Deep Cover

SEVEN

The man let the phone ring twice before he picked it up.

‘Forensic laboratory, sir.’ The voice on the other end of the phone line was crisp, efficient.

‘Yes?’

‘Just to let you know beforehand that the DNA tests on the cigarette butts you sent came back negative. No record at all.’

‘I see.’

‘Just thought I’d let you know in advance. We’ll be faxing the report in an hour or two, once it’s been written up.’

‘OK,’ the man replied warmly, ‘appreciate the notice.’

He replaced the phone and returned his attention to his monthly statistical returns.

Penny Yewdall slept late. She woke and looked about her in the shadows and the gloom of the room in which the Welsh girl had been murdered — the room which was now her room. She felt isolated. Alone. Vulnerable. She said as loudly as she dared, ‘I am a copper. I am a copper. I am a damn good copper, police woman Yewdall of the Murder and Serious Crime Squad, New Scotland Yard.’ She rose and clawed on a few items of clothing — underwear, jeans, a tee shirt — and walked into the kitchen, where she found a nervous looking Billy Kemp, whom she’d met in passing, sitting at the table, occupying the same chair that Josie Pinder had occupied the previous morning, and, like Josie Pinder, he also drank a mug of tea and smoked a hand-rolled cigarette.

‘We have to stay in today, you and me.’ He spoke with a trembling voice.

‘Have to?’

‘Yes. The manager of WLM Rents called round earlier and told me that we have to stay in. You and me.’

‘Why?’ Penny Yewdall sank into a vacant chair at the table.

‘Dunno, but I think someone’s going to get a kicking.’

‘Oh. .’

‘And we’re going to watch.’

‘We. .?’ Yewdall’s voice failed her.

‘We. I’m in the same boat as you. I’m a gofer being trained up. Trained and tested. I’ve delivered a few packages, three in all.’

‘I delivered one — to an address in East Ham.’

‘Chaucer Road?’

‘Yes.’

‘Same as me. I don’t reckon it’s some big important address, they’re just testing us. They won’t let us go to really important addresses until we’re further in.’

‘I thought you were established. It was just an impression I had.’

‘Yes, I have been here a while. . just not getting anywhere with Yates. He’s still not certain of me. Have you had a slap yet?’

‘No.’

‘I have, Yates slapped me round the head and punched me on the nose. . just enough to make it bleed and said, “No one leaves me, remember that”.’ Billy Kemp paused and gulped some tea. ‘Then he sent a couple of guys to check on my home address in Norwich.’

‘Think they did the same to my old dad in Stoke.’

‘Yes, I think that he’s not checking on you so much as letting you know he can get to your kin if you do a moonlight.’

Yewdall gasped.

‘Well. . maybe he’s doing both. Checking on you and also letting you know he can hurt your family if you allow yourself to drop off his radar. I’m in too deep.’

‘Me too.’

‘What do I do? What do we do? That bitch upstairs, the butch lesbian, Sonya Clements, she told me that you only get to be a proper gofer, get paid and all that, once you’ve seen someone get a kicking. Then you’re in the firm. Bottom rung of the ladder, but you’re in. But you need to see what happens to someone who gets out of order.’

‘I don’t want to watch,’ Yewdall pleaded.

‘You think I do? But keep your voice down, Clements tells Yates everything. You can’t cough in this house without her telling Yates. She’ll have been through your room.’

‘I thought someone had been in.’

‘It will have been her, poking round while you were out begging.’

Yewdall paused, then asked, ‘What about the Welsh girl?’

‘Gaynor? What about her?’

‘Well. . Josie told me she was murdered in that front room.’

‘Yes, one night. Yates doesn’t kill in daylight, it’s just his thing.’

‘So why do you also have to watch a kicking?’

‘Different story, I think. Don’t know but I think she was just. . used. . she hadn’t gone left field. Curtis Yates needed a body to frame the guy who had the room before you, Mickey Dalkeith by name. . nice geezer, but if Josie said “we” witnessed it, she must have meant her and Sonya Clements. I wasn’t there.’

‘I see.’

‘So how much money have you got?’

‘About six or seven pounds.’

‘I’ve got about ten.’

‘So what are you thinking?’

‘The pub.’ He glanced at the clock on the wall — it read ten minutes to eleven. ‘Get dressed. . walk slowly — they’ll just have opened by the time we get there.’

‘I thought we had to stay in?’

‘They’re coming for us at one thirty, and like I said, we can’t hide anywhere. I think I’d rather wait in the pub and have a stiff one or two. I’ll need it if I am going to watch someone get kicked to death.’

‘To death!’

‘Well it could go that far, whether they intend it or not. I mean they kicked J.J. Dunwoodie to death.’

‘So I heard. He wasn’t even in the firm. .’

‘Of course he was.’ Billy Kemp smiled. ‘He was well in, just played the wide-eyed innocent.’

‘I never knew him.’

‘It happened just before you moved here. He was battered to death in an alley close to the office where he worked.’

‘This is one hell of a mess.’

‘Where to go?’ Billy Kemp sighed. ‘What to do? Wonder how long it took to batter him to death?’

Yewdall and Billy Kemp sat in the pub. Yewdall thought that they must have made a strange couple — she so much larger than he, and clearly older — sitting together, side by side, yet saying little. It was early in the day and the landlord scowled at them, but they were paying, and the licensed retail trade is struggling. It was, Yewdall noticed, a clean pub, with a deep carpet, a highly polished wooden bar and wall panels containing sepia prints of Kilburn in a different era — an era of horse-drawn trams and drays, men in bowler hats and women in ankle-length skirts and dresses, and of solid, medium-rise buildings, many of which, she had noticed, still remained.

