Blood Brothers (23 page)

Kate nodded and turned back into the now almost deserted photographers’ office and picked up a phone.
The Globe
’s
switchboard answered quickly and put her through to an extension, but the phone was not picked up by Price’s familiar voice but by someone she did not recognize at all. ‘I’m trying to contact Carter Price,’ she said.

‘Are you indeed,’ the voice said and she detected an undercurrent which was not friendly. ‘So am I, as it happens. He’s not in yet and he damn well should be. We were supposed to be having a meeting at ten.’

‘Could you please ask him to call Kate when he comes in,’ she asked.

‘Kate? Are you the photographer girl he’s been swanning around with? This is the news desk you’re talking to,’ the voice snapped. ‘Didn’t you know he wouldn’t be needing you any more?’

‘He wasn’t exactly definite,’ Kate stammered.

‘Well, he should have been,’ the voice which now sounded very definite indeed came back before the phone went dead.

Kate sat for a moment staring at the receiver before hanging up. That, she supposed, was that, and she was unsure whether she felt slightly sorry or not that her relationship with the portly reporter was over. In spite of her reservations, and her recent scare, she had become curious about Reg Smith and Mitch Graveney and wondered where Carter’s inquiries might ultimately have led. She reported the result of her phone call back to Ken Fellows, who scowled.

‘Bastard,’ he said. ‘He told me he’d need you for at least a month. I’ll bill him for that anyway. He signed on the dotted line.’

‘I think his boss’s got cold feet,’ Kate said. ‘His investigation was getting a bit close to home.’

‘Well, never mind about that now. I’ll find you something else to do tomorrow. Today you can concentrate on filing what you’ve accumulated while you’ve been swanning around with Price.’

‘Fine,’ Kate said, not at all reluctant to spend a day in the office, though she knew that if Ken became aware that she had no longer got the negatives of Carter’s pictures there might be trouble. But for the moment, as far as Carter Price’s inquiries were concerned, she would talk to Harry Barnard about her scare the previous night and see whether he thought it might have been deliberate. In the clear light of day the idea that someone might have aimed a car at her on purpose had begun to seem more unlikely.

But Kate’s hopes for a humdrum morning in the office in the end came to nothing. Just before lunchtime, when she was planning to call Barnard and arrange a meet at the Blue Lagoon, the door to the office was flung open and DS Vic Copeland walked in looking even more belligerent than usual. He made for Kate’s desk and loomed over her for a moment before he spoke.

‘You again?’ she said faintly.

‘Me again, young lady,’ Copeland said. ‘And this time I do want you down at the station, no messing. Carter Price was found in a back alley near Fleet Street this morning, beaten to within an inch of his life. He’s not going to be talking for a while, if ever, so it’s down to you, isn’t it? I want chapter and verse about what you’ve been doing together all this time. And there’ll be no nonsense about client confidentiality. This is a case of attempted murder already, according to the City force, and according to the hospital it could turn into a murder investigation any time soon. So get your coat on while I tell your boss where you’re going. You may be some time.’

Kate had lost track of time, sitting across a table in a windowless, bleak interview room which smelt of stale cigarette smoke and sweat. Copeland occasionally sat opposite her, leaning menacingly in her face and slapping his hand down flat when he apparently did not get the answers he wanted, but most of the time he strode around, breathing heavily as he waited for her replies, which were often slow in coming.

‘What did Price think Reg Smith was up to?’ he asked repeatedly, and when she insisted that she did not know he became even more aggressive. ‘He must have given you some idea,’ he snarled. ‘There must have been some motive to justify all the time he spent following Smith around. That was costing the
Globe
money, after all.’

‘Nothing that he ever revealed to me,’ Kate said. ‘I told you before. I was just the hired help. We went where he wanted to go. He did the driving. I took pictures of what he decided to take. Or who he wanted to take. I don’t think his bosses at the
Globe
had a clue what he was after. He told me they left him to his own devices. So long as he came up with good stories. And he’s famous for doing that.’

‘And this was going to be a good story, was it?’

‘So he said. A bloody good story, were his exact words.’

‘Did he tell you who Smith was meeting, who he was talking to? Come on, girl. If someone’s tried to kill Mr Price, there has to be a motive and the chances are it’s someone he’s annoyed in a big way. So who exactly did you take pictures of?’

