The Amen Cadence (3 page)

‘So you don’t believe me? Is that it? I’m not a bloody criminal, you know.’

‘You haven’t got a record, that’s true. But you’re hanging around with the wrong kind of bloke, love, and that is a fact.’

‘But why would I lie? I’m taking a huge risk, meeting you here. What if I’m spotted?’

Copeland shrugged. He’d been thinking about that, too. ‘Maybe you are taking a chance, but maybe you’re not.’

‘How do you work that out? Lenny will go fucking mental when he finds out that it was me who grassed on him.’

‘He’s not a violent bloke though, is he? And what if it was one of his competitors who’s put you up to this, eh?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Come on, love, act your age. Lenny is an independent trader. He’ll buy from anyone who’s selling bent gear at ten percent of retail, won’t he? So what if Dai Young, to pick a name from out of the air, wanted to control this bit of the business too? Cut out the middle man, if you like. What better way to get rid of Lenny than to get you to grass him up to me?’

‘No way. Dai Young is a fucking animal. I’m not mixed up with him, honest. Look, I’ll tell you what Lenny has got that belong to my mate. They’re pictures and that, on a hard drive in a laptop. That’s what Lenny’s got. You know, explicit shit.’

‘And they’re of your friend, these pictures?’

‘Aye.’

‘And this friend is you, I take it?’

Kelly looked away, embarrassed, and suddenly Copeland liked her even more. He wasn’t sure whether it was because she’d posed for the photos, or because she was embarrassed about it now. He hoped it was the latter, but suspected that it was the former.

‘Aye. All right, they’re of me. From before, like. Lenny found them on my laptop, and now he won’t give them back to me. He says I’ll need to earn them back.’

‘Earn them? How?’

‘How do you think?’

‘I thought he was your boyfriend, not your pimp.’

‘Aye. So did I. But it seems that with Lenny, absolutely fucking everything is for sale. Now, will you help me, or not?’

‘Possibly. I’ll need to talk to my boss. And we’d need to scoop up Lenny as well as this bent gear, because it’s worth nothing to us without him. Can you help us to do that?’

‘I expect so, aye. It might take me a little while to set up.’

‘How long?’

‘A day or two, I expect. He’s very organised, is Lenny. Keeps all the electronics together, he does, so when he next gets an order for a laptop or a phone or whatever, and I’m with him when he gets the call, I’ll let you know.’

‘All right, fine. Here’s my card. Just call the mobile number, anytime, OK?’

‘All right. And I’ll give you my number too, shall I?’

She smiled, but Rex didn’t smile back. He wanted to, but he didn’t. People who were with criminals invariably were criminals, in his experience. He wanted her number, he wanted more than her phone number, but he’d been burnt before. And only stupid boys never learn.

Henry Armstrong was well into his paperwork when Pepper returned. She called his name from the top of the stairs, and he followed her into the DI’s office. He already knew that there’d only be one item on the agenda.

‘So it was Davey Hood’s mum, Henry, is that right?’

‘Aye. She’ll be OK. Looks like she disturbed a burglar. Cuts and bruises, that’s all, plus a very nasty shock, obviously. She’s got a heart condition, so they’re keeping her in until later today. But it’s purely precautionary.’

‘Aggravated burglary, then? Plus, she’s a vulnerable person according to the definition, isn’t she? So you’ve called in forensic support?’

‘Aye, that’s done.’

‘Good. So, means of entry?’

‘Nothing visible.’

‘Door unlocked?’

‘She says not. Says the front door was still locked when she got back.’

‘How about the back?’

‘Locked. Officers attending checked, and found no obvious signs of forced entry.’

‘A key holder, then?’

‘Don’t think so, no. Her son holds the only other key, and she says he’s very strict about that. He doesn’t like tradesmen and that having a key. She’s lived there for years too, so there’ll be no other old keys kicking about.’

Pepper was logging on to her computer as they talked.

‘So someone picked the lock? Is that what we’re saying?’

‘Look like it. Strange that he locked it again while he was inside though, isn’t it? I’ve had a quick look on the system, and I can’t see a single local B&E specialist or creeper who does it that way. It’s a bit flash, wouldn’t you say, Pepper?’

But Pepper wasn’t listening. She was pointing at her computer monitor.

‘How about this one?’

Armstrong walked round to the side of Pepper’s desk, and looked at the screen.

