Murder Club (24 page)

‘But CID, you know. People like Jack, they get to make a difference.’

‘Sometimes.’

‘That’s what I want.’

‘We make a difference too, lad.’

‘What, out tramping in the cold and snow, homeless shelter after homeless shelter?’

‘You think CID just sit around in warm pubs drinking mulled wine this time of year, and waiting for inspiration to strike?’

‘Guinness maybe,’ Danny laughed and held up his hand before Bob Wilkinson could reply. ‘Joke, Bob. Joke.’

The constable shook his head. ‘Well, you might just be right on that one.’

Five minutes later and they were in the offices of one of the many homeless shelters dotted around the capital. Not the one Bible Steve was usually taken to. That had been their first port of call. Then lots more.

The woman in charge of the centre was in her fifties, with a plump figure, thick dark hair and a sense of energy and enthusiasm that was a dramatic contrast to the hangdog attitude of Bob Wilkinson.

‘So how can I help you, officers? My name is Marian Clark.’

‘We’re just constables, ma’am,’ replied Wilkinson, although PC Danny Vine here has plans to become the next Commissioner.’

Marian Clark smiled at the young constable. ‘Well, as the great man once said … you have to have a dream in the first place, for that dream to come true.’

‘William Shakespeare?’ asked Danny Vine.

‘Oscar Hammerstein.’

‘Oh,’ said Danny. ‘I’ve not read any of his books.’

‘Anyway,’ said Bob. ‘We’re trying to ascertain if a young woman has gone missing.’

‘A runaway, you mean?’

‘We’re not sure. We have a confession to a murder that we are checking out.’

‘It’s probably a waste of time,’ interrupted the younger constable. ‘One of our regulars, Bible Steve. He’s delusional, drinks a bit, lives rough, you know …’

Marian Clark’s expression was replaced with something a lot less kind. ‘Yes, this is a homeless centre, Constable. I think you will find we know exactly how it is.’

‘Have any of your regulars not turned up for a day or two?’ asked Bob Wilkinson.

‘Sometimes we don’t see them for days, particularly in the summer when it is hot outside, even through the night.’

Bob Wilkinson looked out of the small office’s window. It was getting darker now as the clouds thickened even more ominously overhead and the snowflakes were falling more intensely.

‘A young woman, you say?’ The shelter manager picked up on the constable’s unspoken point.

‘Yes, early twenties maybe.’

‘Child-like. Blonde-haired, blue-eyed. Delicate skin?’

Bob Wilkinson looked down at his notebook. ‘Face like an angel.’ He read out the quote.

‘Oh my God,’ said Marian Clark.

‘You think you might know her,’ asked Danny Vine.

‘This man who says he murdered her …’

‘Bible Steve,’ answered PC Wilkinson.

‘Is he much older than her? Grey matted hair, tall. Always quoting from the Bible or some such?’

‘Hence the nickname.’

‘She came in with him a few times. We don’t have men here. I had to ask him to leave, and he became quite …’

‘Violent?’

‘Not violent as such. Abusive. He left with her.’

‘When was this?’

‘Friday afternoon.’

‘And you haven’t seen her since?’

The woman didn’t reply, but PC Bob Wilkinson didn’t have to be CID at any level to read the answer in her eyes. He pulled out his radio phone and thumbed the Call button.

‘Foxtrot Alpha from Thirty-Two.’

JACK DELANEY WAS
sitting in the right-hand room of The Holly Bush pub in Hampstead.

Danny Vine would not have been at all surprised to learn that Jack was there with a drink in his hand. He might have been surprised at what he was drinking, though.

‘What’s that, sir?’ asked DC Sally Cartwright as she perched herself on the stool alongside him. ‘Bloody Mary?’

‘Bloody half-a-chance would be a fine thing,’ replied her boss with a grimace. ‘Virgin Mary. All the goodness, apparently. None of the vice.’

‘I’m sure the sisters would approve.’

‘Not if they were drinking it.’

‘So, no movement, then?’

‘No, been stuck out here twiddling me thumbs watching the snow fall. Came in here for a bit of a warm.’

‘Couldn’t you have waited inside the hospital?’

‘I hate hospitals, Sally. And I figured it wise to give White City a wide berth for a while.’

‘Don’t blame you, sir. The super is strutting up and down like a cock who’s had his henhouse raided.’

‘You got half that right. Anyway, I just took a call
from
Diane. Seems like Bible Steve might not be quite so delusional after all.’

