Murder on Page One (10 page)

Quickly, she ran the knife under the tap, wiped it, then put it in a drawer.

Baggo picked up the bottle neck, rinsed it and wiped it on a curtain. ‘What about the body?’ he asked.

‘Wolenski will not allow it to be found here. Too many questions. He’ll put it in concrete at bottom of building. We must go before he wakes.’ She nodded at the rapist, who lay on his back, his manhood shrunk.

Baggo looked down at the unrecognisable face. He could see he had gone too far, and the breathing was laboured and noisy. There would be blood in the airways. He rolled the man into the recovery position, his trousers still round his ankles. Patrycja scurried round the flat, putting a few things into polythene bags. She searched for a number on her mobile, then spoke severely: ‘Nanny’s not well. Same time, next week. And if that nappy’s dirty, you know what will happen.’ She reached into the dead man’s pocket and took his mobile. ‘I’ll text Wolenski once we’re clear,’ she said. She covered herself with a long, thick coat, wiped her face and put a comb through her hair. While she did that, Baggo used a cloth to wipe surfaces he had touched. For a moment in the hall they paused, then, together, left the flat, pulling the damaged front door behind them.

Outside, Baggo was grateful the blood on his clothes would be less obvious in streetlights, not that any of the passers-by would notice. Trying to sound natural, he said, ‘Where are you going to go?’

‘I have nowhere,’ she replied.

‘Come with me,’ he said, and jumped into the road to hail a taxi.

Lights and shadows cavorted eerily on the shiny, black streets. The erratic wind blew umbrellas inside-out and made pedestrians hold their hats. As he sat beside her on the back seat, Baggo felt Patrycja shake. She had been beaten and raped, yet was still in control of herself, knew what she had to do. The brutality of the prostitute’s life had desensitised her. After his sister’s ordeal, she had been a tearful wreck for months.

For the first five minutes, the taxi driver talked about the weather, then gave up. The rest of the journey passed in nervous silence. Baggo asked the driver to stop round the corner from his flat five minutes from Emirates Stadium. Handing over a twenty pound note, he again wished he had gone straight home after work. What had started as a breach of discipline had escalated into potentially serious jail time.

As soon as she got out of the taxi, Patrycja texted on the dead man’s phone, wiped it, then threw it in a wheelie bin. They walked in silence to Baggo’s building.

‘Only two floors up,’ he said.

She did not react.

Outside his flat she hesitated, inspecting the door and the name-plate, then entered cautiously, looking all round. ‘Do you live alone?’ she asked.

‘Yes. Do you want a drink?’

She stood in the middle of the hall, still clutching her bags. ‘What do you really do? You are not a hostel worker, and your name is not Joe.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Hostel workers are soft, but you are hard, and your first name starts with B.’

Baggo thought for a moment. ‘I am a policeman,’ he said.

‘You bastard,’ she said. ‘Don’t try to stop me.’ She did not shut the door behind her.

Baggo closed it quietly then poured himself a large whisky and a hot bath. He washed his clothes then spent the night worrying about how events might unravel, hoping that the gangmaster, Wolenski, would do a good clear-up job.

10

‘Fighting again?’ Danny Peters gestured towards Baggo’s knuckles.

‘No. My computer at home broke down when I wanted to Skype Mumbai. Yesterday was my brother’s birthday. I was so furious, I punched the wall.’

‘Never thought you had a temper on you.’

‘I keep it well hidden. It has let me down in the past. How did you get on with Mr Wallace’s medical records?’

‘Bloody data protection. They pass you from one official to another till eventually you hit one who has the guts to say yes or no. Unfortunately, it was no.’

‘The gov will want to know about Wallace before we can cut through the red tape. Would you like me to see what I can do …?’ He nodded towards his computer.

‘Thanks, mate. If you find something useful, we can get a warrant and do it officially. The Sarge was talking about you two chasing after some Polish tom, who might give some odd bint an alibi. Do you want me to go with her?’

