Tuesday's Gone

Twenty-one

‘So,’ said Karlsson to Yvette Long and Chris Munster, ‘this is what we have, and stop me if I get it wrong.’ He ticked items off his fingers as he spoke. ‘One, a murder victim, confirmed by DNA to be the Robert Poole who lived in the flat in Waverley Street, whose body was found naked in a disturbed woman’s room, having been collected from an adjacent alley, whose job we don’t know, whose friends haven’t missed him, and whose neighbour says that he was charming, helpful, kind and would always water her plants for her.’

Karlsson stopped and took a sip of water, then continued, ‘Two, Mr Poole’s bank statements.’ He picked them up and waved them. ‘The most recent of which show that he had just under three hundred and ninety thousand pounds in his current account. I don’t know what that’s about. We’re checking with the bank as we speak.’ He looked at his watch. ‘They should have phoned by now. Anyway, three, a flat of which Yvette made a preliminary search, as well as the scene-of-crime team. No passport, no wallet, in fact, no personal documents of any kind. Nor is he on Facebook or Twitter, or any of the other social networks. But there’s a notebook, with several pages ripped out, in which there are a handful of names, some addresses, scrawls and doodles. Correct, Yvette?’

‘Including the name of the couple in Brixton whom your old friend found.’

‘You mean Frieda Klein? She’s not an old friend, she’s someone who helped us. And now that you mention her, I should say that I want to use her on a more permanent basis.’

Yvette frowned. ‘What for?’

‘She can be useful to us.’

‘Fine.’

‘By which you mean not fine.’

‘It’s your decision,’ said Yvette, hating how her voice sounded. Her cheeks burned scarlet. She was sure that Frieda Klein didn’t turn an unbecoming red whenever she was embarrassed – but, then, perhaps Dr Klein never felt embarrassed.

‘That’s right, and I’ve made it, and now we can concentrate on Robert Poole. How far have you got with the names in the notebook?’

Chris Munster picked up a pad of paper. ‘We’re going to work our way through them. A few will be easy to find and others may take longer. We’ve already made an appointment to see a Mary Orton. We’re going straight after this meeting. She sounded rather flustered on the phone – she’s an elderly lady, lives alone. Apparently Robert Poole had been helping her repair her house in some way. We’re going to start distributing that visual we’ve had drawn up. That might flush out a few more people who knew him.’

‘Right, it should be –’ Karlsson was interrupted by the phone ringing. He picked it up, listened, frowned, jotted something on his notepad. Putting it down, he said, ‘They’ve talked to the bank.’ He tore the page off his notepad and handed it to Yvette. ‘We’ve got a next of kin, a brother in St Albans. Go and see him. And about that money in his account. It’s gone. It was transferred out of the account on the twenty-third of January. I want the two of you to go and break the news to the brother and find out anything you can about Robert Poole, photos, documents, whatever.’ He looked at his watch, then, picking up the notebook, stood up, pushing back his chair. ‘Right. With a bit of luck, we’ll find someone who’s suddenly acquired three hundred and ninety grand and we can wrap this up quickly.’

Karlsson had to ring several times before he got through to Frieda. ‘I left a message,’ he said. ‘Two messages.’

‘I was going to ring,’ she said. ‘I’ve been with patients all morning.’

He gave her an account of the way the case was developing, about the notebook. Frieda didn’t say much in reply.

‘We’ve found a member of Poole’s family,’ he said. ‘A brother. Yvette’s on her way to see him.’

‘It seems things are progressing,’ said Frieda.

She sounded detached and Karlsson caught himself feeling resentful, as if he wanted Frieda’s full attention and knew he wasn’t getting it. There was a long pause.

‘Some of the team have been checking through the names in Poole’s notebook,’ Karlsson said finally. ‘One of them is an old woman called Mary Orton who lives in Putney. Poole was organizing building work for her. It wasn’t finished when he disappeared.’

‘Yes?’

Karlsson took a deep breath. ‘That friend of yours you brought round to me once, Josef. He’s a builder, no?’

Karlsson could almost hear her soften over the phone.

‘That’s right.’

‘Is he good? And trustworthy?’

‘Yes, he is.’

‘I thought you could go and talk to her and bring your builder friend with you, suss out what Poole actually did. He might even get some work out of it. What with the job not having been finished. According to Chris, she’s an old woman whose husband has died and sons live away. I think she’s a bit lonely.’ There was another pause. ‘Unless, of course, you’re only interested in doing things when you do them without telling me.’

