Robinson had walked free, jumped into his car parked down a side street not far from the court, seen the parking ticket, cursed loudly, and headed off to the pub to celebrate.
Six pints later, as he drove home, a breathalyser, and his driving licence cancelled for one year.
The story had been told to Isaac by Bill Ross, the inspector at Canning Town. How he came to know about it, Isaac didn’t know, but then, that was Ross’s style, a man who knew the street as well as Larry Hill.
It was Ross on the phone. ‘You better get over here,’ he said. ‘It’s Hector Robinson; he’s dead.’
Isaac had been preparing to join Larry and an armed response team on their visit to the address found in the box.
In Canning Town, two blocks from where Isaac had met Robinson in the pub, a body was slumped up against the old wooden gate of a derelict factory.
‘No one took any notice,’ Ross said. The two police officers hadn’t met for over a year, not since Isaac had married Jenny, and the man had changed. Before, strapping with a bright red complexion, a cheery disposition, a beer gut. Isaac did not comment on the man he met: bags under his bloodshot eyes, and the belly, once so prominent, replaced by empty space. Bill Ross looked ill to him.
‘They would have thought he was homeless.’ Isaac said.
‘Or drunk. Your pub has plenty of them of a night.’
It wasn’t his pub, but Isaac said nothing in response.
‘Staffing levels, that’s why we don’t get down here as much as we should. Up in the town, the hoodies are stealing whatever they can, uneducated most of them, condemned to the street, and then there are the fundamentalists who control half of Canning, and if a woman walks through with bare flesh exposed she gets verbal abuse, a cane around the legs.’
‘Not your cup of tea?’
‘Nor yours.’
‘We don’t have the problem,’ Isaac said. He didn’t want to get into a political or religious debate with Bill Ross, a no-win situation. He was more interested in the slumped body of the man he had met the previous day.
‘What’s the situation?’ Isaac said.
The area around the gate smelled of urine, the patrons at the pub unable to wait for somewhere better or not caring either way; the latter the more likely.
‘If anyone saw him last night or this morning, no one contacted us. Not that we’d expect them to. Mind your own business is the best policy; I’d adopt it myself if I lived here. Thankful that I don’t, a three-bedroom house ten miles away. No idea why I don’t get a transfer.’
‘How did you find out?’
‘A routine drive through the area by a patrol car, to check the pub and any lingerers. Robinson’s not the first body down here, and there’s often fights, a knife used more often than not.
‘Anyway, they were down here at nine this morning, the safest time of the day. The drunks are sleeping it off; the fundamentalists, hooligans from what I can see, are at prayer or whatever they do.’
Bill Ross was prejudiced, Isaac had known that for a long time. It wasn’t a healthy attitude for a police officer to openly display.
‘Time of death?’
‘According to the publican, he reckoned that Robinson left the pub fifteen minutes after you; before the heavy drinkers arrived and started causing chaos.’
‘Cause of death?’
‘Knife, none too subtle. The upper arm, lower torso, close to the heart, and his throat’s been cut. I’d say the throat was cut after death, but I can’t be sure. The CSIs will know better than me, and the pathologist will give you an A to Z, words you would barely understand.’
‘It’s your case, not mine. Motive?’
‘He had a place not far away, a dive, cheap even for around here.’
‘Bill, I need to know facts, not an opinion of the man’s living arrangements.’
‘It could be random, but it was early in the night. The worst of them wait for later before venturing out.’
‘My visit?’
‘It’s the angle I would take, the most logical. I’ll need an update from you.’
‘I’ll send you a report. That’ll show you what we’re investigating.’
‘Something to go on. It could have been you instead of Robinson if I hadn’t got a car down there to look after you.’
Isaac shuddered; Ross was right. If Robinson’s death was tied in to his daughter and the Jane Doe, which looked increasingly likely, then those who were killing weren’t the sort of people to draw the line at a police officer.
‘Robinson’s daughter was murdered, not sure why, although she was operating out of a bedsit,’ Isaac said.
‘Prostitute?’
‘Correct.’
‘Most of them around here are from the Caribbean, others from China or Vietnam, a few Thais.’
‘Voluntary?’
‘Those from the Caribbean are, not sure about the others. We do what we can; send a few back to where they came from, but they reappear with increasing regularity. One woman’s been deported two times but ends up back in one brothel or another. It’s hard to imagine why.’
Isaac thought the man should get out and about, see the rest of the world; come to realise that Canning Town was better than where the women had lived before, and they had been fed the dream, seen the movies, believed it was milk and honey, not sour and definitely not sweet.
‘Janice Robinson is murdered, but there’s a twist to the case, not sure what it all means yet.’
‘You’ll figure it out.’
‘Janice’s brother, before her death, witnessed a murder or nearly did. He briefly saw the murderer, as did his girlfriend.’
‘Related?’
‘It appears to be. But the Robinsons are not major players, nothing really.’
‘Not sorely missed.’
‘They’ve
