Chapter 13
It was, as Chief Superintendent Goddard said, a complete stuff up. The man was livid, and his DCI, Isaac Cook, was on the receiving end of the man’s blunt assessment.
‘Not only do you have an armed response team out to a house in Holland Park, I’ve had Commissioner Davies on the phone, asking me to front in the morning with a written report and an explanation about what’s going on and what I’m going to do about it.’
It was the angriest that Isaac had seen his senior. As the SIO in Homicide, he had to take the blame. The investigation had been conducted correctly by the team, and they had put in the hours, filed the reports, but had always been one step behind.
‘I stand by my team,’ Isaac said. He could see a long night ahead of him. It was Jenny’s birthday. She would be disappointed that the planned celebration would have to be curtailed. He felt bad about it, but there was no way he could substitute, not tonight.
Even if Larry had been up to it, which he wasn’t, not when the commissioner was involved, he was in Godstone, meeting with the local police, trying to understand how a BMW that had sat in a garage for weeks had mysteriously disappeared.
‘We had no reason to impound it,’ the sergeant had said. ‘No reason at all. As far as the estate agent was concerned, the payments on the house were up to date, the outside had been maintained. If the people, God knows why, wanted to leave it empty, that’s their business, not ours. No law broken, no action from us.’
‘You were keeping a watch. Didn’t you see it was missing?’
‘We kept a watch on the house. The agreement was, if I remember correctly, to phone you if we saw someone, to talk to them, find out a phone number.’
They were right, Larry reluctantly agreed. The address belonged to a woman who had purchased sandals at the shop. It didn’t mean that she was dead, or that Ian Naughton was the man in the village and in Holland Park.
Larry spoke to the waitress in the coffee shop that he had frequented on past visits to the village, ordered a latte and a croissant.
‘It’s official,’ he said. ‘If you’ve got a minute.’
‘There was someone there two days ago,’ she said after she had given him his order.’
‘Are you able to give me a description, and why didn’t you phone me?’
‘Forgot, I suppose. Or we could have been busy.’
Or didn’t want to get involved, more likely, Larry thought. He’d keep his opinion to himself on the waitress, a pleasant woman, carrying more weight on her hips than she should and a bright red lipstick that didn’t suit her. Apart from that she was Godstone born and bred, had never travelled, and regarded London as somewhere for Christmas shopping and the New Year sales.
‘Was it the man and the woman that you saw?’
‘I can’t say I got a good look. It was a woman, Asian, I think.’
‘Think or know?’
‘Short, slim, straight jet-black hair. I wasn’t close, and she never came in here. All I saw was the garage door open, the car reversing out, and then she closed the garage and drove off. Not there for more than a few minutes.’
‘Asian? Certain?’
‘I believe so. Does it help?’
‘It does.’
***
Isaac, Larry, Wendy, and Bridget worked late into the night, going through the case so far. They had to provide a concise report for Chief Superintendent Goddard.
‘Save his bacon,’ Larry had jested, the one attempt at humour that night.
Isaac, who had more experience of Commissioner Davies than the others in the department, knew that their boss was going to have an uphill battle with the commissioner. The man was a no-holds-barred police officer who had earned his stripes in Wales, played the politics well, ingratiating wherever, adopting a Machiavellian approach to those who threatened him.
Goddard was an adroit political animal, but he still played fair most of the time; Davies had no time for such subtleties. The man would use the current case to unseat Goddard, to bring in the unpleasant and obsequious Seth Caddick.
Re-examination of the case had confirmed that the house in Holland Park was significant and that Ian Naughton was not an innocent bystander, and, as Larry had determined in Godstone, the description of the petite Asian woman pointed to Analyn, the woman who had opened the door in Holland Park.
Two in the morning, the report was ready. Isaac, not willing to leave anything to chance, phoned Goddard.
‘What is it?’ Goddard said on answering the phone. Isaac had known that he wouldn’t be annoyed. He was still a friend.
‘You’re not going to like it,’ Isaac said. Homicide was quiet, the other three had left the office.
‘I’m not going to like a dressing down from Davies either. What have you got?’
‘The BMW in Canning Town and Godstone are one and the same.’
‘Proven?’
‘Ninety per cent. We'll be checking CCTV cameras out in Canning, the ones that still work. We have the registration of the BMW in Godstone. If we get a match, then we’re one step ahead.
‘Ahead or on the first rung?’
‘The BMW was picked up in Godstone by an Asian woman; matches the description of the woman in Holland Park.’
‘Matches or you’re thinking it does?’
‘There’s a correlation, something we need to check further.’
‘While Davies is slowing you down by wasting your time producing reports, attempting to keep me out of the dog house.’
‘I think you’re already there, sir,’ Isaac said.
‘And so are you. It’s a tough case, and I appreciate
