Team Spirit (Special Crime Unit Book 1) (16 page)

There
was a framed photo on the wall unit, Grace Carmichael with a clean-cut looking
white man of about the same age. Both wore evening wear and broad smiles. It
looked as if it had been taken at a high-end Christmas party.

‘He
doesn’t know we were coming?’ Marie said.

‘Get
you a coffee or something?’ Miss Carmichael enquired distractedly, peering this
way and that in search of something she’d lost. Kim and Marie both declined the
offer, judging shrewdly that it was never likely to materialise. ‘He doesn’t
even know I went to the police, as a matter of fact. Don’t want to worry him.
He gets a bit steamed up about this sort of thing.’

‘About
your cousin?’ Kim said.

‘Funny
thing, he never knew Mark.’ Grace Carmichael plonked herself down in the
papasan and rifled through some papers she’d extracted from a black leather
briefcase. ‘The campaign needed a lawyer and he said he’d do it. That’s how I
met him. Don’t mind me,’ she added as an afterthought, waving the papers about.

Kim
nodded, thinking that if they were going to oblige and get this done inside half
an hour they’d better get cracking. ‘We’re here to talk to you about last
Friday,’ she began. ‘The guy who threatened you.’

‘What
d’you need to know?’ Miss Carmichael frowned at something she’d found among the
papers, flipped the sheet over to see if it got better on the other side,
evidently found that it didn’t, and put it back.

‘Well,’
Kim tried, ‘where did this happen and when?’

‘I
said, you know. To the detective at Lewisham.’

‘We
realise that, but this is part of a wider investigation now.’ Kim, as she said
this, felt it sounded limp.

‘No
problem,’ Miss Carmichael smiled, making brief eye contact. ‘Just trying to
save a bit of time.’

Marie
came to Kim’s aid. ‘As my colleague explained on the phone, it’s possible this
incident might’ve had something to do with the arson at the Bentons’.’

‘It
had something to do with it all right.’ Miss Carmichael rose and began
rummaging through a pile of magazines and other paper on the wall unit. ‘Didn’t
I say?’

Behind
her back, Kim and Marie exchanged looks. Why did helpful people always turn out
to be such rotten witnesses? From their impressions of her so far, Grace
Carmichael’s unpleasant experience might well be a nine-tenths forgotten thing
already. She was the sort of person, Kim reflected, who left her past breathless
in her wake.

‘Start
from the beginning,’ she suggested. ‘What happened exactly?’

‘This
bloke came up to me in the street,’ Miss Carmichael said, leaving them
suspended. ‘Yes!’ she exclaimed triumphantly and, to their disbelief, turned
from the wall unit clutching a black Mont Blanc fountain pen. She sat back down
in the papasan and did absolutely nothing with it.

‘What
street?’ Kim said. ‘When?’

‘Ladywell
Road, eleven o’clock Friday morning.’ She seemed to devote her full attention
to the interview for the first time. ‘Broad daylight, busy road. I even had
Diane with me - my sister. She’s getting married next month and we’d been to
the bridal salon for a fitting. Suddenly there’s this big bloke next to me,
sort of matching pace with us. I’m trying to take no notice and then he flashes
this knife. He had it like backwards up his sleeve; I could just see the handle
and a bit of the blade. He mutters in my ear, “Don’t talk to the cops about the
Bentons or you’ll end up like them”.’

‘Those
were his exact words?’

‘Exactly.
Then he dodged off over the road. This all took probably less than ten seconds.
Diane was so excited, rabbiting on about her dress, she never even knew he was
there. She was like, “
What
guy?”’ Miss Carmichael made a perplexed face. ‘Over in
a flash. Just as well really. We were meeting my partner for lunch right after.
In fact it turned out he was just across the street when it happened. Like I
said, I don’t like to bother him with this kind of stuff.’

‘So,’
Kim asked, ‘why d’you think this bloke picked on you?’

