Blood Brothers (3 page)

The AC’s objective was a small unit dedicated to the protection of witnesses which he knew would not be looking forward to his visit. He burst into the office without warning causing the three plain clothes officers working inside to jump to their feet in alarm.

‘Sir?’ the senior sergeant said, his face blanching slightly. Amis had lost none of his military certainties and could spread dread amongst his subordinates who had been known to be demoted and sent to the farthest reaches of suburban London after crossing the assistant commissioner in some entirely unexpected and often minor way.

‘Your bloody Scotsman,’ Amis snapped. ‘Have you found him yet?’

‘No sir,’ the sergeant said. ‘We’ve got the local nick in Reading searching. Best bet is that he’s gone AWOL looking for a drink. He was strictly rationed at the safe house.’

‘And what has his nursemaid got to say for himself?’

‘Not a lot, sir. He checked that he was asleep before midnight and then went to bed himself. Heard nothing untoward during the night but by morning the bird had flown, the back door unlocked and left open. No sign of a break-in, apparently. They’re still looking.’

‘Any evidence someone’s got to him?’ Amis asked.

‘None at all, sir,’ the sergeant tried to sound reassuring. ‘It’s not as if he had any connection with the accused. He just happened to be in the right place at the right time, as far as we were concerned. An independent witness.’

‘I remember the circumstances,’ Amis snapped. ‘It’s a great pity that there’s only one defendant, not two. I’ve never been totally convinced that DCI Venables drowned. Why has no body ever been found, I wonder? There’s still enough crooks on our side of the fence in Soho to make the whole situation suspect. Has anyone from there been asking questions? Ted Venables must still have mates over there. Most of them are as bent as a three-pound note.’

‘Sir,’ the sergeant said non-committally. It was not that he did not agree with Amis’s assessment but he knew as well as he did that efforts to clean up CID in the square mile of Soho had constantly run into the sand. ‘Venables must be out of it, one way or another. He’s probably abroad if he’s still alive. He’ll keep his head well down. If anyone’s got to our witness it would be Robertson’s own mates, most likely his brother Ray. But there’s no sign of that, according to the local CID in Berkshire. Nobody reported loitering near the safe house. They reckon he’s wandered off on his own, looking for booze, most likely, and they’ll have him back as quick as you like.’

‘I certainly hope so,’ Amis said irritably. ‘I’ll be having another look at the other aspects of that case shortly. In the meantime, find that bloody Scotsman. And check up on the other witnesses. We don’t want the case falling apart before it’s even got to court. Keep me in touch with developments.’

‘Do you want us to have words with anyone connected? Ray Robertson maybe?’

‘Not yet,’ Amis said. ‘We’ll keep the whole thing under wraps for now. But if he doesn’t turn up soon we’ll have to turn up the heat in Soho. I’m not going to end up with egg on my face over this one. It took long enough to pin that bastard down, and we still haven’t got a handle on his brother. We’ll have him too before we’re finished.’

‘Sir,’ the three officers chorused, glad to have escaped a more serious dressing down. But they knew even better than Amis that if their witness had really disappeared, the case he was involved in would be seriously weakened when it reached the Old Bailey. And if Georgie Robertson got off that would do none of their careers any good.

DS Harry Barnard disliked post-mortem examinations and he guessed that DCI Jackson, with his fastidious personality, disliked them even more. He was not surprised then when the senior officer made his excuses and left the mortuary even before the bodily remains had been completely disentangled from their sodden, muddy and bloody packing.

‘How soon can you let me have a report?’ Jackson asked Dr Jaffa as he opened the door, not bothering to disguise the relief on his face at finding a credible excuse to depart – an upcoming visit from Assistant Commissioner Amis from Scotland Yard. Barnard had raised a sceptical eyebrow at that but said nothing. But on past form, Jackson would add little to the proceedings except some heavy breathing.

‘A preliminary report later today,’ Jaffa said. ‘Unless something unexpected occurs. Of course, there will be tests that take longer, toxicology and so on.’

