Brotherhood of Blades (6 page)

‘Were they Brotherhood members?’ Georgia asked her.

Chantelle shrugged.

‘Were they Brotherhood members?’ Stephanie repeated.

‘I’m not sure.’ Chantelle avoided the sergeant’s eyes. ‘I’ll look for a photo.’ She opened one of the doors off the hallway and walked into the room.

Georgia followed, leaving Stephanie outside. This was obviously the aunt’s bedroom. It was clean and tidy, and smelt of furniture polish and potpourri. A picture of a younger Chantelle in a ballet tutu hung on the wall.

Chantelle opened a drawer and rummaged for a few moments. As her hand emerged holding a photo, Stephanie called urgently, ‘Guv. You’d better look at this.’

Georgia moved back into the hall. Steph was examining the door frame by the front door. She pointed to some reddish fingermarks, faint but fresh.

Stephanie pulled out her mobile to request immediate forensic assistance. Chantelle stood behind Georgia, staring at the bloodied handprint, her eyes wide with fear.

FOUR

W
ithin minutes the walkway outside Chantelle’s front door was spilling over with uniformed police and forensic officers. A cordon was set up ten yards on each side, denying access to the flats further along the floor. Uniformed police woke up angry residents, and told them the only way in and out of their homes for the time being was via a fire exit. It did nothing to help already strained relations.

Forensic officers scurried around like ants over sugar, swiftly covering every inch of the third floor walkway, looking for traces of fresh or dried blood from around the flat. They were aware of the need for speed, not only to avoid antagonizing the residents more than they had to, but also because they were working against the wind and rain.

Each little spot was meticulously scraped from the concrete floor or the grey brick walls, then carefully dropped into phials and sent post haste to the South London lab. The police exhibits officer videoed the pattern of drops of blood between the stairs and the walkway. Uniformed police were holding sniffer-dogs with noses and tails erect; the dogs ran up and down the stairway, following the scent from a fragment of the dead woman’s clothing. One barked excitedly and panted over a spot of blood on the stairway. A forensic officer quickly scraped the spot into a phial, then the dogs were off again. Moments later another barked outside the white tent that covered the murdered woman. The handler praised the dog, and held another scrap of the victim’s torn clothing under its nose. It set off again in search of more bloodstains, or better still, the weapon that had delivered the fatal damage.

Now the residents of the block had learned this was a murder enquiry, they receded into their flats with front doors firmly shut and bolted. They were all afraid of the consequences of talking to the law; grassing was punishable by a beating to within an inch of their lives, or worse. Haley Gulati was the proof of that.

The police remained undeterred. They knocked on every door, even using loudhailers to wake the supposedly sleeping occupants. Most of them eventually opened their doors a couple of inches, to tell the police they had heard or seen nothing. Dogs growled and snarled from inside some flats as sniffer-dogs ran up and down walkways in search of the weapon.

It was now one a.m. on Saturday. DI Georgia Johnson had told her team that their long night would continue into the next day.

The blue and white criss-crossed tape that barred access to Chantelle’s flat was guarded by two uniformed officers. One kept trying to button his jacket across his rotund stomach to keep the wind out, and eventually gave up. The other was a handsome, fair-haired constable whom Georgia recognized from a Christmas do at the station. Stephanie, a little the worse for wear, had left the party draped around his neck, and kept throwing significant looks at him. Between them they afforded Georgia some welcome light relief from the grim situation.

The activity outside intensified. Georgia and Stephanie went back into Chantelle’s flat, and looked again at the faint handprint on the inside of the door.

‘Are you sure no one has been in your flat this evening?’ Georgia asked Chantelle for the third time.

‘No, but I had a nosebleed earlier,’ Chantelle said nervously.

Georgia closed her eyes. ‘OK. So where’s the tissue or handkerchief you used to stem the blood?’

Chantelle put a hand to her forehead. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know. I really don’t know. I can’t think straight.’

‘Spare us the theatricals,’ Georgia said sharply. ‘There’s blood on the walkway outside too. Someone has been to this flat, and not too long ago. The blood outside is being tested as we speak. If it turns out to be your aunt’s, as I suspect it will, the DNA of whoever has been here will be in it too. If you know who it is, you need to tell us now. We’ll know anyway in twenty-four hours, but the sooner we know who killed your aunt, the sooner we can do something about it.’

