Team Spirit (Special Crime Unit Book 1) (13 page)

‘Wouldn’t you?’ He pointed
wildly at the photo. ‘Ratty old squat, no-one’s supposed to know you’re
there?’

‘Billy Scofield’s black, isn’t
he?’

‘Mixed race. What’s that
got to do with it?’

‘Well, a squat isn’t the most
difficult place to break into, is it? Say if a bunch of racist yobbos from
the estate decide to drop by and leave their calling card, what’s it to you?’

‘Yeah, but that and
the blood - ’

‘It’s a
dribble
,’ she cut across
him. ‘You can’t be squeamish, surely, not with what you see on the streets
every day.’

He looked puzzled, as if this
wasn’t what he’d expected her to say. He shrugged. ‘It was enough.’

The door opened and DC Carter
returned, alone. He wore a hangdog expression which suggested, in Sophia’s
jaundiced experience, that he’d tried it on with Marie and been rebuffed.

‘All right, Philip. What
did Debbie tell you?’

Meredith picked at his plaster
for a moment, composing his words. ‘I joined Justice for Mark Watkins about a
year ago.’

‘Meaning you infiltrated them?’

‘Yeah, all right,
Frau
Kapitän
,’ he
said acidly. ‘Debbie started coming with this black kid a few weeks
after. Wasn’t shy about sharing her opinions, sounded promising.’

 ‘As a recruit?’

This time he ignored her
cynical interpretation. ‘I got talking to her. She wanted to do
something concrete. Said she could get in with the Nazis, she’d been
following some of their forums online and she knew a few names she could
drop. I talked to my lot and they reckoned they could use her as an
infiltrator.’ He paused, smirking, pleased at having thrown the word back
at his interrogator. ‘So that’s what they did. Took her, trained her
up, got her enrolled as a junior member of the BNP.’

‘And what happened?’

‘She went along to their
meetings, joined their discussion boards, kept her ear to the ground,
communicated what she heard back to me.’

Sophia stared at him, her
expression sphinxlike. It evidently didn’t matter to Meredith or his comrades
that sooner or later someone on the far right was going to tumble to it being a
bit odd one of their youths being openly involved with an anti-racist group and
going out with a black man whose family she babysat for.

She said, ‘Did you have any
idea what was going on before she turned up at the squat?’

‘No.’

‘Nothing particular she said
made you think she might be in trouble?’

‘Nope.’

‘So that was the first you knew
of it?’

‘That’s right.’

‘What did she tell you?’

‘Just asked could she hole up
there.’

‘Did she say why?’

‘She was in a right old
state. Her boyfriend - ’

‘Luke Benton.’

‘Yeah, the one whose brother
she babysits. This Nazi’d told her to help him firebomb their
house. She tried to get out of it, but she didn’t know how without giving
herself away. In the end, apparently, he was waiting outside in a van with
some other bloke when she brought the kid home.’

That was how they’d got the
cross onto the lawn, Sophia thought. Simple as that. A thumping great
van no-one had seen. Three cheers for Neighbourhood Watch. She
exchanged a glance with Marie, who returned at that moment with a tray bearing
four teas in paper cups.

‘He gave her these
devices,’ Meredith went on, ‘right in front of the kid, if you
please. All rigged up and ready to blow. Once she left she was
supposed to give it five minutes, then ring Mrs Benton from a payphone and warn
her to get out. Course by then the fire’d already started. Then cop
cars started blaring everywhere, she got spooked and legged it.’

‘So you reckon she swallowed
it?’  DC Carter put in scornfully. ‘This crap about the Bentons?’

‘Immigrant bashing, wasn’t
it? Fashionable. People like the BNP, why wouldn’t they want to do
something like that?’

‘Come on, Phil,’ Carter
insisted. ‘A blind moron wouldn’t fall for it. All the black families
in London, target just happens to be her boyfriend’s mum? She’d be off out
of it like a shot.’

‘She’s fucking
sixteen!’ Meredith snapped. ‘How’s she supposed to know what to do?’

