Dead Old (4 page)

“I’m starving, Oz.” Bev was ferreting in the bottom of her capacious shoulder bag.

“Again?”

She pursed her lips. “I was going to offer you my last Polo. But sod you.” She popped the mint in her mouth.

Oz rolled his eyes. “There’s a shop on the corner. What do you want?”

As Oz took off in search of sustenance, Bev ran through a mental checklist. Thank God the headache had gone. So had Marty Skelton. He was at Highgate now and any interviews there wouldn’t
be making the news. The Beeb crew had departed too, after giving statements and leaving contact numbers. Christ knew what the guv would have to say about the cock-up.

“Morning, morning. Not late, am I?”

Bev looked up with a smile, genuinely pleased as well as relieved to see the pathologist, Harry Gough. She always reckoned Harry had the look of Richard Burton about him. The old boy was a real
smoothie in an Armani; a ladies’ man through and through. It was difficult to believe he was retiring at the end of the year. Bev’d miss him like hell.

“Mr Gough. How you doing?”

He gave her a quick once-over. “By the look of it, a damn sight better than you, Beverley. Been burning the candle at both ends again, have we?” The resemblance to Burton was
shattered the second Harry opened his mouth. His voice was pure Hackney gravel.

“New look, Mr Gough. Keeps the crime figures down.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Scares the villains to death.”

The mischievous grin on her face faded as she caught a glimpse of someone out of the corner of her eye. A woman was hovering just beyond the crime scene tape. Harry must have brought one of his
lady friends along. It wouldn’t be the first time.

The old goat reckoned his line of business turned them on. Bev sneaked a glance. Yes, definitely Harry’s type. How did the song go? Tall and tanned and lean and lovely.

“Glad to see you’ve still got a sense of humour, Beverley.”

She studied his face. It wasn’t giving anything away but the voice had an edge.

“Oh?”

“You’ll not have seen the telly this morning?” he asked.

“Enough to do here, Mr Gough.”

“Locking stables?”

She had an idea where he was going now. “Stables?”

“As in bolting horses. Surprised you need me at all.”

He was making no effort to keep his voice down. Bev glanced round. She didn’t care if Harry brought along a harem but it was bad form to entertain it at her expense.

“Must admit,” he continued, “I’ve never had a spotty youth on the news give me a cause of death before I’ve even laid eyes on the body.”

Unable to find anything to say, Bev led Harry to the corpse and moved the screen to one side, struck again by how tiny the victim was. They’d found no ID, hadn’t a clue where she
came from. “Looks like she might’ve been living rough, Mr Gough. You can see the state she’s in and she stinks of booze. She could have been dossing in the allotments.”

He shrugged; that wasn’t his territory. Bev took notes from Harry’s running commentary. The most striking discovery was time of death. It was rarely possible to be accurate but Harry
estimated she’d been killed the evening before, maybe as long ago as fifteen hours. Bev glanced at her watch. It was just coming up to ten a m now, so they were looking at Sunday evening,
some time after seven.

It was also obvious the murder couldn’t have been committed here. There wasn’t enough blood, for one thing, and there was no way the body could have lain undiscovered for that long.
She’d been killed elsewhere, and the body concealed. That meant there had to be another crime scene, maybe two.

Harry rose to his feet, voice tight with emotion. “There was no need for all this, you know, Bev. A single stab to the heart would almost certainly have killed her. There’s a dozen
here, possibly more. I can’t be definite till she’s been cleaned up. The bruising and abrasions to her face mean she was still alive when he gave her a beating. Savage bastard. Probably
got a kick out of it. As for the flowers – sick beyond belief.” He snapped off the surgical gloves and shoved them in a plastic bag. “I’ve done here. I’ll pencil in
the pm for late afternoon. Bill not about?”

It was pretty obvious that Detective Superintendent Byford was still to put in an appearance. Harry’s query was a tad casual. Bev shook her head, well aware of the point the pathologist
wasn’t making. He put a hand under her elbow, steered her away from the body and lowered his voice. “When’s the blond bombshell back?”

She rolled her eyes. Goughie knew as well as anyone about DI Powell’s suspension. There was even a sweepstake doing the rounds and the smart money was on the scenario that he’d be
back but busted down a rank. Harry was on a fishing trip in search of the best odds.

