Ross had three duties to deal with before he left. First, he had to phone the crime scene team, make sure that they would be down in due course to conduct their investigation, and second and most important, he would need to phone Isaac Cook to tell him that Waylon Conroy, the gang leader, was dead. He knew that he wouldn’t be phased that the man had died of multiple knife wounds.
There was a third item to conduct, but he wasn’t going to do it, not that day; family life was more important. He phoned a sergeant in the police station, informed him of the facts, gave the address. Someone else could inform Conroy’s mother that her son was dead.
As Ross got into his car, he knew of one certainty: tomorrow would be quiet, and criminal activity would be low, the one good thing that Waylon Conroy had done in his short life. In death, not in life, he had provided some cheer and goodness, but it wouldn’t last long.
***
The team at Challis Street Police Station took the death of Waylon Conroy in their stride. As far as they were concerned, it was a local matter for the police in Canning Town, as was the death of Warren Preston, and whereas Hector Robinson’s death was still integral to their case, it was Conroy and his gang who had killed him.
The reason for Robinson’s death was important, more so than who had committed it, and for that they had one name, Ian Naughton, and regardless of how much they tried, the man remained elusive.
Larry met with Spanish John at a pub in Notting Hill. He knew he would drink more than he should and he would be confined to the sofa that night, but as he had explained to his wife, who was not sympathetic to his dilemma, and to his DCI, who while understanding the problem still had to deal with it, he drank not only to loosen the tongues of the local villains but also because he enjoyed the taste of beer too much.
However, regardless of his trepidations and the flak that was coming his way, Larry sat down in the corner of the pub. On the other side of the table, the frightening presence of Spanish John. Akoni, his brother, sat close by. He was cordial, Larry conceded, but he wasn’t an impressive figure, not in comparison to his brother.
‘We’ve been looking,’ Spanish John said.
‘And?’ Larry’s reply. When dealing with men such as Spanish John, Larry knew not to push too much; it was best to let them talk first. After all, the man was a criminal who should be in prison for his activities, but was not, due to ensuring that others did the dirty work, and if challenged by the police, he’d retreat, allow his lawyers to deal with it.
Spanish John’s original focus had been on the body on the grave, now identified as Amanda Upton. The phone call forty-five minutes earlier from the gangster, asking Larry to meet with him, had been unexpected.
‘I’ve got an address for you,’ Spanish John said as he downed his pint of beer; his brother looked into space, kept sipping at his drink. If it hadn’t been for his smarter brother, he would have survived through petty crime, largely friendless, ignored by most. But to those in the pub and out on the street, being the brother of an important man came with its perks, and long after Spanish John and Larry had gone, the brother would continue to receive free drinks and the cordiality of others. One thing Larry knew was that it didn’t pay to get on the wrong side of a major crime figure, nor did you upset his family. Retribution was swift, and although this time they had Conroy’s body in Canning Town, bodies weren’t always found, or if they were, the state of decomposition, the condition of the body, made identification virtually impossible, other than by DNA.
Early in his time at Challis Street Police Station, there had been a dismembered, headless torso in the water at Little Venice on Regent’s Canal, a barking dog alerting its owner to it, much to her consternation and the interrupted ardour of a man and his wife in a houseboat alongside.
‘Whose?’ Larry asked. ‘We’ve found out the name of the victim at the cemetery, although not a lot more, and certainly no idea as to why she was there.’
‘Cathy Parkinson dead?’
‘A question or do you know the answer?’ Larry said as he started on his third pint. He was still sober, careful with his speech. But the opportunity to drink more than his usual two pints was pleasurable, and he wasn’t sure if he could stop before the inevitable end of night debacle where he’d stagger out of the pub, hail a taxi and receive curt words from his wife.
‘Confirmation. I knew her, not well, not as well as Janice. The same person that killed Janice?’
‘Different modus operandi. Janice’s death was clean, no sign of sexual activity, no usable evidence from the CSIs nor Forensics; Cathy Parkinson’s death was messy, not that we’ve got a lot from it yet. If it’s the same person, they're playing us for suckers.’
‘And Amanda Upton’s was carefully done. No amateur there,’ Spanish John said. Larry could see that he was enjoying sparring with him; a game of one-upmanship. Leverage a probability, to ensure that the police looked the other way from certain activities.
Larry wasn’t in a position to either give or deny the man what