‘No
idea. I mean, it’s not like I’m the only living member of Justice for Mark
Watkins. I do know who he was though.’

Kim
and Marie paid keener attention.

‘Well,
I don’t mean actually
know
him. This was after Mark was killed, during the police
investigation and the trial and everything. We’d just set up the campaign and
it was still all in the news, we had the TV and the press knocking around quite
a lot. Anyway, the far right found the office building where we were meeting
and we used to get these gorillas hanging around outside, heckling us. This
bloke I’m talking about, he was there from the start and he was one of the few
who stayed for quite a while after most of them had got bored and given up.’
She shrugged again. ‘He never used to do much beyond shout and spit and chuck
the odd bottle, but he was always
there
.’

‘D’you
know his name?’ Marie said.

Miss
Carmichael shrugged. ‘Sorry.’

‘Not
to worry.’ Kim made a note. In that sort of public order situation there were
bound to have been police about; likely NCIS would know, or be able to make a
shrewd guess, who the man was. She said, ‘You’re sure you can’t think of any
reason why he’d want to threaten you specifically?’

‘Because
Mark was my cousin for a start,’ Grace Carmichael said. Having stopped trying
to work overtime, she was answering them now in a more serious and focused way.
‘It’s been all over the news you guys think there might be a connection with
the Bentons. Maybe he’s scared I might remember something that incriminates
him.’

‘What
might that be?’

‘Search
me.’

‘’Cause
surely by threatening you he’s taking
more
of a risk of jogging your memory?’

‘Like
I said,’ she insisted, ‘I wasn’t there with Mark when he died - I only wish I
had been. Maybe he doesn’t know who I am. Maybe he just wanted to have a go at
somebody connected with the campaign, and he remembered my face same way I
remembered his.’

‘Too far-fetched,’
Marie said outside, turning the ignition key.

‘What
is?’

‘In
the whole of London, this bloke just happens to randomly recognize a face in
the crowd from a demo years ago and decides to run up and threaten her in broad
daylight?’

‘You
reckon she was targeted?’ Kim said.

‘Maybe.
What for, I have no idea.’

‘Yeah.’
Kim belted herself in. ‘Let’s head over to Lewisham nick. I wanna fax the
description to NCIS and talk to that DC, see if Miss Carmichael told him
anything she didn’t tell us. What’s his name again?’

‘Cooper.’

As
they pulled away, a grey-green Volkswagen passed them and parked in the space
they’d just vacated. A man got out and went into the house.

‘Must
be the boyfriend,’ Marie said.

‘Reckon
he saw us?’

‘So
much,’ Marie sighed, ‘for her not wanting to worry him.’

A vexed question,
and one Sandra Jones was in no hurry to ask. She’d agreed to do so at the prompting
of Neil, who wanted his life back. Sandra had retorted that she supposed he
didn’t think Nina did too, but she went ahead and broached the subject anyway.

‘I
need time,’ Nina said. They were in the Joneses’ bathroom. The hiss of the
shower all but drowned out her voice. Sandra dried her hands and glared up at
the extractor fan, which wasn’t helping.

‘Don’t
you think it’s all got a bit daft?’

‘Pardon?’

‘Don’t
you think - ? Oh, bugger it.’ She raised her voice. ‘You’re the one stuck at my
place while he’s sitting pretty at
your
parents’. I mean for fuck’s sake, you should’ve
chucked
him
out.’

‘If
I went back, I’d have to.’

‘Why
don’t you, then?’

There
was a long hiatus during which Sandra could all but see Nina’s thoughts wafting
over the curtain with the steam. Eventually the shower went off and she stuck
her head out, dripping over the floor.

‘I
can’t face it. There’ll be a scene.’ She looked round with a shiver and a sad
frown. ‘Where did I...?’

In
her distracted frame of mind, Sandra couldn’t blame Nina for hanging her towel
up on the peg
under
her clothes. She extracted it and passed it across.

