Brock And Kolla - 09 - Spider Trap (12 page)

‘This is the remains of the shoe Sundeep gave me,’ Morris said in his broad cockney.‘It was found with Bravo’s body. And hidden beneath what was left of his leather instep, Sundeep was smart enough to notice something odd.’

Mehta’s sulk relaxed a little, mollified by this compliment.

‘Under examination, I found a fragment of what turned out to be rag paper.We ’ad a go with it on our new image detector equipment, digitally enhanced, and eventually came up with this.’ He passed out copies of a photographic enlargement, twenty times life size, of an irregular area of grey. Across its surface was a blur of darker grey smudges. Kathy held the picture at arm’s length, screwing up her eyes, until finally a pattern emerged.

‘Kathy’s got the idea,’ Morris said, and handed round another image, in which the first had been overlaid by red symbols, corresponding roughly to the shapes beneath. The smudges now read:

Celia’s Dream

8.22, 7/2, T4

‘Brilliant, Morris,’ Brock said,‘as always.What does it mean?’

‘I reckon it’s a betting slip, don’t you? An old-fashioned one, hand-written. The horse is Celia’s Dream, running at odds of seven to two.’

Horseracing was another acknowledged area of Morris’s expertise, and Brock was impressed. ‘What about the other numbers?’

‘Dunno for sure. 8.22 can’t be the time of the race—too early or too late and too odd. It could be the date, American style, month first—August twenty-second. Maybe Bravo was a Yank.’

‘Or the bookie was,’ Mehta suggested.

‘All right, we’ll see what we can find out,’ Brock said. ‘Many thanks. And thanks also to you and your colleagues for your report, Sundeep.Worth every penny, I’m sure. I realise what a rush it’s been. Is there anything else?’

‘Will you be wanting facial reconstructions?’ Dr Prior asked.

‘Definitely. Are the skulls in good enough condition?’

‘Oh yes. Of course, there are big differences in the thicknesses of facial tissues for different races.’ She paused with a slight smile on her lips, and Kathy realised she was needling Sundeep. ‘But we have pretty accurate tables for both pure Negroid and mixed-race subjects. The South Africans have done a lot of work in this area.’

Dr Mehta winced at that, but he had obviously decided on a more dignified, patronising approach. ‘Yes, well, as we know, the results of facial modelling are open to conjecture. But Dr Prior is a very artistic practitioner.’

Kathy gathered that ‘artistic’ was probably the most damning compliment that Mehta could find. As they got to their feet, Kathy made a point of speaking to the anthropologist. She introduced herself and they shook hands.

‘What was that all about, with Dr Mehta?’ she asked.

‘Oh,it’s an ongoing thing with us.Sundeep is a soft-tissue man, and they tend to see the way the responses of races to climate are evenly graded across populations, without clear breaks—the clines he mentioned. But deep inside you, in your bones, the opposite is true. There are sharp divisions between the races, and I can tell much more clearly what you are from your skull than from your skin. But of course, the reason Sundeep gets so heated isn’t scientific. He thinks that exposing biological differences between the races encourages racism, so he wants to suppress them. I, on the other hand, believe the opposite. I think that if we don’t explain exactly what science tells us, we encourage myths and stereotypes. When I was a student and my lecturer first explained the evolutionary basis of race I felt liberated.For the first time I understood why I was black.’

She paused, studying Kathy’s face as if trying to make a decision,then added,‘And this case is about race,isn’t it?’

‘Is it?’

‘Oh, I think so. I think these murders were racially motivated, don’t you?’

‘I don’t think we know enough yet. They could be many things, gangland killings . . .’

‘No,this isn’t some crack-crazed Yardies taking pot shots at one another. And it wasn’t done to intimidate the opposition—the bodies were hidden. This was deliberate, like a military execution, torturing them first,breaking their bones,then making them kneel, shooting them from above and in front, through the crown. This was cold hate. Race hate.’ Dr Prior leaned closer to Kathy and whispered in her ear.‘Use your imagination,sister.’Then,as she was turning away, she added, ‘And forget about Sundeep’s jibe about facial reconstruction. I’ll show you exactly what those two boys looked like.’

Kathy was silent in the taxi back to Queen Anne’s Gate with Brock, and finally he said,‘You’re very quiet, Kathy.’

‘Just thinking about what Dr Prior had to say.’She noticed mud on his trouser legs. The on-site teams were now working around the clock ahead of expected bad weather, and she wondered if Brock had spent the night out there. ‘You’ve been pretty quiet yourself.’

Her remark sounded abrupt and he said nothing for a while, staring out of the taxi window at the dark figures hurrying along the cold streets. She wondered if she’d annoyed him. Then he turned and smiled.‘Yes,you’re probably right.We should get together and talk about things. Soon.’

She wasn’t sure if he meant about work or something else. Then he added,‘But first I want to get a fix on when they died. From that, everything else will follow; without it we’re helpless. What did you think of Morris’s conjuring trick?’

‘Pretty convincing.’

‘Mm. Are you a punter?’

‘Afraid not.’

‘No, I didn’t think so. Me neither. But I’d like you to make it your number one priority.’

‘You want me to track down Celia’s Dream?’

‘Yes. Drop everything else. I dare say it’ll take time. Talk to experts, people in the industry, but don’t mention where this came from. And don’t tell anyone else about it.’

Kathy looked at him in surprise.‘The team?’

He shook his head. ‘No one.’ He hesitated, then said, ‘I’ll explain when we get a date. I may be quite wrong. I want you to go at this with a completely open mind.’

