Tennison (26 page)

‘That’s a shedload of money his daughter nicked. It meant she was flush with cash for the two weeks before her body was found.’

‘Do you think the serial numbers can help trace where she was over that period?’ Jane asked.

‘Be a bloody lucky stroke if they did. The money could be anywhere by now, especially if she was buying smack with it. That cash will have been moved around faster than a ferret. Two grand is a lot of bloody money, and scumbag drug dealers like Big Daddy and Dwayne “Shoes” Clark are probably the sort of people who’d kill to get their hands on it.’

‘Interesting that she told her father she’d been raped – do you think that was true?’

He sighed. ‘I dunno. She lied about most things and slept with punters for a living, so even if she was alive nobody would believe her, or would just think that rape goes with the risky territory, so to speak.’

‘If we find who strangled her he’s guilty of a double murder because he killed her child as well.’

He slowly turned in his seat to look at her.

‘Sadly, no. If an unborn child dies because of injury to the mother rather than injury to the foetus it’s neither murder nor manslaughter. You could never prove the intention to kill, or transfer of malice. Even child destruction under the Infant Life Act wouldn’t stick as the foetus was too young.’

‘How do you know all that?’

‘CID course when I was first made detective. We had to learn all the different acts and offences off by heart. Fail an exam and you were out – back to uniform.’

‘Sounds pretty intensive.’

‘It was, and still is,’ he said, and paused.

‘It’s not easy to become a detective then . . . ’

‘We need to find the bastard, or bastards, who killed Julie Ann. So far we seem to keep moving one step forward and then end up back at square one. Now, I’d really appreciate it if you kept quiet and let me concentrate.’

‘Yes, sir, I’m sorry,’ she said, surprised, as he’d done most of the talking.

At the station they joined DS Lawrence, who’d returned before them and was now checking over and listing the items taken from the Collinses’ house. The contents of the patchwork shoulder bag were laid out on a table, the drugs paraphernalia to one side and the rest to the other. Lawrence stood beside Bradfield as they looked over some thin, cheap-looking silver bracelets, elasticated beaded necklaces, some plastic toy animals and an unused Tampax. DS Lawrence made a joke about it being effing useless considering her condition. There was also a cheap bright pink lipstick, and an empty purse made of Moroccan leather with a broken clasp. A medical card in the name of Julie Ann Maynard was for the Homerton Hospital Drug Dependency Unit, and then there were scraps of paper with names and contact numbers. Bradfield told Jane to copy all the names and numbers down and start making criminal-records enquiries on them, and DS Lawrence could then take the paper for fingerprinting, along with the empty plastic bag of what had most probably been heroin.

Jane looked down at the items on the table – the bracelets reminded her of Janis Joplin who had worn so many bangles on her wrists. Some words from Joplin’s ‘Piece Of My Heart’ began to sing out in Jane’s mind:

The café’s front window was filled with cheap Greek travel brochures and photographs, as well as a planning order and notice to customers that the café was to undergo refurbishment. The door had a broken blind with a ‘Closed’ sign on it. As John knocked on the door he was encouraged by the fact that it was difficult to see into the café from the street. At first there was no answer so he knocked again and a few seconds later the door was unlocked and inched open. The man who answered was a fifty-year-old muscular Greek with iron-grey hair. He had a hard, lined face with a jutting chin and bad teeth, along with bulging thickset hairy arms and a barrel-shaped chest. The top four buttons of his white shirt were open revealing a gold chain and coin pendant engraved with an owl with oversized piercing eyes, not dissimilar to the man’s own.

‘You Silas?’

‘Who wanna know?’

‘You do souvki takeaway?’ John asked, using the prearranged introduction his father had given him. The scribbled notes had been hard to read as they were written in pencil on Izal toilet paper and were badly creased, due to being refolded so many times in order to fit into the small matchbox.

‘You mean souvlaki?’ Silas spoke with a strange accent, a mixture of Greek and Cockney.

‘Yeah, I’m John Bent—’

‘No last name, first only, you come in,’ he said in a staccato manner.

