Herein, gentle readers, you get to observe the UCOS team doing some mildly UCOS-y things.
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4. The Cook, the Thief, a Knife, and the Guv'nor
Detective Chief Superintendent Pullman trained the full force of her electric blue gaze on the page before her, giving it the same don't-mess-me-about glare she turned upon recalcitrant witnesses. It was a look known to make grown men (especially those named Brian, Gerry, and Jack) weep, and had a singular power of exhorting the truth from even the most mendacious.
It failed to have the same effect on inanimate objects, unfortunately, and the numbers on the page remained inert.
"If that's a two, and that's a two, then that must be a three; but the second row could also have a four," she muttered, her frustration mounting.
The door opened and Sandra turned to see Brian returning to UCOS. "Any joy?" she asked, but the look on his face told her the answer even before he responded with a negative shake of his head.
"Edward Gilbreath seems to have disappeared," he reported gloomily. "I talked to all the dossers near Blackfriars, but as you might imagine, none of them claim to have been there seven years ago, and I doubt we're going to prove otherwise." Brian nodded to the page Sandra was studying intently. "How's the Sudoku going?"
"Slowly," she admitted.
Brian nodded again as he wheeled his bike into the corner. "Addictive, isn't it? They helped me pass the time when I was off sick."
"Infuriating, more like," she decided, dropping the book of puzzles and reaching for the late edition of the newspaper, wondering as she did how Brian had managed to stay dry. London was trapped under a torrential downpour – surprise, surprise – and Brian had been prosecuting his inquiries on a bicycle, for Christ's sake. Sandra had been in her car, but still, her hair was damp and her Wellies had sprung an unfortunate leak, and she felt like a waterlogged rodent. She had her shoes off and her legs stretched along the cushions of the loveseat to dry, but there was nothing quite as irritating as the feeling of damp stockings between your toes. She was bloody freezing, and if she drank any more tea she'd float away. Between that and the stubborn Sudoku, she'd had it with this day.
Sandra and Jack had been to question the mother of Terrence Stapleton, a 22-year-old killed in March 2003 during a botched attempt at armed robbery. Before being fatally stabbed himself, Stapleton had shot and killed the worker on the till at the off-licence he and his unknown accomplice had been in the process of robbing; so a national day of mourning hadn't exactly been declared in his honour, and although all the right forms had been filled in, it was obvious that no one on the Sweeney had wept bitter tears when the case went cold and they were unable to catch Stapleton's fellow thief-cum-murderer. Furthermore, the two men and their get-away driver, Edward Gilbreath, had fluffed the time of the robbery, arriving after several days' takings had been safely deposited in the bank. Twenty-six-year-old Annick Wocjenska had died for the sake of a measly three hundred quid, but in the process she'd managed to wound Stapleton with his own gun. The pathologist's report indicated that the wound inflicted by the young woman was of itself negligible, a flesh wound to the upper thigh that could've been stitched up easily.
But Stapleton had never made it to A and E, since his unknown partner had finished the job by stabbing him six times in the stomach with a wickedly sharp kitchen knife. The flight squad's reasoning was that the partner had panicked, fearing Stapleton's injury would inevitably slow them down and cause them to be lifted, so he'd solved the problem by offing Stapleton less than two hundred yards from the off-licence. It was Gilbreath who had discovered Stapleton's body, having eventually gotten worried when neither of his partners in crime joined him in the Golf he'd stolen for the occasion – and really, who planned a robbery involving a Golf? Gilbreath had done a stretch for nicking the car, but had refused to give up the third robber, and upon his release from prison, he'd disappeared entirely.
Likewise the third man, taking the knife and the three hundred – 316, to be precise – pounds. The public tended not to care all that much when a criminal died as a result of having committed a crime, especially when he himself had murdered an innocent bystander in the process. The case had been left open, of course, but no one at the Met had lost any sleep over it, Sandra included. This was a file UCOS had reviewed in the past and set aside without flagging.
Now, however, if the case wasn't causing anyone to lose sleep, it was causing Detective Superintendent Pullman wet feet and frizzy hair, because six days ago two twenty-pound notes with serial numbers matching those of the missing money had unceremoniously returned to circulation – at a Thai restaurant in Ladbroke Grove, oddly enough – and the current head of the flight squad had received a handwritten note on the back of a postcard. The note, which was now magnetized to the white board facing the loveseat, simply said, "I know who killed Terrence Stapleton." On the reverse was a mass-produced image of the London Eye on a rare sunny day.
