The Body on the Shore Read online

  ‘We’ve looked after so many over the years,’ Eric added.

  ‘But Peter stayed with us, on and off, for five years, I think,’ she said, turning to her husband. ‘Even though the fostering ended when he turned 18. We adored him, and he’s done so well for himself. Oh, his poor wife and the two little ones. This is terrible.’ She got up and went to a sideboard. There, amongst many portraits, was one of the young Peter Young, dark-haired with big brown eyes and a shy smile. ‘That’s him – isn’t he gorgeous?’

  ‘Beautiful,’ Mulholland said, smiling.

  ‘What do you know about his origins?’ Gillard asked.

  ‘Nothing really.’ Margaret said. ‘His own parents, I believe, were dead in the war. There was a grandmother he was in contact with.’

  ‘Have you got any address details for her?’ Mulholland asked.

  ‘No. No, we haven’t. She couldn’t speak English, and was quite old. We’re not even sure she would still be alive. There was a phone number, which I think we might have somewhere. But it’s abroad, I think it would be terribly expensive to call,’ Margaret said.

  ‘Were you aware of him having any brothers or sisters?’

  ‘Oh yes, he did talk about them, but I don’t think they were close. Isn’t that right, Eric?’

  Eric shrugged. ‘I don’t remember, to be honest.’

  Margaret went on to describe how they had fostered nearly 50 children over the last 40 years, and were still in contact with most of them.

  ‘We are very proud of that,’ Eric said.

  ‘You should be proud,’ Gillard said. There were plenty more questions that he wanted to ask, most of which were too intrusive or sensitive to ask so soon after breaking news of his death. But he settled for one. ‘Can I ask you to comb through your diaries, papers, photographs and documents, and just bring together everything that you have that refers to Peter, or gives some clue to his origins? We would like to have a look to try to get some idea of who could possibly be his enemy.’

  * * *

  It was nearly eight o’clock on Saturday evening and Gillard was sitting in the Khazi looking at a video screen. He was squeezed between two nondescript, pudgy, mid-30s detectives with similarly shaven heads. DCs Carl Hoskins and Colin Hodges were known as Tweedledum and Tweedledee because of their resemblance to each other.

  ‘Is this all of the CCTV they have?’ Gillard asked, watching a long line of vehicles passing a junction.

  ‘This is the road safety camera pointing west at the junction between Roosevelt Avenue and Camberley Road,’ Hoskins said. ‘The other disc is the east camera. The public order camera outside the Red Lion is defective, and awaiting repair. That’s the nearest. Back the other way towards Surbiton there’s a pelican crossing camera which was installed after a pedestrian fatality three years ago, but that’s a couple of hundred yards away.’

  ‘So there’s nothing right outside the architects’ office?’

  ‘Nope,’ Hoskins replied. ‘Not from the local authority anyway.’

  ‘The kebab shop has a camera which shows the door to the street and a little bit of the pavement, but is mainly focused on the till,’ said Hodges. ‘You can’t see across the street, nor can you see anyone coming in via the external door to the upstairs flat.’

  ‘What about the tattoo parlour?’

  ‘No camera,’ Hodges replied.

  ‘Where’s the nearest ANPR?’ Gillard asked. Automatic number-plate recognition cameras were not only used for recording speeding vehicles, but were a great police resource in all sorts of investigations.

  ‘There’s one on the A309 at Hampton Court Way and another by Surbiton railway station. If you’re in the know, you could easily avoid them. We ran the data on both from six hours before until six hours after the murder. Of course we got dozens of vehicles of interest, mostly the untaxed or those with outstanding fines. We haven’t had chance to examine it in any more detail.’

  ‘It’s a good start, lads. Let us know if you find anything of interest.’

  ‘I’ll tell you what interests me,’ said Hodges. ‘I’ve never heard of anyone murdering an architect before.’

  ‘You obviously never grew up in the same council flats I did in Wembley,’ Hoskins replied. ‘Little purple brick boxes with tiny windows, facing onto more tiny boxes, and nowhere to play. Kitchen window wouldn’t open, bathroom window wouldn’t close. My mum would have killed the bloke who designed them if she knew who he was.’

