Dead on Demand (A DCI Morton Crime Novel) (14 page)

Minutes later he was in the station gym. Health and safety buffs had insisted on a punch bag being placed on site to help relieve high stress levels. David hated to admit it, but it worked.

He was sweating profusely from attacking the vaguely man-shaped bag when his long-time colleague Alan Sheppard walked in.

'You seem upset. What's up?' Alan asked.

Morton glanced around and saw they were not alone in the gym.

'I'll tell you later,' he said apologetically. 'In private.'

***

It took a while to get a response, but Edwin's contact agreed to carry out the hit. It was on the condition that Edwin carried out his hit simultaneously, which Edwin had no intention of doing.

To gain his trust Edwin had to be particularly cruel. He asked questions about the intended victim, plotting an elaborate kill that he knew would never take place. The plan was to cut the brake cables on the man's car while he was at mosque. The car park at the mosque would be deserted, with no CCTV in place.

The plotting made Edwin feel dirty. While he was more than happy to play puppet master for his own ends, he would never feel comfortable directly bringing about the death of another. Perhaps it was his upbringing. His parents had drummed into him the sanctity of life. Somehow he could disassociate himself from it if someone else did the actual deed. All he was doing was sending some messages on the Internet, after all.

***

'I fucking hate that guy.' The beer had begun to loosen Morton's tongue. The Hog's Head was not a policeman's bar, and Morton felt that he could talk freely sat in a quiet booth towards the rear of the pub.

'Who?' asked his drinking buddy, Alan Sheppard.

'Rosenburg.'

'Why? He's always seemed like a nice guy to me.'

'He's a sycophantic tosser,' Morton said

'How?' Alan had been an usher at Rosenburg's wedding.

'He stole my cases!'

Alan laughed. 'I think you'll find the Superintendent stole your cases. You wouldn't like me if I'd had them passed over.'

'True enough.' It would not be long before Morton began to slip back into his usual morose persona.

While he did hate the fact he'd lost all of his cases, his problems with Rosenburg had started long before the stabbing incident. Rosenburg had once attempted to seduce Sarah, and Morton considered it a point of honour that he owed him a beating.

CHAPTER 25: INCOGNITO

It took a while for Barry to be able to find an Internet connection. He had managed to snatch a briefcase containing a laptop while its owner was talking on his mobile a few feet away. It was bold, but Barry had been fully prepared to take it by force if he was caught.

Finding somewhere he wouldn't be overlooked, and the Wi-Fi wouldn't be monitored, had been a bit more difficult. People are often careless about their Internet security and leave their connection unencrypted, but finding one within range of a place he could sit without being noticed proved more difficult.

The solution had been a coffee shop at the base of a block of flats. Barry sat with his back to the wall, and booted up the laptop. There wasn't much battery left, but the owner of the coffee shop became amenable to letting him plug it in when it became evident he would be staying for a while.

Barry kept the coffee flowing for two reasons. First, it greatly extended his welcome. The owner was happy to mind his own business and only ventured over to top Barry up every hour or so. Secondly it helped him concentrate. The combination of sugar and caffeine fired up neurons that hadn't been active in a long time.

Barry looked more gaunt than he had previously been. He wasn't eating well, with the only proper meal of each day being the breakfast he had at the bed and breakfast. He was on to his fourth B&B. Changing every few days stopped anyone noticing him. He still needed to get out and about, however, to avoid suspicion, so he spent a lot of time walking about London. He walked as if he had a purpose but it was really more of a wander.

Four cups of coffee later, and Barry broke the security on the laptop. It hadn't taken much in the end. There was no BIOS administrator password set, so a brute force change of password was simple enough. Once he was in, he looked to see what Internet connections were available. He knew the coffee shop offered free Wi-Fi, that much was advertised in the window. What Barry didn't expect was to find a number of flats above had left their Wi-Fi unsecured, and the signal was strong enough to maintain a steady connection.

