The Garden Party (21 page)

‘And in those seven years their circumstances change,' Swannell explained. ‘They can get so they are not frightened any more, not frightened at all.'

‘That's right,' Brunnie added as he watched colour begin to drain from Herron's pinched face. ‘I'll tell you a story, Johnnie,' Brunnie continued. ‘There was once an old blagger who was dying, and he knew he was dying – not old, only in his fifties, but he was definitely on the way out – he only walks into a police station and provides information and details about a murder that took place years earlier. He was part of the team that did it and he wanted peace of mind when he was dying. We dig up the body, and his two partners, who also did the business on their victim, well they're still in good health and they go down for life. And the first boy, he gives evidence in court; he lives just long enough to do that.'

‘So people's circumstances change,' Swannell added. ‘They can sometimes lose their fear, you see, and you somehow put the frighteners on about thirty women, but that was just a short-term solution which could backfire on you because it's also given us thirty potential witnesses. We just need two or three to give evidence.'

Herron remained silent but he could not conceal the worried look in his eyes.

‘And we are tracing them,' Brunnie added. ‘We have officers tracking them down now, and if they're brasses they'll very likely be on the PNC database.'

‘PNC?'

‘The Police National Computer,' Swannell explained, ‘recorded by their real names and any alias or nickname, and these girls network, remember, they know each other. We trace one, we'll get the name of another and we trace her . . . we'll get the name of another and quite soon we'll have the names of all the girls who were at Arnie Rainbird's coming home party.'

‘That's how it works, Johnnie,' Brunnie said. ‘The law can reach a long way back in time to get information to convict somebody in the present, and right now one of our colleagues is chasing up a girl, a girl who was at the party.'

‘Which one?' Herron was clearly alarmed.

Swannell tapped the side of his nose with his finger. ‘You know better than to ask that question, Johnnie, but take it from me, that girl will be chatting to one of our colleagues right now.'

‘And you know the real encouragement we can offer, Johnnie?' Brunnie added with a smile.

‘What?'

‘Witness protection, Johnnie.' Brunnie continued to smile. ‘Witness protection.'

‘That's it.' Swannell nodded gently. ‘That's the big invitation. Some people can't go into witness protection because of their wider circumstances: children in school, need to be close to a relative, in a good, well-paid job and other such considerations.'

‘For others,' Brunnie added, ‘it comes like a Godsend; it comes to them like a mother. Their lives are in such a mess that they can only dream about starting a new life with a new identity, new National Insurance Number, a new address, a new town, a whole clean slate, and helped with a little learning from past mistakes. People used to do it all the time in Victorian times, Johnnie, sneak out of the house with the family silver, pawn it and buy a railway ticket to a new life. Can't do that today, not now we are all on some computer or other, but . . . but . . .' Brunnie paused, ‘if one or two or three of those thirty girls are now in such a mess that the offer of witness protection would be like manna from heaven to them . . .'

Herron continued to pale.

‘It's often the way of if, Johnnie.' Swannell shrugged. ‘You see some people will agree to go into witness protection because they want to see justice done, but others, well others don't care much about justice, but they see witness protection as a way out of it all and a whole new start, and that can be a very powerful motivation. It's very inviting. And either reason suits us, so long as we get evidence.'

‘We can trace people very easily, Johnnie,' Brunnie added. ‘A name, a nickname, an approximate age and we can begin to knock on doors, and, like I said, we are already talking to one of the girls who was at the party. But if you're telling the truth and nothing heavy happened at the party in question, then you've got nothing to worry about, but if something did happen to interest the Murder and Serious Crime Squad . . .'

‘That's us,' Swannell added with a smile.

‘Then,' Brunnie continued, ‘well, then we have up to thirty potential witnesses to tell us what happened, and it only needs just one or two to climb into the witness box in exchange for a new life somewhere. Don't get up, Johnnie.' Brunnie smiled gently. ‘We'll see ourselves out.'

That evening Frankie Brunnie stood at the window of his flat overlooking Walthamstow High Street, staring with awe at the vast crimson sunset that was the sky over London Town. Below him the pedestrianized street was empty save for a few solitary foot passengers, the market traders who occupy the area during the working day having long departed for home. The shops also were locked and shuttered.

