Deep Cover (26 page)

It became cold that night. Very cold. In the barn rats rustled about. Outside in the still air, an owl hooted.

Victor Swannell stepped nimbly out of the drizzle and off the greasy pavement, entered the main entrance of the London Hospital and was immediately assailed by the strong smell of formaldehyde. He consulted the hospital directory and took the stairs, in preference to the lift, to the second floor. Upon reaching the second floor he turned left and entered the ward, and approached the nursing station. He showed his ID. ‘I was told a patient wishes to see the police as a matter of urgency. A man called Sherwin . . . Clive Sherwin.'

‘Ah, yes.' The senior of the two nurses at the station stood. She was one Sister Jewell, by her name badge, which was fixed perfectly horizontal on the lapel of her uniform. She was a short, finely built woman – serious-minded, thought Swannell – the sort of nursing sister who is always right all the time about everything and a terror of trainees. ‘I'll take you to him. We have put him in a private room, wholly for the benefit of the other patients I might add. He would distress them.'

‘Distress them?'

‘You'll see what I mean. Please come this way.' Sister Jewell came out from behind the nursing station and, with Swannell in her wake, walked silently down the ward on rubber-soled shoes. ‘We get one or two patients like this each year. It is the East End policing itself.' Sister Jewell spoke sniffily. ‘I mean, as if the Health Service hasn't enough to do . . . and isn't collapsing under bankruptcy. I confess, avoidable injuries and violence annoy me.' She progressed along the ward which had been arranged in the traditional ‘Nightingale' style, with beds at equal intervals and abutting the walls on both sides at ninety degrees. A few patients had visitors. ‘Open visiting hours,' Sister Jewell explained, as if reading Swannell's thoughts. ‘It is a recently introduced system, a new development. I confess, freely so, that I prefer the old system of strictly enforced visiting hours but then I am now old enough to dislike any form of change, and I really do believe that things
were
better in the old days.' Swannell remained silent. He had long since learned not to argue with taxi drivers and nursing sisters, and his opinion of Sister Jewell as being a tyrant towards junior nurses was being reinforced by the second.

‘In here.' Sister Jewell stopped outside the door of a private room, with painted wooden walls up to waist height and frosted glass up to a height of ten feet thereafter. The room had no ceiling. ‘He was brought in last evening.' Sister Jewell continued to speak but with a lowered voice. The room offered privacy of vision but not sound. ‘He was found on the pavement near here. There is not one square inch of flesh that is not bruised, and I mean one square inch . . . from the soles of his feet to his scalp, yet not one bone in his body is broken and his teeth have been left intact. I confess that he could be mistaken for a gentleman of the subcontinent, but he is as Northern European as you and me.'

‘I see.'

‘Hence not wanting to distress the other patients. They get upset when they find out that such injury is caused by premeditated violence, rather than accident.'

‘Yes . . . I can understand that.' Swannell nodded. ‘I did wonder but now I fully appreciate why you have isolated him.'

‘Thank you. Well, as I said, I have seen the like. He was numb last night, wasn't feeling very much at all according to the nursing notes, but he woke in discomfort this morning. He refused breakfast and I confess that I doubt he'll partake of lunch. He will get more uncomfortable over the next few days, then the pain will stabilize, but it will remain for a long time. We'll put him on painkillers but he will still feel something.'

‘How long before he is recovered?'

‘Physically . . . a few months, but mentally . . . never . . . the mental scars will never heal, they just don't ever heal.'

‘Months!'

‘Oh, yes . . . months. He won't be here for that length of time, the pressure on beds won't permit it, but I have known such bruising to take six months to fade completely. He was probably the victim of a sustained assault which lasted a full day.' Sister Jewell shrugged. ‘That's the East End. Some of the trainees can't hack it and transfer to the west London hospitals. It's not the injury itself you see – it's the cause that upsets them.'

‘Yes.'