‘Ta,’
Nina said, wrapping it around herself. They sat on the side of the bath. She
said, ‘Mum and Dad, you see. Paul hasn’t said anything. I can tell from talking
to them on the phone.’

‘So
they don’t know what the fuck’s going on, basically?’

‘They
think the sun shines out of his arse.’

‘About
the only ones left who do,’ Sandra muttered, and instantly regretted it.
‘Sorry.’

Nina
glared at her. ‘Imagine having to go in there and explain to them why I’m
giving him the elbow. “Sorry to break up the happy home, but your beloved
son-in-law’s been using your bed to dip his wick in some slut.” I don’t know
what they’d do.’

Sandra
sighed. ‘Of all the places,’ she said, incredulous still. ‘I mean
why
? How dim can you get?’

‘Why?’
Nina echoed. Her fingers gripped the top of the towel and twisted, pulling it
tighter. She said again, in despair, ‘Why?’

‘I
know.’ Gently, Sandra laid a hand on her friend’s bare, wet shoulder. Imagine
what must be going on in her head, the fevered perplexity over what Paul’s
infidelity was, of what she’d done, or not done, to drive him to it; of whether
it was a one-night stand or, as seemed more likely from his recent behaviour,
something more serious. Imagine? She didn’t have to imagine. She got the inner
workings of Nina’s head at first hand, every evening.

Suddenly
Neil had a point.

She
said, ‘So why not stop fannying around and do something about it?’

‘I
will,’ Nina muttered, ‘in time.’

‘That’s
an excuse.’ Sandra lied, ‘I’ve seen it before. With my sister.’ Pressing home
her advantage before Nina could raise an objection along the lines that
Sandra’s sister was blissfully married with six children, she added, ‘Haven’t
you at least tried to find out who this bint is?’

‘I
was going to.’

‘Do
it!’ Sandra harangued her. ‘Ask his friends, or better still his friends’
wives. You might find out what exactly’s been going on, put you out of your
misery.’

‘Sooner
ask him straight.’ She stood up, loosening the towel and starting to rub
herself dry.

‘Then
why don’t you?’

‘If
he’s still talking to me.’

Sandra
couldn’t believe her ears. ‘If
he’s
still...? Christ on a broomstick, Nina, anybody’d
think
you
were the one going over the side.’

A
horrible thought occurred to her.

‘No.
All right?’ Nina said indignantly.

‘That’s
more fucking like it!’ Sandra grinned. ‘Go home and talk to him, or phone,
even.’

‘What
if he’s with
her
?’

‘Listen,
he’s proved he’s stupid. But,’ she hoped there was a twinkle in her eye, ‘I
don’t think he’s
that
stupid.’ Nina didn’t answer. ‘Just give him a call. What’ve you
got to lose?’

Nina
discarded the towel and tugged a pair of dark blue briefs up her legs. Sandra
had barely enough time to avert her eyes. ‘My marriage.’

‘Oh,
for fuck’s sake.’

‘You’re
right,’ she barked, flinging the bunched-up towel at Sandra in a half-hearted
way. ‘You win. I’ll talk to him, you cow.’

She
did up her bra, pulled a black t-shirt over her head and scuttled across to the
mirror to do her make up. When she was sure Nina wasn’t watching, Sandra puffed
out her cheeks and let out a long, silent sigh of relief.

‘I
saw that, bitch.’ Nina’s reflection glared out at her. But for the first time
in days, there was a faint smile there.

Tuesday

The blown-up
Polaroid of Debbie Clarke had been overshadowed - if that were possible - by
the return to prominence on the board of the prison photograph of the man who,
according to Macmillan, was one half of the engine behind Thrall. Kim found her
eye deflected by its subject’s baleful stare, and drawn back instead to the
picture of Debbie. Something about it bothered her, though she couldn’t say
what.

