The Borgia Ring (7 page)

Stepney, Saturday 4 June, 9.05 p.m.

The hooded figure was carrying a black metal box about the size of a large camera case. He moved rapidly along the silent, empty corridor until he reached the control panel for the university’s CCTV system. After snipping the cables, he closed the cover. At the front desk and in the monitoring room in the basement of the main administration building, the surveillance monitors turned blue.

Moving swiftly on to the stairwell, the intruder took the stairs three at a time. By the fourth floor he was out of breath and stopped for a moment, bent forward, hands on knees. Then he eased open the door into another narrow corridor. A sign on the wall announced he was in the Department of Plant Biotechnology, Queen Mary College.

A door with wire mesh over its window panel was locked. Beside it was a keypad. With latex-covered fingers he punched in the code for which he had paid hard cash earlier that day. There was a satisfying click and he eased the door inwards. A sallow glow emanated from overhead safety lights. He could just make out rows of steel benches, gas taps, sinks, racks of chemicals. Along one side of the large lab stood a set of floor-to-ceiling cupboards. Next to that a gas cabinet, its thickened glass door closed and locked. On the far side was a window on to the room beyond. Inside, he
could just see the outlines of many plants crammed into a tight space. Foliage pressed against the inside of the glass.

He was about to walk that way when he heard voices from the corridor beyond the lab. A square of massicot appeared at the door as someone flicked on the lights in the corridor. He ducked down out of sight at the end of a row of benches. Someone tried the door handle.

‘It’s locked,’ a voice said.

‘Good,’ came the reply. ‘Let’s check upstairs.’

He waited a few beats before straightening up, straining to listen. Then he walked slowly towards his goal. The door into the greenhouse was opened with the same code as for the lab door. He closed it carefully behind him.

It was stifling inside, the smell of damp, and rotting soil, almost overpowering. He paced slowly along the rows of plants, neatly bedded in evenly spaced pots. He avoided brushing against the leaves and only touched a plant with his gloved fingers when it was necessary in order to get by.

He had no interest in plants, otherwise he might have appreciated the wonderful colours in the greenhouse: the rich ruby reds, sunset shades of orange, the cheeriest yellows and sombre jungle greens. Instead, his mind was focused on one thing, his objective. Passing the end of the second row and scrutinising the third, he saw them at last, a pair of small unassuming plants at either end of the row. One had narrow, murky green leaves and small red flowers, a plant that would be easy to overlook. The other had broad leaves with pale green veins spreading seemingly at random on their upper surface. The stubby plant rose from a large bulb only half-submerged in soil.

He opened the metal case. It was empty. Taking a pair of cutters from his pocket, he severed the first plant at its base and lowered it into the box, folding its leaves to fit it in.
Stopping at the second plant, he cut through its stems and likewise folded them into the box. Closing the case’s lid, he clipped it shut.

At the door, he listened for voices outside. Then he eased it open and slipped out into the corridor and down the stairwell. Walking casually past the desk at the entrance to the building, he emerged into the hot night and the glare of headlights on Mile End Road.

Stepney, Sunday 5 June, 6.20 a.m.

‘You look pleased with yourself,’ commented Jack Pendragon who had just returned to his desk with a large cup of his favourite Bolivian coffee, black, no sugar.

‘That’s because I am,’ Jez Turner replied, striding towards him while eyeing the cup. ‘The CCTV disks arrived at two this morning. I couldn’t resist.’

‘Help yourself then,’ Pendragon responded, nodding towards the cafetière.

‘Cheers, guv.’

‘So what have you found?’

‘Best see for yourself, sir.’

The media room was three doors down the corridor. It was stuffed with electronic equipment: two large flat-screen monitors, a video mixing desk, and a wall of metal units comprising DVD players, hard drives and digital enhancers. Turner sat at the control panel and Pendragon leaned towards the monitors, letting his young sergeant deal with the technology.

‘As you’d expect, there’re a few cameras on Mile End Road. Working on the principle that our man would have disabled the cameras at the site almost as soon as he got there, I went back over the footage from all the CCTV in the area between one-forty-five and two-fifteen.’ As he talked,
Turner flicked through the seven separate camera positions along Mile End Road, Globe Road and White Horse Lane, the three major roads within a few hundred metres of the construction site.

Cars passed in and out of the area, picked up in one camera to be followed in one or more of the others, before vanishing again out-of-frame. A white van could be seen on five separate cameras as it travelled up White Horse Lane, left into Mile End Road and then next right into Globe Road. It disappeared into the night north of the monitored zone. What they really wanted was someone to approach Alderney Road, a turning off Globe Road. Then for that someone to take a right into a small side street that wound round to Frimley Way. There were no cameras on Alderney Road or Frimley Way, but they could see that anyone turning off Globe Road would just be visible from a camera set close to the Fox’s Head pub, twenty or so metres from the junction.

