Authors: George Barlow
It was a brazen move to make, some would have said even foolish. She had been given a direct order to leave the Greys Inn murder well alone, but something told her it was the key to everything. Alex and Dimitri left the station and crossed the car park towards Alex's car. She didn't feel inclined to endure Dimitri's devil may care driving style, so, bringing up directions to the Two Gates Club on her Satnav, Alex drove them to central Soho. The roads were remarkably packed for a Thursday, but eventually they found a space around the corner from the club's address.
“So what do you know about this place?” Alex said as she parallel parked the car, her head constantly swivelling to ensure she fitted in the tight spot first time.
“Not much, did a quick lookup on the place. No incidents ever reported, which is weird for a nightclub, you expect always to find something. In fact, there was really no information on the place, at all. Not on any review site, which again, is odd for a club, isn't it? Advertising is how make a living. Supposed to be very exclusive, but I can't say I remember anything special about it. That said, it was a little while ago I was last here,” Dimitri said.
“And I imagine you were probably topped up to your eyeballs?”
“Maybe,” Dimitri said with a smile.
They walked around the street to where the club was supposed to be, but Alex would be damned if she could find it. She trooped along Angel Road, Dimitri a few steps behind her, searching for number 66b. There was number 62 and 64, but then the numbers jumped up to 68. Where on earth was 66, let alone 66b? She had continued down the street when Dimitri called out to her,
“Alex, where are you going?”
“I'm trying to find 66, what is up with the street numbers?”
“What? It's here Alex.”
He was standing halfway along the street, past number 64, but not as far as 68.
“There isn't a number 66.”
“Then what's this?”
Dimitri was pointing towards a strip of brick between 64 and 68. Alex walked up to him and stared at the space he was pointing at.
“Have you been drinking? Where is number 66 supposed to be then?” Alex said.
“It's here,” Dimitri said.
He looked confused and was now walking towards the wall, waving his arms about as if illustrating something with his hands.
“Dimitri, you on some sort of medication? There is no-”
Alex stopped mid sentence. Dimitri was pointing to a pair of large red doors with circular handles, she was sure hadn't been there a moment ago. Above the doors, the number '66b' was etched into a gold plague.
“How the hell did I miss that?” Alex said.
“You going mad babe?” Dimitri said.
Alex scowled at him and banged on the door, shouting the usual rhetoric of 'Police, open up.' A moment later, the door opened. Standing in the entrance was a broad man with a distant face, his eyes a deep brown that merged into the blackness of his pupils.
“What do you want?” he said curtly.
Alex showed her warrant card and stuck her foot in the crack of the door.
“We need to ask your boss a few questions. May we come in?” Alex said.
This was always posed as a question, 'may we come in?', but it was infrequently meant as one. They were coming in, whether you liked it or not.
The man stood like a stone giant before them, his finger to his ear while he waited for his next command. He was
big
by any standard and Alex prayed they would never have to try and arrest him, because if he resisted, they would probably need to the entire station to try and pin him down. A few moments later, not speaking a word, the stone giant stood back, leaving enough room for Dimitri and Alex to squeeze past him.
Inside the club it was dark, the only light coming from involuted pieces of sculpture on the walls that shone out shards of red light. It was a place of shadows, where secrets remained hidden and the truth remained tucked away out of sight. They walked down the entrance corridor which opened to a dance floor with glowing scarlet floor tiles, pulsating in jellyfish-like movements. To the side stood a bar, lit in such a way that it managed to remain, for the best part, completely in darkness. Sat at at the bar was a man in a red suit who turned to face them as they approached, a cocktail in hand.
“Detective Inspectors Alexandra Stroud and Dimitri Teplov, how nice of you to visit me,” the man said.
“You are expecting us?” Alex said.
How had this man known their names? She had flashed her ID at the doorman, maybe they had some fancy camera equipment that had seen it, but what about Dimitri? How did he know who he was?
“Now why would I expect you?” the man said.
