Mercy Killing (22 page)

She sat with her legs crossed, black stiletto dangling down from her foot as she absently waved it backwards and forwards. She glanced down at her watch with a frown but, as she looked up, she
caught Harry watching her and gave him a wink.

He pushed the door open with enough force to take the front-counter assistant off guard.

‘Thanks, Julie,’ he said to her. ‘I’ll take Miss Lipton here into one of the side rooms.’

Martha picked her bag up from the floor and followed him across the foyer to a small windowless room furnished only with a desk, three odd chairs and a mess of blank statement forms and leaflets
offering all manner of advice from how to spot extremists to security-marking personal property.

‘Morning,’ said Harry when they’d sat down opposite each other.

‘Good morning. I expected you to send one of your underlings.’

‘I think you mean my team. And they’re very busy. They’ve not only got a murder to investigate, but now an arson with intent to endanger life.’

She bristled.

‘I’ve come here about both matters.’

If Harry wasn’t very much mistaken, Martha did have the good grace to seem as if she’d been knocked off her pedestal.

‘Please, Harry,’ she said, hand outstretched across the table towards him, ‘I knew nothing about the fire. It could have been anyone. What I can help you with is the name of a
new member of the Volunteer Army who might have been involved with the murder of Woodville.’

‘Go on.’

She drummed her fingertips on the smooth surface of the table, deftly avoiding a tea stain from a previous member of the public.

‘You didn’t get this from me and I’ll deny I ever told you this. You know that I can’t be seen to betray my members.’

Harry held in a laugh.

‘Give me a name,’ he said, ‘and leave the rest to me.’

‘I was in the High Street handing out leaflets. I gave one to a fella called Jonathan Tey. He came along to one of our meetings and afterwards we got chatting. He knew Albert Woodville and
had a real problem with him, said he was in an amateur dramatic society with him and Woodville was using it to gain access to kids. Tey seemed quite, well, volatile. Possibly dangerous.’

Harry pinched the pleats in his trouser legs, leaned forward and said, ‘Let me get this right here, you run a group of vigilantes who want to alert the public to the whereabouts of sex
offenders in their neighbourhood, and you’re acting all surprised that someone’s come along to one of your shindigs and may have a propensity for violence.’

‘If you don’t need my help, there’s no point in my being here.’

She stood up to go.

‘Martha, thank you for your time and for coming to see me.’

He felt the words sticking in his throat but he knew a useful source when he saw one.

‘One last thing,’ he said as she turned towards the door, ‘the fire . . .’

He watched her take a large breath and her shoulders inch a little higher. He had no idea why he wanted her to feel better about herself when he said, ‘We’ve got someone in custody
for it. He said he acted alone, thought he’d teach a few people a lesson. He’s got no idea who or what the Volunteer Army are. He’s well known to the police, carried out a spate
of crimes, including low-scale arson.’

She turned back round to face him. ‘Thanks, Harry.’

‘What I need from you now,’ he said, benevolent feelings all but forgotten, ‘is a statement that you didn’t have anything to do with the fire and don’t know anyone
by the name of Chris Enfield.’

She raised a plucked eyebrow at him. ‘The fire-starter, I presume?’

‘Think about it,’ he said as he pulled the pile of statement sheets towards him. ‘You’ve come down the nick and given me a name in a murder investigation. What better way
to justify your actions than making a statement about a completely different crime that possibly would implicate you if you didn’t cooperate?’

Martha Lipton, convicted sex offender, sat back down and smiled at Harry.

‘Under different circumstances,’ she said, ‘we might have got along together. It would only take the small matter of you forgetting my past.’

Glad that he could turn his attention to the task of finding a pen and flattening out the edges of the paper, Harry looked away from her.

One of the biggest personal torments of being a police officer was cajoling those you loathed when you needed their assistance. Some days, Harry just knew he had to break bread with a monster to
get what he wanted.

The sacrifice to his own self-respect at least meant that he now had Jonathan Tey very much in his sights.

‘If I’d realized you were going to have coffee,’ said Jonathan Tey when he came back from the bar, ‘I wouldn’t have suggested meeting in a
boozer.’