‘Go on.’

‘A young woman’s gone missing off the streets. Pretty much matches Bible’s description of the woman he claims to have murdered. Another homeless person been seen in his company a lot lately.’

‘He might be telling the truth?’

‘It’s unusual, I grant you, but it wouldn’t be the first time.’

‘Jesus! I would never have had him down for that.’

‘It happens. Who knows? Maybe God told him to do it.’

‘Paranoid schizophrenics who kill sometimes do say they had God talking to them.’

‘Or the Devil.’

‘True. But Bible Steve isn’t a paranoid schizophrenic, is he?’

Delaney shrugged. ‘Seems to me that people sometimes get labelled properly after the event. After is usually much too late.’

‘I still don’t have him down as a murderer.’

‘Maybe he saw someone else. Maybe there was a fight. Maybe he got in the way. A lot of maybes, I know. Time will tell, I guess. Meanwhile, what have you got for me?’

‘I’ve been going through the records we got from Northwick Park Hospital the other night.’

‘Going through it with Tony?’

‘No, sir. On my own. DI Hamilton’s headed up to Suffolk with DI Halliday.’

‘Catwalk, eh?’ Delaney raised his eyebrow, knowing it would annoy his young assistant.

‘DI Emma Halliday, yes sir. I don’t know why people have to belittle the woman’s intelligence just because she is six feet tall.’

‘She’s over six feet tall and gorgeous, Sally.’

‘Can you just get me one of those drinks please, sir,’ she replied, not rising to the bait.

Delaney gestured to the barman and Sally opened the folder and flicked through a few pages.

A few possible women to talk to, nothing really obvious. They are all a bit vague as to how they got their injuries. Pointing more towards domestic abuse maybe, but not the sort of assault Michael Robinson made on Stephanie Hewson. But this one looks more promising, sir,’ she said, removing a sheet or two of paper and closing the folder.

‘Go on?’

‘Her name is Lorraine Eddison. She’s a thirty-three-year-old dental nurse. She lives and works in Harrow. She was assaulted four months after Michael Robinson was arrested and put on remand.’

She placed a photograph in front of her boss, taking the drink that had been put to one side for her.

‘They look alike, don’t they?’

‘Not only do they look alike, sir. She claims she was mugged, resisted and the attacker cut her with a knife.’

‘Where?’

‘Down by where we parked the other day when we met DI Hamilton at The Castle pub.’

‘I didn’t mean where was she attacked, I mean where was she cut?’

‘Sliced across the belly, sir, from behind. He had
hold
of her round the neck and she struggled. So he cut her.’

‘But no rape?’

‘She says not, sir.’

‘But she may not be telling the whole story.’

‘Like you said.’

‘I did. Where does she live?’

‘The other side of the hill. Past the school and heading down to the main road that goes to Northwick Park. Maybe fifteen minutes’ walk from where she was attacked.’

‘What was she doing on the hill?’

‘Had been meeting friends for a few drinks at The Castle. Someone’s birthday celebration. It was a warm night. Thought she might as well walk.’

‘Just like Stephanie Hewson. Maybe we should go and have a chat with her.’

‘Now?’

‘Not just yet. We’d better go and have another chat with Bible Steve first, don’t you think?’

‘Sir.’

DI Tony Hamilton held the door open leading into the lounge bar of The Crawfish pub open for his female colleague, who didn’t seem impressed by the gesture.

‘Save it for the uniform girls, Hamilton,’ she said.

She walked past him and into the bar. The Crawfish was an old-fashioned country pub, L-shaped. Wooden beams, a wooden floor with rugs. A medium-sized bar at the top of the small part of the L, with a dining area to the left and snug bar in front. The snug had a large open fireplace with a firedog in
the
middle filled with flaming logs. The flames crackled and snapped as they walked past. There weren’t many diners left but a few locals were dotted here and there, a couple playing dominoes, an elderly man sitting by the fireside, with a pile of scribbled receipts and notes that he was going through and entering into a notebook. The bar was L-shaped too and Tony and Emma walked up a small step and perched in the corner on a couple of bar stools.

There was one barman behind the bar. A man in his late twenties, called Lee, according to the name embroidered on his staff polo shirt. He was serving a couple of middle-aged Hooray Henrys. The Henry was in maroon-coloured corduroy trousers with a striped yellow shirt and tweed jacket, Henrietta in a pair of riding trousers a size too small for her and a white silk shirt. Apparently, the wine the barman offered to them wasn’t to their liking. They were obliged to wait for a few minutes until, with a sniffy nod, they seemed pleased, if not delighted, with the best that was on offer.

