C.T. Brown - Second Time Lucky? (2 page)

Two
buses later and I was walking down the back streets of St John’s Wood toward
the small three storey, nineteen thirties block of flats that had been built as
a hall of residence when the university first opened. The rich benefactors
who'd founded the place had wanted to provide accommodation for all their
students for all their years of study, to this end five of these blocks had
been built in amongst the leafy avenues of nineteen thirties semis in the area,
much to the chagrin of the enthusiastic social climbers living in them. Nearly
all the students still lived in halls with only a few going for houses in their
second year, almost none of those houses were in St John's
Wood,
cost being a big factor in student living.

My
room was on the third storey of a block and was the only one in it that didn't
have one of the traditional student living aromas of patchouli incense, stale
kebab or unwashed student hanging around it. This was because, unlike most
student rooms, my room was full of paper and inhabited by an obsessive murder
suspect. Books, piles of paper (loose and in files) and newspapers covered
everything except the bed and a narrow passage from the bed to the door, with a
small tributary heading to the wardrobe. Immediately on entering I noticed the
picture by my bed, Emily and I at the British Library, a picture from a day out
three weeks ago, a picture she'd given me last week. I could feel tears waiting
to come. I held them back, this wasn't the time. By the time I'd washed and
changed into a fresh pair of jeans and a new shirt I could hear sirens,
grabbing a new coat I took a glance through the front window and saw three
Police cars pulling up outside. Time to face up to the suspicion, face the
accusations, explain it all to a lawyer and hope I could find a way to not
spend too long in custody. Well, either that or I could go down the fire escape
at the back, over the garden wall and try to find out what had happened to
Emily before the trail went too cold.

No
option really.

The
Police would never believe me, I had no choice. At least that's what I told
myself as I clambered over the rough bricks of the five foot high garden wall.

Part
Two

There
was no doubt that within a couple of hours the Police would have checked the
CCTV footage from buses and tube stations in the area, so they would see I'd
got on the number ninety-eight bus at Maida Vale and headed back to the West
End. Their biggest problem from there would be the sheer number of people and
CCTV cameras, it might be possible to pick me out of a crowd if they studied
the footage closely enough but that took time - even longer when you are in
amongst probably the highest concentration of cameras in the world. No way did
the Met have the manpower to look at all that footage efficiently, sticking my
picture on the TV was more likely to get a result and it would cost them
nothing. So, I had some time. Most people wouldn't be watching the news until
after work. Sure, plenty would check websites during the day for footie news
and gossip about whichever chav princess the media were currently building up (so
they could shoot her back down next week), but no-one looked at the local
London news during the day when they could be laughing at some footballer
wrapping his shiny Porsche round a tree while under the influence.

Mid
morning already and the shops of Oxford Street were opening their doors so
tourists could pay over the odds for cheap tat and Londoners could rummage
through the sale sections. Oxford Street is often a surprise to tourists who
have heard of this retail pilgrimage site. There is a ground in, permanent
griminess to all the buildings that shines in the reflections from all the
glinting crisp packets and abandoned beer cans which often dampens even the
most enthusiastic worshipper at the altar of capitalism. When you add in the
ludicrous crush of humanity that marches along the street jostling, pushing
and, occasionally, violently attacking each other, it can be an overwhelming
experience.

Turning
off the main street I headed away from Soho, due to the likely arrest and
imprisonment that would result from another visit, and instead headed north
into Fitzrovia and a small Italian cafe just around the corner from the Fitzroy
pub that gave the area it's name - a long time haunt of the more bohemian of
the local crowd (in that area, that's really saying something) and that most
feared of London's gangs, the Doctor Who fans.

Inside
the cafe it was clear that even were it to be lifted up and dropped into the
middle of Rome it would not be any more Italian, the national flag hung from
the wall alongside paintings of every tourist's checklist of things to see in
Italy you can imagine (the leaning tower, the coliseum, the Pope and so on). Not
to forget all the plastic gondolas, the pizza shaped novelty clock and, of
course, the ridiculously over the top comedy Italian accent the owner used
despite being born in Chiswick to parents originally from exotic Poplar. I'd
come here because it was one of the few places I knew that still had a
payphone, unlike many visitors to London I was not fooled by the red so-called
telephone boxes - like every other Londoner I knew there hadn't been a working
phone in one since nineteen eighty-two and they were not only used as urinals
by the growing homeless population. Admittedly there was a rumour of a clean
telephone box with a working phone hidden somewhere in Kensington but most
right thinking people dismissed this as an urban legend.