‘I think he’s available for work,’ Frieda said. ‘But I’ll need to check with him.’

‘That would be kind of you,’ said Karlsson, and gave her the Putney address.

‘Did she say anything about Robert Poole?’ asked Frieda.

‘She said he was nice and polite,’ said Karlsson. ‘That’s what they all say. Nice and polite.’

‘Have you ever done this before?’ asked Yvette Long.

Chris Munster was driving and didn’t look round. ‘In my first year,’ he said. ‘A kid had been knocked over and I went along with a sergeant to tell the parents. The mother answered the door and I just stood in the background while he told her. We were talking to her and then the father came home from work and we stood there while she told him. The bit I remember was my sergeant hovering around like someone who was about to leave a party. Those parents partly wanted us to go and leave them to it. At the same time they couldn’t let us go. They kept talking about him and asking if we wanted tea. I’ve done it a few times since then but that’s the one I remember. What about you?’

‘A few times,’ said Yvette. ‘More than a few. I always feel nervous in advance. I look at the front door and feel guilty about what I’m going to do to them. They open the door and sometimes you can tell that they know even before you say anything.’ She looked at him. ‘It’s the next exit.’

They drove off the motorway and there was no voice except for the satnav, directing them this way and that through residential streets in St Albans.

‘Ever been here before?’ asked Munster.

‘I think there are some Roman ruins,’ said Yvette. ‘I came on a school trip once. I can’t remember anything about it. I’d probably enjoy it if I went now.’

The satnav told them they’d reached their destination. They sat for a moment. Yvette checked the printed sheet on her lap to make sure this was the right address. It was.

Munster looked at her. ‘So are you nervous now?’ he said.

‘If I did it every day,’ she said, ‘I’d get used to it.’

‘Are you going to say it or do you want me to?’

‘I’m in charge,’ Yvette said.

They got out of the car, opened the gate to the miniature front garden and took the three steps that brought them into the little Georgian portico. Yvette pressed the bell, which set off a tinkling chime. A man answered the door. He was thick-set, with short blond hair, shaved at the sides of his head, dressed in jeans and a short-sleeved football shirt. He looked at them enquiringly.

‘Are you Dennis Poole? said Yvette.

‘That’s right.’

She introduced herself and Chris Munster. ‘Are you the brother of Robert Poole?’

‘What?’ he said, looking surprised. ‘Why do you want to know?’

‘You are his brother?’ said Yvette.

‘Well, yeah,’ said Poole. ‘But –’

‘Can we step inside?’ said Yvette.

They walked into the front room where the TV was on with a game show Yvette didn’t recognize. She asked Poole to switch it off. Instead he turned the sound down.

‘I’m afraid I have to tell you that your brother’s dead,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘I’m very sorry,’ she continued. ‘We found his body on the first of February, but it took some time to identify it.’

‘What do you mean, his body?’

‘His body was found in a house in south London. We’ve begun a murder investigation and we’re currently interviewing witnesses and taking statements. I know this must be a shock.’

‘What do you mean, south London?’

Yvette was used to this. In shock, people lose the ability to process information. You have to take things slowly. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I know how difficult this must be for you. Are you surprised that your brother should have been in that area?’

‘What the hell are you talking about?’ said Poole. ‘Rob died six years ago. Seven almost. You’ve made some mistake.’

For a moment Yvette couldn’t speak. She looked at Munster. He was the one who’d tracked down the birth certificate. What kind of disastrous error had he made? She took the sheet from the bag she was carrying.

‘We’re talking about Robert Anthony Poole,’ she said. ‘Born on the third of May 1981. Huntingdon. Father James Poole.’

‘That’s right,’ said Poole. ‘That’s my dad. But Rob died in 2004. Work accident. Some scaffolding collapsed. The company put all the blame on him. He got fuck-all compensation. That’s what you should be investigating.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ said Yvette. ‘There’s clearly some kind of …’ She paused, at a loss. ‘Problem,’ she finished lamely.

‘I’ll say there’s been a bloody problem.’

She took a deep breath. ‘I’m extremely sorry about all this,’ she said. ‘I promise you that we’re going to investigate and find out what’s happened.’ She hesitated. ‘Do you have any details about your late brother? Papers?’

‘Up in the attic somewhere. It might take some time to dig out.’

‘We can wait,’ said Yvette.