Stephanie flicked a doubtful glance at Georgia. Twenty-four hours for forensics results these days was wishful thinking; they had both been in the murder squad long enough to know it could take up to two weeks.

She decided to play out the bluff. ‘Who are you trying to protect, Chantelle?’

‘No one.’

None of them spoke for a few seconds, but Georgia’s eyes held Chantelle’s. The girl stuffed a shaking fist in her mouth.

‘Did your aunt have any enemies?’ Georgia asked. ‘Had she upset anyone?’

Chantelle’s whole body began to shake. ‘No.’

Georgia looked at the girl. Chantelle was exceptionally pretty. She had seen far too many attractive teenagers lose their looks through drug use, then turn to prostitution to pay for the habit. This girl was a new user; the needle marks on her legs were still faint.

‘Chantelle, I need you to give me a full written statement,’ Georgia told her. ‘Normally I would let you come to the station in the morning, but as things are, I am going to take you tonight.’

‘Don’t take me in,’ Chantelle pleaded. ‘I haven’t done anything.’

‘You can’t stay here,’ Georgia said. ‘This is now an official crime scene.’

Tears tumbled from the girls eyes. ‘I don’t want to go to the police station. Can’t I stay somewhere else?’

‘Is there anyone on the estate that you can stay with?’ Georgia asked her. There would be police around the estate for the next few days at least, she thought, and as long as Chantelle didn’t do a runner they would be able to find her. It might be more useful to leave her here.

‘Luanne Akhter. She lives on this block. We were going to go out together tonight. She’ll be worried.’

Chantelle gave them the flat number and Stephanie scribbled it down in her notebook. Hank Peacock was on the walkway; she ripped out the page and gave it to him, with instructions to go and check if Luanne was in her flat.

‘Who is Luanne?’ Georgia asked Chantelle.

‘She’s my friend. I was on my way out to meet her.’

‘You were going out? At this time of night? Where to?’

Chantelle became flustered. ‘C-clubbing. We were going up the West End.’

Georgia sighed. ‘Do you have other relatives?’ she asked wearily.

‘Luanne’s like a sister to me. She has a real sister too, Alysha. They’re like family to me.’

Georgia nodded. ‘You said earlier you were going to work.’

Chantelle hesitated. ‘We were going to a couple of clubs, to try to get work.’

‘Do you not have a job?’ Georgia asked.

Chantelle’s dark cheeks glowed. ‘I’m saving up to go to dance college. I need lots of money for that, and the clubs pay well. Waitressing or table dancing.’

Stephanie returned. ‘She’s there, ma’am. She said to come up, that Chantelle was welcome to stay there as long as she liked.’

Chantelle smiled with relief.

Luanne was black too, much taller than Chantelle but not as pretty and more African looking. She had a long, oval face, with prominent teeth and brown eyes so alert they seem to pierce into you as she spoke. Her mauve nail extensions were longer than the blue denim mini-skirt she wore, and her skimpy cream chiffon bodice advertised more than a few inches of bare brown midriff. The blouse didn’t fully cover the stark purple uplift bra under it, and purple lace spilled over the edge of the blouse, matching the skimpy mauve shrug around her otherwise bare shoulders. Six-inch stiletto-heeled shoes in pearlized lilac adorned her feet, and like Chantelle’s, Luanne’s black patterned hold-up stockings hardly reached the hem of her micro-mini skirt.

It was now two a.m. Outside the rain was spitting and the wind was harsh and biting. According to the calendar it was early spring, but it didn’t feel that way.

Luanne greeted Chantelle with a hug and took her through to the living room. Georgia and Stephanie followed.

‘I hear you were going out,’ Georgia said.

Luanne offered them both a seat. ‘We were planning to go to a late party before I heard about this,’ she answered, looking away.

‘How did you hear about it?’ Stephanie asked.

‘My sister told me. She was out on the estate earlier, and word goes round.’ Luanne fussed around Chantelle, her large hooped imitation gold earrings dangling against her long neck. They jangled against the other three pairs, which hung from different holes further up her ears. Georgia guessed she was around twenty, although her lived-in face looked as if it had seen many more years.

