Unlawfully At Large, page 40
part #2 of DCI Tyler Series
◆◆◆
Mel locked and bolted the door to her flat the moment she got inside. Standing with her back pressed against it, her head spun as she tried to bring her spiralling thoughts back under control. How the hell could Claude Winston be in the same house as her? It seemed inconceivable. What had the toothy boy said to her out in the street? ‘I’ve had some friends staying with me for a couple of days, and I think they’re starting to go a bit stir crazy…’
She did a quick calculation. If they had been here a couple of days, it meant that the most wanted people in London had been hiding out in the ground floor flat, right under her bloody nose, since Monday afternoon, and to have done that, they would have had to have come here straight after decamping from the hijacked helicopter.
“Shit!”
This was just insane; thinking about it blew her mind.
She clamped her hand to her mouth, wondering what to do. Obviously, she needed to call the police, but was it wise to do that from inside the flat? Maybe it would be better – safer – to grab Dave and get away from this place first. She could just as easily ring the fuzz from the call box on the other side of the park.
The sound of the street door slamming down below interrupted her thoughts.
Had someone come in or left?
She placed her ear against the back of the door and listened carefully, but all she heard was silence. Running into the lounge, which overlooked the street, Mel cautiously peeled back the curtain and checked outside. The boy who had introduced himself as Rodney was placing a duffle bag into the boot of his red hatchback. As she watched, he stood up and started back towards the house, but then he suddenly stopped and looked straight up in her direction.
Her breath catching in her throat, Mel immediately dropped the curtain and flung herself against the wall. The lights in the lounge were off, but the TV was playing and it was possible the flickering picture had caught his eye.
Less than six feet away, Dave was fast asleep on the couch, oblivious to the dilemma that she now found herself in.
Mel ran back to the door and listened again, half afraid that Rodney had seen her and was about to come charging up the stairs, demanding to know why she had been spying on him. What would she say if he asked? Her mind had gone completely blank, and for the life of her, she couldn’t think of anything that wouldn’t sound suspicious.
Thankfully, no one came up the stairs, and after a minute of indecision, she decided to take another look outside, in case Rodney had gone back into the street without her noticing.
As she stepped away from the door, she heard movement down below. There were muffled voices too, three of them. Mel listened until the street door slammed and it went quiet again, and then she sprinted back into the lounge, turning the TV off as she flitted past it. Breathing heavily, she peeked out of the window for a second time.
“Mel…?” a groggy voice called out from behind.
“Shhh!” she hissed without looking around.
“What’s going on?” Dave asked, full of cold.
She heard him lumbering to his feet.
“Stay there,” she whispered, but he ignored her.
Typical.
Dave yelped as he stubbed a toe on the leg of the coffee table. “Why is it so dark?” he said angrily.
When he started fumbling around awkwardly, Mel realised that he was groping for the light switch.
“Leave the lights off,” she growled.
“But I can’t see a bloody thing,” he complained, sounding all bunged up.
“David, do NOT turn on that light,” she ordered in the scary voice that she reserved for when he’d given her the raging hump.
Dave froze on the spot. With a low moan that signalled his surrender, he stumbled across the room – stubbing his toe on the coffee table leg once again.
“What the hell’s going on?” he demanded, leaning down to rub his foot.
“You know the gangster who murdered the policeman at work and then hijacked the HEMS helicopter?”
Dave nodded. “Yeah.”
“Well, I’ve just found out that the bastard’s been staying in the ground floor flat since he escaped, and him and three of his dodgy mates have just left the building.”
“You’re shitting me?” Dave said, incredulously.
“No, David. I’m not.” It was too dark for him to see the withering look she fired in his direction but there was no mistaking the irritation in her voice.
“Show me,” he said, excited. In his usual clumsy fashion, he pulled the curtains wide open and thrust his big hairy face up against the window.
“My God,” Mel blurted out, pulling him away from the window. “Do you want to get us both killed?”
