Team Spirit (Special Crime Unit Book 1) (29 page)

Everyone
stared at her.

‘I
saw it. Out of my bedroom window. Mr Quaife... Mr Quaife hit her with his knife
when she came through the gate. They tied her to the tree. Mr Porter talked to
her. Then he walked off. Mr Quaife just stood there for a bit, watching. I
thought he was waiting for her to bleed to death. She went all limp, like a
little doll. I thought, she’s dead. She must be dead by now. Then suddenly he
stopped and looked round, like he’d heard something. He let her go from the
tree and dragged her through the back gate into the alley. He still had his
knife, and he... It was like it was happening all over again. Only with the
fire I just ran, but this time there was nowhere to run to, because they’d have
found me again. I just had to watch... I couldn’t make him stop.’

‘It’s
all right, Debbie.’ Sophia reached over and laid a hand over a tightly bunched
fist. Catching Mr Singh’s pleading stare, she nodded. ‘It’s all right. We’ll
break for a minute. Interview suspended, 17.48.’

Outside in the
corridor, the two detectives stood in thoughtful silence, neither wanting to be
the first to speak. At last Kim said, ‘Looks like Luke Benton’s had a lucky
escape, guv.’

‘They’d
have paid him a visit if he hadn’t already been picked up, that’s for sure.’

‘Instead
Nina nearly got herself killed ‘cause of him being pissed.’

‘Nina
nearly got herself killed - ’ Sophia began, as near to anger as Kim had ever
known her. She sighed, shook her head and said, ‘Nina called the CAD room at
least half an hour before you found her. Why, in that time, if she knew there
might be trouble - ?’

‘Maybe
she never got the chance.’

‘Maybe,
but we won’t know, will we? Until she’s well enough to tell us.’

Kim
looked at her watch. ‘Shouldn’t we’ve heard something by now?’

‘The
hospital have strict orders to let me know at once,’ Sophia said. ‘I want to
know exactly where we are before Debbie starts signing statements.’ She turned
to go, then paused. ‘Kim?’

‘Guv?’

‘Something
caught your attention. I saw you writing it down.’

‘The
photo again,’ Kim said.

‘Explain.’

‘Well,
we know it was taken Thursday at the squat, right? But Porter didn’t use it
till Saturday night, to throw us off. If Debbie’s to be believed, all that was
last minute. So,’ Kim said, ‘what’d they
originally
want the photo for?’

Staff Nurse Hamida
Aziz (it said on her name tag) told Sandra Jones, ‘Yes, she came through
surgery very well. Less damage than we first feared.’ She said it as if she,
personally, had led the operating team.

‘She’s
gonna be OK?’

‘Physically,
yes.’

Sandra
said nothing. She stood and waited. Eventually Nurse Aziz figured it out.

‘Oh,
yes,’ she said, springing to life. ‘Second door to your right. But you must
remember she is still in recovery. I can only allow you five minutes.’

‘Thanks.’
Sandra gave her a look that suggested she was about to experience the longest
five minutes of her career, turned and followed her directions.

Even
with intensive care beds at a premium, it had to be a good sign that Nina had
been moved to a private room on a general ward. While speaking to Nurse Aziz,
Sandra had snatched a peek behind her desk, where monitors hooked up to Nina’s
vital signs waited on constant alert for trouble.

Nina
was not alone. In a chair beside the bed a young woman sat reading a paperback.
Lucia Tyminski’s kinship to her sister was obvious, despite the thickly
kohl-lined eyes and bleached gelled hair that clashed oddly with the white
ribbed t-shirt and blue sundress she wore. In height and build they were much alike;
the more assured way Lucia looked and carried herself was what marked her
apart. At the sound of the door she looked up. ‘Hi,’ she said, recognising
Sandra.

Sandra
closed the door quietly. ‘No Paul?’

‘He’s
been here all day,’ Lucia said. ‘We sent him home for some kip. My mum and me
are gonna take it in turns to do nights. My other sister, too, when she gets
here.’

‘You’ll
have Nurse Aziz out of a job.’