“Are you the owner?” Dimitri said.
“My name is Byron and you have been here before Inspector, have you not?”
So that was how he knew Dimitri's name, perhaps he had left more of an impression on this place than he remembered.
“You have a surname, Byron?” Alex said.
“Byron
is
my surname, detective. My first name is Lorde,” Byron said.
“Lord Byron?” Dimitri said dismissively.
“But
everyone
calls me Byron,” Byron said.
“Do you have something you want to tell us, Lorde?” Alex said.
“I can't think that I do detective,” Byron said.
“You haven't asked why we are here, why is that?”
“Because I don't need to ask. Can I get you both a drink?”
“Are you saying you have knowledge about the murder that took place last night in Greys Inn Gardens?”
“Now detective, poor show,” Byron said, pausing to let a grin spread across his face with decided slowness. “Jumping the gun is never a good interview technique and I believe you could call that leading the witness. I did not ask, simply because I know you will tell me, when you decide the time is right of course.”
“So you don't know anything about the murder last night?” Dimitri said.
“I didn't say I didn't,” Byron said. “But then I didn't say I did either.”
“
Do
you know anything about the murder that occurred last night, because we found a card for your club on the victim,” Dimitri said.
Idiot, he shouldn't give away the only trump card they had, so early on. Dimitri had a tendency to blunder through interviews, like he staggered through life, without any element of grace and even the slightest amount of thought. Alex shot him a look, but God knows if he understood what it meant.
“I have heard about it,” Byron said.
“How?” Alex said.
“How does anybody?”
“Can you answer our questions please,” Alex said.
“News travels fast,” Byron said.
She was getting bored of this guy already, he was as slippery as an eel.
“Did you know the victim?” Alex said.
“And who was the victim?” Byron said.
“That is what we were hoping you could help us with,” Dimitri said.
“Well, do you have a picture of him for me to see?
No?
Do you have a name for him? Ah, no again I fear,” Byron said.
“How do you know that, Byron?” Dimitri said.
Dimitri was getting rattled by this guy and they had only been talking for a minute. Alex could always tell when his temper was flaring, as he slightly hopped from one foot to the other, but the last thing she needed was for him to take a swing at this bloke.
“A guess detective, I mean, how could I possibly know that?” Byron said.
“We need access to your CCTV cameras,” Alex said.
“We don't have any,” Byron said.
Alex peered through the darkness, Byron wasn't lying. Unless the cameras were hidden of course, which, if she suspected they were, would require a search warrant to check and she certainly wouldn't get one for a case she wasn't supposed to be working on.
“Guest lists?” Dimitri said.
“We don't maintain any. We are a quiet club, the only people we entertain are those who know about us. Is that all detectives? Because I am very busy,” Byron said.
What more could they ask? It was a tenuous link at best, the card of a nightclub on the victim of a case she was no longer supposed to be investigating. In any other circumstance, she would have ordered a warrant to seize whatever records this place had, but Alex couldn't do that and, by his expression, Byron already knew it. The interview was over.
“That is all, thank you for your time,” Alex said.
She and Dimitri headed back towards the door. As they left, Alex felt a tap on her shoulder and turned to find Byron standing right behind her.
“You should come visit us one night detective, we find ourselves entertaining quite a few members of your police force,” Byron said.
He handed her a card, the same as the one she had found on the victim. Dark red, with a gate on both sides. As she took it, she noticed how the red light of the club illuminated the number 666, hidden in a special coating on the card. No, 66b, that was what it said. It was a ridiculous font.
Well, that was a bust,” Dimitri said.
He was right of course, they had learnt nothing from Byron.
“Do you think we should drop it?” Alex said.
“You are asking my opinion? Are you feeling okay?” Dimitri said.
“Okay then, pretend I didn’t ask for your God damn input.”
“No, too late, you’ve already asked. I think you are right not to drop it, but we need to be a little subtler about it.”
“
You
are telling
me
to be subtle?”
