After the Fire (33 page)

‘We found his DNA on Geoff Armstrong’s body,’ I said. ‘On his face. On his hands.’

‘Maybe he met him. Maybe he sneezed on him.’ She laughed. ‘This is ridiculous. You’re making something out of nothing. Dean didn’t know Geoff Armstrong.’

‘His saliva was found on Mr Armstrong’s genitalia,’ I said.

She opened her mouth to argue, then shut it again. ‘I don’t – I don’t understand. There must be some mistake.’

‘There’s no mistake. Geoff Armstrong was engaged in sexual activity with Dean Rickards on the day he died. We think Geoff was paying him for sex.’ Derwent’s words were brusque but his manner was matter-of-fact, direct, unsensational. This was what had happened and it shocked none of us, except possibly Justine.

‘Oh my God,’ she whispered. ‘Dean, what were you doing?’

‘You didn’t know?’ I allowed myself to sound slightly puzzled.

‘I had no idea. None.’

‘I met Dean the other day,’ I said. ‘In Claudine Cole’s flat.’

‘He helps out sometimes. Like me.’

‘He was acting as a kind of bodyguard for her. He was pretty hostile towards me.’

She looked at me for a moment, then rolled her eyes away. ‘I can’t imagine why.’

‘Do you know what else I noticed about him?’

‘No, darling, I don’t.’

‘He didn’t have any eyelashes. None at all.’

Another frown. ‘So?’

‘I used to police around Vauxhall when I was a street copper. I got to know a lot about two things: the security services and gay culture. You’ve got MI6 on one side of the road and a load of gay nightclubs on the other, which I’m sure is a coincidence.’

‘I’m sure too,’ Derwent chimed in, grinning.

‘I used to see the drag queens on their way into work at the Vauxhall Tavern. I got friendly with a few of them. They were nice guys. I could barely recognise them when they were dressed up, and not just because they looked different. They were different people in drag. I remember one of them telling me that he had no eyelashes left because he’d worn false eyelashes for so long and the glue had ripped his own out one by one. They hadn’t grown back. He said I should always look at men’s eyelashes, that it was more of a giveaway of who they were and what they did than long nails or feminine features.’

‘I’m sure that was very helpful for you.’ Justine’s voice was raw but she was still in command of herself.

‘You wear false eyelashes, don’t you, Justine?’

She straightened. ‘Lots of people do.’

‘Yes, and lots of people wear wigs like yours.’

She tucked her hair behind her ear, self-conscious. ‘I like to change my look.’

‘Do you know what we rely on when we’re trying to identify people from photographs? Not noses, not chins – those can change if you gain or lose weight or if you do your make-up differently or just because people get older. But ears don’t change.’ I leaned over and took the picture of Dean Rickards out of her hand. ‘Dean’s ears are just the same as yours, Justine. Exactly the same, down to the shape of the lobe.’

‘We’re siblings.’

‘No, you aren’t.’ I tapped the picture. ‘If I get a facial recognition expert to compare this image and a picture of you, you know what the answer will be. And if we test your DNA I can prove it to any jury’s satisfaction. You are Dean Rickards. It was you I saw in Claudine Cole’s flat, where you were dressed as a man. It was you who spent every Thursday afternoon with Geoff Armstrong. It was you he paid for sex. It was you who was with him last Thursday and it was you who punched him in the face hard enough to leave a bruise. You were the last person with him before he died.’

She didn’t move for the longest moment – she didn’t even blink. Then she sighed. ‘I didn’t hurt him. He was fine when I left him.’

Derwent leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees. ‘Tell us exactly what happened, Justine. Don’t leave anything out. We need to know how you met and what you did.’

‘Everything?’

‘All of it.’

She put a hand over her eyes for a moment, struggling to keep her composure. Her fingers were trembling.

‘Can I get you something? Water?’ I asked.

‘Don’t pretend to care,’ she spat. ‘You don’t care.’

Derwent caught my eye and shook his head, very slightly.
Don’t argue with her
.

‘When did you meet Geoff Armstrong?’ he asked.

‘Just over two months ago. After the police van got shot up on the estate.’ She took a deep breath. ‘He approached me. I wouldn’t have gone near him. He wanted to know what it was like to grow up here. We had one short conversation about it and at the end of it he tried to kiss me.’

