Friends to Die For

Eighteen

A pair of City of London coppers apprehended Billy at his place of work. Tiny and George were arrested at their homes. They picked up Greg in his lock-up over at Waterloo loading cases of dodgy whisky into the back of his van, and they tracked down Bob to the luxury block of flats at Clerkenwell where he regularly attended to both the plants in the public areas and several of the privately owned terraces and balconies. Karen was apprehended as she returned home with shopping for that evening’s supper. Ari was found in the lobby of the Dorchester where, with his father, he was entertaining a Swiss Banker and a Saudi sheikh to a light lunch.

Their arrests had been executed so quickly that all seven of them claimed to be unaware of Michelle’s murder until this was revealed to them by their arresting officers, and each appeared shocked to the core.

They were taken to Charing Cross police station where they were to be interviewed separately, waiting in between times in individual cells. First they were processed in the custody unit. Their clothes and personal possessions were removed and they were fingerprinted and DNA-tested according to procedure. A small amount of cocaine was found in a pocket of Ari Kabul’s jacket. That held no interest, in itself, for Vogel, but it was possible that its presence might prove useful.

By the time all seven were brought in Vogel was once again looking his usual cool, calm self, and concentrating his legendary brain on the matter in hand instead of dwelling on the consequences of earlier failings.

The question that was bugging him most was why Marlena and Michelle had been murdered, rather than by whom. He was quite sure that if he could only find the answer to the former, the latter would automatically fall into place.

Vogel, once more accompanied by DC Jones, conducted the first interview with Ari. Before he could get a question in, Ari had one for him. He was no longer as self-assured or amenable as he’d been the previous time they’d met, but then nobody had died when Vogel had last spoken to Ari Kabul, and he hadn’t been arrested and hauled into a police station.

‘I suppose you think I’m guilty of murdering Marlena and Michelle as well as everything else that’s been going on because nothing’s happened to me,’ Ari blurted out. ‘Because I’m not one of the poor bloody victims.’

Vogel was very quiet, his manner more in keeping with an inquisitive schoolteacher than a police detective.

‘I can assure you, Mr Kabul, that I have drawn no such conclusion. You are here to help us with our inquiries, that’s all.’

‘I thought I’d been arrested.’

‘A technicality, at this stage,’ said Vogel. ‘After Michelle’s body was found we wanted to get you all here as—’

‘At least we know Alfonso didn’t do it.’

‘Mr Kabul, I cannot divulge information about an investigation which is still ongoing.’

‘No,’ Ari interrupted again. ‘But it’s damned obvious Alfonso couldn’t have killed Michelle if he was banged up in here. Which he was.’

Vogel ignored the remark.

‘Mr Kabul, could you tell me where you were between the hours of eight and ten this morning please?’ he enquired.

‘I was with my dad at the Dorchester, where you damn well picked me up in front of everybody.’ Ari’s voice rose. ‘Can you imagine the bad time my dad’s going to give me?’

‘I think that may be the least of your concerns,’ said Vogel. ‘What time exactly did you arrive at the Dorchester?’

‘I’m not sure. About twenty past eight I think.’

‘And was anyone else with you up until ten o’clock or thereabouts, or were you just in the company of your father?’ asked DC Jones.

‘You have to be joking,’ said Ari. ‘You think my dad would choose to while away the morning with me? We had a breakfast meeting with some City people at eight thirty, followed by a couple of other meetings over coffee, and then the lunch — which you guys know about because you interrupted it, didn’t you? It’s something Dad does. Intensive entertaining, he calls it. Gets a lot of stuff over with all at once.’

‘I see. And before eight twenty?’

‘What do you think? We were travelling to the Dorchester from home, weren’t we? In Dad’s car. So his chauffeur can back me up on that, though if you think my dad would give me a false alibi then you just don’t know him.’

Vogel stared at Ari. How he wished he could read minds. Sometimes he almost felt he could when he was really concentrating on interviewing a suspect. But not with this guy. He was unable to get beyond Ari’s chippy responses. The difference in the man since their last encounter was so marked that Vogel couldn’t help wondering whether the personality change was a sign of guilt. He noticed that Ari’s hands were trembling. Was it just a case of nerves, or was it an indicator of dependency on the substance found on him, or any other substances he might be addicted to?

Vogel decided on a two-pronged attack.

‘Mr Kabul, are you aware that when you were searched this morning on entering police custody we found a considerable quantity of cocaine in the pocket of your suit jacket?’

‘Oh yeah, yeah,’ said Ari.

‘Mr Kabul, are you also aware that we could charge you with possession of an illegal drug?’

