Brock And Kolla - 09 - Spider Trap (4 page)

‘The next Saturday night, at the JOS. But I looked away. I didn’t want to have anything to do with them.’

‘Were they with anyone there?’

Rosie blinked. Her mouth opened, then closed again. It was the look of someone who had realised that the path she’d been following had taken her to a place she didn’t want to be.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Come on, Rosie. Just a name.’

‘No, sorry.’

‘You’d best tell me. I don’t want to make things difficult for you, but we’ll have to go to the station and get you to give a proper statement.’

Rosie just looked at her.‘Who’d take care of Jaryd?’

‘We’ll get someone to look after him while we talk.’

‘No, I mean later.Who’ll take care of him when I’m dead?’

Kathy looked at her carefully and saw that she meant it.‘Well, Rosie, the thing is, I won’t go away without a name. There must have been other people there. One of them might talk to us.’

Rosie took a deep breath. ‘I think I saw them talking to one of the band, George Murray.’

‘Where can I find him?’

‘He lives on Cockpit Lane with Winnie Wellington— everyone knows her. But don’t tell him . . .’

‘I won’t say a word. Thank you.’

From the other room there came the sound of something falling over, with the unmistakeable thump of real life, rather than TV babble. Rosie jumped to her feet and Kathy left her to it.

She returned to her car and put a call through to Brock, telling him what she’d learned. She heard him discussing it with someone else, McCulloch perhaps, repeating the names, then he came back on.

‘Come and pick me up, Kathy,’ he said. ‘We’ll visit George Murray together.’

She drove through the winding streets, congested now with Saturday traffic, and spotted Brock waiting at the kerb outside the police station, a big man in a long black coat around whom pedestrians were making a wide detour. ‘Where are we going?’ she asked.

‘The far end of Cockpit Lane. Winnie Wellington, eh? Who would have guessed she’d still be around . . .’ He seemed lost in thought, staring out of the window.

‘You know her?’

‘Oh yes. The Tinker Queen of Cockpit Lane. A character.’

‘Bob McCulloch was telling me that you used to work here once.’

‘Did he? How did he know that, I wonder?’

‘He said his DCI told him.’

‘Really? Well, yes, I did, ages ago. It feels odd coming back. Like meeting an old friend again after a very long time, trying to square what you see with what you remember. The place doesn’t seem to have changed much, though.’

‘Bob thought you must have got out as soon as you could.’

‘No, it wasn’t really like that. I came a sergeant and left an inspector, so I suppose it couldn’t have been that bad.’

Maybe it’ll rub off on me then, Kathy thought.

She turned into the Lane opposite the school. Parking was difficult with so many visitors to the market and she stopped on a double yellow line behind the police van near the railway footbridge.

‘Bren should be here by now,’Brock said,as they went out onto the bridge to watch the activity below. They made him out talking to a group of scene of crime officers,while uniformed men in boots stood waiting nearby, stamping their feet in the snow.

‘What do you think it is?’ Kathy asked.‘If it wasn’t for the hole in the forehead I’d have said it was ancient.’

‘We won’t know until Sundeep Mehta’s had a look.’

‘But in any case, it’s nothing to do with Dana and Dee-Ann, surely?’

‘If their killer did throw the gun onto that land, I want to know about it. The boy’s still in a coma, apparently. I’d like to talk to him, find out what he thought he was doing. Maybe he saw something.’

They turned back to Cockpit Lane and made their way past the school towards the market, in full swing now, people cramming into the narrow aisle between the stalls. Brock pointed to an elderly woman at the first stall, her brown face crowned by a halo of fine grey crinkled hair.

‘That’s Winnie. She’s been selling pots and pans here for years. She seemed old when I was here. I’m amazed she’s still at it—and firing on all cylinders, too, by the look of her.’

They watched as she called to passers-by in a high, piercing voice, then turned to scold the same young man Kathy had seen at the stall earlier, who stood with head bowed, unhappily kicking at the metal frame.When Brock stopped in front of them the old lady abruptly cut off the angry flow and smiled sweetly at him.

‘What can I do for you, sir? A nice set of stainless steel pots for dat wife of yours?’ She snatched up a frying pan and brandished it at him.‘You won’t see prices like this in Woolworths,I can tell you.’

‘I’m sure you’re right.Winnie Wellington,isn’t it?’

She lowered the pan and squinted first at Brock, then at Kathy, with fierce probing eyes.‘Are you Witnesses? Because we’re good Catholics here . . .’

Brock shook his head and showed her his warrant card.

‘Coppers? I wouldn’t have thought dat—it’s the beard, I s’pose. Coppers don’t usually have beards.Well, there was one I remember, long ago. I used to tell him, if you want to get on you’d best cut off the beard.Dey don’want no Rastas in Scotland Yard.’Her face split in a laugh.

‘I think that was me,Winnie.Twenty-odd years ago.’

‘Is dat right? Oh my! But your beard is white now, like my hair. Are you taking this young lady down memory lane? Maybe she’s your daughter?’

‘We work together.’

‘Another copper? Well, there’s been some improvements in twenty years, at least.’ She winked at Kathy, then her face became serious. ‘I don’t suppose I need to ask what brings you back to Cockpit Lane. Those poor girls?’

‘That’s right.We’d like to talk to both of you,Winnie.’

The lad at her side frowned and eased back, and for a moment Kathy thought he might bolt.