He shoved the cup and saucer down in front of Jude whose face was now demonstrating equal displeasure at the latte as it spilled into the saucer.

‘It’s only a quarter past eleven,’ said Jude. ‘We’re not even having lunch. I can’t go out and get drunk at lunchtime. I’ve got a council planning
meeting this afternoon at the Town Hall.’

‘It’s hardly Cobra, is it?’

‘If you’re going to take the mickey, I’m going.’

Jonathan rested his arm on the back of the chair next to him, untouched pint on the table. He kept his voice as low as possible and said, ‘We’ve got things to discuss.’

He had got to the pub first and chosen a table near the window with the bright November sun on his back. When he leaned forward to pick up his drink, he cast a shadow across Jude’s face.
Fully aware of what he was doing, Jonathan added, ‘So it’s a really good idea if you stay put.’

‘Well, I’m getting a serviette first,’ said Jude.

He walked over to the end of the bar to the condiments and cutlery and made a great show of taking three paper napkins, one at a time, before he took his seat again.

Jonathan waited whilst his unlikely partner in crime mopped up the spilt drink from the saucer, wiped the bottom of the cup twice, stirred the latte, added sugar and then stirred it again.

He was showing no signs of the angry outburst he had displayed at the East Rise Players’ emergency meeting when Eric Samuels had dropped his sexual-offender bombshell. It was the only
reason that Jonathan had considered Jude for sorting out Albie Woodville. He was now beginning to think that he might have made a very grave mistake. There appeared to be extremes to Jude’s
character but right at this moment, all he was experiencing were the prissy and lame parts.

‘Finished?’ asked Jonathan when the white serviettes were brown and sodden.

‘Yes, thank you. Now what are we going to do? We’ve both had the police round and I certainly don’t want them coming back.’

‘We do nothing,’ said Jonathan. He picked up his pint and gulped half of it down, smacked his lips and leaned forward again. ‘We stick to what we’ve already decided.
Nothing can go wrong if we do that. Remember that, if we start to panic, we’ll draw attention to ourselves and that’s the worst thing that can happen. Agreed?’

Jude shot him a dark look, drained the rest of his coffee and said, ‘That was about the worst latte I’ve ever had.’

‘Why are you being such a dick? We’ve got much more important things to worry about.’

‘You told me to behave normally. I’m drinking coffee and commenting on it. That’s normal. Meeting you in a pub before noon and us whispering across the table to each other
isn’t normal. We’re not gangsters. You’re an accountant and I work for East Rise council’s planning department.’

This was proving to be more difficult that Jonathan had envisaged. He cast his mind back to the moment he left the Cressy Arms with Jude when they had vented their anger about Albert Woodville
and all that he represented. Neither of them at the time had seriously considered their intentions to be more than simply words spat from their lips in a rage as they’d goaded each other on
with their fantasy of what they would do to the man if they were left alone with him.

Then of course, they were alone with him. And it was no longer only words.

The thought of what they had imagined doing to him forced Jonathan to fidget in his hard wooden pub chair, bothered by the memory of his own channelled hatred.

If he was being honest with himself, he had enjoyed discussing the pain they’d wanted to cause Woodville. Few people knew the real Jonathan because he understood it was better that some
things stayed hidden. One stupid mistake many years ago had almost been the undoing of him, but his wife Elaine, his girlfriend then, had come to his rescue. Only the two of them knew the truth,
and he certainly wasn’t about to share it with Jude. Jonathan wasn’t entirely sure he could trust him to keep quiet about his own crime: he most certainly couldn’t risk a
twenty-year-old secret getting out on top of an attack on a sex offender.

‘You’re staring at me,’ said Jude. ‘If I’m honest, it’s alarming me. What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing’s wrong, so long as you’ve sorted your clothes from that night, like we agreed, and you don’t tell anyone about Woodville, and us going to his flat. If
you’ve done that, we’re home and dry.’

‘It’s done,’ said Jude. ‘If we’re to act normal, that means going back to the East Rise Players. Do you think we’ll be welcome there?’

