The Darkness Within, page 2
They’d had no contact until now, and Molly was happy to keep it that way. But what could be so imperative that she felt the need to get in touch after all this time?
Molly pushed back the worm of curiosity that wriggled in her brain. Mags meant trouble and that was something she could do without.
A trilling sound from her pocket indicated her phone was active again; this time it was a call rather than a text. Thinking it might be work checking up on her ETA, she took out the phone and looked at the name. Another sigh. Perhaps there was only one way to end this.
Swiping the phone to answer, she put it to her ear.
‘What do you want, Mags?’
There was no preamble, or felicitous greeting, just: ‘I need to talk to you. It’s important.’
Molly glanced up at the display board: her bus was only a minute away.
‘Mags, I haven’t got time for your nonsense. If you don’t stop hassling me, I’ll—’
‘I’ve got information about a murder. And it’s big. Meet me after work at—’
But Molly had already ended the call. She didn’t have the headspace for Magda Kilbride. Not today. Not ever.
Chapter Three
The killing of a cop, even an ex-cop, sets all number of alarm bells ringing.
Within ten minutes of Denning phoning it in, DCI Liz McKenna was scraping the tyres of her Renault Megane against the kerb outside the flat.
Denning watched as she climbed out of the driver’s seat and locked the car behind her. She flashed her ID at a young PC, who lifted the police tape and let her through.
McKenna was in her mid-fifties, so not long until she could collect her gold watch, if retiring police officers still received gold watches. Not that McKenna had plans to retire any time soon; at some point the Met Police had stopped being just a job for her and had become a way of life.
She threw a nod of acknowledgement at Denning when she spotted him standing by the communal entrance, and marched up the short path to greet him.
‘Buckfield,’ McKenna said as soon as she was within earshot. ‘The new Detective Chief Super is taking an interest, so no fuck-ups. What do we know?’
‘Not much. The pathologist is on his way: should be here any moment. Neeraj is leading door-to-door enquiries, and the SOCOs are finishing up inside. No sign of the murder weapon. Possible robbery. We’ve found his wallet, but there’s no sign of his phone, or the murder weapon.’
They headed into the building, Denning leading the way, filling her in on what they’d discovered so far.
He’d just finished when they reached the door to Buckfield’s flat. ‘Buckfield,’ McKenna repeated, very slightly out of breath. ‘I recognise the name, though I’m pretty sure our paths never crossed. I know of his reputation though. He was SIO on a number of high-profile cases. A couple of them even made the headlines. I’m pretty sure he was given some kind of commendation for catching a serial killer.’ She let the significance of her words hang in the ether, then turned to Denning. ‘An ex-copper, Matt. We have to find the bastard who did this.’
McKenna stood at the doorway to the living room and took in the depressing scene, probably thinking the same as Denning: how did a once-successful copper end his days in a grotty flat with nothing but his memories and a bottle of Famous Grouse for company? Was this what the future held for them?
She nodded a greeting at Sheila Gorton, and headed over to take a closer look at the body. Denning watched her from the doorway as she and Gorton chatted.
McKenna gave little away. Despite having worked with her for some time now, even having shared the odd post-work drink on rare occasions, most of what he knew about his DCI came from rumour and gossip. She hailed from Motherwell just outside Glasgow, and at some point in her career had earned the nickname Betty Taggart; a sobriquet only ever uttered out of earshot. Beyond that, she kept her personal life to herself.
‘Get your report to me ASAP,’ she told Gorton. ‘And chase up the pathologist. I need both cause of death and, more importantly, time of death confirmed sooner rather than later. Until we know when the poor fucker was killed, we’re pissing with the light off.’
Gorton nodded her agreement. McKenna turned back to address Denning.
‘Have you spoken to the other residents?’
‘Only three of the flats in this block are occupied. The usual “wall of silence” stuff so far,’ Denning said. ‘Seems Buckfield kept himself to himself and could be a bit of a rude beggar when the mood took. And a boozer too, by all accounts.’ Denning jabbed a thumb at the empty whisky bottle lying on the blood-soaked carpet. ‘According to the young couple downstairs, he flooded the bathroom on more than one occasion. If they complained, he just gave them a mouthful of abuse.’