Alas, there was no return address (that would've been so obliging), and the card had been posted from a box in central London.
After Sandra had gotten drenched, Jack had gone by himself to the Lotus Leaf in Ladbroke Grove. Sandra had just unfolded the paper to get her daily dose of depression courtesy of the fourth estate when her former governor entered the office.
"The Lotus Leaf is apparently the last hold-out in London," he announced grimly.
Sandra glanced up from leafing through screaming headlines. "Which means?"
"No CCTV." Jack hung his jacket up and naturally migrated over to the kettle.
"Could they give you a description?" Brian asked.
"Of course not," Sandra preempted, and Jack's shrug confirmed her supposition. "You were gone an awfully long time," she added with such obvious nonchalance that Brian winced comically.
"Eh, Terrence's mother phoned. She found some photos of Terrence with his mates from school, so I dropped back by to pick them up." As he leaned over the back of the loveseat to hand over the photos, his tie hung near Sandra's cheek. She very precisely flicked one finger against a dark blob on one of the red diamonds, and licked the result from her fingertip.
"Also," she pronounced, beginning to shuffle the photos like a deck of cards, "you have plum sauce on your tie. The least you could've done was bring us some back. I had to eat in the cafeteria."
Brian's eyebrows shot toward his hairline. "You didn't have the tuna fish, did you?" he demanded, plainly alarmed.
The governor shuddered. "Course not. Cheese and pickle."
"Ah." Brian nodded sagely. "You should be all right, then. Give me those photos and I'll scan them in." She complied, and the ex-inspector crossed over to his desk and cheerfully began to scan away, humming slightly off key.
"Jack, do we know who any of the people in the photos are?" Sandra asked, turning pages of the newspaper as she awaited his response.
"About fifty-fifty, I'd say. Young Terrence wasn't exactly the type to bring the lads around. Liz Stapleton remembered first names, mostly." By common consent they gathered around Brian's desk to look over the photographs, which were grainy as a result of having been printed on regular printer paper.
"Do we know who this is?" Sandra pointed to a lanky teenager who appeared in two different snapshots. Long brown hair flopped into his eyes, and his crooked grin revealed a chipped front tooth.
"Ah, in a manner of speaking," Jack replied as Brian took one of the photos from Sandra to scan. "We don't know who he is, but we know how to find out easily enough. According to Mrs. Stapleton, this was Terrence's best mate when he lived with his father in Birmingham, and he once came to London for a weekend. She wasn't sure of his proper name, but Terrence introduced him as K."
"Right." Sandra used her mobile to snap a photo of the clearer of the two images – it showed Terrence and K working on a rusted-out blue car – and sent it to Gerry. As soon as it had been transmitted, she dialed his number. "Where are you?" she demanded abruptly when he answered on the third ring.
"On the side of the bleedin' M6. It's pissin' down, innit? I had to pull off because I couldn't see a foot in front of the car. I am headed back, all right? Birmingham's not next door, if you hadn't noticed."
"Shut up, Gerry. For once I'm not accusing you of being an irresponsible git. How close are you to Birmingham?"
"About thirty miles, if this rain ever lets up."
"All right. Did you happen to talk to Terrence's dad about a mate of his called K? I've just sent you his photo."
"I didn't happen to talk to his dad at all, as it turns out."
A dull pain throbbed between Sandra's eyes, and she pinched the bridge of her nose. "Do I even want to know why?"
"I'm not acquainted with a good medium."
"Shit," Sandra swore. "Why didn't we know this?"
"Keeled over of a massive coronary assisted by cirrhosis of the liver night before last."
She tilted her head back to gaze at the ceiling and blew out a long, deep breath. "Shit," she repeated. "Obviously the local plod haven't notified his ex-wife yet. I need you to head back to Birmingham and go to the school Terrence attended while he was –"
"Ah, ah, ah," Gerry interrupted, gloating. "That is why I'm a detective, Sandra. I've spent a lovely morning at Holmes Cannaby School."
"Well, did you learn anything? Come on, Gerry, I haven't got all day." Sandra had begun to pace.
