Clean Cut

Chapter Five

DCI John Sheldon sat in his office, twisting a piece of silver paper round his index finger, then straightening it out with his nail on his desk. In front of him was her report. Anna had her tape recorder with her and asked if he wished to hear it.

‘No.’ He tapped her report. ‘First off, this is highly irregular and you bloody know it. Secondly, this Griffith solicitor is a slimeball; whatever he’s trying to get on inadmissible evidence means fuck all. Murphy is going down for murder; we’ve a shedload of evidence and his own admission that he killed Irene Phelps. Whether we got to him via his sister handing over a photograph or not, the prosecution will chuck it out. The CPS has no problems.’

‘But she has now admitted that she did give it to me.’

‘I’m coming to that.’ He stood up and jerked his trousers higher. ‘What I don’t like, Travis, is you freewheeling around, interviewing this stupid bitch without any witness, no back-up, zilch. You acted unprofessionally and could have got yourself hurt in the process. Obviously, your experience working with Langton has given you some kind of vigilante attitude that is totally unacceptable to me. We work as a team for a reason: it’s called protection, Travis.’

‘Yes, I know, I’m sorry.’

‘So you should be. I am responsible for you and for my entire team, and I will not condone any single one of you—’

‘I apologize, it won’t happen again.’

‘Don’t interrupt me. If this did have any kind of repercussion, you could have put the entire case in jeopardy. I will not tolerate this behaviour.’

‘I do understand,’ she said, ‘and I assure you it will never happen again; it was just that I felt so angry at the way she had lied.’

‘What you felt is immaterial! What I want are officers that pool all their information. It will be my decision what action should be taken.’

‘Yes, I know that, sir.’

‘So, in future, don’t let this happen again.’

Anna clasped the tape. ‘I would like you to listen to the end section of the tape, sir. It is of great concern to me. Gail Sickert’s boyfriend made threats. He says that—’

It was Anna’s turn to be interrupted. ‘I’ve read your report. At the briefing, we will discuss it with the entire team. That’s it, you can go.’

Anna sat through the briefing from Sheldon on the trial date and the attempt by Murphy’s solicitor to muddy the waters. He was very confident that the entire enquiry would result in a fast-track trial, as the evidence against Murphy was so strong. Added to this was his taped confession; with his past record, there seemed no likelihood of the defence creating problems. He then moved on to Anna’s report.

‘I do not approve of any officer working without detailing their agenda, as you all well know. However, DI Travis does have a serious concern regarding the last section of the tape, when Gail’s boyfriend — partner — whatever you want to call him, returned to find her there. It appears on the tape that Sickert makes a personal threat.’

Sheldon nodded for Anna to play the last section. Everyone listened. Sheldon played it again.

‘The threat is possibly him just mouthing off, but you can hear him say “You want to get cut up like your bloke?’”

There was a low murmur. Sheldon looked to Anna.

‘We are all obviously aware of the attack on DCI James Langton. What we now need to discuss is if there was any possibility that during the time Murphy was held in custody and also Vernon Kramer, either could have picked up knowledge of the attack.’

Sheldon continued. ‘This could have been a coincidental threat, not connected to Langton. Nevertheless, by using the words “your bloke”, it seems that Sickert might have known about DI Travis’s relationship.’

There were looks of confusion around the incident room: not many of the team had been aware of her connection to Langton — until now.

Brandon raised his hand. ‘There was a hell of a lot of news coverage on the incident.’

‘Yes, we are aware of that,’ Sheldon said, brusquely.

‘Well, could Sickert, or Murphy for that matter, have known about it via the press?’

‘No!’ Anna interjected. ‘There was never any reference to myself, nor that I was connected to Langton.’

Sheldon sighed. ‘So we have this guy simply making a threat out of the blue, or coincidentally just making the reference to DCI Langton? What do we know about this Sickert, apart from the fact that he’s now living with Murphy’s sister? Do we even have a Christian name?’

No one actually knew anything; it had never even been a point of discussion during the investigation.

‘Okay, I suggest we get what we can on Sickert and, if necessary, bring him in for questioning. That’s all we can do.’

The briefing broke up for Sickert’s background to be investigated. Although Gail used the surname Sickert and had, at times, referred to him as her husband, the officers were unable to trace any marriage certificate. They checked via the address he lived at with Gail, only to discover that the smallholding was rented in the name of Donald Summers, Gail’s previous husband. They also discovered that, due to Murphy’s harassment of his sister, she had been given protection against him; social services had assisted the move to the bungalow from a council estate in Hackney about eighteen months ago.

