The Darkness Within, page 21
Kane and Buckfield.
Kane and Harrison.
Even the usually shrewd McKenna appeared to have been taken in by the superficial charm and the ‘reformed baddie’ persona.
Then he remembered something Molly had mentioned in her email.
Bringing it up on the screen, he quickly reread it.
The boys were known as “The Meat Rack”, and would be picked up from an amusements arcade in Soho called West End Arcade.
He searched through his notes on Kane. In the early 1980s, Kane had bought a lot of Bernie Michaelson’s old property empire, shortly after Michaelson was killed. A lot of that property had been based in Michaelson’s old stomping ground of Soho. Denning dug through the bit of paper that had been neatly stacked on one corner of his desk. He’d skimmed over it when he’d first received it – it had made for some interesting background reading on Kane – then put it aside to be filed at a convenient moment.
Scanning over the list of properties Kane had owned in the eighties and early nineties: a couple of bars, a nightclub, a casino, then he saw what had jumped out at him: an amusement arcade called West End Arcade.
What would Kane have wanted with an amusement arcade?
He’d initially thought it would have been a means of laundering illegal money, but surely the other venues would have been more suitable for that.
Suddenly everything seemed to tie together. Kane was providing underage boys to older men. Perhaps this had been something started by Michaelson, and seen as a lucrative earner by Kane, so worth continuing. Or had Kane also been an active member of the circle? A paedophile himself?
He reached for his mobile and phoned McKenna. ‘Are you still at Kane’s?’
‘I’m in a taxi heading somewhere for lunch. What the fuck happened to you? One minute you were standing beside me, next minute there was just a Denning-shaped space? Get a better offer, did you?’
Her speech was slightly slurred, and he suspected the free champagne had been appreciated. At least she wasn’t driving. ‘I’m at the office,’ he said. ‘I’ve found something out about Kane.’
There was a heavy silence from the other end of the line and he wondered if she’d hung up.
Then he heard her voice, loud and clear, as though she were in the room with him. ‘This is turning into some kind of obsession, Matt. You have to give it up.’
‘We know that the Security Direct robbery links Kane and Buckfield,’ he argued. ‘And Kane is potentially linked to a whole lot more, including a rumoured paedophile ring dating back to the eighties. We need to bring him in for questioning.’
Another silence. ‘We don’t know for certain that there’s anything to link Kane and Buckfield with Security Direct. The allegations were never proved.’
‘It can’t be a coincidence that Buckfield resigned from the force shortly after the allegations were made?’
‘There could have been any number of reasons why Buckfield left the job. It’s not uncommon for DCIs to leave early, trust me. And good luck trying to prove Alfie Kane was mixed up in some kind of dodgy kiddy-fiddling gang.’
‘OK. Even if we give Buckfield the benefit of the doubt over Security Direct, Kane’s name keeps cropping up in connection to both the attack on Gordon Lomax and the allegations Colin Meek made thirty years ago. Buckfield’s name is linked to that too.’
‘We don’t touch Kane until we’ve spoken to Harrison,’ she said, almost shouting down the phone.
‘It’s got nothing to do with Harrison. He shouldn’t even be involved in this investigation.’
‘It’s more complicated than that.’
Denning found himself cursing under his breath. ‘Harrison is too close to Kane. I’m not suggesting there’s anything improper. He just can’t see what the man’s really like. He’s blinkered.’
There was another pause. It sounded like the taxi had stopped and she was getting out; he could hear her arguing with the driver about something. After a second he heard a door slam and McKenna’s voice came back on the phone. ‘You’re the one who’s blinkered, Matt. Forget Kane.’
He told her what Molly had said in her email, being discreet about how he had come by the information. ‘It proves Kane’s part of this.’
