Friends to Die For

by Hilary Bonner

  Now she could see. She looked up into the concerned face of the man who was cradling her in his arms.

  No wonder his voice had been familiar. It was Alfonso.

  Vogel was sound asleep when the call came at around 4 a.m. He always slept well and took the attitude that anyone who didn’t probably did not work hard enough.

  He had issued instructions at Charing Cross and throughout every relevant department within the Met that he should be notified at once in the event of any incidents involving the Sunday Club members. As luck would have it, when responding officers called in details of the attack on Michelle, PC Jessica Harding was on duty in Dispatch. Two days earlier, she’d contacted Vogel when the mutilated dogs were found, and had been sufficiently intrigued by the case that, even without a written directive, she would have alerted him to the latest development. A violent assault on a serving police officer took the investigation to another level. Finding whoever was responsible for the attacks on this group of friends would now become a priority, not just for Vogel, but for the Met’s top brass.

  Vogel had the knack of waking up quickly, but the news PC Harding imparted caused him to awaken even more quickly than usual. He groped for his spectacles, without which he was virtually blind, and sat bolt upright, listening intently as Harding concluded her report with the news that Michelle had been taken to University College Hospital, where she was expected to be detained for the rest of the night.

  Vogel’s next, perhaps somewhat obscure, response was a sense of relief. This must mean that Michelle could not be responsible for the other incidents. After all, she could hardly have mugged herself. Then the pedantic nagging voice Vogel could never quite discount began to make itself heard, asking questions he did not really wish to consider. Could Michelle have arranged the assault in order to eliminate herself from his inquiries? Had she hired some lowlife to stage an attack? Perhaps the hired thug had hit her with more force than she’d bargained for. If the hospital had decided to keep her overnight, then they probably suspected concussion or something more serious than a black eye.

  Given that Michelle was a police officer, there was also a possibility that the attack was connected to her job rather than Sunday Club. Working in Traffic, she didn’t come in contact with the sort of violent criminals that officers in the serious crimes squads dealt with, but the anger of motorists who believed they had been unjustly treated was legendary. Could it be that someone had recognized her out of uniform and taken revenge?

  ‘Any witnesses?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, a passing motorist and a pedestrian,’ replied PC Harding. ‘It was well gone midnight but there were still a few people about. Craddick and Parsons were the responding officers. They took two witness statements, each giving more or less the same account of a hooded cyclist riding straight up to Michelle, punching her full in the face, nicking her bag and riding off.’

  ‘Bit like the other incident with Marlena, then.’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Nobody tried to stop this cyclist?’

  ‘Well no, Sarge. Sounds like it was the usual story: all happened so fast, and so on.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Well, one of the witnesses – the pedestrian – said he knew Michelle. He happened to be walking home from work and saw the whole thing. Quite a coincid—’

  Vogel interrupted sharply.

  ‘Name?’ he barked. ‘Do we have a name for this witness?’

  ‘Of course,’ responded Jessica Harding. There was a brief silence. Vogel assumed she was checking the report on screen.

  ‘Alfonso Bertorelli,’ the PC continued. ‘Oh, isn’t that one of the other names on your list?’

  Before Harding had finished speaking Vogel was half out of bed, trying to dress with one hand while using the other to keep the phone clamped to his ear.

  His wife propped herself on one elbow.

  ‘Try not to wake Rosamund, won’t you,’ she said.

  Vogel nodded, smiled, and mouthed the word ‘sorry’, but his mind was elsewhere.

  ‘What address did Bertorelli give?’ he asked Harding.

  Harding read out the Dagenham address Alfonso had given Vogel the previous afternoon.

  ‘And where is he now?’ Vogel asked, keeping his voice as low as he could.

  There was another silence while PC Harding did some more checking before she spoke again.

  ‘His present whereabouts is unknown. According to the report, he went to the hospital, travelling in the ambulance with Michelle. When nursing staff told him she was being detained, he left.’

  ‘And we don’t know where he went?’

  ‘Well, no. Home, I should imagine.’

