The Murder Wall (21 page)
The curtains were drawn and a light was on as they pulled up outside. Stella’s part-time carer had obviously been busy, hopefully managing to feed her and get her settled down for the
evening. Just as well, Daniels thought.
He
was in no fit state to look after his wife’s needs. Not tonight, anyway. She killed the engine but he made no attempt to get out of the car,
just swivelled his body round to face her.
‘We won a salsa competition once, Stella and I.’
Daniels smiled, unable to imagine him tripping the light fantastic. ‘You kept that quiet, guv. How long have we known each other?’
‘Repeat it and you’re off the squad,’ he said.
She tapped the side of her nose. ‘Your secret’s safe with me.’
‘It better be.’ He looked towards the house, his expression morphing into one of dread.
‘Want me to come in, guv?’ She cursed as her phone rang. The display showed RON CALLING. ‘Mind if I take this? It’s Naylor.’
Bright held her gaze for a little too long, shook his head and got out of the car, bidding her goodnight. Daniels watched him trundle heavily up the path to his front door and let himself in
without a backward glance.
‘Yeah, Ron. What’s up?’
‘You’re not going to believe this . . .’ Naylor’s voice sounded a little shaky. ‘We’ve got ourselves another one. Birmingham, this time. Guy called Malik.
Same MO – well, a shooting, at any rate. And the same signature: a prayer card left at the scene.’
D
aniels could hardly contain herself as she drove to the hospital with Ron Naylor’s words ringing in her ears: another crime scene . . . another corpse . . . another
prayer card. The latest victim was a middle-aged Asian named Jamil Malik. Although considerably older now, Naylor was sure it was the same man in the magazine cutting hand-delivered to the station
for her specific attention the day before by an agitated woman who hadn’t hung around long enough to be seen.
At the time, they hadn’t been able to decide if she was just another bloody crank or someone in real trouble; some poor soul who had neither the guts nor the language skills to make
herself heard. Now Daniels was wondering if someone altogether more sinister had put her up to it. Had she been forced into making the delivery and then fled, fearing further questions? Had Father
Simon’s and Sarah Short’s killer surfaced after all this time? Was he taunting her? Telling her to follow her gut instinct? The idea that at last she might be on to something filled her
with joy. But before she could follow that up, she had something equally important to do . . .
Withholding information was one thing; direct disobedience was altogether more serious, especially when your guv’nor was Superintendent Bright. Even though they enjoyed such a close
working relationship, he was not a man to cross. Daniels entered the hospital lift, aware that, if Bright found out where she was, her promising career was as good as over. But he’d given her
no choice. She needed a breathing space to work out what to do next. The only way to get it was to persuade Jo to play for time.
As she exited the lift on the second floor the air seemed rife with hospital gossip. Nurse Baker was chewing the fat with a junior doctor outside her office door. When she caught sight of
Daniels, the nurse flushed, stopped talking and looked at her watch. Her plastic smile didn’t fool the DCI.
Not for one second.
‘Visiting time’s over,’ was all Baker said.
Sensing the tension between them, the doctor made a hasty retreat. The usual preferential treatment for fellow emergency service personnel didn’t apply here; Nurse Baker was in no mood to
offer concessions. Daniels forced a smile, prepared to eat humble pie to get back in her good books. She’d never been good at amateur dramatics, but put on her best begging face and said
apologetically:
‘I’m
really
sorry, but it’s vital I see her. It can’t wait, I’m afraid.’
‘Well, it’ll have to . . .’ Baker threw back her shoulders, letting Daniels know who was in charge. ‘She’s resting. You’ll have to come back later.’
Daniels swallowed her pride. ‘Look, I know we got off on the wrong foot. It was my fault entirely. I, I was stressed out, concerned for my colleague. My apologies. Two minutes,
that’s all I’m asking, then I’m out of here.’
‘Two minutes!’ The nurse tapped her watch. ‘Not a minute more!’