‘I thought you were investigating a murder — two murders now,’ said Ari.

‘Indeed. However, your attitude leads me to believe, Mr Kabul, that you are not cooperating with us fully. It is possible that you need time to reflect upon your position. Were I to charge you with possession of an illegal substance, that would give me the opportunity to detain you here for considerably longer than otherwise. Do you understand?’

Ari bowed his head. When he spoke again it was without any of his earlier attitude.

‘Detective Inspector, I am all sorts of things — a spoiled rich boy, probably, a bit of a druggy, definitely, and sometimes a bloody fool — but I am not a violent man. I’ve never knowingly hurt anyone in my life and I certainly didn’t kill Marlena or Michelle. Why would I?’

And that, thought Vogel, was the crux of the matter. Why would Ari Kabul or any of the friends have committed double murder?

None of the initial interviews lasted long. Vogel had one immediate aim, which was to check alibis and therefore hopefully narrow down the list of suspects. He was also aware that the homes of all seven of those arrested were being searched while they were detained at Charing Cross. Vogel wanted evidence. He had no time at all for guesswork and inspired hunches which turned out to be anything but.

Karen was the next to be questioned. She cried through most of her interview. When she was asked who might be able to pick her children up if she were still detained by the time school was out, the crying turned into gut-wrenching sobs. She did, however, manage to say that her mother would look after the kids and to supply contact details.

She was also quite clear about her own whereabouts at the time of Michelle’s murder. And she stopped crying for long enough to make sure Vogel was clear on that too.

‘Same as always,’ she said. ‘I took the kids to school. There are loads of other mums who will have seen me. Afterwards I went straight to Tesco. Nine till one, every day, I do a shift on the till.’

Then she started crying again and her words became jumbled. Vogel could only just make out what she was saying.

‘Greg... my Greg... is he here?’

Vogel told her that he was.

Karen looked up at him, both fear and pleading in her swollen red eyes.

‘He’s a good man, my Greg,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t mean no harm, honestly. Don’t be too hard on him, will you?’

Vogel stared at her.

‘Mrs Walker, I am conducting a murder inquiry,’ he said. ‘My only immediate consideration is to find out who killed PC Michelle Monahan. We have also reopened our inquiries into the murder of Marleen McTavish. Now you are beginning to sound as if you are afraid that your husband had something to do with one, or both, of these murders. Is that the case?’

Karen’s eyes widened. ‘No,’ she said. ‘No. How could you think that? How could anyone think that of my Greg?’

And then she burst into tears again.

Billy claimed to have been at work at the offices of Geering Brothers, and told Vogel he had arrived just after 8 a.m., as usual.

‘Your guys picked me up there, for God’s sake,’ he said. ‘Did they think I’d just popped in for coffee and a chat? Ten hours a day I’m in that place, minimum. Sometimes I get out at lunchtime, that’s all, and not for long.’

‘I am just trying to eliminate you from our inquiries, Mr Wiseman,’ said Vogel. ‘You must see how important that is both for you and for us.’

‘And now I suppose you’re going back to Geering’s to check whether I’m telling the truth?’ demanded Billy.

‘We will do whatever is necessary to confirm your whereabouts at the time in question, yes, sir,’ said Vogel.

‘In which case I might as well kiss my fucking job good-fucking-bye, mightn’t I?’ said Billy. ‘Mind you, I suppose the damage has already been done — two fucking great plods coming to get me. You could have phoned. I’d have come in. I’m not a criminal.’

‘I’m sure you’re not, sir,’ said Vogel, deadpan. ‘We have certain procedures to follow in a murder investigation, that’s all.’

Tiny claimed to have left home soon after Billy had departed for work, and taken the tube to Uxbridge at the end of the Bakerloo line.

‘I was checking out a litter of cockerpoos we found on the net,’ he said. ‘Billy and I are thinking about getting another dog. We’re trying to move on.’ He paused. ‘Or we were, ’til this happened.’

Once Vogel had learned what a cockerpoo was — the progeny of a cocker spaniel and a poodle — he began to establish the timing and logistics of Tiny’s professed journey.

‘It’s about fifty minutes each way on the tube,’ said Tiny. ‘And I guess I spent a couple of hours at the other end, time I’d walked to and from the house where the puppies are. It was twenty minutes or so from the station.’

‘Do you know what the time was when you arrived at the house?’

‘Yes. Nine o’clock. Well, actually it was a few minutes before. My appointment was for nine o’clock. I was early. I just waited around for a bit outside.’

‘And what time did you get back to central London?’

‘I’m not sure. Around noon, I think. I did some food shopping in Marks on the way home. I guess I’d been in about an hour when the heavy brigade arrived.’

