Alex Howard - Time to Die

‘Did you ever fight him, Sergeant?’ she asked.

‘No, ma’am. I would have done but, well, the business with my eye put paid to that,’ explained Enver.

Hanlon nodded sympathetically. She placed her hands flat on the table and looked at her fingernails, then she raised her eyes to Enver. Eastman would have slaughtered him, she guessed.

‘So what’s happening with your investigation, Sergeant? Any further forward?’ Hanlon had read most of the reports and spoken to the personnel concerned, but the collective feeling was this was a case that would go nowhere.

Enver shook his head. ‘Because Mr Yilmaz left it three days to report the child missing, we don’t have any CCTV footage from the supermarket. They wipe it after three days. It occupies too much computer storage space. So no footage of the woman and no footage of whatever vehicle was used to move the child. Nothing useful either from any of the staff. He’s also very vague on what the woman he left looking after the boy looked like. “Very brown eyes” and “young”.’ The sergeant rolled his eyes. ‘Mr Yilmaz is not the sharpest knife in the box.’ Hanlon nodded. In one of the case notes, someone had made the comment that Mehmet Yilmaz had learning difficulties. It didn’t make their lives any easier.

‘Ethnicity?’ asked Hanlon.

‘He’s got no idea.’ Enver shrugged. ‘She was wearing a headscarf so he couldn’t see her hair. Not Turkish, Caucasian, that’s as good as it gets.’

‘So you’ve got nothing?’ asked Hanlon.

Enver nodded unhappily. ‘No. Nothing from the supermarket, no witnesses have come forward, no forensic evidence, nothing. We’re going to stage a reconstruction, a walk through, next week, but I’m not optimistic.’ This is London, he thought to himself, not a village. Not only did people not notice things, they didn’t want to notice things. It’s hardwired into the DNA of a city-dweller. If you see trouble, you avert your gaze. We’re in the kingdom of the three monkeys. See no evil. Hear no evil. Speak no evil. This was particularly true in Wood Green, as he knew to his cost. He’d long ago given up saying ‘Somebody must have seen something’. These days he hardly even thought it.

‘Well, at least it’ll refresh people’s memories,’ said Hanlon. ‘Maybe it’ll get it back into the papers.’

Public response to the case had been disappointing. London could be a callous city and it was as if the population had collectively shrugged its shoulders over Ali’s death.

Enver nodded. ‘The e-fit image the father managed to produce is so generic it’s practically useless. She’s got a nose, two eyes and a mouth, that’s about as far as it goes.’

‘So no question of parental involvement in your judgement, Sergeant?’

‘No, ma’am. Of course, it’s complicated by the fact that the child was never officially here, so we have no health visitor records or GP surgery attendance, but the post-mortem exam showed a perfectly healthy child apart from the injuries, sexual in nature, that were inflicted on him prior to his death.’ She looked at him enquiringly and he shook his head. ‘No semen traces, ma’am. No foreign DNA. Anyway, nothing to link the parents. Nothing indicating long-term abuse.’

‘I read the report,’ said Hanlon.

It was sickening, but how could it be otherwise. Aside from the assault itself, what particularly got to her was the way the body had just been tossed in the canal near that number eighteen. It was a kind of boast. It was saying, Look at me. I’ve done it again and I’m going to do it again. And what significance did that number have? Once more she briefly considered going to Corrigan with her feeling that this was linked to the Essex case. Once again she dismissed the idea. When she had more evidence, maybe. Right now, both cases were getting nowhere. What good would her contribution be even if believed? She knew there was a strong lobby that would dismiss anything she suggested simply because it came from her. What could you do? Warn everyone there was a child killer on the loose while the police were powerless to act?

‘I gather it’s unusual, ma’am, for a woman to be involved in what looks like false imprisonment for sexual purposes,’ said Enver.

‘Maybe, but not unknown,’ said Hanlon. ‘Look at the Moors murders for a start. Or Rosemary West.’ She looked again at Enver. ‘What do you think happened, Sergeant?’

‘The child was taken by a woman either dressed in supermarket uniform, or near as damn it, with a reasonably convincing ID hanging round her neck. Either she’d gone there to abduct any old child or she had possibly followed Mehmet Yilmaz there for that purpose. She almost certainly had an accomplice outside with transport. The child was taken to order, ma’am, that’s what I think, and frighteningly efficiently too.’

‘And the disposal of the body? So obviously?’

Enver shrugged. ‘The most popular theory is the rape and murder took place locally. That stretch of canal is a CCTV blackspot; the killer may have known that or may have just got lucky.’ He stroked his moustache. ‘I’d hate to speculate, ma’am. To be honest I can think of three or four reasons to leave it there, including simply it’s as good a place as any. Maybe even just to taunt us.’

Enver’s phone indicated he had a message. He muttered an apology to the DI. He read it and raised his eyebrows. ‘Well, well,’ he said with something approaching excitement in his voice. ‘That was the incident room. Mehmet Yilmaz has finally been in touch to say he’s remembered something about the woman. He wants me there because he wants to make sure he’s understood; his English is not that brilliant, to put it mildly. Ludgate wants me to go and see him at home this afternoon. One o’clock.’

‘That’s encouraging,’ said Hanlon.

‘Yes,’ said Enver. ‘I’m not counting chickens, but at least it’s something. It all sounds very vague.’ Enver nodded. In spite of his reservations, he was pleased. About bloody time too, he thought.

‘I’ll come with you,’ said Hanlon. ‘I’ll see you in the car park at half twelve. I’ll take you.’

Enver nodded and stood up. ‘Thank you, ma’am,’ he said.

Hanlon watched him thoughtfully as he retraced his steps through the obstacle course that was her office. She was beginning to warm to the gloomily efficient, Eeyore-like Sergeant Demirel.

She turned to her laptop and wrote an email to Corrigan, detailing what had been happening on the Yilmaz case. Her unofficial view rather than Ludgate’s version, although, to give the devil his due, Ludgate had handled everything with consummate ability. He’d even reined in his usual, casual racism. His organization had been exemplary, probably better than she could have done. She’d always been poor at administration, and management in general. It’s what she had used Whiteside for.

She added a note praising Enver. Corrigan was always on the lookout for talented, ethnically diverse police. An endorsement from me would probably torpedo Enver’s career chances, she thought, but one from Corrigan could send you on your way up the ladder. She finished her email and pressed send. As she did so, she wondered how Whiteside was getting on.

Whiteside took a seat opposite Sol Cohen. He tried to look journalistic. Although he’d been interviewed innumerable times by journalists, print and TV for various cases, he couldn’t remember what equipment they carried. He’d settled for a notebook. He placed it in front of him, together with his phone. He had a police issue MP3 recorder but thought Cohen might recognize it as such. Through the window came the noise of the London traffic. Once again, he had the feeling, looking at Cohen in this pleasant, airy, book-lined room, of being in an academic’s study, pleasingly isolated from the outside world. Between them lay the desk: modern, sleek, Scandanavian-looking.