Yewdall’s mind worked feverishly. . what to do. . what to do. . to rescue the quaking Billy Kemp and walk with him into the police station? Would that prevent what was going to happen to some wretched soul in ‘the garage’? No, she thought, no, it probably wouldn’t and what had she got to offer? An address in East Ham which was clearly used only as a practice drop — the police would find nothing there if they raided. The intelligence that kickings took place in a lock-up called ‘the garage’, that Michael Dalkeith did not murder Gaynor Davies, that he was in fact rescuing her and was going to be fitted up for the murder, that. . that might be worth blowing her cover for if Michael Dalkeith was still alive and under suspicion. In the end, she decided to remain silent and keep her cover. She wanted something to offer for her time. It was early days yet and she still had nothing to connect Yates with anything.

‘We’d better be getting back,’ Billy Kemp said when the large clock above the bar read one o’clock. ‘We’ll have to fill our mouths with toothpaste to cover the smell of booze. Mind, we can say it was from last night.’

‘I’ll be back.’ Yewdall rose and walked into the ladies’ toilet. Ensuring that all the cubicles were empty she stood in front of a large frosted mirror, mounted within an elaborate plaster surround, and fixed herself in the eye, and said, ‘I. . am. . a. . police. . officer. .’ She then returned to where Billy was, by then, standing; waiting obediently, Labrador-like, she thought.

Yewdall and Kemp returned to the house and sat in the kitchen after putting large quantities of toothpaste into their mouths as they had planned. They waited in silence. At twenty-five past the hour a key was heard turning in the lock of the front door; heavy footfall tramped down the hallway and the kitchen door was pushed open. A tall, well-built, muscular man stood in the doorway. He looked at Yewdall and then at Kemp and said, ‘Come on.’

They rose and followed him out of the house. In the road, double-parked, was a black Mercedes with the rear door opened. Without a word being said, Kemp and Yewdall slid into the back seat. The door was closed behind them. Yewdall tried to open her door but couldn’t. The child locks had been put on; a useful piece of kit for parents and felons alike. The man who had collected them sat in the front passenger seat, and the driver started the car and pulled away.

Yewdall sat in silence but took careful note of the route. They drove north-west out of London, past the wealthy, well-set suburbs, out to Hemel Hempstead, and then to a village Yewdall noticed was called Water End.

Water End.

Water End.

Water End.

She committed the name to memory.

The phone on Harry Vicary’s desk warbled twice. He picked it up leisurely. ‘Vicary,’ he said.

‘We have a problem. .’ the voice on the other end of the line said.

‘Who’s we?’

‘I’m Penny Yewdall’s handler.’

‘Yes.’

‘We got the DNA results from the cigarette butts — just been delivered.’

‘Sorry, you have lost me. . calm down. .’

‘Sorry, we fixed Penny up with a false ID — a home in Hanley in the Potteries; a retired officer from the Staffordshire force occupied the home address posing as her father.’

‘Yes.’

‘She was checked out by a couple of heavies who sat outside her “father’s” house in a car. . then they emptied the ashtray in the road.’

‘Ah. . hence the DNA results,’ Vicary observed, ‘I see now.’

‘Yes, they came back no trace, which was unusual, but not only that, the DNA is from four people not two. . and two of those four are female. .’

‘Oh no!’

‘Yes. . oh yes. . those two geezers must have picked up the cigarette ends from the ground, knowing we’d pick them up for DNA sampling. She’s been rumbled. From day one, she was rumbled as being a cop.’

‘Now they’re playing us. . taunting us. Where is she?’

‘Don’t know.’

‘You don’t know!’

‘Either down Piccadilly panhandling, or at the house in Kilburn. I’ll go to Piccadilly.’

‘OK, I’ll take a team to the house. I hope we’re in time.’

‘Praying might be better than hoping,’ the handler said, but by this time Vicary had slammed the handset down and was reaching for his hat and coat, and calling for assistance.

The driver threaded the Mercedes-Benz through the village of Water End and continued for a mile, Yewdall guessed, and then turned right, directly opposite a thatch-roofed, white-painted cottage with the date 1610 AD above the door, which caused Yewdall to smile inwardly — a four-hundred-year-old cottage, what better landmark? The metalled surface of the road eventually gave out to an unsurfaced road, liberally covered with gravel to provide some grip for car tyres, Yewdall assumed, and possibly to give warning of approaching vehicles. The track led shortly to a collection of farm buildings — a house, a barn, outbuildings — which formed an L-shape around the courtyard. Parked on the courtyard was a collection of vehicles. Yewdall noted a Rolls-Royce, mud bespattered, a Ford Granada, a Land Rover and a transit van. The driver halted the Mercedes beside the van and the occupant of the passenger seat got out and opened the rear door. He knelt down, and quickly and efficiently pulled Yewdall’s shoes from her feet. Then he addressed Billy Kemp, saying brusquely, ‘Your shoes too, matey.’ Kemp obediently leaned forward and began to tug at his laces. Once the hard-faced man was in possession of both pairs of shoes he said, ‘You’ll get these back when you need them. Right, out. .’

Yewdall and Billy Kemp slid one by one out of the car and stepped gingerly on to the cold, rough surface of the courtyard. The man then tossed their shoes into the rear of the Mercedes and shut the door. ‘OK,’ he said, ‘this way.’ He led them across the courtyard, walking comfortably in heavy working shoes, accompanied by the man who had driven the Mercedes. Yewdall and Kemp followed, walking with difficulty. Yewdall had not realized until then how disabling it can be to be relieved of one’s footwear.