Barry didn't take an elaborate route to connecting to the darknet. He knew how, but keeping his identity secret was the least of his worries. The police already had CCTV images of him, and that meant they probably had fingerprints and maybe even a DNA sample too.

He fired off a quick message.

'Still alive. Need help. Running out of funds. Can you help?'

Then, he sat and waited. Hopefully his contact would come good. It was his fault that he had gotten into the mess after all.

***

For Edwin, the message was manna from heaven. He had needed to pin down a location at which he could find the errant Barry, and now he had the perfect excuse to arrange a meeting.

Being a devious fellow Edwin knew not to agree too quickly. If he was too eager then Barry might smell a rat and disappear off his radar. The concern that it might also be the police posing as his contact also crossed Edwin's mind. He was a smart man, but it manifested in being overly paranoid sometimes.

'How much? Might be able to come up with some, but will take time.'

Edwin thought that was sufficiently interested to keep the conversation open, but not so eager as to scare anyone off. He hit send, and leant back in his chair. He didn't know how quickly a reply might come, but he had to pick Chelsea up from school in half an hour; so his contact would simply have to wait until she went to bed for a reply.

***

Barry waited all day, but if he was going to walk back to his B&B before dark he would have to leave soon. He didn't want to come back a second day running to see the reply, but it didn't look like he would have much choice. He could try and find somewhere else again, but it had been a stroke of luck to find the first coffee shop. He'd managed to stay there for most of a day without being bothered by anyone other than the owner who kept on topping up his coffee. At least he'd been kind enough to watch his (password-locked) laptop when he needed to go to the bathroom.

***

Edwin got the a reply from Barry next morning after he had taken Chelsea to school.

'Meet me at the Thames Barrier. Nine o'clock tonight. Bring as much as you can.'

It was short notice, and Edwin needed to get his latest darknet victim to be there, preferably armed.

He quickly sent the details over to the car-brakes guy, setting Barry up. With any luck his last loose link would disappear in just a few hours, and Edwin would be free to flit off into the Canadian sunset.

***

Peter K Sugden didn't like lying to his wife. He wouldn't normally so much as think of deceiving her, but tonight was different. He couldn't exactly waltz into the parlour and announce 'Hello, dear, I'm off – out for the evening to off someone.'

Instead, he used Skype to phone his mobile, and staged a conversation with himself in which he was asked to meet a client urgently regarding their account.

'Sorry, dear, I know I'm deserting you, but one of my clients has got themselves all in a tizz. If I don't go in I might lose the account.' It was believable if only because Peter was notoriously competitive.

The mere thought of losing business to a rival broker brought him out in hives. His wife didn't really mind either. An evening of peace and quiet, with a hot bath and a trashy novel (of which Peter disapproved) proved most alluring, and she readily allowed Peter to excuse himself.

Peter drove his town car to the station. It would attract attention, but his wife would be extremely suspicious if he called a taxi, and it was too far to go on foot. He could have called his driver, but the overtime would be logged in the company files, and Peter was too smart for that.

He took the train as far as Waterloo before changing to the underground. He hated the closeness of it all. People were crammed into the carriages like sardines, and there was no first class.

He waited for a while, hoping to find a carriage that was empty, or at least only full of white people. If Peter had been a more regular traveller on the London Underground he would have realised the impossibility of this. It was when a group of darker youths surrounded him that he decided he had best take the plunge. At the Bank interchange he changed for SLR, which runs both over- and underground heading to the east of London. He disembarked at the Woolwich Arsenal station, and paused on a nearby bench after leaving the station.

It was unfamiliar territory for Peter, and he had to use his BlackBerry to get his bearing.

The barrier itself was a little over a mile away, but the target point wasn't at the visitors' centre, as it would be closed for the evening. Peter began walking towards what he hoped was the river as his phone robotically called out instructions. He realised halfway there that the phone could be used to track him so he promptly switched it off.

