Faced with more violence from her partner, Stacey Hendrix sought a permanent solution to her problems when she saw a way out.
Chapter 1
Stacey Hendrix stood in the tiny staff room that overlooked the Thames Estuary in the beech café on Southend Seafront. It was the middle of January, and customers were few and far between. The midsummer sounds of the children, the pleasure beach and the ever-present seagulls were a distant memory of warmer days. Now, all she could hear was the slow progress of the occasional car on the Western Esplanade, the passengers enjoying the last of the winter sunshine.
Five minutes earlier, her boss had smiled at her.
‘You take a breather; I’ll hold the fort.’ Frank had said. ‘If we get a rush, I’ll know where you are.’
He said she was a bit down and should enjoy their leisure centre, a two-metre square of privacy at the back of the café adjacent to the toilet. But it had a comfortable old chair, with the stuffing almost in place, a window over the Thames Estuary and a mirror.
‘A bit down. Jesus, you’d look a bit down.’ She turned to the mirror and ran her thin hand through her hair, then touched the dark mark under her eye with the tips of her finger and winced as a stab of pain shot through her cheek. She tried again in a slightly different place.
‘There, nothing broken. Some concealer and powder will cover that.’ She applied the cosmetics, ‘another black eye averted.’ She stood back. ‘Not too bad for nearly forty.’ She pulled the skin off her cheek and knew she should use more moisturiser. ‘But most people who live by the sea should use face cream.’ Stacey mumbled to herself. She had a tall, sculpted face that, fifteen years ago, with the right make-up, looked stunning. People said, with her height, she could have walked down any catwalk in Europe.
‘And I can do the stuff.’ She tossed her head, and her short hair flicked sideways. ‘All the girls in my finishing school said that.
If anyone asked her she would just shrug and say, ‘Ah, well, you know …’ It was all that she would say about her youth. She held her hands around her waist. ‘I’m still a size ten.’ She stood taller, feeling a slight bulge around her mid-rift.
Stacey looked back at her hollow cheeks and the dark rings around her eyes and wondered if she was losing too much weight. A month earlier, Kyle had said a partner needed to stay fit. And she knew what he meant. He had dumped two partners already, and she knew he would not think twice about dumping her if he found a better prospect.
‘You and your bloody prospects mean I have to do double shifts just to pay the rent while you sit at home and watch the racing.’
‘You okay, Stacey?’ Frank’s voice filtered through Honey FM, which Frank played to the punters in the café.
‘Just coming.’
‘I think we’ve got a coach load coming in.’ All trades have a language of their own. In a seafront café, anything more than a small family coming in at the same time was referred to as a coachload. Although she and Frank both knew he meant a family with three children rather than the standard boy and a girl.
‘God knows what you’d do if a coachload did turn up.’ She mumbled as she applied a little more concealer and foundation to her face.
‘There, ten years younger, and no one will notice the scaffold and wet paint or the dry rot underneath.’ As she thought this, she had to stop the floods of tears that had brought her into the staff room in the first place.
‘Come on, Sweetie, let’s face the music.’ She pushed through the door and stood beside the counter as a family of three girls and a boy contemplated their dinner.
‘Shall I offer them a discount, Frank? Free drinks for the kids and cuppa for the adults.’ He nodded, and she walked to the door. The sun was past its peak, but there was a warm breeze coming from Leigh that made the day warm enough for a walk along the front.
‘We’re offering free drinks for the kids and a cuppa for the grown-ups since it’s the first day of Spring.’ The man looked at her and smiled.
‘But it’s the middle of January.’
‘I know, but who’s counting? Your lot takes some feeding.’ She bobbed her head, and they were persuaded. ‘Come in, and I’ll find you a nice table by the sea or one watching the other walkers if you’d prefer.’ They bought the deal and walked to the proffered table. ‘Now, I bet you kids would like a Coke to start with, then double cheeseburgers.’
It was the way it was – Frank relying on Stacey and Stacey happy to be the centre of the business. And since she saw about twice as much of Frank as she did Kyle, she could forget she lived with Kyle Robertson. As she set their table for six, she realised she would rather be doing this than making a simple meal for her partner.
Two hours later, Frank stood outside the café looking up and down the empty seafront.
‘I think the rush is over for another day. We might as well pack up and make our way home.’
Stacey went through to their leisure facility and collected both their coats as Frank turned off the lighting. He slipped his coat on and sat in one of the window seats.
‘You fancy a coffee before you go?’
‘We could call in at the Kursaal.’ Stacey laughed.
‘At their prices? No, the boiler is still hot, and there’s life in the Nescafé tin.’ She brought over the two drinks and the remains of the pastries: two chocolate croissants and a pecan Danish pastry.
‘I’ll toss you for the Danish.’ Frank said, but Stacey had already cut it in half.
