COVER BLOWN: covert police work clashes with a murder investigation

  COVER BLOWN

  Covert police work clashes with a murder investigation

  IAN ROBINSON

  Published by

  THE BOOK FOLKS

  London, 2021

  © Ian Robinson

  Polite note to the reader

  This book is written in British English except where fidelity to other languages or accents is appropriate.

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  We hope you enjoy the book.

  Contents

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Also in this series

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  PROLOGUE

  Melissa Phelps’s day had been one she wished to forget. As CEO of an advertising firm in London, stress and work-related grief came with the territory. Some days were worse than others and today happened to be one of them. Melissa had one final plan in mind: to soak the evening away in her deep, cast iron bath. As she exited the lift of her third floor Thames-side domain she fumbled in her bag. Her phone was there. The corridor was peaceful. As she walked, she heard the faint sound of music coming from one flat and the sound of laughter from another. These noises meant she was home. Home to the safe environment she’d loved and nurtured since she’d purchased the flat.

  As she approached her door, the sensor on her lock recognised her phone and she pushed it open and entered her home. It was the security system that had attracted her to the block. The modern technology meant that any friends or family she’d arranged to have visit could enter by the click of a button. Wherever she was in the world, with the press of her phone’s screen, she could let them in.

  She entered her flat, dispensed with her shoes, and dropped her handbag to the floor. She pursed her lips and made a kissing sound. She expected her ragdoll cat, James, to come for a cuddle. There was no approach or mewing for food. She suspected he was putting the covered litter tray to use. She hung her coat and shuffled a deck of mail the concierge had handed her at the communal reception.

  She caught a glimpse of herself in the hall mirror, and doubled back and paused before she entered her bathroom. Her attention was caught by what she thought was movement coming from her bedroom. A shadow had masked the light coming from the window that leaked through the crack between frame and door. She ignored it, suspecting it was the cat.

  She headed to the bathroom, undressed, and sat on the edge of the bath. She turned the ornate dials on the hot and cold water taps. Once she was satisfied all was in order, she strode through to the kitchen confident in her naked body. Privacy glass in the windows provided sanctuary from prying eyes. She poured herself a tall glass of red wine as she listened to the drum of the bath water as it cascaded from the waterfall tap into the cast iron bath.

  Again, she heard movement. A creaking of wood, as though a door was being opened. She walked through to her bedroom and scanned the empty room. Nothing untoward. Just her double bed, a chest of drawers, and a built-in wardrobe that spanned the wall and was a good depth to hold her many coats. She returned to the kitchen, grabbed her glass of wine and went back to the bathroom, where she checked the water’s temperature and ran the pinkish fluid through her manicured hands. The tint in the water was courtesy of a lavender bath bomb she’d added as a last-minute luxury. She slipped into the water and relaxed her neck and head on the roll top edge.

  The smell of lavender was replaced by leather, as a gloved hand grasped her mouth and forced her head underwater. She thrashed against the pressure being asserted from above, and as she opened her eyes, a dark blur towered over her, the shape disrupted by the glint of teeth. Teeth that appeared as though they’d been wired into a callous grimace. Her assailant’s eyes hazed in the water. The hands that held her throat pushed harder as they pressed her head against the floor of the bath. Melissa tried to scream but the pressure on her throat rendered any effort worthless. She felt her world slow. The echo of her water-filled scream subsided to nothing.

  CHAPTER ONE

  By the time DI Pippa Nash arrived on scene, her cohort, DS Nick Moretti, was already there along with a SOCO and a uniform officer, who’d been the first responder as a result of a 999 call from a neighbour in the flat below. A neighbour whose bathroom ceiling was a canvas of lavender bath bomb. The victim’s bath had no overflow outlet. The neighbour had called the block’s maintenance engineer to shut the water off after discovering his new ceiling art.

  The engineer had gained access to the flat, seen the apparently lifeless body of a woman in the bath, and asked the neighbour to call the police.

  Nash and Moretti kept an appropriate distance from the doorway to the bathroom while they observed Yvonne Campbell the SOCO, and the photographer work their magic. If forensics could pull the killer out of the sodden hat then all would be well in Nash and Moretti’s world.

  ‘How was your holiday?’ Nash asked Moretti, her bright eyes visible above the forensic face shield.

  ‘Over too soon, but a much-needed break after the last job,’ he replied.

  ‘If I could have some space please?’ The pathologist, Dr King, had arrived carrying a Dictaphone. ‘Messy one?’ he asked as he observed the victim’s forehead below the waterline.

  Her arms were splayed alongside her svelte body. He looked at his watch, nosed the air, and began to dictate into the machine.

