The Murder Bag (21 page)

‘So everyone leaves a shadow.’

‘Yes.’

‘Good,’ I said. ‘Because there’s someone I want you to find.’

‘Bob the Butcher,’ she said. ‘Because he broke your back. Because he made you the laughing stock of millions. And because he could have killed you if he wanted to.’

‘Not Bob,’ I said. ‘I don’t think Bob has anything to do with these murders. But the man I want to find just might. He would be somewhere in his mid thirties. Name of Edward Duncan.’

She found herself a pen. ‘Edward Duncan,’ she said as she wrote. ‘Do we have a date of birth?’

‘I can get you a possible one but I don’t want you to treat it like gospel.’

‘OK. What does he do, this Edward Duncan?’

‘He paints.’

‘Houses?’

‘Cities.’

‘Should I put it in the Action Book?’

I smiled at her. She wasn’t bored now.

‘This one’s off the book,’ I said.

As the afternoon grew colder and darker I stood on the edge of the ploughed field, watching twelve uniformed officers from the Specialist Search Unit inching across it on their hands and knees, fingertip-searching for evidence, the manual labour of police work.

A photographer was standing in the middle of the field staring at something on the ground. I walked over to him and we both looked at a dip in the field containing a single perfect footprint. On one side of it the photographer had placed a yellow marker with the number 1, and on the other side a plastic ruler. He hummed to himself, as cheerful as a wedding photographer, as he began setting up his tripod, lights and ladder.

‘Not you, is it?’ he grinned, nodding at the footprint.

‘I don’t think so,’ I said.

‘Well,’ he said, adjusting his tripod. ‘Maybe it’s the farmer’s wife. And maybe it’s our man. You never know your luck, do you?’

I agreed that you never knew your luck and headed towards the woods, my back aching in protest at being forced to cross a ploughed field.

The SSU van was parked just beyond the tree line and another dozen officers were sitting around it gulping down tea and bars of chocolate, their clothes filthy from the fingertip search, their exhausted faces as black with sweat-streaked dirt as coal miners’.

I came out of the trees and on to the playing fields of Potter’s Field. In the distance the wind whipped the flag of St George that flew above the main building. I’d just started towards it when I was caught by the smell of burning leaves. Smoke was drifting up from behind a tiny stone cottage at the edge of the rugby pitch. I walked round the back of it and found an old man unloading a wheelbarrow piled with dead leaves on to a small bonfire.

‘Excuse me, sir?’

I showed him my warrant card. He peered at it and nodded. Then carried on with what he was doing. Whatever you do, get their name and address, they tell you at Hendon. It’s the very first thing they tell you.

‘May I ask your name, sir?’

‘I’m nobody. I’m just the groundsman.’

A strange accent that contained both Eastern Europe and the West Country. I watched him unload the wheelbarrow. There was something wrong with his hands. He glanced at me and saw that I was still waiting for an answer.

‘Len Zukov,’ he said.

‘Where you from, Len?’

He gave me a sharp look. ‘I’m from here. How about you? Where you from?’

The accent was Russian, maybe.

‘I’m from here, too,’ I said.

‘Then we’re both from here.’

‘Worked here long, Len?’

He was silent for a moment, as if adding it up.

‘Thirty years,’ he said.

‘Do you remember these boys?’

I was holding out a photograph of the seven boys in their Combined Cadet Force uniforms.

He shook his head. Too quickly?

‘Many boys come and go,’ he said.

‘This was taken in 1988. In your time. You don’t remember them? Have a closer look. The King twins? You don’t remember identical twins?’

‘No.’

The worst thing about being a policeman? People lie to you. They lie all the time. They lie because they are afraid of getting into trouble, they lie because they are afraid of getting into deeper trouble, and most of all they lie so that you will go away.

But maybe he was telling the truth. It was a long time ago, and boys had come and gone in their thousands.

‘But you know Mr Philips,’ I said. ‘The sports master. And you know that someone tried to kill him.’

The old man looked at me as if I was some kind of idiot.

‘Everybody knows,’ he said.

I watched him load more leaves on the fire and then saw what was wrong with his hands. The fingers did not open. He was building his fire with two fists closed by what looked like the advanced stages of rheumatoid arthritis.

‘It was in the woods,’ he said. ‘Far from here.’