‘Michael
Philip Quaife,’ she said to the half dozen members of the team who were
present. ‘He’s just done three years for armed robbery; released on licence
four months ago. He’s been identified by a Miss Grace Carmichael as the man who
threatened her in Lewisham on Friday. Miss Carmichael is Mark Watkins’ cousin.
She recognised him as a face in the crowd from the time of the murder enquiry
and the trial. NCIS have confirmed he was active around that time.’ She
explained to her audience the nature of Quaife’s threat.

When
she’d finished Sophia stood up. ‘Any questions?’

‘
Why
?’ Jeff piped up, voicing what
everyone was thinking.

‘Why
draw attention to himself, you mean?’ Kim said. ‘Me and Marie have been
wondering that since yesterday and haven’t come up with anything that makes
sense. We talked to the DC who took the complaint. He knows Miss Carmichael, or
at least he knows her significant other: solicitor, quite often represents
people who pass through that nick. Didn’t pick up on anything we didn’t,
though.’

‘Is
it possible,’ Zoltan suggested, ‘Miss Carmichael knows something about the fire
or about Debbie Clarke? Or Quaife thinks she does?’

‘She
reckons not,’ Kim said. ‘Obviously she knows Luke Benton and Debbie, but not
well enough, it seems like.’

‘What
do we know about Quaife’s movements since he got out?’

‘His
probation officer found him a bedsit in Motspur Park,’ Sophia said. ‘As far as
he’s concerned he’s still there. He was complying with his licence requirements
and doing some casual jobs, including, would you believe, a roadie for a heavy
metal band.’ This got a chuckle. ‘I say
was
,’ her face clouded, ‘because
his landlady says he moved out two weeks ago, leaving no forwarding address.
And since he’s neglected to inform the probation service, it’s likely he’ll
also miss his next appointment with them.’

There
were no other questions, so she asked Marie for a summary of progress on
tracking down the people from the squat. So far there was precious little.
Meredith and his cronies had gone to ground. It was starting to get people
down, and the conference broke up in discontent. Nina Tyminski came and stood
by Kim’s shoulder, following her gaze. She was staring at the two photos.

‘What’s
on your mind?’

‘I
dunno,’ Kim said. She pointed to the picture of Debbie’s body. ‘You sent the
exhibit in. What did the lab say?’

‘Not
much.’ Nina made a face. ‘Bog all to go on, really. Taken indoors, using a
built-in flash. The paper’s Kodak Instant; similar process but not actually
Polaroid.’

‘Same
result, though.’

‘Yeah,
and just as common.’

‘Not
so much these days. Speaking of which, why not use digital?’

‘Dunno.
Traceable? Too slow?’ Nina peered at the picture. ‘Twelve obvious wounds that
we can see, but without an actual body the pathologist wasn’t going to commit
himself on what might’ve made them.’

‘I
can imagine.’ Kim pointed vaguely. ‘That many wounds, there should be more
blood.’

‘Well,
it’s not set in stone. You know what a crap shoot it is trying to determine
what sort of weapon’s been used, even when there’s an actual body to look at.’

‘Something’s
wrong with this picture.’ Kim’s face was convulsed in an expression akin to
pain as she tried to wrestle the information out of her subconscious.

‘You
wouldn’t give it top marks for composition,’ Sandra, who was passing, said
flippantly. ‘Mind you, with a naked dead girl, be hard to concentrate.’

‘Piss
off,’ Kim said.

Sandra
stuck her tongue out at her and left the room. Nina said, ‘Only connection I
can see at the moment, we’ve got a big dangerous bastard with a knife out there
somewhere and a picture of a corpse with big knife wounds.’

‘That’s
not it, though. There’s summink else. Summink about
this
actual photo.’ She stabbed her
finger at it as if trying to goad it into giving up its secrets.

‘I’ll
chew it over. Maybe if we blow it up more there’s a reflection of Quaife in the
wet paint or something. But there’s no point getting obsessed.’

