Truth or Dare (5 page)

‘W
hat d’you think?’ asked Anni.

‘Guilty. Definitely.’

‘No doubt,’ said Anni, ‘but is she sane enough to stand trial?’

‘Ah,’ said Marina. ‘That’s the question.’

They were sitting in the staff canteen at Finnister House. All around them sat medical staff and care workers, taking time off, recharging, swapping gossipy work stories that professional etiquette wouldn’t allow to travel further.

Marina leaned forward, looked Anni square in the face. ‘Why did you bring me here?’

Anni looked slightly uncomfortable. ‘To… assess Joanne Marsh. See that she’s sane enough to stand trial.’ Her dark skin flushed.

‘Anyone could have done that, Anni. You could have found someone local, East Anglia, anywhere round here. I know I’m good, but I’m not that good.’

Anni sighed. Before she could reply, another voice spoke.

‘Fiona Welch.’

Marina turned. Detective Sergeant Mickey Phillips was standing behind her. Tall, shaven-headed and well-built, his eyes held an intelligence and compassion that belied his size. He was Anni Hepburn’s partner both in and out of work.

Marina made to greet him with a hug but his words stopped her. ‘Fiona Welch?’

He looked at Anni, then nodded at Marina. ‘Yeah. Remember her?’

‘Of course.’ The previous head of Phil’s team in Colchester had brought psychologist Fiona Welch in to advise on a case during Marina’s absence. Phil hadn’t taken to her on a personal level, which wouldn’t have mattered had he not found her judgement on a professional level seriously flawed. She was eventually revealed to be manipulating the flow of intelligence behind a series of murders that had been committed at her instigation in order to prove her theories on human behaviour correct. She had been adjudged criminally insane but had fallen to her death before she could be taken into custody. ‘Phil’s still got the scars. Literally.’ Marina looked between the two. ‘But she’s dead, so…?’ She let the question hang.

‘Is she?’ asked Anni.

‘Isn’t she?’

‘That’s what we thought,’ said Mickey, sitting down to join them, ‘but – well, Anni’ll tell you.’

Anni leaned forward, across the table. ‘About six months ago there was a murder in the Colchester area. A young guy, mid-twenties, killed his girlfriend. Just a domestic, we thought at first, nothing out of the ordinary, unfortunately.’

‘Our team wasn’t even called in,’ said Mickey. ‘Open and shut. The guy admitted he’d done it, no question. Didn’t seem to have a reason for it, but that wasn’t our problem.’

‘But then,’ said Anni, ‘there was another one a month or so later. Identical. Same age, same everything. The girls even looked a bit similar.’

‘How?’ asked Marina.

Another look between Anni and Mickey.

‘Tall. Dark hair.’

‘Like you, really,’ said Anni. ‘Your looks, in fact. Dressed like you, too.’

Marina, shocked and now feeling more than a little uneasy, said nothing.

‘And that’s when we became involved,’ said Mickey. ‘Our department. Two too much to be a coincidence. We questioned the blokes again, asked them things the original teams hadn’t. Asked about other women. And that’s when the name came up.’

‘Fiona Welch,’ said Anni.

‘Except she’s dead,’ said Marina.

‘Exactly,’ said Mickey. ‘Considering we saw her die and watched her body being taken away. But these guys were adamant that they had met her, knew her. They’d had affairs with her. She’d told them to get rid of their girlfriends for her. She persuaded them to kill.’

‘Manipulated them?’ asked Marina.

They both nodded.

‘But why didn’t this come out at their trials? Why didn’t they say so? They wouldn’t have got off, but they might have lost some years on their sentences.’

‘She told them not to,’ said Anni.

‘And they didn’t.’

‘Had quite a hold on them.’

‘Anyway,’ said Mickey, ‘we tracked down this woman. She’d already chosen her next target. She was working on him to leave his girlfriend for her.’

‘Permanently,’ said Anni.

