Denial of Murder (18 page)

‘That's practically directly across the road from here,' the wasted woman gasped. ‘I never knew that she was so close, I mean her not ever calling on Cherry … I thought that meant that she lived miles away, so I did, miles and miles away …'

‘So what's your name, love,' Penny Yewdall asked with a warm smile. ‘I mean, since I've got my notebook out … just for our records …'

‘Lynne,' the thin woman replied, ‘Lynne Bentley, twenty-nine old summers.'

‘Oh …' Yewdall gasped, ‘I thought …'

‘Yeah, I know, I look a lot older, but alcohol … hard drugs … the street … I ran away from home in Wiltshire when I was fifteen, survived as best I could.'

‘You don't sound as though you're from Wiltshire.'

‘Oh, but I am, my dearie,' the woman replied in a thick Wiltshire accent. ‘I picked up the East End accent so as to blend in, that's a way of surviving that I discovered very early on. I fetched up in this drum a couple of years ago and Cherry Quoshie started offering me loaded syringes and pulling me to King's Cross – she kept trying to, anyway. She wasn't doing me no favours there, just doing her best to drag me down to her level … but you see that's addicts the world over; an addict's take on the saying that “a trouble shared is a troubled halved” is to pull you into the same boat as they are in.'

‘Cynical,' Yewdall said, ‘but it's probably also very true. Anyway, this room is a potential crime scene and because we can't lock the door that means we have to secure the entire house. You'd better pack your bags; you'll be going away for a day or two.'

‘So where do I go?' Lynne Bentley sounded alarmed. ‘You want me to join Betsy under a tree in Victoria Park tonight?'

‘The Town Hall,' Yewdall replied, ‘go to the Town Hall, the Housing Department section. They'll have a Homeless Persons' Unit. You are not intentionally homeless so they'll fix you up with something … a shelter, a hostel … you'll be provided with something, and Betsy in the basement, she'll have to go there as well. The whole house has to be evacuated. So you pack up a change of clothes and we'll go and wake up Betsy, the night owl. She'll have to go to the unit with you.'

‘She won't like that,' Lynne Bentley complained. ‘That won't go down well with her.'

‘Tough.' Ainsclough smiled. ‘But it's going to happen. So go and pack a bag, enough clothing for two nights.'

‘OK,' Lynne Bentley replied with reluctance, ‘but I'll go to the Town Hall by myself; I don't want to go with her. She's weird. They might pair us up together.'

In the event Betsy Sullivan proved to be a meek and a compliant personality. Standing only about five feet tall, Yewdall guessed, she listened to Yewdall's explanation as to why she had to vacate her room and without complaint agreed to comply and turned away from Yewdall to begin packing a change of clothing into a bag. It was as if, Yewdall felt, she was pleased to have something to do, as if, as Lynne Bentley had suggested a few moments earlier, she was pleased to have some structure in her life.

When the house had been cleared of all occupants, Tom Ainsclough made a second phone call to New Scotland Yard and asked for a SOCO team to attend the house in Tredegar Road, Tower Hamlets, then he and Yewdall stood on the threshold of the property, enjoying the sun and the curious glances from the foot passengers who walked past the house, as they waited for the SOCOs to arrive. Upon their arrival, in the form of a three-man team, Tom Ainsclough showed them Cherry Quoshie's room. He drew the SOCOs' attention to the hypodermic syringes and then asked them to examine the entire house. ‘Never know what you'll find,' he added with a grin. ‘But be careful,' he added. ‘As you can see, it's a druggies den.' He and Penny Yewdall then walked the short distance to the last known address of Anna Day, on Vernon Road.

‘She's got her Giro,' the black woman told the officers by means of explanation. The woman was bedecked with cheap jewellery and gaily coloured plastic bangles and, unlike Lynne Bentley's manner of opening the front door to strangers, she stood square on the threshold of her house, having fully opened the door. She showed no fear of Yewdall and Ainsclough despite being much shorter than they were, and despite the fact that they were strangers.

‘What on earth does that mean?' Yewdall asked, bemused. ‘She's got her Giro? Is she at home or isn't she … it's a simple question, I would have thought. I mean “yes” or “no” will do … we don't know what “she's got her Giro” is supposed to mean.'

‘It means she's not in.' The woman spoke with clear hostility. ‘It means she's gone down the Lighterman, so “no”, she's not here. She's in the boozer.'