Vogel nodded. He mulled this over for a moment before putting his next question.

‘Mr Stephens, as members of a group of friends who have been the victims of an increasingly nasty succession of crimes culminating in murder, you and your partner had been through a very traumatic time. You had lost your dog in most distressing circumstances and, as you say, you were trying to move on, so you were looking for another dog, and you were going to perhaps choose one. I understand that. But I find it rather odd that your partner did not accompany you on such an important mission.’

Tiny was no longer meeting Vogel’s steady gaze. The big man looked down at his hands.

‘Billy’s always busy,’ he said. ‘He works very long hours. So it makes sense for me to check things out. I found those dogs advertised on the net. I didn’t know anything about the people who’d bred them, or about the dogs, ’til I went out to Uxbridge to see them. If I hadn’t liked the set-up, if it had turned out to be a puppy farm or something, then I wouldn’t have needed to waste Billy’s time. I wasn’t planning to actually buy a dog without him seeing it first, without his say-so.’

Vogel was silent for a moment. He had an idea forming.

‘Mr Stephens, did your partner know that you were going to Uxbridge to look for a new dog?’

Tiny wriggled in his seat.

‘Well, not exactly, no,’ he said eventually. ‘I mean, we’d talked about it, but he didn’t know I was actually looking.’

‘So Billy thought you were at home this morning. He didn’t know you had gone to Uxbridge?’

‘No — you see, he didn’t think he was ready for a new dog. He didn’t think either of us was—’

Vogel interrupted. ‘Mr Stephens, I’m not interested in whether or not you and your partner acquire a dog, I just need to establish your whereabouts at the time of Michelle Monahan’s death.’

‘I told—’

‘Yes, and you’ve also told me that your partner, the man you share your life with, thinks you were somewhere else entirely. You had better give me the details of the people you visited in Uxbridge and you’d better hope they back your story up.’

Vogel felt sure that the man’s alibi would prove to be genuine. It was almost too absurd not to be genuine. However, this didn’t particularly please the detective. He was beginning to run out of suspects.

George was interviewed next. Vogel remembered him as being the most cocky of the friends. Now George Kristos didn’t look cocky at all. His eyes were red and, like Ari Kabul, his hands were shaking.

‘I can’t believe another one’s dead, not Michelle, she was so lovely, so young and pretty and everything, and now it’s all starting again, and it can’t be Alfonso who did it because he was in jail, but none of us ever thought he could be capable of murder, not me anyway, and he’d never have hurt Marlena, certainly not her, he worshipped her you see, so—’

‘Mr Kristos,’ Vogel interrupted sternly.

George stopped talking. His eyes were open almost unnaturally wide. His jaw was slack. Vogel thought he looked like a scared rabbit caught in headlights.

‘Mr Kristos, I need to establish your whereabouts earlier today,’ Vogel continued. ‘Could you tell me please where you were between the hours of nine and eleven?’

‘Right, yes, of course.’

George seemed almost eager to help. And, unless he were guilty, why shouldn’t he be? thought Vogel. Those suspects who were innocent must surely want to see the killer found every bit as much as he did. Aside from the fact that they would all be under suspicion until the culprit was found, in the absence of a motive there was no way of predicting who the killer’s next victim might be.

‘I was with my neighbour, Marnie. Well, first of all I went to the shop and got some fresh bread and a couple of Danishes. She likes Danishes, you see. I go round every morning when I’m not working. We have breakfast together and I tidy for her and keep her company for a bit.’

‘What time did you leave your flat and what time did you arrive back at this Marnie’s?’

‘I went out soon after eight, and I don’t suppose I was gone more than twenty minutes. I was with Marnie by about half past eight. I always get there quite early or she starts to fret.’

‘And what time did you leave Marnie?’

‘Oh, it must have been eleven o’clock. Very nearly anyway.’

‘You stayed with this elderly woman for two and a half hours? I must say, that is extremely neighbourly of you, Mr Kristos. Indeed, some might say excessively so.’

George coloured slightly and mumbled something incomprehensible.

‘If you have something to say, Mr Kristos, it would help if you spoke up, please.’

George nodded. ‘Well, it’s embarrassing. But actually Marnie’s daughter, well, she pays me to look out for Marnie. Only Marnie doesn’t know, you see.’

‘I don’t see, Mr Kristos. Perhaps you could explain.’

‘Well, Marnie’s daughter, she lives in Ealing now, smart house, young family. All of that. She isn’t up for running into Soho every day to see to her old mum, and Marnie certainly wouldn’t be up for living in Ealing. No way. Not that she’d ever be invited.’ George shook his head sadly.