  ‘What about CCTV on the buses?’ Gillard asked.

  ‘Ah, I looked at that,’ Hodges said. ‘Transport for London says every bus they run on this route has bus lane cameras, plus one from the driver’s compartment covering the entrance and a backward-facing camera behind showing the passenger compartment. It’s a bit complicated because there are several private bus companies too, once you get out of Greater London and into Surrey, and I haven’t had chance to check all of them.’

  Gillard suddenly had an idea. ‘Are there any double-deckers on these routes, Colin?’

  Hodges flicked through a document in front of him. ‘Nope. All single-deckers, the 968 and 969. There’s a single-decker night bus too. There are double-deckers on the busier route up Kingston way, but they don’t go along here. According to the TfL bible here, there aren’t enough passengers to justify them.’ He tapped the document.

  ‘Were you thinking of a hit from the top of a bus?’ Hoskins asked.

  ‘Just an idea,’ Gillard said. ‘Just think: there’s a bus stop right outside HDG+. It’s five yards at most across the pavement, level with Young’s office. An easy shot.’

  ‘What about the bus windows, sir?’ Hodges asked. ‘They’ve got those funny little pull-in windows, haven’t they? Not ideal for shooting out of.’

  ‘Not to mention the other passengers. No bus is going to be empty at that time in the morning, is it? Some great hairy geezer standing up with a sniper’s rifle and silencer is gonna be noticed, I would have thought.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Gillard said. He looked around the Khazi. ‘Is there a ladder with this thing?’

  The two detective constables slowly turned and exchanged a glance, a movement that was almost comical from the mirror image it presented. ‘What you want a ladder for, sir?’ Hoskins asked.

  ‘I want to look on the roof of the bus shelter.’

  The three detectives stepped out of the Portakabin and found a compartment at the back, near where the generator was connected. Inside was a lightweight folding aluminium ladder, intended for access to the air vents on top.

  Gillard and Hodges carried it the 100 yards or so to the bus shelter, under which half a dozen youths were laughing and joking. When Gillard propped the ladder against the back of the shelter, they turned and stared.

  The corrugated steel roof of the bus shelter was like a time capsule of urban detritus: cans, plastic bottles, burger wrappers, chewing gum and a mulch of leaves from the nearby plane trees. All were covered in a thick layer of metropolitan grime, and in each corrugation a half-inch of dirty water. Gillard was looking for footprints, but saw no evidence that anyone had been standing on there, at least in recent months. He realized that if they really needed to, they could have the whole top unscrewed, removed and examined by CSI. They had already got half of the office furniture from HDG+, so this little lot wouldn’t make much difference. He’d make a decision on that tomorrow.

  Looking to either side, the plane trees here were too high for anyone to have used as a shooting platform. The lowest boughs would be more like second-floor level than first. Perhaps it was time to get a little bit more information from key witnesses, starting with the woman who discovered the body.

  Sunday morning

  Gillard was in Kingston upon Thames, sitting in the eighth-floor lounge of Karen Davies, drinking one of her delicious Tanzanian peaberry coffees. HDG+’s receptionist had dressed up to give her statement as if she was attending a job interview, radiating nervousness in all directions. High heels, for
mal dark skirt, white blouse, smoky eye make-up. But then everything about her seemed an admission that she felt somehow responsible for Peter Young’s death. Even before the DCI had sat down, she had apologized a dozen times for imagined failings on the morning of his death. ‘I wish I’d gone in his office straight away,’ she said. ‘Or if I called him out to help restart the printer, then he’d still be alive, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘I think from what we have managed to establish about the perpetrator, the person who killed Peter Young was going to kill him anyway,’ Gillard responded. ‘This is not like an accident, when luck or care plays a part. So I wouldn’t give yourself a hard time over it.’

  Gillard had taken her personal details. She was 25, single, had been working at the office for just two weeks. ‘I don’t know if I can stay there, even if they want me,’ she said.

  ‘Why would they not want you to stay?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ve brought bad luck,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t think they would look at it that way.’