  ‘Do we know what time it was when Bertorelli left the hospital?’

  Another pause.

  ‘He was still there when Craddick and Parsons turned up to get a statement from Michelle. She’d been in a state of shock when they tried to question her at the scene, so they followed the ambulance to UCH. It would seem Mr Bertorelli left the hospital about the same time they did: around three a.m.’

  ‘Unlikely he was going back to Dagenham at that hour.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know about that,’ said Harding.

  ‘I bloody know,’ responded Vogel, rather more loudly than he’d intended.

  ‘Shhhhh,’ said his wife.

  Turning to her, Vogel pulled an apologetic face. Then he spoke again into the phone.

  ‘Why the hell didn’t those two idiots stop him leaving?’

  ‘Stop him? Why would they?’

  Still holding the phone to one ear, his shoes clutched in his free hand, Vogel tiptoed out of his bedroom and along the short corridor past his daughter’s room towards the kitchen. He needed coffee.

  ‘Because he should have been brought in for formal questioning, at the very least,’ he said. ‘Not only is Alfonso Bertorelli one of these Sunday Club people, he was also the star witness when Marleen McTavish was knocked down by a hooded cyclist. Didn’t Craddick and Parsons realize that? Didn’t anybody in Dispatch check it out? It’s all in the system. Every detail. I’ve made sure of that.’

  Harding mumbled something incomprehensible in response.

  ‘We need to find Bertorelli, and we need to find him fast, before he has a chance to dispose of any evidence,’ Vogel went on. ‘I think I know where he’ll be: at his nan’s place, King’s Cross. Full address already on file. I’m going over there. I’ll need back-up. You don’t have a response unit nearby, do you?’

  ‘Hold on,’ said Harding. This time there was a silence lasting three or four minutes before she spoke again.

  ‘There’ll be a patrol car outside your place in ten minutes,’ she said. ‘DC Jones will meet you at King’s Cross with a second team.’

  Alfonso was wide awake when he first heard the wail of a siren, some time approaching 5 a.m. he thought. He was indeed at his nan’s place, and had arrived there shortly before 4 a.m., having walked from the hospital just along the Euston Road. He hadn’t bothered going to bed because he knew there was no hope of getting any sleep that night.

  Instead, for reasons he was later unable to explain to himself or anyone else, still wearing his black waiter’s trousers and the white shirt stained with Michelle’s blood, he had lain down on the velveteen sofa in his nan’s front room. The night was chilly. He was shivering with cold, but did not even think about digging out a sweater or a blanket. The TV in the corner was tuned to a bad movie, but Alfonso was not really watching.

  His family were all devout Catholics. He had taken one of his nan’s several crucifixes off the wall and was clutching it to his chest. He could not explain why he was doing that, either.

  Alfonso’s mind was racing, replaying the events of the last few days, particularly the attacks on Marlena and Michelle and the injuries they had both suffered. He’d been told at the hospital that Michelle would require plastic surgery to repair her face. But it wasn’t only the extent of Michelle’s injuries that had l
eft him in a state of shock. He couldn’t stop thinking about his own situation. Now only he and Ari remained unscathed, as it were. And if that wasn’t enough to draw the finger of suspicion, Alfonso had been in the immediate vicinity of the two most brutal incidents.

  The two officers who’d arrived while the ambulancemen were attending to Michelle had been unaware that it was the latest in a series of incidents. When they asked what had happened, he told them that he’d been walking home from the Vine when he heard a woman screaming. His name was already on the police computer because of the statement he’d given about the attack on Marlena. The similarities between the two attacks would not go unnoticed. Particularly when they came to the attention of that CID man with the intelligent eyes. He had already seemed suspicious of Alfonso when they’d met for coffee the previous evening. How would he react when he learned that Alfonso had been witness to a second attack? Detective Sergeant David Vogel did not strike Alfonso as a man who would be prepared to accept a single coincidence, let alone a double one.

  The wailing siren seemed to be very close now, loud above the noise of the TV. Perhaps it was more than one siren. Alfonso wasn’t sure. They couldn’t be coming for him, could they? Not yet. Not that quickly. He jumped up off the sofa and ran to the window overlooking the street.