‘Thanks, Danny. This records job might take all morning. Could you explain to her, without mentioning hacking? Best say there’s some Debut Dagger entries I want to check.’ Baggo had spent half the night agonising as to whether he should go to Patrycja’s flat and decided it would be too dangerous. The rapist might still be there and recognise him; he might have been spotted by a neighbour; he might give himself away through anxiety.

After getting Wallace’s basic details from Peters, Baggo settled himself behind his screen, his enjoyment of the challenge spoiled by butterflies in his stomach.

Two hours later, he had learned that Ralf Wallace sustained very severe spinal damage in 2004. A man of unusually determined character, he had made more progress than had been expected. Although needing a wheelchair, he could stand and, using arm crutches, walk short distances. Further significant development was unlikely, but the latest report ended with a Delphic comment on the ability of nerves to regenerate. That report was a year old. Ralf Wallace was still a suspect.

Baggo was finishing off covering his traces as best he could when Flick and Peters returned.

‘Did you find your tom?’ Baggo asked, as casually as he could.

Flick said, ‘No. Her flat was a bloodbath, but with no body. A neighbour who peeped out of her door said she left last night with a man. There had been a fight. There was more activity later, but quieter the second time. SOCOs are there now. Patrycja’s disappeared. No one at the hostel knew anything. That’s what they said, anyway. I’m going to get a warrant for her arrest.’

After trying to look surprised, Baggo hid his face behind his computer screen, breathing deeply.

‘What about you? Anything to report from the dagger entries?’ He looked up. Flick stood over him, a quizzical expression on her face.

He kept his hands under his desk. ‘Well, Sarge, there’s a man who writes about medieval torture. He has a lot of imagination, and his motive is revenge.’

‘Doesn’t ring a bell. Have I seen that one?’

‘No. I’ll print it out for you. It was in the latest batch to come in. This one may be short-listed.’ Baggo was grateful for the dagger time he had put in the previous Friday. The morning had gone better than expected. But if the police caught up with Patrycja before the gangmaster, what would she tell them?

* * *

‘Honest, Noelly, I ’ad no idea you and he ’ad ’istory. It must have happened during my five stretch.’ Weasel did his best to look honest as Osborne glared at him.

They sat on rickety chairs upholstered in cracked vinyl at the rear of a spit and sawdust pub in Roman Road, all battered metal grilles and indestructible dark-stained wood. It was Weasel’s choice, as he thought a regular in the Mile End Road pub had recognised him. Weasel had arrived first and in the few minutes since Osborne had joined him, three men had swallowed their drinks and left. The barman shot black looks in their direction.

‘Bloody sore thumbs, you lot. Aren’t you going to buy me a drink?’ Weasel asked.

‘What have you got for me?’

‘Something you need. It’s worth a lot.’

Osborne put a five pound note on the table. The movement made his chair creak ominously. ‘Get me a coke,’ he growled.

Weasel returned and set the drinks down. He raised his double Bells. ‘Sludge, or whatever the Sweaties say.’

‘Get on with it.’

‘All in good time, Noelly. I need this.’

Osborne suspected that Weasel was playing him like a fish, but he had to find out what he knew. He wanted to report some progress to Palfrey and Jumbo, specially if it came from old-fashioned methods.

Weasel rolled the whisky round his mouth then began. ‘Willie Johnson, “Johnny” to you, will be getting out on parole very soon, and he’s not happy with you. He hasn’t been happy with you for years. He heard you’re in charge of the agent murders, and thought you might fit him up for them. So he’s taken precautions. You with me?’

Osborne nodded.

A big man with a huge belly came in and ordered a drink. Weasel looked carefully at him then relaxed. ‘Johnny’s got alibis for all three murders.’

Osborne shrugged. He did not know about the third alibi.

‘They’re crap,’ Weasel said.

‘The records say he was in the prison.’

‘The records are crap.’

‘How do you know?’

Weasel banged his empty glass on the table and looked at it. Osborne slid a second five pound note across to him.

When he returned from the bar, Weasel took a drink then put his face near Osborne’s. ‘A mate of mine got out of Littlepool recently. He could tell me a lot. I’ll have to pay him.’