John stepped inside as Silas looked outside, quickly glancing up and down the road before relocking the door. They shook hands and Silas jerked his head for John to follow him. The interior of the café was small and shoddy, with six tables covered in plastic red-and-white-checked sheets. A refrigerated display counter contained a number of plastic bowls with different sandwich fillings and olives, while cakes and Greek pastries were arranged to one side next to baskets of sliced bread and rolls. There was a large espresso machine, and an array of bottles and sauces on dusty shelves behind the counter.

Silas led John to a back room; the doorway had a greasy multicoloured plastic strip curtain hanging across it. Inside there were boxes and boxes of what appeared to be tins of tuna, vine leaves and assorted vegetables stacked on unsteady-looking shelves.

‘You wanna a coffee or sometink, or shall we just get on wiv it?’

‘I’d like to see where we start, and do you have a back yard so we can bring in the equipment or does it all have to come in via the front?’

‘I have yard, but maybe good if decorating stuff come in front way during first day to make it look real. I still open café in day and you work at night so look like I still keep business going. Anyone ask I say basement being converted for more seating as I expanding, so there should be no problem.’

Silas flicked on a light switch and John followed him down stone stairs into a large dank basement.

‘You got a power source down here?’

‘I got big set of cables with long leads, plenty power for down here.’

They stood side by side facing an old whitewashed brick wall. Silas slapped his palm against it. ‘This also bank’s wall. You smash through here, dig tunnel and vault is on other side, but you gotta thick concrete floor base that is gonna take hours of drilling – they say it supposed to be impenetrable.’

‘Bloody hell, it’s a lot of work,’ John said quietly.

‘Yeah and we only work through night and stop 5 a.m. before light and people about on streets. I open café at seven but only during week. I close weekends cos no local business open.’

‘I’m going to have to get some wooden RSJs and Acro props for that wall if we want to knock through it.’

‘What you mean?’

‘The wall here will not be that difficult to get through, but it’s a supporting wall so I need to put up support planks where we remove the bricks, which we’ll have to do slowly. Last thing I want is the whole lot collapsing in on us.’

‘Too bloody right,’ Silas said, looking concerned.

‘You know how thick the concrete floor is below the deposit vault?’

‘I hear is plenty thick, built three years ago. If we can’t drill our way in, we might need explosives to blast through.’

‘Blasting is a last resort. I’ve got a heavy-duty Kango hammer drill but I reckon it will be too weighty and awkward for even two of us to lift and drill upwards.’

‘So what you do?’

‘Get a smaller one which is more fucking cash out of my pocket.’

‘I also hear the concrete floor has gotta thick metal mesh in it for extra strength and security.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘Course I serious – why I make joke about such things?’

‘Cos it means more expense and I’m virtually out of cash as it is.’

‘Why more expense – you trade big Kango for small?’

‘I’ll think about it, but I’ll need an angle grinder to cut through the mesh.’

‘No problems, I give you more money, you pay me back when job done.’

‘What about alarms?’

‘I don’t have any.’

John was beginning to wonder if Silas was stupid, but realized it was just the language barrier. ‘I mean in the fucking bank. I’ve got someone on board who’s a good bell man but he needs to know what he’s up against to disarm it.’

‘Alarms inside of bank, plus all windows and doors. The vault has big steel entry door, but as we go up through vault floor from below it no trigger it.’

‘Of course it will . . .!’

‘No, listen to me. I hear there no alarm inside vault as they think nobody can get in.’

‘Whoever you got all this info from, does he know what we are going to do and is he safe to keep his mouth shut?’

Silas let out a deep guttural laugh, but John was not so amused and wanted to know if the alarm informant would have to be paid off.

Silas held his pendant towards John. ‘My father give this to me many years ago. Is the Owl of Athena from ancient Greece, a symbol of knowledge, wisdom and how you say . . . shrewdness. I have no informant, I hear the bank staff talk when they come in my café for food and drink, and the young ones they yap, yap, yap.’

John felt relieved and more confident about Silas who could have lied and said he did have another man who needed paying.

