Tennison (21 page)

‘I’m sorry, Jane, but you should have seen them with their jaws wide open.’

‘Who were they?’ Jane asked.

‘Drug squad guys by the looks of it.’

‘Does the one with the scruffy hair really live in the section house?’

‘No, but I wish he did,’ Kath replied with a leering smile.

Jane was unsure how to rebuff the giggling Kath as she didn’t like the way she had drawn her into discussing her private life. As always she could never remain uptight with Kath, who now hooked her arm around Jane’s shoulder.

‘Don’t pay any attention to me, darlin’. With those big tits you got I’m sure you had a lot of guys panting after you at Hendon Police College. I know I did – lost my virginity to the PTI sergeant. The positions he could get into were unbelievable – he had a body like Burt Reynolds in
Deliverance
, and like the film he took me on a trip into unknown and dangerous territory,’ she said with a cheeky grin and another giggle.

Jane didn’t feel like laughing. In fact she felt rather disappointed in Kath, but she nevertheless laughed, acting as if it was all a joke.

Jane continued typing Bradfield’s report. She couldn’t stop thinking about the elderly Nancy Phillips’ reaction when she’d seen her grandson’s body. Although Jane felt sorry for her something niggled in her mind. Once she’d finished the typing she opened her handbag and got out the small notebook she had used during the lecture. She flicked through it until she came to the bullet points she’d made after her last conversation with Harker. She’d written and underlined ‘Grief causes emotion = stress & anger = real or fake guilt?’

Jane hurriedly picked up a pen from the desk and wrote ‘Julie Ann’ next to her last entry and then put a circle round her name.

Pentonville Prison’s visiting times were always crowded and noisy occasions. Families with children were usually kept over to one side, and the inmates were brought in by officers in groups of four to five. John and David sat at a table looking around the room to see if there was anyone they recognized as they waited for their father to be brought in.

‘Here he is,’ John said as he nudged David.

As their father strutted towards them he nodded to the officer sitting in a high chair overlooking the room. Clifford Bentley had thick grey hair and his son John resembled him. Although John was slightly shorter they both had the same square jaw and dark hooded eyes.

Clifford sat facing his sons. He nodded hello to both of them before drawing a plastic pouch filled with tobacco and some Rizla papers from his trouser pocket. Opening the pouch he removed some tobacco and dropped it onto a paper and nonchalantly made a roll-up with one hand.

John reached into his pocket, slowly pulling out a box of matches. He held them up so the watching officer could see what he was doing, struck one and his dad leant forward with the roll-up in his mouth.

‘Got everything for the new kitchen organized, have you?’ Clifford said through the side of his mouth and took a deep drag before blowing the smoke in the air.

‘Yeah, just a few more items needed but they’re expensive. I’ve rented a garage, cash payment under a false name, and we’re storing stuff there until we’re ready to begin,’ John said softly as he glanced round the room.

‘Is it secure?’ Clifford asked, and John nodded as he continued, ‘Good, yer don’t want anything nicked before you’re ready to go.’ His voice was gravelly from years of smoking and he had to cough frequently to clear his airways of phlegm. He handed John the roll-up and started to make another for himself.

‘You’ll have to work flat out when you start.’

‘Yes, Dad,’ the two sons said in unison.

‘Good, but make sure you always do it in the right hours. Don’t want locals complaining about the noise and calling the filth, do we,’ he said, referring to the police, and the boys shook their heads.

‘As soon as I’m released on parole I’ll help if you need me, but me joints ain’t what they used to be,’ Clifford said, putting the new roll-up in his mouth.

As he patted his pocket for a box of matches two young kids started fighting and screaming at each other. Clifford looked at the officer in the high chair and caught his eye.

‘Letting kids in this effing place does me eardrums in, officer, it shouldn’t be allowed . . . Can’t you sort ’em?’

The officer in the high chair nodded to his colleague on the floor to deal with the kids. Clifford used the opportunity to remove the palmed matches from his pocket and secretly place them on his lap under the table. John caught his father’s eye and nodding picked up the box of matches he had used to light their cigarettes. He held up his hand and rattled the box again towards the floor officer for permission to hand them to his father. The officer nodded and went over to speak to the mother of the screaming kids. Clifford took the matches from John, lit his roll-up and then switched them for the box on his lap.