‘Dai Young? Seriously, boss, isn’t this sort of shit a bit below his pay grade?’

‘Maybe not, Henry. Look at his first arrest, back when he was fifteen. Going equipped it was, and he had two lock picks on him that night. Word was he was sort of apprenticed to an old boy who used to do a bit of locksmithing on both sides of the fence, like. He’s been dead for years, old Jack, but I doubt that Dai has forgotten the skills.’

‘Even so, Pepper. The old lady had absolutely nowt worth stealing, by her own account.’

‘He wasn’t there to steal, Henry. He was there to hurt, to intimidate.’

‘To get at Davey? Makes sense, I suppose. But if Dai is such a head-case, then why didn’t he…’

‘Kill Mrs. Hood? I don’t know. Perhaps he just wanted to send a message to Davey, maybe he was disturbed before he could get the job done. Could be lots of reasons. And there’s only one way to find out why, isn’t there?’

‘Talk to Dai Young? Seriously, boss? Isn’t that bit, you know, previous?’

‘Tell you what, Henry. You check on the system for any other cons who have your bloke’s MO, and if you can’t find any other candidates who look more likely - and you won’t - then we’ll talk to Young. How’s that? By the way, do you know who’s doing the forensics at Mrs. Hood’s house?’

‘Sandy Smith. She answered the phone when I called her office to check. She said she was on her way there, and why was I fucking holding her up?’

‘OK, so let’s get round there first. How did Sandy sound?’

‘Angry.’

‘Yes, obviously, but how angry?’

‘A bit worse than usual, probably. It’s always quite hard to say with Sandy though, isn’t it?’

‘Too right. OK then, Let’s give her half an hour to make a start, then we’ll head off.’

Pepper was re-reading an email from a bloke in accounts when Rex Copeland knocked on the frame of her open door and came in.

‘What can I do you for, love?’

‘I’ve had a tip, from a new source. Just wanted to run it past you.’

He looked anxious, and Pepper understood why.

‘You’ve written it up?’

‘You bet I have. The second I got back.’

‘And it’s gone to intelligence for evaluation?’

‘Yeah, but calling that lot of half-wits force intelligence is like calling me albino. Something about the nomenclature doesn’t quite fit the observable facts, does it?’

Pepper laughed.

‘Fair enough. Put wood in hole’, she said, ‘and tell me all about it.’

Rex did tell her, and Pepper didn’t interrupt. When her personal mobile rang she sent the call to voice mail without even looking at it.

‘So you’re worried about a honey trap, is that it? After what happened down in that London, I suppose?’

‘Pretty young black woman picks me out to talk to, Pepper. Come on, what are the chances?’

‘You didn’t say she was pretty before.’

‘Didn’t I? Well, she is.’

Pepper tried not to smile, and failed. Maybe she hadn’t tried all that hard.

‘You asked her why she’d approached you, specifically?’

‘Yeah. She said she saw me in a club the other week, and that one of her mates knew my name, and what I do for a job.’

‘Did you believe her?’

‘It’s possible. I’ve been to the club she said she saw me in, anyway.’

‘OK, and how about her story?’

‘I don’t know. I haven’t nicked Lenny. Does it all sound likely to you? You’d have to be a right shit to do that to your girlfriend, if what she’s telling me is true.’

Pepper laughed.

‘Likely? That’s Lenny to a T, is that. He’d sell his grandmother’s ashes, and she’s not even dead yet, mind. So, aye, it all sounds perfectly plausible. He’s a nice enough looking lad, I suppose, and he’s always been a bit of a charmer. Harmless too, except for the company he keeps.’

‘So he’s not violent?’

‘No, but he’s like the lot of them, he knows plenty who are. He’ll know a dozen people who’d put this girl in hospital for fifty quid, or a couple of wraps. Is she living with him, this Kelly lass?’

‘Aye, that’s what she says.’

‘All right. Look, Rex, I see what you’re worried about. That you’ve been profiled by the bad guys, and now they’re trying to suck you in to something. Well, you can forget about that. We’ll both note this conversation, and we will act on any information received, just as we would with any other tip from a member of the public, OK?’

‘All right.’

‘So your concerns are noted, Rex. But look on the bright side. We might end up nicking Lenny, and he’s due a decent stretch if he goes away again, and that just has to be a good thing.’

‘Even if it does let Dai Young take over Lenny’s turf?’