Barnard, wrapped in a green surgical gown, leaned with what he hoped was nonchalance against the wall near the head of the table as the doctor began to rearrange what looked like little more than a pile of meat into something that more closely resembled a human body. The head was easily identifiable as a skull and as Jaffa placed it gently at the top of his operating space Barnard took the opportunity to study it carefully. Beneath the coating of grime and blood and several vicious wounds which he guessed where inflicted by a heavy weapon it was just about possible to discern the face of an elderly man, with traces of facial stubble and strands of wispy red hair clinging to the skull. A slightly red aquiline nose survived beneath smears of mud and the shattered lips were drawn back over a depleted set of yellowing teeth. But the flesh was bruised and cut and had been bleeding heavily and it would have taken the victim’s mother to identify him with any certainty, Barnard thought.

‘He looks like nothing so much as a tramp,’ he said to Jaffa, puzzled. His own expectation, which he had not shared with anyone, was that this was a gangland killing but the emaciated body which was beginning to emerge from the macabre jigsaw puzzle on the table looked nothing like he anticipated. London gangsters generally were much better fed than this human wreck. He watched as the doctor, his face impassive, meticulously counted out severed fingers and toes and placed them beside what was left of hands and arms. What worried him most was that he had a suspicion that the face, battered as it was, looked vaguely familiar.

‘Whoever did this took pleasure in it,’ the doctor said curtly. ‘But the body is not as old as I thought. Taking account of the fact that it has been wrapped and protected from the outside temperature since it was dumped, I think he was killed in the last twenty-four hours. Not more than that.’

‘So it was carefully planned,’ Barnard said. ‘They’re unlikely to have been able to suss out the possibilities of the building site very quickly. They must have found the burial site and then killed the victim.’

Jaffa nodded non-committally, his dark eyes giving nothing away. ‘I assume nothing,’ he said. ‘I look only for scientific evidence.’ But as the dismembered body gradually took shape and he recorded his comments, the doctor began to look puzzled as he studied the torso. ‘There is no obvious defining cause of death,’ he said. ‘No major stab wound entering any major organs. It is possible that if a knife was used he simply bled to death. He looks in poor physical condition generally. He would not have much resistance.’ Delicately he picked up the skull and turned it over. ‘Ah, here we have it. Look.’

Swallowing his distaste, Barnard studied the traces of matted red hair, but could see little of significance until Jaffa pulled strands away from a small dark indentation.

‘A bullet entered here,’ he said. ‘Downward into the brain. ‘The neck and jaw are so damaged by the ragged post-mortem dissection that the exit wound is invisible. Or it may be that there wasn’t one. That the bullet simply lodged in the jaw or spine. If it’s there, I’ll find it. I promise you that.’

Barnard gritted his teeth and swallowed hard but kept watching as the serious part of the examination began and the doctor opened up the torso on the table and removed the internal organs. He could see that Jaffa was paying particular attention to the jaw and neck and eventually he gave a grunt of satisfaction and removed something from the severed head with forceps.

‘There you are,’ he said. ‘The bullet they finished him off with, lodged against the vertebrae in the neck. It never left the body. What do they call it: the
coup de grace
?’

‘Something like that,’ Barnard muttered. ‘Can I take that back to the nick? Forensics are quite good at matching bullets to guns these days. We may find a match.’

Jaffa washed the small piece of metal under a tap before Barnard could protest and placed it in the evidence bag which Barnard handed him. ‘I wish you luck,’ he said.

To her surprise, Kate O’Donnell received a call from Carter Price at the office the next day. She had not really imagined that he was serious when he had talked in his cups of introducing her to his colleagues at the
Globe.

‘I’ve fixed it with Ken to let you go early this evening, petal. I’ll give you a tour of the old Lubianka, as it’s not so fondly known, the proprietor doing a good impersonation of Genghis Khan most of the time. When he comes on the phone the editor and news editor jump to attention, believe me. Anyway, you can see us gearing up for the first edition print run, and I thought then we could have an early dinner. Would that suit you?’

Surprised, Kate glanced towards Ken Fellows’ office door but it was firmly closed. ‘Are you sure that’s OK with Ken?’ she asked, hesitating as much because she was not sure that this was what she wanted as because she only half believed Price. She wondered why Price was so keen to follow up on a casual acquaintance and what she had thought was an equally casual promise so soon, and why Ken was going along with it so readily. She hoped it wasn’t just a way of tempting her into bed.