When the last of the leaves were on the fire he brushed his closed fists on his trousers and we walked to the front of the cottage. There was a figure standing in the doorway – the physiotherapist Mallory and I had seen on the playing fields with the disabled men. Now I saw that he was not wearing a mask. Most of his face had been lost to burns.

I held out my hand.

‘Sergeant Tom Monk,’ he said. ‘Formerly of the Royal Green Jackets.’

His shockingly burned face split with a wide white grin. He looked like a member of some lost race; I could not believe there would be a time when his face would not shock me. He clicked the heels of his Asics trainers, and Zukov smiled for the first time. He seemed much more relaxed in the presence of Monk.

‘You do rehab here?’ I asked Monk.

‘One afternoon a week,’ he said. ‘I’m mostly down the road. I’m the senior physio at Barrington Court. Or the senior physio’s assistant. Yeah, that’s more like it.’

I had heard of Barrington Court. It was a rehabilitation centre for severely wounded veterans, most of them victims of IED blasts in Afghanistan.

‘Mr Waugh lets us use the running track on Thursday afternoons,’ Monk said. ‘Quite funny really, lending us a running track when most of us don’t have any legs.’

I automatically looked down at his faded jeans. Monk laughed.

‘Oh, not me,’ he said. ‘I’ve still got all my parts. Some of them are just a bit overcooked.’

I smiled weakly.

‘How’s he doing?’ Monk said, suddenly serious. ‘Mr Philips.’

I shook my head. ‘You know what? I really don’t know, Tom.’

Because on the other side of the playing fields I could see the flag of St George being lowered, and stopping when it reached half-mast. The phone in my jacket began to vibrate.

I pulled it out and saw that it was PC Greene, and that he had already tried to call me five times.

Peregrine Waugh was crossing the playing fields towards me, his gown flowing behind him.

But I already knew.

Piggy Philips was dead.

19

I WAS WAITING
for Ben King in the central lobby of the Palace of Westminster, the most beautiful space in London – a high-vaulted octagonal hall with a giant central chandelier and an intricately tiled floor, lit by natural light that pours through massive windows.

The central lobby bustled with life. Constituents waited to talk to their MP. Political journalists gossiped and snickered and fawned. MPs and peers came and went from the corridors that led to their chambers – the Lords to the south, the MPs to the north.

With its statues of kings and queens and a national saint over each of the four exits – St George for England, St David for Wales, St Andrew for Scotland, St Patrick for Northern Ireland – the central lobby felt like more than the core of Parliament, more than the place where all the corridors of power converged.

It felt like the ultimate seat of British power.

I watched Ben King emerge from the corridor that led to the House of Commons. He was in a group of men surrounding the Prime Minister. King saw me and peeled away from the crowd.

We shook hands and walked out to the Terrace Pavilion, where there were white tables and chairs and people drinking tea. We stood with our backs to them all, the Palace of Westminster rising above us, and the Thames flowing far below.

‘My condolences,’ I said.

‘Thank you.’

‘You were with Guy Philips when he died.’

‘Yes. I spent the last night in his room.’

‘Did he say anything? I’m sorry but I have to ask you.’

Ben King stared at the river without seeing it.

‘It was four in the morning. He was sleeping. I was sleeping. I awoke because the machine that monitored his heart rate was making a different sound. I called the nurse. She was sleeping too. When she came to the room she immediately called the doctor. But it was too late.’ At last he looked at me. ‘Guy died in his sleep. I know what you’re asking. But he never woke, he never said anything about who attacked him and he passed away peacefully. And I am profoundly grateful for that small mercy, detective.’

‘And you were with him every night he was in the hospital?’

‘Yes. Guy never married. His parents were dead. My brother and I – all of his friends – were what he had instead of family.’

‘I think he saw his killer’s face. I’m certain of it.’

‘He didn’t say a word.’

A young blonde woman was standing in the entrance to the Terrace Pavilion, trying to attract King’s attention. He raised his hand to show that he understood. But his manners were too good to rush me.

‘There’s something else,’ I said. ‘You – and your brother, and Mr Khan – you’re all going to be issued with Osman Warnings.’

‘Osman Warnings?’