‘So, who’ve you got to help decorate?’ Clifford asked and made a show of tapping the box on the table whilst puffing at the thin cigarette he had rolled so expertly.

‘Danny, the ex-Army bloke. He’s good with electrics and well up for it.’

Clifford realized Danny would be the ‘bell man’. He inhaled, slowly letting the smoke drift from his nose. ‘Boxer, weren’t he?’

John nodded. ‘Yeah, he fought middleweight in the Army. Tough son of a bitch.’

‘Well, if he’s up for it then you got to make sure he knows exactly what the job entails, but more important what I expect from him.’

‘He knows, Dad, he knows,’ John replied.

Clifford flicked the ash into a tin ashtray on the table, palmed John’s box of matches, and picking up his tobacco pouch folded it over, tucking the matches inside before putting it in his pocket. He looked at David.

‘You’ve not said a thing yet, son. You OK?’

‘I’m fine, Dad.’

‘Is he, John?’

‘For Chrissake, Dad, I can answer for meself!’

‘I’m sure you can, son, but your eyes look squiffy. You ain’t getting addicted to the painkillers, are yer, cos I warned you about them.’

‘No, Dad, I only take what I need.’

Clifford wagged his finger at David. ‘Are you on that wacky-backy shit? Loads of ’em use it in here and you can tell cos of their squiffy eyes.’

‘No, I was out with Ma in the rain the other night and got a bit of arthritis in me leg. It’s been real sore and keeping me awake so I’m just knackered, that’s all.’

‘How is she?’

John leaned forward. ‘She’s forgettin’ stuff all the time. If she gets any worse she’ll need to go in a nursing home. She’s not cleanin’ offices no more and I don’t like her goin’ out on her own.’

David glared at his brother. ‘She’s all right, I look out for her.’

‘Well, I’ll be out soon enough to check yer mother over and decide what’s best for her . . . but keep her indoors, and for Chrissake don’t let her have so much as a smell of the decorating job. There’s a pal of mine in here who’ll need a slice of bread. He’s got eight more years but he wants his missus and kids to have it while he finishes his stretch.’

‘What’s he got to do with it?’ David asked.

‘Let’s just say he put the decorating job our way and don’t question my decisions, son.’

‘Sorry, Dad,’ he said, looking dejected.

‘Are you going to be able to handle it, David?’ Clifford asked, having no worries about John.

David swallowed and nodded as he clasped his hands tightly together beneath the table. His leg was really throbbing and he started to rub his thigh.

‘We need him,’ John said, then leaned close to his brother and ruffled his hair.

‘He’s gonna be just fine, Dad. That’s right, isn’t it, Dave?’

‘Yeah, I’ll be fine. We’ve not got all the gear yet but I’ll help John work on it.’

Clifford nodded and then looked directly at John. ‘You take care of him, understand me? I want him taken good care of – don’t want the smell of paint gettin’ on his chest, do we?’ He gave a crackling laugh, and then looked round the room.

‘Do you need anything, Dad?’ John asked.

‘Yes, son, a nice hot tart.’ Again he laughed, then with the roll-up now just a small thin wet paper he flicked it into the ashtray.

As the visit continued he asked John about Sandra and if they were going to get back together or divorced. John said he didn’t want to even try to move back in with his wife: he’d had enough of her whining and moaning and was better off unattached so he could plan for the future.

His dad frowned. ‘So, John son, who are you shaggin’ now?’

David sat silent, still rubbing at his throbbing leg. To him John and his dad were not like father and son, but more like two blokes swapping sexual banter and conquests. He’d always known his father had other women and never really even attempted to hide it from their mother. John was laughing about a woman who ran a local brothel in Chatsworth Road and had two black chicks who were turning tricks faster than a greyhound out the traps. The prison officer passed by their table and their father gave him a cordial nod as he leaned close to his sons, whispering that the bastard was on the take as he had a wife and four kids to support. He rubbed his thumb and fingers together to indicate the officer took money for illegal goods.