“No idea,” Bev said. “They’ve got some bloke coming over from Coventry. Danny Shields? Sergeant at Little Park Street?” Harry worked all over the region for the
police; he might well have come across the guy.

He turned his mouth down, shook his head. “I’d have thought you were more than capable of standing in for Mike Powell.”

Harry Gough didn’t do meaningless platitudes. The unexpected praise caught her unawares. Even so, she was surprised to feel tears pricking her eyes. She turned away sharply. “Wrong
sex, Mr Gough. You need balls.”
Not go round breaking them.

Harry laughed out loud. “Beverley!” He tapped her on the shoulder. “You’ve got more balls than Wimbledon, Sergeant. Don’t play the little woman with me.”

He was right. Maybe she just wasn’t up to it on the day. Or maybe she’d put too many noses out of joint. Sod it. She didn’t know anymore. She turned and gave him her best
smile. “Sorry, Mr Gough. Bad day.”

“As well as night?” He tipped an imaginary hat. “Catch you later.” He started to walk away then stopped, turned back. “And Beverley?” he winked, “If the
worst comes to the worst, you can always borrow my scalpel.”

She shook her head as she watched him disappear, then made her way to the front of the property where the lads were still waiting for a green light. Passing on the gist of Harry’s findings
didn’t take long. The next stage was mostly down to scenes-of-crime. A single fibre could secure a conviction; forensics would be bagging and tagging for hours. It was painstaking and
painfully slow. And given how the scene had been contaminated by every Tom, Dick and Jeremy, the job would be infinitely harder.

There were a few thoughts she needed to work on. She was making her way back to the car when the mobile rang.

“Sergeant. Highgate. Now.” The governor obviously thought he needed no introduction. The line went dead.

“Guv. How kind of you to call,” she simpered. “Thank you so much, Sergeant,” she attempted Byford’s basso profundo before reverting to the simper. “No,
please, sir, don’t even mention it.” She gave the phone the finger and curled a lip. “Miserable old sod.”

She clapped a hand over her mouth as she heard a click on the line. Shit. The guv had hung up. Hadn’t he?

3

Behind a desk at Highgate, Detective Superintendent Bill Byford held the phone at arm’s length, his lips tight, eyes narrowed. Miserable old sod, huh? Nice one, Bev. He
placed the receiver back on its rest and gave a deep, almost resigned, sigh. He supposed he could have bawled her out, but maybe she had a point. She was only doing her job, but a pat on the back
wouldn’t have done any harm. Assuming there was any space among the knives. OK, that was an exaggeration, but Bev – witness that little performance – could be her own worst
enemy.

He shook his head, aware of a tightening across his eyes that could signal the start of a headache. The tension had nothing to with Bev’s latest charm offensive. Byford had more pressing
concerns on his plate. Less than an hour before, he’d been sitting ill at ease in his GP’s surgery. For weeks now – actually, he conceded, more like months – he’d been
suffering stomach pains, nausea and, more recently, weight loss. At a well-covered six-two, he knew it wasn’t obvious, but it would be if it continued. Byford had looked up the symptoms,
finding they could be caused by a number of conditions. His big fear was that it was the big C. Not many people called it that nowadays, but when Byford was growing up everyone did. This morning
he’d been pinning his hopes on an all-clear, but the grey area dished out by a doctor half his age felt like a no-man’s-land. A solitary signpost indicated
more tests,
when
Byford desperately wanted a result.

The fear and frustration partly explained his peremptory summons to Bev Morriss. That and the tetchy call he’d taken from Danny Shields even before he’d taken off his hat and coat.
Recalling it now, he had to admit the new DI’s criticism had been skilfully veiled. Byford was surprised it had been made at all. He sighed, ran both hands through thick black hair greying
only at the temples and wondered idly if it was too late to start doing the lottery.

He glanced up as his admin assistant, Helen, breezed in without knocking. Again. He toyed with the idea of asking if she’d hurt her hand, but it seemed churlish, given she was bearing
coffee and a Danish.

“Cheer up,” she said. “It might never happen.”

Byford considered the remark rich coming from a woman who habitually dressed like a funeral director. What was it with women in black? He searched her face for subtle signs of concern on his
behalf. He’d had to tell her he was popping out but not where. No one knew about the medical appointment, not even his sons, Rich and Chris. They had families of their own to worry about.
Hopefully there’d be nothing to burden them with anyway. Byford saw sickness as a sign of weakness; he’d admit to it only if forced.

