Team Spirit (Special Crime Unit Book 1) (28 page)

Jasmin
had the next question. ‘Have we an idea of the weapon?’

‘Well,
now.’ Zoltan had been dreading this one. ‘All the FME could tell was that the
deepest wound was ragged along one edge. She had trouble observing much more
because a paramedic had his fist in it, trying to stop Nina bleeding to death.’

‘What
the hell was it,’ Jeff said, ‘a fucking harpoon?’

‘For
all we know.’ Zoltan looked at all of them. ‘Or a very big knife.’

He
measured it with parallel palms.

‘Any
more questions?’

There
were a million more questions but no-one asked them.

‘Good.
Save them. All we know from warming our arses here is that Nina is in very bad
shape. We don’t know who’s responsible or what she was doing in Ballards Way.
So let’s be over there knocking on doors and waking the good citizens from
their Sunday lie in. Yes?’

Jeff,
his hand up again, said, ‘If she was in Ballards Way...’

He
tailed off. Zoltan was treating him to one of his stares. ‘It’s in hand,
constable.’

Sophia spotted
Brian Hunt’s bike secured to a lamppost. Back a few hours from his holiday,
jetlag had woken him at half past four, and he’d been fully alert when the call
came. Brian was a curiosity to his colleagues. No-one quite believed a
detective who employed a bicycle as his preferred mode of transport. Where the
rest of the team used cars for work as a matter of course, Brian cycled.
Arguably, in South London traffic he could respond to a call just as quickly.

He
emerged from the alleyway as Sophia parked, instantly recognisable, tall, fair
and built like an electricity pylon. His cheeks and jaw were adorned with the
wisps of one of his periodic attempts at a beard. His shoulders were hunched
and his hands thrust into the pockets of a charcoal grey suit jacket. He had on
faded blue jeans with one knee out. For Brian, he looked solemn, an opaqueness
in his normally affable blue eyes. Sophia got out and looked around. On her
instructions, police presence was for the moment being kept low key. The only
signs of recent activity were two patrol cars, their crews sitting inside them,
and a small van. She frowned at it.

‘I
hope you haven’t let a dog trample all over the place?’

‘No,
it’s OK, guv, they were careful,’ Brian said. ‘But they did track Nina’s scent
back to one of the gardens.’

‘The
Clarkes’?’

‘Looks
like it. Gate off the alleyway round back.’

‘Blood?’

‘Some.’

‘Have
you tried ringing the bell?’

‘Thought
I’d better wait for you, guv. I’ve kept an eye on the house: nobody’s been in
or out. Burglar alarm looks switched on, curtains are closed. On the face of it
they’re asleep still.’

She
nodded towards the alley. ‘Is the scene secure?’

‘The
dog man had some tape. We’ve cordoned it off.’

Peering
past him, she could faintly see a length of blue and white police tape
stretched across the far end of the alley. ‘Good,’ she nodded. ‘That’ll do
until CSI get here. They are on their way, I take it?’

‘Any
minute, guv.’

‘Right.’
She rubbed her hands together. ‘They’ll see where to go, and make a start. What
are we waiting for?’

He
extended an arm in an ‘after you’ gesture, and Sophia led the way towards the
Clarkes’ house. As they approached, she studied it. Brian’s assessment seemed
correct. Nothing stirred. She wasn’t convinced. ‘A copper gets stabbed in their
garden, ambulance and police sirens wailing right outside their front door, and
they sleep through it?’ she said angrily, marching up the path. ‘Not likely.’

But
by her third ring, no-one had answered. The sun was above the roofs now, the
air filled with bird chorus. Amidst the clamour it was easy to fancy you heard
movement inside. Then, in the street, came the far from imaginary sound of a
taxi drawing up. They watched as Andrew Clarke paid the fare, got out and
turned in at his garden gate. He stopped dead when he saw them.

‘This
is DC Hunt,’ Sophia said. ‘Do you know why we’re here?’

Pale,
he stood and stared. Behind him, the taxi pulled away. Brian took out a
notebook and jotted its number down.