‘I
don’t reckon she’s in much of a state to talk.’ Lucia glanced at Nina, who lay
still and silent, eyes closed. A drip fed into her arm, a canula thrust rudely
up her nose. Not a mark on her, Sandra thought, startled, looking into the pale
face. But she guessed the hospital gown covered a rather nastier truth.

‘Has
she...?’

‘She
was awake for a bit when Paul was here. Very groggy, though.’

‘Best
she sleeps, then,’ Sandra said. ‘I just came down to see how she was.’ Her
restless gaze halted once more on the sleeping figure. ‘I keep asking myself,
should I have stopped her answering that fucking call on her own?’

‘It
was a drunk, I thought,’ Lucia frowned. ‘She’s handled enough of those in her
time.’

‘Yeah,
but
after
that.’

‘You
anywhere towards finding out who did this?’ Lucia demanded.

‘We
know who did it,’ Sandra sighed. ‘It’s just catching the bastards. We’re all
working on it till we drop, I promise.’

Lucia
nodded and said nothing for a while, clutching her sister’s pale, limp hand.

‘I
keep asking myself, as well.’

‘Asking
what?’

‘I
offered to tag along last night,’ Lucia said. ‘Police piss-ups aren’t really my
thing, but Nina was in such a tizzy about Paul that... well.’

‘Moral
support?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What
could you’ve done, though?’

‘Stopped
her blacking his eye, maybe,’ she said, shooting Nina a look of poorly
disguised admiration. ‘You should see it today. It’s a real beaut.’

Sandra
laughed. ‘Attagirl.’

‘Mind
you, had to restrain myself from socking him in the other one, after what he
told me earlier.’

‘Oh,
yeah?’

Lucia
looked dubious at the notion of betraying a family confidence. ‘You know why
she did it?’

‘All
I can think, he must’ve said something pretty spectacular. They seemed to be
starting to patch things up.’

‘She
got him to tell her who he’d been shagging,’ Lucia said. ‘Only the woman he was
engaged to before he met Nina.’

‘Shit!
No wonder she fetched him one.’ It explained a lot of things. Sex, romance,
friendship, glamour: Nina had been willing to work on anything to salvage the
marriage. Anything within her power. Until she’d found out just how desperate
things were.

What
a kick in the teeth.

Sandra’s
arm was getting hot. She stirred. ‘Nina’s coat,’ she said awkwardly, handing it
over. ‘She left it at the club.’

Lucia
took it. ‘You going?’

‘Better,
otherwise we’ll have Florence Nightingale on the warpath.’

‘I’ll
tell Nina you came by.’

‘Be
back same sort of time tomorrow. Will you be here?’

‘Somebody
will. Me or Mum or my sister. She should be more lucid by then.’

‘Hope
so.’ On impulse, Sandra leaned over and kissed Nina gently on the cheek. To her
surprise, it was almost feverishly warm. She stepped back and frowned at her
stricken friend. ‘Then perhaps,’ she admonished her, ‘you can tell us what the
fuck you were doing in the Clarkes’ garden.’

‘This is what
puzzles me,’ Sophia said, glancing up at the clock on the wall. Since Debbie
was a juvenile, they could not question her for much longer today. ‘I get the
rationale behind this tableau, making it look like you were dead, but why do it
there? Why bring all that stuff in rather than get you away from the squat
immediately?’

Debbie
looked disorientated. ‘What?’

‘Surely
there must have been a suitable space in the house in Leatherhead where they
could have set all that up in their own good time.’

‘How
would
they
know about Leatherhead?’

Now
it was Sophia’s turn to feel as if she had entered an alternate universe. ‘You
told me Porter and Quaife had taken you from the squat in Hackney to the house
in – ’

‘It
wasn’t them.’

Sophia
sat back. Slowly. ‘I’m sorry?’

Debbie
said, ‘It was Phil, Billy and Jayne who set all that up. They were all at
Guildhall Drama School together. Billy Scofield’s got a diploma in stage and
film makeup. That’s how come it looked so convincing.’