‘This is just such a shock, and too awful,’ Luanne said to the two detectives. ‘Haley was like a mother to her. I’ll make her some sweet tea. Do you want tea or coffee?’

‘Tea, two sugars,’ Stephanie said. Georgia shook her head.

Georgia was beginning to feel weary and would have loved a cup of coffee, but experience had taught her that finding a loo on a high-rise estate in the middle of the night wasn’t easy, and unlike the men on the team, she minded having to relieve herself under a bush in a dark corner. The answer was simple: she abstained from liquids during the long golden hours when a murder enquiry was just under way.

When Luanne returned with the tray of drinks, her sister Alysha was with her. Georgia and Stephanie both recognized her as one of the kids who had circled the crime scene on bikes, looking for information. Alysha was wearing trendy teenage pyjamas, patterned in navy blue and pink with matching ribbons on the legs and cuffs. Her hair was neat as rows of corn; narrow plaits fell from a middle parting to hang either side of her face to chin level. She was as pretty as she was forward. She sat down next to Chantelle on the sofa and poured from a teapot. ‘Why Aunt Haley? Was she targeted, or just in the wrong place at the wrong time?’ she asked.

‘How did you know it was Aunt Haley who was murdered?’ Georgia asked.

Alysha looked Georgia directly in the eye. ‘I knew someone was dead, so I went down to have a look. You saw me. Someone said Chantelle was looking for Haley and she hadn’t turned up at home, so they thought it was probably her. You wouldn’t tell me nothing, remember?’

‘Who was the someone who said they thought it was Haley?’ Georgia pushed.

Alysha shook her plaits. ‘One of the kids. I don’t remember who. They just said they heard it was a black woman, and then everyone said the Feds had descended on Chantelle’s flat, so . . .’ She shrugged.

This kid was twelve going on forty. Georgia had met her kind many times: a child who had learned to survive in the absence of parents by the rules of the estate – and that meant pleasing the gangs. It made her highly vulnerable.

‘Do you have parents?’ Georgia asked Luanne.

Luanne pulled her mouth into a sarcastic smile. ‘We’ve got a dad, but he’s not in.’

‘He hardly ever is,’ Alysha piped up. ‘He’s a waste of space. We look out for ourselves.’

‘He works nights and sleeps days,’ Luanne said quickly.

‘But not always here,’ Alysha laughed. Luanne nudged her, but she just smiled.

‘Where does he work?’ asked Stephanie.

‘Nowhere special, just wherever he can get it.’ This was Alysha again. She picked up a packet of sugar and started spooning it into Chantelle’s tea.

‘I need to take that statement from you,’ Stephanie said giving Chantelle a reassuring smile. ‘Won’t take long, and then I think you should try and get some sleep. We’ll talk some more in the morning.’

‘She needs to stay here,’ Georgia told Luanne. ‘And I would prefer it if you didn’t go out again tonight.’ The fact that the girls were on the game didn’t concern Georgia; the fact that it made them vulnerable concerned her a lot. A hooker had been murdered recently just outside the alley that led to the estate; she decided not to bring that subject up.

Luanne was twisting one of her hoop earrings around the hole in her ear. She took Chantelle’s hand and squeezed it. ‘There’s no way we’d be going to a club after this,’ she said.

‘You’d probably catch a cold,’ Georgia said with a pointed glance at the girls’ skimpy clothes.

Luanne got the message. ‘I don’t feel the cold,’ she said narrowing her eyes. ‘Black-skinned girls are tougher. We have to be. You should know that.’

‘What about Alysha?’ Stephanie asked her. ‘Who would have looked after her while you were out, if your dad hadn’t come back?’

Alysha suppressed a giggle.

‘She’s got friends around here. She would have had a sleepover,’ Luanne answered irritably.

Stephanie clicked her ballpoint and turned back to Chantelle. ‘Let’s get this statement done, shall we? Did you see or hear anyone coming along the walkway at any time earlier this evening?’

Luanne gave a little laugh. ‘Only half the people who live in the flats. It’s Friday; everyone walks up and down all the time, going out or coming home.’

‘I’m asking Chantelle,’ Stephanie said sharply.

Chantelle looked at Luanne then back at Stephanie. ‘No one,’ she said.

‘What time did Haley go to work?’