Hunting for Crows (15 page)

‘Hey fellas,’ Eric shouted from a distance away, ‘there’s a boat over there. Who fancies a sail?’

‘Not me, I hate the bloody water,’ Derek shouted back.

‘Pete, how about you?’

‘No, I’m staying here. I don’t fancy getting wet.’

‘See ya, you couple of sissies.’

Derek sat down in the sand and Pete dropped down beside him. He dipped into the bag he’d carried down from the house and handed Pete a beer, taking one for himself. He sipped the beer while chatting to Pete and watching the three stooges walk along a small stone pier.

Close to the end and impossible to see clearly against the dark shadow of the pier, they tottered down steps, which from their position looked as if they were walking on air; beer fumes maybe, but air? No way. At the bottom of the steps, they faffed around with the boat for a couple of minutes before Eric and Danny climbed in. Barry loosened the rope, jumped in beside them, and with much shouting and giggling the three men in a boat set off.

Derek didn’t know if Eric was a keen sailor, as he couldn’t recall him ever mentioning it, but if the way he handled the oar was any indication, his nautical knowledge had long been forgotten or was buried under too many dead brain cells. The strain of concentrating and peering into a murky seascape with a beer-sizzled brain left him tired. He screwed the beer can into the sand to make sure it didn’t fall over, laid back and shut his eyes. It felt so peaceful lying there, the warm breeze wafting his face with the gentleness of silk, the somnolent effect of the lapping waves and the comfortable feel of the sand, slowly moulding to his shape.

He dozed off and it took a couple of prods from Pete to rouse him.

‘Yeah?’ he said sitting up and rubbing his eyes. ‘What is it? Are we going back to the house?’

‘I think something’s wrong.’

‘What? Where?’

Pete nodded towards the water. ‘Out there, the lads in the boat. I heard a lot of shouting and screeching.’

Derek found it hard to focus; the booze, the poor light, and his fuzzy brain conspiring against logical thought. A few minutes later he saw the boat, Barry rowing and Eric sitting at the bow. Gone was the boisterousness of earlier, and the lack of activity inside the boat spoke volumes.

Derek got up and headed towards the little pier, ran down its length and climbed down the worn, stone stairs. Five, maybe ten minutes later, Barry rowed towards him.

Barry and Eric sat there, but Danny was nowhere to be seen.

Ms Jenner,’ Henderson said, ‘I would like you to go over your story once again if you can, but slowly this time.’

DI Henderson was sitting in an interview room alongside DS Gerry Hobbs, and facing them, Nicola Jenner, a witness from yesterday’s jewellery robbery in the Lanes. She was alone as this wasn’t a formal interview and she wasn’t under arrest.

‘I popped into the shop, Davis and Sons in the Lanes, to see if I could get my mum’s old wedding ring valued. She gave it to me when she died,’ she said looking down, ‘and now I need the money.’

‘I see. How long were you inside the shop?’

‘Ten minutes. No more.’

‘Go on with your story.’

‘I was standing in front of the counter talking to Mr Roberts who told me what he thought it might be worth and he offered to sell it for me. We started talking about his commission and all that sort of stuff when the…the robbers burst in.’ She stopped as she snivelled into a hanky.

‘In your own time,’ Hobbs said, ‘take it nice and slow.’

Nicola Jenner was their only witness to the jewel robbery. The Lanes in Brighton was one of the town’s most popular tourist destinations. The narrow passageways would be busy, even on a Tuesday afternoon in March, but with metal grilles on the window and the windows chock-full of merchandise, it came as no surprise when a request for witnesses didn’t produce anyone else.

Nicola was aged twenty-six, lived with her father in Patcham and worked as a dental receptionist. She had unsightly peroxide-dyed hair with red and pink strands, several rings on both hands, a face covered in too much makeup and perfectly shaped, gleaming white teeth. Now that her employer had sorted out her dental situation, she needed to change jobs and work for a beautician or a hairdresser.

‘They shouted at Mr Roberts,’ Nicola said, ‘to lie on the floor but I think he did something to upset them, as they fired a shotgun above his head. It practically deafened me as they fired it close to my ear.’

‘They fired it to knock-out the CCTV camera behind Mr Roberts.’

‘Oh, I see. Next thing, one of the robbers bashes me with the handle of the shotgun, that’s how I got this,’ she said touching the large bruise on her face, ‘and I fell on the floor.’

‘What sort of shotgun did they use?’ asked DS Hobbs, a keen student of guns.

‘I dunno.’

‘Was it this long?’ he said, spreading his arms wide.

‘God, no. He pulled the thing out from the inside of his jacket. It was a small stubby thing.’

‘Ok. Did it have one or two barrels?’