Sophia
said, ‘May we come in, please?’

He
nodded. Fumbling for his keys, he shambled up the path.

‘Guv,’
Brian said suddenly.

She
turned. From behind the door came the sound of locks being unfastened. Then it
opened. Brian stepped back. Sophia, face impassive, took a breath.

‘Debbie
Clarke, I presume?’ she said to the girl in the doorway.

Irony piled upon
irony, Sophia thought as she took another deep breath preparatory to opening
the interview room door. Technically, as Debbie was a juvenile, she must have
an appropriate adult present during questioning. With the benefit of hindsight,
it had been agreed that for one of her parents to undertake this role would not
be wise. It was unlikely Andrew and Charlotte Clarke could profitably be
charged with anything more serious than wasting police time, but Sophia had
made it clear she was in no mood to give them the opportunity to waste any
more.

A
social worker, then? Andrew Clarke had reacted with predictable outrage at the
very notion. The indignity, if his neighbours should find out, seemed his main
objection; those same neighbours who’d seen nothing, heard nothing, either last
night or when the Bentons’ house had gone up in flames. And so it came down to
a lawyer. But the Clarkes had none. In his arrogance, despite his frequent
threats, Debbie’s father hadn’t seen the need. Spurning the duty list, he’d
secured the services of one of the City firms he used at the building society.
They did criminal work, and had a junior partner who didn’t object to driving
out to Croydon on a Sunday. It seemed fitting that the interests of the
daughter of Andrew Clarke, former neo-Nazi football hooligan, should be
represented by a Mr Singh.

Sophia
walked in and nodded to Kim Oliver, who’d brought Debbie through from the
detention room. Kim leaned over to the recorder and started it as the DCI sat
down. ‘Recommencing interview with Deborah Clarke,’ she announced. ‘Persons
present are as before. Time is now 17.31. Miss Clarke, I need to remind you
you’re still under caution.’

Sophia
settled herself. ‘Feeling a bit better now, Debbie?’

Debbie
Clarke nodded. After all that had happened to her, the experience of police
custody seemed to terrify her more than anything. They’d had to suspend the
interview three hours ago because of her uncontrollable crying. Hopefully a
meal and some rest had calmed her down. She looked pale, shocked, ready to dive
down inside the big roll neck of the white wool sweater she wore.

‘For
the tape, Miss Clarke nods her head,’ Sophia said. She asked Debbie, ‘I
understand the doctor’s had a look at you?’

‘Yes.’
It was a tiny voice. Debbie hugged herself. ‘Like I said, there was no need. It
was all fake.’

‘Scary
for you, all the same.’

‘Like
I said.’ She started to shiver again. ‘If I hadn’t let them...’

And
only your father’s neo-Nazi past, Sophia mused, gave you a choice. Edward
Porter’s regard for his erstwhile comrade had, it seemed, saved his daughter’s
life. Chances were his intentions towards Debbie had indeed been murderous
until her father’s plea for help had swayed him. Dead fugitives cannot talk.
But neither, Andrew Clarke must have pointed out, do the police pursue them. It
had been the start of an elaborate deception: the squat laid out like a
lynching, the message on the answering machine, the faked Polaroid. The
tarpaulin had caught any trace of the theatrical makeup and special effects
gore that would have given the game away, and Sophia was kicking herself that
she had been led astray by the presence of the blood. It was Meredith’s, after
all, on a bed in the flat where he lived. The stain could have come from
anything, a grazed knee even, and chances were he’d been telling the truth when
he’d told them how he’d got the cut on his hand. Andrew Clarke’s heartrending
cries at the bus stop had been prompted not by grief, but by the shame of
seeing his daughter naked before strangers.

There
were a couple of things that were still bothering Sophia about Debbie’s story,
but she would come back to them. Right now, she wanted to get the timeline
straight.

‘Earlier
on,’ she said, ‘we got as far as Edward Porter taking you down to Leatherhead.
You went straight there from the squat?’

Debbie
hesitated before nodding.

‘Please
say yes or no for the recording, Deborah.’