Derwent’s tone was matter-of-fact. ‘Did he know you were—’

‘What? That I was what?’

‘Transsexual.’ Repeated diversity training courses were really paying off for Derwent.

‘No. He had no idea.’

‘When did you tell him?’

‘After I let him kiss me.’ She looked at Derwent, challenging him. ‘After I let him feel me up.’

‘How did he react?’

‘He was shocked.’ She laughed. ‘He was terrified someone would find out. He gave me five hundred quid. I didn’t even ask him for it. I wouldn’t have said anything anyway. But he said he wanted to make a gesture.’

‘And you took the money.’

‘I’m saving up.’ She cupped her chest. ‘I had my boobs done last year but I haven’t done the rest. I’ve found a really good surgeon in Thailand. He does these operations all the time. I don’t want to have it done here and get something that looks weird and doesn’t work properly.’

‘So you’re not …’ Derwent trailed off, floundering.

‘I’m halfway through the process. Would you like to see?’

‘That won’t be necessary.’ He looked down, embarrassed, then back up at her with a rueful grin and she loved it, sitting a little taller. Treating her like a woman was the best way he could have gone about winning her trust.

‘Did you contact Armstrong again?’ I asked.

‘No. He called me. I didn’t know who it was at first. He said he couldn’t stop thinking about me and he wanted to meet me again.’

I could believe it. She was fascinating, graceful, feminine in every way. The other day, in her heavy jumper that hid her implants, wearing masculine glasses, she had been playing dress up. Dean was a character she’d been playing. Justine was the real person.

‘And you agreed because you needed the money.’

‘I’m not a tart.’ She was defensive, straight away. ‘I said no at first. Then he kept calling. He begged me for one more chance.’

‘So you arranged to meet.’

‘I didn’t want him in my flat. I knew 103 in Murchison House was empty because I knew the girl who used to live there. It was supposed to be renovated before the next tenant came along and I still had a key so it seemed like the obvious place to meet.’

‘And what happened?’

‘Do you want the details of that too? Everything we did to one another? All the filthy little tricks I showed him?’

‘No.’ Derwent was patience personified. ‘I want to know what arrangement you came to that meant he was here every Thursday with a roll of banknotes in his back pocket.’

‘Oh.’ She leaned back against her chair, looking tired. ‘I never charged him but he liked to give me a gift at the end. He wanted me to have nice things. He brought me presents sometimes. Wine, food, bits of jewellery. Underwear. The kind of things rich men give women. Because that’s how he saw me. He didn’t know Dean. He didn’t want to know.’

‘So it was more than a business relationship to both of you,’ I said.

‘Very much more.’ Justine laughed, but there were tears in her eyes. ‘I fell in love with him. Stupid, wasn’t it? We were so different. I was everything he was supposed to hate. He was kind to me, though. He saw me the way I wanted people to see me. I think he liked that I wasn’t one thing or another – that turned him on. But he still wanted me to have my operation. He wanted to be the first, afterwards. He offered to pay for the whole thing but I turned him down. I thought – I thought he would find it hard, afterwards. It’s a big operation. It takes time to recover.’ Her lip curled. ‘Geoff wasn’t made to be a nurse.’

‘But you still loved him,’ I said.

‘He worshipped me. That’s hard to resist when you’ve grown up being called a freak and a pervert and getting beaten up at least once a week.’ She caught herself. ‘Anyway, that doesn’t matter. What matters is that we had feelings for one another.’

‘Did you talk about him leaving his wife? Going public?’

‘I
did. He didn’t. He was terrified we’d get found out. He wouldn’t even leave the flat with me in case anyone saw him.’

‘Even when the building was on fire?’

‘Even then. He was getting dressed …’ The tears filled her eyes again. ‘I was mean to him. I did hit him.’

‘Why?’

‘He called me a stupid bitch for opening the door when there were people in the corridor.’ She shrugged delicately. ‘I don’t like being spoken to that way.’

‘Understandable,’ Derwent said. ‘What else did you do?’

‘Nothing. I warned him to hurry up and he said he would. He told me to go. That was it. I waited for him outside to make sure he was okay but he didn’t come out. In the end I rang 999 and told them he was there and where to look for him.’

I made a note: that was the anonymous call that had come in about Armstrong.

Justine looked miserable. ‘Do you know what really hurts? He chose to die rather than risk anyone finding out about us. He said he loved me but when it came down to it he was too ashamed of me to save his own skin.’

