He would have said more but DI James appeared in the doorway. ‘Inspector Webb,’ she said, a little puzzled to see her.
‘Natalie.’
‘Have there been some developments? On the Colin Harris case? Is that why you’re here?’
‘It looks that way,’ said Kirsty.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Whatever this was … I’m guessing it wasn’t an accident,’ Kirsty gestured at the house.
‘We were working on the assumption that it was.’
DI Natalie James led Kirsty through the house into a kitchen, the far wall of which was missing. A third of the ceiling was gone, with beams and plaster hanging down and debris strewn across the floor.
Kirsty looked up a little suspiciously. ‘Is it safe?’
The Buckinghamshire DI smiled reassuringly. ‘Come through.’
Kirsty followed her through what would have been a back door to the garden patio off the kitchen. A brick wall had been blown into the next-door neighbour’s garden, with metal wreckage strewn around both. A number of white-suited SOCO officers were working the garden.
‘They’re mainly looking for the rest of his body,’ she explained.
‘Who was it?’
‘Local optician. Peter Chappel. Wasn’t he who you were here to see?’ she asked, puzzled.
Kirsty shook her head. ‘This was the last address I could find for my Jane Doe discovered on Friday night.’
‘With the finger missing?’
‘Exactly.’
‘And you know who she is now?’
‘A tip-off from a collar. Information to barter. Vice Squad alerted us. Her name is Adriana Kisslinger. Romanian. Busted back home for prostitution.’
‘And here?’
‘Working as a contract nurse. Dropped off the radar some months back. She was working at Stoke Mandeville.’
‘So Serious Crimes aren’t going away any time soon.’
‘They won’t when they find this out, no.’
‘You haven’t told them?’
‘I didn’t know, did I? Anonymous tips have to be checked out. I was just following up an old address on a possible ident. You know how it works. So what happened here, exactly?’
‘Peter Chappel had a barbecue planned for this afternoon. Came home from his shop after sorting out some paperwork. Put the wine to chill in the fridge and came out here to get the grill going.’
‘It was a gas barbecue?’
‘Range-style, three-burner. Propane gas cylinder in the metal oven. He turned the dial, pushed the ignite button. And … Boom!’
‘There was a leak?’
‘Looks that way. Like I said, we thought it was accidental.’
‘Think again,’ said Kirsty Webb.
Chapter 79
CHLOE, LAURA AND Hannah all shared a three-bed apartment in a student-accommodation block.
I nodded at the security guard we’d had placed at the entrance to the building. She wasn’t in uniform and I was discreet about it. The authorities still didn’t know that we had Hannah back safe and we wanted to keep it that way. Time enough for explanations and recriminations later.
Priority one was getting Harlan Shapiro back. His daughter’s rooms were on the ground floor. I keyed in the entrance code at the door and walked into a brightly lit warm corridor with rugs on the floor, flowers on a side table and modern artwork on either wall between the doors to the student apartments. To the right as I walked in was the students’ kitchen. Far fancier than the one I remembered from my student days.
Sitting at the table was Suzy, drinking a cup of tea, and Sam Riddel doing likewise. Herbal for him, no doubt.
I threw Suzy a slightly critical look. ‘I thought I said to stay with Hannah?’
‘She had a visitor.’
‘Laura?’
‘No.’
I knew they hadn’t let Chloe out. I had the hospital on speed-dial. With Chloe things were going well. They were talking of moving her out of intensive care. Which was good. But no way were they letting her home yet. Which was bad.
I snapped back to the present. ‘So who?’
‘Her tutor. Professor Kidman.’
I smiled, briefly. Not like Suzy to be jealous. But then I realised she wasn’t being jealous. It was a good call – the professor did look like the actress.
‘Annabelle,’ I said.
‘Annabelle?’
‘How did she know?’
‘I guess Hannah called her.’
‘You let her use the phone?’