Week Three

Monday

So far, Sandra’s
promise was being made good. Everyone was in by eight, the office humming with
concern and conjecture, desks strewn with notes, statements and evidence. The
mood was bleak, yet underneath lay a determination driven by controlled
anger.
 
Faces were creased by care
and pale with fatigue. Some of the team had been up all night, scouring and
rechecking everything known about the Benton enquiry. For once, it was Sophia
who was slightly intimidated by them when she came in, instead of the other way
round.

‘Right,
settle down,’ she said, gazing proudly across the debris of her officers’
industry. ‘I know I’m not the only one anxious to know where we are, and we’ll
find out a lot quicker than through the canteen grapevine.’

Conversation
stopped. One by one, phone calls were ended, receivers replaced and not touched
again. She had their undivided attention.

She said,
‘First of all, I’d like to thank you for the professional way you’ve all
knuckled down and got on with your work. I had a meeting with Detective
Superintendent Heighway last night and we talked about bringing MIT in.’ There
were some muttered expressions of consternation. ‘He’s agreed we should keep
the case in-house for now, then review the situation again on Friday if we need
more manpower.’ The discontented sound effects continued, but in their hearts
the team knew they were stretched thin; the situation was overwhelming as it
was. ‘Right. The second piece of good news is that Nina is going to be OK.’
Some relieved sighs, no cheering. ‘She’s awake this morning, and talking to her
mother.’

‘Did
she say anything?’ Lucky asked.

‘Not
about that, no,’ Sophia smiled. ‘That can wait. Sandra’s visiting her tonight.’
She glanced at Sandra, who nodded, but remained impassive. The DCI suspected
she hadn’t been forgiven for not calling her in. She said, ‘On to the bad news
now, of which there are three main parts. You’ll all have heard about Surrey
finding Nina’s car near Redhill. Forensic have now been over it and found no
significant trace of anyone except Nina, her husband, two IC3 males who we
assume to be Luke Benton and Nick Lynott, and Andrew Clarke - which confirms
his explanation for why he turned up at his front door in a cab. We’re still
waiting on the Astra, but my bet is that it’s in tiny pieces in a breaker’s
yard somewhere. The PNC check Nina asked for has been followed up: last time
anyone saw Quaife or the car at the registered address was before he went to
prison. Second piece of bad news,’ she modulated her voice carefully to make
sure the full implications of what she was about to tell them sank in, ‘we are
not
only
looking for Porter and Quaife in connection with this investigation.’

‘I
thought Thrall was just the two of them?’ Jeff Wetherby said, voicing the
general consternation.

‘When
I’ve told you what I’m about to tell you,’ Sophia said ruefully, ‘you may
understand why it is that chief inspectors don’t generally do interviews.’ She
gave them a rundown of Debbie’s revelation about the Polaroid. ‘Fact is that
Debbie Clarke and I spent most of yesterday talking at cross purposes. Me under
the assumption that it was Porter and Quaife who’d set up the fake murder
scene, her under the assumption that I knew it wasn’t.’

Marie
Kirtland said, ‘Meredith and his mates set it up to make it look like Thrall?’

‘To
make sure we went after Porter and Quaife and left Debbie alone,’ Sophia said.
‘She said she went along with it because they convinced her there was no other
option.’

‘She
was compliant,’ Kim cut in, ‘until Meredith suggested tying her up to make it
look more like an execution. They got the ropes onto her ankles and wrists but
then she had a panic attack once they tied her to the bedposts. They had to let
her free in a hurry ‘cause they were afraid Mrs Brownlie next door might hear
if she started screaming.’

‘Accounts
for why the ropes were cut square in some places and frayed in others, yeah?’
Lucky remarked.

‘Exactly,’
Sophia said. ‘It also accounts for the blood and the plaster on Meredith’s
hand. He cut himself getting her loose. Must have dripped some on the mattress
as they got the tarpaulin off it.’

‘Tell
you what it doesn’t account for.’ Zoltan Schneider had been silent and
uncharacteristically grim all morning, but now he spoke up. ‘How Porter ended
up with the Polaroid if Meredith and his crew took it.’

