33
The minute Daniels stepped through the front door of the station, Hank Gormley caught her eye, sending a clear message that something was up. The exchange was so brief, Naylor didn’t appear to notice. But when Gormley said he needed her ear, the Super narrowed his eyes.
‘Something I should know?’ He was no fool.
‘Long story . . .’ Gormley flicked his eyes in the direction of four civilians waiting to be seen: two middle-aged women, an elderly guy in a wheelchair, and a skinny young man who looked a little distressed. Dropping his voice to a whisper, Gormley said, ‘Mind if I grab the boss a mo, guv? I’m sure she’ll fill you in later.’
Naylor held his gaze. ‘This isn’t trivial office politics, is it?’
Gormley shook his head. ‘No, sir. It’s not.’
Rolling his eyes, Naylor didn’t argue. Without another word, he spun on his heel, punched a number into a keypad and pushed open the door, disappearing along the main corridor and into the labyrinth beyond. When he was out of sight, Daniels turned toward her DS, a question in her eyes. Gormley nodded to the interview room and then followed her in, closing the door quietly behind them.
‘George Milburn,’ he said.
Pulling out a chair, Daniels slumped down on it and crossed her arms. ‘What about him?’
‘The young lad in reception is his grandson, Elliot.’ Gormley let out a worried sigh. ‘He claims the old man was rolled, possibly even murdered. Apparently he was carrying a large amount of cash on him and now it can’t be found. Had the old man collapsed on any other street, I’d have offloaded the job to another incident team, Kate. I’m sorry—’
‘You don’t need to explain. I made it perfectly clear I wanted any activity within that beat area logged and brought to my attention.’ For a moment, she stared at him, processing this new information. No wonder he was worried. They already had two murder cases to deal with. Yet another complication was the last thing they needed. The very thought of it sapped her energy. ‘What exactly did he tell you?’
Gormley had spent quite a while with the lad, he told her. The interview had thrown up more questions than answers, but it had proved useful too, given him a fresh perspective on Ralph Street. Crime pattern analysis was all well and good, but if you really wanted to know what went on in a particular area, nothing could beat talking to locals. In that sense, policing hadn’t changed in decades.
‘He said a lot of residents complained about being disturbed at night, being sworn at, called names. George did too, even rang the police on occasions, asking to remain anonymous in case he was singled out as a grass. The lad claims it’s gone on for months and our lot have done sod all to stop it. You know the area, Kate. Kids round there couldn’t give a stuff about a blue uniform. They laugh and stick a finger up if challenged. Community Support can’t cope, simple as that. They move them on and ten minutes later they’re back, giving the old folks even more grief for calling the law. It’s a vicious circle.’
He was right of course and it made the DCI angry. The police service was not the one she had joined. It had been undermined by politicians obsessed with cutting costs. They had pushed through a succession of measures, recruiting community support personnel at the expense of real police officers, to the detriment of both the force and the communities they served. In Daniels’ opinion, the Home Office needed to stop the rot before the situation got any worse, take a step back and think about the consequences of their actions, support her force to do its job, revert to the in-depth training her generation of recruits had been given. The Police Federation’s concerns had been voiced and discounted by a succession of Home Secretaries who’d sold them out. Morale was lower than it had ever been.
It was a depressing thought.
When George Milburn suddenly collapsed, Gormley had raised concerns that there might be a connection between his death and the fire. At the time, Daniels hadn’t taken it too seriously, but now her mind was all over the place. Could the old man have started the fire? He lived so close, it would have been easy to slip out and back without being seen. Maybe he hadn’t known the child was inside. Had the shock of finding out precipitated his heart attack? Or perhaps he witnessed the arson but was too scared to come forward for fear of reprisals, the stress of that playing on his mind.
Daniels placed her elbows on the table and made a steeple with her hands, her thoughts turning in a different direction. ‘You think the old man was in some kind of trouble?’
‘Like what? Elliot says he was a nice old man who wouldn’t hurt a fly—’
‘He would say that, though, wouldn’t he?’
‘Why d’you ask?’
‘Either these two incidents are purely coincidental or they’re not. If they are, fair enough. But if there is a connection, could it be that Maggie Reid’s house was mistaken for George’s?’ Daniels didn’t wait for an answer. ‘What’s Elliot like?’
Gormley thumbed toward the interview room door. ‘Breath of fresh air, compared to the low-lives normally frog-marched in here.’
‘This missing money bothers me,’ Daniels said. ‘Is he absolutely sure?’
‘One hundred per cent. George took a grand to the garage yesterday to buy the lad a car but it was already sold. They spent some time together at the old man’s allotment and then Elliot put him on the bus. A witness saw him get off the bus and he goes down like a bag of hammers. That was less than half an hour before an ambulance took him to hospital. He couldn’t have spent the money and there were no banks on his way home. Elliot says he wouldn’t use one anyway ’cause he kept his money in the house under the floorboards.’
‘And it’s not there now?’
Gormley shook his head.
Something didn’t smell right in Daniels’ view. Had someone relieved him of the cash on the bus? she wondered. She discounted that. Too risky. Buses had CCTV nowadays. Anyway, George would surely have raised the alarm with the driver. She asked, ‘Where did the money come from, Hank?’
‘Life savings.’
‘Who apart from Elliot knew about it?’
‘Not another living soul, according to the lad.’
‘What did you say to him?’
‘What could I say?’ Gormley hesitated. ‘OK, I said we’d get to the bottom of—’
‘Hank! There’s no evidence George Milburn was murdered!’
‘I know and so does he now . . . I told him I knew the pathologist who carried out the autopsy and that he wasn’t a man given to mistakes. I stressed that there was no doubt his granddad died from natural causes, but I had to accept the possibility that he may – and I stressed may – have been threatened or robbed before that happened. What else could I say?’
Daniels stood up, gathering her bag from the floor. ‘Bet that went down well.’
‘Actually, he accepted it.’ Gormley stood up too. ‘I told you he’s a nice kid.’
‘You did right, Hank.’ Daniels patted his arm as she walked past. ‘Tell Elliot we’ll look into it. But make sure he knows that further enquiries will have to be made and that’ll take time. You better brief the guv’nor too.’
‘Don’t you want to do that?’
‘In a word, no.’ Grabbing the door handle, she turned to look at him. ‘You did good with Elliot. But you’re not the only one with news, Hank. Naylor wants a word.’
‘What the hell does that mean?’
‘You’ll know soon enough.’