‘Didn’t say not to,’ Sam joined in.
They were right. I hadn’t. ‘Could make things complicated, word gets out,’ I said.
Suzy smiled, but her eyes were deadpan. ‘Maybe you could have a word with Annabelle? Buy us some time.’
‘Yeah,’ I said.
I knocked on the door and, after a pause, walked in. Hannah was dressed in a bathrobe. Her hair was wet.
She was being hugged by Professor Weston who smiled gratefully at me as I entered. Hannah didn’t move for a while, her head nestled against the older woman’s shoulder.
Annabelle gave her back a reassuring pat. Like a surrogate mother, which I guess she was in some ways. Apart from her age. A surrogate older sister, maybe.
‘Thanks for bringing her back to us,’ Annabelle said.
‘De nada,’ I replied. And I was right, it was nothing. All I’d achieved was to swap one hostage for another and pay the kidnappers five million pounds for the privilege.
Hannah straightened herself and moved away from the professor. ‘Thank you, Mister Carter,’ she said.
‘I told you, it’s Dan. And you can thank me when I get your dad back home.’
Hannah nodded and, although her face had been scrubbed clean and glowed once more with the innocence of youth, there was still a deep sadness in her eyes.
‘So, what brings you here, Mister Carter?’ asked the professor.
‘I think we have a lead.’
‘Really?’
‘A witness.’
Chapter 80
‘A WITNESS?’
The professor looked surprised. ‘I thought there was no one there. Why hasn’t he come forward before?’
‘Who is it?’ asked Hannah.
‘We don’t know yet.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said the professor.
‘We found something on one of the crime scene photos, Annabelle.’
‘What was it?’
‘A scrap of material. Well, not a scrap really, just the part of it that was visible in the photograph.’
‘What kind of material?’
‘A blanket. Belonging, we think, to someone who was sleeping rough.’
‘You think he was there when I was attacked?’
‘It’s possible. He may have seen something. May have a number plate.’ I shrugged.
The professor rubbed Hannah’s back and smiled hopefully.
‘Well, that’s good, then, isn’t it?’ she said.
‘It’s a long shot. But if someone was there when the girls were attacked, when Hannah was taken, it’s something at least.’
‘I just want my dad back,’ said Hannah. Tears starting again in her eyes.
‘And we’re going to get him back. Get dressed, Hannah. We’ve got somewhere safe to take you.’
‘Where?’ asked the professor.
‘Not far.’
‘Give me two minutes,’ said Hannah.
The professor held out her arms and gave her another hug, then stroked her cheek. ‘I’ll only be at the end of the phone if you need me. And if you want, I’ll come straight back.’
‘Are you going somewhere … Annabelle?’ Hannah was clearly not happy.
‘A symposium. Up in Harrogate. Maybe I should just cancel …’
Hannah shook her head. ‘I’ll be fine.’
‘We’ll take good care of her, I promise,’ I added.
Seems I had made that promise before but the professor
fixed me with a considering look and then nodded. ‘I guess you will,’ she said. She took a step towards me and held out her hand.
It was as firm a grasp as I remembered, and as warm. I realised I was holding on a tad long. Annabelle looked at me appraisingly. I held her gaze. Not easy with a psychiatrist. You always think they can see right through you. What am I saying? She’s a woman. Most women can see right through me. I’m like the guy from Chicago. And I don’t mean Walt Disney.
‘You’ll keep me posted, Mister Carter?’
‘Of course.’
Chapter 81
DI JAMES JIGGLED some keys in her hands.
They were the spare keys to the optician’s, a scant hundred yards from where the shop’s owner had been blown into pieces.
‘I’m not sure I should be doing this,’ she said.
Kirsty Webb bit on her lower lip. It was a big ask and she knew that. Going outside the official channels in an investigation was not looked on kindly. The police force was like the army. You had to work together as a team. That was drummed into you every bit as hard at Hendon as it was in any army boot camp.