‘That
Debbie couldn’t tell us,’ Sophia said. ‘She claims she didn’t know Porter had
it until her dad got back home after the bus stop stunt and started yelling at
her. My best guess is that he found it when he showed up at the squat looking
for Debbie, took it; Meredith and co came back later to find Debbie gone, the
photo gone, put two and two together, realized there was now going to be a
swastika-shaped target on their backs and went to ground.’

‘So
now we have to find them before Thrall do,’ Zoltan sighed. ‘Which given our
track record of not finding Debbie before they did isn’t an encouraging
prospect.’

‘Although,’
Helen Wallace said, ‘I reckon three sporadically homeless political activists
stroke petty criminals are likely to be a bit better at not being found than a
sixteen-year-old kid.’

Zoltan
arched his eyebrows at her and shrugged, conceding her point.

‘Lots
to do on both fronts,’ Sophia said. ‘Everyone see Kim and Helen after the
meeting and they’ll give you your actions for the day. Before we do that,’ she
took a deep breath, ‘the third bit of bad news. The house-to-house.’

Groans
went up from those who’d spent Sunday knocking on doors.

‘Same
story as with the fire. At least this time they’ve all got an excuse.’ She saw
Kim looking furious and said, ‘I don’t suppose many of them were awake at four
a.m.’

‘Have
we been asking the right people?’ Zoltan said suddenly.

‘What
do you mean?’

‘Who
might have been up around that time?’ Zoltan said. ‘We’ve been running around
looking for shift workers, early gardeners, but maybe we’ve forgotten about the
most likely witnesses.’

He
peered at a sea of blank faces.

‘What,’
he grinned, ‘were
we
all doing beforehand?’

Sandra
snapped her fingers at him. ‘On the razzle.’

‘Exactly.’
He winked. ‘Saturday night, Sunday morning. Half the population of Croydon
under the age of thirty out on the tiles till dawn.’

‘And
we’ve been mostly talking to older people,’ Sophia concluded. ‘Sandra, get on
HOLMES and run a report on all the households in Ballards Way and the next road
with young people aged, say, sixteen to thirty. I especially want to know what
happened to the man Lucky saw running away. Where did he go? Was he picked up?
Et
cetera
. If
someone coming home saw that, find out.’ She paused for breath and a sip of
water. ‘Next. Kim, last night after we finished talking to Debbie you shared
something you had on your mind. Do you want to bounce it off people?’

Kim
stood up and went to the front. ‘Sorry to keep harping on about the Polaroid,
but why would
Porter
want to use it? And especially why use it in a way that made sure
Debbie’s dad was gonna see it, after he’d promised to help them?’

‘Doesn’t
strike me as the sort to get his rocks off that way,’ Zoltan commented. ‘Quaife
maybe.’

‘I
still think smokescreen,’ Jasmin Winter said.

Kim
turned to her. ‘You mean like for later, but they had their hand forced?’

‘I
am thinking if they wished to get her out of the country. If we think she is
dead, we stop watching the airports.’

‘Bloody
risky,’ Jeff said. ‘People might still recognise her face from the telly.’

He
had a good point and a pensive silence fell. Eventually Sophia gave up waiting
for anything to come out of it. She said, ‘OK, next contribution. Helen.’

The
DS cleared her throat. ‘I’ve had a call from one of the estate agents we spoke
to. Apparently, after we’d left one of his colleagues started acting nosy,
asking him what we wanted. Name of Stephen Dollis, which rang a bell, so I
checked. He’s got previous for GBH, four years back. The victim was Asian.’

‘The
firm gave us a list of all the properties they’ve sold in Leatherhead in the
past year,’ Lucky took it up. ‘Dollis sold one to a guy calling himself
Webster. Four bedroom semi, like Debbie described. They’ve faxed us the blurb
on a house they’ve got on the market in the same road, and the room
descriptions are very close to Debbie’s.’

‘Is
there a photo?’ Sophia said.

‘Yes,
ma’am.’

Marie
Kirtland said, ‘Can’t Debbie tell us where the house is?’