Jonathan shrugged and said, ‘I don’t see why not. Samuels can’t afford to keep losing members. He’s already down one costume assistant. Don’t pull that
face.’

‘It’s a bit distasteful, Jonathan.’

‘I’m distasteful? If you’d had your way, we’d have strung him up from the nearest lamp-post. At least I wanted to be discreet.’

Jude drummed his fingers on the table and said, ‘It doesn’t really matter now. It’s done. He’s dead.’

‘I’m glad that you understand that there’s no point in overthinking this. What’s done is done and nothing can change it now.’

‘I know, I know,’ said Jude. The thing is, I’m racked with guilt over what we did, so someone somewhere is sitting with the weight of the world on their shoulders. I’m
not really sure how they’re coping.’

‘My thoughts exactly,’ said Jonathan. ‘There’s one thing I’m clear about and that’s if we ever find out who it was, I’d like to shake them by the
hand.’

DCI Barbara Venice checked her phone for messages as she crossed the police station’s back yard. A number of marked and unmarked cars were parked in the bays, a number
next to the custody entrance. She nodded and said hello to some of the officers, a few addressing her as ‘ma’am’, a few clearly not having a clue who she was though her security
badge allowed her unhindered access.

She let herself out with the same badge, unlocked the ten-foot-high metal gate and surprised herself at how different she felt on the civilian side of the fence.

Within minutes, she was outside the florist’s shop where she had arranged to meet her daughter. It was the largest one in East Rise and gave over half its floor space to unusual Christmas
gifts at this time of the year. Feeling a touch chilly and arriving a little ahead of the arranged time, Barbara ducked inside the shop, keen to start her shopping early this year and not leave it
all to the last minute and allow the internet to take care of it.

Lost in thought and browsing Christmas pomanders and wicker reindeer at the back of the shop, she heard a familiar voice from the direction of the till.

Stuck for a moment as to who the voice belonged to, she stayed where she was behind the rows of baubles, vases and garlands. She popped her head out from behind a rack of dried fruit and
coloured moss and saw Gabrielle Royston at the counter engrossed in conversation with the florist.

Unsure whether to approach them or not, Barbara elected to stay where she was. Flowers were a very personal thing and she didn’t want to encroach on something that was none of her
business.

Her hesitation turned to a mild panic when she realized that the young detective constable from her department was ordering funeral flowers. Now she found herself trapped at the back of the
shop, unable to leave but aware that her daughter was about to arrive at any moment and would be sure to seek her out and want to talk her through all the floral stock available.

Barbara made her mind up that she was going to step out from the rows of bric-a-brac acting as her cover when Gabrielle said, ‘My nephew was only six. He had leukaemia. I’m not sure
what would be best, a teddy-bear wreath or his favourite football-club colours.’

Barbara took a cautious step backwards.

She took her mobile phone from her coat pocket, turned it to silent and tapped out her daughter a message that she would be another hour, had been called back to work and would explain
shortly.

No sooner had she pressed send on her phone than she heard the florist offer a compromise.

‘We can make you a teddy-bear wreath in his team’s colours if you’d prefer that.’

DCI Barbara Venice looked around the shop for the staff-only area and wondered if she could get away with hiding there until Gabrielle had finished her heart-breaking order.

With Toby’s words of warning still ringing in his ears, Leon walked up the steps of East Rise Police Station. The automatic doors parted and he stepped inside.

Two women of about forty years of age sat behind a high counter. One was occupied with a telephone call but the other looked up at him and smiled.

‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Can I help you?’

He glanced around the sparse foyer, eyes lingering on a row of plastic seats bolted to the floor. Only one was occupied by a sulky-looking teenager, who was paying no attention to Leon.

He lingered in front of the counter, unsure what to say. He’d expected to be able to speak to someone in private, not like this in public.

For a moment, he considered walking back down the steps, forgetting about the entire thing. Toby had tried to warn him that what he was about to do was an incredibly bad idea. He had even
resorted to pleading with him, but Leon’s mind was made up.

He took a deep breath and said, ‘Can I speak to a police officer, please?’