‘So in effect this is a job?’ Vogel asked. ‘Looking after your neighbour is paid employment for you. Is that what you are saying?’

‘Kind of, yes,’ responded George, still stumbling slightly over his words, his face bright red now. ‘I do all sorts of work when I’m not acting, which is most of the time, unfortunately. I do maintenance round the building where I live, I work in a theatre box office sometimes. I mean, I can turn my hand to all sorts of things, and I have to. So, yes, looking out for Marnie is a job, I suppose, it helps towards paying the rent.’

‘And you go in every morning at about the same time, and always for what, two or three hours?’ asked DC Jones.

George nodded. ‘Yes. Only, well, you see, nobody knows. None of the others. Not my girlfriend either. Nobody. I mean, it’s not very cool, is it? Chap like me, a paid carer for an old girl like Marnie. I’m ever so fond of her and that, but...’

George’s voice tailed off. There was a kind of panic in his eyes.

Vogel stifled a smile with difficulty. This was a murder investigation, yet George Kristos was more anxious about his cool image than establishing his whereabouts at the time of the crime and enabling himself to be eliminated from police inquiries.

After George, it was Greg’s turn. He said that he’d spent the entire morning in and out of his van delivering crates of whisky all over West London, and beyond, into Surrey and Middlesex. He’d made an early start. He’d got to Chiswick at about half past eight, then gone on to Ealing, Acton, Hounslow, Twickenham, and further west, he said, to Kingston, Staines and Slough. On the way back he’d made deliveries to more central addresses in Barnes, Putney and Clapham before returning to his Waterloo lock-up to reload. He claimed he’d been planning to spend the afternoon making more deliveries, some nearby, in Waterloo itself, and various riverbank addresses, as well as Covent Garden, Clerkenwell, and maybe north to Camden, Hampstead and Highgate.

‘Then you lot came and that was the end of that,’ he said.

‘I take it you have a record of your movements, Mr Walker?’ asked Vogel.

‘’Course I bloody do,’ snapped Greg. ‘Most of the places I deliver to someone answers the door and takes the stuff in. Sometimes the householder, sometimes caretakers, porters, cleaning ladies. Sometimes I go next door to a neighbour if there’s no one in. They all sign for it, don’t they? My clipboard’s in the van. I’d have shown it to your boys if they’d given me half a chance. But they were in too much of a bloody hurry to strong-arm me down here, weren’t they?’

‘Mr Walker,’ said Vogel, ‘I’m quite sure you weren’t strong—’

Greg cut him off. ‘That’s as maybe, but I heard my missus crying earlier. Sobbing ’er heart out, she was, and don’t tell me it weren’t her because I know bloody better. Whaddya think you’re doing, making a doll like her cry? Never hurt a fly, my Karen.’

‘Mr Walker, two women have been murdered, a police officer, my colleague, and an elderly lady, both, I believe, friends of yours. Both were violently attacked. I have to make whatever inquiries I deem necessary in order to find whoever has committed these dreadful crimes and, in each case, bring him...’ Vogel paused, ‘or her, to justice. And I am afraid that means questioning every member of the group of friends Michelle and Marlena were part of. Almost everyone in that group has recently been the victim of some type of incident, ranging in severity from malicious pranks to murder. Those of you who are innocent of any wrongdoing could be in extreme danger. That includes your wife. If she is innocent, as you say, then I must do everything in my power to establish her innocence and to ascertain if there is anything she knows, albeit unwittingly, that might lead us to the guilty party. And if she or anyone else is upset by being questioned, well, so be it.’

Vogel glanced to the side and saw DC Jones staring at him. Vogel coughed, clearing his throat noisily to hide his embarrassment. He was aware that he was not conducting this interview in a professional manner. Nor strictly according to procedure. He didn’t have to explain himself to anyone. Least of all to a suspect.

Greg was also staring at him. And it was he who broke the silence.

‘You’re right,’ he said, taking Vogel by surprise. ‘I’m not thinking straight. You gotta do what you gotta do to find this bastard. It’s not the Fonz, we know that now. He couldn’t ’ave killed Michelle anyway, right?’

Vogel nodded.

‘Yeah, so the bastard’s still at large. My Karen could be next. Any of us could. And Michelle, I can’t believe she’s dead. She was that pretty and full of life always.’ He broke off. ‘I mean, not that it makes any difference, that stuff. My Karen, well, she’ll be crying about Michelle as much as herself.’

He looked directly at Vogel.

‘Anything you want to know, anything I can do to help, guv,’ he said.

‘You can tell me about your own relationship with Michelle.’