‘I’d like the tour, but I’ve got a dinner date already,’ she lied, keen to keep an escape route open. If Price thought she had anything more than a professional interest in him, she thought it was best to disillusion him now rather than later. Listening to the two older men chat in the French pub had been interesting enough but underneath Price’s friendly facade she could see a self-obsession which was not very attractive. If he thought he could charm her out of her tree, she thought, he had another think coming.

‘Come down to the
Globe
at four,’ he said. ‘I’m at the Old Bailey earlier but I should be back in the office by then. I may have a short piece to knock off but it won’t take long. Ask for me at reception and I’ll come down and fetch you. OK?’

‘Fine,’ Kate said. ‘I’ll be there.’ She put the phone down and stood looking at the receiver for a minute, wondering what she had let herself in for. Still unsure, she knocked on Ken Fellows’ office door and put her head round.

Her boss was hunched over contact prints and looked reluctant to talk.

‘Are you happy for me to go early?’ she asked. ‘I thought you wanted me to try to get a photo shoot with the Rolling Stones. I haven’t made contact yet.’

‘Leave that till tomorrow,’ Fellows said. ‘I thought you wanted to have a look at the national papers. You should grab the chance while it’s there. Carter seems to have taken a shine to you, but I shouldn’t get your hopes of a job up. I doubt very much that’s going to happen.’

‘I’ll go then,’ Kate said, unable to tell from Fellows’ tone whether he was pleased at the thought of her leaving or not. She wrapped herself up in her winter coat and bright red scarf and set off through Leicester Square and along the Strand to Fleet Street instead of picking up a bus, as much to think through her feelings as to clear her head. By the time she got to the
Globe,
a tall and slightly intimidating fortress of dark glass and steel, rather incongruous amongst the Victorian buildings close by, her eyes were sparkling and her cheeks flushed by the chilly breeze which funnelled down the narrow main artery of the newspaper industry. She had decided to enjoy the trip but keep Carter Price firmly at bay. He was not, with his deliberately old-fashioned look and self-obsession, someone she wanted to get to know better, as the saying went.

She pushed through the revolving door and stood uncertainly for a moment in the glittering reception area of the
Globe,
one of the most famous, if not best respected newspapers in the country. A uniformed man at the main desk raised an eyebrow in her direction and she marched across the shiny floor and asked for Price.

‘I’ll see if he’s free, dear,’ he said. ‘Is he expecting you?’

She nodded and he raised an eyebrow and made the call.

‘Sit over there, pet,’ the man said waving at armchairs on the far side of the lobby. ‘He says he’ll be down in five minutes.’

In fact Price was much longer than that, and when he arrived, in shirtsleeves and mustard coloured waistcoat, he looked slightly red-faced and flustered, his greying hair dishevelled across his brow like some romantic poet interrupted in mid-sonnet.

‘Sorry, petal, something came up. But it’s fine now. Let’s get on, shall we, and then maybe we’ll have time for a quickie in the Cheshire Cheese before you go off on your date. Someone dishy, is he? Lucky fellow.’

Kate barely had time to nod before she was hustled into the lift and deposited on a floor where the clatter of teleprinters and typewriters provided a constant backdrop to the hum of conversation and an occasional shout of ‘Copy’, which evidently summoned a young lad to take sheets of smudged typewritten paper away.

‘This is the newsroom,’ Price said. ‘We’re coming up against deadline so it’s busy.’ He dodged out of the way of a boy dashing past with a sheaf of paper in his hand. ‘These are the copy boys,’ Price said. ‘When a piece is finished the reporter gives it to him and he takes it to the Linotype operators, to be set in metal type, a black – that’s a carbon copy – goes to the newsdesk and one on to the reporter’s spike for reference.’

‘Spike?’ Kate asked. ‘What’s that?’

‘Exactly what it sounds like,’ Price said. ‘Look on that desk.’ He waved at a long metal spike on a heavy wooden base with a pile of paperwork impaled on it. ‘There’ve been a few accidents with those bloody things,’ he said laughing. ‘If you jam your copy too hard you can put the spike through your hand. Come on, I’ll show you how the paper’s printed later but first I’ll introduce you to the picture editor. That’s where your boss Ken used to work before he set up his own agency. Bill Kenyon, our picture man, will remember him, I’m sure.’