***
Giles Helmsley had control of the grandson of Gilbert Lawrence, a useless lump of a drug-addicted attempt at manhood, whose only delight was to screw the bitch who had just left, no doubt intending to come back as soon as he had gone. Helmsley wasn’t sure what to do. He wanted to stomp out of the flat, find another willing recruit and to bleed him and his family for what he could, but no one else had the wealth of the Lawrence family. He plied Michael with coffee, put him into a warm bath, only to see him almost collapse, his head slowly sinking below the surface of the water. It was a hopeless situation, he knew that.
All that money at the rehabilitation centre, and one woman, one syringe, and the man was as bad as he had ever been. He needed him clean, he needed help. He made a phone call. Forty minutes later, the two men that had dossed with Michael were at the door. Fully dressed – Helmsley had had to dress him – the grandson of the wealthy man was soon downstairs and in the back of Helmsley’s vehicle, a late-model Jaguar. No use in driving around in an old bomb, Helmsley thought as he pulled away from the kerb, hoping that Michael Lawrence wouldn’t throw up or urinate in the back seat, hoping the other two wouldn’t either.
‘I want my girl back,’ Michael mumbled, the others in the car attempting to get him to shut up. Back at the dosshouse, the man was roughly thrown back on the mattress where he had come from. Helmsley administered the heroin into his vein, not sure what he was doing, only knowing that he needed Michael quiet for now while he planned his next move. He knew that heroin was the last thing that Michael needed, but he needed him to stay and to sleep. Tomorrow, the man would detox the hard way: cold turkey.
At the back of the dosshouse was an old washroom, a solid lock on the door. When he entered the austere room, Michael Lawrence would have gone from the five-star luxury of the Waverley House Rehabilitation Centre for the rich and feeble to a flat in Bayswater, then back to his old doss house mattress, and then to a washroom with concrete walls and a concrete floor. Five days in there, maybe six, and then he would be let out, cleaned up, and sent off to get more money, to the same place he had obtained money before.
And to hell with the revolution, Helmsley thought, not that he didn’t believe in it, but what was the point. Those he collected to his side were only the disenfranchised, the lunatic fringe, the people that he despised.
If only the London School of Economics hadn’t been so rigid, he could still be there, formulating the manifesto to take the next step forward in his quest for justice for the people of England: equality and prosperity in equal measure. Not once did he consider that he, Giles Helmsley, could be mad; that was the arrogance of the man.
Chapter 27
Emily Matson did the rounds at Challis Street, Larry doing the introductions. She liked the freshness of the police station, the camaraderie that existed. She had confided to Larry on the Eurostar coming back to London that the environment at Greenwich Police Station was toxic, the after-effects of her previous inspector who had been found guilty of taking bribes.
And now everyone in the station was careful to be on their best behaviour, excessively documenting everything, looking for flaws in others. Even she had been reported for not informing the Admin Department that she would be out of the country for a few days, although the station superintendent had been notified in a phone call from Isaac. Regardless, there’d be some on her return to the station who would make disparaging remarks about her getting ahead of herself, becoming involved in Homicide when she should be focussed on theft and the cat burglar who had been making his way around the area.
‘There’s one DCI who was hostile that I became involved with Challis Street. He thought that his seniority should have ensured that I handed the investigation into Frost over to him.’
‘And?’ Larry said.
‘He complained to our superintendent when the Belgium trip came up, said it was his right to go, not a junior.’
‘Which meant?’
‘Not a woman. He’s a chauvinistic misogynist. The super told him to button his lip, and to get back to work. The superintendent’s a good man.’
‘This DCI, what did he hope to gain in Belgium? And besides, we would have scuttled him.’
‘Nothing to do with the case. For him, it would have been Belgian chocolates, Belgian beer, a sampling of the local talent.’
‘Fancies himself?’
‘He’s the only one that does. The superintendent’s been trying to get him out, but the man sticks like glue. He gave evidence against the other DCI, gained a few more brownie points, a friend of the commissioner.’
‘Alwyn Davies?’
‘You’ve met him?’
‘We’ve had our problems. He had DCI Cook and Chief Superintendent Goddard out of their seats for a while. The man’s odious, but he plays it smart.’
Isaac’s office was too small with Emily in the department. Down the hall, a conference room was secured.
‘Emily, Larry, an update,’ Isaac said.
‘There’s no doubt that Hector O’Grady was seen in the village of Herzele. We’ve two independent corroborations, one the owner of a small shop, the other a farmer who states that O’Grady’s vehicle nearly caused an accident.’
‘O’Grady driving?’
‘Nobody recognised a photo of Ainsley Caxton,’ Larry said, ‘although the murder of Samuels would have required some time. It’s logical to assume that one person did
