Mick slowed down as he reached the commercial unit. The pain in his jaw seemed to vanish in a flash. He could be in and out, damning evidence back in his pocket, within half a minute. He shut the glove box – he wouldn’t need the gun.
He opened the glove box a second later, though. As he turned into the commercial unit, he saw a car parked behind Seabury’s white van.
‘Fuck.’ The panic and the pain returned with dizzying speed. He was too late.
Forty-Four
Cooper
Mac parked behind Cooper’s vehicle and got out.
‘How do you want to do this, Boss?’ Cooper asked as he shook McDevitt’s hand. He hoped he’d done the right thing by waiting for the DCI to turn up, but he couldn’t yet tell.
‘Just be careful around this guy,’ Mac said. ‘His nickname’s Król, so call him that. Keep your distance. Violent thug. Totally unpredictable.’
They went in, the DCI first, and Król was in there waiting for them. And they kept their distance. But not because he was a violent thug. Because he was dead.
‘Know anyone who’d want to do this to him?’ Cooper asked.
‘Half of London.’
The DCI was looking around the floor: Cooper understood: not seeking evidence, but to avoid looking at his slaughtered informant. Cops often felt at fault when people under their protection got hurt.
‘Maybe three-quarters,’ Mac continued. ‘Call the boys down here. The Yard doesn’t pay two mill a year to snitches just to let them get murdered.’
‘You want this one?’ Cooper said. ‘We’ve already got our hands full. We should pass it to—’
He stopped when Mac gave him a stern look that made Cooper decide he’d second-guessed a superior for the very last time. Ever. He cursed himself for trying to challenge the DCI.
‘That’s my informant right there. That’s my reputation lying dead there if I don’t get the bastard responsible.’
Cooper understood but had to bite his tongue. Literally. Operation Nook was only half a day old and looked like it was going to be long and drawn-out. Scope of motive was massive because there were three victims and because of who Grafton had been, and his hardened criminal enemies weren’t eager to talk to the police even to help eliminate themselves from the enquiry. Two large roundabouts close to Tile Kiln Lane, as well as a nearby restaurant with a two-for-one deal and a late-night amateur rugby match meant they’d barely scratched the surface when it came to tracing witnesses and vehicles in the vicinity of the crime scene. Grafton’s wife was still missing, possibly kidnapped. The post-mortems had been performed but hadn’t added much to the story told by the crime scene itself. The crime lab in Abingdon was only just beginning work on what it had been sent, and Grafton’s home was still being searched. And then there were two other ongoing murder cases that the team had to deal with. So, Cooper didn’t think they could spare the time on this one. Not for a low-life criminal who’d probably had it coming for years.
But he wasn’t the boss. McDevitt was. Mac was the guy who could send him on a mundane task in 3 a.m. rain; so, Cooper hauled out his mobile and called the HAT phone.
At the same time, Mac called his boss, Superintendent Archer, who ran the four Murder Investigation Teams covering South London. As he dialled, he walked past the body, careful to avoid the blood. He left an abrupt message: ‘Just called to a scene, found one of my informants dead, will keep you abreast.’
Both detectives hung up their phones at the same time.
‘People work here,’ Mac said. ‘Make sure nobody’s coming.’
It took Cooper just three seconds to walk over to the shutter and check the road. He didn’t see Mac pluck something off the floor and slot it into his pocket.
* * *
The murder squad and the forensics gang were there twenty minutes later, their vehicles clogging the street. While the search team snooped and the pathologist tried to find a place to park, the detectives huddled to solve the riddle. But not Mac. He was outside, listening to music and letting the atmosphere sink into his bones. It was sometimes how he did things.
‘Robbery gone wrong,’ someone ventured. A known burglar, Król, walks into the shop with a plan to exit with stock he hasn’t paid for. The guy manning the counter doesn’t like that idea. Król whips out his weapon, a lawnmower blade with a serrated edge and a sharpened point. Counter Guy challenges him. They fight. Król drops dead, and Counter Guy drops everything and runs. The detectives discussed the merits of this theory, and then shut it down when a pair of lady’s shoes was found in the attic.
‘Extra-marital play,’ someone piped up. Counter Guy sneaks a woman into the shop for a little fun. Król, her jilted or tricked other half, turns up to spoil the fun, believing in the old promise of till death do us part. Counter Guy and the woman flee hand-in-hand. The detectives pick at this theory, and then dump it when a mobile phone is found in a dusty gap under the counter.
‘Blackmail,’ someone announced. No signal, busted in some kind of strike or fall, but it opened up at a swipe, no password needed, onto the last app used, which was a beauty, a real rare-find gem for the detectives. CCTV footage of the dead man and a pal trying to break into a house. High-quality night vision. The video had been paused with the face of the dead man in glorious close-up. So: Król gets wind that a guy has a video of him busting into someone’s house, and comes here for a chat. Maybe he appears out of the blue, or maybe Counter Guy has called him in to see if they can do a nice deal to make sure the video doesn’t go on YouTube. Either way, it all goes wrong.
By this time, they had a pair of names: Joseph Lewis and Karl Seabury, joint owners of Sunrise Electronics – two guys who needed a visit to help determine which theory was correct.
And then Mac got a call. Seabury’s wife had called the police, worried that her husband might be in trouble. Two men had tried to break into the Seabury house last night. Seabury had told his wife a wild tale about why: he rescued a woman last night, hid her at this shop, and was on his way here this morning to talk to her. He believed he might be in danger. Wife tried calling him dozens of times, with no answer. She figured he might be hurt. Called in the cops.
He told the uniforms to leave it to the big boys. He sent two guys to nearby Cubitt Town, where Joseph Lewis lived, and told Cooper to drive him to Seabury’s home.
* * *
They were pulling up some doors away when Mac’s mobile rang again.
The name on the screen was 10%. Being a DCI meant that Mac was the guy in charge for most of his working days. But only ninety per cent of the time. This was a call he’d been expecting – and dreading.
Superintendent Archer would know about the Król murder by now, so the conversation would go one of two ways. Archer would start by reiterating the importance of maximum effort in the first few hours of an investigation. He’d remind Mac that one of the dead in the Grafton murder had been a schoolteacher, so the public had to see the police devoting one hundred per cent. And then he’d blab on about stretched resources. All in prelude to: You can’t have the Król case. Or worse: he’d start by moaning about the arrest of Ramirez when there was scant evidence. He’d voice his disdain that Mac hadn’t attended the Grafton post-mortem, or followed up on this or that lead yet. And then he’d express his understanding of the important bond of trust and loyalty between a detective and his informants. All preamble to: I’m reassigning the Grafton case to another homicide team.
But until Archer said those things, they weren’t official. So, Mac declined the call. Nothing was going to stop him now.
‘Everything all right?’ Cooper said, seeing the intense scrutiny Mac gave his phone.
‘Fine. Come on, let’s knock the door.’
* * *