‘We were friends. Not close friends, like, but good friends. Just part of a group that met every Sunday really... but you know that.’

Vogel nodded. He did indeed know that, and he was sick of asking the same questions and getting the same answers. He felt he was getting nowhere. All he could hope was that the boys doing the searches, and the various forensics results they were awaiting might give him some of the answers he needed. In the meantime, he could only continue to go through the motions. The answers continued to be repetitive.

Greg got on very well with Michelle. No, there had never been any ill feeling between them. And no, he could think of no one with a grudge against her.

‘Except maybe her old man, Phil, another copper. Did you know she was married to a copper, and that they’re separated?’

Vogel nodded.

‘Yeah, he ran off with some woman Michelle always referred to as “that tart”.’ Greg grinned. ‘She was always going on about him. No love lost there, either way round.’

Vogel sighed. The team had already checked out Phil Monahan. Vogel had asked for that to be done as soon as he’d heard about Michelle’s death. He now knew that Monahan had been on duty since 8 a.m. that day and had spent most of the morning at his desk in Dorchester CID. He certainly would at no stage have had time to nip up to London, murder his estranged wife, and nip back. Even if he’d had any desire or inclination to do so.

The final interviewee was Bob.

‘Of course I can prove I was at Chatham Towers all morning,’ he said. ‘Twice a week I go there and it takes me ’til early afternoon. I get there about eight and I don’t usually leave ’til after two. I know the people who go off to work early, and I do their terraces first. Then I do the public areas. The place is usually deserted by nine o’clock, you see, because it’s all professional people, lawyers, accountants, City workers, that sort of thing. So I don’t get in anyone’s way. Before I start, Pete — that’s the porter — he always makes me a cuppa.’

‘And he did that this morning?’

‘Yes. We take a bit of a break, sit down in his little room in the basement, have a chat. Then I get stuck in again. There’s a lot to do at this time of year on the terraces and outside, clearing the last of the winter stuff, putting in the spring bedding plants and so on. And in the foyer, well, they always like it to look tiptop with a bit of colour, so I’m constantly replacing plants, usually just rotating them, you know. I don’t like to throw living things out. I bring them back to my place if I can find the room, put them in my cold frame if I need to, give ’em a bit of TLC—’

‘Yes, yes,’ interrupted Vogel impatiently. He didn’t need a lecture on horticulture, and if he’d been less wearied by the lack of progress he probably wouldn’t have let Bob go on as much as he had. He did his best to persevere.

‘So how long did you and Pete spend together drinking tea this morning?’

‘Oh, about twenty minutes, I suppose,’ said Bob.

‘And then you worked on the public areas. Was this Pete with you then?’

‘Some of the time. He has a desk in the foyer, but he has various jobs to do. He can confirm that I wouldn’t have had the chance to nip off and murder little Michelle Monahan.’ Bob shook his head sadly. ‘Look at me,’ he instructed. ‘Do you really think I’ve got it in me to murder somebody?’

‘You were in the army, Mr Buchanan, you have been to war.’

‘A long time ago. And one thing that did was to make me never again want to have anything to do with the death of another human being. If I’m the best suspect you can come up with, then I’d say you haven’t got very far with this investigation.’

Vogel was inclined to agree. Stoically he carried on with his questioning.

‘What about when you went into the various flats to work on the private terraces? Pete wouldn’t have been with you then, would he? Presumably he wouldn’t have even known which flat you were supposed to be in.’

‘What do you mean “supposed to be”?’ asked Bob, showing a bit of spirit. ‘Anyway, I was in and out of my van all morning, wasn’t I? They let me park it in the courtyard round the back. I’m forever shifting plants about, fresh topsoil, fertilizer, tools and stuff, aren’t I? And I have to pass Pete’s desk every time, don’t I?’

Vogel watched as Bob was escorted back to his cell. It wasn’t like him to feel so confused. He was also becoming frustrated. Every one of the seven appeared to have a solid alibi for the period during which Michelle was killed. And this left the policeman no further forward.

He felt as if he were groping his way through a thick and impenetrable fog. And he was getting nowhere fast. Just as Bob had implied.

Vogel sat for a moment, staring into space, aware of DC Jones watching him anxiously. Then he pulled himself together and marched into the MIT room, trying to look purposeful. Perhaps there would be news from the search teams or forensics. Also there might be word from the officers looking through CCTV footage, starting with the streets around Brydges Place, where Michelle’s body was found, and then moving further afield.

Two murders had been committed and the murderer must have left clues. That was Vogel’s simple logic. Criminals make mistakes. Eventually. Sadistic killers leave a trail. It was up to him to uncover that trail and to follow it to its conclusion.