There was an audible sigh from the other end of the phone. She was standing on a busy street somewhere, probably trying to finish the call before heading into wherever she was having lunch. ‘We’ll need more than this if we’re going to go after Kane. What you’ve got is little more than circumstantial. You get proof that Kane was part of this gang, or was directly connected with it, and then we can think about bringing him in. This needs to be rock solid with no wriggle room. Even then I’d still have my doubts.’
She ended the call.
He stared at his phone for a while; thinking she might call back. But then realising she wasn’t going to.
Finding proof wasn’t going to be easy. Kane was clever. If Denning wanted to find proof, he was going to have to look very carefully.
But he had a pretty good idea where he might find it.
Chapter Forty-One
Colin was waiting for them in the same South London park where Molly had met him last time. He was sitting on a bench not far from the entrance, luckily some distance from the children’s playpark. Molly tried hard to dismiss the sinister thoughts going round her head: the abused becoming the abuser. Colin liked parks. After spending so long inside various prison cells, he probably appreciated the green, open space. The proximity of a children’s play area was nothing more than coincidence.
‘I’ve brought a friend,’ she said, introducing Jon. ‘He can help us.’
Colin looked at him, slightly wary of a stranger entering his personal space, but he shook the proffered hand just the same.
The park was busier this time. There were a few joggers weaving their way round the paths, as well as families enjoying the early spring sunshine. She could hear a football match taking place somewhere nearby.
She’d brought something to eat. The last time she’d been in the park, she’d spotted a picnic area not far from the lake. She suggested they headed there to talk, hoping this would put Colin at his ease, and make him more likely to open up.
It had taken some soft-soaping to persuade Colin to meet her again. He’d heard about Mags’s death. Although she hadn’t been named yet, it wouldn’t have taken much for him to put two and two together and know she was the journalist who had been murdered.
Colin had initially been unwilling to meet, insisting he had nothing more to say to her. Without actually spelling out that it was only a matter of time before he received an official visit from the police, she let him know it was in his best interests to talk to her again. If the police were to formally question him about Mags’s murder – which was a definite possibility – it would look so much better if she were able to put a good word in for him.
Reluctantly, he’d agreed to meet her.
‘Do they think I did it?’ he asked, once they were sitting down at a picnic table. She’d brought sandwiches and crisps. Jon had a can of Stella, while she and Colin had a Coke and a Fanta.
‘I’m not part of that investigation,’ she said truthfully, ‘but I know the officers who are working the case, and they won’t come after you if you promise to be honest with me.’
Colin opened his can of Coke and nervously drank it. He kept flicking glances in Jon’s direction, unsure why she’d brought along a shaven-headed gorilla for company. Perhaps he thought Jon was another detective, and maybe it was better if he believed this chat was somehow official.
‘I told you everything last time. I thought you believed me.’ He looked from one to the other, opening the packet of sandwiches and staring at them, as though unsure what they were. She’d bought him cheese and tomato: it seemed a safe bet.
‘We not only believe you, Colin, we think we might be able to prove what happened to you. But we will need your help to do that.’
‘What about Tommy? Can you find out what happened to him?’
She looked at Jon. There was still nothing that suggested Tommy had even existed, let alone that he’d been killed. ‘It would help if you could tell us more about him, Colin. His surname, or where he came from? A description. Anything.’
He shook his head. ‘He was just Tommy. That’s all anyone ever called him.’
‘We want to get justice for him, Colin,’ Molly said. ‘But until we have more details, the chances of identifying his killer are slim.’ She looked at him, hoping he might be able to provide some more information. Something. But Colin just looked blank. She wasn’t going to get anywhere pressing him for details he either couldn’t remember, or had simply never known in the first place.
She offered him a smile, but he didn’t react. He ate the sandwiches without comment, and she didn’t know what else she could say.
‘What about Mags?’ Jon asked. ‘Did she ever say who first put her on to this story ?’
He shook his head again and ate the sandwich. Jon opened his mouth to ask something else, but Molly put her hand on his arm. Sometimes his old journalistic instinct took over and his line of questioning could become aggressive. That would just scare Colin off, and they needed him onside if they were to get anywhere.