By then he was nearly there, although he was breathing heavily. Mr Sugden was a portly man, and his exercise regime consisted mostly of fetching biscuits from the biscuit tin and lifting them to his dribbling jowls. He was a diabetic as result of his weight, and his plan was to use the insulin to induce stupor by hypoglycaemia. At that point he could simply lift the body over the barrier and into the Thames, where it would become yet another drowning victim in the gloomy icy waters.

He had to get there first. If he didn't catch his breath soon he would be late. His contact had told him the man was expecting a meeting, and expecting to be given cash. Peter wasn't carrying any, and he wouldn't give it up if he was. He would simply pretend to open his wallet and then inject the man.

The road began to get shorter, and the water came into view. He was almost there. As he waddled the last few feet he tugged his sleeves down to cover his left hand, in which the needle was situated. He hoped being a leftie would give him an element of surprise, although it was not a fact he normally broadcasted.

CHAPTER 26: THE BARRIER

Barry had arrived early. He noticed that there was more CCTV in the area than he remembered, but it was only a hand-off of some cash, and this was unlikely to be considered worthy of any attention, particularly as it was unlikely to be a significant amount.

He saw the fat man approaching long before he arrived. The spot he had chosen was near the visitors' centre, with a deserted car park to his left and the Thames path to his right. The path ran for many miles down towards Hampton Court, and was popular in the early morning with joggers.

The terminus was not so popular however. A few tourist boats sailed out far enough to look at the barrier itself, but this was only during the daytime. Even the Thames Clipper service terminated at Greenwich, so it was highly unlikely there would be passers-by. Barry assumed the fat man was his contact, but waited until he strolled straight towards him before speaking.

As the distance closed between them to around ten feet Barry called out.

'You got my money?'

The fat man tried to respond, but his speech was wheezy, as if he was asthmatic.

'Yeth,' he rasped. He doubled over to catch his breath before straightening up and moving towards Barry. It was clear his wallet was in his breast pocket, but he made to move his left hand – which couldn't possibly give him access to the correct pocket without his removing his jacket.

Barry sensed that something was wrong. The man raised a pudgy left arm with surprising speed, something metal glinting in the moonlight. Barry reacted by instinct. He had been in close-quarters physical combat many times while in prison. He elbowed the older man in the stomach, rolled forward onto his knees and lifted the man. As he did so, he toppled over backwards under the weight, the man rolling at first onto the wall behind him, and then with a crack onto the rocks below.

Before Barry could react, the tidal nature of the Thames took over, waves lapping at the man, inching him slowly deeper. Barry fled. There was nothing he could do without compromising himself. His contact was dead.

CHAPTER 27: ROSENBURG

Detective Inspector Rosenburg pulled the floater case the next morning. A body had washed up on an inlet near Creekmouth early in the morning near Breckton dock, and the police had been called by a dog walker on his early morning jaunt. It wasn't an area the police were often called to. Apart from the sewage treatment works there was little in that part of London. It was too far east to attract tourists, and really only contained a few residential properties.

Rosenburg had the misfortune of being the duty officer, and was roused from a satisfying sleep by his wife. She was a light sleeper, and the incessant beeping of his pager could not be ignored. She didn't know how her husband could sleep through it, but he had even slept through a fire alarm on a previous occasion.

Once she had awoken her husband, she filled his thermos with instant coffee as he dressed, and pecked him on the cheek as he made for the door. They had planned to spend the day together, as Rosenburg was in the middle of the off-work period mandated by the Met's four days on, two off policy.

Work had been even more hectic than usual lately. With the senior inspector off active duty due to injury the work had cascaded downwards, and Rosenburg had caught more than his share. He now had a dozen murder cases to investigate.

Rosenburg liked to give each file at least ten minutes every day. That way none slipped his attention entirely. He could have done with an extra day or two a week to really keep up. The Met was understaffed, as much as the taxpayer might moan about the cost. The crime lab was backed up for weeks at a time, and investigations dragged on because of it. It was OK for Morton. He was the big man in the office, and his requests were always fast-tracked. For all Charles knew, Morton didn't even realise there was a shortage of resources.