"Headmaster's newly minted, but I talked to a couple of Terrence's teachers. Troubled teen, not exactly doing A-levels, blah blah blah."
"I need to know about his classmate, the boy in the photo."
"All right, hang on." Sandra heard a grunt and a series of less distinct noises, and then the former DS was back with her. "Let's have a butcher's at young Terry's yearbook, shall we? Journey with me now to 1997."
Sandra rolled her eyes and thrust her mobile at Jack. "Talk to Gerry," she ordered, and stalked back to the loveseat, where she seized the newspaper and resumed her reading, or at least did a reasonable impression of it.
"Gerry's found him," Jack announced gleefully after a few minutes. "Keith McNally."
"Brian –"
"I'm on it." Brian flexed his fingers above his keyboard, looking as eager as a child on Christmas morning.
"Tell Gerry to find somewhere and wait," Sandra decreed. "We may still need him to go back to Birmingham."
Forty-five minutes later both Brian and Sandra were hunkered down in front of their computers, and Jack was making what felt like his fiftieth telephone call of the day.
"Anything?" Sandra asked, propping her chin on her hand.
"No," Brian responded morosely. "Keith McNally spent his teenage years racking up a string of progressively more serious offenses –"
"Vandalism, shoplifting, breaking and entering, GBH, breaking and entering again," Jack supplied, replacing his receiver in its cradle.
"Then he rounded out his illustrious career with a six-month stretch in the nick, and once he was released –"
"It's like he fell off the face of the earth," Sandra groused, running her fingers through her hair. "There seems to be a lot of that going around. So, all right, either he's dead or –"
"He changed his name," Jack said.
"Or stole someone's identity," Sandra agreed. "If Keith McNally was Terrence Stapleton's best friend and had a record that long before he was old enough to vote in a general election, what do you s'pose the odds are that he's the 'unknown accomplice'?"
"And murderer, you mean?" Jack spoke in that grim, determined tone that meant business.
"What I can't understand is why no one twigged on McNally during the previous investigation," Sandra sighed, turning her weary gaze away from the glare of the computer screen. She stood, fisting her hands against the base of her spine as she arched her back, and ambled to the centre of the office, where she idly began to flip through her neglected newspaper, automatically turning toward the weekly "Dining Out" section.
"Because no one cared," Jack replied calmly. "A villain got killed by another villain. But how in blazes are we going to find McNally now? Do a house-to-house in Ladbroke Grove and hope we get lucky?"
"Instead of McNally, it could be Gilbreath passing the marked notes," Brian pointed out.
Sandra nodded. "Or someone else entirely. We could have a forensic artist age the photo," she suggested half-heartedly, extracting the section she wanted and dropping the remainder of the newspaper on the table. Her eye caught by the leading article, she bit her lip but couldn't prevent a smile from appearing. "Maverick or Madman?" the headline asked. "The Spotted Pig's executive chef expertly stirs the pot." Sandra scanned the profile, intending to read it properly later, and wondering if Gerry had seen it.
"But those aren't much better than guesswork," she continued as she opened the paper fully, forcing herself to resume the thread of conversation even as she zeroed in on her favourite column. Cheap as Chips, despite its terrible title, dispensed spot-on reviews of restaurants where you could eat really well for less than twenty quid.
"We don't have to," Brian piped up.
Sandra immediately lowered the newspaper. "You've found him?"
"No." Brian crossed to her side in three efficient strides and neatly swiped the paper. "The Guardian has. Look." He held the newspaper up so that both of his colleagues could see the front page of the section, which featured a large photo of Kevil Mallet, the creative force who had turned The Spotted Pig into a household name in foodie circles. He was pictured in the restaurant's kitchen, wearing ratty jeans under his tell-tale white chef's jacket. His hair was held back by a bandana, but his lazy smile clearly revealed a chipped front tooth.
"Bloody hell," Sandra gasped, feeling like a complete and utter moron. She'd scarcely glanced at the photo.
"Let's bring him in," Jack said instantly.
"And hope he confesses? We don't have a shred of real evidence." Sandra shook her head decidedly. "What we do have is the element of surprise. McNally/Mallet must feel very secure in his new identity if he's willing to have his photograph splashed across a major daily."
"The arrogant sod," Jack muttered between clenched teeth.