‘No,
you’re right, I can’t stand here worrying about it,’ Kim said, staring. ‘We’ve
got some neo-Nazis to find.’

When
Nina next looked across a few minutes later, she was still standing there
worrying about it.

Anne White
justified Zoltan’s judicious reshuffling at twenty to four, thirty hours after
he, who supposedly held her dear above all women, had banished her to the Hades
of the phones to free up Lucky for other actions.

‘Meadow
Music,’ a man’s voice said in her ear.

‘Hello,’
Anne said, the effort not to sound mechanical by now almost unbearable. ‘My
name’s Anne White, I’m a detective from Croydon police station. I understand
you buy and sell secondhand instruments?’

‘We
do, yeah.’

‘I’m
trying to trace a flute that may have passed through your hands. Do you by any
chance keep records of transactions like that?’

‘Mmm...
yeah.’ The man sounded worried, as though he were wishing he didn’t. ‘When are
we talking about?’

‘This
is it,’ Anne said. ‘Five years ago.’

Silence
on the other end of the line. She’d had a lot of that.

She
said, ‘Hello?’

‘Sorry,’
the man said, ‘you threw me. I’m just thinking, you’re lucky it’s not longer,
because we’ve only been in business five years.’

‘You
the manager?’

‘Owner.’
There was a faint sipping noise. Anne guessed he had a cup of tea. ‘A flute,
yeah?’

‘Yes.’

‘When
exactly five years ago?’

‘February
or the few months after.’

‘There
are a lot of flutes,’ the man said cautiously.

‘This
wasn’t just any old flute,’ Anne said. ‘That’s why I was hoping you might
remember something.’

‘What
sort was it, then?’ She sensed his interest go up a scale. His was a relaxed
middle class voice, the kind of voice you hear at small music venues,
discussing authoritatively the merits of obscure indie bands over a pint of
real ale.

She
gave him the details and the office number and he promised, genuinely hopeful
she thought, to look into it and call her back. Two fruitless enquiries later
the phone rang before she could start dialling the next number on her list.

‘When
you told me what it was I thought it rang a bell,’ the voice, whose owner’s
name was Roy Gillam, said. ‘I’m astonished it’s taken you this long to follow
up.’

‘How
d’you mean?’

‘I
was suspicious when it was first offered to me,’ Gillam explained. ‘Böhm
eight-key ivory flute, 1866. Beautiful instrument. Bloke who brought it in
didn’t look as if he knew how to play with himself, never mind a flute. Took
cash for it; he was asking... I dunno, five hundred, something ridiculous. Once
he’d gone I looked it up and found out what it was really worth; that’s when
the alarm bells started ringing. So I took it to the police.’

Anne
shifted in her seat, the hairs at the nape of her neck stirring.

‘They
said there was no proof it was lost or stolen, there was no insurance claim, no
reward offered, no report of any stolen flute. So they treated it as lost
property.’

‘Kept
it for six months, and...?’

‘Nobody
claimed it, so it reverted to me. I sold it on at a handsome profit.’

‘Would
you still have copies of receipts and things?’

‘Oh,
yeah.’

‘I
must say,’ Anne remarked, ‘you’ve got a good memory, considering how long ago
it was.’

‘It
was only about a week after I opened,’ Roy Gillam said. ‘First exciting thing
that had happened. Plus it was tarnished. Bloody shame, an instrument like
that. Spotty, as if it had been in water.’

Or
as if, Anne thought, someone had run it under a tap to try and get rid of
semen.

‘This
memory of yours,’ she asked, ‘wouldn’t extend to a description of the man who
sold you the flute, would it?’

‘I
dunno.’

‘Tell
you what,’ Anne said, ‘would it be OK if I dropped by? Give you time to think.’

‘Yeah,
all right.’ He sounded bright. ‘We close at five.’

‘Hopefully
I’ll see you before then.’