S
leep under the influence of drugs was one continuous nightmare, controlling Jo’s subconscious, making her see things she didn’t want to see. A black shadow hovered above her head
and an indistinct image of a man covered in blood was lying on the floor. He got up and moved towards her. She tried to move away but was pinned to the bed by her sheets, hair stuck to her head in
sweaty strands, eyelids glued shut. And still the figure approached. Out of focus, but getting closer . . . clearer . . . closer . . . clearer. Alan reached out to touch her, smiling through bloody
teeth. His lips were moving but no words came out. If they did, Jo couldn’t hear them.
D
aniels studied the twisting, writhing form on the bed, tormented by whatever ghosts were invading her dreams. Nervous of waking her suddenly, she waited by her side until, as
if sensing her presence, Jo stirred, forcing open her eyelids as if someone had sewn them together with invisible thread.
The tension in Jo’s body subsided when she saw who was standing over her. ‘They gave me a painkiller,’ she said, wiping sweat from her brow. ‘I went out like a light. I
had an awful dream about Alan. It was horrible.’
Daniels sat down and took her hand. ‘Are you properly awake?’
Sensing the change in Daniels’ mood, Jo nodded uncertainly.
‘I need you to listen to me – we haven’t got much time. There’ve been developments. You’re to be interviewed under caution. You say nothing, do you hear me? Nothing
at all. Get a solicitor right away. Plead ill health. Anything to buy time. Can you do that?’
Another nod. ‘I don’t understand. What developments?’
‘I haven’t got time to explain. Trust me, Jo. If they can link you to the crime scene, we’re in deep shit and there’s not much I can do about it.’
Despite the seriousness of the situation, Jo’s face suddenly relaxed. She smiled at her visitor with her eyes as well as her mouth, the way she used to when they were together. It stopped
Daniels in full flow.
‘What?’ she said.
‘There’s hope for you yet . . .’ Jo filled up. ‘You just referred to the police as
they
, as if your colleagues had suddenly become public enemy number one, the
opposition, a force to be reckoned with.’
Daniels hugged her. ‘When are you going to realize that I’m on your side?’
T
he Toyota raced out of the hospital grounds. Daniels turned left, flooring the accelerator and heading into town. It had been a long day – she desperately needed to
crash – but three prayer cards in separate locations loomed large in her mind as she drove along: Birmingham, Durham and, before that, St Camillus.
There had to be a connection.
Naylor’s contention that a man killed in Birmingham was the same Asian male whose photograph she’d shared with him only yesterday filled Daniels with both horror and excitement,
sweeping away feelings of exhaustion, replacing them with relief. If Naylor was right, this could open the door to a potential breakthrough in the Corbridge case; the enquiry that still dogged her,
despite her best efforts and those of MIT. After almost a year of painstaking work they had failed to get a result, and remained unable to offer closure to those left behind.
For a moment or two, Daniels was back at St Camillus, fear gripping her as she took in the scene. Then her mind flew forward several months to her face-off with Bright in his office, his galling
statement that the Corbridge enquiry was well and truly dead in the water.
No way!
Not as long as she drew breath, it wasn’t.
Anyway, Naylor was now on board.
Two of them couldn’t be wrong.
Could they?
Back in the MIR, Daniels didn’t bother going to her office, just took off her coat and slung it over the back of Gormley’s chair. Reaching into her bag, she took out the cutting of
the young Asian male, scanned the image and sent a copy, via email, to both Ron Naylor and her counterpart within West Midlands Police, DCI Vic Nichols. Next, she placed the cutting into an
evidence bag – together with the envelope it had come in – and sent them off for forensic examination.
Now all she could do was wait.
D
C Neil Maxwell yawned. Five hours’ sleep was all he’d managed and it was nowhere near enough. He’d felt decidedly groggy when the alarm went off and since
then his day had got progressively worse. Scanning grainy CCTV images for hours on end wasn’t the most stimulating of tasks. Bored to death with it, he leaned back in his chair and put his
feet up on a desk, then quickly removed them when he heard someone coming. He sat up straight, glad for the interruption, especially when he saw who was striding into the room.
Sensing his eyes on her, Carmichael pointed at the footage running, ignored, on his screen.
‘You might want to rewind that, Neil,’ she said.
Maxwell mumbled something crude under his breath and hit pause. Then restarted it again without rewinding, wondering what it was about him Carmichael didn’t like. She looked really pleased
with herself today – more so than usual – as she made a beeline for DS Robson, who was sitting at a desk a few yards away.