‘Bugger that, I always lose if I gamble. No, we share.’ For the next few minutes, they sat in silence. Frank was ten years older than Stacy, a touch shorter than Stacey’s, nearly six feet, but probably almost twice as heavy without any fat. Even at his age, he was all muscle with dark hair that was slicked back and a forehead that was creeping higher each year. Stacey wondered if his family came from Greece; he had darker olive skin than her pasty pink that turned red in the summer.
Frank played with his cup, then looked up at Stacey. ‘They used to ask us where you see yourself in ten years. When I was at school, it was one of those questions they would ask you.’ He nodded at her as he sipped his black coffee. ‘I can’t see beyond the seafront; what about you, Stacey? Where do you see yourself?’
She looked out to sea and thought about the flat she shared with Kyle, which needed decorating and new windows. Where the rubbish spilt from the bins towards the end of the week, and there were still two cars in the car park that would never see the light of a motorway again, surrounded by weeds and a light dusting of rust.
‘That’s a bit profound for a Wednesday evening.’ She looked past him at the display of children’s toys. ‘Where do any of us see ourselves?’
‘Let’s put that another way: if you knew then what you know now. Say ten years ago, would you have seen yourself here?’
‘Ten years; Christ, I hadn’t met Kyle then. I think he was still in the army.’
‘He was in Afghanistan, wasn’t he?’
‘He says.’ Frank laughed.
‘What’s that mean?’
‘I think it’s a bit like the Berlin Wall.’ Stacey took a bite of the chocolate croissant and smiled at Frank’s frown. ‘You know. If they gathered all the bits of the genuine Berlin Wall they sold, it would stretch halfway around the world.’ Frank was still not following. ‘Every soldier you ever met seems to have worked for special forces in Afghan. You know, “can’t say too much; if I told you everything we did, I’d have to kill you”. It’s a chat-up line. Better than saying he was sacked from B&Q warehouse.’ Frank smiled. He had met Kyle and registered him as a fantasist. ‘And what about you? What would you have chosen, Frank, first-division football.’
‘First division? Premier league or nothing.’ He looked around his domain. Six tables and a packed counter with a cooking grill behind. On one side, there was a tall fridge full of soft drinks, and another fridge behind the counter was full of foodstuff. All the Formica-topped tables were spotlessly clean, as was the floor.
‘No, this will do me.’ He stirred the coffee, a mark of a reformed sugar drinker. ‘I might get the chance of one of the units towards the pier. But that would mean more staff and a manager. Eventually, he raised his mug and looked at Stacey. For a second, she did not pick up on the implication. Then, a wave of sadness swept over her.
‘That means you run the other unit, and I’d have to get used to working for a new manager.’ He smiled at her, then burst out laughing and shook his head as he picked up his half of the pecan Danish and shook his head.
‘I love you, Stacey. You always make me spell things out in words of one syllable. Not get used to working for a new manager; I’m offering you the job as manager.’ She frowned at him. ‘You run this café as it is. Look around; you do all the ordering and most of the cooking. You talk to the customers as if it was your own.’ He spread his hands in a gesture that always reminded Stacey of the statue of Christ in Rio. ‘Since you run it now, I’ll take on the one down the other end, and you will run this one. You get a cut of the earnings. We’ll sort that out. But you know what we make, so what do you think?’
She grinned. ‘That’s the best offer I’ve had since, well, since ever.’
Thirty minutes later, the sun was down, and Stacey walked along the High Street, glancing in the windows with little interest. It was getting colder, and the shops were closing as she walked inland towards her flat and Kyle, who would be waiting for his dinner. As she walked, her feelings of elation at the offer Frank had made drifted away as she thought of telling Kyle about her offer and the plans she had already considered for the tiny café. Frank said that, as far as he was concerned, she had a free hand to run the outlet the way she thought best.
‘And if that makes me more money than we are making now, I might have to get you to manage the other unit, too. But don’t get too settled; I don’t want you taking over the business and sacking me.’ He laughed, and for a second, Stacey thought he was serious. And for a second, he probably was. But Frank had the lease for the next ten years, so any thoughts about her taking over the business was not one she could consider, at least for the next few years.
The conversation about her future took Stacey back to the last years before she arrived in Southend. If you had asked her then, she might have spoken about two children and a loving husband. Perhaps she could become a teaching assistant or get temporary work on the seafront, although that would be difficult with the two children.
But none of that happened, and when she settled with Kyle, she knew it never could. Kyle stated he didn’t want children from their first meeting.
‘I saw too many of them in Afghan.’ He said he had no intention of ever raising a family. For a few weeks, it had been a stumbling block, but Kyle had two things that were attractive to Stacey. A flat with two bedrooms and a lack of interest in her past. During the years she had lived with him, she thought about this and knew it was the grip he had over her and wondered what he knew.