‘Now he is brown all over, that will turn into the mottled mix of blue-and-black bruising, then he'll turn yellow as if he is badly jaundiced, but once the bruising turns yellow, then at least he is on the healing side of things. But that will still take months. He's in for a very uncomfortable summer . . . So that's gangland London, but you know that as much as me – the East End policing itself, like I said. He said he wanted to talk to a Mr Brunnie.'

‘He's busy. I am his senior officer.'

‘Very well.' Sister Jewell opened the door and led Swannell into the room. Victor Swannell baulked at the sight which greeted him, and he saw then that Sister Jewell was not exaggerating when she said that even though he was Northern European, Clive ‘The Pox' Sherwin could be mistaken for an Asian, such was the depth and extent of the bruising. His eyes were swollen shut.

‘Police to see you, Mr Sherwin.' Sister Jewell spoke softly yet efficiently. There was no sympathy in her voice. ‘One gentleman, I have seen his identity card.'

‘Mr Brunnie?' Sherwin asked weakly. ‘I can't see nothing . . . I can't . . . nothing. I can make out it's day-time . . . but nothing else.'

‘No, it's Mr Swannell, Mr Brunnie is busy. He can't come but you can talk to me.'

‘Well, I will leave you.' Sister Jewell turned and walked out of the room, closing the door silently behind her.

‘I talked to Mr Brunnie.'

‘Yes, I know, I read the recording of the chat you had. He made you an offer.'

‘Yes, witness protection.'

‘Indeed. The offer is still on the table.' Swannell drew up a chair and sat beside the bed.

‘Yes . . . Yates did this to me. I never said nothing, and he goes and does this. I'm seen as a grass now. No one gets a slap like this if they don't deserve it, so no one will believe me when I say I never grassed.' He choked. ‘I'm finished . . . finished . . . I can't go nowhere now so I need that protection offer.' He drew his breath deeply. ‘Blimey . . . and they tell me this isn't it; they tell me the pain will get worse before it gets better . . . that this is only the start of it.'

‘Sister told me the same thing.'

‘She's a hard old girl. Met her for the first time this morning when she came on duty. She said, “People who have had a heart attack need this bed”, then walked out. I won't be leaving her a box of chocolates when I go.'

‘So what do you want to tell me? What can you tell me? Witness protection comes at a price.'

‘Everything . . . everything I know about Curtis Yates and that cow Gail Bowling, she's the boss, not Yates – but they are partners . . . he's a little bit junior to her . . . and that import and export business – furniture! Do me a favour, it's ecstasy pills out and humans in . . . girls mainly from Eastern Europe on their way to the massage parlours.'

‘We thought as much.' Swannell took his notepad from his jacket pocket and pressed the top of his ballpoint. ‘I'll get an overview to start with – all the details will come out later.'

‘OK . . . and I can tell you where the bodies are buried. I put them there.'

‘Did you actually murder anyone, Clive?'

‘No, but I was one of Yates's and Bowling's undertakers; I got rid of the bodies. Sometimes in cement in the basement of a renovated house in Kilburn, sometimes under a tree . . .'

‘A tree?'

‘A cherry tree; Yates likes them. He had his own take on “green burials” before they became fashionable with the save-the-planet brigade.' He winced with pain. ‘I'll tell you everything . . . everything . . . but I need the full package . . . new name, new address and a plod outside that door. Once Yates knows I'm grassing him up, my life's in danger.'

‘Well, if you can tell us what you say you can tell us . . . then that is guaranteed, Clive.'

‘Clive.' The man winced again. ‘Clive “The Pox” Sherwin . . . that name belongs to the past . . . well in the past . . . ancient history.'

‘OK, but for now I'll still call you Clive.' Swannell leaned slightly forward and spoke in a soft, gentle tone. ‘The new name will come later.'

‘Alright . . . understand, dare say it took longer than a day to build Rome.'

‘Is a good way of looking at it, Clive.' Swannell nodded. ‘It is a good way to look at it.'

‘Mind you, I'll keep Clive . . . I just need a new surname.'

‘I'm afraid you can't, it doesn't work like that.' Swannell glanced around him – the clinical whites and creams, the heavy grade industrial linoleum, the scent of disinfectant, the sound of traffic outside the old Victorian era building. ‘We have the names listed, you can't mix and match. We need to know which names have been taken, both Christian and surname.'