‘But before that,’ said Mickey, ‘this Fiona Welch was getting these guys to change their girlfriends’ looks. Hair darker, more curly, your dress sense…’

‘You sure you’re not just flattering me?’

Mickey and Anni said nothing.

‘How did you find her?’ asked Marina. ‘This Fiona Welch?’

‘Simple,’ said Anni. ‘She was a teaching post-grad at the university. Psychology. All the guys had been her students.’

‘So she was arrested,’ said Mickey. ‘We questioned her, tried to break her down… nothing. She stuck to her story. She was Fiona Welch. The one who died was an imposter.’

‘She knew everything,’ said Anni, ‘had her whole life story memorised. Told it like it had happened to her. She was so convincing that we began to think maybe she was right. Maybe the woman who died was an imposter and she was the real one.’

‘We tried everything,’ said Mickey. ‘Everything. Got nowhere. She was Fiona Welch. And nothing we could say or do would shift that opinion from her mind.’

‘So she admitted to making the two men kill their girlfriends? Working on the third one to do the same?’

Anni nodded. ‘Completely. We didn’t even have to prompt her. Like she was proud of the fact. Like she wanted to be caught.’

‘So we could all see how brilliant she is,’ said Marina. ‘How clever, manipulative.’

‘Showing off,’ said Mickey. ‘But it didn’t get her very far. She still got found out. Still got caught.’

‘That’s true,’ said Marina. She frowned, thinking. ‘Strange, though. She goes to all that trouble to pretend to be Fiona Welch. Puts in all that effort. Why? Just to end up being caught?’

Mickey shrugged. ‘We got wise to the original Fiona Welch,’ he said. ‘If she hadn’t died we’d have put her away. And she wouldn’t have been let out. Ever.’

‘True,’ said Marina. ‘But the original Fiona Welch wanted that. Or would have accepted it. Because that way she would have been famous. That was what she wanted. Notoriety. She would have been listened to. Feared, even. She would be a famous serial killer. She would have her writing published. She would be, she thought, taken seriously.’

‘That’s right,’ said Anni. ‘So?’

‘So,’ said Marina, ‘what’s this one playing at?’

‘How d’you mean?’ asked Mickey.

‘Well, if what Anni said is true, it’s as if she wanted to be caught.’

Mickey shrugged. ‘So?’

‘So she’s manipulated you, too. She’s in here because she wants to be.’

Mickey fell silent.

‘But why?’ asked Marina.

Anni stood up. ‘Let’s go and ask her, shall we?’

‘S
he’d left her phone on the bed,’ said Sperring once he and Phil were back in the Audi.

Phil had given a silent prayer that the Audi was where he had left it and intact. He pulled away, hoping that the brakes still worked. Even though they hadn’t noticed anyone they would have been seen, made as police. He just hoped no one had had the time or inclination to tamper.

‘So you had a look,’ said Phil, leaning forward to turn down the Midlake CD that was playing. ‘You know that’s inadmissible.’

Sperring shrugged. ‘Won’t come to that. Anyway, I just had a look. She’d be none the wiser. Left no prints.’ He started to remove his latex gloves.

Phil drove in silence for a while, surreptitiously testing his brakes. They seemed to work fine. He relaxed slightly. ‘So,’ he said eventually, ‘you’re dying to tell me. What did you find?’

‘And you’re dying to hear it. Don’t try and kid me that you’re not. Well,’ he said, settling into the seat, making himself comfortable, ‘I had a look at her calendar, see if she’d marked down any dates and that. Strangely, she wasn’t the type to be that organised. So I had a look in her contacts.’ Sperring smiled. ‘Found a few names worth looking at.’

‘Such as?’ Phil kept his eyes on the road. He was still relatively new to Birmingham and had to concentrate every time he drove. Not just because the roads were confusing but because the other drivers were so aggressive. He had thought London drivers were bad but they had nothing on these second-city citizens.

‘Moses Heap.’ Sperring smiled as he said it, pleased with himself.

The name meant nothing to Phil. ‘Right. Good.’

