Dead on Demand (A DCI Morton Crime Novel) (12 page)

'You got an address?' Morton hoped her home might give clues as to who would want her dead, unless it was a random killing – which wasn't unheard of, not in Caledonian Road.

***

Morton decided to carry out the search of Vanhi Deepak's flat himself. He could have sent a deputy, but years of experience meant he spotted things that more junior officers missed. It wasn't a big flat, but waitressing had never paid well and central London was excessively expensive.

He didn't know if the flat was shared, so he knocked before using the key he had obtained from her landlady. A young Indian man answered wearing old-fashioned flannel pyjamas. He looked tired, as if he hadn't slept well. Morton wondered if the rings under his eyes were the product of a guilty conscience.

'Detective Chief Inspector David Morton, Metropolitan Police. May I come in?'

Without waiting for an answer David moved towards the door, forcing the young man to retreat through the nearest doorway to the safety of the sitting room.

'I'm here regarding Ms Vanhi Deepak,' Morton announced once they were both sitting down.

The younger man simply looked at him without saying anything, and Morton took the opportunity to visually sweep the room. On the mantelpiece were a number of photographs of the victim. Several of them featured her with the young man sitting opposite him; they were clearly a couple.

'What's your name?' Morton asked.

'Jaison.'

'Do you live here?'

'Yes.'

With that formality out of the way, Morton handed him a copy of the search warrant authorising him to look around the apartment of the deceased.

He watched Jaison read it. His eyes appeared to gloss over as he read. It appeared his English was not up to dealing with legal jargon.

'How long have you been in England, Jaison?' He watched the younger man closely as he asked. Facial expressions often gave away far more than the verbal answer.

'Not long.' Jaison tried to be vague and obscure the truth, but no police officer was going to buy it.

'I'm not from immigration, Jaison.'

'Four years. I've lived here with Vanhi for two.' The shy witness was beginning to relax. He may have had something to hide, but it was his immigration status rather than having killed someone.

'You're a couple.'

'Yes. I love her.'

'I'm sorry to inform you that Miss Deepak's body was found this morning outside the One Eyed Dog.' Informing the families of the dead was every policeman's worst duty, one any of them would avoid if they could so choose. Morton had been duty-bound to break the news to families dozens of times over the years, and it never got any easier.

As most relatives did, Jaison broke down immediately. Tears began to stream from his hazel eyes, his head sank, and he would not meet Morton's gaze. Now was not the time for mourning however.

'We didn't find a purse or a key on her. Was she in the habit of carrying one?' The absence of any valuables on her person could indicate robbery was a motive.

'No, sir, she didn't need it at work, and when she come home, I always let her in.' His English began to break down under stress, becoming fractured and disjointed.

'Who would want to kill her?' Morton preferred to be direct. Beating around the bush simply wasn't his style.

'Nobody, sir.' It soon became clear that Jaison knew nothing of value. Morton could have tipped off immigration – the man was in the UK illegally – but his conscience would not allow him to be party to the deportation of a man who had just lost the love of his life.

Instead he ventured into the cramped living areas of the apartment to execute the search warrant. It yielded little, but he took her mobile and her laptop for the IT department to investigate. Data storage devices often proved valuable data mines in criminal investigations – Morton hoped that this occasion would be one of those times.

***

There had been no DNA at the One Eyed Dog other than that of the victim. The crime scene techs had been hopeful that the gloves found in the bin might yield epithelial cells. The skin was a rich source of DNA, and would have made it easy to put the gun in the hand of its owner.

There were a number of fingerprints at the scene, which was no surprise for a public thoroughfare that was used by the residents of an adjoining flat block.

A few fingerprints were found on the fencing, as if people had taken to leaning on the wall in the alleyway. The landlord had explained that since the smoking ban indoors had taken effect, the smokers had taken to loitering in the alleyway to get their nicotine hit.

