‘The others didn’t deserve to die either. What about Ralphie, who killed him?’ Isaac said.
‘Antonescu. Sal used to speak to Ralphie. He phoned the man, probably trying to get money out of him and was killed for it.’
Isaac picked up his phone and made one more call. The phone at the other end was answered.
‘Detective Chief Superintendent Goddard,’ the voice said.
‘Antonescu killed the people at Briganti’s, Cojocaru as well. The other murders are either him or Becali; both are in custody. You can phone Commissioner Alwyn Davies.’
‘And Ivanov?’
‘Expect to see him on the television and gracing the social pages of the newspapers. He’s on a charm offensive now, and there’s nothing we can do about it.’
‘The biggest villain walks free, is that it?’
‘It is,’ Isaac said.
The end of a long-running murder investigation should have been a time for satisfaction at a job well-done. No one in Homicide felt in the mood for a pat on the back or a celebratory drink at the pub.
The End.
Murder in Hyde Park
Phillip Strang
Chapter 1
A Sunday, the first warmth of the coming summer and a clear sky. The sort of day when Detective Chief Inspector Isaac Cook should have been with Jenny, his girlfriend, either out and about or enjoying an early-morning spell of lovemaking. But yet again, a phone call. This time it was his second-in-command, Detective Inspector Larry Hill, a man who appreciated time at home with his wife and children at the weekend.
‘Hyde Park,’ Larry Hill said. ‘A body.’
Isaac raised himself from his bed; the lovemaking had seemed preferable to a walk or a run around the block. ‘Whereabouts?’
‘Hyde Park, the Serpentine, the Kensington Gardens side. You’ll have to park back from the murder site, Lancaster Gate on Bayswater Road, and walk down, two minutes if you walk briskly, four if you don’t.’
‘Local?’ Isaac asked.
‘A Chinese tourist out with a group found the body, as they were heading up to Kensington Palace, hoping to look over the fence, catch a glimpse of a royal.’
‘Who’s at the scene?’
‘A couple of uniforms, a gaggle of tourists who keep wanting to take selfies of the body with those sticks they carry.’
‘Ghoulish.’
‘It’s what tourists do. No doubt it’ll be all over Facebook, or whatever they have back in China.’
‘Doesn’t help,’ Isaac said. Even before the alarm had been sounded, he wondered how many had trampled over the evidence, disturbed the body, made a straightforward murder enquiry more difficult.
He had hoped that the Homicide Department at Challis Street Police Station could have had a break for a few weeks at least, the chance for him to take Jenny to Jamaica to visit where his parents had come from. He knew she would be disappointed; he knew she’d understand. That’s what he liked about her, loved even, although he wasn’t sure why that word scared him. Maybe it was fraught with memories of lost loves, missed opportunities, or was it a fear of commitment? Was he the perpetual bachelor? he wondered. Always saying that he wanted to settle down, but when the opportunity was there, he felt a gentle doubt that became more intense, and then came the tension in his voice, the irritation at something minor that his latest love had done, and the sorrowful breakup. It had happened more than once, and he knew that for him policing was a vocation, not a job, and that his preference was for maintaining law and order, not for staying that extra time at home and working on the relationship.
‘I’ve made you a cup of tea,’ Jenny said as she gave Isaac a kiss on the cheek. ‘Toast?’
‘I’ll grab something on the way. I’ll drink the tea, though,’ Isaac said, realising that it was the wrong response. ‘Something on the way’ was going to take longer than for Jenny to make his breakfast, but there had been a murder. And once free of the flat that the two of them shared, he would be focussed, making phone calls, rallying the team, checking with the crime scene investigators. He could see by her expression that she wasn’t pleased. He hoped it wasn’t the beginning of the end.
A quick shower, dressing in a suit, even though the weather was more suitable for an open-necked shirt, even a pair of shorts.
‘Jamaica off?’ Jenny asked.
‘Not sure yet. Let me see what we have,’ Isaac said, fully aware that the trip probably was off, but unwilling to say so. He knew that he and Jenny never argued, that they were compatible, and she had never once mentioned his long hours away from home, the unwillingness to discuss important things when he came home, preferring either to sleep or to sit quietly, not talking. But there were things to talk about, Jenny knew that. A trip to Jamaica to visit Isaac’s parents who had retired back to the island, was an acknowledgement that marriage was the next step.
Isaac knew that Jenny was hoping for a proposal, and he was considering it. He realised that marriage led to children and then on to old age and retirement, and then the inevitable. He didn’t want to contemplate the fact that he was getting older, not wanting to avoid it, but not just yet. For him, Jamaica was going to be a make or break with Jenny, although he knew that he was wrong to feel that way with a woman who deserved better. She had hinted on more than one occasion that her biological clock was ticking, a none too subtle nudge for him to make up his mind.
‘See you later,’ Isaac said as he walked out of the door of the two-bedroom flat. ‘I’ll call you if it’s an open and shut case.’
‘It won’t be,’ Jenny
