I Know You (DI Emma Locke)

by Louise Mullins

  Dejuan, like his own father had done to his mother, was sleeping with another woman behind my back. Had fathered a kid with her. Had ratcheted up convictions for drug-related offences in the years before meeting me, declaring that I was his first and only love and that he would be there for me, for our son, before leaving me to fulfil his life’s dream of running a beach bar in Jamaica. Had a secret life I knew nothing about until DS Maguire informed me.

  I just wish I knew what Steven was keeping from me and what it had to do with his death. The longer time drags on the less convinced I am that I will ever learn what the connection between his, Tyrell’s, and Natalie’s murders is.

  DS MAGUIRE

  Croydon, London

  I note the seriously pissed-off expression on Pierce’s face as we enter the buzzing incident room together. ‘Morning.’ He scowls at me. ‘Sleep well?’ He doesn’t respond. ‘I’ll take that as a no then.’

  I drape my coat over the back of a chair facing one of the blacked-out windows with nothing to view but smoggy London clouds chopping the tops off the buildings in the distance. I spot Rawlings in my peripheral and note the steely look he gives Pierce.

  ‘What’s his problem with me?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ I shrug. I think of Natalie’s interview, the prior members of the unit’s questionable ethics: Superintendent Callahan’s move to Surrey, the Super’s transfer to Berkshire, Evesham’s murder, Rawlings’ devolvement without a promotive title, Pierce retaining his position after committing a chargeable offence involving the possession of a class B substance, Collins and Peters’ corrupt natures, and the way Pierce behaved towards me with Leanne as my witness the previous day. ‘Using closed questioning during witness interrogation, withholding vital information pertaining to an ongoing enquiry, threatening, and intimidating behaviour towards colleagues?’

  ‘Are you accusing me of misconduct?’ I just stare at him.

  ‘Are you questioning my integrity?’ His face reddens.

  ‘I think the entire division needs restructuring.’

  I watch him stand abruptly, his chair screeching across the shiny floor then falling onto the linoleum with a hard smack. No one speaks for several seconds; we all just stare after Pierce as he exits the incident room to enter the corridor.

  There is a shuffle of arses on seats then everyone returns to their mumbling conversations. I turn my back to the slow-closing door and sniff the anticipatory celebration in the air.

  ‘When are we expecting the cavalry to arrive?’ says Hodges.

  ‘The arrest team will be here as soon as they’ve confirmed the identities of their arrestees and compared them to the list of visitors to Marley’s flat, generated by intel during the past two days while the property was under surveillance.’

  ‘Do we know if any of them match our list of suspected gang members?’

  ‘Not yet. But it won’t be long before we can start marking names off the list.’

  *

  Rawlings assigned me the task of overseeing the arrest team while he dealt with expenditure forms for the cars, the extra footwork we had to request from New Scotland Yard, and staff fees for administrative costs. He sends Benson into the room to interview Leighton, and Hodges in to question Marley. Both of whom along with two others, not previously known to have associated with the Croydon Boyz, were arrested during this morning’s raid on Marley’s property and were brought into the custody suite by one of the four-man team working the drug enforcement side of the investigation.

  Two undercover officers arranged to purchase crack cocaine and heroin from Marley within hours of each other to check if the deliveries that intel had implied were parcels of class A drugs could be identified as illicit substances. And to ensure the drugs came from the same batch undercover witnessed being distributed via Marley’s affiliates.

  According to a technician working from the Forensic Science Laboratory on Lambeth Road the powder matches that which was discovered in the plastic baggie Josh Owen had in his possession when he fought with his sister, Ashleigh, before stepping out in front of an oncoming van.

  Although Ashleigh was the registered owner of the BMW, as confirmed by the DVLA – the number plate cloned from the Volkswagen Golf dumped to decay outside Mr Mahajan’s property – the vehicle appears to have belonged to and was driven exclusively by Alex Peters. There is no evidence that Ashleigh’s brother Josh has ever been a passenger in the vehicle parked outside his mother’s council house and stolen by two youths before being written off after a four-minute police chase, least of all has been driven by him.