Upon reaching the barn, the driver of the car opened a small wooden door set in the larger barn door and entered. The second man stood to one side and indicated for Yewdall and Kemp to go through the entrance. Then he followed them and shut the door behind him. The interior of the barn was illuminated by a single bulb set on the wall by the door, which left the greater part of the interior of the barn in darkness, but what it did illuminate was a man and a woman standing together, a youth on the floor dressed only in his underpants and whimpering with fear, a domestic bath filled with water, and various items of machinery.

‘Nice one, Rusher.’ The man smiled at the driver’s companion who had occupied the passenger seat during the journey from Kilburn to the farm. ‘Any trouble?’

‘No, boss, they was as good as gold, they was.’

‘Let’s hope they stay like that.’ The man addressed Yewdall, ‘You know who I am?’

‘No. .’ Yewdall whispered. ‘Not your name, sir. . but I was in your house. .’

The man smiled. ‘Course you do, you’re just being cagey. You know, don’t you lad?’

‘Mr Yates.’

‘And the lady. .’

‘Miss Bowling.’

‘Yes. . course, we’ve all met before, ain’t we?’

‘Y-yes. .’

‘Yes, course we have. We want you to watch this. . this. . this little toerag — ’ Yates pointed to the whimpering youth — ‘this thing. He couldn’t pull a bird he couldn’t, so what does he do? He half-inches off me to buy himself a brass for the night. Went down King’s Cross with bundles of smackers — nothing wrong with that you might say — but the problem is those smackers were not his, were they?’

‘I was going to put it back,’ the youth wailed.

‘Course you were. . course you were. . but that’s not the point. Now I don’t mind a thief, not until he half-inches from me. . then that is like well out of order. . it is really well out of order, and the bottle it must have taken to believe he could get away with it.’ Yates took a running kick at the youth who doubled up under the impact to his stomach. ‘That is just so out of order. . so out of order. . it ain’t exactly what you’d call polite. . not polite at all. . not respectful like, not to a man who took him off the street and gave him a drum and a job. Alright, Rusher, make this one quick. . you too Henry.’

Rusher and Henry — who had driven Yewdall and Kemp to the farm — advanced on the helpless youth and proceeded to kick him about the head and body, but particularly about the head. The youth very quickly became lifeless but continued to emit gurgling sounds, which after a period of less then five minutes, Yewdall estimated, ceased.

‘That it?’ Yates asked when Rusher and Henry stopped kicking.

‘Yeah. .’ Rusher showed no sign of being out of breath. He and Henry both gave the impression that they could have carried on kicking the youth for a further half hour before showing any sign of fatigue. ‘It’s done.’

‘OK.’ Yates looked down at the bloody, pulped face of the youth. During the assault, neither he nor Bowling had made any movement or made any facial expression that Yewdall had noticed, but rather, both had stood as calmly as if waiting for a bus. Detachment, she thought, was just not the word. ‘Give him a bath.’

Rusher and Henry lifted up the body of the youth and placed it face down in the bath — immersing him so that just his calves and feet showed.

‘That’ll sort him if the kicking didn’t,’ Gail Bowling commented.

‘Oh, the kicking did it alright.’ Yates smiled. ‘They’re good boys but you can never be too sure. .’

‘Is he going to the building site?’ Bowling asked. ‘The old concrete coffin?’

‘No. . he’s staying here. . I’m going to have him planted out the back. I’ve got the hole dug.’ Yates advanced on Yewdall and, taking a length of chain from his coat pocket, he wrapped it tightly round one of her wrists and secured it with a small brass padlock, and then speedily and efficiently wound the other end of the chain equally tightly round her other wrist, and similarly secured it with a brass padlock, thus holding her wrists together, six inches apart. ‘I want to show you something, blossom,’ he said smiling. ‘Come with me.’ He put his arm in hers and led her gently out of the barn. Walking with discomfort Yewdall was led from the barn to the meadow behind the barn wherein stood a line of short trees. Close to where Yates and Yewdall stood were three large holes about five feet long, three feet wide and three feet deep. Beside each hole was a sapling wrapped in newspaper.

‘Flowering cherry,’ Yates announced with pride, ‘my favourite tree. . the blossom in spring time. . exquisite. They don’t bear fruit, so it will never be a cherry orchard, but it is a lovely old tree.’

‘So why bring me up here?’

‘Rare old treat, darlin’.’ Yates smiled. ‘You’re sort of a special customer. .’

‘Cust. .’ Yewdall stammered.

‘Yeah. . for want of a better way of putting it, here you go, girl, choose your hole.’

Yewdall pulled away from Yates but he held her close. ‘What’s the rush, darlin’? One for the youth we just chilled, one for Billy Kemp. . he’s getting to know what’s in store for him right now. .’ Just at that moment a high-pitched cry was heard from the barn. ‘Ah, reckon he’s just been told. No one will hear. We let dogs out at night, keeps the poachers off the land. You can scream your lungs out tonight. So, what do you think. . the middle one?’

‘Why?’

‘Why you? What have you done? Is that what you’re asking?’

‘Yes. .’

‘It’s because you’re the filth, ain’t you?’

Yewdall went cold, and a chill shot down her spine; she felt a hollowness in her stomach.

‘You came from nowhere, and you came right in the middle of the filth asking questions. Just a little grubby but not grubby enough. . it takes weeks. . not a day or two. . and you’re taller, fitter, more healthy looking than most street dwellers. . and you were careful not to ask questions.’