Kim
shook her head. ‘She said it was dark when Porter took her there and on the way
back he made her lie face down in the back seat until they were well away. Never
left the house all the time she was there and he kept the curtains closed.’

‘I
see.’

‘I’ll
show her the photo anyway,’ Sophia said. ‘Ten to one there’s no-one there now,
but it might be worth a look. Good work, you two.’ She nodded appreciatively at
Helen and Lucky and said, ‘Go and pay this Mr Dollis a visit, see what he has
to say for himself. Everyone else, keep ploughing through your assigned actions
and think hard. Let’s see if we can’t get a result by Friday.’

PC Tom Walker had
experienced his mid-life crisis late. He’d joined the Met at nineteen, and for
the next thirty years had patrolled a beat out of Croydon nick, dependable,
unassuming, never seeking advancement or promotion. Former colleagues who
returned years later were amazed to find him right where he’d always been. Then
suddenly, three years ago, he’d decided he wanted a change. The canteen saw him
filling in applications left, right and centre until finally his wife,
concerned that he was jeopardising his pension by resigning, had persuaded his
inspector to get him a transfer. So, aged forty-nine, Tom Walker made his major
life change to South East Traffic, based at Catford. It had worked miracles on
him. He was a new man.

You
still saw Tom around: his patrols sometimes brought him to Croydon with arrests
and for refs. So Jeff Wetherby, the only one of the team who’d been there long
enough to remember him well, was not overly surprised to see the familiar
grey-haired figure walk into the office. He raised a hand and Tom came over,
still peering around as if for someone more senior.

‘Eh
up, mate.’

‘Busy
in here,’ Tom said flatly.

‘Aye,
well.’

‘I’m
looking for DC Tyminski.’

Jeff
gave him a hard stare. ‘That meant to be some sort of sick joke or what?’

‘You
tell me, mate,’ Tom said, looking blank.

Angrily,
Jeff told him.

‘Shit,’
he sighed, sitting on the edge of Jeff’s desk. ‘Sorry, I had no idea. Me and
the missus just got back from Fuerteventura last night.’

‘Don’t
you watch the fucking telly?’

‘Not
much these days, no,’ Tom said. ‘Anyway, don’t blame me. It was my observer
told me I needed to talk to Tyminski. Dozy twat.’

Despite
himself, Jeff smiled. The old bugger hadn’t changed that much. Any bobby under
thirty was liable, in Tom Walker’s system of reference, to be classified as a
dozy twat. He said, ‘So what’d you want her for?’

‘I
hear she’s looking for a slag called Mike Bayliss.’

Jeff’s
ears pricked up. ‘I’ve been working on that one.’

‘Right,
I’ll tell you then.’ He got up off the desk and looked around. Lucky was out
with Helen and astonishingly no-one had pinched her chair yet, so Tom did. He
settled himself and leaned forward confidentially. ‘You probably know all this
already, so shut me up if I’m making a fool of myself. If Bayliss is who I
think he is, then I’ve nicked him a few times.’

‘Burglar,
ground floor entry, crap locks?’

‘That’s
the one,’ he nodded. ‘Only he didn’t always call himself Bayliss, did he?’

‘No?’

‘Vicky,
that’s his mum, was a brass when she was younger, and whenever we nicked her
she used to give her maiden name - Bayliss. She married an old lag called
Ritchie Prosser, and Mike was the fruit of their loins. Seem to remember
they’re divorced now.’

‘So
what you’re saying is Michael Bayliss might sometimes give his name as
Prosser?’ Jeff said, writing ‘MICHAEL PROSSER?’ on the back of the first piece
of paper to hand, which happened to be his gas bill.

‘Most
of the time,’ Tom confirmed. ‘But all this must be on file.’

‘His
juvenile record’s been shredded. Three year rule.’

‘Bloody
red tape.’

Jeff
summarised why the team were after Bayliss. Tom nodded and remarked that he
wouldn’t put rape past him, but was surprised at his use of an accomplice.

‘Always
did fancy himself a clever bastard,’ he said. ‘I tell you what this sounds
like. Ever read
The Blooding
?’