Frankie Brunnie's lover, the nurse, who had just a few days previously told him of the ‘puffy ankle test', the failure of which being an indication of a weak heart, approached him from behind and placed his hand on Brunnie's shoulder. Frankie Brunnie smiled and placed his own hand upon that of his lover, and then turned and kissed him.

H
arry Vicary breathed deeply, slowly leaned forward, resting his elbows on his desktop, and clasped his hands together, interlocking his fingers as he did so. Sitting in front of his desk was his team, Victor Swannell, Frankie Brunnie, Penny Yewdall and Tom Ainsclough, all remaining silent, waiting for him to speak. Vicary glanced to his left and pondered the buildings on the south side of the river, which then, strong and solid, were glowing becomingly. He turned and addressed his team. ‘A lot of smoke,' he said softly, ‘in more ways than one, but nonetheless an awful lot of smoke without any fire, no substance. We seem to be edging closer to Arnie Rainbird; we're crowding him and his crew very nicely, very handsomely indeed. Herron we have visited, Charlie Magg is inside already looking at a murder charge if they pull the plug on his wretched victim. Do we know if he is still on life support? The victim, I mean.'

‘We don't know, sir,' Tom Ainsclough replied promptly. ‘It's not our investigation so we won't be notified as a matter of routine, but we can find out easily enough.'

‘Do that will you, Tom? If Charlie Magg knows he's looking at a murder charge . . . looking at a conviction for murder, in fact, not just a charge of murder . . .' Vicary unlaced his fingers, ‘then he might, just might, be willing to lubricate the machinery of justice and begin to work his way to an early parole. Even if he serves ten to fifteen years it means he is unlikely to die in prison and that can help persuade him to be of assistance to us.' Vicary paused. ‘Did we find out anything about the two murders he mentioned when you two visited him?' he asked looking at Penny Yewdall and then at Tom Ainsclough. ‘I mean the ones where he definitely wasn't present and it was all down to Arnie Rainbird trying to make the right sort of impression upon the right sort of person.'

‘I tracked them both down, sir.' Penny Yewdall sat up in the chair. ‘They are both cold cases but the murders were exactly as Charlie Magg described. He really had to have been there. One poor bloke trussed up and rolled off the roof of a block of flats, another tied across the railway line in front of the Harwich to London boat train express; both about twenty years ago when Rainbird was a rising star, a man in the ascendant. I have asked the collator to cross-reference both those cases to Charlie Magg and have Charlie Magg recorded as a principal/major suspect. I imagine he'll be visited by the Cold Case Review Team, once he is convicted, be it for manslaughter or murder, unless you wish . . .'

‘No, no.' Vicary held up his hand. ‘We won't muddy our waters, leave both cases to the CCRT, but ensure he is cross-referenced to this case –' Vicary patted the thickening file to the right-hand side of his desktop – ‘the Convers and Tyrell murders.'

‘Yes, sir.' Yewdall scribbled a note on her to-do list, which she drew up at the back of each notebook she kept, transferring any undone tasks to each new notebook.

‘So, smoke, but, as I said, still short of an arrest.' Vicary leaned back in his chair. ‘So, solutions team, ideas, suggestions . . .'

‘I would like to trace Elizabeth Petty,' Yewdall said. ‘It's . . . well, hers is the only other name we have for any of the women at the party, so-called, and she would have seen what happened. Sandra Barnes' description of her running down the inclined path to the platform at High Barnet tube station stays with me. She was clearly a very shaken girl. She might be willing to talk now. She sounds like she has a bit of previous, some small-scale stuff, so we'll have a record of her. I mean, if nothing else, she might be able to give other names of women who were at that . . . event, and one by one we might trace the women who were there, until we find one or two who will talk, sign a statement and get into the witness box.'

‘Yes,' Vicary murmured, ‘it won't be easy but it's worth a shot. Ideally we need at least two witnesses, but Elizabeth Petty sounds like a good place to start, in fact she sounds like the only place to start. Do you want someone with you on that, Penny?' Vicary scribbled on his notepad.