As she neared the flat, she wondered how she would tell him about her change of status. In her mind, she could hear him asking about the money, how much time she would be there, and if she would have time to look after the flat. Then, another thought ran through her mind. She could hear him talking to their friends in the club, explaining exactly what she would be the manager of, a small beachfront café. “It’s not exactly the Savoy Grill, just a burger joint on the front.” She turned the corner, and the block of flats loomed above her.
‘I can’t see you opening a bottle of champagne, Kyle. More like fucking great, now I’ll have to cook my own tea, I suppose.’ She entered the door code and waited for the lift. Inside, another scenario ran through her mind.
‘Perhaps I could open another account and get the extra paid there. That way, I can keep control of my money.’
The lift shuddered to a halt, and the doors creaked open. There was dirt and rubbish in the door channel.
‘If I don’t clear that, no one else will, and the bloody lift will give up the ghost when I’ve got a basket of Kyle’s washing to bring up.’
Ten minutes later, she had the door propped open with a broom and was down on her hands and knees, brushing the accumulated rubbish out of the channel. As she worked, she pondered her future. Stacey used an old toothbrush to clear the channel, working from the edge to the centre and brushing the grease-laden grime and rubbish out of the slot. Scrubbing back and forth, concentrating on the job but thinking about her future. The mechanical work left her mind clear to think through her moves, and she knew once the idea had occurred to her, she would follow it through.
It started as a seed, but like the tiny acorn, the idea matured into a scheme and, inevitably, into reality in her mind. Finally, the channel was clear. She took the broom away, the doors slid smoothly shut, and Stacey had made a decision that would change the course of her life.
Chapter 2
March 2023
Ewan Williams looked at the display at the front of the bus and realised he was nearer to Southend than he thought. For some reason, he pictured a seaside resort with small hotels and shops selling inflatable toys to help children in the freezing cold waters of the Thames estuary. As it was, they were driving along a wide avenue with tall office blocks on one side and a park and library on the other. He was heading for Southend Victoria train station. Not that it was significant, but a train station was a good place to look for a room for a week or two. And in the middle of winter, he knew a landlady would be pleased to accommodate a smart-looking, ex-squaddie.
An hour later, he had found what he wanted. A clean resting place for a few weeks at a reasonable rate and a landlady who looked as if she knew how to cook a decent breakfast. She looked at the roll of cash he pulled out and was happy to register Mr Humphreys for the next two weeks, payment in advance.
Three weeks earlier, Ewan had drawn three thousand pounds from his account in cash. At the time, he felt they would look at him and ask questions, but the pile of crisp twenty-pound notes were counted onto the counter without comment; merely a smile and “Goodbye, Mr Thomas.”
Over the next few days, he laundered the notes through various branches of Marks and Spencer, buying items for cash and taking them back to different stores. Now, the cash in his pocket was a variety of notes, different denominations and ages. Over the previous month, Ewan had grown a beard. Not as thick as he would have wished, but thick enough. He had kept some of the clothes that he bought. A smart grey suit, two white shirts and a silk-looking tie. Today, he was wearing his smart outfit, but in his bag, he had the clothes he felt comfortable in army fatigues and a warm anorak.
He walked to the seafront and wished he was wearing his winter clothes. The smart suit looked good, but it was intended for summer use, and today, the wind was driving freezing spray off the water. He walked to a café and asked for a double cheeseburger and chips. She brought over the menu with the meal and said he was welcome to have a drink as well.
Ewan looked around the empty tables and chatted to the waitress for a few minutes. When she returned with his mug of tea, he asked her to sit and chat.
The waitress looked around at the empty promenade and sat opposite him.
‘The grub’s good. Why are you so empty?’
‘It’s the second week of March. You’re the first customer we’ve had for an hour.’
‘Why does the boss stay open.’ He looked at the hurt expression on her face. She was a woman in her mid-thirties. Tall and slim with a gaunt rather than attractive face. The result of years of smoking. Her hair was thinning and wispy, and there were stains on the front of her overalls that should not have been there on a quiet day.
He looked around. ‘Sorry, male prejudice. For all I know, you are the boss.’
‘I am today. No, in the summer, we have trouble getting staff, so the boss says he runs on fumes for the winter months and keeps his regulars. Then, he can take on some kids in the summer. They’ll wear skirts up to their arses that’ll bring in the customers before they all bugger off to university in September.’ She shrugged. ‘But they need someone to show them the ropes.’ He laughed.
‘I bet most of them know the ropes already.’ Ewan nodded and raised his eyebrows at her as he sipped his tea.
‘I’ll make you right there. But I thought you were such a nice person when you came in.’ At that moment, another customer walked in, knocked on the countertop, and demanded service. The two of them looked across the table littered with his dinner and teas, and she smiled at him and shrugged. Then Ewan looked at the newcomer, and he took a deep breath.