“Hey, I can be subtle. I am not sure where we go from here though, all I know is that you need to cover your back at work. We need to keep Drew on side, so no more smacking him in the face, okay?”
“Why the sudden change of tone Dimitri? Thought you hated my guts?”
“I don’t want to be part of an operation that fails to get a result. Next case, I want to be leading the investigation.”
They drove back to the station, Dimitri not once making a sexist remark about her driving, which was something at least. Alex wasn’t sure she would get used to the
nice
Dimitri, but she took comfort that it couldn’t last long.
Drew hadn’t messed about after Alex left, the briefing room was plastered in paper. He had put up white boards for each case and attached reams of information to each, until the walls looked like the obsessions of a madman. The table itself now had laptops placed for every seat as police support staff and detective constables sat reviewing the CCTV footage.
“You’ve done pretty well getting set up,” Alex said.
“We are also getting physical copies of all the evidence collected brought here. Find anything at the club?” Drew said.
“Dead end,” Alex said.
“Watch out, Nick’s coming,” Dimitri said.
Detective Superintendent Nicholas Stroud entered the room, his mountainous build almost filling the briefing room doorway.
“Good morning everyone,” he said, his voice gravelly.
“Sir, we are starting to review all of the footage again from the CCTV cameras surrounding the areas of the crime, just as you requested. We are working on rotation, so hopefully someone will notice some connection or detail that we missed before,” Drew said.
Nick walked over to one of the detectives sitting at the table and stooped over him to look at the screen.
“Good, I have the other unit going over witness statements again and checking if we followed up all potential leads. Minerva, I want us to go over the forensics we have retrieved from the earlier cases. Might be worth having a look around some of the crime scenes and talking to Chris. I want us to be thorough about this, we can’t afford any more mistakes.”
“We wouldn’t want to miss any evidence, would we?” Alex said.
Nick glared at her, before turning on his heel and starting to leave.
“If anyone finds anything, I want to know straight away,” Nick said, disappearing through the door.
“Real smooth babe,” Dimitri said.
She didn’t correct him, was there really any point?
“So, where do we begin?” Alex said.
“The house where you think the guy was first assaulted last night seems like a good place to be start,” Dimitri said.
“You mean carrying on looking into the Greys Inn murder?”
“You think that is where the break will come from?” Minerva said, joining them in the corner of the office, Drew at her heels. Her accent was Scottish and so naturally harsh that Alex immediately thought she was angry at the suggestion, before realising she was merely asking a question.
“How do we look into it, without leaving any trace? Every search we do is recorded and logged by the powers that be,” Drew said.
“Ground work. Talking to people doesn’t leave any trace on a computer. Means you might need to get those little manicured hands of yours a little dirty,” Dimitri said, smirking at Alex. “But I think you are a tough bird at heart.”
“Tougher than you’d ever like to find out,” Alex said.
“You need to carry on with the Holmes actions or Stroud will find out. Not to mention that he might have a point about all this, the Greys Inn murder could be unrelated,” Minerva said.
“You won’t have time to do both, but we can cover for you. There is a lot of footage to look through, on paper you guys will never have had time to even leave the office,” Drew said.
“Drew, are you sure about this?” Alex said.
“You might be on to something, when we were sorting all this out, it struck me how few links we have made. I mean
so
few links. Every new murder raises more questions than helping to solidify any theory we have,” Drew said.
“I’ll come in over the weekend to catch up going through some of the footage, Dimitri you in?” Alex said.
“I have a fiancé, I can’t work all the time,” Dimitri said.
So did she, but she quite liked the idea of an excuse not to be available at the weekend.
“Well, I’ll be here,” Alex said.
“I would wait a while before you look into the house where the victim was attacked, imagine there will still be some government presence around there,” Drew said.
“The priority is finding out who the victim is,” Alex said.
Drew passed her a small piece of folded paper, which opened up to reveal the picture of the victim Alex had taken on her phone the night before.