Moon Over Soho (29 page)

One of the techs, a young man with Trotsky specs and an emo fringe, protested. But his boss shut him down and sent him and his mate packing up the stairs.

Nightingale came over and asked the Somali ninja girl to run upstairs and tell Stephanopoulis that the building was secure, but that we hadn’t found any suspects.

“A demon trap?” I asked.

“That’s just a nickname,” said Nightingale. “It’s a booby trap. I suppose you could call it a magical land mine. I haven’t seen one of those since 1946.”

“Shouldn’t I know about these things?” I said.

“The list of things you need to know about, Peter, is extraordinarily long,” said Nightingale. “And I have no doubt that even you will eventually cover them all. But there’s no point learning about demon traps until you’ve studied basic enchantment.” He held up his cane to show that the silver top was blackened and melted in places. Enchantment, I knew from my reading, was the process by which inanimate objects are imbued with magical qualities.

Nightingale examined the cane ruefully. “Although I may be demonstrating how it’s done in the next couple of months,” he said. “That being the case, we may as well provide you with a training staff while we’re at it.”

“The demon trap,” I said. “Did you recognize the signature?”

“The
signare
?” he asked. “Not the individual, but I think I know who trained the vicious little so-and-so.”

“Geoffrey Wheatcroft?” I asked.

“The very same.”

“Could he have been the original magician?”

“That’s something we’re going to have to look into,” said Nightingale.

“He’d have to have schlepped back and forth between here and Oxford,” I said. “If he was doing that, then he must have had an assistant.”

“One of his pupils?”

“Who might have gone on to be our new magician,” I said.

“This is all terribly speculative,” he said. “We need to find the assistant.”

“We should start interviewing all the people who had contact with Geoffrey Wheatcroft or Jason Dunlop.”

There was an ironic cheer as one of the portable floodlights was restarted.

“That’s an ambitious list of suspects,” said Nightingale.

“Then we start with the ones who knew both of them,” I said. “We can do it under the pretext of investigating Jason Dunlop’s murder.”

“First,” said Nightingale, “I want you to go and secure Smith’s office.”

“You don’t need me here then?” I asked.

“I’d rather you didn’t see what’s in there,” said Nightingale.

For a moment I thought I’d misheard him. “What
is
in there?” I asked.

“Some very beastly things,” said Nightingale. “Dr. Walid has people coming in who’ve handled this sort of situation before.”

“What sort of situation?” I said. “What sort of people?”

“Forensic pathologists,” he said. “People who’ve worked in Bosnia, Rwanda—that sort of situation.”

“Are we talking mass graves here?”

“Among other things,” he said.

“Shouldn’t I—”

“No,” said Nightingale. “There’s nothing in there that it would profit you to see. Trust me in this, Peter, as master to apprentice, as a man who’s sworn to protect and nurture you. I don’t want you going in there.”

And I thought—do I really want to go in there?

“I can see whether No-Neck Tony knows anything while I’m at it,” I said.

Nightingale looked relieved. “That is an excellent idea.”

Stephanopoulis lent me the Somali ninja girl whose name was Sahra Guleed and who turned out to be from Gospel Oak, which is just up the road from where I grew up—different school, though. When two ethnic officers meet for the first time the first question you ask can be about anything but the second question you ask is always, “Why did you join?”

“Are you kidding?” said Guleed. “You get to legally rough people up.”

The answer is nearly always a lie—I knew an idealist when I saw one. Despite the drizzle, the Saturday-night crowds were thick on Old Compton Street and we had to dodge our fair share of drunks. I spotted my old mate PC Purdy loading a dazed-looking middle-aged man into the back of an IRV. The man was dressed in a pink tutu and I was sure that I knew him from somewhere. Purdy spotted me and gave me a cheery wave as he climbed into the front of the car—that was him out of the rain for the next couple of hours.

Since, with a bit of persuasion earlier, Alexander Smith had given permission for us to search his office, I had his keys. But when we got to the door on Greek Street it was ajar. I looked at Guleed, who flicked out her extendable baton and gestured for me to take the lead.

“Ladies first,” I said.

“Age before beauty,” she said.

