worked for my father and returned to Cyprus after his death. He came back to England a few years ago and found out where we lived. I wrote the letters to the council about a move to get away from him. Asil is a criminal, just like my father was.”
“It sounds like you’ve spoken to him.”
“He waited for me outside my work one day. I didn’t know who he was at first, but he called me Emira and I could see the resemblance to my father. I told him I wanted nothing to do with him and walked away, but he begged me to hear him out and said he only wanted to help me and Rachel. I said we were fine and didn’t need his help, but he followed me and said he was already helping us.”
Jane guessed what Asil had done.
“He’d threatened the people on the estate who were abusing you.”
“Not him directly. He hired some people to find us, they witnessed it and he told them to sort it out.”
“So you did talk with him.”
“Yes, I couldn’t get away from him. He told me he never worked for my father and sent us to St. Cuthbert’s because he was unable to raise us on his own. Now he’d returned to the UK he wanted to make amends, but I told him Rachel and I would never forgive him and not to come near us again or I would call the police. He handed me a large envelope and said it contained twenty-five thousand pounds, which we could use to buy a place of our own. I told him I didn’t want his ill-gotten gains and threw it back at him. Then he handed me a business card and tried to convince me he owned a company in Cyprus that exported fruit for big supermarkets. I knew he was lying, tore the card up and walked away.”
“When did you speak to him?”
“About two months ago.”
“And you haven’t heard from him since?”
“No, but I’m sure he’s watching us. You have to understand I can’t risk Rachel finding out the truth. If we can get moved off the estate then he won’t be able to find us.”
“He has already, and he will again if he wants to. The good thing is that so far he hasn’t turned up here. I’m grateful you’ve told me the truth, Emma, but knowing what I do now puts me in a difficult position. I can’t lie to the council to help you get a move—”
“And I can’t tell them the truth for Rachel’s sake.”
“Leave it with me for now. My detective inspector was arranging for a local detective to speak to you next week. I’ll have to tell him about our conversation today and seek his advice about the best way forward, then I’ll let you know what he suggests.”
On the way back to the car Jane told Teflon about her conversation with Emma in the kitchen.
“That puts everything in a different light,” he remarked.
“I wouldn’t want Rachel standing up in court where the defense could use her family past against her and she wouldn’t have a clue what they were talking about.”
“In that case, do you think you did the right thing by asking her to keep helping us?”
“We can use what she tells us as intelligence and not evidence. That way we won’t need to call her as a witness and can protect her identity.”
“That’s good thinking, but I’d run it by Murphy first and let him make the decision.”
He opened the driver’s door. She got in the passenger seat and looked at her pocket notebook.
“Do you want to get off home now or are you happy to carry on working?”
“I’m easy. Where do you want to go?”
He started the car and prepared to drive off.
“I was thinking of visiting Abby Jones. She’s the young girl who saw the man shooting at the police car—”
“Didn’t Murphy say to hold off on her for now?”
“Yes, but I’ve a gut feeling she may have seen O’Reilly’s face. What she said to me at the scene doesn’t add up.”
He frowned at Jane. “That will piss Murphy off big time—and that’s not something you want to do right now.”
She checked something in her pocket notebook.
“I asked Abby to describe the tall man who got out of the passenger seat of the Cortina. She told me he was wearing a balaclava, even though every other witness said he was wearing a brown stocking mask.”
Teflon shrugged. “The poor kid obviously made a mistake—which is understandable when there are bullets flying round your head and police cars crashing in front of you.”
“From where the getaway car stopped in Woodville Road there were two trails of blood. One ran to the middle of the road, where several drops were confined to a small area, which indicates someone was standing there. The fired cartridge cases were near there as well, and the direction of the other blood trail was returning to where the car had been—”
He was starting to get frustrated with her stubbornness.
“I think maybe it’s best we call it a day.”
But Jane wasn’t going to be deterred.
“If the man who fired the handgun at the police car had a cut to his forehead, you’d expect the stocking mask to soak up the blood and maybe leave a few drops here and there.”
“What’s your point, Jane?”
“If the blood was being soaked up by the stocking it would spread like ink on blotting paper, making it difficult to see. We think O’Reilly was the man who fired the handgun, and we know he has a cut to his head. I believe he took the stocking mask off before he got out of the getaway car because he couldn’t see with it on. Abby wasn’t mistaken; she lied because she was frightened. But if she can identify O’Reilly in a line-up, we’ve got him. Likewise, if Fiona Simpson can identify Graham, plus we can link them to the Ripley brothers—”
“Even if Abby Jones agrees to do an ID parade, she might bottle it on the day, then you’re left with nothing. You nick them on the plot, and they’re all fucked in one hit.”