‘Aye, even then. All we can do is to nick all and any of these thieving bastards whenever we get the chance, Rex. We can’t pick and choose. Sometimes I feel like a punch-drunk prize fighter, just taking on all comers, hitting through the blood at anyone I can still reach. Eventually I’ll probably just collapse and die in the ring, and then it’ll all be someone else’s problem. But what choice have we got, love? If we don’t nick these bastards then who will, eh?’

Ten minutes later Henry was driving Pepper to Mrs. Hood’s house, a slab-sided ‘60s semi to the west of the city centre. It looked as if she’d lived in the place since new, and Pepper could just imagine a Ford Escort parked in the drive, and the young Davey kicking a football around in the back garden with his dad. But suddenly she pictured Ben instead, and realised that she only wanted the same for him. It wasn’t much to ask. But right now Sandy’s white van was in the drive, and the back garden would be empty and summer-still, she was sure of that.

Henry went to knock on the door, but it was already open, and the locks had been removed. Sandy Smith was leaning against a work top in the small blue and white kitchen. Pepper vaguely remembered her parents having one like it when she was a kid, and how bloody horrible it had been, while Henry saw it and thought how funky it looked.

‘He waited behind the door for her, the bastard’, said Sandy, when they came in. ‘Mrs. Hood turned on the hall light, and came in here to make her evening cocoa, or whatever. She wouldn’t have seen or heard him.’

‘Any physical evidence?’

‘Sod all. Your man didn’t make any proper effort to search the place. I’d say he just nipped upstairs and chucked a bit of stuff around. You know, just for the look of it. Nothing systematic, nothing properly examined.’

Pepper nodded. It had been Dai Young all right. ‘Prints?’

‘Nothing obvious, no, and we’ve not got the budget to do the full monty, like. I’ve checked the usual areas, around the door lock, in here, the drawers upstairs, but there’s nowt.’

‘You’ve had the locks removed, I see.’

‘Aye. The duty locksmith is coming round here to fit some nice new ones. On us, like. I want to get the ones that your man might have picked on the bench.’

‘Why?’

‘See if it was a brute force and ignorance job, or whether he’s got the touch, like. At first glance it looks like he knew exactly what he was doing, but we’ll see. You just don’t see nice, neat jobs like that any more, more’s the pity. These days it’s usually a brick through the window, glass all over the Axminster, and in we go.’

‘How long would it take someone with decent skills to get those locks open?’

‘Seconds, I’d say. I’ve been on a course, back in the day, and I reckon I could still get through those two old locks in thirty seconds, maybe a minute. Even so, I’m not sure why your bloke bothered. A strong breeze would have blown that front door of its hinges. Even a lanky streak of piss like Henry here could have done it. But not if….’

‘..our man didn’t want anyone to know he was waiting inside?’ said Pepper. ‘Aye, I agree. He wanted to jump Mrs. Hood, that’s obvious. But why go to all that trouble and then just wing the old dear? Not that I’m complaining, like.’

‘He was disturbed, maybe?’ said Sandy.

‘No. Not so far as we know. No wits have come forward, anyway.’

‘You want me to knock up the neighbours again?’ asked Henry, after a moment.

‘Aye, and I’ll pitch in. By the way, Henry, have we got anyone else on the books who picks locks? Did you check?’

‘Aye, I did. No-one active. Like Sandy says, the brick through the window is the key of choice for most of our cons.’

‘How about creepers? Cons who break in, just for the
craic
?’

‘Only one, Terry Cross.’

‘Oh, aye, that slimy bastard. Haven’t seen him for a while, the horrible little shit.’

‘He’s doing five at present, that’s why. Only six months in. And no, Pepper, before you ask he’s not in a bloody holiday camp. He’s doing proper bird, this time. No day release, nowt like that.’

‘Glad to hear it. That just leaves one candidate then, doesn’t it? So let’s chat to the neighbours, and if none of them saw anything let’s go and talk to Dai. And Sandy, you’ll let us know what the locks tell you, if anything?’

Most of the neighbours who were in through the day knew Mrs. Hood, and they were all about her age. It was as if a busload of widows had been dropped into the street years before, and each had been told to pick a house. All but one had seen nothing, but Mrs. Ransome, who lived almost immediately opposite, said she’d run out of milk the previous evening, and had gone to the corner shop soon before it closed at ten.