‘Smith used to go to a pub in Bermondsey,’ Kate said slowly, feeling sick. ‘We followed him a couple of times and saw him meet people there. There was someone called Graveney who Carter knew. He worked at the
Globe
and he seemed very surprised to see him there with a major crook.’

‘Anywhere else you saw him. Come on, come on. You have to tell me everything.’

Kate watched Copeland’s fists clench and unclench and suspected that if she had been a man he would have been using them by now. She shuddered slightly. ‘Withholding information in a major inquiry is a criminal offence. You know that, I’m sure. Anyway, you must want Carter Price’s attacker caught.’

Kate nodded bleakly at that and Copeland started his march around the room again, making a claustrophobic space even more panic-inducing than it already was. Kate felt sick again.

‘Did you see Smith with Ray Robertson? I expect you know him, don’t you, given the company you keep.’ His voice was raised to a near shout now.

‘I know Ray Robertson,’ Kate said, summoning up her last reserves of defiance. ‘I took pictures at one of his galas at the Delilah Club.’

‘So did you take any pictures of Robertson on this assignment? Did you see him with Reg Smith?’

Kate shook her head but guessed she had hesitated too long.

‘I bloody well know you took pictures outside his mother’s house,’ Copeland said. ‘You must have seen him there.’

She nodded, guessing where this was leading. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘He was there. And Reg Smith and Mitch Graveney.’

‘And your bent friend Harry Barnard,’ Copeland said triumphantly. ‘He was there too, wasn’t he? I know he was.’

Kate nodded again, feeling breathless and aware of her own heart racing. ‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘We saw him there too.’

‘Of course you did,’ Copeland said with an expression of pure satisfaction. ‘Of course you bloody did.’

A tear crept down Kate’s face and she brushed it away angrily.

Copeland watched her in silence for a moment and then grinned wolfishly. ‘Did your mate Harry tell you why he was there?’ he asked.

Kate shook her head. ‘He just said he was trying to catch up with Ray Robertson. He wasn’t there at the same time as Ray Robertson or the other two. He came on his own and went away quite quickly. Harry said he was looking for Ray.’

‘And you took pictures of all these comings and goings?’ Copeland said. It was hardly a question and Kate nodded again. ‘You didn’t by any chance cull the more inconvenient ones?’

‘Of course not,’ Kate said. ‘Carter knew exactly what I’d taken. I couldn’t have done that even if I’d wanted to.’

‘So Carter Price should have all these pictures? At his office? At home? Do you know where they are? Do you know where he kept them? There was nothing on him when he was found.’

‘No,’ Kate said. ‘I’ve no idea. His office would be the most likely place, wouldn’t it? Haven’t you looked there?’

Copeland glanced at his watch. ‘They should have searched the place by now but if they’d found anything they’d have let me know. So why aren’t there any copies? Where are the negatives? That’s not normal is it? Surely your boss keeps some record of what’s been taken, what he can charge for?’

‘It wasn’t like that, it was an unusual contract arrangement,’ Kate said. ‘Carter was buying my time not specific pictures. Sometimes we spent hours without taking anything at all. Surveillance, he called it. And he regarded anything I did take as his property. In fact he took everything. I think he was very frightened of anything leaking out. And it looks as if he was right to be scared, doesn’t it?’ Kate wondered if Price would ever be able to contradict her version of the story. It seemed unlikely.

Copeland scowled at her. ‘You’d better get out,’ he said curtly. ‘I’m not sure I believe you. And if Mr Price doesn’t survive I’ll be wanting to talk again, you can be sure of that. But for now you can go. You can report back to your boyfriend, if you like. I’m not bothered. He’s going to have plenty of other things to worry about very soon.’

Kate walked slowly back to her office through the pale sunshine thinking it odd that the world had not changed at all during the time she had spent in DS Copeland’s pressure cooker of an interview room. She had not ventured to ask whether Harry Barnard was in the building, knowing how much the question would annoy Copeland, who escorted her to the main door, but when she passed a phone box she pulled open the heavy door and rang the CID number. But the voice which answered told her that the sergeant was not at his desk and did not seem inclined to speculate as to where he might be. She tried his flat but the phone there went unanswered.