Yewdall looked around her, the winter landscape, the trees, the low sky, the cawing rooks all seemed so much more real, so much more immediate somehow.

‘And your old man in Stoke,’ Yates continued. ‘We paid him a visit. . cor blimey. . he had everything but “Police” stamped on his forehead. Full of confidence when two strange geezers knocked on his door. . no fear. . no concern for his safety, just full of anger towards you like he was reading from a script.’

Yates took a packet of cigarettes from his pocket and took two, lit them with a gold lighter, and pushed one between Yewdall’s lips. Yewdall surprised herself by accepting it, and inhaled the smoke.

‘It’s paranoia, darling,’ Yates explained as he turned Yewdall around and began walking her back to the barn, ‘paranoia. . that keeps us alive. Suspect everyone. . trust no one. . you need to believe that everyone is out to get you because they are. . cops, blaggers. . dog eat dog.’

Yewdall’s head sank, her feet were numb with cold.

‘Well, I got to say thanks for not claiming you’re not a cop — that would be really naughty of you, darling. I have more than two brain cells despite all that vodka I have thrown down my neck. Been doing that like there’s no tomorrow, but that’s my look out. I’ll be outliving you. How old are you darlin’?’

‘Twenty-five.’ Yewdall looked around her at the winter landscape.

‘Twenty-five,’ Yates repeated. ‘I could do with being that young, but with this loaf — ’ he tapped the side of his head — ‘cor. . I mean, cor blimey, just think of that. . all this know-how and a twenty-five-year-old body, I’d be the King of London, never mind Kilburn. Well, it comes to us all sooner or later, for you it’ll be sooner. It was Sonya who put us on to you. . you were just too clean and well-preserved.’

‘Sonya?’

‘Yeah, the big girl at the house. She’s a good girl. . put us on to Billy too, she did. She’s doing alright for herself she is, she’s set to climb.’

‘What about Billy? He’s just a boy.’

‘He’s just a boy with a loud mouth. . too much rabbit; he just can’t keep his old north and south shut. He’s a liability we can do without.’

‘I feel sick. .’ Yewdall stumbled on the rough surface of the meadow.

‘It’s the smoke, it’s not good for you,’ Yates laughed, then he paused and said, ‘All. . all because of that idiot Dalkeith. I told him to bury a body here, in this meadow, but what does he do? Buries her on Hampstead Heath. Yes, he digs a hole here and plants a tree, knowing I would not dig it up and check. Rosie Halkier, she should have been down there at the bottom end.’ He turned to look at the meadow. ‘Down there with that meddling cook, Tessie O’Shea. They were plotting against me and Gail, but we got to them first, and if Dalkeith had done the job like I told him, none of this would have come out. He left me with a right old mess to clean up, and you. . you’ll never see twenty-six. . you’ve got Irish Mickey Dalkeith to thank for that. Well, let’s get back to the barn, it’s cold out here.’

Upon re-entering the barn, Yewdall saw that Billy Kemp lay curled up on the floor clutching his stomach, breathing with difficulty.

‘He tried to do a runner,’ Gail Bowling explained, ‘so Rusher tapped him.’

‘Nice one, Rusher.’ Yates smiled approvingly. ‘Better fasten him, Henry.’

‘Yes, boss.’ Henry took a length of chain and padlocked one end to a large item of machinery, and the other end he padlocked round Billy Kemp’s ankle.

Yates pushed Penny Yewdall over towards Billy Kemp and, taking a small key, unlocked the chain round her left wrist, and then padlocked the end to the chain which held Billy Kemp captive.

‘That’s a nice sight.’ Gail Bowling gazed approvingly on the captive forms of Penny Yewdall and Billy Kemp. ‘That really is a very nice sight.’

‘When do we do them?’ Yates turned to Bowling.

‘Tomorrow. Tomorrow afternoon late, early evening, when dusk is falling. . give them time to think about things. Bet you never thought your last twenty-four hours in this life would be spent in a barn in Hertfordshire, did you, Constable?’ Bowling asked with a smile. ‘And such a pretty girl. . what a waste.’

Yewdall did not reply.

‘Thank you for not telling us that we won’t get away with it. . because we will. We have been getting away with it for years. . but you’ve seen the cherry trees. . no one knows what they mean. No one knows what’s underneath them. If you scream. . well, you can scream, because no one will hear you, but if you do, Henry will come and tap you, won’t you, Henry?’

‘Damn right, I will.’

‘Packer will be in the house keeping warm but awake all night, won’t you, Henry? Just one mighty blow from his fist to your stomach will keep you quiet. I mean, look at him — ’ Gail Bowling pointed to the curled-up figure of Billy Kemp — ‘he won’t be saying anything for a while. . and shouting. . well, forget it.

‘So, we’ll leave you — we have a dinner party to attend; got to get back home and get dressed for it. . but there’s nothing like a trip to the country to put an edge on your appetite.’

Bowling and Yates left the barn. Henry Packer followed shortly afterwards, turning off the light and shutting the door behind him.

Yewdall tugged at the chain and then gave up. The only sound was the wheezing Billy Kemp.

Harry Vicary forced the door of 123 Claremont Road and stormed into the hall, followed by Brunnie and Ainsclough, and four uniformed constables. He yelled, ‘Police!’ and then turned to the constables. ‘Search the house. Bring everyone down to the kitchen.’

The only person in the house at the time proved to be Sonya Clements, who was dragged protesting into the kitchen.