"Exactly. Jack, take the newspaper to the Lotus Leaf and see if anyone there recognizes Mallet. Brian, see what you can learn about our executive chef: who does he claim to be, where did he come from, was there a real Kevin Mallet, and if so, what happened to him? You know the routine." As she spoke, Sandra was rapidly putting on her coat. She buttoned and belted it with practiced efficiency and swept her hair from beneath the collar.
"And what will you be doing?" Jack asked.
"Going home to get ready for dinner."
Two skeptical gazes were immediately trained on her. "Dinner," Jack repeated flatly.
"Right." Sandra flashed them a quick, smug smile. "At The Spotted Pig."
"I'm no expert in these matters," her former superior officer began, "but how are you going to get a table at a place like The Spotted Pig on a moment's notice? Call up and tell them it's a police matter?"
"Easy peasy." Sandra's smile widened as she swung the strap of her handbag over her shoulder. "I know someone."
Gerry seized his mobile the instant it rang. "About bloody time," he snarled unceremoniously. "I've smoked two packs of cigarettes and had three coffees. So can I leave now, or what?"
"By all means. How do you fancy a spot of undercover work tonight?"
"Tonight? Gov, I have plans," he whinged.
Sandra's tone brooked no disagreement. "Change them."
"So do you," he pointed out. "It's Thursday."
She hesitated for only a fraction of a second. "Perfect. Because we're going out for a meal."
Sandra was already seated at his usual table when Gerry entered The Spotted Pig. He greeted his cousin Colin, who was doing a turn behind the bar, as he frequently did, before crossing the room to join her. The table was shielded from the rest of the gastropub by the L shape of the cushioned wooden booth, angled as it was away from the other diners and toward the fireplace and open-plan kitchen. The space was obviously intended to be cozily romantic, but it offered enough room for two diners to sit reasonably far apart, as the two of them had done three weeks ago. Tonight, however, Sandra was wedged almost in the inside corner of the booth, leaving Gerry nowhere to go but practically in her lap, near enough to detect the spice of her perfume.
This, Gerry reflected, holding himself as stiffly as possible, was probably a bad idea.
"I can see the kitchen better from here," she murmured by way of greeting, and sipped from a glass of water decorated by a thin lemon slice.
"Don't move over," she admonished in the same low tone as Gerry attempted as gracefully as possible to put some more space between them. "I can't talk to you if I have to shout and risk someone overhearing."
Gerry nodded, and Sandra continued, "That's definitely him: Keith McNally. None of the employees at the Lotus Leaf remembered him, though, so we can't definitely tie him to the stolen money, much less the robbery itself and the murder."
"But he knew Stapleton, got banged up more than once for B&E, and then changed his name," Gerry protested, his voice pitched equally low, but insistent. "That's highly suspicious, if you ask me."
"Obviously. Gerry, I'm not thick." She stopped, smiling sweetly at the cute young server who came to take Gerry's drink order, and then glaring at her colleague when he ordered a pint.
"Like I'm going to get pissed on a pint," Gerry muttered as the young man moved away, pre-empting any snide comments about drinking on duty. "Besides, we're not getting overtime, as you well know, so technically we're not on duty. And anyway –"
"You're not a copper," Sandra supplied Gerry's favourite excuse. "And you're sure no one here knows you work for us?"
He shrugged. "So what if Colin casually mentioned it at some point? If I'd never been here and showed up out of the blue, that'd be one thing, but I ain't exactly anything out of the ordinary. "
Her pointed look and small smile plainly told Gerry that she was fully aware of the opening he'd unintentionally left her, but Sandra refrained from making one of the jokes that begged to be cracked. She knew Gerry was right or she never would've suggested this little outing.
Her attention was focused on the kitchen, steadily but not obtrusively. McNally/Mallet moved fluidly about the kitchen, seemingly intent on his work, speaking only to give necessary instructions to his underlings. He didn't look like a murderer; but Sandra had learned long ago that most murderers didn't. She'd told Gerry to ascertain that the executive chef would, indeed, be in the kitchen that night, but to do it subtly. As the thought crossed her mind she asked, "What did you say when you rang?"
"That I wanted to make sure he'd be here, because I was bringing someone special." He winked broadly at her. "You'll do, but stop eyeing up the waiter. You're old enough to be his mother."