“Easy princess,” Dave soothed, holding up his big hands to calm her. “It’s okay, they’ve already driven off.”
Mel cursed, pushed him aside and pushed opened the window, letting cold air into the cosy room. She leaned as far out as she could, cursing under her breath.
“What are you doing?” Dave asked, mystified by her actions.
When Mel closed the window, she turned on him with a face like thunder. “I didn’t even get the index thanks to your bloody interference.”
◆◆◆
By the time the two unmarked murder squad cars arrived at Mel’s flat, the suspects had long since gone. The 999 call had come out as they were travelling from Arbour Square to Star Lane to start searching for the Rover. Local uniforms were already on scene, and the surrounding area had been flooded by units hunting for Winston and his associates.
“Do you want me to boot the downstairs flat’s door in, skipper?” the driver of the RT car asked Charlie White.
The Scotsman shook his head. “No, but thanks for the offer.”
Leaving an officer to guard the door, he trotted up to Mel’s flat to take a statement from her. She was sitting on the sofa next to a red-nosed bear of a man who had a box of tissues on his lap and was coughing and spluttering like he was about to die.
“Got a wee cold then, have you?” he asked, keeping as far away as possible.
Dave nodded, looking sorry for himself. “Flu,” he said miserably.
“Can I get you a cup of coffee?” Mel asked, standing up.
“Aye, that’d be lovely,” White said. “Perhaps we could go into the kitchen and leave your hubby and his germs in peace,” he suggested.
Mel led him into the flat’s cramped kitchen and switched the kettle on. “I can only do instant, I’m afraid,” she told him, pulling three mugs from a cupboard above her head.
“That’ll be fine,” he said with a warm smile. “I gather you met my boss, Mr Dillon, at the hospital on Monday. Sounds like you went through a bit of an ordeal, what with walking in on the killers and all.”
Mel shuddered at the memory of being chased along the corridor by the fearful bald-headed man. “It was a little harrowing,” she admitted.
When someone from the murder squad had rung on Tuesday morning to inform her that Heston had died from his injuries, she had experienced a frisson of guilty pleasure; at least he would never be able to terrorise anyone else the way he had her.
“Forgive me for asking,” White said, “but are you one hundred percent sure the man you saw was Claude Winston?”
“I’m one million percent sure,” she replied. “Not only did I have to put up with his histrionics at the hospital for a whole week, I saw him standing above two of your colleagues with a bloody great big gun in his hand just two days ago, and I will never – ever – forget the cold-blooded way he looked at me when I entered the room, or the way he told that bald-headed bastard to get me. He was issuing a death sentence, and you don’t easily forget the face or the voice of the man who does that to you.”
“No,” Charlie said, “I don’t suppose you do. Look, I know you’ve already gone through this with the local officers, but can you tell me anything about the people he was with?”
Mel considered this as she spooned coffee into the three mugs. “My downstairs neighbour’s called Rodney. He’s a skinny white lad with pronounced front teeth and overgrown sideburns. He can’t be more than twenty, I would say, and I get the impression that he’s a bit simple if you know what I mean. He drives a red hatchback but I couldn’t tell you which model. I’m not very good with cars. There was a black woman on the floor when I looked into the room.” Mel closed her eyes and replayed the scene in her head. “I think…” she said as she scrunched her face up in concentration “…I’m almost certain she had a long scar down the right side of her face like she had been bottled in a fight.”
“That’s really helpful,” Charlie White encouraged. “Anything else?”
Mel shrugged. “There was another black man in the room with them, but I only got a fleeting glimpse of him and he was standing with his back to me. He was slim, I think.”
“Did you get the impression they were just popping out for a little while or did it seem more like they were going for good?”
“I’m not sure, but when I looked out the window, Rodney was loading a big bag into the boot. I don’t know if that helps?”
“It might do,” Charlie said. “One last thing: I dinnae suppose you got the registration number, did you?”