‘Yes.’

‘Did
your parents know where you were?’

‘Mr
Porter faxed Dad at work. Told him how to get in touch. I talked to him on the
phone. He rang from a pub, in case you were listening in on his.’

Sophia
glanced at Kim, who nodded. Andrew Clarke’s mysterious trip to the Keeper and
Wicket.

‘How
long have you been back home?’

‘Since
last Saturday.’

‘We’re
not talking about yesterday, are we? This is a week ago?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And
you’ve stayed hidden in the house all that time?’

‘I
went into Croydon once, shopping, when Mum was out,’ Debbie said. ‘Had to. I
was climbing the walls.’

‘Hardly
surprising,’ Sophia agreed, with a twinge of resigned annoyance. In a town of
three hundred thousand people, no-one had noticed a sixteen year old girl in a
crowd. Even one wanted on suspicion of arson and murder. So much for publicity.
She asked, ‘Why did Mr Porter bring you back?’

‘I
don’t know exactly. I overheard him on the phone to Mr Quaife, shouting
something about some lady.’

‘Lady?’

Debbie’s
eyes widened in terror that perhaps she’d told this formidable policewoman
something she didn’t want to hear. ‘That’s... that’s all I caught.’ Sophia
nodded slowly, patiently, relaxing her. ‘Then he came upstairs and said to me,
“Come on, I’m taking you home. We should’ve done this in the first place.”’

‘On
Saturday morning? So you were home by, when?’

‘Afternoon
some time.’

‘Did
Mr Porter bring you home himself?’

‘Yeah.
Dad flipped. I don’t think he was expecting me. He said the police... that you
were watching the house. God knows where he’d got that from.’

Inscrutably,
Sophia asked, ‘But Porter believed him?’

Debbie
nodded. ‘Said not to worry. He told Dad to put the answerphone on and wait for
a message, then do what it said. And make sure the police knew.’

He
certainly had us going for a while, Sophia thought. Out of the corner of her
eye she saw Kim scribble a note. She said, ‘Did you hear from Edward Porter
again before last night?’

Debbie
shook her head. Sophia frowned. Debbie said, ‘No.’

‘Do
you know why they came?’

Abruptly,
Debbie burst into tears again. From his breast pocket, Mr Singh produced an
immaculately ironed primrose handkerchief. He said to her, ‘Would you like to
stop again?’

‘Mr Singh,’
Sophia said, ‘if it’s all the same to you I’d rather press on. The quicker we
finish, the less upset for your client.’

‘That’s
up to her,’ he retorted. ‘How do you feel, Deborah?’

‘I’m
OK,’ Debbie said, recovering. She handed back his handkerchief. ‘Thanks.’

‘Keep
it,’ he smiled.

‘Debbie,
one of my officers is seriously ill in hospital because of what happened last
night,’ Sophia said gently. ‘I don’t believe it was anything directly to do
with you, but it wasn’t just bad luck, either. Porter and Quaife were there at
four a.m. for a reason.’

‘I
know,’ Debbie sniffed.

‘Was
it because you rang Luke?’

‘You
know about that?’

‘We
spoke to him this morning.’

‘Oh,
God.’ She buried her face in her hands. ‘I tried to tell him I couldn’t help
it, but he said he never wanted to see me again for what I’d done. He said his
mum was on my head, and if Robin died that would be too.’ She looked up and
sighed. ‘But then he’s told you that already.’

‘Yes,
he has. But what’s that got to do with Edward Porter being there? Did your dad
overhear?’

‘No,
but I was upset. I had to talk to someone so I told my mum.’

‘When
was this?’

‘Middle
of the night.’ Fresh tears welled in her eyes. ‘It’s so stupid. I haven’t gone
into Mum and Dad’s room like that since I was a kid. He was asleep but Mum went
and woke him.’

‘And
he rang Porter?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And?’

‘They
turned up about two. I stayed in my room. The three of them just sat
downstairs, talking about what to do. I think when the policewoman came they
must’ve figured Luke had talked to her. That’s why they did what they did.’