  Gillard looked down at the details that had been taken before. ‘It says here you have dual British–South African nationality.’ He looked up. ‘And you previously lived in Cape Town?’

  She nodded. ‘I have patriality through my father, though I was born in South Africa.’

  ‘I thought I detected a bit of an accent,’ Gillard said, smiling.

  ‘Really? People tell me it’s barely detectable,’ she said grinning back. ‘A lot of Brits are not keen on South Africans for some reason, so I try to suppress it.’

  ‘So on the morning in question, you say you arrived late and hurried in.’

  ‘Yes. I was very nervous because it’s my job to get everything up and running in the morning. And because of the traffic I couldn’t even get in on time.’

  Gillard asked her whether she had seen anyone at the bus stop, anyone hanging round the car park or on the pavement outside the office.

  ‘I’m sorry, I really can’t remember anything like that, I was in such a flap.’

  ‘Here is something you would remember: was there anyone standing on top of the bus stop?’

  ‘Like, on the roof?’ She grinned again, revealing an arc of perfect teeth. ‘No. Nothing like that.’

  ‘And you didn’t hear anything?’

  ‘No. Certainly not a gunshot. I would have recognised that.’

  Gillard asked a few more questions, but unearthed no new information. As he was folding up his documents ready to go, he asked: ‘So what made you leave a lovely, sunny place like South Africa to come and work here?’

  ‘I didn’t have a great life out there,’ she said. ‘I’m trying to start again. But I’m not off to a very good start, am I? First job, a man gets murdered in the next room.’

  ‘Well, you didn’t do it, did you.’ Gillard laughed, as he walked to the door. He turned round to face her as he was leaving and saw the most peculiar expression, as if she had held something important back. He turned over his last statement in his mind and added a question mark. You didn’t do it, did you?

  What wasn’t she telling him?

  Chapter 4

  Ryan Hardcastle was arrested on Sunday morning near his mother’s house in Bermondsey, south-east London after a short but high-speed police chase in a terraced street in which there were several casualties: a wheelie bin, a roadside bollard and the front wing of Hardcastle’s Vauxhall Nova. After being charged by London’s Metropolitan Police with dangerous driving and resisting arrest he was then transferred for interview to Staines police station for Surrey Police to have their turn. Gillard took Colin Hodges with him, partly to give him a break from looking at CCTV. The station was one of the most modern in the county, and the interview room looked to Gillard’s eye more like a Harley Street waiting room, with a TV, selection of magazines and several healthy-looking pot plants, though not of the smokable type that appealed to Hardcastle.

  ‘So, Ryan, you’ve given us the runaround today. You must be feeling guilty about something.’ He noticed that Hardcastle had shaved off his wispy moustache, though it was no disguise; he still looked like a thug.

  ‘Angie told me the police come round, and I just couldn’t handle it. I felt stressed.’

  ‘Why was that?’

  Hardcastle shifted uncomfortably, which couldn’t have been anything to do with the chair, which was nicely padded and even had armrests. Gillard couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen interview room furniture that showed no signs of cigarette burns, knife slashings or other damage.

  He shrugged.

  ‘We just want to ask you a few questions.’

  He shrugged and leaned back until the chair was on just two legs. ‘Go on, then.’

  Gillard nodded to Hodges who asked: ‘Apart from Angela Dinsmore, has anyone been staying with you at the flat? Specifically on the night of Thursday, the ninth of January, or on the following morning.’

  ‘No. There’s no space, for starters.’

  ‘Does anyone else have a key apart from the landlord?’

  ‘Don’t think so, unless maybe Angie’s mum – she did do some cleaning for us from time to time.’

  ‘What time did you leave to go to work on the tenth of January?’

  ‘Half seven, give or take.’

  ‘Did you see anyone hanging around on the street?’

  ‘Well there are always people at the bus stop at that time of day.’

  Gillard interrupted: ‘I’m thinking of anyone who was acting suspiciously. Anyone with a large bag, looking nervous.’

  Hardcastle shrugged again. ‘Not that I noticed.’

  ‘Do you know anyone who works at the architects’ office opposite?’