  Moretti and Nash moved away. Dr King needed space as the bathroom was an average size for these dwellings and had not been designed with the purpose of accommodating a team of murder detectives. They moved into the living room, and observed the city triptych from the split window. A clear view across the Thames towards Battersea greeted their eyes. Searches continued in all rooms of the flat on Nash’s direction; the victim’s laptop and phone already bagged up and placed in a blue plastic crate for onward journey to the unit’s base.

  ‘Any thoughts?’ Moretti asked Nash.

  ‘Other than working out who her friends are – family, lifestyle, the usual stuff – I’m pretty open-minded. There was no forced entry, so she either knew the killer and let them in, or the killer managed to gain access them
selves. No signs of a struggle from the rooms we’ve seen, and Yvonne reckons she was killed in the bath from the water that’s landed on the tiles and wall opposite. Obviously, we’ll wait on Dr Death to confirm everything, but it all seems pretty contained. The flat’s well kept. Very ordered indeed,’ she said as a shout came from the direction of the second bedroom.

  Moretti went through and Nash followed. Inside the bedroom was an officer known as JJ. He cradled a white ball of fluff in his arms that tested the durability of the XXL forensic suit’s material. The contrast between the small amount of brown skin visible through his face shield, and the fur of the cat he was holding would’ve made a wonderful picture.

  ‘Found her under the bed. I nearly shit myself when I looked and these bold blue eyes stared right back at me,’ he said as he nodded at the cat’s face. ‘What do you want me to do with her?’

  The cat nestled its head into his armpit seeking comfort from the warmth of his body.

  ‘She likes you, JJ, look at her nuzzling you,’ Nash said, as she kept her distance. Her body’s tolerance for anything feline was weak. She didn’t relish a sneezing fit while at a crime scene.

  ‘No way. I’m not taking it home,’ came his reply.

  ‘It needs a new home now, JJ, and look at you… you’re a natural cat person…’ Moretti said, his smile hidden by his face shield.

  ‘The cat will go to the RSPCA until we can establish if a family member will take her,’ Nash said. ‘Stick it in a spare exhibit crate but make it comfortable. We don’t want to lose it. Get one of the inside team to contact the RSPCA and they can pick it up.’

  Moretti found a towel and some toys and placed them in the crate before JJ gently placed the cat inside and closed over the lid. He left a gap for the cat to breathe as he taped the lid in place.

  The bedroom they were in had been used for storage. It contained a single bed, a desk, and a gap where the victim’s laptop had sat before they’d bagged it up. This is how a victim’s life became once Nash’s team arrived. Their sanctuary invaded, yet again, by unwanted visitors. Nash would ensure they examined every minutiae of the victim’s lifestyle in an effort to establish who she was, who had killed her, and why. Intention, mind-set and motive were the key elements in any successful prosecution and that was her team’s ultimate goal.

  She checked her watch, an old Rolex left to her by her mum. It showed 10 p.m. A good time for her house-to-house detectives to catch people at home. They may have seen or heard something suspicious. She knew it was the type of building where people would come and go at odd times. You couldn’t live here without money, and with money came a certain lifestyle that rarely saw people at home. This would be an issue in tracing any witnesses. She hoped the camera system employed in the block would provide a lead. Nash waited for Dr King to surface from the bathroom and provide her with an idea as to time and cause of death.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Dr King vacated the bathroom and Nash and Moretti joined him in the hallway. He pulled down his facemask and they did the same.

  ‘I can’t tell you much more than you’ve already surmised. She was strangled in the bath. There are thumbprints and fingermarks around her aorta, and the splash patterns on the wall are consistent with her arms flailing. Poor woman. The killer was determined it would work first time. There was significant pressure applied from what I can deduce in this setting. I’ve placed an initial time of death at between 5 and 7 p.m. I’ll expect one of you at the post-mortem, which I intend to conduct first thing tomorrow. If you happen to arrest someone do let me know and I’ll get in earlier than my planned eight o’clock start. I wish you luck,’ King said as he nodded at the officer on the door to the flat to be released.

  ‘Well, that was no help,’ Moretti remarked once he was confident King wouldn’t return.

  ‘He’s a professional man and very good at his job. He wants the killer caught as much as we do. If there was anything else that would assist us, he’d say,’ Nash replied as Jonesy entered the flat and stood in the hall.

  ‘What’s that?’ Nash asked, pointing at the CCTV hard drive that he was holding.

  ‘It’s the main CCTV system for the block. Where’s Mike? He’s the designated exhibits officer, isn’t he? I need to book it in with him,’ Jonesy said.

  ‘Why don’t we just get the techies out and copy it?’ Moretti asked him.

  ‘Because it’s broken, according to Mr High and Mighty on the front desk,’ Jonesy said.

  ‘Phone up technical and see if the hard drive can still be imaged or if they can repair the unit in order to access it. The exhibit stores are too full,’ Nash said.