  Tugging the heavy brocade curtain to one side, he peered out. He couldn’t see a police car and neither could he hear one any more. Maybe it had passed by. He tried to reassure himself that was what must have happened, but in his mind’s eye he pictured the patrol car parking up outside, and police officers climbing the concrete staircase to the walkway that ran along the 1950s council block to his nan’s flat. He had after all, under protest and against his better judgement, given DS Vogel the full address.

  He stood by the window of the third-floor maisonette, listening and watching for less than a minute. It seemed longer. Part of him wanted to run away, to escape from it all, but he had nowhere to run to.

  When he heard the hammering on the front door, it came almost as a relief. Bang, bang, bang. Then a male voice calling out – not Vogel; this voice was harsher and much harder.

  ‘Police, open up. Police. Open up!’

  On autopilot, Alfonso did as he was told. He walked into the hall and opened the front door. Several police officers burst in, including a woman in plain clothes, another detective, Alfonso assumed. One of the male uniformed officers grabbed his arms and held them firmly behind his back. Vogel followed, his manner far less aggressive, those intelligent eyes sweeping over Alfonso.

  ‘Mr Bertorelli, DC Jones and I need to question you further in connection with the attack on PC Michelle Monahan a few hours ago,’ Vogel said. ‘I understand you were a witness to this attack and that you travelled to University College Hospital with PC Monahan. Is that the case?’

  Alfonso agreed that it was. ‘I was walking back here,’ he continued lamely.

  ‘Isn’t it rather a long walk, Mr Bertorelli?’

  Alfonso shrugged. ‘I do it in about forty-five minutes,’ he said. ‘The only exercise I take is getting to and from work.’

  ‘I see,’ said Vogel, in the unmistakable tone of voice of one who clearly did not. ‘Well, sir, I should warn you that there are certain formalities we must now proceed with, and that I have a warrant to search this property.’

  Alfonso had been half-expecting this, but he was stunned all the same. He knew he wasn’t functioning properly and felt as if he would probably never function properly again.

  ‘Is there anyone else here, Mr Bertorelli?’ asked DC Pam Jones.

  ‘What?’

  It was hard for Alfonso to answer the simplest of questions. Nothing was registering in his brain. There was only thick fog inside his head. He should have been prepared, but he wasn’t. Not at all.

  ‘Y-yes,’ he stumbled. ‘My nan. She’s in bed. Asleep.’

  ‘Right,’ Vogel interjected. ‘Heavy sleeper, is she?’

  ‘Yes. I suppose so. She’s poorly. The doctor gives her pills. Why?’

  ‘Because I thought we’d made enough noise to wake most people up, Mr Bertorelli,’ persisted Vogel. ‘Now, perhaps you’d like to rouse your nan and bring her down here. Might give her less of a shock than one of these chaps bursting in on her.’

  Vogel gestured vaguely in the direction of his and DC Jones’ uniformed escort. In their equipment-packed tactical vests they certainly looked frightening to Alfonso. He nodded. Subdued. Submissive. He began to make his way towards the door that led out to the hall, aware that one of the constables seemed to be planning to accompany him.

  Suddenly Vogel ordered them to wait, then took a step towards the second door off the sitting room, which led directly into the kitchen, and pointed at a washing machine in the far corner. It was running.

  ‘Doing a wash, are you, Mr Bertorelli?’ queried Vogel. ‘At this hour in the morning?’

  Alfonso shook his head. He looked puzzled.

  ‘Maybe Nan put it on, before she went to bed.’

  ‘Long cycle, unless your gran keeps extremely late hours,’ said Pam Jones, pointedly checking her watch. The time was 5.10 a.m.

  Alfonso shrugged and made his way upstairs, followed as he’d thought he would be by a uniformed PC. When he returned, Vogel was still standing in the kitchen doorway staring at the washing machine.

  ‘Nan’s on her way down, she’s just getting dressed,’ Alfonso said.