‘So where is she?’

‘Who?’

‘My officer!’

‘Your officer?’

‘Yes. .’ Vicary snarled, ‘my officer, Penny Yewdall.’

‘Penny’s a cop!’ Clements gasped.

‘Yes. . Penny’s a cop and Yates has her. Yates is finished and everyone associated with him is finished too. So where is she?’

‘Don’t know! Honest. She was driven off about an hour ago.’

‘Who drove her off!’

‘Dunno. . Rusher did. . her and Billy Kemp.’

‘Where did they go?’

‘I don’t know. . look, I’m just a girl, I don’t know anything.’

‘But you know Rusher works for Yates!’

‘Yes. .’

‘So what do you do for Yates?’

‘Just a gofer, fetch and deliver stuff — just little stuff. Do what I’m told.’

‘Take her in, suspicion of handling stolen property.’ Vicary paused. ‘That’ll do for now. . but listen you,’ he addressed Sonya, ‘listen, we are wrapping up Yates. He’s going down and he’ll be well tucked-up for a long time. So right now it’s just handling stolen goods, but if anything happens to Penny it could be conspiracy to murder a police officer. . and when a firm like Yates’s firm starts collapsing, everyone is out to save themselves. Everyone starts squealing like a sty full of stuck pork, it’s a hell of a racket, and we’ll then find out what has gone on and who has done what. So, do some thinking while you’re in the van and start working for yourself. Alright, take her away!’ Two constables dragged a wide-eyed and worried looking Sonya Clements out of the house and into a police van.

‘Take the house apart.’ Vicary spoke to Ainsclough and the two remaining officers. ‘I don’t know what you are looking for but take the place apart.’ He tapped Frankie Brunnie on the shoulder and said, ‘Come with me.’

Vicary walked aggressively out of the house, turned on to Fernhead Road, and headed to the offices of WLM Rents. He and Brunnie entered aggressively. The manager stood reverentially as they entered, and managed to say, ‘Good afternoon, gent-’ before Vicary grabbed his lapels, pulled him over the desk and threw him on the floor. ‘Penny Yewdall,’ he shouted. ‘Where is she?’

‘Who?’ The youthful manager looked shocked and frightened. He was one Nicholas Batty, by his name badge.

‘My officer!’

‘Your officer,’ he stammered.

‘Yes, Metropolitan Police. . and my officer was driven away about an hour ago by Curtis Yates’s thugs. .’

‘I just look after the office.’

‘Sure?’

‘Yes. .’

‘We’ll find out, we’ll find out everything.’

Brunnie leaned forward, and taking the man by his lapels, once again, he pulled him to his feet and brushed the man’s jacket. ‘You’re out of work, sunshine.’

‘Out. .’

‘Of work,’ Vicary completed the sentence for him. ‘Yates is finished, his firm is on the way out and we’ll find out the extent of everyone’s involvement.’

‘Including yours, Nicky boy,’ Brunnie added, ‘including yours.’

Vicary’s mobile vibrated. He took it out of his pocket and snatched it open. ‘Yes!’ He listened. He then said, ‘It doesn’t look like she’s here either.’ He snapped the phone shut. He turned to Brunnie. ‘She’s not at Piccadilly.’

‘So now what?’ Brunnie kept hold of Nicholas Batty’s arm.

‘Don’t know. . bring him with us.’

‘On what charge, boss?’

‘Dunno. . we’ll think of one — can’t leave him out here now he knows Penny’s a copper. You got the keys to this office?’

‘Desk drawer.’

Vicary strode across the floor to the desk, opened the drawer and took out a bunch of keys. ‘These?’

‘Yes.’

‘Right.’ He walked back to where Brunnie and Batty stood and handed the keys to Brunnie. ‘Check in the back room, then lock up and give the keys back to me. . and you, start to think about working for yourself, Nicholas. Curtis Yates is finished; he’s got nothing to hold over you now.’

The long afternoon stretched into an even longer night. Billy Kemp, to whom Penny Yewdall was chained, had eventually, but only eventually, stopped asking questions which Yewdall could not answer — ‘Which one of us will they kill first?’, ‘Will they drown us like they drowned him?’, ‘Will our bodies ever be found?’, ‘Will anyone know what happened?’ He then gave up the futile tugging of the chain, seemed to curl up into a ball and settled into a prolonged whimpering, which he kept up until the dawn.

In time, a certain calm, a certain peace settled over Penny Yewdall. So, she thought, so it has come to this — an early death at the hands of thieves and gangsters, but it was also a death she felt proud to die. . for the police force. She had joined to serve, and had joined accepting the risks therein. Not perhaps as much of a risk as is faced by those who enlist in the armed services, but nonetheless police officers not infrequently lose their lives when on duty. Penny Yewdall, noticing that sounds appeared louder, smells stronger as she waited to die, realized that she was not worried for herself — she had hoped for a quick and painless death when her time came, and like the whimpering youth she did not relish the thought of drowning, the panic. . the struggle. . the bursting lungs. . and likewise she did not want to die by falling from a great height, nor by incineration — but her worry turned to fear for her parents, her real, actual parents, still alive and living in retirement on the coast, and her sister and brother. Her family must know what had happened to her; they would need a grave to visit, a place to lay wreaths and a place where they could gather and grieve, but they were not going to have that. She would disappear, leaving them not knowing what had happened to her. They would never know peace. They would be in permanent distress. It was for them that she worried, endlessly fretting while her earthly remains putrefied under a sapling of a flowering cherry tree, so pretty in the spring, in a meadow in Hertfordshire. That was the worry — she felt for her family; aggravated by the sense of guilt that she had, somehow, betrayed them.