Gail had two children aged six and seven, a boy and a girl, called Keith and Sharon, both from different fathers; the toddler, Tina, had no father listed on her birth certificate. Gail had a history of social services visits, and the two children had been on the ‘at risk’ register because of the accusations of molestation she had made against Murphy. The local school was able to give confirmation that both the older children were currently pupils. The staff did recall many times when the kids had missed odd days, but these were due to colds and coughs. They confirmed that the children were often very scruffy but did not appear to be malnourished. It transpired that Gail had asked to be called Sickert after her husband Donald Summers had deserted her. However, the police drew a complete blank on Sickert, the man whose name she had taken; all they had was Anna’s description of him. By mid-afternoon, it was decided that they would bring Sickert in for questioning, for threatening an officer.

It was after five when Brandon and Blunt arrived at the smallholding. It had been determined that Anna should not accompany them.

The same array of children’s toys was littering the grass; a new henhouse had been started, but the hens were running free around the yard. The bungalow was in the same filthy state inside, with unmade beds and dirty laundry still in the washing machine. No Gail, no children, and no Sickert: they had all disappeared.

There were bundles of clothes and children’s toys half-stuffed into bin-liners. Odd shoes and baby bottles with blankets and pillows were dumped by the front door, and drawers were tipped out in every room, their contents left on the floor. It was obvious that the family had left in a hurry.

The men found few documents of any importance. Gail was on benefits to help pay gas, electricity, food and rent, but what rent she did have to pay was in arrears. Child benefit books were not found, nor was anything that had Sickert’s name on. They also found no men’s clothes in the house, but left by the back door was a large pair of Wellington boots that perhaps had belonged to him.

Sheldon had talks with the local police. They had had two call outs to the bungalow, but these had been connected to Arthur Murphy and possibly Vernon Kramer; both men had been drunk. These had been many months apart; they had no further disturbances from the Sickert address. The police were aware of Gail’s protection order against her brother but did not know who Sickert was.

The landlord, a Tom Adams, was owed six weeks’ rent; he had seen Sickert a couple of times, but most of his dealings had been with Gail and the social services. He had written complaints to the DSS about the rent arrears, but had received no reply.

Brandon reported back to the station. As the identity of Sickert remained a blank, there was not a lot they could do. Gail, with three children, would have to find financial assistance so it was possible they would be able to trace her eventually; if she did make any contact with the DSS or with social services, they would be informed.

‘What if she went unwillingly?’ Anna asked.

Sheldon shook his head. ‘From the evidence at the bungalow, she took provisions and clothing for her children, and it did not look as if she had been forced to leave. It is not against the law to move or do a runner, albeit she owed rent. We do not have any reason to believe that she was in any kind of danger.’

‘But she was frightened of Sickert.’

‘But we have no evidence of abuse, no police complaints; we’ve checked with the school, social services and so on. It is going to be down to them to trace her — that’s really not our problem. We have no cause for arrest.’

‘Well, there were threats from Sickert to me.’

‘I am aware of that, Anna. We have done, to my mind, all that we could do at this stage. Unless we have further evidence, all I suggest is we keep an open mind, remain in touch with the DSS and see what comes up. We have taken fingerprints and will run them through the database. If he’s got a record, then we’ll know who he is. Right now, our priority is the trial of Arthur Murphy.’

Anna had only been at home for a few moments, when Mike Lewis rang to say he was close by — could he drop in and see her? When he arrived, he was very apologetic about not getting back to her sooner, but he had heavy work commitments.

Anna poured him a glass of wine as she told him about the photograph and how they had arrested Murphy. She continued about her visit to Gail, and how she had taped the entire interaction with her.

Lewis interrupted her. ‘Anna, can you get to the reason why you called? You said it was urgent.’

She picked up her tape. ‘This is why I called you: listen to what this man says to me when I am driving out.’

Lewis leaned forwards, listening. She stopped the tape and played it again.

‘Did you hear what he said?’

‘Yes, yes.’

‘He said I’d get what my bloke got, right? “Cut up like your bloke”, yes? Well, you tell me: how did this man know about Langton?’

Lewis sighed, shaking his head. ‘Maybe he just said it — you know, in a rage.’

‘What if it is connected? What if, somehow, this man knew about me and Langton?’