“I thought you liked roughing people up.”

“This is your case,” she said.

I extended my own baton and went up the stairs first. Guleed waited and then came padding up a few feet behind me. When there’s just two of you it’s always wise to maintain a decent interval. That way should anything happen to the copper in front, the copper behind has time to react in a calm and rational manner. Or, more likely, run for help. When I got to the first landing, I found that the interior door to Smith’s office was open and the cheap plywood around the lock was splintered. I waited until Guleed had caught up and then gently pushed the door open with my left hand.

The office had been ransacked. Every drawer had been pulled out, every box folder emptied. The framed posters had been yanked off the walls and the backs slashed open. It looked messy, but very thorough and systematic. This being Soho it’s possible to make a lot of noise before somebody dials 999 but I did wonder where No-Neck had been while the office was getting trashed. I found out when I stepped on
his leg. Stepping on some poor bastard has got to be about the worst way to discover a body—I backed off.

No-Neck had been half buried under a pile of papers and glossy magazines. All I could see was the leg I’d stepped on and enough of his face to make the identification.

“Oh dear,” said Guleed when she saw the body. “Is he dead?”

Carefully, so as not disturb the crime scene, I squatted down and felt for a pulse where on somebody normal-shaped there’d be a neck—there was nothing. While Guleed called Stephanopoulis, I pulled on my gloves and checked to see if there was an obvious cause of death. There was. Two entry wounds on his chest, hard to spot because of the black T-shirt; they’d gone in just after the
Z
and the second
P
in
ZEPPELIN
. The wounds showed what might have been powder burns from a close-range discharge. But since this was my first possible gunshot victim, what did I know?

According to Guleed, the first thing we needed to do was get out of the office and stop contaminating the crime scene. Since she was a fully paid-up member of a Murder Team I did what she said.

“We have to check upstairs,” she said. “In case any suspects are still in the building.”

“Just the two of us?” I asked.

Guleed bit her lip. “Good point,” she said. “Let’s stay where we are. That way we stop anyone trying to leave or get into the crime scene.”

“What if there’s a fire escape at the back?”

“You just had to say that, didn’t you?” She tapped her baton against her thigh and gave me a disgusted look. “Okay,” she said. “You go secure the fire escape and I’ll stay here and guard the scene.”

“On my own?” I asked. “What if there isn’t a fire escape?”

“You’re taking the piss, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I am.”

Her airwave squelched. It was Stephanopoulis. “Yes, boss,” said Guleed.

“I’m coming up Greek Street,” said Stephanopoulis. “Just the one body then?”

“So far,” I said.

“So far,” said Guleed into the airwave.

“Tell Grant that I’m going to ban him from Westminster,” said Stephanopoulis. “I really don’t need the overtime this badly. Whereabouts in the building are you?”

“We’re on the second-floor landing.”

“Why isn’t one of you covering the fire escape?” asked Stephanopoulis. “If there is a fire escape.”

Me and Guleed engaged in one of those silent, pointing arguments that you have when you’re trying to sort something out without alerting someone on the other end of the phone. I’d just emphatically mouthed
I’ll go
at Guleed when we heard the front door being pushed open.

“Don’t bother,” said Stephanopoulis. “I’m already here.”

She stamped up the steps, pushed past us, and had a look around from the doorway.

“What his name?” asked Stephanopoulis.

I had to admit that all I knew was that his first name was Tony and that he worked for Alexander Smith as muscle and that he had no neck. Subtle clues in her manner told me that Stephanopoulis was less than impressed with my police work.

“You idiot, Peter,” she said. “How could you not get his name. Everything, Peter, you have to nail down everything.”

I could hear Guleed not sniggering behind me—so could Stephanopoulis.

“I want you”—Stephanopoulis jabbed a finger at me—“to go back to West End Central and reinterview Smith about who this guy is and what he knows about him.”

“Shall I tell him he’s dead?”

“Do me a favor,” said Stephanopoulis wearily. “Once he finds out about this he’s going to shut the fuck right up and I don’t blame him.”

“Yes, guv,” I said.

Guleed asked if Stephanopoulis wanted her to go with me.