‘Far as anyone knows, there is no connection between the body in Stoke Mandeville morgue and the recently deceased optician,’ Kirsty said finally.
‘Except we know there is.’
‘You phone it in … and it’s out of our hands.’
‘I know that, too.’
‘There could be some serious kudos going round with this collar if we make it.’
‘And some serious shit either way.’
Kirsty nodded. ‘Risk and reward.’
The Buckinghamshire-based detective tossed the keys in the air and clutched them in her fist.
‘The sisterhood doing it for themselves?’ she said.
Kirsty shrugged. ‘Something like that.’
DI James stepped over to the shop’s door. ‘Come on, then, Alice,’ she said. ‘Let’s go down the rabbit hole.’
She slotted the Chubb key in the lock and turned it. She depressed the door handle and opened the door.
‘Just the one lock?’ Kirsty asked, surprised.
‘This is Chesham,’ said DI James. ‘We don’t have crime in Chesham.’
‘I wouldn’t bet on it,’ said Kirsty Webb.
It didn’t take long to process the shop. A couple of desks, a couple of cupboards, a big filing cabinet with patients’ records, duplicated no doubt in electronic form on the computer.
They had split up. DI James took the front office and reception area and Kirsty Webb checked the back office and examination room.
Half an hour later Kirsty came out to the front, still wearing latex gloves, and looked at her new colleague who was sitting behind the reception desk reading an office diary. ‘Anything?’ she asked.
DI James looked up from the A4-sized book. ‘Chappel kept an office diary. He used it for personal stuff too.’
‘Don’t tell me. He’s made a confession. Death by gas barbecue. It was an elaborate suicide.’
DI James flashed a brief smile and shook her head. ‘If only. It would make our jobs a lot easier if people did the decent thing like that.’
‘People did the decent thing, we’d be out of a job, Natalie.’
‘And that’s the truth. But what we have got here is a list of his guests for the barbecuing he was planning.’
‘And?’
‘Among others we have one of the doctors who signed off on the brain-death certification for Colin Harris, a Dr Sarah Wilde, and the surgeon who performed the subsequent heart transplant, Mister Alistair Lloyd.’
‘One of the people on that list knew that Chappel was planning a barbecue, could have tampered with the gas regulator. Set a leak so that when he switched it on it would explode? Is that what you’re thinking?’
‘Could be. Forensics are working on what’s left of the barbecue. It may show that the regulator was tampered with.’ She shrugged. ‘It may not.’
‘I guess those two from the hospital are worth checking out. See where they were prior to the arranged meeting time. See if they had opportunity.’
‘It’s not the opportunity that I am puzzled by,’ said Natalie James.
Kirsty waited for her to finish the thought.
‘It’s the motive.’
Chapter 82
POLICE CONSTABLE MARK Smith was a tall man.
Somewhat over six foot. He wasn’t sure by how much any more. At one time he was six three but the years on the beat and the ageing process generally meant he rode a little lower in the saddle nowadays. And he didn’t have the heart to measure by how much.
He was in his early fifties and looking forward to retiring sometime in the near future. He had it all planned. Out of the city, off to the coast. He’d leave his uniform behind happily, and swap his baton for a fly-fishing rod. His wife was a history teacher in a state school in Ealing, and she was looking forward to retiring too.
Between them they had a nice pension organised and enough money to buy a small B&B on the South Coast. Community meant something there, and if a man was found lying on the street he wasn’t just stepped over. Mark Smith was happy to be a plain old-fashioned beat copper, and, truth to tell, he was proud of it too. Just because he was looking forward to retirement didn’t mean he thought any less of his job.
‘It’s like that old guy from Greek legend, you know?’ he asked me as we sat by the window in a Middle Eastern café on Old Compton Street, drinking cups of coffee you could have stood up a spoon in and watching half the world throng past.
I nodded. I knew exactly who he meant – we had had this conversation many times before. He continued anyway.
