36
The soup was grey, greasy, gross. Of the day it said on the board. It didn’t specify which day. Not this one, Bev thought. This had been the longest day she could recall. It was ending in the canteen at Highgate because she was too depressed to face an empty house, too scared to be alone with her thoughts, too wired to switch off. Oz was opposite, forking an omelette round his plate. Bev’s throat wasn’t up to anything more solid than the consommé; her appetite wasn’t even up for that.
“Come on, Sarge. You’ve not tasted it.” He handed her a spoon.
Her smile was shaky, matched by the fingers she was trying to close round it. She slammed it down, watched crumbs jiggle on the plastic cloth. She was pissed off. Not with the cutlery. She leaned her elbows on the table, rested her head in her hands.
She shouldn’t be there by rights. She knew that. They’d wanted to keep her in the General overnight but she’d walked, desperate to be in on the preliminary interviews with Bell. Byford – a seething Byford – had refused. She couldn’t get it out of her head.
He had thrown not so much the book as the library. He hadn’t raised his voice; hadn’t had to. The thunderous look on his face was enough. She’d shown scant – make that no – regard for procedure. She’d kept colleagues in the dark and could have got herself killed. She’d endangered DC Khan, and potentially damaged the force.
Part of her had silently rebelled; the tirade was unfair. Bell was in a cell for Christ’s sake. Then she recalled not only her time-wasting obsession with Hawes but her utter conviction that Brand was the killer. That led to a flashback in the park: caught between a rock and – for hard place, read knife. She’d come so close to the knife. It was a place she didn’t want to go.
Sure that Byford was going to kick her off the squad – perhaps all the way back to uniform – she’d kept quiet, glad when the storm eventually blew itself out and he’d told her to get out of his sight.
That was then. This was now. And Oz had recently emerged from one of the later interviews. They were by a radiator and she had a Blues scarf round her neck. She still had the shakes. She leaned forward, hands clamped in armpits.
“Talk me through it, then.”
He took a bite; couldn’t speak through rubbery egg. She knew his game: playing for time. She sighed. He actually felt sorry for her. She’d got it so wrong she could go on Mastermind. Name: Beverley Morriss. Specialist subject: cocking it up.
“Come on, Oz. I’m a big girl now.”
He laid his fork on the plate, took a sip of water. “Look, Sarge, anyone could’ve — ”
“Cut the crap, Oz. Anyone didn’t. Just me. It was me who made the mistakes. Jumped – no, make that leapt – to conclusions.”
She looked round, met the curious glances of a couple of plods three tables away. She gave a less than regal wave but at least used all her hand.
“You hadn’t seen the tapes,” Oz said. “You only had what Cassie gave you.”
Cassie had confirmed the boring old fart’s identity but knew nothing about Henry Brand’s co-star. Bev blamed herself. She should have pushed the girl harder; got a description, age, anything. No. She’d hared off to retrieve the videos – ignoring the bigger picture.
Unlike Oz. He, she’d since learned, had gently drawn out Charlie’s erstwhile minder Danny Glover. The man had coughed enough to put the pimp behind bars till he picked up his pension. Charlie was already in custody getting a taste for porridge. Living off immoral earnings was the least of his worries. Not when there was porn, blackmail, extortion, abduction, kidnap and attempted murder.
One of Danny’s tip-offs had led to a police raid on a house in Balsall Heath. Vicki Flinn was there, in a bad way but alive. Seeing Lucie would be the best treatment. Arrangements were in hand. Annie Flinn had taken the baby to her sister’s. But only after Charlie Hawes had borrowed Lucie for a night, a little chilling reminder to Annie what could happen if she blabbed.
It was all second-hand news to Bev. Vicki refused to see her, let alone talk to her. It was another stick Bev was beating herself with.
Oz handed another. “Why’d you leg it like that? You knew where I was.”
She gazed at her blackened nails; scrubbing had only touched the surface. She didn’t know the answer. Leaving a message on a mobile was pathetic. There were signs all over the hospital telling people to switch the damn things off. She’d known he wouldn’t get it while he was in the building. She’d done it deliberately. But why? It was another place she didn’t want to go.
She shrugged. It was a cop-out. He acknowledged it with a shrug of his own.
Bev delved in her bag and came up with a crumpled pack of ciggies. He pushed his chair back and for a second she thought he was leaving. He must have seen her face.
“You’ll be wanting an ashtray.”
God. It must be worse than she thought. Oz loathed smoking. He came back with a saucer and a smile of sorts. She lit a Silk Cut, took a deep drag. It had been small beer so far. Now it was time for the brewery.
“Come on, Oz. You were in there for hours. What’s the scumbag saying? What’s he putting his hand up to?”
“It was weird. At first he wouldn’t open his mouth, then – ” Oz’s hands traced floodgates opening.
Oz reckoned it boiled down to greed and revenge. Bell had been one of Hawes’s hired hands. Charlie had brought him on board to service the gay brigade. Enter Henry Brand. Bell had been Brand’s favourite whipping boy for years. Paid well over the odds. Bell certainly couldn’t afford to let Michelle take a cut of the fairy cake.
