Karen Oaten got out of her car in the street near Manor House Station in East London. CSI vans and police cars, marked and unmarked, were all around.
“Right, Amelia, let’s go.” She led the petite young woman with the bobbed brown hair to one of the white vans.
“’Evening, guv,” said a bespectacled technician she knew from her time in Homicide East. “You’ll be wanting a suit.”
“Two, please, Vince. This is my new sergeant, Amelia Browning.”
The man smiled. “Hello, Amelia. First time at one of these?”
Browning shook her head vigorously. “Good heavens, no. I was in Homicide South before I got into the VCCT.”
“I hear it’s nasty, south of the river,” Vince said, handing them sealed plastic bags containing white coveralls, overshoes and caps. “Never been over there, myself.”
Karen laughed, while her subordinate tried to work out if she was being teased. “You might want to beef up your vocabulary, Amelia.”
“Guv?”
“‘Good heavens’? We’re not in an Agatha Christie novel.”
Browning nodded. “Got you, guv.”
When they’d finished covering up, Karen ducked under the tape and headed for the basement stairway, her much shorter sergeant close behind. A techie was photographing the garbage on the steps and they had to wait.
“Footprints?” Browning asked.
“Among other things.” Oaten walked on when the steps were clear.
Ron Paskin was standing in the hall. “Ah, there you are, Karen.”
“Guv.” She introduced Amelia again. “We’re getting seriously stretched,” she explained. “DS Browning only joined us a week ago.”
“In at the deep end, then,” the superintendent said with a smile that didn’t stay long on his lips. “We got an anonymous call. One dead male Kurd inside,” he said. “Shot once in the head at close range with a 9 mm pistol. There was a cartridge case on the floor, by the door. Funny thing is, there was also another one. They’ve taken samples of the blood.” Paskin pointed to the spray on the floor and on some of the many cardboard boxes in the room ahead. “And they’re collating footprints. It looks like there were three people in here and two of them left.”
“One having been shot by the other?” Oaten said, her brow furrowed.
“Maybe the shooter’s accomplice got in the way,” Amelia Browning suggested.
Paskin led them into the front room. A body lay facedown in a slick of dried blood. He inclined his head toward a smaller patch of blood. “We reckon that may be the other victim’s, the one who’s gone AWOL.”
The two women nodded. DS Browning was taking notes keenly.
“So there may be a witness to the murder,” Oaten said.
“If he’s still alive,” Paskin said.
“Or she,” Amelia put in.
The superintendent gave her a long-suffering look. “This is a Shadow store,” he said. “You know who the Shadows are?”
The young woman nodded. “Yes, sir. Long-established East End Turkish gang with interests in-”
“All right, Sergeant,” Oaten said, “you’ve made your point.”
Paskin smiled. “Good to come across people who read the files. Anyway, the Shadows don’t use women. As far as they’re concerned, women stay at home and look after their children.”
Spots of red appeared on Amelia Browning’s cheeks. “Maybe the killer wasn’t a Shadow.”
“Or a man,” Oaten added. She frowned at her subordinate. “Let’s stick to the evidence, shall we?”
Paskin nodded. “Whether the second victim ever shows is another matter. He was hit fairly badly, judging by the amount of blood, so he’ll need medical treatment. Of course, the King’s men have got their own doctors.” He looked over at Browning. “Have you read the King’s files, too, Sergeant?”
“She’s done her homework.” Oaten looked at her ex-boss. “What have the Kurds got to do with this?”
“He was one of them.” The superintendent held out a photograph of a mustachioed man. “He’s Aro Izady, a cousin of the King. The question is, what was he doing here? He was an accountant and he didn’t have a record. He wasn’t the kind of man you’d expect to find in a storage depot owned by the opposition. There was a rumor a few years back that he killed a Shadow with a snooker cue, but there was no evidence. Actually, there was no body.”
Oaten was studying her ex-boss. “Could that be why he’s been killed now? But why in a Shadow store?”
“They are rather pointing the finger at themselves,” the superintendent said. “Maybe they assumed no one would phone the shooting in.”
“Where were the Shadow guards?” Oaten said, looking at the piles of boxes containing electrical equipment that had doubtless been stolen. “They wouldn’t have left without a fight. Unless they were called off.”
“So far we haven’t found anyone who heard shots,” Paskin added. “Some of the locals won’t talk to us on principle, but they’re not all like that.”
Oaten’s gaze rested on the green metal trunk, the bottom of which had been spattered with blood. “Has anyone looked inside that?” she asked, pointing.
The superintendent nodded. “It’s empty. Or rather, almost empty. There are traces of cocaine all over the inside.”
“Meaning that maybe the shooter may have taken the stash with him,” Oaten said.
“Or her,” Paskin said with a grin.
Amelia Browning didn’t appear to have heard him. “Maybe the guards were lured out and disposed of. The shooter may not have been alone.”
Karen Oaten bit her lip. “I still don’t understand why a Kurd would be murdered here.” She looked up at the letter
Browning raised her hand. “Maybe Izady was a turncoat and the King found out. Killing him here would be a good way to get back at the Turks.”
“Imaginative,” said Paskin. “But you haven’t got a shred of evidence.”
The sergeant went back to scribbling in her notepad.
The women headed up the steps to the pavement. Paskin followed them, pausing to catch his breath.
“This is getting out of hand,” Oaten said. “A Turk, a Kurd and now another Kurd. Soon we’ll have a full-scale gang war on our hands.”
Paskin’s expression was blank. “It’s a possibility.”
“Still nothing on the grapevine about another gang moving in?” Oaten asked.
Paskin shook his head. “That’s the strange part of all this. No one’s saying anything about Albanians or Russians. And this is too neat for the Jamaicans. It can’t be internal, because both Turks and Kurds are being hit.”
Karen Oaten took off her protective cap and smoothed her hair down. “You know, there was another shooting with what we presume was a silenced pistol this morning. South of the river.”
“I heard. Potential connection to the White Devil.”
The chief inspector nodded. “Maybe the same person’s screwing with the gangs up here. Some serious money’s been spent to get the information these hits would have needed.”
Paskin looked away. “Sounds like a job for the VCCT then, Karen. Are you going to take these cases away from us?”
She sniffed. “As if I have the personnel. Taff Turner’s running the Dulwich murder. Obviously I can’t have any direct involvement…”
“I know about your conflict of interest,” the superintendent said gently.
“And DS Pavlou’s trying to kick some life into Homicide West over the woman author who was murdered. That’s another dead end so far, though at least she wasn’t shot.”
Paskin touched her arm. “Are you taking over my cases or not?”