It became cold that night. Very cold. In the barn rats rustled about. Outside in the still air, an owl hooted.

Victor Swannell stepped nimbly out of the drizzle and off the greasy pavement, entered the main entrance of the London Hospital and was immediately assailed by the strong smell of formaldehyde. He consulted the hospital directory and took the stairs, in preference to the lift, to the second floor. Upon reaching the second floor he turned left and entered the ward, and approached the nursing station. He showed his ID. ‘I was told a patient wishes to see the police as a matter of urgency. A man called Sherwin. . Clive Sherwin.’

‘Ah, yes.’ The senior of the two nurses at the station stood. She was one Sister Jewell, by her name badge, which was fixed perfectly horizontal on the lapel of her uniform. She was a short, finely built woman — serious-minded, thought Swannell — the sort of nursing sister who is always right all the time about everything and a terror of trainees. ‘I’ll take you to him. We have put him in a private room, wholly for the benefit of the other patients I might add. He would distress them.’

‘Distress them?’

‘You’ll see what I mean. Please come this way.’ Sister Jewell came out from behind the nursing station and, with Swannell in her wake, walked silently down the ward on rubber-soled shoes. ‘We get one or two patients like this each year. It is the East End policing itself.’ Sister Jewell spoke sniffily. ‘I mean, as if the Health Service hasn’t enough to do. . and isn’t collapsing under bankruptcy. I confess, avoidable injuries and violence annoy me.’ She progressed along the ward which had been arranged in the traditional ‘Nightingale’ style, with beds at equal intervals and abutting the walls on both sides at ninety degrees. A few patients had visitors. ‘Open visiting hours,’ Sister Jewell explained, as if reading Swannell’s thoughts. ‘It is a recently introduced system, a new development. I confess, freely so, that I prefer the old system of strictly enforced visiting hours but then I am now old enough to dislike any form of change, and I really do believe that things were better in the old days.’ Swannell remained silent. He had long since learned not to argue with taxi drivers and nursing sisters, and his opinion of Sister Jewell as being a tyrant towards junior nurses was being reinforced by the second.

‘In here.’ Sister Jewell stopped outside the door of a private room, with painted wooden walls up to waist height and frosted glass up to a height of ten feet thereafter. The room had no ceiling. ‘He was brought in last evening.’ Sister Jewell continued to speak but with a lowered voice. The room offered privacy of vision but not sound. ‘He was found on the pavement near here. There is not one square inch of flesh that is not bruised, and I mean one square inch. . from the soles of his feet to his scalp, yet not one bone in his body is broken and his teeth have been left intact. I confess that he could be mistaken for a gentleman of the subcontinent, but he is as Northern European as you and me.’

‘I see.’

‘Hence not wanting to distress the other patients. They get upset when they find out that such injury is caused by premeditated violence, rather than accident.’

‘Yes. . I can understand that.’ Swannell nodded. ‘I did wonder but now I fully appreciate why you have isolated him.’

‘Thank you. Well, as I said, I have seen the like. He was numb last night, wasn’t feeling very much at all according to the nursing notes, but he woke in discomfort this morning. He refused breakfast and I confess that I doubt he’ll partake of lunch. He will get more uncomfortable over the next few days, then the pain will stabilize, but it will remain for a long time. We’ll put him on painkillers but he will still feel something.’

‘How long before he is recovered?’

‘Physically. . a few months, but mentally. . never. . the mental scars will never heal, they just don’t ever heal.’

‘Months!’

‘Oh, yes. . months. He won’t be here for that length of time, the pressure on beds won’t permit it, but I have known such bruising to take six months to fade completely. He was probably the victim of a sustained assault which lasted a full day.’ Sister Jewell shrugged. ‘That’s the East End. Some of the trainees can’t hack it and transfer to the west London hospitals. It’s not the injury itself you see — it’s the cause that upsets them.’

‘Yes.’

‘Now he is brown all over, that will turn into the mottled mix of blue-and-black bruising, then he’ll turn yellow as if he is badly jaundiced, but once the bruising turns yellow, then at least he is on the healing side of things. But that will still take months. He’s in for a very uncomfortable summer. . So that’s gangland London, but you know that as much as me — the East End policing itself, like I said. He said he wanted to talk to a Mr Brunnie.’

‘He’s busy. I am his senior officer.’

‘Very well.’ Sister Jewell opened the door and led Swannell into the room. Victor Swannell baulked at the sight which greeted him, and he saw then that Sister Jewell was not exaggerating when she said that even though he was Northern European, Clive ‘The Pox’ Sherwin could be mistaken for an Asian, such was the depth and extent of the bruising. His eyes were swollen shut.

‘Police to see you, Mr Sherwin.’ Sister Jewell spoke softly yet efficiently. There was no sympathy in her voice. ‘One gentleman, I have seen his identity card.’

‘Mr Brunnie?’ Sherwin asked weakly. ‘I can’t see nothing. . I can’t. . nothing. I can make out it’s day-time. . but nothing else.’

‘No, it’s Mr Swannell, Mr Brunnie is busy. He can’t come but you can talk to me.’

‘Well, I will leave you.’ Sister Jewell turned and walked out of the room, closing the door silently behind her.

‘I talked to Mr Brunnie.’

‘Yes, I know, I read the recording of the chat you had. He made you an offer.’

‘Yes, witness protection.’

‘Indeed. The offer is still on the table.’ Swannell drew up a chair and sat beside the bed.