The fugitives had almost certainly driven off in the Rover 216 that had been used to spirit Winston away from the wasteland in Canning Town – in which case they already had the index number – but it would have been nice to have conformation, just in case the Rover had been swapped for a different red car. Stranger things had happened, after all.
“I would have,” Mel said ruefully, “if my oafish partner hadn’t woken up and got in the bloody way.”
Charlie White’s mobile started to ring. It was Tyler. “Excuse me,” he said, stepping out into the hall to take the call.
“Charlie, Jack Tyler here. What’s the score?”
White looked over his shoulder to make sure that Mel was out of earshot. “You willnae believe it, boss, but the informant’s the ward sister from the RLH who walked in on Winston just after he’d shot Morrison,” Charlie told him quietly. “She reckons her downstairs neighbour, Rodney, drove Winston, Garston, and Angela off in his wee red car about five minutes before the lids got here. She doesnae know which direction they were heading in, but she saw Rodney load a big bag into the boot, so it looks like they’ve set off for the coast ahead of schedule.”
Tyler swore profoundly. “What could have made them do that?”
Charlie was struck by how worried the boss sounded. He was usually as cool as ice in situations like this. “I havenae got a clue,” he said.
When Tyler next spoke, there was great urgency in his voice. “If they’re heading for Sussex the most likely route from there would be to take the A13 up to the M25. Leave it with me, I’ll have Kent and Sussex informed that it might be heading their way.”
A wise move, Charlie thought; although ANPR cameras had been installed at various points along the M25, it was a big road to police, and unless there were units close enough to respond to any activations all the hard work of getting it onto the system would have been for nothing.
“Have we gained access to the downstairs flat?” Tyler asked, changing tack.
“Afraid not boss,” Charlie said. “It’s locked and secure. I’ve got a lid standing guard outside, but we’re gonna need a search warrant to enter.”
Jack grunted. “I suspected as much. Don’t worry, mate. Mr Dillon’s got the number for a friendly out of hours Magistrate. I’ll get him straight on it.”
“I’ll crack on with taking a statement from the informant then, and await word from you about the warrant.”
◆◆◆
Jack reluctantly dismissed the team for the night at eleven o’clock. There hadn’t been any further sightings of Rodney’s car since Mel had seen it drive off, and despite the TIU live monitoring, there hadn’t been any activity on either the 777 or 321 numbers. As he watched his team grab their things and wearily trudge out of the office, Jack prayed that Winston wouldn’t be gloating at them from the other side of the English Channel come tomorrow morning.
Charlie White’s team was the last to leave the building. They had just returned from searching Rodent’s flat, which had been small, dirty and smelly. They had found some blood smeared bandages in a bin that had, no doubt, come from Winston. These had been seized for DNA comparisons. A local SOCO had attended to take fingerprints, of which there had been an abundance. At least putting Winston and the others inside the flat should prove easy enough with the forensic finds, and it would all be used as evidence against Rodney Dawlish in due course.
The TIU had agreed to continue the live monitoring overnight, and Reg Parker had volunteered to sleep in the office on a little camp bed that was kept for such occasions in case any activity was detected. Dean had also offered to remain behind, to perform any fast time searches that might be required, but Jack had decided against this, explaining that Dean would be of more use to him if he were fresh and ready for action in the morning.
Dillon had stood down the TSU signal detector van and the SO19 SFO team. Without a location for the suspects, or at least an idea of the general area they were in, both were redundant.
Kelly was going to spend the night at Jack’s, and Dillon had offered to drop them off and pick them up again in the morning to save tying up two pool cars. As they settled in for the journey home, Jack seemed unusually morose.
“Cheer up mate, it might never happen,” Dillon said.
Jack’s face said that it already had.
“I really thought we’d get them tonight,” he said miserably. He was silent for a few moments as he stewed the situation over in his mind. “Do you think that girl who rang in deliberately sold us duff info to buy them time?” Tyler asked, referring to Jenna Marsh’s phone call.
