Barry Maitiland - Spider Trap

He waved an arm across the breadth of the area and, at the windows of the upper classrooms of Camberwell Secondary, dozens of grinning schoolkids waved back at him.

‘What about the age of the remains? Any more information there?’

This was the crucial question; until they had some fix on that it was impossible to focus the investigation, and so far the pathologist had been frustratingly reluctant to commit himself.

‘We’ve definitely ruled out an old burial ground or Blitz victims, as has been suggested. They are modern, probably between ten and forty years old. That’s as close as we can get at present.’

‘So you can confirm that they are murder victims?’

‘That would seem to be the likely conclusion. We have evidence of what appear to be gunshot wounds.’

And two spent cartridge cases, Kathy knew. Just then she felt a hand touch her arm, and turned to see Tom Reeves at her side. She smiled and they moved away from the others so that they could talk.

‘How’s it going?’ he asked.

‘Fine. Aren’t you guarding your mass-murderer?’

‘I got an hour off and decided to come over. They told me you were here. I was worried about you.You were pretty stressed yesterday.’

‘A good night’s sleep helped. But thanks.’

‘Maybe you should talk to somebody.’

‘I did, over lunch yesterday.’ She smiled at him and he grinned back.

‘Look, if you’re going to work around here you need to get some background. How do you fancy some Jamaican food tonight? I know an excellent chef.’

‘That sounds interesting. All right.’

‘Good. This is where I live . . .’ He gave her a handwritten card.‘Can you come there? About seven?’

‘Fine. I’ll phone if I’m delayed.’

‘I’d better get back. See you.’

She watched him stride away, amazed that he’d now divulged both his mobile number and his home address. Maybe he really was giving up the undercover life.

The press conference was breaking up and she waited until Brock was able to get away. They had heard that Adam Nightingale had recovered consciousness and might be fit enough to be interviewed. As she drove him up to Waterloo she described her visit to the Roach compound.

‘Definitely promising. Adonia couldn’t rule out the two girls as her attackers. She was badly shaken up by the attack, and the family has rallied around her,especially the daughter,Magdalen.She seemed very protective of her mother, but I got the impression that she doesn’t get on so well with her father.He stops her smoking around the house and so on. Do we know why she’s still living with them?’

‘Pretty common these days, isn’t it?’

‘Yes. It’s just that I had the impression she was used to her own space. She had to be reminded about the smoking, for instance. I might do some digging. Anyway, there was one definite flaw in their story. Adonia said they were particularly upset that the thieves snatched her necklace, a very personal gift from Ivor when Magdalen was born, but that she found it again under the floor mat of the car when it was returned. I checked with the forensic team that dealt with it, and they say that’s impossible, they would have found it first.’

‘Can we believe them?’Brock asked.‘People are under pressure, sometimes they cut corners.’

‘He sounded pretty convincing to me. Apparently, at the stage they went over the car there was still doubt about how serious Adonia’s injuries would turn out to be, and they treated it as a potential murder scene.’

‘So you’re thinking that Vexx recovered the necklace for Ivor, who slipped it into the car for Adonia to find later?’

‘Something like that. It’s plausible.’

‘Ivor would have to have been pretty crazy to get involved personally in the murders. The Roaches are so-called respectable businessmen now, although they always did take personal affronts very hard.’

‘We could look for indirect contact, then,’ Kathy said.‘Phone records. If Ivor asked Vexx to track down the people who stole his wife’s car, there’d be a phone call when he succeeded.’

‘Certainly worth a look. And how has time dealt with Adonia? She was very attractive, I remember.’

‘Not too bad, she’s still very handsome, but pretty jittery underneath. I think the car-jacking shook her up more than she’s realised.’

‘Or maybe just being married to Ivor has.’

‘Well, her daughter Magdalen’s the glamorous one now.’

‘I don’t remember a daughter.Do you know what Adonia did?’

‘No?’

‘She was a beautician-for the dead. Her father Cyrus ran a funeral parlour, next to the Ship pub on Cockpit Lane. Young Adonia could make the most ravaged corpse look beautiful.’

They had reached the Albert Embankment. Across the river the finials of the Houses of Parliament bristled dark against the heavy sky, like a long rank of bayonets.

Kathy pondered.‘All the same, it’s hard to believe the Roaches would have had two kids killed like that because they roughed up Adonia and stole her car.’

‘Nothing would surprise me about the Roaches, Kathy.’

‘Are you going to tell Keith Savage?’

‘DCI Savage wants to shift the focus of his team’s efforts to Harlesden. I think I’ll leave him to it until we have something more definite. Were there any witnesses to the car-jacking, or fingerprints on the recovered car?’

‘It seems not.’

Mrs Nightingale was at Adam’s bedside, looking like a permanent fixture, and scowled at the arrival of the two detectives, as if they could only have come to make further trouble for her son.The boy seemed remarkably unscathed, peering through his thick glasses at an electronics magazine, trying to avoid eye contact with the visitors while his mother fussed.

They chatted for a while, about the burn on Adam’s leg and his memory of what had happened. He told them that he had noticed fox tracks in the snow on the waste ground from the classroom window, and wanted to follow them to their hide before the snow melted and he lost the chance. His mother harangued him for his foolishness, but neither Brock nor Kathy was quite convinced by his explanation.

Finally Brock abandoned his questions and took a leather wallet out of the pocket of his coat. He offered it to Adam and said,‘I’m told you’re a chess player, Adam. Have you seen one of these before?’

The boy opened it cautiously. Inside, the leather had been formed into a grid of tiny pockets, eight by eight, into which fitted slivers of black and white plastic, printed with the symbols of chess pieces.

‘It’s a travelling chess set,’ Brock said.‘Have you got one?’

The boy shook his head, raising a sceptical eyebrow as he examined the little pieces.

‘It’s yours,if you want it,’Brock said.‘I haven’t used it in ages.’

Adam looked at him dubiously, then at his mother.

‘You can give me a game, if you like,’ Brock added.

Mrs Nightingale’s nose screwed up with suspicion. ‘I expect you’ve got more important things to do with your time, sir.’

‘I was up half the night,’ Brock sighed, stretching his back. ‘I don’t mind a break for five minutes.’

‘Good idea,’Kathy said.‘Why don’t you and I get a cup of tea, Mrs Nightingale?’ She took the woman’s arm before she could refuse. Brock reached over to the little chessboard and took a black and a white piece, one in each hand, shuffled them behind his back and asked Adam to pick one. The boy pointed at the hand holding the white, and made the first move. The game developed routinely, Adam carefully studying each move, trying to work out how good his opponent was, until the detective suddenly pushed a bishop forward to attack. Adam moved a knight to counter-attack, and after considering this for a moment Brock seemed to lose interest in his attack and moved a pawn on the other side of the board. Adam saw a major mistake. He poked his glasses back on his nose and kept his face expressionless as he made sure.Yes,the copper had definitely screwed up. He moved his knight forward to take the bishop. Brock frowned briefly, then abruptly moved one of his own knights, right into the path of Adam’s queen. Adam swiftly took that too, elated at what he would tell Jerry. This guy was supposed to be smart, he’d just seen him live on telly, and Adam was wiping the floor with him.