  ‘Uh-Unh. I’m not going back to that prick and handing it over. It took all of my interpersonal skills to get access to it in the first place. If I take it back now it will look like he’s won,’ he said.

  ‘Jonesy, what did you do down there? I asked you to go and see what was on the CCTV, not take the whole system!’ Nash exclaimed.

  Jonesy looked from Nash to Moretti and back again as if they were playing tennis.

  ‘Right – fine!’ Jonesy shook his head and turned towards the door to the flat. ‘I’ll make the call, as you directed, but if the concierge carries on like before, he’s coming in.’ It was his final retort and Nash bit.

  ‘You nick him, Jonesy, and you’ll be inside filing actions before you can blink. Grow up,’ came Nash’s response, as she levelled her index finger at him.

  ‘Waste of time,’ Jonesy muttered, as he exited the door, his overshoes getting rucked up on his soft-soled, brown leather brogues that caused him to stumble.

  ‘Fuck,’ he exclaimed, as he maintained his balance, the overshoe now ripped as he limped out of the flat.

  Nash turned to Moretti who, once the door shut behind Jonesy, let her shoulders go and bent forward in laughter, her hands on her knees. A moment that soon dissipated as she looked up and saw the bath and they both remembered where they were.

  ‘Let’s crack on. He’ll be fine,’ Nash said, as she pulled up her mask.

  * * *

  It was 4 a.m. by the time Nash finished briefing her team back at Hendon and set a plan for later that morning. The initial sweep of house-to-house in the surrounding area and in the block had produced very little. The movement of people in the area was vast with major building projects within spitting distance of the apartment block. That, and the usual host of commuters, made the task of tracing a witness, or suspect, huge.

  The concierge supplied a statement. It amounted to the time he’d started his shift and those he’d observed enter and exit the building. All told, this amounted to: a few residents from the upper floors, a postman, a British Telecom engineer and the regular procession of nannies and cleaners employed to make the residents’ lives easier. All of which led to zero leads at the present time.

  The concierge said that at quiet times he sat in the back room where the CCTV was situated and read. Anyone could have come in and he wouldn’t have realised.

  The door to the main entrance was controlled by an app on the residents’ mobile phones. Once they held it up to the entrance, they were granted access. Simple yet effective and suited those within the block as they never left without their phones, ever. It was all part of being a Londoner. Contact was essential whatever the time of day or night. Unfortunately, residents were also known to let anyone in behind them who looked official.

  The CCTV’s hard drive had been brought back after all. The technicians were so overworked their mobile response unit wasn’t available.

  Nash pushed two of the comfortable seats together in her office and was unfurling a sleeping bag when Moretti knocked on her door.

  ‘I’m popping home for a few hours’ kip then I’ll go straight to the post-mortem. I’ll call you when it’s done,’ he explained.

  Nash kicked off her shoes. The whites of her usually bright eyes were streaked with red lines as she fought the desire for sleep. Her eyelids wrestled with her brain as she resiste
d their closure. She nodded in agreement and he left her to it. Moretti closed her door. Nash killed the light. She settled into the makeshift bed and stared at the tiles in the ceiling. She wished she was the one to be going home but she’d never allow herself that luxury when a new job broke. She relented to her body’s desire for sleep and closed her eyes. It wasn’t long before she drifted off. The low hum of the emergency light that glowed in the corner of her office provided the only comfort beyond the thin fabric of the sleeping bag.

  * * *

  The sound of a hoover was her alarm. An alarm she could’ve done without at 5:30 a.m. when she’d had it in mind to get up at seven. She grabbed a towel and wash supplies she kept in her office and left to shower. A clean change of clothes dangled from a bent wire hanger that hung from the top of the doorframe. She’d placed the clothes there in readiness for occasions like these when she wouldn’t return home. She hadn’t slept well as the chairs didn’t provide the greatest of comfort at the best of times, and her mind was still active with lines of enquiry she needed to address.

  The image of Melissa in the bath had occupied her mind, as she’d run through the flat’s contents: diaries, photos, journals, bills. Anything that could be of use to build up a picture of the victim’s movements and associates had been seized.

  Once dressed, she visited her office manager, George Sagona, a larger-than-life ex-detective who’d returned as a civilian to the same role he’d been doing for the past ten years of his service. One day he was a detective, the next he was police staff. Other than that, nothing had changed for him. Nash set down a coffee in front of his keyboard and he quickly moved it away. Computer health and safety a bugbear of his. He’d established what information had come in overnight but Sagona didn’t officially start work until 8 a.m. Eight o’clock, the golden time when most squads deemed it reasonable to begin a day. Nash’s team had different ideas and had already started to drift in.