Turner ran his fingers over the video mixing desk and fast-forwarded the images from a set of cameras. They watched as the time display sped by. A red car flashed past, followed a few moments later by a taxi. A pedestrian appeared at the edge of the image and walked briskly towards the deserted pub and out of sight.

At 2.07.14 on the digital timer, a solitary figure in dark trousers and an open-necked shirt appeared in the first camera on White Horse Lane. He walked quickly towards Mile End Road. Turner switched cameras as the figure reached the main road and turned left. He switched again and they could see the figure approaching the camera, crossing the street and turning into Globe Road. Shifting to the camera at the Fox’s Head, the two policemen now had their sharpest view of the figure so far. As it approached the
pub, it happened to look around and then slightly upward, scanning the road ahead.

Turner stabbed the pause button. ‘Anyone you know?’ he asked and glanced up at his boss.

‘Can you get that image any clearer?’

‘I was just about to,’ Turner said and leaned towards the rack of equipment on the right wall. He turned a dial and punched a couple of black plastic keys on a pad.

‘Let’s close in …’ He stabbed more buttons and the picture changed. Lines grew sharper and at the centre of the image a short, bulky figure was caught mid-stride. The man’s features were suddenly recognisable.

‘Bring him in,’ Pendragon said in a monotone.

From their position in an anteroom on the covert side of a two-way mirror, DCI Pendragon and Sergeant Turner watched Tony Ketteridge fidgeting in his chair in Interview Room 1. Dressed in shorts and a garishly patterned shirt, he was sweating profusely. Too many buttons left undone revealed an expanse of chest hair and a gold chain. There were damp patches in the fabric of his shirt, under the arms and around his abdomen. His hair was a mess and he had a two-day-old grey-flecked beard. He reminded Pendragon of the pictures of Saddam Hussein taken after US troops had dragged him from his hideout.

‘He looked even worse half an hour ago,’ Turner said, as though he had read his boss’s thoughts. ‘Took him ten minutes to answer the door. Wife’s at church, apparently.’

Pendragon led the way into the interview room next door.

‘What the hell’s this all about?’ Ketteridge protested immediately.

The DCI had a mug of coffee in his hand. Without replying, he settled himself into a chair and switched on the digital recorder set at the end of the metal table between him and Ketteridge. He recorded the time, date and other details of the interview, then removed a sheaf of glossy prints from a clear plastic folder. He slid one of the images taken from the surveillance film across the table towards Tony Ketteridge. ‘Did we catch your good side?’

The blood drained from Ketteridge’s face. He looked away and heaved a heavy sigh. ‘It’s not what it looks like …’

‘Oh? So what exactly is it, Mr Ketteridge?’

Ketteridge screwed up his mouth. ‘I wasn’t going to the site.’

‘You were very close to it … and at a very odd time of night.’

Ketteridge bit his lip and closed his eyes. Pendragon studied the man’s podgy face. He looked utterly exhausted.

‘I suppose there’s no bloody chance that what I say can be kept from the missus, is there?’ he said finally.

Pendragon glanced at Turner who was standing a few feet away, close to the wall. ‘Well, that would depend on what you had to say.’

‘Yeah, right.’

‘Mr Ketteridge … I don’t imagine I need remind you of the seriousness of the situation. Amal Karim died sometime between one-thirty and two-thirty yesterday morning. The CCTV at the site was put out of action at fourteen minutes past two that morning, and you were seen not a hundred metres from there at seven minutes past. What would you conclude from that?’

Ketteridge had his palms flat on the table, his head tilted to one side. ‘I was on my way to Hannah’s flat,’ he said. There was a momentary flash of defiance in his eyes and then he sagged, cupping his head in his hands, elbows propped on the metal table. ‘And that’s my fucking marriage down the toilet!’

‘Does Hannah have a surname?’

‘Hannah James, flat two, sixteen Mitchell Lane. It’s a little cul-de-sac off Frimley Way. She’s on the game. I’ve been seeing her for over a year.’

Pendragon was in his office when Turner called from the car. ‘The woman confirms his story.’

‘Damn it,’ Pendragon hissed. ‘Okay, Sergeant, thanks.’

He put down the phone and stared blankly at his computer screen. Hannah James could be lying, he thought, but there was no proof. They were back to square one.

The photographs of the skeleton lay on the desk beside his coffee mug. Such pathetic remains, he thought. Little more than an imprint of a human being. But these bones had once been encased in flesh; a human being had lived and breathed and walked the earth, a person with friends and family, lovers, children perhaps. Now all these people were long dead, as were their children and their children’s children.

He snatched up the phone and called Turner back.

‘Just had a thought,’ he said. ‘That computer-enhancement software in the media room … can you enhance stills as well as video?’

‘’Course.’

‘Okay, get hold of the SIM card from Tim Middleton’s mobile. There’s one particular shot of the skeleton where the ring is in clear view. Do what you can with the image.’