Lee rang up their purchase on the till, then crossed to Tony and Emma. ‘Sorry to keep you waiting. Will you be staying with us tonight?’

‘No, that won’t be necessary,’ Emma Halliday said.

‘Sorry. We’re expecting a couple who booked in. Probably delayed by the snow.’

Emma nodded. She wasn’t too surprised. The last leg of their journey had taken a lot longer than the first.

‘It’s getting a bit Winter Wonderland out there,’ Tony agreed.

‘Nightmare, more like,’ said Emma.

‘So what can I get you?’ asked the barman. ‘I’m afraid the kitchen is closed until six o’clock if you were looking to have something to eat.’

‘We weren’t,’ said DI Halliday, flashing her warrant card. ‘We’re looking for the boss. Is she working?’

The barman pulled a face. ‘You’ll not find her this side of the bar. She’ll be upstairs. Shall I go and tell her you’re here?’

‘Why don’t you just take us up to see her?’ said Emma with a smile.

‘I don’t think she’d like that, without being told.’

‘Does that bother you unduly?’

The barman pretended to consider for a moment, then smiled himself. ‘Not unduly,’ he replied.

‘Bingo bongo!’ said DI Tony Hamilton, holding his hands wide as he and Emma got off their stools.

The barman led them through a pair of swing doors into a narrow hallway and up some stairs.

The landing above had a window at the far end and leaded lights, but it was dark outside now. Emma Halliday glanced at her watch and realised it wouldn’t be getting any brighter.

The barman knocked on the door and opened it. A younger man rushed out, reddening a little as he mumbled an apology at DI Halliday, as she had to step swiftly aside, and hurried down the staircase.

‘What is it?’ Marjorie Johnson sounded less than happy with the disruption. She had a southern-counties accent.

‘It’s the police,’ said the barman, showing the visitors into the room.

It was a large lounge with mullioned windows.
Expensively
decorated. A polished wooden floor with hand-woven rugs on it. The mullioned windows looked over the street below. Overhead were ancient beams and there was another large, open fireplace. Logs were burning in the grate. A substantial antique red leather sofa stood next to a couple of matching club chairs. There was an eighteenth-century writing desk under the windows with a reading lamp on it and a tantalus, with the decanters full. A drinks cabinet was to the left of where DIs Hamilton and Halliday were standing.

Marjorie Johnson sat on the sofa. She was a large woman, with long blonde hair, expensively styled, held back in a black Alice band. She wore a low-cut, cream-coloured silk blouse and was clearly not afraid to show her cleavage and a hint of white lace beneath it. She had a black skirt, too short for Emma Halliday’s taste, with a hint of lace on her stocking top. She wore high-heeled black shoes and had a cut-glass tumbler in her hand. She twirled the ice. It made a tinkling sound as she looked at Tony Hamilton appraisingly and then smiled, showing white, perfectly aligned, if slightly predatory-looking teeth.

‘To what do I owe the pleasure, Detective Inspector?’ She completely ignored Hamilton’s female associate.

‘We’re here to talk about your husband, Mrs Johnson, said Emma.

She shot the DI a surly look. ‘Can I offer you a drink, Detective?’ Turning to DI Hamilton, she put the smile back in place.

‘No thanks, we’re on duty,’ Emma answered for them both.

‘Is that gin and tonic you’re drinking?’ asked Tony Hamilton.

‘It certainly is. Tanqueray No. 10.’

‘Excellent. I’ll have one of those please.’

Marjorie Johnson stood up in one languid movement. She was nearly as tall as DI Halliday in her high-heeled shoes, but not quite.

Tony shrugged at his colleague. ‘You wanted to drive,’ he said with a grin.

‘Sure I can’t tempt you, Constable?’ asked Marjorie Johnson over her shoulder.

‘I’ll just take a plain soda with ice, if you have such a thing. And it’s Detective Inspector Emma Halliday.’

‘DI Tony Hamilton,’ said Tony, as he took the glass she offered him.

‘Women are making great strides in business nowadays,’ said Marjorie, as she squirted some soda from a Thirties-style soda siphon into a tall glass and added some ice.

‘Yes. And we don’t even have to burn our bras any more,’ replied Emma, smiling sweetly.