‘Did Mags say anything to you about whether she’d managed to locate any of these men? Could she have spoken to one of them?’
He looked up from his sandwich and spoke with his mouth full. ‘Do you think whoever killed her will come after me?’ His eyes darted between Molly and Jon, then looked behind them to see if there was anyone else in the picnic area. There was a family at another table, chatting and laughing between themselves, and not paying them any attention.
‘We don’t know for sure if Mags was killed because of the story she was working on,’ Molly said, ‘but it’s possible. In which case, anything you can tell us will help catch whoever did it.’
‘You do think it was me, don’t you?’ He stared at Molly, ignoring Jon completely. ‘You think I killed her.’
Molly could sense Jon wanting to speak. She knew he wanted to broach that possibility, see how Colin reacted. Her hand was still resting on his arm, but she could only keep him quiet for so long.
‘Did you kill her?’ he asked. He was looking directly at Colin, trying to make eye contact, which with Colin was always like trying to hit a moving target.
A squirrel jumped onto the picnic table, eyes focussed on the food, but alert to any sudden movement. Molly tore off a section of crust and threw it on the ground. The squirrel quickly jumped off the table, grabbed the crust and disappeared into the surrounding shrubbery.
Colin had stopped eating. He let his sandwich drop onto the picnic table. The squirrel reappeared – or maybe it was a different one, Molly couldn’t tell – its eyes fixed on the sandwich. Jon swished it away with a swipe of his hand. Colin stared at the departing squirrel, then looked at Jon. ‘I didn’t kill her.’ He turned to Molly. ‘Honest, I didn’t kill her.’
He stared at the remains of the sandwich; flecks of cheese had spilt out onto the table. ‘Not her.’
Jon and Molly looked at each other. ‘What do you mean “not her”?’
He lifted his head. ‘I think I might have killed someone else.’ His gaze flickered between Molly, Jon and the sandwich.
It was Jon who spoke first. ‘Who did you kill, Colin?’
They had to wait until he answered. ‘There was this man. He used to work in the arcade. I never knew his name. I think he might have owned the arcade. I don’t know. I never really spoke to him, not properly.’
‘What happened?’ Molly asked. She had a bad feeling about where this was heading.
‘I saw him. In the street. A few days ago. I recognised him – he hadn’t changed very much – except he was older. I followed him, found out where he lived.’
Colin stopped speaking, as though that was all he had to say on the matter.
‘Go on,’ Molly prompted. ‘If you don’t tell us what happened, we can’t help you.’
He finally met Molly’s eyes. ‘I went back the next day and waited for him. When I saw him coming towards me, I attacked him. I couldn’t stop. He was lying on the ground, and I don’t think he was breathing. I just… I panicked and ran away. I don’t remember what happened after that. I just remember waking up at home and being sick.’
Despite being a middle-aged man, he looked for all the world like a helpless child. ‘But I didn’t kill Mags. I know I didn’t.’
‘The man’s name is Gordon Lomax.’ Molly spoke calmly, trying to keep the situation as normal as possible. Colin had just confessed to a serious assault, and she should notify Denning, assuming the case hadn’t now been passed on.
‘He’s OK,’ she said. ‘You didn’t kill him, but he was badly injured. The police will need to speak to you about this, but if you’re right and this man was even partly involved in the abuse, then you could say there were mitigating circumstances.’ She wasn’t sure the courts would buy that, but a good defence brief could make a strong argument for it. But with Colin’s record, taken along with the seriousness of the assault, it was likely he’d be looking at a custodial sentence.
‘I’m going back to prison,’ he said, as though reading her mind. ‘Last time I got out, everybody said I’d be back and they were right.’ He looked at Molly, pretending Jon wasn’t there. ‘I’m going back inside.’
