Simon Kernick - The Crime Trade

When the eight o’clock news headlines came on, all the newsreader talked about was the shootings. She didn’t even bother with an ‘in other news’ section. It was like a domestic September eleven story, something for them to talk about endlessly, along with all the obvious offshoots like gun control, rising crime, drugs, etc. In the end Tina announced she could take no more and leant over to switch to Capital. Celine Dion was warbling meaningfully about true love, and for once in my life I was actually pleased to hear the sound of her voice.

‘I’m really beginning to get tired of this,’ she said.

‘They’re just a bit short of a decent story at the moment. Something else’ll come up soon enough.’ I hoped so anyway. Like her, I could have done without the constant reminder of our part in such a bizarre and tragic event.

We were stuck in heavy traffic on the Holloway Road on our way to her place so she could pick up her car, and it had started to rain again. The weather forecaster at the end of the news said that it was going to be mild with heavy showers and cloudy skies for the next three days, getting brighter towards the end of the weekend. I didn’t believe her. I never do. Weather forecasters are like prison visitors. Nice people, but usually misguided.

I pulled out my mobile and phoned Berrin to see if there’d been any sign of O’Brien during the night, but he wasn’t answering, so I called Knox’s office extension. He wasn’t answering either so I tried him on his mobile, and this time I struck lucky. Or unlucky, depending on your view of the news he had.

‘Sir, it’s Gallan.’

‘John, where are you?’

‘In a car on the Holloway Road moving very slowly and getting rained on.’

‘We’ve had a development. A major one.’ He sounded breathless and pissed off.

‘What is it, sir?’

‘Your man O’Brien. The one who started all this. Someone’s only gone and topped him. And his grandma.’

‘His grandma? That’s a bit harsh, isn’t it?’

‘It’s a harsh world.’

‘Where did it happen?’

‘Over in her apartment. She lived opposite him, in the same flats. We only got the call ten minutes ago, so I’m still at the station. We’re going over to the address now. You need to get over there too. We’ll need a positive ID, although we’re ninety-nine point nine it’s him.’

‘I know where he lives. I’ll meet you there. Do you want me to try and get hold of Tina Boyd?’ I glanced at her as I said this, rolling my eyes. With our relationship a secret down at the station, it wouldn’t have done me any favours to let on that she was sat in the car beside me that early in the morning.

‘If you can, it’ll be a help. Tell her to get over there too.’

I said I would, then hung up.

‘It’s O’Brien, isn’t it?’ she said straight away.

No flies on this girl. I nodded. ‘It looks that way.’

‘Any details?’

‘Nothing at the moment. They only found the bodies twenty minutes ago.’

‘Bodies?’

‘His grandma got killed as well.’ I explained that she lived in the same building as O’Brien.

She sighed. ‘That sounds like a professional job.’

‘I can’t see the timing being coincidental. Let’s get over there. There’s no point going to collect your car. I’ll say I picked you up.’

‘OK, but weren’t Berrin and Hunsdon meant to be watching his place?’

I shrugged. ‘That’s what I thought. Maybe they just weren’t paying attention.’

I indicated, pulled into the bus lane and turned down a side street, taking a short cut in the direction of Slim Robbie and his grandmother’s temporary resting place, wondering just how much more complicated things were going to get.

Slim Robbie O’Brien lived in a first-floor apartment in an immense Georgian townhouse that stood regally on an upmarket residential street just north of Highbury Corner, and an area he knew well, although he’d actually been born a mile away in the less upmarket Barnsbury, one of six children of Irish immigrants from south of Dublin. His parents had died young — his father of a heart attack, his mother of cancer — and his grandmother had come over from Ireland to look after Robbie and one of his sisters, the two youngest of the brood. Robbie had been fourteen at the time and had lived with his beloved gran for four years, before finally moving out to become a violent and integral member of the Holtz crime family, who were already well established in the area. He’d never forgotten what she’d done for him, though, and when he’d bought his current place five years earlier, he’d bought the apartment opposite for her. He’d never been much interested in women, due in part to his size, and the story went that when he wasn’t out drinking or on business he’d be round at her place watching the box and eating her ample helpings of traditional Irish fare. Some of the braver members of the Holtz fraternity had even taken to calling her his girlfriend, which wasn’t an entirely inaccurate summary.

I’d never met her but had heard that she was a good-hearted woman who, though she’d always refused to see any bad in her undeniably sadistic grandson, had never been in trouble in her life, and was spoken of fondly by those who knew her. It seemed a pity that she’d met such an ignominious end, and I hoped that she hadn’t suffered unduly.

When we pulled into Robbie’s street twenty minutes later, a uniformed officer I didn’t recognize in a fluorescent jacket immediately stopped us. Up ahead, the road was closed in front of the house where the murders had occurred and the houses on either side of it, scene-of-crime tape sealing it off from the public. A number of police vehicles and two ambulances were double-parked on either side, while small groups of residents watched the proceedings with rapt, nervous interest from their doorsteps.

I brought down my window and showed the uniform my warrant card. ‘DI John Gallan, and DS Tina Boyd. Any idea how they died?’

‘Shot, I heard,’ he replied, a tone of boredom in his voice.

People get shot all the time these days, particularly in Greater London. Twenty years ago it would have been front-page news. Today, it barely raises an eyebrow.

We parked up behind one of the ambulances, whose two-man crew were leant against it, smoking cigarettes. Over by the front door of the house, I could see DCI Knox standing talking to one of the white-overalled scene-of-crime officers. Knox was looking pissed off, which wasn’t surprising. When you’re as busy as we were, and after a day in which our original legwork had led to a meeting that had ended in six deaths, a double murder in the heart of our patch was not what you’d call helpful.

We got out of the car and walked over. Knox saw us approach and nodded curtly. ‘Morning, John, Tina. This is Sergeant Andy Davies, SOCO. They’re up there now.’

We shook hands all round and I asked Davies what we’d got so far. ‘Two bodies, both IC1. One female, mid to late seventies. One male, early thirties. Both shot in the head from close range. From the look of the injuries, I’d say it was a smallish-calibre weapon, probably a.38. The bodies are in separate rooms. The male appears to have been killed where he’s fallen in the living room, but, from the position of her body, we think the female was moved to the bedroom after she’d been shot.’ He spoke matter-of-factly, in a curiously high-pitched voice that didn’t fit with the rest of him. He was a big man, late forties, with a thick beard and very brown, intelligent eyes. As far as I was concerned, his voice should have boomed.

‘Were they killed at the same time, do you think?’ I asked.

‘Too early to say. The doctor’s up there now doing tests, so we should know fairly shortly.’