‘Speak to them again, Matt. I want official statements from everyone in this building. We need a detailed insight into Buckfield’s movements: where he went, who he met. Did anyone come to visit him here, and if so, were there any arguments or threats? Maybe get onto Control, see if uniform were ever called out to deal with Buckfield or any of the neighbours. Could be he pissed off the wrong person and they decided they’d had enough.’ She stood in the centre of the sparse living room and rubbed a hand through her hair. ‘Do you buy the robbery motive?’
He shrugged. ‘It’s possible. Someone broke in, couldn’t find anything worth taking, then ended up killing him out of frustration.’
‘He would have had a decent pension, maybe even a bit of money in the bank.’ She glanced around the dreary room. ‘Then again…’
McKenna had clearly seen enough. She turned on her heel, left the flat and clattered down the concrete stairs. Denning followed, offering Gorton a farewell wave of the hand.
Once they were outside, McKenna said: ‘Tell Neeraj to question everyone in this block, and speak to the immediate neighbours.’ She looked around the soulless estate. Eyes peeped out from behind several windows; a group of children on bikes were watching them from across the street, one or two of them edging closer to McKenna’s car. ‘But let’s not go overboard on general door-to-door enquiries. Round here it’s a case of “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil”. There’s an unwritten code.’
‘Maybe if we tell them he’s an ex-policeman? Let them know we’re taking this seriously.’
She shot Denning a withering look. ‘Get hold of his next of kin, Matt. At the very least we’ll have to find someone to officially identify the body.’
Denning nodded and dug his phone out of his pocket. He would contact Neeraj, ask him to scale back the house-to-house and return to the station for a briefing. McKenna got back into her car and started the engine before driving off at speed, causing the kids on bikes to scatter.
Denning looked around the drab estate, scarred by neglect and awash with litter and graffiti. This was the other side of Hackney. The side that was hidden from the inhabitants of the gentrified squares and overpriced apartment blocks that had redefined the borough from urban decay to fashionable enclave. London was a city in constant social flux, where wealth and poverty sat cheek by jowl; one largely oblivious to the existence of the other.
Bedgebrook only saw the poverty. A place where life expectancy was low and crime was high. He could sense a sea of unsmiling faces watching him. McKenna was right: this estate was home to the Three Wise Monkeys.
Chapter Four
‘OK guys, when you’re ready.’ Denning cleared his throat and waited for the room to quieten down before he began the briefing.
‘Francis George Buckfield.’ He nodded at the photos of Buckfield that had been pinned to the whiteboard: an official ‘portrait’ shot of him taken a few months before his retirement contrasting sharply with the post-mortem photo of him with his throat slit. They looked like two different men. ‘Formerly Detective Chief Inspector Buckfield,’ he continued, ‘found murdered in his flat on the Bedgebrook Estate.’
A low murmur spread round the room at the mention of Bedgebrook.
Denning ignored it and continued, filling the team in on what they’d discovered so far; highlighting relevant points on the whiteboard. ‘Probable weapon was some kind of knife, which we still need to find. Probable motive is something we need to establish, though at this stage, we can’t rule out robbery. His wallet was found, but his mobile phone is missing. We need to find his phone. At the moment, we don’t have a lot to work with: if robbery was the motive, why the need to kill him? The time of death has yet to be confirmed, but we’re looking at a likely window of between forty-eight hours and two weeks. Once we know when Frank Buckfield was killed, we can start looking over any CCTV in the area. In the meantime, we need to get as clear a picture as we can of Buckfield’s life and his movements. Deep, did house-to-house throw up anything useful?’
Neeraj glanced over his notes and looked around the room. ‘About as useful as I expected it to be, which is not very. Apparently Buckfield had lived there for a couple of years, but mostly kept himself to himself. Some bloke did say he used to chat to Buckfield down the local boozer, but he never mentioned anything about having been a copper. This bloke said he would never have spoken to Buckfield if he’d known he was an ex-cop.’
