Ash & Bone

52

Nayim had worked with Steve Kennet for five years, on and off, himself and Victor, sort of a team. Turn their hand to anything, building-wise, save for real specialist stuff. Simple electrics, plumbing, all that was fine, but something like installing underfloor heating, anything more specialised, they'd call in the experts, stand aside. Renovation though, new flooring, windows, stairs, outside work, repointing, replacing tiles, new roofs, there wasn't much they couldn't handle. Put in a loft not so long back, West Hampstead, architect designed. Some woman writer. Photos in the local paper. Signed one of her books for him, nice that. Not that he'd read it, mind.

Nayim sat next to Karen Shields on a bench in Waterlow Park, crows making a racket in the trees. A small boy being pushed on the swings. The former hospital building Nayim and Victor were working on was clearly visible, a short way down the hill.

It was cold; too cold to sit comfortably for long.

When Nayim took out his cigarettes and offered one to Karen, she shook her head. He was what, she thought, Spanish, maybe? Portuguese? Something of an accent, olive skin.

'Back in December,' Karen said, 'close to New Year. One of my officers came to that place you and Steve Kennet were working on in Dartmouth Park Road.'

Nayim nodded.

'You must have been quite a while on that job.'

'Too long. Landlord going crazy, but it's not our fault. Weather, you know? Rain. Always rain;'

Karen smiled. 'Winter in England. That's what it does. It rains.'

Nayim grinned.

'And you were what?' Karen said. 'Fixing the roof, stuff like that?'

'New roof, yes. Brickwork, guttering. Wood round the window frames, rotted away.'

'So you must have started when? Back in November some time?'

'Earlier. October, must have been.'

'Steve Kennet going off on holiday in the middle of it, that couldn't have helped.'

Nayim hunched his shoulders. 'Steve cut short his holiday, come back to work early.'

'And this was when?'

'November. Last week.'

Karen willed herself to slow down. 'When he came back,' she said, 'how did he seem?'

'Sorry, I don't…'

'His mood, I mean. Was he chatty, friendly, glad to be back?'

Nayim shook his head. 'At first, he hardly say a word. I go, hey Steve, good you're back, but he just grunt and go straight up to the roof, start work.'

'You didn't happen to notice if he had anything with him? Out of the usual, I mean?' Karen hoping against hope.

But Nayim was shaking his head. 'Just his bag of tools. Like always.'

Karen stood and brushed the seat of her trousers. 'If we wanted to take a look up there, where he was working – would that be difficult, do you think?'

Nayim looked up at her, uneasy without knowing why. 'Easy enough, I think. You can get into the roof space through the top-floor flat if you wish. If owner give permission.'

Karen nodded, smiled. 'Thanks for your time.'

As she turned, something quick and greyish brown scuttled through the leaves that had gathered between path and pond; either a squirrel which had emerged early from hibernation or a rat. On balance, Karen thought, a rat.

The leaseholder was away and not answering his mobile. Karen wasted the best part of an hour being shunted between the landlord and the management company, much of it either being asked to choose from the following options or being left on hold listening to Vivaldi's 'Four Seasons'. Finally, out of frustration, she slammed down the phone, jumped in her car and drove the few miles to the company's offices in Edgware. Once there, dark suit, stacked heels, taller than all of the women and most of the men, she got the attention she needed. The right permissions, the right keys. No more delay.

Forty minutes later, she and Ramsden, Furness and Denison in attendance, were passing the reservoir on Dartmouth Park Hill, turning right across the traffic and looking for a place to park.

The entrance hall and stairs had recently been recarpeted; the usual plethora of unsolicited mail and restaurant flyers sat neatly piled on a small table just inside the front door. Someone in the first-floor flat was practising the violin. On the floor above, the washing machine lurched into its spin cycle as they passed. A bicycle, presumably belonging to the owner of the upper flat, was on the landing outside his door.

Karen exchanged a quick glance with Ramsden before turning the key in the lock.

The entrance to the roof space was easy to find, through a drop-down door set into the ceiling between kitchen and bathroom.

'Mike?' Karen said, looking at Ramsden.

'Paul,' Ramsden said, 'up you go.'

Furness fetched a chair and held it steady. Denison pushed at the wood and slid it aside, hauling himself up and out of sight.

'What's it like up there?' Ramsden called.

'Dark.'

Furness handed him up a torch.

'You know what you're looking for?' Karen called.

'I think so.'

Not so many minutes later, he'd found it, taped to the side of one of the beams, snug against the angle and the roof itself. Thick dark tape and, Denison guessed, plastic or paper underneath.

It was both.

He passed it down and, using gloves, Karen prised away the tape, folded back the plastic and then unwound several pages from the late night edition of the Standard, dated 26 November 2003.

It was a butcher's knife with a twenty-centimetre stainless-steel blade firmly bolted all the way down the handle. Black haft, shiny blade, the tip not broken but bent very slightly to one side, as if it had been driven against something hard, like bone.

'Let's get this off to Forensics, first thing,' Karen said. 'Almost certainly he'll have wiped away any prints, but we need to check. Then compare it to the photographs of the wounds to Maddy Birch's body.'

Ramsden grinned a wolfish grin. 'That'll be sharpish, then.'