‘Sisyphus, the old geezer punished by the gods for killing travellers and visitors. He had to roll this huge rock up a big hill and, before he could reach the top, it would roll all the way back down and he had to start all over again.’
‘I know,’ I said.
‘And you know what the ironic thing is?’
‘Go on.’
‘It’s not the travellers or the visitors who die out there on those cold streets …’
I looked out of the window at the heat shimmering off the pavement. Today might have been a preternaturally hot day. But the streets of London could certainly get cold.
Cold enough to kill.
Mark Smith knew that better than most. He was part of the Westminster Police’s Safer Streets’ Homeless Unit, the SSHU. They dealt with about sixteen thousand or so homeless people who slept rough on the streets each year. No matter what the weather. Up to two hundred a night sometimes.
I passed the photo across the small ridged aluminium-topped table and he picked it up and looked at it. Mark fumbled in his pocket and produced a slim spectacle case, sliding out a pair of reading glasses and setting them on the end of his nose.
He nodded almost immediately. ‘That’ll be the Major,’ he said.
‘Major?’
‘He’s certainly been in the service sometime. That’s how he got the name, plus the fact that he’s from an educated background.’
‘Which is rare on the streets.’
‘More common than you might think.’
Mark was right, of course.
People ended up on the streets for all kinds of reasons. Mental-health issues. Children running away from abusive homes, adults fleeing from the demons they could no longer confront. Many of the homeless people on the streets of London were like the Major – ex-servicemen and women battling with alcohol and depression. A vicious circle of self-medication that spiralled out of control.
I finished my coffee and stood up. ‘You know where he is?’
Constable Smith looked at his watch. ‘I’ve got a good idea.’
I tossed a five-pound note on the table which just about covered the tip and two coffees, and headed out into the bustle of the metropolis.
I slipped on my pair of Ray-Bans and slung my jacket over my shoulder, following the tall policeman as he led me along Charing
Cross Road towards Tottenham Court Road.
Chapter 83
THERE ARE A number of soup kitchens, plus day and night drop-in centres, for the homeless in London. If you know where to go.
Part of PC Mark Smith’s job was to let people know. Some people were made homeless through a change of circumstances – the breakdown of a relationship or the loss of a job, for example. Their homelessness could often be a temporary state, but for others it was a way of life. For these people there was a pattern to their lives on the street and Mark Smith got to know them pretty well.
Not all the centres were open on a Sunday, but St Joseph’s off Tottenham Court Road ran a soup kitchen on Sunday afternoons, between services.
Sure enough, the Major was where PC Smith expected him to be. A number of people, young and old, were gathered around the van which was parked outside the church.
The man was instantly recognisable. Had a dark brown tartan picnic blanket from Aquascutum draped over his shoulders, despite the heat. He was sitting on the church step, sipping on a large styrofoam cup of soup.
He looked up at us as we approached. His eyes seemed sharp, focused – he could have been forty or he could have been sixty. He had long grey curly hair and an unruly beard and, although he was ill-kempt, he looked clean. He took care of himself as best he could, that much was evident.
He nodded to PC Smith, gave me an appraising look and then saluted me. I smiled. It was a good sign. I saluted him back.
He nodded, pleased. ‘I thought you were military.’
‘Ex.’
‘RMP?’
‘You’re pretty good at this.’
‘You’re with him.’ He nodded at PC Smith. ‘You walk like military. Hold yourself like military. Reckon you could handle yourself if push came to shove.’
‘It has been known.’
‘So what do you want with me?’
‘We’ve got a couple of questions for you, major.’
‘I wasn’t there,’ he said. Then his body convulsed in a hacking cough, soup spilling onto the step. He shuffled sideways, away from it.
‘We’ll get you some more,’ I said.
‘I still wasn’t there,’ he mumbled, looking at the floor. His eyes were slightly out of focus now.