‘It’s Saturday market!’Winnie complained.‘My busiest day.’

‘And this is murder. Let’s go into the shop. It won’t take long.’

She shrugged and had a word to the stallholder next to her, then led them towards the door of the shop behind her stall. The sign over the front window read W
ELLINGTON
’
S
U
TENSILS EST
. 1930. Seeing Kathy look up at it Winnie said, ‘I’m not that old. My daddy started the business in Trench Town, in Kingston, and then brought it here, and I took it over from him.’

‘You’ve been here a long time, have you,Winnie?’

‘We came over in 1948 on the
Empire Windrush
, the first boatload from Jamaica.’

The front shop had every imaginable metal container stacked on the bare wooden floorboards, shelves and counter—shiny saucepans, galvanised laundry tubs, zinc washboards, colanders, hip baths, watering cans. They stood surrounded by them, like grey ghosts,as Winnie closed the door and said,‘Well,how can we help you?’

Brock handed them photographs of the two murdered girls, taken from their police records. Kathy saw George’s sulky indifference falter for a second.

‘This is dem, is it?’ Winnie said. ‘So young. Ah haven’t seen dem before.You, George?’

‘Dunno. I may have seen ’em around.’

‘Where exactly?’

‘I can’t remember.’

‘You play in a group at the JOS, don’t you, George?’ Kathy asked.

He blinked.‘Yeah, so what?’

‘George?’ Winnie was peering at his face suspiciously. ‘What do you know about this?’

‘Nothin’. I don’t know nothin’.’

Brock turned to Winnie.‘Are you two related?’

‘No, George works for me on the stall, and rents a room upstairs. He’s a good boy, Mr Brock.’ She put out a hand to touch George’s arm but he flinched and pulled away.

‘Are you from around here, George?’

‘Kensal Green.’

‘Not far from Harlesden, where these two girls came from. You do know them, don’t you?’

‘I’ve seen ’em down the club, that’s all,’ he protested, ‘but I don’t know nothin’ about them.’

‘They liked your music, didn’t they?’ Kathy said.

‘Yeah, they liked good music.’

‘So who else did they meet there? Who bought their drinks?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve no idea.’

‘George, you tell the truth now!’Winnie sounded alarmed.

‘It is the truth!’

‘Oh no it’s not. I know when you tell me lies. I can read it on your face.’

Still George refused to say any more, so Brock said, ‘I’d like to have a look at your room, George. Would that be all right with you?’

‘No!’George yelped.‘It’s not all right with me.’

‘We can sit here and wait for a search warrant, but it would be a lot better if you did it voluntarily.’

‘George!’ Winnie admonished, and his shoulders sagged. He shook his head resignedly and said,‘You do what you want.’

‘Thanks,’Brock said.‘Will you lead the way,Winnie? I’d like you to be present too.’

‘Don’t you worry,’ the little woman said fiercely, heading around the end of the counter towards a flight of stairs at the back of the shop.

They climbed past the next floor and up to the attic, where George led the way into his room beneath the slope of the roof. A dormer window was cracked open, despite the cold. Winnie switched on an overhead light and Kathy looked around, surprised at the neatness. She thought that anyone conducting a sudden search of her flat would find it a good deal more untidy than this. There was a keyboard and some CDs and sound equipment on a table near the window, and posters and notices stuck to the walls. Some were printed and others handmade with felt pens on coloured paper, like mock-ups for the printer. On one of these she read:

War amongs’ the rebels,

Madness, madness, war.

George saw her studying it and, when she caught his eye, he said truculently,‘Linton Kwesi Johnson,yeah?’

She turned her attention to other posters with various versions of the name Black Troika.‘Is that your group?’

He nodded.‘Yeah.’

Brock, meanwhile, had slipped on latex gloves and was making a rapid search of the corners of the room. At one point he pulled a small pouch of marijuana from behind a pile of CDs, glanced over at George, then put it back again.

‘All right,’ he said at last.‘We’ll be on our way.’

Winnie said,‘You see? He’s not a bad boy.’ She seemed to have collected her thoughts as she went up to Brock.‘You let him go, Mr Brock. It’s Saturday, I need him to run my stall. I’ll tell you who’s behind any trouble around here. Everybody knows.’ She formed a contemptuous curl of her lip. ‘It’s Mister Teddy Vexx, dat’s who it is.’

‘Winnie!’ George said sharply. ‘She don’t know what she’s talkin’ about.’

‘What’s Mr Vexx up to,Winnie?’ Brock asked.

‘Anythin’ and everythin’ crooked. You want to know about drugs?’

‘Winnie!’ George cried again, sounding in pain.

‘You want to know about guns?’

‘I didn’t mention his name, okay?’ George said desperately. ‘You can’t say I did.’

‘Dat’s all I’m goin’to say.’Winnie folded her arms.‘You’ve got the wrong boy here, Mr Brock. Mr Teddy Vexx is the one you want to speak to.’

They made their way back out to the street, and Brock thanked them for their cooperation, which Winnie, at least, graciously acknowledged.

As they tramped back to the car, Kathy’s phone rang. She put it to her ear and heard a familiar voice. ‘Kathy? It’s Tom, Tom Reeves.’

She was startled to hear from him again, and stopped and turned quickly away from Brock, who carried on walking.

‘Tom?’

‘Hi.’ She sensed him registering the caution in her voice. ‘Bad time?’