“That could happen, but we won’t know unless we speak to her. If she agrees to look at an ID parade, we can tell Murphy, then he can decide on the next move.”
“He’ll still be pissed off.”
“God forbid the next robbery our susp
ects commit should go wrong again. Like Murphy said, one of us—or worse, an innocent bystander—could get killed . . . all because we want to make a pavement arrest.”
He sighed and shook his head. “Christ, you can be infuriating at times . . . What’s Abby’s address?”
“Number 6 Leybourne Road, Leytonstone.” She grinned. “And don’t worry, I’ll take the blame if Murphy gets his knickers in a twist.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Jane rang the doorbell of a terraced, two-bedroom Victorian property and Abby opened the door. She looked worried when she saw who it was.
“Hi, Abby.” Jane smiled. “You remember me? This is my colleague DC Johnson. Are your mum and dad in?”
“No, they’re both out,” she said with a frown.
“I wonder if we could come in and have a quick word with you about what you saw on Thursday morning in Woodville Road?”
“I’ve already told you everything.”
“Have you told your parents about it?”
“Yes, and my dad was angry with me, he said I shouldn’t have spoken to you without his permission.”
“If you’d still been sixteen that would be true—but now you’re seventeen we don’t need his permission.”
Teflon threw Jane a warning glance, but she ignored him.
“There are just a couple more questions I’d like to ask you, then we’ll be on our way.”
Abby sighed and opened the door.
They followed her into the living room, where her son Daniel was asleep in a bassinet on the sofa. Abby sat down next to him with a surly look on her face and her arms folded.
“What do you want to ask me?”
Jane decided to get straight to the point.
“I have reason to believe that the tall man you saw firing the gun at the police car wasn’t wearing a mask and I—”
“He was so, it was a black balaclava with eye and mouth holes,” she insisted.
Jane spoke softly. “Every witness to the bank robbery said the tall man with the gun was wearing a brown stocking mask.”
“So? He might have changed into a balaclava after the robbery.”
“Our forensic officer found drops of blood in Woodville Road leading to and from where the Cortina was parked. He believes the man with the gun took his stocking mask off before he got out of the car.”
Abby started biting her thumbnail. “I’m not a liar, you know.”
“I can understand why you’re scared, Abby—but I can assure you those men will never know who you are. By telling us the truth you’ll be helping us to make sure they never do anything like that again and go to prison for a very long time.”
Jane looked to Teflon for support. He rolled his eyes, then crouched down so Abby had to look at him.
“If you did see his face and would be able to recognize him again, it would really help us.”
Abby started to cry. “OK, his head was bleeding, right, then just before he started firing the gun, he wiped the blood with a stocking—” Her voice trembled as she remembered the moment.
Jane sat down next to Abby, handed her a tissue and put her arm around her.
“That’s great. you’re doing really well.”
Abby looked at Jane with floods of tears running down her face.
“After he’d fired at the police car, he saw me looking at him and pointed the gun at me . . . I thought he was going to shoot me—”
“What the fuck is going on here?” Mr. Jones’s voice boomed as he marched into the room, quickly followed by his wife.
“It’s OK, Mr. Jones. We’re CID,” Teflon said quickly.
“Get away from my daughter!” Mrs. Jones shrieked, pushing Jane away.
“Is this the detective woman you spoke to the other day, Abby?” Mr. Jones asked, and she nodded. He glared at Jane. “How dare you come to my house harassing my daughter without my permission!”
“I wasn’t harassing Abby, Mr. Jones, I was just asking her—”
“I don’t care what you were asking her,” Mrs. Jones snapped.
Jane took a deep breath. “Abby just told us she saw the face of the man who fired at the police car and he pointed the gun at her. Understandably she’s frightened, but I think she might recognize him if she saw him again.”
She looked at Teflon, who raised his eyebrows and shook his head. It was obvious he thought she was not helping the situation.
Mr. Jones turned to his daughter.
“Did you see the man’s face?”
She nodded, wiping the tears from her eyes.
“But you wouldn’t be able to recognize him again, would you?”
“No, Daddy.”
Mr. Jones pointed to the door.
“Get out of my house, the pair of you!”
“I’m just doing my job, Mr. Jones. Your daughter, or other innocent members of the public, could have been seriously hurt. All I’m asking is—”
Teflon decided he’d had enough. He grabbed Jane by the arm and led her towards the front door.