‘Yes. . Yates did this to me. I never said nothing, and he goes and does this. I’m seen as a grass now. No one gets a slap like this if they don’t deserve it, so no one will believe me when I say I never grassed.’ He choked. ‘I’m finished. . finished. . I can’t go nowhere now so I need that protection offer.’ He drew his breath deeply. ‘Blimey. . and they tell me this isn’t it; they tell me the pain will get worse before it gets better. . that this is only the start of it.’

‘Sister told me the same thing.’

‘She’s a hard old girl. Met her for the first time this morning when she came on duty. She said, “People who have had a heart attack need this bed”, then walked out. I won’t be leaving her a box of chocolates when I go.’

‘So what do you want to tell me? What can you tell me? Witness protection comes at a price.’

‘Everything. . everything I know about Curtis Yates and that cow Gail Bowling, she’s the boss, not Yates — but they are partners. . he’s a little bit junior to her. . and that import and export business — furniture! Do me a favour, it’s ecstasy pills out and humans in. . girls mainly from Eastern Europe on their way to the massage parlours.’

‘We thought as much.’ Swannell took his notepad from his jacket pocket and pressed the top of his ballpoint. ‘I’ll get an overview to start with — all the details will come out later.’

‘OK. . and I can tell you where the bodies are buried. I put them there.’

‘Did you actually murder anyone, Clive?’

‘No, but I was one of Yates’s and Bowling’s undertakers; I got rid of the bodies. Sometimes in cement in the basement of a renovated house in Kilburn, sometimes under a tree. .’

‘A tree?’

‘A cherry tree; Yates likes them. He had his own take on “green burials” before they became fashionable with the save-the-planet brigade.’ He winced with pain. ‘I’ll tell you everything. . everything. . but I need the full package. . new name, new address and a plod outside that door. Once Yates knows I’m grassing him up, my life’s in danger.’

‘Well, if you can tell us what you say you can tell us. . then that is guaranteed, Clive.’

‘Clive.’ The man winced again. ‘Clive “The Pox” Sherwin. . that name belongs to the past. . well in the past. . ancient history.’

‘OK, but for now I’ll still call you Clive.’ Swannell leaned slightly forward and spoke in a soft, gentle tone. ‘The new name will come later.’

‘Alright. . understand, dare say it took longer than a day to build Rome.’

‘Is a good way of looking at it, Clive.’ Swannell nodded. ‘It is a good way to look at it.’

‘Mind you, I’ll keep Clive. . I just need a new surname.’

‘I’m afraid you can’t, it doesn’t work like that.’ Swannell glanced around him — the clinical whites and creams, the heavy grade industrial linoleum, the scent of disinfectant, the sound of traffic outside the old Victorian era building. ‘We have the names listed, you can’t mix and match. We need to know which names have been taken, both Christian and surname.’

‘I see.’

‘Never know your luck though, Clive. . look down the old list and you’ll likely see a “Clive” somebody, though you might not like the surname. . but it’s a long list, doubtless there will be more than one “Clive” on it.’

‘See what I see, when I see it. . when I can see. Now I know what it’s like to be blind. They did a good job on me, Mr Swannell. I mean, did they go to town or did they go to town?’

‘They went to town alright, Clive. So tell me what you can. We can start now. . see how far we get. I can come back as often as need be.’

‘Bring some grapes.’ Clive Sherwin forced a smile.

‘I can do that.’

‘OK, I’ll sing like a canary, but first. . first. .’ He winced in discomfort. ‘First off, you don’t have a lot of time. . You sent a lassie in. . undercover. . a female officer. She was rumbled right from the start.’

‘Yes, we thought as much. We don’t know where she is. .’

‘I do. . I have an idea where she might be. . don’t know the old address.’

‘Come on, Clive!’ Swannell raised his voice. He heard it echo within the glass walls of the isolation ward.

‘Her life’s in danger.’

‘If it isn’t over already. .’ Again Sherwin winced.

‘Clive! Don’t faint on me. . not now.’

‘I won’t faint. Listen. . you need to drive north-west out of the Smoke. . up into Hertfordshire.’

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t know the road. .’

‘That’s a big help. .’

‘You have to drive out of Hemel Hempstead, out the other side from the Smoke. I don’t know the road number but I am sure it’s signposted to Leighton Buzzard.’

‘Leighton Buzzard?’

‘Sure of it. It’s an A road, but just one lane in either direction. I only went there a couple of times. I’m doing my best. . there’s a white cottage.’

‘A white cottage?’

‘Yes, old building. . got a date on it. . 1610 AD.’

‘1610? You sure, Clive?’

‘Certain. It’s my birthday, see — sixteenth October: 1610 — so I remembered it. When I first clocked it, I saw the date and I thought, “well, I never”. Anyway, you turn opposite it up a farm track. It leads to a farm. It’s got a thatched roof.’

‘The farmhouse?’

‘No, the cottage — white, with 1610 on it. . above the door.’

‘Still a bit of a needle in a haystack, Clive.’

‘You need to crack on. If she’s still alive, she won’t be soon. Curtis Yates has a thing about noon.’

‘Noon?’

‘Yes, he doesn’t like chilling anyone before noon. . he really prefers the night-time. . but it’s like deadline noon for him — after midday he starts cooling his victims.’

Swannell took out his mobile phone from his pocket and punched the keys. He stood as his call was answered and turned away from Sherwin. ‘Boss, we need to move. .’