Osborne winced. ‘He’s told you already. Fifty.’

‘Don’t make me laugh, Noelly. A grand. This is serious grassing, and, well, you know Johnny.’

‘A hundred.’

‘Eight hundred.’

‘A hundred today. The rest if you give me evidence I can use.’

‘I’m not covering my expenses, Noelly. Three hundred today, then five hundred when you get evidence. Or I walk out.’

Osborne could see he meant it. Concealed by the table, he took six fifty pound notes from his wallet, but held on to them. ‘Spill,’ he said.

‘Johnny bosses that jail. Everyone’s scared of him, from the governor down. If prisoners cross him, they get their legs broke. One guy got a big pot of soup poured over him. He was a month in hospital.’

‘How does he control the officers?’

‘That’s the key. Johnny has contacts outside. He used them to threaten an officer’s wife and kids. Photos of them on mobiles, that sort of thing. So the officer agrees to bring drugs into the jail. He does it once, but that’s not enough. He does it a few times. They film him so they can blackmail him. They make him tell them all the other officers’ dirty little secrets. Then they start all over again with another officer’s kids. And so on. Johnny’s the spider in the middle of all this. He’s bright, and he don’t take no prisoners, no pun intended. No one dares go against him. He’s out of the jail far longer than he’s supposed to be, and they write crap in the records. The governor learned all this far too late to do anything about it. If half of this came out, there would be such a bloody fuss. The governor would be out on ’is ear. So he wants Johnny to get parole because then he might get his jail back.’

Osborne was shocked. He stretched the hand holding the cash under the table and Weasel took it. ‘Keep in touch,’ he said quietly, and left the pub. He had a lot to think about.

* * *

‘He’s not St Francis of Assisi.’ Flick looked up from the A4 pages she had been reading. ‘You sense he really enjoys writing this stuff.’ Sidney Francis opened his competition entry with a widow dying of the plague. He followed, a few pages later, with a graphic description of an English knight being hung, drawn and quartered. As his story progressed, a knight with a vicious tongue was ducked in a sewer until he drowned. Another had a red-hot poker thrust into his rectum, the same fate as befell Edward II, Flick thought. The final victim had his hands tied to a tree and his feet to a horse, which literally tore him apart. All these things were done by a man to pay back those who had prevented him from leading a religious order of chivalry.

‘This Francis lives in Tooting, Sarge,’ Baggo said. ‘Do you think he’s worth a visit?’

‘No time like the present. Let’s go.’ Flick was curious to see what this author was like. Probably short and weedy, with a furtive air, she guessed.

The man who opened the door was tall and thin. He had the premature stoop of the physically lazy academic. Dark eyes were sunk deep behind black-framed glasses. His nose was like a great white beak; and his mouth, narrow and straight, could have been cut by a scalpel.

It had taken time to find the ground floor flat with ‘Francis’ on a tarnished brass plate, fixed slightly askew on the warped door. The sixties block was typical of the down-at-heel area which, in more prosperous times, would have been ripe for redevelopment.

Francis registered as much irritation as surprise at the detectives’ visit. He led them through a nondescript hall into a room where a boy of about ten lay on the floor, doing homework. He scrambled to his feet and stood to attention. Brusquely, his father ordered him to his room. He bent to pick up his books, bowed his head to the visitors, and left. Francis waved towards the scuffed leather sofa and sat on the upright chair beside the window. On the table in front of him, a black laptop was surrounded by a mess of papers and books. Baggo sat down but Flick inspected the bookcase which filled most of one wall. In this investigation, it was becoming second nature. Francis clearly admired Dorothy L Sayers; he had several Wimsey books. The only modern crime writers were Barbara Cleverly and David Roberts. But history, particularly the medieval period, dominated the shelves. Flick spotted a worn copy of Rosemary Sutcliff’s Dawn Wind. The adventures of the youth, Owain, had made post-Roman Britain come alive for her as a child. She suspected that, like her, Francis had his copy passed down from a parent. She pulled it from the shelf.