They both stood staring at the whitewashed wall. Silas explained that one of the safety-deposit boxes contained at least £100,000 in untraceable notes. John knew this, but he was curious as to how Silas knew. Silas explained the man used to be a regular at the café, and after too much ouzo one night he said he had put some nicked money in the vault.

‘Silly sod then get himself arrested, but added to de cash there’ll be Christ only knows what. People who use these deposit boxes stuff in jewellery and uninsurable stuff along with a lot of antique silver and dodgy gear – millions could be had for the takin’,’ Silas said grinning and then offered to make John a coffee.

They left the basement and went up the stairs into the café. Silas made some Greek coffee in a small copper pot that he said was called a
briki.
He poured one for himself and one for John into two clear glass demitasse cups with saucers. John took a sip out of politeness, but it was like tar and tasted far too strong for his liking.

‘This other guy you bringin’, you know him well?’ Silas asked, taking a sip of his piping-hot black coffee.

‘He’s the bell man, name’s Danny Mit—’ he began to say and Silas wagged his finger rapidly reminding him it was first names only.

‘Danny’s kosher and I’m using me brother to keep watch from up on high. Any sign of the cops, anyone passing, anything suspicious, or if we’re too noisy, he’ll be able to radio us to stop.’

Silas sighed. ‘I tell you, I gonna be very glad to get out of this shithole as soon as job is done.’

‘What will you do?’

‘I will have to get out of England, but I gonna disappear to Katakolon in my country. Get me a nice villa overlooking the Ionian Sea, a small fishing boat, then I’m just gonna relax.’

‘No family then?’

‘Yes, wife and three kids, but I already send her back to live with her sister a month ago. I gonna tell her I win big on horses so she no suspicious. I won a packet on the Grand National with Red Rum, what a horse. Besides she’s no complainin’ if living well in nice place. You can come and visit, you’ll soon be able to afford it.’ He grinned.

John smiled back. Looking round the dingy café he could understand why Silas wanted to return to his homeland.

Silas lit up a small cheroot and tapped John’s arm. ‘So you all set?’

‘Yeah . . . just one thing . . . can we trust this geezer in prison who set it all up? I know he’s got a long stretch inside, but what if he’s trying to get on the side of the cops? You know, settin’ us up and grassin’ to get early parole.’

Silas shook his head and rubbed his pendant. ‘Listen to me and the wise owl, I trust him cos he gotta trust me good. I know more about him an’ could get him banged up for a fifteen stretch. This is a payback, and if he is fuckin’ us over I will grass him up. That dough in the safety deposit was the takin’s from a robbery where a young rozzer got shot in the legs with a sawn-off. You understand me? Don’t think I’m some damned ass-stupid Greek that works tables.’

John nodded and looked at his watch. He’d been with Silas for nearly an hour and any worries he’d had were now allayed. He was confident that not only could they trust him, but also he was a shrewd man eager to get on with the job.

‘OK, let’s start the ball rolling, I’ll begin bringing the decorating gear over tomorrow night,’ he said with a sly grin.

Jane had arrived at work just before midday. She and Kath were sitting in the incident room updating the index cards, proofreading and filing statements.

‘I can’t believe how much my sister is carrying on about the wedding. She’ll no doubt have a fit when she sees me in the bridesmaid outfit – makes me look like Jayne Mansfield because of the corset.’

‘Can’t you get it altered?’

‘No time, it’s all been so rushed.’

‘She’s not up the duff, is she?’

‘No, she is not,’ Jane said indignantly.

‘Is she a virgin like you then?’ Kath said, grinning.

‘Don’t start on that again, Kath. I’m not in the mood for it, I mean what with my cleavage, the puffball sleeves and this huge sash with a big bow and the most awful shade – salmon-pink – I will look terrible.’

Kath tried hard not to laugh at the thought. ‘Not with a figure like you’ve got. Besides, look on the positive side – the sleeves might distract from your boobs hanging out.’

‘Shut up,’ Jane said as she threw a paper clip at Kath.

‘Do you two ever stop pissing about?’ Bradfield said as he entered the room.