When
he eventually answered the phone Jim Courthald was clearly unhappy, it turns
out the Police had already been to his garage and turned the place over looking
for me. Jim is my cousin, ten years older than me and the only family member
I'm still on speaking terms with. After a short debate he agreed to do me a
favour but made it clear this was it, he didn't need the hassle from an
association with me at the moment and was not going to spend another six months
trying to help me get out from under another murder charge. Honestly, I could
see his point. Sticking up for me and helping me the last time had cost him a
lot of money, got him disowned by the family and cost him his marriage. He
still had his business and now had a new girlfriend but felt I was too much
trouble for him, I really couldn't argue with that.

Several
buses later I was in a very posh street just off Kensington High Street walking
past houses each worth more than the whole street I'd grown up on. About
halfway up the street I found my favour, a dark blue Ford Focus. Five years old
and obviously well used in London from all the small scratches and scrapes in
the paintwork. As planned the keys were hooked on one of the mounting brackets
for the front spoiler, awkward to get to even if you lie down flat but less
likely to be found by a passing thief than if they are left under the wheel
arch on top of the wheel. In the glove compartment were the correct documents
for the car, registered in the name of a pensioner Jim used as cover for the
odd slightly shonky car that passed through his hands, and an envelope
containing a grand in cash. At least I now had transport and some readies just
in case.

In
the somewhat less expensive surroundings of Kilburn I obtained a pay-as-you-go
phone that, for an extra twenty quid, was registered under the name Donald Duck
and contemplated doing something the Police were bound to expect me to do, in
the end I just shrugged my shoulders and did it anyway. I used the phone to
call Lavinia Cartwright-Houghton, Emily's best friend and flatmate. As soon as
she realised who was calling a stream of obscenities that would have made her
freemason father so angry his pacemaker would have tasered him from the inside was
hurled in my general direction. Lavinia had not liked me to start with due to
my “unsavoury”
past,
unfortunately our relationship
had only become frostier when I pointed out that the shortened form of her
name, Lav, was also slang for the toilet. Once she calmed down a bit she told
me the first thing she'd do after I hung up was call the Police and tell them I
had called, I told her this was her choice and suggested that perhaps she could
mention that I had called from Yorkshire? It was not a popular suggestion.
Eventually I got around to asking the question that was the point of the whole
call, did she know of anything Emily was doing which could have got her into
potentially fatal trouble. Her answer was simple: me. Emily had been gathering
details about the murder of my previous girlfriend on the quiet. She had told
Lavinia
that she wanted to help clear my name but as far as
Lavinia knew Emily had not actually found anything but she had received a call
around midnight and rushed out of the house straight afterwards. Following a
further stream of abusive language, that may actually have polluted the air
enough to contribute to climate change, she hung up.

To
say this news wasn't well received by me was an understatement of the same
order as saying that politicians may sometimes stretch the truth. It sounded a
lot like Emily was murdered by someone for looking into my old charge even
though she hadn't found anything. Someone really didn't want the truth about
that to come out. They killed Emily and framed me for it. The only two people
left with any real motivation to find out the truth, after all everyone else
still assumed it was down to me. Emily was dead because of me.
My fault.
Two women I had loved, both now
dead and the only common factor?
Me. Enough.
Time to find out what the hell is going on.

Keeping
under the radar for the rest of the day was pretty
simple,
I joined the masses shopping in the Westfield in White City. I could have gone
to the city sized Westfield in Stratford but the White City shopping centre
(only the size of a small town) offered easier access back into town later on.
Some shopping was done, but mainly things I need to collect and record anything
useful I came across. Well that and an iPod, sitting around in Costa Coffee can
get a bit dull after the first three hours or so but with a little music I was
able to concentrate and go through everything I already had on two murders.