Lewis sipped his wine. ‘What did he look like?’

Anna gave a description. Lewis said nothing.

‘Does that fit the description of either of the men who escaped after Langton was slashed?’

‘I’m not sure. Both were black, but I don’t recall one of them having dreadlocks. I don’t have that clear a memory of either of them; it all happened so fast.’

‘Krasiniqe gave you two names, right?’

‘Yes, but neither was Sickert.’

‘So? It could be an assumed name. We have found no record of him and we don’t even have a Christian name. We’ve taken prints from the bungalow but there’s no match on the database.’

‘Anna, I don’t know. I mean, I’ll talk to Barolli and see if he has a better memory of the guys, but we were both in shock.’

‘Are you saying you wouldn’t be able to recognize them again if you saw them?’

‘I dunno. Like I said, it went down so fast.’

‘What about the prints taken from the hostel where they were living?’

‘Yeah, we got prints.’

‘So, what if we try and match them from the ones we got from this guy Sickert?’

Lewis took a deep breath. ‘Well, you can ask Sheldon to instigate that.’

Anna chewed her lip. ‘To be honest, he’s very much against even carrying on looking for Gail, Sickert or the kids. Can you help me with it?’

‘Anna, you’ve got to understand, I’m involved in another murder enquiry.’

‘Forget it!’ she snapped.

‘No, listen to me. I will do what you ask, but you have to understand this has got to be formally directed. I would say that the correct people to go and see would be those who are involved in trying to trace—’

Anna didn’t wait to listen; she got up and glared at him. ‘You know they are just fucking around. Langton’s alive; if he was dead, it would be a different matter. With thousands of illegal immigrants loose, not to mention those on bloody parole missing, this will just be placed on a stack of thousands of other missing bastards.’

Lewis now stood up as well. ‘Does he know?’

‘He doesn’t know anything. Right now it’s the last thing he needs. He has to use all his strength to recover. To get him all stirred up over what may be a dead-end… I don’t think is a good idea.’

‘Right, just get mine and Barolli’s angst up.’

‘Forget it; just forget it, Mike.’

‘I can’t, all right? I can’t. I’ll do a print check, but for Chrissakes, Anna, give me a break!’

She walked him to her front door, where he said a rather curt goodnight. She watched him head down the stone stairs to the main exit then bolted the door.

Anna called Glebe House and was put through to Langton’s room. She told him she would not make it over to see him that evening. She put it down to the pressures of work, and said that she’d had a long day but didn’t feel like going into details. He didn’t sound disappointed, and talked about how well his physio session had gone: he’d been walking around the gardens.

‘That sounds like a big improvement; without a stick?’

‘Yeah — well, most of the way. Will I see you tomorrow?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good — only if work pressures aren’t too much,’ he said sarcastically.

She didn’t want to get into an argument, but he was no fool and knew her case was winding up for trial, so her excuse didn’t ring true.

‘Everything okay?’ he asked, this time softly.

‘Not that good, but I’d prefer to tell you all about it when I see you.’

‘I’ll make sure I’m available,’ he joked.

‘See you tomorrow then.’

‘Yep, until tomorrow.’ He replaced the phone before she could say anything else.

She sighed; she knew how important her visits were to him even though he’d never say so. She redialled and asked to speak to him again. A night nurse answered, who told her that he had asked not to be disturbed.

As she was leaving for work the following morning, Barolli phoned. He apologized for not getting back to her, but had been in bed with a streaming cold. He sounded as if he was still hardly able to breathe.

‘Mike Lewis called me,’ he said, sniffing loudly.

‘Did he tell you why I wanted to see you?’

‘Yeah, and he’ll run the prints for a check, but you know it was a hostel and we had Christ knows how many.’

‘Yes, I know that, but if there is a match?’

‘Right, right. You know, Anna, when it went down, I was behind Mike, and I didn’t really get to see the bastards’ faces either. I never even saw the big bloke — well, not for more than a few seconds when he ran past.’

When Anna described Sickert, Barolli said he couldn’t recall if either of the guys had dreadlocks, though both were black. She couldn’t really understand why neither Lewis nor Barolli felt as she did. She knew how much they cared for Langton and how many times they had worked alongside each other; their lack of enthusiasm depressed her.