‘If he was living on the Bedgebrook, then he’d have kept his head down. Anyone in that cesspit had found out he used to be one of us, they’d have kicked his head in.’ DS Dave Kinsella, a sweaty bear of a man in his late forties, offered up his opinion.
‘Someone did worse than that, Dave,’ quipped DC Trudi Bell. ‘They cut his throat.’ She threw Kinsella a cheeky smile, which he countered with a flick of his middle finger.
‘Emphasising my point,’ Kinsella retorted.
Denning smiled while the team laughed. It was good to encourage banter among the group: it helped to develop a strong team dynamic, or so he’d read somewhere. ‘OK, guys,’ he said as soon as the laughter subsided. ‘Anything else, Deep?’
‘He confirmed that Buckfield liked the booze. In fact, this bloke reckoned he was a bit of an alkie. There was never any trouble, though. Buckfield would get a bit shouty sometimes, but he’d calm down if the landlord told him to button it. None of the neighbours had much to do with him, apart from the odd bout of aggro with the couple downstairs, However, it seems uniform were never called out, so it’s likely it never went beyond a bit of verbal.’
‘It might be worth paying a visit to the landlord at Buckfield’s local and find out if he had any friends, besides the occasional drinking buddy.’
Buckfield belonged to the generation where drinking was such an ingrained part of police culture it was almost not worth commenting on. But that didn’t necessarily turn police officers into alcoholics. However, it did help to explain the empty whisky bottle lying next to Buckfield’s chair at the flat. ‘What about this Joseph Jupp character?’
‘Spoke to him a few minutes ago,’ Neeraj said. ‘He was a bit cagey at first until I told him this was a murder inquiry and we could bring him in if we wanted to. He admitted he’s been illegally sub-letting that dump to Buckfield for the past couple of years. Says he was doing Buckfield a favour as he had nowhere else to go. He used to drink in the same pub as Buckfield and took pity on him after he was evicted from his last place. The rent was paid by housing benefit directly into Jupp’s bank account every four weeks.’
‘Wouldn’t the council have checked that the flat wasn’t being illegally sublet?’ Trudi asked.
‘You’d like to think so,’ Kinsella said, ‘but I expect they have neither the resources nor the inclination to double check how they spend tax-payers’ money.’
‘It’s likely Jupp has done this sort of thing before,’ Molly said. ‘I imagine he’d probably prepared a fake lease, or even said he was a lodger. I worked on a couple of housing benefit fraud cases a few years ago: these guys are good at covering their backsides.’
‘So it looks like Mr Jupp’s only crime is property fraud,’ Denning said. ‘We’ll pass the details onto the appropriate agencies and let them chase this up. But as soon as we have time of death established, we’ll need an alibi from Jupp, just to make sure he’s not hiding something from us.’
‘Housing benefit?’ Trudi said. ‘Wouldn’t a retired DCI have a decent pension?’
It was a good point, and something that had occurred to Denning while they were in Buckfield’s grotty flat. ‘Dave, get onto HR and see if they still have anything on file. I know it’s been a few years since he worked for the Met, but hopefully they’ll have some contact details for him. And whilst you’re speaking to them, ask about a next of kin. I know he lived alone, but that’s not to say he didn’t have family out there somewhere.’
Kinsella nodded. ‘I’ll get on to them.’
Denning looked around his team. They were a disparate bunch, but they worked well together, despite their differences. He liked to push them, encourage them to lead on an investigation rather than rely on him to provide all the answers. ‘Anyone got any thoughts they’d like to share?’
‘No sign of forced entry. That suggests he could have known his attacker and let them in.’ It was the turn of DC Ryan Cormack. Cormack was the youngest in the group, and – like Denning – a fast-tracked graduate. He tended only to speak when he had something useful to say, a trait Denning appreciated.
‘Then again,’ Neeraj noted, ‘security at that dump wasn’t exactly tight. Anyone could have just walked in off the street.’