  The only anomaly is the ounce baggie of cocaine Josh was carrying on his person when he tragically died. The additives and their amounts used to cut the powder makes its strength identical to the batch discovered during the raid on Marley’s flat, and which it is believed experienced members of the Croydon Boyz gang use to cook up into rocks to sell as crack, here in Croydon.

  Though who’s transporting the drugs from Newport to London, from small town to large city – a backwards mode of distribution, the likes of which the Met are unused to dealing with – is a question for the drug enforcement team to contend with.

  I spend half an hour liaising with the team and collating documents Rawlings will electronically sign before sending over to the CPS later to discern if they can secure a conviction for any of the suspects.

  Pierce still hasn’t returned from his earlier tantrum.

  Rawlings glances at the clock on the wall reading 8.05 and orders the room to quiet for a briefing.

  ‘Okay everyone, what’s the story so far? Who’s talking? What evidence did we find inside the flat to charge who for what?’

  One of my fellow DSs raises his hand to speak. Rawlings gives him an affirmative nod. ‘Drugs and knives confiscated. Drugs: cocaine, cannabis, and methadone. Knives: fishing, army, catering. Mobile phones seized belonging to Marley and Leighton. Text message found on Marley’s phone saying, “go jogging” (urban slang for “get out”) which our forensic psychologist suggests is a warning for the crime syndicate to get off the street, bury their retail and weapons, burn their encrypted phones, crush their cars, and remove anyone considered weak from the organisation. Dated yesterday at 9.13 p.m.’

  ‘They knew we were on to them,’ says one of the DCs appointed to record the evidence CSI bagged up from the flat earlier.

  ‘Unlikely. They had ample time – nine hours to be exact – to get rid of everything and to find somewhere to hide out and they instead decided to stay put and get stoned.’

  ‘I’m inclined to agree with Maguire,’ says Rawlings.

  The DS seated near to where he stands adds, ‘One of the mobile numbers discovered in the listed contacts on Leighton’s phone under the pseudonym Nee-Nee belongs to Kanesha, Steven’s cousin.’

  ‘Honour’s niece? Her sister Faith’s daughter?’

  ‘Yes.’

  If Kanesha was close enough to Leighton that he had her number, it’s possible she also knew Marley and the other two violent drug dealers who were smoking weed and trying to flush rocks of crack down the toilet when the battering ram split the door to the flat in half just two hours earlier.

  ‘I want her brought in for questioning ASAP,’ says Rawlings before tapping on his phone, no doubt filling out an online warrant sheet.

  He points to the left of the room to where two of the DCs – this being their first murder investigation since joining the complex and serious crimes unit of CID – are eager to become more highly involved. ‘You two can pick her up.’ To me he says, ‘You can question her.’ Then he glances quickly across the room and adds, ‘Let’s reconvene once our suspects have finished being interviewed.’

  SINEAD

  Newport, Wales

  I stare at the photograph in front of me. The image of the man who deliberately ploughed his vehicle into mine three times intending to kill me, who tried at least once a few days prior to the hit and run to force my vehicle off the road.

>   ‘That’s him,’ I gasp, glancing up to meet DI Locke’s expressionless face. ‘That’s the man whose car struck mine.’ The photograph flutters from my trembling hand and onto the coffee table upside down.

  She turns it and taps the wood once with her fingertip. ‘Do you recognise him?’

  ‘You’ve arrested him already, haven’t you?’

  She gives me a reassuring smile to avoid replying, but I know he’s locked up, can’t get to me, because that’s how these investigations often work. She’s clutching at straws because having interviewed the man, she’s discovered something that might enable him to evade justice.

  ‘Sinead?’

  ‘He was following behind me in a white Mercedes a few days before the collision. And I think I saw him in a red Audi a couple of days afterwards. When I was collecting the children from school.’

  ‘His name is Alex Peters.’