Sandra sipped her water and resolutely kept herself from rolling her eyes. On the off chance that anyone might have recognised her from before, Sandra had minimally altered her appearance. Instead of her usual work attire, she wore a black silk wrap dress paired with ridiculously high heels, and she'd used a heavier hand than usual when applying her eye makeup. Finally, she'd let her hair hang in loose waves, which it had been dying to do all day thanks to the wet weather.
Gerry thought she looked stunning, but she'd probably copy McNally's technique and do him in with a kitchen knife if he told her so. Worse still, she might not kill him; she might just – interfere – with certain sensitive portions of his anatomy. Gerry took a gulp of his drink.
"Good job I didn't send Jack, then," Sandra commented loftily.
"You wouldn't've dared."
They paused as their waiter returned. Sandra balked when Gerry tried to order the kidneys for her. "Actually, Gerald," she cooed in a honeyed voice, "I'd much rather have a thick, juicy steak." She turned the full force of her smile on the waiter, who looked paralysed. "Rare, please."
"Yeah, all right," Gerry agreed weakly. "Same again for me, son."
"Kidneys," Sandra snorted when the waiter had scurried away.
"They're delicious," he insisted. "Just wait. One day I'll cook you a – What?" Her eyes had narrowed and Gerry automatically followed their focus.
"Now's my chance," she replied, sliding out of the booth. "Mallet's just ducked out the back – for a fag, I suppose – and I want in the kitchen." It was, actually, the whole reason she'd wanted to come to the restaurant instead of having the chef brought in for questioning.
"Why?" Gerry grabbed her elbow, halting her progress. "Don't you think I'd have a better chance of talking my way in than you would?"
"Maybe, but I want to see those knives. Besides, I'm not going to talk my way in."
She freed herself from Gerry's grasp and lurched toward the ladies room. He watched her counterfeit the unsteady gait of someone who'd had a few too many until she disappeared from his range of vision. She reappeared almost instantly, as if she'd taken a wrong turn on her way to the ladies' and found herself in the kitchen.
The staff were so harried that they seemed to take no notice of Sandra, who moved around the edge of the room. Although he was less than twenty feet away, the barrier between them made Gerry feel useless, as if Sandra had stepped onto the set of a television program and he was watching the scene unfold from the safety of his living room.
She had obviously already picked out the block that contained Mallet's personal knives, but she had to cross to the far wall of the kitchen, the one nearest the door through which the chef had exited, to reach it. The woman was crazy, in addition to being completely bloody-minded. No way would McNally have been stupid enough to keep the knife he'd used to stab Stapleton the better part of a decade ago; and it was even less likely that he'd be such a colossal idiot as to keep it at the restaurant if he had.
Granted, there would be a sort of beautiful, daring logic to it: where better to hide a kitchen knife than in a kitchen? It would be like the million-pound book Brian remained convinced was hidden at the London Library. And the way McNally cooked proved that he was a smug bastard, if nothing else.
Having bypassed the paring knives, Sandra was removing each of the large, wicked knives in turn from its allotted space, scrutinizing it before returning it. Gerry's attention was divided. He kept one eye on the gov at all times, while simultaneously tracking the movements of the other cooks, waiting for someone to notice Sandra and run her out of the kitchen, and watching for the back door to open.
Gerry saw the instant when she found the correct knife. She automatically wheeled toward him, and the look on her face was one of happy disbelief. She was clearly chuffed at her own cleverness. The knife had been on full view in a public place, so warrant-shmarrant.
"Get out of there," Gerry muttered under his breath, but it was already too late. He stiffened.
Sandra's back was to the chef for only an instant, but it was long enough for the Mallet casually to pick up a terrifyingly sharp knife from the stainless steel counter immediately to his left, as if the movement were second nature. Gerry'd never been on a course on lip-reading, but it was easy enough for him to understand Mallet's "What the hell are you doing?"
Gerry couldn't see Sandra's face or read her lips, but he didn't need to. She'd automatically used her right hand to reach for her warrant card – Christ, she must've had it tucked inside her bra! – and would've said something like, "I'm arresting you for murder and armed robbery."
Whatever her exact phrasing, it did not endear her to Mallet. He lunged at her, not with the knife extended, but with a vicious sneer curling his upper lip, like a villain from a stagey melodrama. Sandra tried to side-step him, but her heels left her at a disadvantage, and Mallet seized a handful of her hair, yanking her head back.