Grinning,
she hung up. Several pairs of eyes were staring curiously at her from
surrounding desks. Beyond the back of her head, she could feel Zoltan’s adding
to their number. She suppressed a shiver.

In the heavy
afternoon traffic it was touch and go whether she’d make it to Camberwell
before Meadow Music closed. She arrived with ten minutes to spare, but there
were double yellow lines outside and she had to drive several hundred yards to
find parking. By the time she’d hurried back to the shop Roy Gillam was behind
the door, bolting it. He was a handsome man of about her age, similar in
stature to Zoltan but thicker set. He wore jeans and a grey sweater over a blue
and green plaid shirt. He grinned as she knocked on the glass and displayed her
warrant card.

‘I
had an idea you’d be a blonde,’ he said as he let her in. ‘Don’t ask me why.’

‘You
look like the kind of person it isn’t easy to surprise,’ she smiled, once again
feeling Zoltan’s discomforting presence in her mind. She shut him out with an
effort.

‘Here
you go,’ Gillam said, returning from a brief disappearance with a mug of tea
and a grubby receipt book. He handed her both. ‘Bit of a Luddite, I’m afraid,
never been able to get along with Quicken or anything like that. But I do keep
transaction records for five years. I can get you the register receipt as well
if you want. It’d just mean ploughing through about a million miles of till
roll.’ He motioned to the book. ‘But the details of what I buy and sell are all
in there.’

A
thick elastic band marked the place. The writing on the carbon was faint, but
still just visible. ‘What’s that?’ she said, pointing. ‘Pegley?’

‘“D.
Pegley”,’ Gillam confirmed, placing his index finger close to hers. Its tip was
calloused from guitar playing. ‘I don’t suppose for a moment it’s genuine.’

‘Probably
not. Did you have any luck blowing away the cobwebs of time for that
description?’

He
frowned. ‘It’s difficult,’ he said sorrowfully. ‘I thought perhaps if you gave
me a few suggestions you might jog my memory.’

‘OK.’
She took her pocket book from her handbag and cast an eye quickly over the
amalgamated description of the tall burglar. She settled into her chair and
looked him in the eyes. Hazel, she noticed. ‘We can but try. People tend to
remember what somebody said or did more easily than what they looked like. You
said he seemed a bit dim. Does that mean he looked sort of vacant, he had an
accent, or what does it mean?’

‘It
actually means he was too thick to realise he could’ve sold that flute for
upwards of ten times what I paid him for it. Just the way he looked and
behaved. I got the impression he wanted to pawn the thing, but didn’t really
know how to go about it.’

Not
an experienced thief, then, she thought, making a note. ‘Young?’

‘Oh,
yeah.’ He nodded. ‘Late teens. And he did have a London accent, come to think
of it.’

‘Narrows
it down,’ she said. ‘Good. Right, was he tall?’

‘No,’
Gillam said, after some thought. ‘No taller than me.’

‘And
you’re what? Five nine?’

‘Exactly
right.’ He grinned again. ‘How’d you guess?’

‘Same
way you knew I was blonde,’ Anne said.

By a process of
deduction, they arrived at a hazy description of the youth. Anne knew she could
place no great store on it. Memory plays tricks, fades, jumbles, confabulates,
over the course of five years. But it had certainly not been the tall young man
described by most of the victims. If it was anyone, it must be the accomplice,
the one who’d raped Miranda Hargreaves.

That
was something. And she had the receipt, for what it was worth. She looked up
the address on her phone and was mildly surprised to find it existed. She
closed the map app and speed dialled. ‘I’d like a name check, please,’ she said
to the PNC operator. ‘It’s Pegley - Papa, Echo, Golf, Lima, Echo, Yankee,
initial D-Delta. Possibly an alias.’

‘Male
or female?’

‘Male,
IC1, age between, say, 18 and 30.’ Might as well leave a margin of error.