‘The Lighterman?' Ainsclough queried.

‘Yeah, it's a boozer on Roman Road, the Thames Lighterman,' the woman pointed to the far end of Vernon Road and in the opposite direction from which Yewdall and Ainsclough had approached the house, ‘left at the corner. You can't miss it,' she advised. ‘You'll see it as you turn the corner.'

‘When did she leave the house to go to the pub?' Yewdall asked.

‘Half an hour ago, about that … she left as soon as today's post arrived. She'll call in at the post office, cash the Giro and be off down the Lighterman. She'll blow the whole Giro in a single day's boozing session.' The woman spoke matter of factly. ‘That's Anna. If you get a wriggle on you'll likely catch her before she gets legless and might even get some sense out of her, but that's only if you catch her early enough … and that's a big “if” because once she starts drinking she doesn't waste time … neat double vodkas, that's her tipple.'

‘What does she look like?' Yewdall asked. ‘Who do we look for in the pub?'

‘Black girl. Tall. Thin. She's wearing a black leather miniskirt and a red leather bikers' jacket.' The woman paused. ‘Careful she doesn't spit at you, careful of that …'

‘Oh?' Yewdall queried. ‘Why?'

‘Because she's got AIDS, hasn't she, she's HIV positive.' The woman forced a smile. ‘She's a walking, talking, drinking killing machine. Just like me. I'm HIV positive too. That's why you don't scare me none because if you tried anything, I'd spit in your mouth. It makes me very powerful. You two are the Old Bill, aren't you?'

‘Yes,' Ainsclough replied warily, ‘we are the police.'

‘I can tell,' the woman said smugly, ‘that's the reason I don't want to see no ID card because it's stamped on your foreheads as clear as day it is. Anyway, Anna's down the Lighterman getting well Brahms and Liszt, but like I said, you'll need to get a wriggle on if you are going to catch her before she's legless.'

The front door of the house was then shut firmly on Yewdall and Ainsclough.

‘I'll let Harry know where we're going,' Tom Ainsclough fished his mobile from his pocket. ‘Then we play this ultra-cautious.'

‘Yes,' Yewdall replied as she and Ainsclough turned away from the door, ‘as you say ultra, ultra-cautious. We'll have to be careful not to get her gander up. We must assume she's HIV positive and keep out of spitting distance. If we can,' she sighed. ‘Not that I've ever heard of anyone contracting HIV through saliva, but still … There must be easier ways of making a living.'

Frankie Brunnie smiled broadly and nodded a welcome as Harry Vicary got out of his car and walked slowly towards Scythe Brook Cottage, followed by two scene of crime officers, both of whom wore bright yellow, high visibility vests.

‘I can't let you have all the fun, Frankie,' Vicary said as he approached Brunnie, who stood on the grass beside the cottage.

‘Of course not, sir.' Brunnie grinned. ‘Of course not.'

‘And it's such a lovely day for a drive out of London … and to such a beautiful part of England as well.' Vicary looked around him. ‘So very pleasant.'

‘Indeed, sir,' Brunnie replied. ‘I would be content to live and work in these parts.'

‘And so could I, Frankie, so could I, though I doubt my income would permit it. Bricks and mortar round here doesn't come cheap.' Vicary glanced at Scythe Brook Cottage. ‘So, this is the address on the gas bill Cherry Quoshie had so courageously left for us to find?'

‘It is indeed, sir,' Brunnie also looked at the building, ‘and as you can see, it provides a very good place for criminal activity. A road runs at the front but is little used; the next nearest buildings are the rooftops you can see over there … the high hedge all round means that the lawn, at the rear of the house where we found the remains of a fire, can't be overlooked.'

‘So I see,' Vicary replied. ‘Have you found anything of significance in the cottage?'

‘No, sir,' Brunnie shook his head briefly, ‘although we didn't search it as such for fear of disturbing a crime scene, we just did a superficial tour … but it has been thoroughly cleaned.'

‘Unsurprisingly,' Vicary grumbled. ‘Really, why am I not surprised?'

‘So as Victor and I agreed, boss,' Brunnie replied, ‘we have to hope that Cherry Quoshie and Gordon Cogan left us their fingerprints or their DNA at some obscure location within the cottage which escaped the cleaning. But outside … just over there, as I have just said,' Brunnie pointed to the back lawn of the cottage, ‘is the remains of a small fire.'