The sheer number of prints would make heavy work of processing the scene. In all, over two hundred prints were lifted, but not all of those would be unique.

It took a while to process fingerprints. The lifting had to be done carefully, and then every fingerprint had to be individually scanned into the system. Once that was done it was all down to the computer. The first stage of processing the computer would undertake would be to compare the fingerprints to each other to determine how many unique individuals were at the scene. One finger from each of these people would then be compared with the Police Fingerprint Database.

The database was extensive, as every suspect, whether or not they were then charged, was printed and their data added into the system. With many crimes being repeat offences the database proved immensely valuable.

It wasn't exhaustive, however, as there was no general requirement for the public to be fingerprinted. This gap meant that first-time offenders, as well as those coming from outside the UK, would not be on the system, and the prints would be flagged as unknown.

There were thirty-two unique individuals, and virtually all of them were unknown. Of the few individuals who were on the system, none had a record for violence so there was no prime suspect.

CHAPTER 20: HOPE

'Dear Mr. Murphy, I am delighted to inform you that we wish to offer you the position of editor-in-chief.'

Edwin blinked, and reread that line again to make sure he hadn't imagined it. The letter arrived that morning by snail mail, postmarked two weeks earlier. He had been offered the Vancouver job. It had seemed an ideal move when he was a single man escaping a loveless marriage and a lonely London existence. Now that he was a homeowner again, with full custody of his little girl, the rose-tinted view had begun to wear off.

Edwin didn't know anyone in Canada. It was a lovely place to visit, but visiting a place and living there were two entirely different propositions. He would talk it over with Chelsea of course, even if she didn't really understand. He'd probably have to discuss it with Eleanor's parents too, though how they could object when Eleanor had been planning to take Chelsea to New York for work herself Edwin didn't know.

At least Edwin didn't have to rush his reply. The Canadians had given him a thirty-day grace period to make his decision, and he wouldn't inform them until it was necessary to do so. He had other irons in the fire, and if they didn't come off he might just take the role to avoid a protracted period of unemployment.

***

There were fingerprints all over the big bags in the alley. Not only did the One Eyed Dog use the alley, but local residents did too, so the fingerprints could belong to virtually any of them.

Morton zoned in on a pair of gloves found near the shotgun. After flipping them inside out, the forensics team had been able to find several smudged partial prints inside, but there were no epithelial cells so DNA was out.

Gunshot residue was present on the outside of the gloves, but it had been commingled with rubbish so it was impossible to exclude the possibility that it was transfer.

The partial fingerprints from the glove were a match to a record , but the file wasn't readily available. It was marked as having been sealed by judicial order, which probably meant that the fingerprint belonged to a juvenile defendant. Juvenile prints were routinely expunged from the database, but sometimes the file managed to evade the recycle bin. Morton was, for once, thankful for the IT department's hideous inefficiency.

It took Morton's pet prosecutor, Kiaran O'Connor, considerable effort to persuade a family law judge to unseal the file. If defence counsel had been present, the judge probably would have sided with them, but it was an unopposed application with only the prosecutor and the judge in the courtroom at the time. In the end, it was the connection to an open murder investigation that swung it, and Morton was soon sat at his desk with a Starbucks coffee, reading about the owner of the print.

The print belonged to a Barry Fitzgerald. He was resident in London, but council records confirmed he was not local to the Caledonian Road area. It was therefore unlikely that the presence of his fingerprints on the bag had been put there innocently. Still, without further corroboration it was highly speculative, and David Morton wanted to approach him with kid gloves on. If he was the killer he was obviously armed, and therefore dangerous.

CHAPTER 21: SUFFERING

'Hello, handsome. You got a parking permit yet?' Jeanine joked as Yosef walked through the front doors of the hospital. She was Zachariah's nursing assistant, and Yosef had been on first-name terms with her since Zach's first visit.

Yosef shook his head sadly, but did manage a weak smile.