“Bell said she was cutting her nose off to spite her face.” Oz shook his head. “Can you believe that?”
Bev snorted. “He’s an arse. I can believe anything. Why did he kill her? Why not just rough her up?”
“He was after Charlie as well.”
Bev nearly choked. “What?”
“Bell hated Charlie almost as much as he hated Brand. He reckoned they were both buggering him about.”
She groaned at the awful pun.
“Yeah, okay. Bad choice.” Oz waved away a puff of smoke. “Fact is, Bell had been multi-skilling. He’d turned into Charlie’s regular blue-eyed bully-boy. It gave him a fix on Charlie’s dealings: massage parlours, illicit videos, blackmail. Bell reckoned he was in line for promotion. Junior partner at least. But Hawes wasn’t coming to the wicket.”
If Oz said anything about maidens over, she’d bop him.
“Bell killed Michelle to protect his source of hard-earned cash,” Oz said. “But he’d make sure Charlie went down for it. He had it all planned. He was biding his time, waiting for the right moment. Shell’s argument in the street with Brand brought it to a head. Lil wasn’t the only witness. Bell saw it too. It was Shell’s death sentence and – if Bell’s plans had panned out – Charlie’s life sentence.”
Bev nodded, mentally ticking Bell’s duff pointers. The scrunchy with Charlie’s hair. Michelle’s blood in Charlie’s motor. The wig to copy Charlie’s look, and conceal a shaven scalp. Bell had been doing his worst to point the police in the wrong direction – and she had obligingly followed the signs.
She saw a few more then, not erected by Bell. A dodgy bike-chain soaking in Annie Flinn’s sink. Tiny particles of fibre contaminated with oil. Dark stains on Bell’s jeans. She shook her head. Jack Crane hadn’t seen a jogger. He’d bumped into Steve Bell fleeing the scene of Michelle’s murder. Bell with long dark hair. Like Charlie.
From Bell’s point of view, she supposed it had a sick twisted logic. But why Louella? Where did a girl like Louella fit in? She asked Oz . There was a pause before he replied.
“It had nothing to do with her dad being a cop. She took a shortcut. Bell was hanging round the park. He needed another victim. He had evidence to plant. Heat to turn. Hawes to burn.”
Bev closed her eyes; still saw Louella; saw all the girls.
Oz leaned back, folded his arms. “As for the rest of it, Bell’s buck-passing so fast you can’t see his hands move. He’s laying everything at Charlie’s door. The attack on Cass. The death threats. Your postcard.”
“Regular Postman Pat.” Bev sniffed.
“And Freddie Florist. Hawes was behind all that, according to Bell.”
“You don’t sound too sure.”
He looked at Bev. “Yeah, well, Hawes hasn’t opened his mouth yet.”
“What about the attack on Jules?”
Oz hesitated. Either he didn’t know or he didn’t want to tell.
“Come on, Oz. Give.”
“Bell’s admitted to it. He’d been following you. Saw you talking to her.”
She closed his eyes; saw another stick.
“It’s not down to you, Bev.” Oz reached out a hand but stopped just short of touching her.
“But why risk it?” Bev’s puzzlement made her voice tight. “Surely he’d have known it would destroy everything he’d done to frame Charlie. Hawes was in custody at the time. By attacking her, Bell was letting the scumbag off the hook.”
Oz shook his head. “Ah, there’s the irony. Bell isn’t the sharpest knife in the box…”
She winced but didn’t interrupt.
“… He didn’t realise that we had enough to hold Charlie. He thought Hawes was back out on the streets. Said he needed one last push to convince us that Charlie was the killer.”
Bev groaned as the implication sank in. “Convince me, you mean!”
Oz tried to smile reassuringly, but she could see the pain.
“If you ask me, it’s all bollocks,” he insisted. “I think he’d lost it by then. Bell just didn’t care. He was getting off on it. Couldn’t control himself. Listening to him in there, Sarge, he was enjoying it all. Bragging, showing off, know what I mean?”
“No. Thank God.” She shivered at the thought. “Did he say anything about the night outside my place?”
“Oh, that was a co-production. Charlie’s idea, but Bell was only too willing to oblige. He was on a nice little earner for that. ￡500. You were lucky.”
She widened her eyes. “I was?”
“Yeah. Charlie only wanted you scared. If Bell’d taken you out Charlie would have broken his neck.”
“Shame he didn– ” She saw Oz’s face. “Yeah. Right. Okay.”
“Anyway, when Bell’s not buck-passing, he’s snivelling. Blaming everyone but himself. To hear him talk, he’s as much a victim as the girls.”
“Go on.”
“You name it, he’s had it: abuse, violence, neglect, bullying.”
“Suing everyone in sight, is he?”
“No.” Oz said. “Just you. Joke,” he added, a tad tardily to Bev’s way of thinking.
“Frankly, my dear,” she drawled through a yawn. “I don’t give a damn.”
Oz rolled his eyes. “Don’t tell me. ‘Tomorrow is another day’.”
Another day. She smiled. She liked the sound of that.