‘Not tonight. Not until we know what’s happened.’
‘Is it a pissed-off ex-boyfriend or something?’ Her attitude was so puzzling that it was becoming scary. ‘You need to tell me why you can’t go to the police.’
They passed a streetlight. Her face flashed; he saw pleading eyes, like a hungry dog’s. You were supposed to go all soft, seeing eyes like that. He just got annoyed.
‘Tell me why you can’t tell the cops?’ he snapped. ‘That guy back there was trying to hurt you. He might go hurt someone else. Why wouldn’t anyone with a brain tell the police? Why are you protecting him?’
She was silent again. Head on the glass.
He shook her shoulder. ‘Hey, listen to—’
‘I’ll go tomorrow, I promise,’ she snapped, and slapped his hand away. ‘But not now. I just need somewhere to stay. Until tomorrow. Do you live alone?’
He really didn’t like this.
Four
Mac
In a job devoid of humour, you had to get your laughs somewhere. One piece of comedy enjoyed by Bexley’s Murder Investigation Team was to ring the HAT phone at end of shift. This was the Homicide Assessment Team’s phone, and it only rang when there was a dead body. That meant a trip out to a scene, where the team would search for signs of foul play. No fun for the team getting ready to go home; much fun for the detective making the bogus call.
Detective Sergeant Manzoor Gondal, a British-born Pakistani copper, expected a colleague to laugh down the line when he stomped to the phone and slapped it against his ear. But it didn’t happen. He gave his two other HAT pals the sign that the call was real. They groaned. At least with a bogus call you didn’t have to go out in the dark and peruse some lunatic’s handiwork. Half an hour later and the next shift would have got this one. Killers could be so inconsiderate.
‘Three dead,’ he said. ‘Cottage on Tile Kiln Lane. Thank the Lord for catch-up TV. Someone call Mac. Tuesday’s his gym day, isn’t it? He’ll have a barbell above his head, so be careful not to say, “drop everything.”’ Gondal was the only one who laughed at his joke.
* * *
Tile Kiln Lane was only a mile and a half south of them. They were there fifteen minutes later. The scene was already a party.
Outside the postcard-material house were three patrol cars, two crime scene vans, and two ambulances. The crime guys were suiting up in plastic outfits to prevent contaminating evidence. The paramedics stood around their vehicles like guys on strike because there was nobody to save, and the bodies couldn’t go anywhere until the pathologist said so, and he wasn’t here yet. The uniformed cops stood around because the remote location meant no horde of gawkers and reporters to hold back, chatting as if welcoming a break from slinking around dark streets in the hope that some hoodie would smash a window right in front of them.
A uniformed officer stepped up and introduced himself by his full name, making a big show of adding the title First Officer Attending. The HAT guys got sent out in advance to see if the dead body was a homicide, but uniforms were always dispatched prior to that to make sure there was actually a body to assess. Couldn’t have important detectives mobilised for an old rolled-up carpet that some fool thought looked like a dead man. The uniform explained that an anonymous call from a phone box in Greenwich had directed the police here. That he had secured the scene. And that it was not a pretty sight inside: three in a very serious state of dead-as-doornails. He pointed out the plastic shoe covers on his feet, as if to wordlessly say he had taken care inside, touched nothing, followed the rulebook in preparation for the big boys. Gondal was happy with the man because he’d attended scenes where cops were covered in blood or holding murder weapons.
As DS Gondal was on the porch, warmed by the dying pit fire and about to head inside, he turned at the sound of a vehicle arriving. The cops blocking the woodland gateway, their fluorescent jackets glowing brightly in the approaching headlights, parted to let a car through. Bexley detectives, who’d get the case if it wasn’t a homicide. This late, no doubt they were hoping for foul play so they could turn right around and vanish. Gondal, likewise, was hoping for a suicide or accident that he could dump on the local boys.
He put his hand on the door handle, ready to go inside.
Not a pretty sight, the FOA had said, but a gruesome and suspicious scene didn’t always mean murder. Just three days ago the police had been called to a house to find an old man dead with a vicious head wound and a hammer lying in a pool of blood. The HAT boys got there and saw the loose and cracked light fitting above and the blood on the corner of a metal coffee table, and had a vision: a slipped foot as the guy was doing DIY, a tumble, a temple against the sharp table corner. Dead. Seconded by the coroner.
He stepped inside. So, announcing murder wasn’t always straightforward, or easy. You had to walk around, read the scene, analyse the little details, and make a professional judge— There was a bloody chainsaw next to a severed leg in the kitchen. Right before him, dead centre of the room, as if carefully arranged as a welcome for visitors. This would be one for the crime encyclopaedias.
He stepped back out. The pair of local detectives were approaching the other two HAT members, and in a croaky voice Gondal called out to the newcomers: ‘Waste of petrol. We’re having this one.’
He walked over to all four guys, almost shaking. He’d attended many murders, but most were committed by one spouse or family member against another: crimes of explosive rage; a moment of lost control followed by a lifetime of regret. Stab or blunt-force wounds, not the work of a chainsaw. Cut throats or cracked skulls, not chopped-off body parts. They all saw his face and knew this was a big one.
He explained what he’d seen. Everyone looked at the house, as if wary of the building itself.
‘Is it him, then?’ one of the borough detectives said. The HAT guys looked at him in puzzlement.
‘You know who owns this place, right?’
They didn’t.
‘It’s owned by Pasticcio Food and Wine.’
One of the HAT guys said: ‘Ronald Grafton’s mum’s joint?’
That was right, the borough detective told them. Elena Grafton owned the restaurant, a gift from her son. And the house had been bought in the name of that company.
‘So, this is his hideaway?’ a HAT guy said. ‘I assumed he had run to Spain.’
Yeah, they all agreed. They’d heard that, too.
‘So is it him? Is he inside? Is he dead?’ the borough detective said.
‘Someone’s dead,’ Gondal said.
They decided to have a quick look. They did it from the doorway before shifting off the porch and waiting on the grass.
‘That’s Mac,’ someone said as they heard loud music heading towards them from beyond the treeline.
* * *
Thirty seconds later a Nissan turned into the woodland gateway. A large man got out. Late forties, brown bomber jacket and trousers in black. The trousers had a crease above both knees because they’d been folded in his car all day. His right ear was bandaged. The Mac in question: Bexley murder squad’s boss, Detective Chief Inspector McDevitt.
‘Is it Ronald Grafton?’ Mac called over from his car as he opened his boot to get protective coveralls.
‘Not sure yet,’ someone said. ‘Grafton’s joint, but maybe he fought back against whoever came for him. Maybe Grafton and his boys painted the town red in there. It would be just like that guy to get out of this one untouched.’
‘Well, he’s fucked either way,’ Mac said.
Five
Karl
Unsure of where to head or what to do, Karl had parked on a quiet stretch of road. They had sat in silence for what seemed a long time.
‘What’s your name?’ he asked.
She didn’t look at him, and didn’t speak for a few seconds.