‘You don’t know Moses Heap?’ Sperring smirked. ‘Must be before your time. There were two big gangs in this city.’

‘Were?’

‘Coming to that. There were two big gangs, been going for years. Back to the Handsworth riots in the mid-Eighties. The Handsworth Boys and the Chicken Shack Crew.’

‘Right. Those names meant to mean anything?’

‘Watson’s Café in Handsworth was where one of them formed. They controlled virtually all of the drugs, women and door security for nightclubs across the city. We could barely get a hook in them. Then there were some arguments – drugs, women, whatever it is that sort argue over – and the Chicken Shack Crew were formed, running out of the Chicken Shack on Soho Road. The Handsworth Boys took Aston, Erdington and Lozells, the other lot Handsworth, Perry Barr and Ladywood. Crack cocaine, heroin, the lot.’

‘Ironic that the Handsworth Boys shouldn’t run Handsworth.’

‘And a source of much anger, I gather. Long story short, they started to get out of control. Like the fucking wild west for shootings round there. School kids involved, the lot. Moses Heap ran the Handsworth Boys. Anyway, after the leader of the Chicken Shack Boys, Julian Wilson, was murdered – and no one was ever done for it – Moses Heap decided things had gotten out of hand so he tried to reach across to the new gang leader, Julian’s brother Tiny. They sat down like it was fucking Northern Ireland and brokered some kind of peace treaty.’

‘Good for them,’ said Phil.

‘Yeah. But not all of them got the memo. So it’s shaky, still. Dangerous. But some of them, Moses Heap being a prime example, are claiming to have given up the dark path and reinventing themselves as community spokesmen, educators, a force for good, all that.’

‘All very interesting,’ said Phil, ‘but how does that help us find Chloe and Shannon’s killer?’

‘Well, call me a cynic if you must, but I reckon that Moses’s sudden conversion is a load of bollo. He’s playing a game. Playing everyone. He always was a player. Bit of a pimp. He’s got previous for that as well as the other stuff and if he’s a friend of Letisha Watson, or if she’s one of his ladies, maybe he’s not above getting her a favour done in return for her doing him one?’

‘Like killing her rival and child?’

Sperring shrugged. ‘Worth looking into.’

Phil nodded. ‘So where can we find Moses Heap?’

Sperring smiled. ‘From what I hear, he’s discovered the healing power of music.’

As soon as Phil opened the door his ears were assaulted by a barrage of sound. Hip hop beats punched up to ear-bleed level, an angry, violent rap fantasy of guns, gangs and hoes being spat over the top. At least Phil assumed it was a fantasy. Given the people he was visiting he wasn’t so sure if they weren’t just recording their day-to-day life.

The studio was in an old Victorian redbrick building in a run-down area of Aston, given over to the No Postcode Organisation, as it said on the front, a charity-funded community base. He and Sperring had shown their warrant cards on the way in, asked the young black man on the reception desk if Moses Heap was in the building. The young man had clearly had dealings with the police before and regarded them with suspicion if not downright hatred. He told them he would call through to the studio and see if Mr Heap was available.

‘No need for that, son,’ said Sperring. ‘We’ll go and see if he’s there ourselves. Wouldn’t want you spoiling the surprise.’

He walked off down a corridor, Phil following. Phil wanted to take issue with his subordinate’s aggressive approach but he also wanted to see Moses Heap in his own surroundings. Gauge his responses from that.

They walked through the building, the original green ceramic tiled walls incongruous with newer plasterboard partitions and corridors, the walls covered with posters imploring the viewer to put down their knives and guns, with inspirational messages from figures such as Martin Luther King, Bob Marley and Tupac Shakur. They stopped before a plain wooden door with red and green lights above it. The green light was on.

‘After you,’ said Sperring.

All eyes turned as Phil and Sperring entered. Even given Phil’s casual clothing they were immediately made as police. The room was full of black youths in their twenties and thirties relaxing on low sofas and chairs, and their expressions showed that their experience with the police had been negative. One of them stood up, stepped up to Phil. Eyeball to eyeball.