David was eager to leave and glad when he heard the bell, indicating that visiting time was over. They watched their father strutting away, turning to wave to them as the officers herded him out with five other inmates. You could tell by the way the other inmates gave their father distance that he was a king pin inside. God forbid if any of them nudged him or invaded his space.

John took hold of his brother’s arm and helped him out of his seat to the security gates where he was handed his walking stick. It wasn’t until they were sitting in the van that John opened the box of matches his father had so cleverly switched. The Izal toilet paper was folded and refolded into a thick wedge under a row of matches. John eased out the paper and David glanced at his dad’s small neat handwriting as his brother slipped the note into his breast pocket.

‘Ain’t you going to read it?’

‘Not here, I’ll wait till we’re home. We can pick up a few beers with fish and chips on the way . . . yeah?’

David nodded, staring from the window. John didn’t mention the ‘decorating job’ but spoke about football and his favourite team, West Ham. David wasn’t really listening, he was just thinking about ‘the job’ and it made his stomach churn.

John slowed down and pointed across the road. ‘There it is.’

David looked up: it was as if his brother had read his mind. He was frozen to the spot, his eyes transfixed on the small Trustee Savings Bank in Great Eastern Street.

‘That high-rise car park there has a 360 view from the top . . . You don’t mind heights, do ya, Dave?’ John said, and smirked as he drove on across Great Eastern Street and turned the van radio on.

Somewhat ironically the DJ announced the Adam Faith song ‘What Do You Want’. John looked at his brother and began to sing along, deliberately substituting one of the words:

John had a big grin on his face as he turned and looked at David, who couldn’t help but smile as well.

Everyone on the murder team gathered together in the incident room and listened attentively as Bradfield brought them all up to speed concerning the discovery of Eddie Phillips’ body and the post-mortem.

‘As you can see, exactly how he died is still up in the air and we need to bottom it out fast.’

The detectives in the room looked surprised and DS Gibbs spoke out.

‘We’re busy with the Collins case and strapped for staff already, guv – can’t another team take the Phillips case?’

‘I’ve said exactly that to DCS Metcalf, Spencer, but he says we’re to investigate both cases as in his opinion they are linked, but he’s giving me five more staff.’

‘It’ll be like a sardine tin in this poky office,’ one detective said, to Bradfield’s annoyance.

‘If you don’t like it, son, then piss off back to uniform and deal with shoplifters!’

There was complete silence in the room as everyone realized the DCI was not in the mood for frivolity or to be argued with. He lit a cigarette and told DS Gibbs that he was to concentrate on the Phillips case, get a team together to spend up to midnight working a mile stretch of the Regent’s Canal, both directions from where the body was found. He wanted every stroller and dog walker stopped and shown a picture of Eddie Phillips in case anyone recognized him, and they were to be asked if they had seen anything suspicious on the canal path in the last two days.

Kath mentioned the markets at Camden Lock and the possibility of drug dealers.

‘Good call, Morgan. Spence, cover the markets as well and get as many uniform as you can from the local nick to help you.’

Gibbs glared at Kath. Even though he knew she’d made a good suggestion it meant more work for him.

‘Did the drug squad guys have anything useful for us to go on?’ Gibbs asked.

‘Yes and no. They did some digging around and it’s believed Big Daddy originates from Moss Side in Manchester. No name for him as yet, but he’s black, about six foot four and built like a brick shit house – wears a draped blue suit and fedora, with two-toned brown-and-white shoes. We got no address as apparently he keeps on the move. He’s Jamaican like his sidekick Dwayne Clark, who’s known as “Shoes”, not because of the surname connection to the well-known brand, but because he apparently takes delight in stamping on people’s heads. A search on criminal records on his name was also negative, but the drug squad did get an address.’

Gibbs asked if they should get a warrant and spin Dwayne’s place, but Bradfield informed him the drug squad had done it early that morning. ‘It was a squat in Chalk Farm, clean as a whistle drugs wise – not even a bottle of aspirin. Dwayne’s girlfriend and her three young kids were at the address; our suspects weren’t. Apparently she was a right gobby cow and said Dwayne, and a black bloke called Josh, ran a window-cleaning business together . . .’ He paused to let the laughter in the room die down before continuing.