Sophia, with a warning glance
at Carter not to interrupt again – though she had to admit he had a point
– passed Meredith two sugar sachets and watched him stir them into his
tea. ‘All right, Philip,’ she said, the stern edge gone suddenly from
her voice. ‘We’ve established she took refuge with you. What then?’

‘When?’

‘While she was at the
squat. Any strangers hanging around? Suspicious happenings?’

‘It’s an East End
estate,’ Meredith said. ‘How bloody suspicious d’you want?’ Her
blue eyes held his gaze. He gave in. He said, ‘Nothing happened that I
know of.’

‘Until this.’ She tapped the
photograph.

He thought carefully and
shrugged. ‘Pretty much what you said. Debbie stayed in the front room
watching DVDs. Then we came back and found that stuff.’

‘But no Debbie?’

‘She was gone.’

‘You checked everywhere?’

He glared. ‘Bet
you
fucking did.’

‘We found her clothes.’

‘Clothes, but no
Debbie.’ He nodded grimly. ‘Yeah, that’s what made me finally brick
it. I thought fuck, I’m not staying round here. Packed up my stuff
and legged it.’

‘You didn’t bother to warn
Billy and Jayne?’

‘Fuck, no.’ Meredith gave
her a sarcastic leer. ‘I presume they got the message.’

    ‘When was
this?’

‘When I got back? About
half seven.’

‘Debbie’s other
things,’ Marie interrupted. ‘Were any of them gone?’

‘I didn’t stop to take a
fucking inventory.’

‘But you did stop to go through
her purse and help yourself to her cashpoint card?’

‘No comment.’

‘Right.’ Sophia opened her
notebook. ‘These friends of yours. We’ll need to try and track them
down if we can.’

‘Why?’

‘Debbie might have found out
where they are, be with them.’

‘No chance.’

‘Billy Scofield we
know. This Jayne, what’s her surname?’

‘Mansfield.’

She looked at him.

‘Seriously,’ Meredith
said, and turned his attention back to the plaster, which now seemed even less
willing to continue adhering to his hand.

‘And Dermot?’

He looked genuinely surprised.
‘He ain’t been around for weeks. Made up with his parents, buggered off back
home to Manchester.’

‘Surname?’ Sophia was careful
to convey her irritation at having to prompt him again.

‘McCormack.’

Out of the corner of her eye
she saw Marie writing it down. ‘Anything else you want to tell me?’

‘Not particularly. Such
as?’

‘That
plaster. Cut yourself, did you?’

‘Broken
bottle. Skipping.’

‘Must
have bled quite a lot.’

‘A
bit, yeah.’ He looked suffocated again.

‘Where
was this skip?’

‘Can’t
remember.’

‘Or maybe
you got the injury some other way. Let’s say, for example, cutting free a body
tied to a bed?’

‘No
comment,’ Meredith said, and the only other thing he said after that was ‘yes’
when Sophia asked him if he would consent to them taking a cheek swab.

‘Next right,’
Larissa Stephenson said, slipping the street atlas back onto the dashboard
shelf. ‘Remind me why we’re here again.’

Jeff
Wetherby fought an irrational disappointment. Lucky’s directions had steered
them through the centre of Rye, out onto the Hastings road. Remembering a happy
family holiday here long ago, he stole a wistful glance to where a windmill
stood at the edge of low, flat pastureland that, centuries before, had been
under the sea. Next time he had a free day, and if ever he could persuade some
pleasant company, he must find time to revisit properly this beautiful corner
of Sussex.

Not
that Lucky wasn’t good company, but they had a job to do and anyway, she wasn’t
who he had in mind. But he liked her enthusiasm, her earnest attentiveness, her
effortless ability to fill gaps in conversation when he, taciturn, was at a
loss. She lacked the cold vanity so often associated with the gift of exquisite
beauty.