‘I’m looking for Moses Heap,’ said Phil, ensuring his voice was calm, his gaze level. Not matching aggression with aggression but careful not to back down.

‘What you want him for?’ said the man in front of him.

The room stank of sweat, skunk and alcohol.

‘Just want a word,’ said Phil. ‘That’s all.’

Another man stood up. He was better dressed than the man who had stepped up to Phil, the same kind of street uniform but with better labels. ‘’S okay, Clinton,’ he said. ‘Stand down.’

The man reluctantly moved away but kept his eyes tight on Phil.

The other man crossed to Phil, took Clinton’s place. ‘I’m Moses Heap.’ He swallowed down his ingrained distaste of police. Despite the anger Phil noticed a clear intelligence in his eyes. ‘What can I do for you, gentlemen?’

‘Can you turn the music down, please,’ said Phil, ‘or shall we step outside?’

Moses Heap gestured to a teenager sitting behind the mixing desk. The music disappeared. The silence that replaced it was deafening. Phil’s ears were ringing.

‘You can say what you got to say in front of my bredren. We got no secrets from Five-0 here.’

‘Letisha Watson,’ said Phil. ‘She a friend of yours?’

Moses Heap frowned. ‘Letisha Watson…’ He shrugged. ‘Don’t recognise the name.’

‘She’s a working girl, lives on the Trescothick Estate,’ said Sperring.

Moses Heap kept his face impassive, shrugged. ‘So?’

‘She knows you,’ said Phil. ‘Her ex-boyfriend’s Darren Richards. Ring any bells?’

Moses Heap said nothing.

‘And her ex-boyfriend’s current girlfriend has met with a very untimely demise.’

Moses Heap kept his gaze focused on Phil, but Phil was sure he saw something flinch behind his eyes. ‘My condolences to the family,’ he said.

‘Her baby daughter was killed too,’ said Sperring. ‘Murdered. Not an accident.’

Moses Heap acknowledged Sperring for the first time. ‘Why you telling me this? You think I did it? You think I murder children?’

‘We’re just asking anyone who knows either the deceased or anyone connected with the deceased,’ said Phil. ‘Routine. That’s all. Your name came up. We came to see you.’

Moses Heap thought. Nodded. ‘Yeah. Well, you’ve had a wasted journey. I can’t help you. I don’t know anything about Chloe Hannon’s murder. Or her daughter.’

Phil did a double take. ‘I didn’t tell you her name.’

Fear flashed across Moses Heap’s face, his composure crumbling for a few seconds before he regained it. ‘Must have been on the news.’

‘We haven’t released the details. Or the names.’

Heap shrugged, tried for casual. Missed. ‘Must have heard it somewhere.’

‘Where?’ asked Phil.

‘Dunno.’ His voice raised, anger dancing in his eyes. ‘You want to arrest me for it? You wanna charge me? Go ahead. Charge me. My brief’ll have me out in an hour. Have your jobs, too. I’m a businessman. A respected figure in the community. These here are my associates. And you come in and accuse me of murder in front of them? I don’t think so, man. I don’t think so at all.’

Phil looked around the room. It was tense to start with but the tension had palpably increased in the last few seconds. He knew there was nothing more to be done then and there.

‘We’ll be in touch, Mr Heap,’ Phil said. He turned to go.

‘Don’t plan on leaving town,’ said Sperring, following him out.

The music resumed before they had reached the door, louder this time, more aggressive. Once outside, Phil breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Well, that went as well as expected,’ he said.

‘Dunno,’ said Sperring. ‘Saw quite a few familiar faces in there. Not all from the same gang, neither. Must’ve been having a meeting or something.’

‘Maybe they were settling their differences over a few beers, a bit of a smoke and some music.’

Sperring snorted. ‘Carving up territory, probably. Hardly the bloody
Godfather
, is it?’

Before Phil could reply his phone rang. He answered it. Listened, spoke, turned to Sperring.

‘That was Imani. Darren Richards has come round.’