At the end of the afternoon she had come to a reluctant decision. The incident with the car the previous evening had unsettled her, but the news of the attack on Carter Price, and her interview with the menacing DS Copeland had panicked her completely. If she had succeeded in contacting Harry Barnard he might have persuaded her to come to a different decision, but on her own she found that she could not even summon up the confidence to go home. She asked Ken Fellows if she could leave early, which he grudgingly accepted, then put on her coat and trudged the half mile to St Peter’s church where she found the Rev Dave Hamilton supervising a meal for a dozen or so noisy teenagers, who regarded her arrival as an excuse to become even more riotous as if this were a way to impress her.

Quickly taking in her pale face and anxious eyes, Hamilton took her arm and led her into the vestry where he had a makeshift office. ‘What can I do for you?’ he asked, waving her into a sagging chair with concern in his eyes. ‘You don’t look very happy.’

‘I’m not,’ Kate said quietly. ‘My life seems to be running out of control.’ She told him about her brush with death the previous evening, her uncomfortable session at the police station and the attack on Carter Price the previous night. ‘I know you’re good at finding safe places for people to stay. I wondered if you could find one for me, just for a couple of days really, until I can sort out with Harry Barnard and the rest of them whether I’m really at risk or whether it’s all my imagination.’

Hamilton nodded. ‘I’m sure I can do that,’ he said. ‘Give me an hour to make a few phone calls and hand the kids over to the night staff who put them to bed. If I can sort you something out we can go to your place together in my car and pick up your gear and then I’ll take you to a safe place. You have a genius for getting into tricky situations, Kate. Maybe you should try to lead a quieter life.’

‘I think what’s going on now has something to do with Georgie Robertson’s trial,’ Kate said, her voice hoarse with tension. ‘I haven’t been told I’m wanted as a witness but if some of the other people have gone missing I might be called. Harry Barnard thinks the old tramp is dead and the lawyers were worried about Jimmy Earnshaw, so I don’t think I’m wrong to feel worried.’

‘It all seems like a good enough reason to get away from London for a bit,’ Hamilton said. ‘Let me make a few calls and see what I can do.’

DS Harry Barnard had spent a frustrating morning interviewing workers from the building site where the mutilated body of the still unidentified man had been found. The few who knew anything about the timetable for pouring concrete on the morning the corpse had been excavated from its shallow grave turned out to be a motley collection of labourers, most from other parts of England and Ireland, who even at a cursory glance were unlikely to be members of any of London’s criminal gangs. The information they had had, if it had been passed on, could only have been bought and if a serious price had been paid the worker would very likely have already left the city, Barnard thought as he sifted through the records junior officers had obtained. He knew that tracking down casual labourers in the construction industry defeated even the Inland Revenue as employers connived in the avoidance of tax and national insurance. This was like looking for a single cracked brick in a brickyard and Barnard wondered why DCI Jackson had insisted on wasting time on the task.

He strolled back to the nick at lunchtime, called Kate’s office and, when he was told she was not there, thought he might stroll up to the Blue Lagoon to see if she was grabbing a sandwich on her own. But before he could put that plan into action he was waylaid in the corridor by DCI Jackson.

‘Did you know the crime correspondent at the
Globe
?’ he asked peremptorily. ‘Carter Price? I heard your girlfriend was working with him.’

Barnard could not disguise his surprise. ‘She has been, guv,’ he said. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘I’ve just had a call from the City police. He was found in a back alley last night beaten half to death. He’s in Bart’s hospital and it’s touch and go whether he’ll survive. I’ve sent Vic Copeland to have words with Miss O’Donnell, as she’s on our patch. City want to know exactly what the two of them have been up to. She hasn’t been confiding in you, by any chance, has she?’

Barnard shook his head, bewildered. ‘She doesn’t tell me what she’s doing,’ he said. ‘I’ve hardly seen her for days.’

‘Well, it could be a random attack, I suppose,’ Jackson said. ‘Or it could be that someone Price has annoyed wants him out of the way. Anyway, you keep out of it. If he survives it’ll all be clear enough. If he doesn’t it’ll be another murder investigation and we’ll assist the City police in any way we can. And your lady friend will be a witness – again. She seems to be making a habit of it, doesn’t she?’