“Christ no,” she said. “I don’t want you picking up any more bad habits from him.” She looked at me again. “Are you still here?”

*  *  *

I
T
’
S A
truism that in a secure building like a police station, once you’re past the perimeter security you walk around unchallenged by adopting a purposeful stride and holding a clipboard. I don’t recommend testing this for two reasons: For one thing there’s nothing worth nicking from a police station that you can’t get easier from somewhere else, usually by bribing a police officer. And for another, it’s full of police officers who are often suspicious to the point of clinical paranoia. Even an acclaimed uniform hanger and all-around waste of space like PC Phillip Purdy. This evening he made a spectacular bid to get his name inscribed in the police book of remembrance. As events were reconstructed later Purdy, having successfully navigated his tutu-wearing prisoner into the custody suite, was on his way to the canteen to do his “paperwork” when he spotted an IC1 female walking up a side staircase in the direction of the CID interview rooms. On the CCTV footage from the stairwell he’s clearly seen calling after her and, when she fails to respond, following her up the stairs.

At just that moment, at least according to the time code from the CCTV camera in the foyer, yours truly was flashing his warrant card and getting buzzed into the building. I then head, with my Costa Coffee double macchiato in one hand and a cinnamon swirl in the other, for the central staircase and make my way up toward the same interview room—at this stage I’m one floor down.

Interview rooms used to be just ordinary offices fitted out with a table, a couple of chairs, good soundproofing, and a place to leave the telephone books when you were finished. These days, a modern interview room has two camera positions, a tape recorder, a one-way mirror, and a separate recording suite from which an enterprising senior investigating officer can monitor several interviews at once or have a bit of a nap. Since at West End Central all of this had to be shoehorned into the space designed in the 1930s as a modest open-plan office, it meant the access corridor outside the interview rooms was a bit narrow. The single CCTV camera that covered the corridor began to malfunction about the time I started up the steps and none of the recording equipment
in the interview rooms was turned on. This is all to the good for me, because it means that when I came around the corner and found myself face-to-face with the Pale Lady my thirty seconds of stunned indecision were not recorded for posterity.

Apart from her hair, which had been shorn off into a ragged pageboy, she looked exactly like the witness descriptions: white face, big eyes, disturbing mouth. She was dressed in gray joggers, a salmon-pink hoodie, and she didn’t see me at first because she was attempting to shake PC Phillip Purdy off her leg. He was stretched out on the floor with his left arm, broken in two places I learned later, dragging beside him and his right hand locked around the Pale Lady’s surprisingly slender ankle. One of his eyes was beginning to swell shut and there was blood pouring from his nose.

I don’t know if it was shock or the fact that I had a mouthful of cinnamon swirl, or just because I’d already had a day of weird shit and was getting a bit punch-drunk, but I just couldn’t make myself move.

Purdy saw me, though. “Help,” he croaked.

The Pale Lady looked at me and cocked her head to one side.

“Help,” said Purdy again.

I tried to tell him to let go and move away, but it came out muffled in a shower of cinnamon crumbs.

Without taking her eyes off me, the Pale Lady elegantly lifted one hand and then slammed it down on Purdy’s wrist. I heard bones break and Purdy whimpered and let go. She smiled, revealing far too many teeth—I’d faced a smile like that before. I knew what was coming next. She tensed, so did I, then she surged toward me with a terrifying burst of speed, head thrust forward, mouth open, teeth bared. As she sprang at me I threw my coffee in her face. I’d just bought it. It was very hot.

She screamed and I flung myself out of her way. But because the corridor was narrow her shoulder slammed into mine, and the impact spun me around and dumped me on the floor. It was like being hit by a fast-moving cyclist. I rolled to
avoid any follow-up and staggered to my feet, only to find that the Pale Lady was long gone. Each interview room has an alarm button by the door and I slapped my palm on one as I stepped over Purdy and slammed into the room where we’d stashed Alexander Smith.

He was slumped back in his chair, head thrown back, mouth open, and what looked like a bullet hole in his chest with the same charring around the cloth of his shirt that I’d seen on No-Neck earlier.