  If she notices me swallow back my fear, which I don’t doubt she does, she doesn’t mention it.

  ‘I worked on the MIT, while Alex worked the drugs side of Tyrell’s case back in Croydon, so we only ever communicated via computer.’ Which is why I didn’t recognise him either before or after he slammed his vehicle into mine.

  I was warned how dangerous Alex was, associating with criminals. Pierce even suggested he could be the person responsible for trashing my car and dumping dog shit through the letterbox of my East London home after I’d pulled him up on a reporting discrepancy he’d filed. I even suspected he was responsible for some inconsistencies I’d discovered regarding the interviewee’s statements for Tyrell’s murder, but I never disclosed my concerns to anyone but Evesham.

  Alex Peters’ corrupt nature was not the catalyst for our sudden move to Wales, any more than my fear of reprisal after snitching on Pierce over his problematic cannabis use was. Over and above those facts, I was heavily pregnant with Mai, our house was too small, our money pot almost empty, and we both thought it would be the fresh start our marriage needed. I had no idea back then that the stress of relocating, of restarting a building firm one hundred and fifty miles away would lead Aeron to become so depressed he’d consider taking his own life or would push us so far apart I’d begin an affair with a man Aeron ended up working with. And I couldn’t possibly have known Alex would want to hunt me down and physically harm me three years later.

  ‘Alex was released from prison on parole having served eighteen months of a three-year sentence for bribery just over three weeks ago. Using RapidHIT® ID we were able to ascertain within two hours using the National DNA Database that Alex Peters has at least once, recently, driven the vehicle that impacted yours.’

  ‘You can’t explain the three months before his release when I was being cut up, overtaken, flashed at, yelled at, or beeped?’

  ‘No.’ She pauses.

  ‘Apart from my word and that of the man driving the ex-BT van who gave you a witness statement, do you have any evidence, circumstantial or otherwise, to prove Alex responsible?’

  ‘He lacks an alibi. And we can refute his claim that he was not in Wales at the time of the incident because we have some images collected from ANPR cameras mounted on the booths of both toll bridges. We used the information we learned from those to retrieve footage from CCTV cameras which show Alex driving the BMW across the M4 bridge to enter Wales via Junction 24. He exits Newport using Junction 23 for the M48 Severn Crossing. We’re awaiting transaction confirmation from his bank account to link the payment to his debit card.’

  The police have forensic proof, and videography, so why the level of urgency in identifying Alex if not to eliminate him from the investigation?

  ‘You think Alex was working with someone that day?’ Someone who was willing to collect dog shit off the pavement to dump onto my doormat. Someone who enjoyed following and scaring me while I drove around Newport in the weeks preceding the planned hit on my car.

  ‘To know exactly where you were at that specific time and to be able to follow fifty yards or more behind you while ensuring no other vehicle got between you… Alex couldn’t have predicted the ex-BT van driver was coming down the road or that the man hadn’t entered Christchurch via The Coldra, even with meticulous planning.’

  ‘You’ve got the ex-BT van on camera entering Christchurch Hill off Catsash Road?’

  ‘We have. Exiting Carleon to be exact. And what’s more, although we could confirm the driver was insured, had a driving licence, and was contactable approximately four days after the collision when DS Jones asked him to verify some details he’d given to uniform while his statement was being taken, it seems the man can no longer be located. His self-disclosed home address is that of an uninhabitable property. The photograph registered on the DVLA’s database doesn’t match the profile of the man on the PC in attendance’s bodycam footage. The Vauxhall van he was driving was bought from a car auction in Bristol a year ago using fake ID and stolen trade plates. We can prove that the dealer who reported them missing has no connection to Peters or anyone else we know of in relation to this investigation. The ex-BT van was one of six vehicles stolen from a fleet of two-hundred-and-eighty-eight sold by a reinvestment company in Birmingham to cover the cost of Openreach rebranding.’

  Being a telecommunications engineer might grant you access to customer’s records.