  Vogel didn’t respond. The machine appeared to be in spin mode now. As if on cue, it came to the end of its cycle and stopped. Vogel opened the door and pulled out a small bundle of damp washing, letting it fall to the floor. He sifted quickly through and pulled out a grey hoody.

  ‘No DNA left on this, I shouldn’t think,’ he muttered.

  Then he held the garment up and showed it to Alfonso.

  ‘Yours, sir, I assume?’ he said.

  ‘No,’ Alfonso replied, in a high-pitched voice he didn’t recognize as his own. ‘I’ve never seen it before in my life.’

  ‘I see, sir. So how do you suppose it got into your grandmother’s washing machine?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘Might it belong to your grandmother?’ Vogel’s voice was heavy with irony. ‘Wears hoodies, does she?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Right. So you’ve never seen this hoody before, and yet it’s being washed in your washing machine in the early hours of the morning.’

  ‘My nan’s washing machine,’ Alfonso responded.

  ‘Mr Bertorelli, I advise you to think very carefully before you make any remarks that might be regarded as facetious,’ said Vogel. ‘I surely don’t have to remind you what a serious matter this is.’

  ‘Look, I’m as bewildered as you are,’ Alfonso began.

  Then he stopped. One of the uniformed officers searching the property had entered the room and was whispering something in Vogel’s ear. The detective sergeant looked stern when he spoke again.

  ‘Mr Bertorelli, do you remember when we met yesterday I asked if you owned a bicycle?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And what did you reply?’

  ‘No. No, I don’t own a bicycle.’

  ‘Mr Bertorelli, PC Sanderson here has just found a black bicycle in your grandmother’s storeroom downstairs. Not only that, the bike is wet, indicating that it has recently been used, probably within the last few hours as the rain only started shortly before midnight.’

  There was no colour left in Alfonso’s face. He didn’t speak.

  ‘So, are you sure you don’t own a bicycle?’ Vogel repeated.

  ‘I told you. No.’ Alfonso’s voice was now a barely audible squeak.

  ‘Then who do you think it might belong to?’

  Alfonso shook his head. There were tears in his eyes.

  ‘How old is your grandmother, Mr Bertorelli?’ asked DC Jones.

  ‘S-she’s eighty-nine.’ Alfonso stumbled badly over the words.

  ‘And she’s not in the be
st of health?’

  Alfonso agreed that she wasn’t.

  ‘So it is unlikely the bike is hers?’

  ‘It’s definitely not hers.’

  ‘Definitely not,’ repeated Vogel. He appeared to be on the verge of saying more, but he was interrupted by the return of PC Sanderson, who had left the room again.

  Sanderson was holding a black leather handbag in one gloved hand. He passed it to Vogel, who glanced inside, withdrew a small folded case and opened it so that Alfonso could see. The case contained Michelle Monahan’s warrant card.

  Alfonso made an involuntary gulping sound. He looked close to collapse.

  Vogel stared at him with icy eyes. ‘Alfonso Bertorelli, I am arresting you on suspicion of assault and robbery,’ he said. Then he began to recite the statutory caution: ‘You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’

  As he spoke, Vogel became aware that Alfonso was not looking at him. Instead his gaze was fixed somewhere beyond Vogel’s left shoulder. The detective turned. An elderly woman, wearing a thick knitted cardigan over a nylon nightdress, was standing in the doorway. She looked very frail. Her hands were shaking and her face was ashen.

  ‘What have you done, my boy?’ she asked. ‘Mio caro, mio caro, what in the name of God have you done?’

  twelve

  When George tried to call Alfonso later that morning he got no reply from his mobile. George was unaware, of course, that the other man was in custody at Charing Cross nick.

  After several attempts to contact his friend, and having had no success by mid-afternoon, George called the Vine on the staff number. Another waiter George knew vaguely told him that Alfonso hadn’t turned up for his lunchtime shift. Neither had he contacted the restaurant.

  ‘Leonardo is fucking furious,’ said the waiter. ‘If you hear from Fonz, tell him to get his arse over here pronto – and he’d better have a good excuse ready.’