Starting
with Emily's as the most recent I didn't have much but two broken fingers and
several areas of uncomfortable soreness. Someone had lured her to Soho and
killed her with a knife stolen from the toolbox in my room. The theft had been
done well, I have a healthy dose of paranoia from the events of the last few
years and I couldn't tell you whether the knife had been stolen the day of the
murder or a week earlier, there had been no sign. Fingers
Mackeye
now had the knife and a healthy grudge against me. No other options, I'd have
to reach out to him to get it back. Number one on the list of things to do,
visit an old friend who can reach out to Fingers with a reasonable chance of
success, on my own I'd just get another kicking.

Next
up, the first murder.
Carmen Spigarelli. My first girlfriend,
the girl I had gone to school with since we were five years old, the girl who
had finally noticed me when I turned fifteen. What did I know on this one? She
went missing after our 'thank God the A levels are over' party. As usual she
got into the car her dad sent to pick her up, a black Mercedes limo that looked
like it should be carrying a family to a funeral. Two days later the car was
found with the dead driver in the driving seat, he'd died the same night he had
collected her - stabbed repeatedly in a really crazed attack. I had walked home
that night, really late, no witnesses as the streets were empty. Sometimes her
driver would give me a lift too, everyone assumed he did that night. Carmen was
found the next day, dumped in woodland. Dead a matter of hours, stabbed but
only twice rather than something like the frenzied death of the driver. The
same knife used, forensics suggested a kitchen knife of some kind - they never
found it but did find one missing from a set at my parents house. A knife that
had been missing for months, even my parents thought I must have had it hidden
away somewhere. Carmen had been raped, repeatedly. We were in a relationship
from
fifteen,
we were eighteen when she died - of
course we had slept together, which led to another strike against me. Our first
time had been difficult, she had just freaked out at one point and I was left
with scratches down my cheek – something the Police said hinted that there had
been “sexual violence” in our relationship. She had explained it away the next day
as nerves but there had always been some awkwardness, and I had never really
found out why.

For me
the big surprise when she went missing was how her dad acted. He owned several
pharmacies in the area and seemed a nice, quiet guy until this happened. Several
'employees' of his asked me where Carmen was, when I couldn't tell them I found
myself taken to her father's expensive house.
Taken to the
basement.
Tied to a chair.
The friendly local grocer
soon proved he wasn't so friendly and wasn't a grocer. When they let me go
no-one believed my story that this nice guy, one of those respected pillars of
the community we often hear about, had beaten me senseless - especially the
Police. Then again, as I later learned several of them took regular large
bribes from him I guess that was not a surprise. Little shops made a good
legitimate front he could use to hide his trade in illicit substances specially
designed to get you completely out of your box, not that anyone would believe
me once I found out. Number two on my list of things to do was probably
suicidal, go to see Mr.
Spigarelli
. If I could
convince him I hadn't killed his daughter then he'd have resources I could use
to find out what really happened. It was that or
go
on
the run, forever. No choice really.

Settling
down with a pint of Guinness in the Old Bank of England I looked at Martin
'Dishwater' Carheux and he looked back, asking if I really wanted to get in
touch with Fingers or if my drink had been spiked with LSD. Martin was typical
of the denizens of Fleet Street these days, he was an accountant. Everyone
associates the place with hard drinking journalists but they have long since gone.
Lawyers, accountants and some very good pubs make up the majority of the street
now - it has been said that if they reopened the sewers and recreated the last
days of the Fleet river, when it was known as the Fleet Ditch and was around
ninety percent raw sewage, and dropped all of the lawyers into it then the
quality of the area might improve slightly. Martin's public persona was as dull
as his
nickname,
it did a great job of hiding the fact
that he made an absolute fortune as the best accountant a criminal could buy.
Martin's brother has been inside with me, he had upset a few of the wrong
inmates and I'd had to jump in and help him avoid being beaten to death. I was
not exactly a tough guy myself and all I had done was
get
us both a beating, although it was fortunately a survivable one. When I got out
of prison Dishwater had helped me build up some cash reserves to keep up my
investigation as payback, over time he had opened up and we had become friends.

After
half an hour looking around the Waterstones on Fleet Street I headed back to
the pub to see how Dishwater had got on with his calls. He did not look like it
had gone well.

"You
are in seriously deep shit my friend." he said.

"Fingers
still threatening to take the knife to the Police?"

"Not
so much, the Police already have it."

"He
actually handed it over?
The little bastard."