“What’ve we got?” He took a bite of pastry as Helen ran through calls he’d missed during the time away from his desk. There was nothing earth-shattering, at least no more
than usual. He pointed to the wodge of paperwork jammed under her elbow. “I’ll sort that –”

“I know,” she smiled. “Later.”

He waited till she’d left the office, then adopted his usual pose: chair tipped back, feet on the desk. There was a stack of printouts from Kings Heath to wade through. What was left of
the Danish was halfway to his mouth again before he remembered the doctor’s words on diet and exercise. Pulling a face, he lobbed the pastry into the bin and hastily covered it with an old
Private Eye.

The reports made uneasy reading. Byford regarded Marty Skelton as a time-wasting distraction. The man was a scrote. If the price were right he’d sell his grandmother. But would he murder
someone else’s? Byford doubted it. Either way Marty had to be eliminated from the inquiry – or not – quickly. And that left a scenario that had been preying on the
detective’s mind since the minute he’d heard about the murder.

He took his feet down and stretched across the desk for a bulging file. Operation Streetwise had been ongoing for nearly a month. A gang of youths was targeting elderly women. They were getting
away with paltry amounts of cash and bits of jewellery but the attacks were becoming increasingly violent.

Byford took out the police stills of the victims and studied each at length. If it turned out there was a link between these incidents and the killing of the old woman, he’d made a bad
call. Worse, much worse, was the possibility that the death might have been avoided. If he’d issued more warnings, increased public awareness – would it have made a difference? It was
impossible to say but he was still finding it difficult to forgive himself.

He glanced at his watch; the briefing was in an hour. It would be the first opportunity for the whole team to see the new DI in action. Had that played a part in his decision to assign Marty
Skelton’s initial interview to Bev? Possibly. She’d not been best pleased; she’d probably seen enough of Marty for one lifetime. But hopefully she’d get enough out of the
little creep to give the briefing a steer. A few public brownie points in his sergeant’s direction wouldn’t go amiss.

He sat back, briefly closed his eyes. He was concerned about Bev. The qualities he admired in her were those that some of his senior colleagues couldn’t abide. An original who spoke her
mind wasn’t a million miles from being a loner with a big mouth. Policing was teamwork, taking orders; it was tough if you had no time for the manager. He hoped for everyone’s sake
she’d get along better with Danny Shields than she had with Mike Powell.

One thing was certain: he couldn’t allow concerns about his health to impinge on the inquiry. If that meant delegating more than he liked, so be it. He carried his coffee over to the
window, pressed his forehead against the cool glass. The answers were out there somewhere.

So was the killer.

Jake loved the view from Starbucks in Borders. He could look at it all day. The Selfridges building was like some alien starship or a giant bouncy castle. Lots of people hated
it but Jake thought it was ace. Though why the hell the planners had left the old church slap bang in the middle of all the cool stuff, he’d never know. It hadn’t got a prayer. Retail
therapy was the current religion round the Bullring. Jake sipped espresso, taking in the sights. The massive windows looked across bits of the city you’d otherwise miss. Jake liked that idea:
a different perspective, a new way of seeing things.

The reflection was useful, too. He lifted a hand to touch up his hair. It’d taken a while to get used to the spikes but he loved them now, loved the way everyone avoided him, never made
eye contact, just darted shifty glances when they thought he wasn’t looking. It was like carrying round a placard that said Hard Bastard. People were so dim, really, when your average
psychopath looked like Mr Normal. He shrugged. Made no difference either way. Jake never dropped his guard.

He winked at the blonde showing her thong a few stools down but she blanked him: silly bitch. He sniffed and curled his lip, then turned his stool to survey the surroundings. Yep, he liked the
Bullie. It was definitely good for business: full of rich pickings. He looked down at the wallet in his hand: classy Italian leather, still warm from the fat bloke’s bum. There’d been
such a crush on the escalator when Jake brushed up against him, the lard-arse had actually said sorry. Jake shook his head. What was that all about? People apologising when it wasn’t down to
them. Not Jake. He’d had his hand down the bloke’s back pocket at the time and he sure as hell wasn’t sorry. Opening the wallet, he counted the notes: nearly £200. Not bad.
The others were still on the pick; they’d pool the lot later. Jake would get the biggest cut. Only fair. They’d be nothing without him.