There was no mention of Sickert in the incident room as the case against Vernon Kramer went before the crown court. He was wearing a sober grey suit, white shirt and tie. It never ceased to amaze her how the legal teams cleaned up their clients. He pleaded guilty to harbouring Arthur Murphy, but claimed he was afraid of him, saying that Murphy had threatened him if he did not help. This lie was swiftly demolished, as they were able to report that Vernon was actually wandering around buying fish and chips and beer, and could at any time have contacted the police. It was pointed out that the newspapers had front-page photographs of Murphy and requests for the public to assist in tracing him. Vernon replied that he didn’t read newspapers. In summation, he was found guilty and, as he was on parole, he was returned to Wandsworth prison with an extra eighteen months added onto the rest of his previous sentence. This time, he was to serve the full term with no leave to apply for parole.

Sheldon looked at Anna and shrugged. ‘Should never have been on early release anyway, the sick bastard.’

‘No wonder Gail was scared, her brother a killer and his best pal a paedophile.’

‘Listen, both of them are sick fucks, but Murphy’s going down for life. Another couple of years and Vernon here will be back in a hostel with more of his sicko friends. He’ll probably meet even more in the nick: they get segregated for their own protection from the other cons; come out and they’re at it again. He reckoned he was clever because he wasn’t on the sex offenders’ register; this time, I’m gonna make damned sure he is.’

Langton was sitting in the lounge, chatting to two other residents when she walked in. He waved, slowly stood up, and then walked towards her with his arms outstretched.

‘Eh, take a look at me?’ he grinned.

She wrapped her arms around him, almost in tears; he was a little unsteady and joked that she was pushing him over. They walked together to a vacant area, with two armchairs and a coffee-table. He sat down and she noticed that he winced in pain as he grasped the arms of the chair, easing himself down. He then blew out his breath.

‘I’ve got some good and some bad news,’ he smiled.

‘Well, I’m all ears.’

‘Tomorrow I’m having a physical assessment and if I pass, I’m coming home at the weekend.’

She was shocked: she hadn’t expected him to be released for another week at least.

‘They don’t keep us here for long, you know — get ’em out fast is their motto! So, how do you feel about that?’

She forced a smile. ‘It’s wonderful! This weekend?’

‘Yep. If I get under the weather, then I’ll be back for another two weeks — it’s the way they work it — but I reckon as soon as I’m out, that means out out.’

She leaned across to kiss his cheek.

‘So what do you think?’ he asked. ‘Should I go back to my place or come and stay with you?’

‘What do you think?’ she said in mock anger.

‘Well, I won’t be much use, you know. I can’t drive yet, but I’ll get compensation and that’s dosh for a taxi back and forth to a gym and the physio. I’m going to need a lot of work done on my knee. You know what the nurse said to me? Said it’s going to feel like housemaid’s knee. I said to her: “Well, never having been one, I wouldn’t know, so what does it feel like?” And she said: “Fucking painful!’” He laughed and she couldn’t help but join in.

She brought out some fresh fruit. He winced, saying he couldn’t face another grape, but ate the apples one after the other, munching through them like a kid. All the while, he gave her a running commentary about the other patients; he had her laughing as he mimicked them, using funny voices. It was a while before he calmed down and then reached over to take her hand.

‘You sure about taking me on, sweetheart?’

‘I have never been more sure about anything. Besides, your flat has a walk up four flights; I’m only two flights plus a lift and my flat is all on one floor, so it’s obviously the better place. Added to that, you’ll have me to cook and look after you.’

‘I don’t need mothering, Anna.’

‘Who said I’d be doing that? I want you fit and back to work as soon as possible, because I know you are not going to be easy.’

He grinned, then frowned. ‘Keep it quiet though. I don’t want visitors. I don’t want to see any of the old team, not until I’m ready.’

‘Whatever you say.’

‘I’ve made a list of stuff I’ll need to be brought in for me to go out looking the business.’

He handed it over and she slipped it into her handbag. She did not open her briefcase, which still contained the case file and his own folder of press cuttings. The time passed very quickly as they kissed and hugged each other. She was very tearful when he whispered that he loved her.

‘I love you too, and you are going to get back in shape, I know it.’

He cocked his head to one side. ‘I have to, because no way am I going to be shoved into some desk job, not me. I’m coming out and I’ve got a lot of unsolved business to sort!’

She felt very uneasy, but he clasped her hand.

‘Don’t get that worried look on your face. I won’t be doing anything dumb, but if you know me and I think you do, you know it’s not over.’

She gave a sad smile. ‘I know.’