‘That
sergeant I went to see yesterday at Ealing,’ he told her. ‘One of his mates - a
DS Nish - overheard us talking and came up with a case that might fit, an
unsolved rape when he was at Sutton five years ago. Unfortunately he was only
on the periphery, and the DI in charge has since died. Which leaves us with the
case file - I trust you found time to read it - and an interview with the
victim, who now lives down here and who unlike most of the other women is
actually willing to talk to us.’ He’d found the street, and was now cruising
past a row of neat, new yellow brick houses with white wooden shutters.

‘Number
27,’ Lucky said, pointing.

Jeff
parked in front of an open lawn with carefully tended flowerbeds and a young
apple tree. They crammed into a tiny enclosed porch and rang the bell. A man
answered. He had on a green cardigan over a grubby blue Fred Perry shirt and
jeans. ‘Mr Beckett?’ Jeff said, showing his warrant card. ‘Hello. We’re from
Croydon police. To talk to your wife.’

‘Oh,
yes.’ The man frowned, then smiled politely and stepped back. ‘Come in. She
said she was expecting you. Do please excuse the attire,’ he added, spreading
his arms self-consciously. ‘Working from home today.’

They
stepped into the cool, quiet hall of a home as immaculately tidy as only other
people’s houses ever are. A child gate barred the way upstairs, and through a
half-open door they glimpsed a box of brightly-coloured toys. The room Mr
Beckett led them into was dominated by a Yamaha grand piano in gleaming ebony,
making it seem tiny. There were music stands, a bookcase filled with loose and
bound sheet music and tuition books, and more music spread crisply across the
furniture. A cello case stood propped in a corner. On the walls were framed
certificates and photographs of a pretty, smiling girl with long brown hair.

The
subject of the photographs sat at a table between the piano and the French
windows, immersed in writing what appeared to be a score. Jeff noticed she was
several years older than the most recent of the photographs. She didn’t react
to their entrance until her husband called her name, when she nodded and tilted
her head to one side, as though listening to something only she could hear. She
jotted on the stave paper, laid down her pen and looked up.

Jeff
said, ‘Good afternoon, Mrs Beckett. I’m Jeff Wetherby, this is Luck- Sorry,
er... PC Stephenson.’

‘Larissa,’
Lucky said, smiling nervously. Jeff stole an embarrassed glance at her.

Miranda
Beckett,
née
Hargreaves, turned to face them, sliding towards the edge of her chair. Her
husband hovered. She said, ‘Do you mind if we talk in here? I feel more relaxed
surrounded by music.’

‘Whatever’s
most comfortable,’ Jeff said.

‘Do
find something to sit on.’ She waved a long, willowy arm. ‘There are some
chairs under that lot somewhere.’

Shifting
some of the music, Jeff unearthed one and carried it over to the table. Lucky
took the piano stool.

‘Thanks
for agreeing to talk to us, Mrs Beckett. It must be the last thing you want to
recall.’

‘I’ll
manage,’ she said, scrutinising Jeff with hazel eyes. ‘Though I would have
expected another female officer.’

He
smiled apologetically.

Mr
Beckett was still hovering. He said, ‘Would you like me to stay, darling?’

‘Yes,
please.’ She flashed him a desperate smile. ‘Only do you mind fetching tea for
us first? I’m sure the officers must be a bit parched after the drive down.’

‘Sure.’
Mr Beckett nodded and went out.

‘Nice
feller,’ Jeff chatted. ‘How long you been married?’

His
wife smiled proudly. ‘Three years.’

‘Got
kids, I see.’

‘Our
daughter,’ she said. ‘Joely. She’s fourteen months. Ewan just put her down for
her nap, so your timing’s perfect.’

Jeff
and Lucky smiled.

‘So,’
Miranda Beckett said, with a sigh that trembled faintly. ‘What can I tell you?’

‘Would
you prefer to wait till your husband comes back?’ Lucky asked.

Mrs
Beckett shook her head. ‘Let’s get on with it.’

Jeff
said, ‘We’d like to go back with you over the night of - ’

She
interrupted him. ‘The night I was raped.’