9
Number ninety-seven Foxberry Road loomed over Erika as she pulled up outside. It was at the end of a long line of terraced houses, three storeys high, running down from Brockley train station.
She peered up at the top window. Two years previously she’d rented the top floor flat from Marsh, living there during a long cold winter. As well as the shock of a new city and the loneliness of the sparsely furnished flat, a masked intruder had broken in and nearly killed her.
‘You know you could save yourself a lot of hassle and answer your phone, Sir,’ said Erika when he opened the main front door.
‘Hello to you too. And I’m not your boss anymore, so you can drop the Sir.’ He wore thick pyjama bottoms and a faded Homer Simpson t-shirt. ‘Is this work related, or did you bring a bottle?’
‘Yes and no.’
‘You better come in.’
* * *
The small flat hadn’t changed much in the eighteen months since she’d left. It had a smart chilliness with the generic IKEA furniture. Erika avoided looking in the open bathroom door, as she came through the hall to the living room. This was where the deranged serial killer David Douglas-Brown had scaled the back wall of the building, punched out the extractor fan and opened the window. That night she had very nearly died as he wrapped his hands around her throat. She had only been saved by her colleague, DI Moss. She thought of Moss, she missed working with her and her other colleagues in the Murder Investigation Team at Lewisham Row.
This sharpened Erika’s resolve as Marsh indicated she should sit on the sofa. He went to his phone and switched it on, then moved to fill the kettle. Erika sat.
‘Late on Friday I salvaged four million pounds worth of heroin from the bottom of hayes quarry. We’ve linked it to…’
‘Jason Tyler. Yes I saw. Good work, Erika.’
’Thank you. The marine unit also found human remains half buried in the silt on the quarry bed. It’s unrelated to the Tyler case…’ Erika went on to outline what she knew so far.
‘Jesus. You found Jessica Collins?’
Erika nodded. ‘As of yet, no one has been assigned as SIO.’
‘I can sense that you are about to cut to the chase,’ he said opening the tiny fridge and pulling out a bottle of milk.
‘Yes. I need your help please. Make me SIO on the Jessica Collins case.’
Marsh paused with the milk and then slowly opened the carton and began pouring it into two mugs.
‘Have you spoken to your Superintendent?’
‘Yes.’
‘He said no. Didn’t he?’
‘Yes, he did. Paul, Jessica Collins lay at the bottom of a water filled quarry for twenty-six years. She was eleven when she vanished. Her killer is still on the loose…’ Marsh took a deep breath as the kettle boiled and clicked off, the steam hit the underside of the cupboards and began to stream across the ceiling in the tiny living room. ‘Paul. You should have seen her, the skeleton. Part of the head was caved in, bones were broken. She’d been wrapped in plastic and chucked in the water. We don’t know if she was still alive when she went in. It looks like she was still wearing the same outfit when she went missing.’
Marsh poured hot water into a small teapot.
‘The Specialist Casework Investigation Team will be looking at this, and will assign this case where the funds and manpower available,’ he said.
‘You think there’s a team with a free major incident suite sitting around twiddling their thumbs, just waiting for a case like this?’
‘No. But with cutbacks, your Superintendent is probably pushed to breaking point.’
‘Every department in the MET is pushed to breaking point, but this case has to go somewhere. We found the remains in my borough. We have the manpower and resources at Bromley South. I’m the senior officer who found the body. This isn’t a stretch by any means. You’re a Commander now. You can make this happen.’
‘Erika, I have to be careful where I interfere right now. You know Assistant Commissioner Oakley has just taken early retirement? I don’t yet have the same rapport with his replacement.’
‘Who is his replacement?’
‘It’s not being officially announced until tomorrow morning.’
‘Come on, you can tell me. It’s not as if I’ll go and doorstep him…’ Marsh raised an eyebrow. ‘I promise I won’t doorstep him.’
‘Her. The new Assistant Commissioner is Camilla Brace-Cosworthy…’ Marsh stirred the tea in the pot then poured, adding, ‘The look on your face says it all.’
‘Let me guess. She went to Oxford?’
‘No. Cambridge. Joined the force on the accelerated promotion course.’
‘So she’s never been on the beat?’
‘That’s not what it’s about these days.’
‘What do you mean? There are officers out there every day on the beat, cleaning up the shit and the problems. Why is the Assistant Commissioner never anyone who’s worked his or her way up from the bottom? Someone who has had to fight to get where they are, who knows what it’s like? Once again we’ve got someone in charge who knows nothing about life, beyond a small sphere of public school and holidays in the home counties.’
‘That’s not fair. You don’t know her.’
‘And I’m the only one who’ll be thinking it? No. But I’m probably the only one who’s saying it out loud…’
He handed her a mug of tea with a small smile. ’You’ve got a chip on your shoulder.’
‘And?’
‘And. I’m enjoying your rant. It’s quite entertaining when it’s not directed at me.’
‘Look, Paul. I’m aware I can be a dick. If I wasn’t such a dick, I know I’d be a Superintendent by now, hell I may well even be a Chief Superintendent…’
‘Easy now…’
‘But I’ve learned a lesson. Please, can you pull some strings, and get me put on the Jessica Collins case. Think of it as a great thing for the MET police budget. You get my wealth of experience all for the cut price salary of a DCI.’
‘Erika…’
‘I had time to think after the last case. I had time to think about what you said to me, and you were right. I am irresponsible. I do have a poor attitude and I go against authority. But I’m fucking good. And I know I can catch the bastard who did this. He, or she is out there and thinks after all these years they’ve got away with it. But I’m going to get them.’