‘If the police have reason to believe that someone is at risk of being murdered or seriously injured we issue an Osman Warning – it’s both an official warning and an offer of police protection.’

King almost smiled. ‘It sounds rather like a way of the police trying to protect themselves from future accusations of negligence.’

‘There’s an element of that,’ I agreed. ‘My superiors will be writing to you to offer protection and to give advice on the steps you can take to ensure your safety.’

‘Is that really necessary? Perhaps for Salman – who, I understand, is now too afraid to leave his house. But I’m surrounded by high security in the House. And Ned is out of the country and has the entire British Army watching over him. I think he’s more at risk from the Taliban.’

‘We have a duty of care to warn people when they are in mortal danger,’ I said. ‘On Hugo Buck’s desk there was a photograph of seven boys at Potter’s Field. You probably know the photograph.’

‘Yes, I know it.’

‘Now only four of you are still alive.’

He was watching the river again.

‘Three,’ he said. ‘James Sutcliffe killed himself in Italy.’

‘Of course. My apologies. Three of you.’

Then he looked at me. ‘I want to put an end to this,’ he said. ‘I want to help you in any way I can. I want to assist you in apprehending this murderer.’ He gripped my hand and he held my eyes.

‘I know,’ I said. ‘I know you do.’

We walked back inside and said goodbye.

As he crossed the central lobby, people approached him – lobby journalists, other MPs, women and men, all of them with the half-smile of the truly smitten – and he had a word for each of them. But he kept walking, he never broke that long easy stride, eventually disappearing into the northern corridor that leads to the House of Commons; and for the first time I appreciated his true power, and how much he had to lose.

It’s a five-minute walk from the Palace of Westminster to New Scotland Yard, and even though I did not have an appointment in Room 101, I thought it would be all right. They don’t get many visitors in the Black Museum.

‘I saw your film,’ said Sergeant John Caine, the keeper of the gate. He looked at me with his hard eyes, but there was no mockery in them. ‘Everybody saw your film, didn’t they?’

‘Will you watch it with me again?’

He was startled. ‘Why?’

‘It only lasts a minute. I want to ask your advice about something. I know you’ve seen it already, but will you watch it with me?’

There was an old computer on his desk. He pressed some keys and it wheezed into life.

‘My one might be quicker,’ I said.

He snorted. ‘All mod cons at West End Central, eh?’

I took out my Mac and we waited in silence as it powered up. We remained silent as I went to the social network site and found the profile page of Bob the Butcher. I began scrolling down all his postings about killing pigs and destroying worlds.

‘This one,’ I said.

I clicked on the link, and there it was, the mirth with no mercy of ‘The Laughing Policeman’ as the camera watched me crawl. Just as the pig appeared, I hit pause.

‘You see that?’ I asked Sergeant Caine. ‘By my right hand?’

He leaned closer. ‘A white line.’

‘A straight white line painted on grass,’ I said. ‘It’s a touchline. It’s the edge of a rugby field. The rugby field that’s closest to the trees at Potter’s Field.’

We stared at the image together. Then he shrugged.

‘So what?’ he said.

‘Doesn’t it prove that Bob the Butcher isn’t the killer?’

‘Why does it prove that?’

‘That film wasn’t shot when I got a good hiding. Whatever Bob tells his devoted followers, he had nothing to do with it.’

Sergeant Caine had a think.

Then he said, ‘You reckon that whoever had a knife to your throat is not the same person who stuck a camera in your face.’

‘He can’t be, can he?’ I said. ‘Whoever put me down wouldn’t have followed me across a ploughed field and through some woods just to shoot this funny little film, would he?’

‘How far did you crawl?’

‘I was running through those woods for perhaps five minutes. It would have taken a lot longer to crawl back. But that film wasn’t taken anywhere near where I was attacked. It wasn’t taken at the pigpen at the farm. It wasn’t taken in the ploughed field. It was filmed when I was back at Potter’s Field. It was filmed on the edge of the playing fields.’

‘So who put it on the internet? Where did Bob get it from?’

‘I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. That school has a thousand boys and they all have phones with cameras. There are reporters crawling all over the place. The staff. Everybody’s walking around with a camera crew in their back pocket. What it proves – what I
think
it proves – is that Bob the Butcher is full of bullshit. Whoever took that film didn’t kill anyone. And neither did he.’