‘I’m assuming Buckfield kept the door to the flat locked,’ Denning said. ‘And there was no sign of damage to the door. However, even if Buckfield did let his attacker in, that doesn’t necessarily mean he knew them.’
Denning was about to continue when he spotted DS Fisher waving a Biro in his direction. ‘Molly?’
‘Do we think it could have been premeditated?’ she asked. ‘Cutting someone’s throat. And then that whole thing with the tape over the mouth. It feels very…’ She searched for the word. ‘…deliberate.’ She was looking at the photos on the whiteboard, tilting her head slightly to one side to study them more closely. ‘I might be talking out my backside, but I don’t think this was a random murder.’
All eyes in the room were now fixed on the whiteboard. There were photos of the depressing flat as well as the body. The sadness of Buckfield’s empty life was plain for all of them to see, but the flat hadn’t been disturbed: nothing was out of place, nothing broken. If this had been a straightforward burglary, Denning would have expected the flat to have been ransacked. The only thing missing was Buckfield’s mobile phone, but that didn’t prove anything.
The photos of the body had been taken from different angles. Buckfield’s pale, thin face looked like a death mask; only the flecks of dried blood added a token splash of colour. Molly Fisher was right: someone had entered that flat with the sole intention of killing Buckfield. But why?
‘A revenge killing?’ Trudi suggested.
‘In which case, it could be anyone.’ Kinsella sat back on his chair; thick arms folded across his barrel of a chest. ‘Buckfield was a copper for over thirty years. It’ll take months to go through every case he’s ever worked on.’
‘What do we already know about Buckfield?’ Cormack asked. ‘I mean, was he ever involved in any high-profile cases, for instance?’
‘We need to look into everything,’ Denning said. ‘And not just the high-profile cases. If this is about revenge, it could be for something seemingly trivial. We need as detailed a picture of Buckfield’s life and career as we can get.’
‘A mate of mine in Hendon worked under him back in the late nineties,’ Kinsella said. ‘He was your typical DCI by all accounts.’ He flicked a glance in the direction of McKenna’s office door at the far end of the room, and lowered his voice. ‘He’d break your bollocks if you stepped out of line, but he’d cover your arse when you needed it. He was a good copper. I expect he put away some big-time villains back in his day, but that’s part of the job. We know it and they know it. I can’t believe someone would go after him now. He was an old man, for Christ’s sake.’
‘Actually, Dave, now you mention it, wasn’t there a story about him being involved in some kind of scandal?’ Trudi said. ‘I’m sure I remember my dad talking about it some years back.’ Denning knew that Trudi’s father had been a uniformed sergeant for many years, probably around the same time Buckfield was a detective.
‘That was all a load of crap,’ Kinsella shot back.
Denning threw him a look. ‘Care to elaborate anyway, Dave?’
Kinsella looked shifty. He unfolded his thick arms and scratched an itch behind his left ear. ‘There was a rumour he had a run-in with Professional Standards.’ He pulled a face. ‘But that means nothing.’
‘Any idea what it was about?’ Denning asked. He had a feeling he was going to have to tease this out of him bit by bit.
Kinsella folded his arms across his chest again and leaned back in his chair. ‘Look, we all know it doesn’t take much to get those muppets sniffing round us. Some scumbag claims we didn’t treat them with enough respect, or we forgot to say “please” and “thank you” when we nicked them, and they put in an official complaint. Standards are duty-bound to investigate it, even if it clearly is a load of old tosh.’
He waited for Kinsella to give details. When he didn’t, Denning said: ‘So we don’t know what it was about?’
‘Look, I never knew the guy personally, and unlike some round here, I don’t go in for gossip.’ Kinsella sat there with his arms folded, making it clear he wasn’t prepared to discuss the matter further.
‘Trudi?’
She just shrugged.
Denning looked at Kinsella. Either he didn’t know what the run-in with the Directorate of Professional Standards was about, or he was refusing to say to protect the reputation of a now-dead officer. But Denning would find out. It would just take longer to do it via the official channels.