‘I see.'

‘Never know your luck though, Clive . . . look down the old list and you'll likely see a “Clive” somebody, though you might not like the surname . . . but it's a long list, doubtless there will be more than one “Clive” on it.'

‘See what I see, when I see it . . . when I can see. Now I know what it's like to be blind. They did a good job on me, Mr Swannell. I mean, did they go to town or did they go to town?'

‘They went to town alright, Clive. So tell me what you can. We can start now . . . see how far we get. I can come back as often as need be.'

‘Bring some grapes.' Clive Sherwin forced a smile.

‘I can do that.'

‘OK, I'll sing like a canary, but first . . . first . . .' He winced in discomfort. ‘First off, you don't have a lot of time . . . You sent a lassie in . . . undercover . . . a female officer. She was rumbled right from the start.'

‘Yes, we thought as much. We don't know where she is . . .'

‘I do . . . I have an idea where she might be . . . don't know the old address.'

‘Come on, Clive!' Swannell raised his voice. He heard it echo within the glass walls of the isolation ward.

‘Her life's in danger.'

‘If it isn't over already . . .' Again Sherwin winced.

‘Clive! Don't faint on me . . . not now.'

‘I won't faint. Listen . . . you need to drive north-west out of the Smoke . . . up into Hertfordshire.'

‘Yes.'

‘I don't know the road . . .'

‘That's a big help . . .'

‘You have to drive out of Hemel Hempstead, out the other side from the Smoke. I don't know the road number but I am sure it's signposted to Leighton Buzzard.'

‘Leighton Buzzard?'

‘Sure of it. It's an A road, but just one lane in either direction. I only went there a couple of times. I'm doing my best . . . there's a white cottage.'

‘A white cottage?'

‘Yes, old building . . . got a date on it . . . 1610 AD.'

‘1610? You sure, Clive?'

‘Certain. It's my birthday, see – sixteenth October: 1610 – so I remembered it. When I first clocked it, I saw the date and I thought, “well, I never”. Anyway, you turn opposite it up a farm track. It leads to a farm. It's got a thatched roof.'

‘The farmhouse?'

‘No, the cottage – white, with 1610 on it . . . above the door.'

‘Still a bit of a needle in a haystack, Clive.'

‘You need to crack on. If she's still alive, she won't be soon. Curtis Yates has a thing about noon.'

‘Noon?'

‘Yes, he doesn't like chilling anyone before noon . . . he really prefers the night-time . . . but it's like deadline noon for him – after midday he starts cooling his victims.'

Swannell took out his mobile phone from his pocket and punched the keys. He stood as his call was answered and turned away from Sherwin. ‘Boss, we need to move . . .'

Curtis Yates lit a cigar and smiled at Gail Bowling. ‘I enjoyed that, a leisurely breakfast . . . now a cigar . . . and then a pleasant drive out to Hertfordshire.'

‘Yes, I know what you mean.' Gail Bowling smiled. ‘The cherry orchard keeps growing.'

Harry Vicary slammed his phone down, ran from his office to the detective constables' office. ‘Grab your coats,' he yelled to Frank Brunnie and Tom Ainsclough. ‘I'll tell you what's happening on the way.'

‘Where are we going, boss?'

‘Out to Hemel Hempstead,' Vicary panted, ‘other side of same. We'll have to phone the Hertfordshire police – we'll need some uniforms . . . and local knowledge. We need to find a white cottage; out on the road to Leighton Buzzard . . . dated 1610 apparently. Penny's there and in danger.'

‘At the cottage?'

‘No . . . I'll explain in the car.' He turned and ran down the corridor.

‘I hope we're in time.' Ainsclough ran behind him, followed by Brunnie.

‘You hope we're in time!' Vicary replied angrily. ‘You didn't send her there.'

Penny Yewdall stiffened at the sound of car tyres arriving and moving slowly over the rough surface of the farmyard. She heard the dog bark aggressively.