The cab had arrived at Queen Anne’s Gate. Kathy made her way to the room where she had her workspace. The building seemed deserted, as if all the others were away doing something active and important. She made some strong coffee, sat down at her desk, switched on her computer and tried to get her brain working.

Celia’s Dream could be many things—a book, a rose, a boat. Perhaps Bravo had arranged to pick something up from a boat at

8.22. She was puzzled by the particularity of the time, if it was a time. Or perhaps Morris was right and it was a date.

She got onto the internet and began searching Google. Celia’s Dream yielded 6890 entries, most concerning a track of that name from an album by a UK band, Slowdive, released in September 1991. She couldn’t find any reference to horses or boats. She tried horseracing websites, again without result, and then on one of the sites she noticed the word ‘greyhounds’ on the site map and she remembered a scene from long ago, her Uncle Tom in Sheffield putting on his coat to go out and Aunt Mary telling her grimly that he was ‘going to the dogs’. And the races must have been held in the evening as she remembered the streetlights on outside.

On greyhound-data.com she found ‘Dog-Search’, and typed in the name. And suddenly, there it was:

Celia’s Dream

color WBD

sex female

date of birth MAY 1978

land of birth IE Ireland

land of standing IE Ireland

owner Mrs Celia Frost

It gave the dog’s pedigree through four generations and the percentage of Grand Champions in her bloodline over six generations (10 per cent). It also gave her racing history. Kathy sat back and blessed the internet.

She knocked on Brock’s office door and went in. He was tilted back on his swivel chair, shoeless feet up on the desk and bright green boots on the floor nearby, as if he’d just come in from a spot of gardening. He was sipping from a mug of coffee, staring over his half-lens glasses at the opposite wall, which was covered with his own version of the crime scene information on the wall of the case room they’d established downstairs—a street map of the area around Cockpit Lane, a gridded map of the railway land, and dozens of photographs of what they’d dug up.

‘Problems?’ he asked.

‘Answers, I think.’ She handed him the printout of the dog’s details.

He sat up sharply.‘That was quick.’

‘And here’s her racing history.’Kathy pointed to one line.‘On 11 April 1981 she won the 8.22 race at Catford from trap four with a starting price of seven to two.’

‘Yes, of course! Catford dog track is just a couple of miles from Cockpit Lane.’

‘That’s right. Bravo was probably a regular punter there. Unfortunately the track closed down a couple of years ago, so I may have trouble tracing its records. I think I’ll concentrate first on finding out about that date—what day of the week it was,what was going on then.’

For a moment Brock seemed mesmerised by the information on the page, then he slowly shook his head and waved her to sit down. There was no need to find out about the date; he already knew.

eight

T
he eleventh of April 1981 was a Saturday, and warm for the time of year. Around midday Brock got a phone call at his desk at the station.

‘Hello, Detective Inspector Brock.’ The promotion was recent, and he still had to check himself from saying ‘Sergeant’.

‘’Lo? I wan’ fe talk to you.’

The voice was pitched low and he had difficulty at first understanding what the man was saying.

‘Who is this?’

‘Me name Joseph, seen? Paul gave me yo’ number.’

Paul was a stallholder in the market and a useful informant, and Brock remembered being introduced to a tall, loose-limbed young black man. Joseph had cut a stylish figure in a white Kangol cap and black leather coat, and when he strolled away he almost seemed to be dancing on his markedly bowed legs.

‘Fine.What do you want to talk about, Joseph?’

The caller hesitated, then said, ‘Paul said seh you wan’ fe put some bad bwoys ah goal, yeah?’

‘Which bad boys do you have in mind?’

‘Not on t’phone. Dem bwoys real bad, seen? You know dem. Is like dem cyan wait fe kill someone. I don’t need fe talk to nobody, but I do need fe get money, seen?’

‘Yes, I understand.’

‘Tonight, six o’clock, the Ship in Cockpit Lane. Don’ you be late.’

After he hung up Brock tried to find out if anyone else knew of this Joseph, but the station was in turmoil, uniforms rushing everywhere. There had been trouble on the streets the previous evening and more was expected. Brock decided not to hang around and headed out to catch a bus for home and lunch.

His felt the usual sag in his spirits as he approached the flat, a trendy shoebox. He hated the place, its miserable little rooms, low ceilings, windows looking out at blank walls. As he opened the front door he knew instantly that it was deserted. He felt the heavy silence, as if all the accumulated tensions had finally snapped like an overstretched elastic band. The kitchen was spotless, tidier than it had ever been since they’d moved in, three years before. A thousand days, a thousand nights. The lounge and bedroom were also immaculate, as if for a final inspection. Her drawers and wardrobe were empty.

There was no note, although in the bin beneath the kitchen sink he found two screwed-up attempts:‘Dear David, I can’t’ and ‘David, I have to’.

He found a bottle of beer and a lump of cheese in the fridge, and sat for a long time at the kitchen table staring at them, trying to work out how he felt. Relief, on the whole, at the arrival of the inevitable. Perhaps in a week or two, when the repetitive cycle was broken, they might talk, he told himself, but found it hard to believe.

He left the house at five,the beer and cheese still untouched on the table.He felt light-headed,disengaged from the world,as if after a violent accident, and put the odd little dislocations he noticed around him down to this. The bus timetable seemed to have been disrupted, and it took longer than expected to reach Cockpit Lane. The street was unnaturally empty, and through front windows he could see the blue flicker of television sets. In the distance he heard the howl of an ambulance. He hadn’t seen the news before he left, and he didn’t have a police radio.