  ‘You’re saying the ex-BT van driver was in on it?’

  ‘It looks that way, yes.’

  ‘But he helped me from the car, led my kids to safety, waited with me until the paramedics arrived, and recalled the first three digits of Alex’s car’s number plate to the police! He knew he was being recorded by vest-cam footage while he gave his statement to the uniformed officer.’ I try to stifle a nervous laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of the situation, but it causes my eyes to water.

  ‘The truth is often stranger than fiction, Sinead. You of all people should know that.’

  Did the man want to get caught?

  ‘I’ve lost my husband, my house, and probably my job having to spend so much time off work. I’ve been beaten up too. And now you’re saying the man who helped me from the car, whose mate tried to kill me, someone I indirectly worked with, was in on whatever it is too. That everyone’s against me for something I don’t even know I’ve done wrong. I mean, I know I’m not perfect, but did I really deserve any of this?’

  I blink and tears fall freely down my face in a mixture of frustration and sadness. I inhale staggered bursts of air. ‘I’m not saying I’m a saint, but this, all of it, is just too much for anyone to cope with.’ I stand and make my way into the kitchen, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand.

  DI Locke enters the room seconds later. ‘I know this is hard for you to hear, and I understand how upset you must feel, but we’ve made progress.’

  ‘I really thought it had something to do with me and Gareth, you know? That Aeron wanted retribution for messing about behind his back. Must be my guilty conscience, huh?’

  She doesn’t reply. A few seconds later she crosses the room to fill the kettle with fresh water. ‘I’ll make us a cuppa.’

  I don’t have anything stronger. ‘Sure.’

  She flicks the switch of the kettle down, and we stand in silence while we wait for it to boil before returning to the living room with two cups of tea.

  She reminds me she can’t stay long, has only twenty-four hours to hold Alex before charging him, as if I could have forgotten in just three years of civilian life. Although policing has changed a bit since I left. Or got fired, should I say, for possession of cannabis, just a fortnight after discovering Pierce smoking it and reporting it to Evesham.

  Once DI Locke charges Alex, she has a further twenty-seven days to hold him on police bail to collect, and file further evidence to the CPS to secure his charge, before he must go to court. And from which he will likely be remanded in prison custody regardless of plea due to his recent supervision order. I assume his parole licence will be revoked.

  According to the information Pi
erce gave to me during our phone call yesterday, Alex was arrested and charged just two months after I moved to Wales, for offering reduced charges to members of the Croydon Boyz. He was bailed for four months pending further enquiries and finally convicted fourteen months later, having pleaded guilty.

  He was supplying the Croydon Boyz with the addresses of individual gang members of opposing postcodes who wanted to harm them or their business in return for money. He was their go-between until one of the younger crew members got pulled in for driving a motorcycle without a licence and specifically requested Peters to interview him. He avoided accessory and assistance charges because of his vigilante status: he was employed by the gang specifically to prevent members getting shanked. The DC tasked with interviewing him soon established there was a personal connection between the lad and his colleague, Alex, and it didn’t take long for him to ascertain the rest. Reporting directly to the IOPC, the investigation occurred above Evesham and between the senior officers.

  Being ex-copper, Peters must now be considered a live wire. Dangerous. Deadly. To remain untouchable, he will have to prove himself worthy of the crew’s continued respect and allegiance. My guess is he was one of two individuals recruited to eliminate loose ends. Peters’ role was to get rid of me. For my knowledge and suspicions concerning Marley, whom I strongly believe knifed Tyrell and left him to bleed out on the dirt-bed beneath the slide in Park Hill Park four years ago.

  If I’m correct, that means from what Pierce divulged and the news articles I’ve read online an authority figure like Peters could also be responsible for shooting Natalie, and possibly getting rid of Keenan.

  But proving it is going to be difficult if not impossible unless Keenan can be located. Which is why I suspect that he is dead.

  Or the ex-BT van driver’s conscience makes another re-entrance. Which is highly improbable.