‘I’m not sure I know what you mean.’

‘Was it this wide,’ he said, opening his fingers, ‘or,’ separating them some more, ‘this wide?’

‘The second one. It was definitely the second one.’

‘Well done, thanks.’

Henderson had received his introduction to shotguns while assisting ghillies on the Ardgour Estate in Scotland as a youth. In grouse and deer shooting, the length of the barrel is important, a short barrel length for hitting close range targets and a longer length for stalking deer or flying birds. A sawn-off shotgun is a commercially purchased shotgun with part of the barrel removed and beloved by many classes of criminal, as it could easily be concealed under a jacket, noisy when fired in a confined space, capable of causing widespread damage, and frightening to those in the line of fire.

‘Did you see anything more?’ Henderson asked.

‘No, as I told you before, a few minutes later they stepped over me and left the shop.’

‘You must have heard something.’

‘I suppose I did hear ring trays being emptied into a bag, muffled voices between the robbers, that sort of thing.’

‘What did they say?’

‘I…I couldn’t hear anything specific.’

‘You couldn’t tell from the voices if they were black or white, British or foreign, or if they spoke with local or regional accents?’

‘Like I say, I didn’t hear too much.’

‘Ms Jenner,’ Henderson said, ‘I’d like to show you something,’

From a folder he removed three CCTV pictures and placed the first in front of her.

‘It’s me,’ she said looking down, ‘where did you get this?’

‘This is a picture taken as the two raiders came into the shop and before the CCTV was smashed. This is you talking to Mr Roberts, yes?’

‘Yes, it is.’

‘Look closely at your face, what do you see?’

She stared at the photograph. ‘I dunno, nothing much.’

‘Look here,’ he said pointing at the side of her face in the picture. ‘I can see a slight shadow. Can you see it?’

‘Yeah, sort of, but everything looks different in black and white, doesn’t it?’

Henderson knew that if it wasn’t for the heavy face makeup, she would be blushing now.

‘We looked through the pictures until we got a good side view of your face and blew it up.’

He placed another picture in front of her

Her face reddened. ‘The picture’s not right. My foundation must be smudged or something. You’ve doctored it or something.’

Henderson picked up the picture and held it high, comparing it to the face in front of him. ‘I would say the shadow on the picture corresponds almost exactly to the big bruise on your face. What do you think, Sergeant Hobbs?’

‘I agree.’

‘Don’t be daft. I told you, the robbers did it.’

‘That’s not all,’ he said producing the third picture. ‘You can see in this picture, the two men are standing on your left. If they hit you with the shotgun, as you told us in your story, the bruise would be on the left side of your face, not the right.’

‘I dunno, I dunno.’

He slapped the picture down on the table, making her jump. ‘Don’t give me the innocent victim story, Nicola. You had a bruise on your face when you walked into the jewellery shop. I think the robbers did it before the raid. I think you know them, don’t you?’

She started crying. A few minutes later a sorry face looked up at them.

‘I want a lawyer.’

‘We’ll get you a lawyer, you’re going to need one,’ Henderson said. ‘You will be charged with aiding and abetting an armed robbery. Do you know what sentence you’ll receive for a charge like this?’

‘No.’

‘Fifteen years, and if you’re lucky and come before a lenient judge, twelve. Nicola, you’ll be touching forty when you come out.’

The sobs turned to wails. Three or four minutes later she looked up.

‘What will I get if I help you?’

*

Henderson didn’t like driving while wearing a bullet-proof vest as it restricted movement and made him feel hot, but he knew when they reached the destination there wouldn’t be much time to spare, so he put it on in the office before coming out. At least it was dark and any driving mistakes he made on the way to Springfield Road wouldn’t be a problem as there wasn’t much traffic around.

The name of Nicola’s boyfriend, Des Hamlin, rang several bells in the minds of Henderson and Hobbs. A career criminal in the truest sense of the word, he’d started committing offences while still at school and when he left, joined a criminal gang straight away. They believed he now worked for Trevor Frank as one of his many enforcers. Frank was one of Brighton’s biggest drug dealers and the man who took Henderson’s nark Davy Cairns under his wing when he’d found a bag of money belonging to Frank, the proceeds of a drug deal that ended in a shoot-out.

‘You don’t think he’s got rid of the shotgun, do you Angus?’ Hobbs asked.

‘Plan for the worst and hope for the best is what I told Sergeant Briggs. Are they still behind? I can’t see the van.’

Hobbs turned, not easy to do while wearing a stab-proof vest. ‘Yep it’s still there, about three cars back.’

