‘I’ll be a minute or two yet—’
‘What exactly are you doing?’
‘Looking for something.’
‘Looking for what?’
‘I’ll know if I find it.’
She walked off, leaving Cam shaking his head in frustration.
As Jane waited in Aylmer Road, Fiona came out of the pub.
‘Pete’s just finishing his game of pool and said he’ll be two minutes... Hello, Betty, you all right?’
Jane turned to see who Fiona was speaking to and saw a frail elderly woman with a hunched back walking slowly and pulling a canvas shopping trolley.
‘No, I bloody ain’t, Fi,’ Betty replied in a strong cockney accent. ‘I couldn’t get me shoppin’ done what with all that ’oo-’a goin’ on outside the bank this mornin’. If I was forty years younger, I’d ’ave ’ad a go at them bleedin’ robbers.’
‘It was terrible, Betty, but thankfully no one got badly hurt—’
‘Oh, I’m glad to ’ear that. The sound of that gun goin’ off was deafenin’, and I honestly thought the young man who was lyin’ on the pavement screamin’ was a goner.’
Jane turned to Fiona. ‘It sounds like she witnessed the robbery — I’d better have a word with her.’
‘It’s OK, your DI Kingston’s dealing with her. Do you fancy a bottle of stout on the house, Betty?’
‘I gotta get this shoppin’ in the fridge, but I’ll ’ave it when I come in later.’
She shuffled off.
As Fiona returned to the pub, a man dressed in blue coveralls came out and held out a set of car keys to Jane.
‘I’d better not drive the van as I’ve had three pints, officer. I was going to leave it here and pick it up in the morning.’
‘I won’t tell anyone if you don’t.’ She smiled.
As Pete got in his van, Jane asked him to reverse back about ten feet as the area behind him was clear. He started the engine, disengaged the handbrake and moved slowly backwards. As Jane watched the front nearside wheel rotating, she saw a squashed two-inch-long soggy-looking brown object stuck to the wheel.
‘Stop!’ she shouted, banging her fist on the side of the van.
Pete hit the brake pedal.
‘Christ, have I run over another cat? That’ll be the second one this week!’ he said, ashen-faced.
‘No, there’s something stuck to the front wheel that I need to remove and have a closer look at. Stay where you are, it’ll only take me a second to get it off.’
Jane removed a small exhibits bag from her coat pocket and, using her pen, slowly prised the brown object from the wheel and it dropped into the bag. Looking closely at it, she was reasonably sure it was what she’d hoped to find. To be certain she opened the bag and took a deep sniff. Not only did the object look like a squashed cigar butt — it also smelt like one.
Chapter Seven
It was raining again as Dabs opened the security gate to the rear of the building so Cam could drive in and park up.
‘It would make it a damn sight easier if they left the bloody gate open while the office is manned,’ Cam moaned.
Jane said nothing as she handed Cam the house-to-house folder, then got the bag of exhibits from the boot of the car and ran across the yard to join Dabs. He was entering the number code on the rear entrance keypad. She put the bag down, got out her pocket notebook and pen and asked him what the code was.
‘They’re easy to remember. It’s 1066 for the front door and gate and 1812 for the back — Battle of Hastings and the Battle of Waterloo,’ Dabs told her, entering the numbers.
But when he turned the handle nothing happened.
‘Waterloo was 1815, you dunce,’ said Cam, as he pushed past Dabs and Jane to enter the right code.
‘Sorry, I was listening to Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture while I was driving to work this morning.’
‘You like classical music then?’ Jane asked.
‘Yes, very much. I quite often go to concerts at the Royal Albert Hall.’
‘It soothes the savage beast in him.’
Cam smirked as he shoved the door open and entered the building. He made no effort to hold the door open, and as it was on a hinged spring, it would have hit Jane if Dabs hadn’t put his hand out just in time.
‘Where’s your manners, Cam?’ Dabs said, as he held the door open for her.
Cam mumbled an apology, said he needed a ‘Jimmy Riddle’ and turned left to go down the concrete and worn green lino-covered stairs to the basement toilets.
The hallway and stairwell walls were painted a puke green, which couldn’t disguise the patches of mold, and a damp smell filled the air. Jane was a bit surprised to find the interior of the building was in a worse condition than any police station she’d worked in before.
‘Sorry about Cam — he can be a right surly git at times. He gets frustrated at not being involved in the investigative side of things. Mind you, he is a good driver.’
‘You don’t need to apologize for Cam’s behavior. If he wants to be an investigator he should apply to become a detective and stop moaning.’
Dabs put his hand on Jane’s arm.
‘Mind you don’t slip on that wet patch. We’ve got a leaky roof, which was supposed to have been repaired weeks ago, and some of the stairs to the top floor are a bit wet as well. The cleaner does her best to keep on top of it, but she can’t predict the rain unfortunately.’
‘Was this building ever a working police station?’
‘No, it used to be an office block with a woodwork factory on this floor where they made doors. The company went bust and the building lay empty until the Met bought it specifically for the Flying Squad a few years ago. As you can see, it needs some repair work and a lick of paint, but it’s much better upstairs in the squad office.’
‘Who uses the downstairs?’
‘The surveillance team — though one section of it is used as a lock-up for the exhibits we seize during our investigations.’
‘What — like guns and ammunition?’
‘Yes, among other things. They go up to the firearms unit lab first for examination and when they’ve finished with them we store them here.’
‘The building doesn’t look very secure,’ Jane said, having seen the outside in the morning.
‘Believe me, it is, especially the exhibits room, which has an alarm linked to central control at the Yard. We had a case a year ago where a criminal did try and break in. He wanted to get the gun he used in a robbery so there was no evidence against him, but he was caught in the act and got an extra three years on his sentence when he was found guilty.’
Jane followed Dabs up the flight of stairs to the top floor landing, which was decorated similarly to the ground floor, though the mold on the walls and smell of damp were not so pronounced.
‘Through the first door on the right there’s a small kitchen area with a fridge, electric cooker and a kettle. Would you like a coffee?’
Jane said she was fine and Dabs continued.
‘Next to it is the ladies’ toilet.’ Dabs pointed to a door that had an A4 sheet of paper taped to it and KP’s TOILET written in large black letters. ‘She’ll have to add JT to that notice now,’ he joked, and Jane smiled. ‘The squad office is down the end on the left and opposite is my office with all my equipment and a forensic examination area. Though I do go into the main office quite a bit for a chat and office meetings.’
‘How many are on the team?’
‘Not including the surveillance team, there’s twelve in total. Ten detectives — that’s including the two Governors and you, PC Murray the driver and myself as the SOCO.’
As Jane followed Dabs she saw a wooden plaque screwed to a door and knew it was the squad room. On the plaque was a golden eagle, with its talons outstretched as if about to grab its prey. Above the eagle were the words THE FLYING SQUAD and below it NEW SCOTLAND YARD written in gold lettering. She knew the swooping eagle was the emblem of an elite unit, which had gained a reputation for courage and determination in opposing the most violent of London’s armed robbers and hardened criminals. She touched the plaque with her hand, not for luck, but because she felt immense pride in being the first woman detective posted to the Flying Squad in its sixty-year history.