‘I’m sorry. I thought they were going to steal his briefcase when he put it down on the platform…’
‘They were after his wallet, Tennison! I thought, after seeing all those demos in the yard earlier, you’d understand what we were doing? Thanks to you, we’ve now lost the guy who was probably running this show… that grey-haired man in the black raincoat was our prime suspect.’
Stanley ran his hands through his hair in frustration. His expression cleared a little. ‘Well, I expect the team have arrested the other two, and I am sure they’ll have retrieved the stolen wallet. No thanks to you, Tennison. DCI Church is not going to be a happy man.’
Jane was crestfallen. ‘Sorry, Stanley.’
‘We’ll get the victim back to the station and take his statement.’
The pickpockets’ mark, Clive Hughes, was from a wealthy family. His wallet held over a hundred pounds, as well as quite a few credit cards. Jane asked him to tell her exactly what had happened, but he hadn’t noticed anything untoward, or felt a thing, and he had no idea how they had managed to steal his wallet.
‘Can you describe any of the men who were standing next to you just before the train arrived and we moved in to make the arrests?’
‘No.’
‘Did you feel anyone bump into you?’
‘Not really. The platform was busy and people were all squashed together.’ He paused, then smiled.
‘There was an attractive girl in a mini skirt and low-cut top in front of me. She turned to look at me as if I’d done something to upset her. I felt rather embarrassed…’
‘Embarrassed? Why?’
‘Well, it was as if she thought I had deliberately brushed up against her…’
‘Did you brush up against her, Mr Hughes?’
‘No! I didn’t. I don’t know why, but I said I was sorry and she gave me a warm smile.’
Jane thought about the incident at the underground station. Church had said at the briefing that the dippers usually worked in groups of four to six, yet they had only seen three men acting suspiciously and jointly making the theft. She wondered if the team had been distracted by concentrating on the three men.
‘Can you describe the woman to me in a bit more detail?’
‘D’you think she might be part of the gang that stole my wallet?’
‘I don’t know for sure, but it’s possible that she deliberately distracted you while the others moved in to make the lift.’
‘Oh, my goodness! She was about 5’6”, very young-looking, maybe late teens, with long dark hair. She was tanned… sort of olive-skinned. She was wearing a black mini skirt and low-cut white blouse, with a hip-length fur jacket, which was undone.’
Jane glanced up from her notebook. Clive Hughes seemed to have a detailed recollection of the girl.
‘Her fur jacket was undone?’
‘Deliberately, I suppose, to reveal her cleavage.’
‘Did she say anything to you?’
‘No, not a word.’
When Jane returned to the Dip Squad office, Stanley and Maynard had become frustrated. Their suspect, who had been wearing the heavy leather coat, was refusing to talk. However, they had discovered hidden pockets throughout the lining of his coat containing watches, jewellery, wallets and other trinkets that had all been stolen. Blondie Dunston was instructed to list all the stolen goods, while the younger dark-haired suspect with acne was given a good grilling. Stanley was slapping him around the back of the head.
‘I know you can speak English otherwise you wouldn’t be able to find your way around the Underground or buy a ticket… so, stop fucking us about, and tell us where the guy in the black raincoat has pissed off to.’
‘No hablo ingles, Señor.’
Stanley looked at Maynard.
‘If we know where he’s from we could get an interpreter in.’
‘That’s just going to waste more time… he’s pissing us about. Aren’t you?’
‘Yo no hablo inglés, Señor.’
‘Is he Spanish? He sounds Spanish,’ Maynard muttered.
‘Español?’ Stanley asked.
‘Colombia,’ the suspect replied.
Stanley pushed his face in front of the young man. ‘Oh, a lying thief and a drug dealer then!’
‘Yo no soy traficante de drogas… Yo no soy un ladrón.’
Maynard slapped him again. ‘Stop speaking the Dago language… Speakee de English so we understand. You understand?’
Stanley raised his hand to slap the suspect, but Jane interjected. She had witnessed her male colleagues physically assaulting prisoners before but she never understood why they resorted to violence — it never seemed to get them the information they wanted.
‘Colombians speak Spanish. He said he’s not a drug dealer or a thief.’
There was silence in the room. Both men turned, looked at Jane with surprise and spoke in unison.
‘You speak Spanish?’
‘A little. I did it for A level, but it’s been a few years now… I’m nowhere near fluent.’
‘Well, I’m sure he can understand you, so start asking what we need to know…’
‘You’d be better off getting an interpreter,’ Jane replied.
‘We need answers right now. If we get an address there could be tons of nicked gear there. We’d clear up loads of pickpocket thefts, and it’d be a good result for the team. We need to find the older guy in the raincoat. Thanks to your near miss with the train, he got clean away.’
Maynard, like Stanley, was annoyed with Jane. He turned to the suspect.
‘You obviously just understood what my colleague said about being a drug dealer so I’ll ask you again, you piece of shit… where is all the nicked gear and where’s your older mate?’
Jane moved in between the suspect and Maynard. She spoke slowly.
‘¿Cuál es su nombre?’
‘Miguel Hernández.’
‘Miguel… um… sabemos que había una señorita joven contigo.’
The suspect reacted, looking nervous, and avoided eye contact with Jane. Stanley nudged her.
‘Whatever you just said got to him.’
‘I told him we know there was a young woman working with him.’
‘What’re you talking about, Tennison? It was three men!’ Stanley shouted. ‘And thanks to you one of them got away.’
Jane handed Stanley Clive Hughes’ statement.
‘Read the last paragraph, Stanley. I’d say the woman is part of the gang and was used to distract the victim so the others could dip him.’
‘You saying we’re all blind?’ Maynard asked, angrily.
‘No, I’m saying the platform was so busy we were all concentrating on the mark and the three male suspects… so we missed the female.’
Jane bent down and, placing her fingers under the suspect’s chin, raised it so she had direct eye contact with him.
‘Estos hombres seguirán lastimándote… dime dónde está la mujer y el otro hombre y se detendrá…’
The suspect looked Jane in the eye and was close to tears. She had told him that the officers would continue to hurt him, but if he told her the whereabouts of the girl and other man they would stop. The suspect said nothing and sat looking up at Maynard as he stepped forward with his hand raised. Miguel winced in anticipation but Jane held up her hand to stop Maynard.
‘Let him talk…’
There was a brief pause, then Miguel looked at Jane.
‘Gracias, señorita.’
‘Habla usted Inglés, Miguel?’
‘Yes, I speak leeetle English.’