‘Good. No, I don’t think he’s got rid of it yet, as the robbery only happened yesterday and with no witnesses or forensics, we can’t connect it to the robbery or the villains because as you know, one shotgun pellet is like any other shotgun pellet.’

‘You’re right, he wouldn’t get rid of it because if he sold it to someone else and we nicked them, we’ve got a better chance of connecting the gun to him.’

‘Yep, plus if this pair did the job because Franks ordered it, maybe he supplied the tools and wants them back.’

‘Rob and Return, I could start a new business. It would be nice though, to nab that bastard.’

‘It’s not going to happen tonight, my friend,’ Henderson said. ‘Frank is too wily an operator to get so close. If he is behind the raid, he won’t be bothered if we arrest Nicola’s boyfriend and his mate, Ros Vincent, as long as Frank’s name is kept some distance away from it.’

‘Do you think Frank is behind it? What would he gain from it?’

‘Good question, maybe his mother fancied a ring and he didn’t want to pay for it.’

‘Ha, maybe the Police and Crime Commissioner’s brother turned all self-righteous when his brother started hobnobbing with the Chief Constable and refused to pay protection.’

‘Frank is more into drugs than protection. Maybe he snatched the merchandise in payment for goods supplied.’

‘Perhaps we need to take a closer look at the shop owner.’

‘I’m thinking the same thing. Right, this is Springfield Road. Number thirty-seven isn’t it?’

Hobbs looked down at his notes. ‘Yes, sir.’

Henderson watched in the rear view mirror as the black transit van pulled up behind him. They exited the vehicles and walked towards the house. One officer ran around to the back of the terraced house and the rest approached the front door. The banger moved into position and seconds later the front door flew back. Henderson followed three officers as they swept the downstairs rooms while Hobbs and two others clumped upstairs.

An officer pushed open the kitchen door and inside, Ros Vincent, Nicola Jenner’s cousin, was standing at a worktop buttering a slice of toast. Vincent looked up, and on seeing the officers, reached over for a carving knife lying close by. His fingers barely touched the handle when a large gloved hand smacked him in the face. His head bounced off the edge of the worktop and he fell to the floor in a heap.

‘Good work sergeant,’ Henderson said to Sergeant Briggs as he flipped the prisoner over and applied the cuffs. ‘Check he’s still breathing as the crack when he smacked his head was loud enough to be heard next door.’

‘It would serve the little bastard right, he was reaching for a lethal looking blade. Only last week this guy came at me–’

BOOM!

Henderson turned and ran upstairs. He did a quick count as he passed several prostrate officers. ‘Gerry, is anyone hurt?’

‘No,’ Hobbs said from his crouched position in the security of the bathroom. ‘As soon as we tried opening the door he let loose with the shotgun; both barrels. If he’d waited a few seconds, one of us would have been a goner.’

It was an old terraced house near Preston Circus, renovated no more than four or five years ago, judging by the light scuff marks on the walls. To save money, people often used cheaper, moulded doors and one of them wouldn’t stop a child’s baseball bat, never mind a shotgun, but the lack of holes on their side of the door made him think it was made of solid wood. It was comforting to know he couldn’t shoot them through it.

Henderson pressed himself against the wall beside the closed bedroom door, first checking it was made of stone and not plasterboard, important considerations with an agitated gunman on the other side.

‘Des, are you in there?’ he shouted.

‘Course I’m fucking in here. Who else do you think it is, the tooth fairy?’

‘Des, this is Detective Inspector Angus Henderson of Sussex Police. Put the gun down and come out, what you’re doing is stupid.’

‘Fuck off.’

‘If you don’t come out now, every armed officer in Sussex will turn up at this house and I think you know how that story is going to end.’

‘I’ll take my chances.’

‘We know you did the jewel robbery with Ros Vincent, but you don’t want a murder charge added to it as well, do you?’

‘I don’t give a fuck.’

‘You might not, but I bet Nicola does.’

‘She didn’t have anything to do with this.’

‘Oh, I think you’re telling porkies, my friend, because I think she did. In fact, I’m going to charge her with helping you guys. She’ll be lucky to get less than fifteen years.’

‘You fucking bastard, Henderson.’

‘Boss, what are you doing,’ Hobbs hissed. ‘You’re winding him up.’

Henderson held his index finger to his lips.

‘She’ll be in a different jail from you, Des,’ Henderson said to the blank door. ‘She’ll be in Lewes and you’ll be in Wakefield or some God-forsaken place. Fifteen years is a long time, she’ll forget what you look like.’

‘You fucking bastard.’

BOOM!

Two barrels. Henderson heard the tell-tale click of the barrel snapping, reload. He kicked the door open. Hamlin was on the bed, trembling fingers trying to put a cartridge into a shaking gun.