Derwent shook his head. ‘That’s not what happened.’

‘How do you know?’

‘He was murdered.’

‘What?’ She dug her fingernails into the arms of her chair, eyes wide. ‘What happened?’

‘That’s what we’re trying to find out.’ Derwent opened his folder, consulting Dr Early’s report on Armstrong’s injuries. ‘So you did hit him.’

‘Once. Here.’ She indicated her jaw.

‘You didn’t spray him with pepper spray?’

‘No.’

‘And you didn’t strangle him.’

‘No.’

‘He was conscious when you left.’

‘He was putting his clothes back on.’

‘Did you see anyone strange when you were leaving the flat? Anyone hanging around?’

She took a moment to think. ‘I mean, it was chaos in the hall. Pure chaos. People coming and going, there was smoke, it was dark, the lights weren’t on – I don’t know if I’d have noticed anyone.’

‘Did you shut the door after you?’

She nodded. ‘Definitely.’

‘Would Geoff have answered the door if someone knocked on it?’

‘I really doubt it. He was terrified of being discovered. I mean, that was part of the thrill. But he would have shat himself if someone tried to get into the flat.’

‘Unless he was expecting them,’ I said, thinking out loud. Derwent frowned at me, not following, and I waved a hand at him.
Not now
.

‘Is that everything you know?’ Derwent asked Justine.

‘Everything.’ She took a deep breath and let it out. ‘It feels good to say.’

‘And you’ve been completely honest with us.’

‘Completely.’

‘And you have nothing to hide. You didn’t harm Armstrong.’

‘He was fine when I left, I swear.’ She looked from Derwent to me. ‘You have to believe me.’

‘What I don’t understand,’ I said, ‘is why you went back to dressing as Dean. If you didn’t do anything wrong, what did you have to hide?’

‘I was ashamed,’ she said quietly. ‘Not of being trans. Of sleeping with Geoff. I didn’t want anyone to know – not after he’d let me down. He was so bothered about his reputation he didn’t seem to realise people would have judged
me
for sleeping with
him
. He thought he was the only one with something to lose.’ She half-smiled. ‘I loved him, you know, but he wasn’t half a dickhead sometimes.’

‘
WHY DIDN’T YOU
arrest her?’ Una Burt was looking for something on her desk, rifling through piles of paper and emptying folders. To say she was impressed by what we’d found out from Justine Rickards would be an exaggeration.

‘Why didn’t you arrest
him
?’ Chris Pettifer said.

‘Her.’ Derwent stared him down, daring him to argue about it. ‘And for what?’

‘Killing Armstrong.’

‘Because there’s no evidence she did.’ Derwent folded his arms, casual in shirtsleeves, outwardly relaxed. If I’d been Pettifer I would have been feeling nervous, though. There was an edge to Derwent’s voice that I recognised as a red flag. ‘She was with him. She saw him regularly. She was paid to meet him even though, according to her, she’d have done it for free. She left him alive and she had no reason to kill him. So tell me why I should have arrested her, because I’m not seeing it.’

‘She gave you a story about Armstrong and you swallowed it because you’re not interested in finding out what happened to him.’ Una Burt paused for a second, reading the page in front of her, then put it in the bin and kept searching. ‘She came up with an ingenious explanation for the large sums of money Armstrong kept transferring to her. Do we have any evidence she wasn’t blackmailing him?’

‘If he’d gone to the papers and said, “Geoff Armstrong is a hypocrite who tried to kiss me even though I’m black and a transsexual and I live on benefits and I’m everything he claims to despise”, he’d have got a hell of a payday,’ Pettifer said.

‘But she didn’t do that,’ I said. ‘And can you stop calling her
he
?’

‘You two are so politically correct,’ Pettifer said. It was certainly the first time Derwent had ever been accused of that and he took offence.

‘She’s more of a woman than anything you’ve ever shagged, mate.’

‘That’s enough.’ Burt sat down but she was still hunting, distracted. ‘It was worth much more to Justine Rickards to keep Armstrong on the hook. Regular payments are better than a one-off.’

Derwent raised one eyebrow. ‘Do you really think Armstrong would have let Justine suck his cock if she’d been blackmailing him?’

Burt’s head snapped up, her mouth tight with irritation. But she conceded the point. ‘Possibly not.’