  ‘HDG+? No. I’d sometimes see that guy with the blond hair, the one who got shot. He’d sometimes work quite late. It made me think that I’d like to work in a nice big light office like that.’ He laughed. ‘Fat chance, of course, I can’t even draw a straight line.’

  Hodges continued to robotically wheel out the basic questions, which Hardcastle appeared to answer honestly.

  ‘So, Ryan, here is your final opportunity to tell us anything that you think might be of interest,’ Gillard said. ‘Did Peter Young come to your nightclub? Was he a customer of any of your drug contacts? Did you hear anything about him?’

  Hardcastle shrugged, so Gillard decided to put a bit of pressure on. ‘Ryan, as far as we can tell, the fatal shot was fired from your flat.’

  ‘No way!’

  ‘Yes. The angle is perfect, the range is fine, it matches the bullet holes in the window opposite. I’ll let you go now, but I want you to have a good, hard think about this. You and Angie are in the frame, I’m afraid.’

  * * *

  That wasn’t quite true. Gillard returned to the crime scene at noon. A large section of the north side of Roosevelt Avenue was still closed off with police tape, and at its centre the bus shelter, all glass panels now removed, was surrounded by scaffolding. A low loader with a grab was parked adjacent to it. The roof of the bus shelter had been sealed with plastic, and contractors on ladders were using angle grinders to remove it from the uprights.

  Sticking his fingers in his ears against the scream of machinery, Gillard climbed up to the first floor of HDG+’s offices. It was if the movers had been in. Peter Young’s desk was and chair were gone, and so was much of the carpet. What he did find was Yaz Quoroshi, in civvies, in conversation with a tall, dishevelled man with scuffed shoes, horn-rimmed spectacles and a jacket with leather patches on the elbows. Gillard was delighted that his request to borrow Met Police ballistics expert Neville Tufton had been successful. Despite looking like a superannuated geography teacher, Tufton was the best in the business. They greeted each other like long-lost friends.

  ‘Take it you finished the CSI, then, Yaz?’ Gillard said, trying to make himself heard above the scream of metal against metal.

  ‘Yes. The carpet has gone for analysis, the desk was taken to pieces and we’ve even given Kelvin
Alexander the data stick he wanted.’

  ‘After making a copy, I hope?’

  ‘Naturally. And dusting it for dabs.’

  ‘And any progress on the firearm?’ Gillard asked Tufton.

  ‘Some. As Yaz indicated, these are hollow-point rounds – Czech-made point 38s for a handgun, not a rifle. The implication is—’

  ‘That the shots were not fired from across the road?’ Gillard interrupted.

  ‘Exactly. That would be way too far for a handgun. I would say they were fired from less than ten yards.’

  ‘So, as they don’t do double-decker buses here,’ Gillard said, stroking his chin, ‘it was either someone on the bus shelter, to which there would surely have been witnesses—’

  ‘Or someone in the cab, or even on top of the cab or the back of a lorry,’ Yaz interjected.

  ‘Let me show you something,’ Tufton said, leading Gillard towards the double- glazed window through which both bullets had passed. ‘Two shots, 116mm apart horizontally at the inner window surface, but 119mm on the street-side glass.’ He took two pencils from his breast pocket, poking one through each hole, and they diverged very slightly. ‘It’s subtle, but the two shots were not fired from precisely the same place.’

  ‘So from a moving vehicle?’

  ‘Quite possibly.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Yes. Because these bullets have been designed to deform on passage through the human body, we will have a tough time matching them up to the firing weapon. You’ll still be able to tell the manufacturer and the type from the base in most cases, but that’s it. I’d still like to see the cartridges.’

  ‘That’s the least of our worries,’ Gillard said. ‘I really want a motive for this more than anything.’

  * * *

  Peter Young had lived with Laura Diaz in an end-terrace Victorian house near Surbiton station, just a mile east of where he worked. Most of the homes in the tree-lined street were well-to-do, with established, spacious gardens. Young’s could charitably be described as a DIY project, right down to the half-full skip of rubble outside. Gillard couldn’t help wondering if the considerable amount of work still required would be too much for a grieving wife.