Molly wanted to reassure him further, tell him he wasn’t and that everything would be all right. Be she couldn’t lie to him. After all the shit life had thrown at him, the last thing the poor sod needed was to be lied to by another police officer.
‘I’ll do my best to protect you, Colin. But I can’t promise you anything more than that.’
Taking her mobile from her pocket, she phoned Denning.
Chapter Forty-Two
Denning rang the doorbell and waited.
Lomax had discharged himself from the hospital – that much he’d found out from a phone call – against his doctor’s advice. But he was an adult, and had signed the requisite forms absolving the hospital of any responsibility should anything happen to him, so there was nothing they could do to stop him.
As he had nowhere else to go, his house in Highbury was the obvious place to look for him.
Only it wasn’t his house. It belonged to David Cairns: legally and morally.
It was a few minutes before the front door opened and Lomax stood there, looking Denning up and down. Even though he’d felt well enough to discharge himself, he still hadn’t fully recovered from his injuries. There was a pained look about him, though that could have been because Denning was standing on his doorstep.
‘What now?’ he asked.
His left eye was still bloodshot, but the bandage had gone from his face to reveal a nasty cut; there was a possibility it might leave some permanent scarring. His arm was still in plaster and the bruising on his cheek looked like a ripened plum.
‘Can I come in?’
‘No. Next question?’
‘OK, let’s stand on the doorstep and have our conversation right here. The neighbours already think you’re a source of local intrigue, so let’s really give them something to gossip about.’
Lomax poked his head out the door and glanced up and down the street. It was the weekend, so people were around: cars were being washed and gardens being tidied. An eager beaver two doors down was giving their front lawn the first cut of the year.
‘Right. You’ve got five minutes. Not a second longer.’
The house was like a time warp. The wallpaper in the living room looked like it had been put up in the 1970s, while three of the four walls were lined with bookcases. It was David Cairns’s home rather than Gordon Lomax’s. Lomax had failed to stamp his personality on the place, despite having lived there – like a cuckoo in the nest – for over twenty years.
Denning sat in a dusty armchair opposite an old-fashioned television. Lomax stood by the fireplace, one arm in a sling, the other resting on the mantelpiece.
‘You’re feeling better then?’ Denning asked. ‘Or at least well enough to leave your hospital bed?’
‘What’s this about, Denning? I’ve told you I don’t want to press charges, and I’ve explained about Cairns, so I don’t know what the fuck you’re doing here.’
‘Firstly, I no longer buy your story about Cairns committing suicide. I’ve been speaking to Frances Hynd, David’s sister. She lives in Wester Ross in the north of Scotland now. She’s in her nineties, but still sharp as a tack.’
‘Very interesting,’ Lomax said witheringly. ‘I told you, David hated her. Called her an interfering old cow and wanted nothing to do with her.’
‘That’s not quite how she sees it,’ Denning said. ‘She admits they had a falling-out some time ago, but they were still in contact with one another, more or less, right up until he disappeared.’ He paused, waiting to gauge Lomax’s reaction. Lomax just looked at him, not giving anything away. ‘What’s more interesting is that she insists her brother would never have killed himself. According to her, he was a practising Catholic, and it seems they take the whole death by suicide thing quite seriously. So that does – once again – raise the whole awkward question of what really happened to David Cairns.’
Lomax stood by the fireplace saying nothing. Irrespective of whatever Frances Hynd had said, they still had no proof that David Cairns had come to harm, other than by his own hand. And Lomax knew that. It was time to fire his next salvo. ‘But that’s not my main reason for calling round to see you. It’s about the assault on you the other day.’ He smiled at Lomax, and glanced at the antique clock on the mantelpiece: his five minutes would soon be up, so he’d better be quick. ‘You’ll be pleased to know that someone has confessed to assaulting you. It would appear he recognised you.’ He was getting a reaction now. A hand went up to the bruise on his face. He subconsciously stroked it, before flinching.