'Routine visit?' Zachariah had regular visits to the hospital, designed to monitor his deterioration. They say that at rock bottom, the only way is up. But Yosef seemed to be bouncing along the bottom.

'No. Not today.'

Zachariah was doing well, compared to most Tay-Sachs sufferers.

He couldn't crawl, sit or turn over unassisted. He was registered blind, had a severe hearing impairment, and was slipping into permanent paralysis. His mental development was slow, but he was alive and in relatively little pain.

Like all victims of infantile Tay-Sachs, Zach suffered from infections often. This one wasn't serious – the antibiotics were working. But that might not be true the next time, or the time after that.

It was that realisation, that Zachariah would be taken from her, that drove Yosef's wife, Zachariah's mother, to take her life shortly before the baby's first birthday.

In her suicide note she decried the helplessness and desperation that had meant that the whole family was victimised by the disease. Yosef's father often said that the measure of a man isn't his success in life, but in how he picks himself up after failure. In that regard Yosef proved himself a worthy son. He had endured so many knock-backs, and never once given up on Zachariah.

When his wife had fallen to pieces as Zachariah's condition worsened, he had continued to provide financially, as well as nursing the boy all hours of the day and night.

Soon it would become his duty to go one step further in relation to the boy. He would not allow him to suffer for years before an infection finally got to him. Yosef would sooner send him to join his forefathers in heaven. This much faith he still had. No god could fail to provide in death for a boy who had suffered so much in life.

***

'Barry Fitzgerald! It's the police. Open up,' Morton called out loudly, then paused to listen for any movement within. In his experience the guilty often fell straight into fight or flight mode. Adrenaline started to pump through their system, and they often ran out of the rear door, or tried to escape through a window or fire escape.

Deputies had been posted outside to watch for any activity, each with a fuzzy e-fit.

Inside, Barry was quietly grabbing a knife from the kitchen. He knew the police would barge in at any moment, and he would only get one chance to get past them. He had stuffed all his spare money into his trouser leg pocket, and was pulling a second layer of clothing on as he heard the crunch that indicated they were breaking the door in.

On the third crunch the door swung inwards, coming off its hinges and hitting the floor with a fierce thud. Barry was crouched underneath the breakfast bar in the kitchenette, and watched the policeman enter in the reflective microwave door above him. When the man turned to go into the bedroom Barry threw the knife towards him and ran out of the door. He heard the man yell, and knew he had hit his target.

The policeman would be radioing for backup at any moment, and Barry had to make good his escape. He knew the police would be on both the front and the back door of the flat block, so he went up one flight before knocking on the door of another flat. As soon as the occupant opened the door he punched her in the jaw, making her fly backwards and land, unconscious, with a thud.

His victim was eighty-two, and hard of hearing. Her television was on maximum volume, and that masked the sound to the adjacent flats. Barry shut the door behind him quietly, and then made himself at home. He knew the police would search the surrounding streets first; it was the logical thing to do. He didn't know where he would go next, but they'd be watching his flat now.

Stripping off the extra layer of clothes he had donned to disguise his appearance should the policeman ID him, he flicked the television over to "Countdown" and mentally played along with the numbers game.

***

Blood was slowly dripping out of Morton's leg where he had been stabbed. He had been smart enough to leave the knife in his leg where it had struck him, but he knew his body was going into shock. That was as dangerous as the blood loss, if not more so.

Out of instinct, Morton had radioed for help immediately, but knew that the men posted on the doors would stay there to prevent the suspect from escaping rather than assist him. He had trained them himself, and it was what he would do.

The deputy on the front door radioed back. A medical team was en route, estimated time of arrival, ten minutes.

By the time they had arrived, Morton had passed out. He awoke four hours later in the Royal London, with twenty-six stitches in his upper leg. The wound had required a blood transfusion, and he was still woozy when he came to. The first question on his lips was not how bad his injuries were, but 'Did we get him?'