Robson looked up as she approached.
‘This just came in, Sarge.’
Carmichael handed over a message that had just arrived from the East City police office. It was addressed to the murder incident room and marked:
For the urgent attention of
the
SIO.
Robson’s eyes opened wide as he read it. He handed it back, nodding toward the receiver’s desk.
‘Give it to Harry,’ he said. ‘I’ll get on the blower to the boss.’
J
ust a few miles away, Daniels checked her rear-view mirror and signalled that she was pulling in. As she slowed down, the boy racer behind blasted his horn, made a disgusting
hand gesture and sped off. She took his number before answering her phone.
‘What is it, Robbo?’
On the other end of the line, Robson sounded more excited than when his wife gave birth to their son. ‘Our lucky day, I hope,’ he said. ‘Some punter took a firearm into the
east end nick around an hour ago – a 9mm semi-automatic knock-off pretending to be a Browning.’
‘Could it be ours?’
‘Absolutely. It’s gone off for analysis.’
‘Good. Anything else?’
‘There is . . . but I’m guessing you won’t want to hear it.’
Silence.
‘Boss?’
‘Yeah, I’m listening.’
‘The gun was found less than a hundred yards from Jo’s office,’ Robson paused for a second to let the information sink in. ‘ACC Martin has obtained warrants for her home
and place of work.’
Meltdown.
It was the worst possible news and it hit Daniels like a brick. ‘Who the hell told him?’
‘Dunno, he just . . .’
She lost Robson’s voice as an HGV sped by, hardly registered what he was saying as her thoughts turned to Jo, tuned back in to hear something about Gormley executing a warrant to search
Jo’s office.
‘. . . the guv’nor wants you to do likewise at her home . . .’ Robson stopped to take a breath. ‘Boss, you still there?’
Daniels no longer felt like the boss, much less the Senior Investigating Officer. She opened her window to get some air and made a mental note to find whoever was responsible for contacting the
ACC and bone them for going over her head.
‘Robbo, I’m losing you . . . my battery’s low.’
She hung up.
I
t was a closed community with a high crime rate, an area of the city where role models came at a premium and doors slammed in the faces of the police. Gormley pulled to the
kerb outside a semi-detached house, its windows protected by heavy iron bars and closed-circuit television security cameras above the front door. He got out of the car with Brown in tow and locked
it securely, hoping it would still have four wheels by the time they got back.
A couple of young kids skateboarded across the road in front of them, nearly coming to grief as a double-decker bus swung round the corner in a huge arc, its driver shaking his fist, receiving
two fingers in return. The kids hopped back on their boards and skated off laughing. Gormley remembered the days when he’d have clipped them round the ear and taken them home for worse from
their parents, a time when being a policeman counted for something more than just a big fat lump sum at the end of thirty years – enough of a pension to live on for the rest of your days.
Brown pushed open a rusty iron gate in dire need of a lick of paint. The garden was awash with all kinds of rubbish: pizza boxes, chip wrappers, abandoned cans and bottles chucked over the wall
without a second thought. As he depressed the bell push with his thumb, the word WANKER right in his eye line, Gormley wondered whose bright idea it had been to situate the Regional Psychology
Service here.
‘Respect agenda, my arse!’ he said.
Brown pulled a face. ‘Did I miss something?’
Gormley shook his head. Blair’s ‘respect agenda’ had left so little trace, what was there to miss? ‘Just thinking out loud.’
A woman’s voice came over the intercom. ‘Yes!’
Brown held up his warrant card to the CCTV camera. ‘Police.’
A buzzer sounded and the door clicked open. They passed through an outer hallway into a narrow corridor, Gormley leading the way. There was a reception desk at the far end where a middle-aged
receptionist sat behind thick protective glass, which was just as well, given the clientele. It was Scumbag Central; a side bench was lined with a bunch of them slumped with their legs
outstretched, effectively blocking the narrow waiting area. Some were reading, some listening to iPods, the rest just staring blankly at the opposite wall. The nearest one, Gary Henderson,
didn’t bother to move as they approached.