‘Ah …' Vicary responded with interest, ‘that is significant. Show me, please.'

‘A coal fire,' Brunnie added, as he and Vicary walked to the remains, ‘going by the remnants either coal or coke … it certainly wasn't a wood fire.'

‘Really?' Vicary looked at the circle of stones as he approached them. ‘I didn't think that you could still buy coal.'

‘It must be available at certain outlets, sir. Parts of the UK still permit it as a domestic fuel and steam locomotive preservation societies must buy it by the tonne.'

‘Fair enough.' Vicary looked at the rooftops in the distance. ‘So coal or coke will heat metal to a higher temperature than wood. A woman's scream will carry from here to those houses … especially on a quiet night. So we can assume that if this is where she was tortured she must have been gagged.'

‘Yes,' Brunnie replied solemnly, ‘the poor, wretched woman … she had an awful life and she had an awful death.'

‘No luck at all,' Vicary agreed, ‘just no luck at all.' He paused. ‘OK, where is Victor?'

‘He's up at those houses, sir,' Brunnie replied, ‘seeking witnesses.'

‘All right. When he returns, you two get back to London.' Vicary took a deep breath, ‘… I do so love country air … but you two get your tails back up to the Smoke and pay a call on Tony Smith.'

‘“Pestilence”?' Brunnie replied. ‘Tony “the Pestilence” Smith?'

‘Yes,' Vicary confirmed. ‘Him … the one and the same. He should be up and out of his pit by now. We both know how felons like to sleep until midday but he'll be up and about by now. Like I said earlier, just pay a social call, just to let him know we are sniffing about … and that we have found this cottage and are linking the murders of Cherry Quoshie and Gordon Cogan. You can tell him that. We don't know how they link … yet … but we'll get there, because we always do, and if we can link him to the murder of the man who abducted his daughter and took her to Ireland when she was still a schoolgirl … well, in that case, a room in one of Her Majesty's guesthouses awaits him.' Vicary spoke with a grin. ‘He might even have a room of his own, as the longer staying guests tend to do.'

‘And here am I just getting used to this lovely clean air,' Brunnie complained in a jocular manner. ‘There's no justice … no rest for the wicked.'

‘A policeman's lot,' Vicary replied with a broad smile. ‘But it's back to the traffic fumes for you and Victor. I'll stay with the SOCOs and enjoy the countryside.'

Brunnie handed Vicary the keys to the cottage. ‘The address to return the keys to is in the porch, sir,' he advised.

‘Very good,' Vicary took the keys, ‘I'll make sure they go back, and you and Victor make sure you give Tony Smith's cage a damn good rattle.'

‘Q
uoshie?' Anna Day shrugged and took a sip of her drink. ‘What can I say … what can I tell you about Cherry Quoshie?' Anna Day revealed herself to be as the woman at the door of her address had described: tall, slender, angular features and wearing a black leather skirt, although the red bikers' jacket was more of a tasteful, gentle maroon than the violent red Ainsclough and Yewdall had been expecting. Day wore cheap jewellery and plastic bangles in myriad colours. Yewdall thought Anna Day had a cold, hard look about her eyes and felt that the woman would not readily smile.

‘She was treated like a dog all her life, was Cherry Quoshie, like a dog, so is there any wonder she used to bite and snarl the way she did?'

‘You seem to know she's dead,' Yewdall commented. ‘Do you … do you know that she is dead?'

‘Just a guess,' Anna Day told Yewdall with a cold stare. ‘She's not been seen round here for the last few days. She's got nowhere else to go but her drum on Tredegar Road and those streets and this battle cruiser, and now the Bill coming asking about her. So is she brown bread? Oh … and she was edgy, I can tell you that … At the end of last week she was worried, well worried about something.'

‘Yes,' Ainsclough answered. He, like Yewdall, sat at greater than usual distance from Anna Day, ‘but we can't say much more than that. So … what can you tell us about her?'

‘Double straight vodka,' Anna Day replied. ‘Ice … a couple of slices of lemon, tell the guv'nor it's for me … he knows how I take my printer's ink …'

Tom Ainsclough stood and went to the bar. Anna Day watched him walk across the carpet and remarked, ‘Blimey, even the plain-clothed Bill look like children these days. Reckon I'm now a lot nearer the end than the beginning. A lot nearer. But, you know, I keep telling myself it's better than the alternative. I always say that you can grow old or you can die young.'