"Drop the knife, bitch!"
If that hadn't already drawn quite a bit of attention, what Gerry did next certainly would have. Without even thinking, he leaped to his feet, narrowly avoiding upsetting the entire table, and flung himself across the waist-high wooden divider that separated the dining area from the kitchen. Several dishes crashed to the floor on both sides, plates shattering, and Gerry felt mashed potatoes oozing through the fingers of his left hand where he'd used it to brace himself.
"I wouldn't do that, McNally," he shouted. "You've gotten away with murder for eight years, but we've got you dead to rights now. Don't make it worse for yourself."
The chef stood very still, his gaze darting between Gerry and the knife Sandra still held.
"It's over, Keith," Sandra said, her voice totally calm and clear, although Gerry could see the pulse hammering away at her throat. He wished he had something, anything to use as a weapon.
As if governed by one brain, the other four employees in the kitchen had squeezed against the wall to Gerry's right, as far away from the action as they could get without actually running away.
Gerry saw McNally's muscles tense an instant before the other man moved, throwing down the knife he held while still gripping Sandra with his left hand, and then punching her in the stomach so she doubled over. He took advantage of the moment to wrench the knife away from her, and then light glinted off the blade as McNally's arm arced up through the air, aimed to catch her in the stomach again, but this time with something far more dangerous than a fist.
Gerry grabbed the thing nearest to hand, which turned out to be nothing more glamorous or lethal than a plate, and hurled it at the chef. It wasn't enough to do any real damage, but it altered the trajectory of McNally's knife hand, giving Sandra the second she needed to straighten to her full height and throw her weight behind the karate-style kick she delivered to the back of the enraged man's knee. He half collapsed to the floor; Gerry's hard kick to his back did the rest, and McNally landed face down on the black and white linoleum, still clutching the knife.
He immediately tried to roll over, but Sandra used the terrifying heel of her shoe to stomp on the back of the chef's knife hand, causing McNally to howl and then curse violently. Gerry threw himself on McNally's back as the other man flailed wildly.
"Colin!" Gerry roared. "Colin, you pillock, call the bloody police!"
An hour and a half later, Sandra and Gerry sat in the UCOS office, wolfing down greasy fast-food hamburgers and chips. Down the hall Brian and Jack were interviewing Edward Gilbreath, who wasn't so very hard to find when he wanted to be found. He'd just explained how, having spotted McNally by chance and followed him, he'd realised his best mate's killer was unscathed and successful – and that had made Edward angry. The money he'd used to pay for take-away from the Lotus Leaf, blocks from McNally/Mallet's flat, was part of Gilbreath's measly cut from the long-ago robbery. He admitted that he'd received it in an unmarked envelope a day or two after the robbery, and had simply kept it all this time – even when he was sleeping rough.
"He sent the postcard too, of course," Brian had popped in a few minutes ago to tell Sandra and Gerry.
"That bastard McNally," Sandra said around a mouthful of hamburger, "tried to stab me." She didn't sound frightened, only affronted. It wasn't an image Gerry would soon forget, although he'd prefer only to remember her stomping on McNally's hand like some Amazon warrior and making him scream. "How's your hand?"
Gerry glanced down at his bandaged left hand. "Yeah, it's fine," he snapped, embarrassed. What sort of a twat managed to give himself second-degree burns by sticking his hand into a serving of mashed potatoes?
Sandra sighed. "It's a shame, you know – all that talent wasted." Her expression turned morose. "I really wanted that steak."
He chuckled harshly. "I still owe you," he said. "This does not qualify as a proper meal."
She shrugged. "You could say I owe you, since it looks like you're going to be in search of a new 'local' now."
"All I know is it's my turn to pick the bloody restaurant." Gerry shook his head as he crumpled up his hamburger wrapper and tossed it in the general direction of the rubbish bin. "You know what this means, don't you, gov?"
She shook her head, mildly inquisitive.
"It's a sign from the universe," he declared grandly, "and all its deities. A warning to Gerry Standing to stick to proper pubs."
Sandra laughed. "I don't know about that, Gerry, but promise me next week we'll eat somewhere safer – like downtown Mogadishu."
They touched the rims of their paper soda cups in a toast, and this time they both laughed.