Curtis Yates lit a cigar and smiled at Gail Bowling. ‘I enjoyed that, a leisurely breakfast. . now a cigar. . and then a pleasant drive out to Hertfordshire.’

‘Yes, I know what you mean.’ Gail Bowling smiled. ‘The cherry orchard keeps growing.’

Harry Vicary slammed his phone down, ran from his office to the detective constables’ office. ‘Grab your coats,’ he yelled to Frank Brunnie and Tom Ainsclough. ‘I’ll tell you what’s happening on the way.’

‘Where are we going, boss?’

‘Out to Hemel Hempstead,’ Vicary panted, ‘other side of same. We’ll have to phone the Hertfordshire police — we’ll need some uniforms. . and local knowledge. We need to find a white cottage; out on the road to Leighton Buzzard. . dated 1610 apparently. Penny’s there and in danger.’

‘At the cottage?’

‘No. . I’ll explain in the car.’ He turned and ran down the corridor.

‘I hope we’re in time.’ Ainsclough ran behind him, followed by Brunnie.

‘You hope we’re in time!’ Vicary replied angrily. ‘You didn’t send her there.’

Penny Yewdall stiffened at the sound of car tyres arriving and moving slowly over the rough surface of the farmyard. She heard the dog bark aggressively.

‘They’re here,’ Billy Kemp whined. ‘They’ve come too early.’

‘Early?’ Penny Yewdall glanced at him. It was by then, she estimated, about noon. ‘What do you mean, early?’

‘Yates has this thing about killing during the day. I told you, he doesn’t like icing geezers until after dark. I thought we’d have a few hours yet. How do you think they are going to do it?’

The door of the barn opened and winter sunlight illuminated the interior; the rats were heard to scurry for the shadows. Billy Kemp cried out in panic.

Penny Yewdall did not know whether to laugh or cry, when, in the next instant, Harry Vicary stepped into the barn.

‘Oh good.’ Vicary smiled softly. ‘I was very worried that we would be late.’ Brunnie and Ainsclough stepped into the barn behind him; the officers spread out making sure the building was clear of felons.

Yewdall blinked against the sudden rush of light. ‘How. .?’

Harry Vicary held up his hand, ‘All in good time. . but for now let’s just say that Victor Swannell met a man who told him where we were likely to find you. He gave excellent directions. . turn right at a white cottage dated 1610 AD. We could hardly miss. He told Swannell about a row of cherry trees. .’

‘Yes, they’re just outside behind the barn. I’ll show you. Where is Yates?’

‘He’s being arrested. Gail Bowling as well. We have officers going to their house in Virginia Water. It’s all over, Penny. The nightmare is over.’

Later that same year, as the sun sank over fields of freshly baled wheat in north Norfolk, a man and a woman, walking arm in arm, returned from their stroll and entered the village in which stood their hotel. They entered the bar of the hotel and each had a glass of orange juice; they then went to the restaurant of the hotel and were directed to a table for two. They had agreed upon an early dinner before retiring for an early night.

‘Well,’ the man said, ‘as I was telling you, they all started collapsing to save what they could of themselves, and each privately vowing to kill Clive “The Pox” Sherwin for being the first one to squeal, but Henry Packer, the guardian of the farm in Hertfordshire, saw the opportunity to save himself and, like Sherwin, he too is living under a new name somewhere north of Watford. The principal players collected life: Yates, Bowling and ‘Rusher’ Boyd. Lesser players like Sonya Clements and Felicity Skidmore got lesser sentences, and Josie Pinder went back to the North of England to complete her studies. She had her eyes well-opened and realized that Salford isn’t such a bad place after all.’

‘Their property?’ The woman studied the menu.

‘Oh, confiscated,’ the man replied without looking up from his copy of the menu, ‘all of it has been seized under the proceeds of crime legislation. So if they do come out of prison at some far distant point, then they will come out to the dole queues and hostel living. Quite a fall from grace.’

‘And others got closure?’

‘Yes, that is the pleasing thing. Mr Halkier can now visit his daughter’s grave, and Mr O’Shea can now visit his wife’s grave. Victor Swannell found out what happened to Charlotte Varney, who disappeared some years ago and who was linked to Curtis Yates. It was one of his cold cases you see.’

‘Ah. .’

‘And a girl called Jennifer Reeves, an early victim — her remains and the remains of Charlotte Varney being found under a cherry tree. . and of course their relatives now also have closure. Tragic that they lost their daughters in that way, but at least they now know what happened. . it is some comfort, some little comfort.’

The couple stopped talking and leaned back in their chairs as a waiter wearing a starched white tunic approached their table. ‘Would you like to see the wine list, sir?’ he asked pleasantly.

‘No, thank you,’ Harry Vicary replied. ‘Just a pitcher of chilled water for us both, please.’

‘Water. .’ The youthful waiter scowled. ‘Water? Yes, sir.’

‘Restaurants only make money on their alcohol sales,’ Vicary explained to his wife when the waiter had departed. ‘The profit from food sales is slim to zero.’

‘So we won’t be popular customers?’ Kathleen Vicary smiled.

‘Nope, but we are paying through the nose for our room if you ask me. We could get cheaper in London. Mind you, they don’t call this part of Norfolk “Chelsea North” for nothing.’

‘Yes, can’t help but notice the cars; our little VW next to those Ferraris. So, it is all wrapped up? Case closed?’

‘Yes.’ Vicary smiled. ‘All wrapped up, all done and dusted. A whole criminal empire we hardly knew existed brought down in a matter of days, because a man chose to commit suicide by lying down in the snow right on top of a shallow grave he had dug some ten years earlier.’