‘I don't think so, sir, thank you.' Penny Yewdall smiled confidently. ‘It's another one-hander. It sounds a bit like yesterday's trip to Chesterfield; sometimes it's just better to leave the girls alone to talk girl talk.'

Harry Vicary grinned broadly. ‘Leave the girls to do what the girls do best . . . all right, that's your task, you talked yourself into a job there.'

‘Yes, sir. I ought to be safe, just calling on a woman.'

‘And sending a male officer with you might look a bit over the top and so be counterproductive.' Vicary paused. ‘But you know the rules; you all know the rules.' He glanced at the officers sitting in front of his desk. ‘Let this office know where you are at all times. Tom . . .'

‘Yes, sir?' Ainsclough stiffened in his chair.

‘It's time we knew more about Tyrell and Convers; somehow they linked to Arnie Rainbird and they did so in some way that led to their murder at the so-called garden party. Some way that caused great annoyance to some person or persons unknown, but most likely it was to Arnie Rainbird. They were reported as claiming that they didn't tell anybody anything before they were topped. It sounds like Arnie Rainbird believed they had grassed him up, rightly or wrongly. It also sounds like they were kept somewhere against their will, had their teeth knocked out, were starved and then brought to the garden party to answer to the East End sense of justice for informing on Arnie Rainbird. If we can prove that to have been the case, then Rainbird's going back inside.' Vicary wrote on his pad. ‘That's a definite single-hander, just a lot of paperwork to wade through; a paper trail to follow. But please let me know if you have to leave the building.'

‘Yes, sir,' Tom Ainsclough replied as he caught a whiff of Penny Yewdall's perfume, and as a telephone in an adjacent office was heard to ring twice before being answered.

‘So.' Vicary looked at Swannell and Brunnie. ‘It sounds like you two gentlemen work very well together when it comes to leaning on felons, especially those who believe that they are in quiet and comfortable retirement. You seem to have rattled “Snakebite” Herron's little cage and done so quite soundly, if not actually poked at him with a sharpened stick pushed between the bars of said cage, which is, of course, just what we wanted you to do. He'll be rattled now, very well rattled, and he will have made a few phone calls after you had left, one of which will have been to Arnie Rainbird. So how about you doing the same thing to him? Visit Arnie Rainbird just to let him know we are interested in him.'

‘Love to, sir.' Brunnie smiled.

‘Good . . . good.' Vicary turned again to Tom Ainsclough. ‘Tom, can you also find out what we know about the villain who is known as “The Baptist”?'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘He sounds like the man who actually put an end to the sufferings of Convers and Tyrell, though we'll also be charging Charlie Magg and the rat-faced guy with their murders as well. If . . . if we can find someone to come forward and make a statement, and that's a big “if”.'

‘Yes, sir . . . “if”, as you say.' Tom Ainsclough wrote on his notepad, ‘The Baptist'.

‘It would indeed be a very pleasing result of this inquiry if Herron, Rainbird, Magg, The Baptist and the rat-faced guy were to stand in the dock of the Central Criminal Court in a few months' time. But, as we agree, for that to happen we need evidence. It doesn't sound like we'll get any forensic evidence; the two golf clubs with blood from the victims and fingerprints of Charlie Magg and the rat-faced guy all over them will be long gone. The pool will have no trace of Convers' blood or Tyrell's blood after seven years and after it was scrubbed clean by the women under the sergeant major-like supervision of Sandra Barnes' ex sugar daddy.' Vicary paused. ‘Any result in this case is going to be because of witness statements and that will be your job, Penny, at least in the first instance.'

‘Understood, sir,' Penny Yewdall replied.

‘You see, I can't picture any of Arnie Rainbird's crew coughing, not to the extent that we need, anyway. Even Charlie Magg won't cough to that sort of extent.' Vicary glanced at his desk top. ‘So, it seems to me that the only possible witnesses will be numbered among those women who were lured to the garden party, which is why I think it will be your job to find them, Penny, as I said, at least in the first instance.'

‘Fully understood, sir.' Penny Yewdall smiled and nodded. ‘Fully understood.'