Simon Kernick - The Murder Exchange

I wasn’t sure how much use it was finding out that Jean Tanner, ex or current prostitute, had visited the flat of a known drug dealer on more than one occasion, even if he had supplied her with coffee, but at least it was something. However, our good fortune, if good fortune it could be called, didn’t last very long. On the way to Jean’s place there was an accident on the Caledonian Road that held us up for getting close to half an hour in steadily increasing heat. Then Berrin, who was in charge of navigation on the basis that I didn’t trust him behind the wheel in the state he was in, got us lost in the backstreets of East Finchley. By the time we finally tracked down the address — a flat in an ultra-modern, heavily alarmed four-storey block that sat like an eyesore between the Georgian town-houses on either side of it — it was almost half eleven. And, after all that, she wasn’t in.

We had six more addresses to visit that day, all of them doormen who had worked at one time or another in the past six months at Arcadia. The list had been supplied by the proprietor of Elite A, a Mr Warren Case, himself a one-time doorman. We’d interviewed Case, who could fairly be described as a man of many sovereign rings, the previous afternoon at his home, an untidy third-floor flat in Barnsbury which also doubled as Elite A’s offices. Case had shown us Elite A’s certificate of incorporation and VAT registration, both with his name on it, and had provided us with a list containing nine names. Two of them had already been interviewed during the course of the investigation, and another had left the country for Australia more than a month before the murder and was, as far as Case knew, still there. He’d given us the addresses of everyone else and then we’d been on our way. As we’d left, I’d asked him how well he’d known Roy Fowler. ‘Well enough to know that he was a slimy cunt,’ he’d replied evenly. Which was probably a fair enough description, but made me think that if you’ve got a man like Case saying that about you, then you’ve really got problems. Although, of course, at that time I didn’t know the half of it.

We hadn’t phoned ahead to warn any of the interviewees we were coming, which was not untypical practice in a murder inquiry. It was unlikely that any of them would know anything of real help, but if they did and they didn’t want to talk, a surprise visit would help to prevent them making up a convenient story. However, it also meant that, like Jean Tanner, they might not be there when we called, particularly on a hot summer’s day like this one, and not surprisingly the first two on the list weren’t, while the third was just going out as we arrived. He’d only worked with Matthews on a handful of occasions, and claimed he couldn’t really recall too much about him. ‘He was a bit of a wanker, I remember that much,’ he told us, which wasn’t exactly news. Him and Fowler must have been a right pair of cards.

By the time we left him it was gone one o’clock and food called. We stopped at a Greek-owned sandwich place off the Finchley Road, and ate in relative silence, both feeling worn down by the drudgery of detective work.

‘You know, don’t get me wrong, Sarge,’ said Berrin between mouthfuls of turkey, salad and mayo baguette, ‘but I thought that there’d be more excitement to murder investigations. I don’t mean that it should be fun or anything, but it just seems to be the same sort of monotony that you always get.’

I chewed thoughtfully on my ham and pickle sandwich. It was quite tasty except for the fact there was too much fat on the ham. ‘Dave, if it was really like it was on The Sweeney , no one would ever leave, would they?’

‘I know. I just wish it felt like we were getting somewhere, that’s all.’

He had a point, and at that moment I felt the same way. It would have been a good day to sit out in the garden with a decent book, catching a bit of sun and letting the world drift idly by. Or maybe even to take my daughter out somewhere, making the most of the fact that she was still young enough not to look at me with a teenager’s wincing embarrassment. But I’d learnt long ago that you don’t do policework for the laughs or the job satisfaction. You do it for the desire to put away criminals, which basically is an end in itself. I could see, though, that Berrin, who was still new enough to think there was a lot more to it than that, was flagging and needed a bit of an interest injection.

‘This Jean Tanner’s got herself a nice pad,’ I said, taking a sip from my mineral water and wishing it was beer. ‘How much do you reckon it’s worth?’

‘Just the location’s got to be worth a fair bit. The thing is, we don’t know what her actual place is like.’

‘Well, say it’s a one-bedroom flat. It’s a nice area of Finchley, it’s still got to be worth — shit, I’m no estate agent, help me out here.’

‘Two hundred grand. Maybe more.’

‘And it’s probably bigger than one bedroom. I don’t reckon we’d be looking much short of two fifty. That’s a lot of money for a prostitute, the type who hangs about with a lowlife like Shaun Matthews. Particularly if she’s got a drugs habit.’

‘So what are you saying?’

And this was where the interest went out of the injection. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘It just seems odd.’

The fourth address was on a residential road of run-down whitebrick terraces, less than half a mile away from Highbury stadium. The traffic was appalling on the way there, mainly due to the fact that Arsenal were playing at home, and it was half two and about ninety degrees when we finally parked up almost directly outside the lower ground-floor flat of Craig McBride. According to Case, McBride had worked for Elite A for the best part of a year in a freelance capacity and was still used by them at fairly regular intervals. He was twenty-seven years old and had prior convictions for ABH, threatening behaviour, theft, and possession of Class A and B drugs, a fact that had been discovered when we’d run his name through the computer. It wasn’t strictly legal any more for someone with his record to be employed as a door-man, unless he’d somehow convinced the council that he was a reformed character, which I doubted. But I knew it happened, and for the moment it wasn’t worth taking the matter up with Warren Case.

A set of greasy steps led down to McBride’s abode. The front door was shabby, the once-white paint peeling off in strips to reveal dull-coloured wood beneath, while an ancient-looking hanging basket containing nothing but dry earth and a cluster of weeds hung limply from one of the outside walls. There was a small dirty window to the right of the door. I wondered briefly whether it had ever been cleaned. It didn’t look like it. Straightening my tie, I peered through it and immediately my spirits lifted. Eureka. Just what we needed.

Within a Western country’s somewhat limited means of coercion, there’s no surer way of getting someone to talk than to give them the alternative of criminal charges, and it looked like Craig McBride was indulging in an activity that left him very much exposed to the latter. Even through the stains on the window, I could clearly make him out sitting on a sofa in his front room behind a coffee table on which a plate piled with white powder was sat. Next to the plate was a large tub of baking soda, and next to that were small transparent plastic wraps, each containing more of the powder. Sherlock that I was, I hazarded a guess that the contents of each one weighed pretty much exactly a gram. McBride himself, dressed only in a pair of shorts, was leaning forward, head down, fiddling with what looked like a small electronic weighing machine. As if confirmation of what he was doing was needed. Criminal mastermind young Craig was not. He might as well have put up a sign on the road saying ‘Drugs this way’, such was his total and utter recklessness. Never underestimate the stupidity of criminals. Sometimes it’s the only thing that keeps a lot of us going.