Dillon shook his head. “No, I think she was genuine,” he said.
When he spoke, Jack sounded deflated. “Me too, so why did they leave so early? I just don’t understand it.”
“Me neither,” Dillon admitted, “but it is what it is and we just have to play the hand we’ve been dealt.”
“Even if Winston does get away,” Kelly said, reaching forward from the back seat to squeeze Tyler’s right shoulder consolingly, “we’ve still got enough evidence to charge Garston and Marley with a joint enterprise murder, and this Rodney boy with assisting an offender.”
“Kelly, darling, that really doesn’t feel like much of a consolation at this moment in time, if I’m honest,” Jack said, placing his left hand over her right.
“I know,” she soothed, “but wherever Winston eventually ends up, we can always apply for an extradition warrant, so I’m sure we’ll get him before the court eventually.”
Jack twisted around and smiled. “That’s one of the many things I like about you, you’re ever the optimist.”
Dillon tried to lighten the mood by talking about football. “I can get us tickets if you fancy a trip to Highbury this weekend,” he said enthusiastically. The Gunners were due to play Sunderland. “Maybe you could bring young Kelly here along and broaden her horizons.”
Kelly grimaced. “You must be kidding, Tony. I’d rather watch paint dry.”
“Let’s take a quick drive past Star Lane on the way home,” Tyler said on a whim.
“What?” Dillon and Kelly blurted out in perfect unison.
“I said, let’s –”
“I bloody well heard what you said,” Dillon interrupted him. “But why would you want to do that? It’s getting on for twenty past eleven now, and we’ve got to be back in for an eight o’clock meeting, which means you’ll want to be at the office by seven-thirty, which means I’ve got to get up at stupid o’clock to collect you, and you’re going to be in a shit awful mood, and –”
“Dill,” Jack said firmly. “The quicker you get us there, the quicker we get home.”
Dillon looked at Kelly in the rear-view mirror. “Don’t just sit there,” he pleaded, “tell him it’s a ridiculous idea.”
“Don’t drag me into this,” she said quickly. Like everyone else on the team, she knew that when these two started arguing like an old married couple, as they were prone to do from time to time, the best thing to do was stay out of it.
“Fine,” Dillon snapped, swinging the wheel around to set them on a new course, “but I don’t know what you’re hoping to achieve, other than making us all feel even more tired and cranky than we already do.”
Jack said nothing. He didn’t have a clue what he was hoping to achieve by taking a detour to Star Lane either, but he felt compelled to do so. Quite often, Tyler liked to spend a few minutes alone at a scene, just soaking up the atmosphere. It didn’t always work, but sometimes it gave him a sense of what had happened and a feeling for the killer. It was almost as if he was subliminally tuning into his quarry’s mind, or perhaps it was more akin to a hunter getting a scent. Maybe, he admitted to himself, that was why he was being drawn to the flat now, because of some weird primal urge. He knew that if he tried to explain that to Dillon, the big man would say it was all poppycock, and that he was just a tired man grasping at straws. Maybe he was right?
They drove in silence, which was a sure sign that Dillon was sulking; he was never that quiet for that long. As they came off the A13 at the Barking flyover, they caught a red light. Dillon pulled up the handbrake with a huff and turned to address Jack for the first time in ages. “This is such a waste of time,” he said belligerently. “If he was on a promise tonight,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at Kelly, “I really hope that you’ll tell him that ship has well and truly sailed.”
“Dill!” Jack exclaimed, but Kelly just laughed.
A battered red car pulled up next to them, screeching to a halt in typical boy racer style. A dreadful racket was coming from its sound system and, almost immediately, the Astra’s chassis began to pulse in time to the bass.
“For fuck sake!” Dillon said, glaring angrily at the hatchback. He couldn’t see inside due to a combination of tinted windows and condensation, but he figured there had to be at least four people in it.