“I apologize for any distress we have caused you and your family, Mr. Jones—we won’t bother you or your daughter again,” he said as they walked out.
“You’d better not!” Jones shouted as he slammed the door shut.
“You can take your hand off me now,” Jane told him icily. She brushed her arm down. “I know Abby saw his face.” She held her finger and thumb a couple of inches apart. “We were that close to getting her on our side—”
“Shut up and get in the bloody car,” Teflon told her through gritted teeth.
He said nothing as he drove off, then took the first left turn and came to an abrupt halt, making Jane lurch forward.
“For Christ’s sake!” she exclaimed.
He shook his head in disbelief. “Can you not see Jones was only trying to protect his daughter? You should have walked away as soon as Abby told you he was mad that you’d spoken to her without his permission.”
“Maybe, but—”
“Then you go and tell him the suspect pointed the gun at her and she could have been killed. After hearing that I wouldn’t let my daughter go anywhere near a bloody witness stand.”
“I said hurt, not killed, and I was just being honest with him.”
“Sometimes honesty isn’t the best policy. Put yourself in his shoes . . . He already knew our suspects were hardened criminals who don’t give a toss about anyone or anything and are not afraid to commit murder to get away with their crimes.”
“You don’t need to lecture me,” she retorted. “I’ve dealt with witnesses to murder and many other serious crimes, so believe me I know what it’s like for them.”
“Dealing with witnesses to armed robberies is different from a murder investigation. We’ve had loads of people in witness protection, but lost in court because of physical assaults and intimidation of their families and members of the jury. Even if Abby identified O’Reilly in a line-up, a good defense barrister would have destroyed the poor girl in court—and alleged that you coerced her.”
Jane threw her hands up. “Fine. You’re right—we shouldn’t have gone to see Abby.”
“I should never have let you talk me into going there. Part of me wonders how much you just wanted to rub Murphy’s nose in it by getting Abby to admit she saw O’Reilly’s face.”
“I said I’m sorry—and I can’t change what’s just happened.”
“Next time think before you dive in head first, Jane. Why throw all your hard work away on a seventeen-year-old kid, who you already suspected had lied before you got there? If Murphy had told you to go and interview her then the blame for that fiasco would have been on his shoulders—not yours!”
He started the car and moved off.
Neither of them spoke on the journey back to Rigg Approach. Jane had time to think about what Teflon had said and she realized he was mostly right. Her biggest dilemma now was whether or not to tell Murphy what had happened.
As she drove home, Jane felt more and more a
nnoyed with herself, knowing the fiasco at the Joneses’ house had damaged all her good work over the last three days and dented the respect Teflon had for her. She parked her car in a back street and trudged up the stairs to her flat. She’d never felt so tired and looked forward to a hot bath and going straight to bed. She managed to open the door a few inches before it got stuck and, after pushing harder, she opened it enough to squeeze around the door into her flat. She saw a plastic House of Fraser bag wedged between the door and carpet, and realized it must have been pushed through the letterbox. After closing the door, she picked the bag up and saw a bit of paper with Pam’s handwriting on it.
Bought this for you earlier and thought I’d drop it off before going to Mum and Dad’s for supper as I wasn’t sure if I’d see you later. If you’ve seen this before I’ve told you about it then you probably got stuck at work . . . or forgot about supper . . . AGAIN! See you when I see you . . . Your long-lost sister Pam. PS You owe me £3 and the receipt’s in the bag.
Jane opened the carrier bag and took out the grey newsboy cap.
“Bollocks,” she said to herself, annoyed she’d forgotten about going to her parents’ for supper. She picked the phone up and started to dial their number, but put the receiver down and banged her hand against the wall in frustration. She knew her mother and Pam would accuse her of putting her job before the family, which would be somewhat ironic after what she’d done for Tony. She couldn’t face any of her family after everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours and just wanted to be alone.
She went into the kitchen, poured a large glass of wine and drank half of it down in one. As she topped up the glass, she thought of Emma and Rachel cowering in a corner, watching their mother being beaten to death. Alone in the silence of her flat it was as if she was there herself, unable to do anything to stop it. She remembered Emma saying how her mother had tried to reach out to them as she lay on the floor in a pool of blood. Jane felt herself welling up with guilt. She snatched a tissue from a box in the kitchen and hurried to the phone. She dialed her parents’ number and her mother answered.
The Dirty Dozen Page 32