‘Just my little joke.’ Stacey Hendrix walked over to the counter and took out her pad. ‘I’ll have two burgers and chips, please.’ Five minutes later, the café was empty again. Stacey looked hard at her only customer, and something stirred inside her.
The next three days, he did the same.
On the fourth day, he donned his fatigues and anorak and watched the café from across the road. At six, he tracked the waitress as she walked through the town, picking up some shopping at a cheap supermarket and the Essex Chronicle in WH Smiths. He almost lost her in the stationers, then realised there were two doors. She had walked off the High Street, paid for her paper, and left by the side door.
Ewan ran out of the front and around to the side and saw the waitress disappearing along a side road. Ten minutes later, he watched her enter the code for her flat. With the help of the Zeiss monocular, he could spot the numbers she had entered onto the keypad.
It did not take long to work out, which was her flat. Two hours later, Ewan entered the code and walked up the six flights of stairs to the waitress’s flat.
Now, he had all the information he needed.
The following Friday, he asked the waitress if she was free on Saturday. But she said she would be with her sister for the day, then watching the match in the club that evening. He had nodded. ‘You didn’t mind me asking?’ And smiled at Stacey.
‘No love. My husband might mind, but I’m entirely happy to receive all kinds of compliments.’
Something in Ewan’s stomach churned, and it was not the beefburger. Now, the date and time were set, and for the first time in years, he would call on all his skills. But he knew what the result would be. Negotiation was not high on the training agenda of the SAS, but killing was.
Chapter 03
Stacey Hendrix ran her fingers over the greasy arms of the second-hand chair, looked across the lounge at her partner, and knew her life would never be the same again.
Four hours earlier, she had walked into the social club and looked for Kyle, but with the match about to start, he was lost in the crowd.
‘Come and sit at our table, Stacey.’
‘I’m just getting a drink,’ she shouted back to the table near the television where her neighbour was sitting with her two boys. As usual for these occasions, they had their football shirts and scarves on.
‘What can I get you?’ and there was a confusion of pointing at the boys and herself. She turned to the barmaid. ‘I’ll have two Cokes and a vodka and lime,’ she shouted across the bar. ‘You’d better make it a double and fill a long glass with lemonade if that’s okay. And a glass of Heineken for my neighbour.’ One of the lads was standing beside her, and they weaved their way through to the table in the prime position for the match.
‘Cheers. Thank Stacey for the drinks.’ She turned to Stacey. ‘Boys, who’d have them?’ She ruffled the nearest one’s hair.
‘You count your blessings. The only child I’ve got is Kyle, and he’s ten years older than me.’
‘Where is he? I thought he’d want to watch the match.’ Stacey shrugged.
‘I thought he’d be down here.’ She looked around. ‘There are enough people in tonight; he could be anywhere.’
‘He’ll turn up when the chips arrive at halftime. I got you the normal. Is that okay?’ The neighbour took another sip of her beer, and Stacey joined her. ‘What’s that you’re drinking?’
‘Lemonade and lime with just a touch of vodka in it. Well, a double, actually. Don’t ask.’ Her neighbour just raised her eyebrows.
‘The match is starting.’ One of the boys said.
‘Tell all.’
‘I’ve got some news, and I’m not sure how Kyle will take it.’
‘Shit, you’re not, how can I put this in front of the boys? With child?’
‘Fuck no. Well, I bloody hope not. No, just the café. It seems so small, but the owner wants me to be the manager.’ Stacey said.
‘And Kyle doesn’t know?’ She took another sip of her beer. ‘Will he be bothered?’ Stacey gazed into the scene on the wide-screen television.
‘I don’t know. It’s more money, and he might see that as losing control.’ She shrugged.
At that moment, the referee blew the whistle, and the match began.
Six goals later, three more double vodkas, a double serving of chips, and Stacey, her neighbour and the boys walked through the backstreets of Southend singing Arsenal supporter songs.
‘See you.’ They parted as the lift doors slid open, and five minutes later, she swayed towards her flat with the key ready.
‘One drink, and you go from Mistress of the Universe to Useless of Southend.’ She steadied her hand and pushed the key into the Chubb lock, her hand wandering as if guided by some extraterrestrial force.
She knew the pathway as well as everyone else in the club did. Two vodkas, and you can laugh and joke with strangers; three, and you know you can paint pictures or become prime minister.
‘But I always have to have that extra one.’
She tried to turn it, without success. Stacey shrugged and slid the Yale key into the lock on the third attempt.
‘Why is it so difficult to get a simple key in the keyhole when you’ve only had two vodka and oranges?’
The match had gone well; Arsenal six, Sheffield nil, and she had explained the off-side rule to several people while wondering where her partner was. During the football season, if she was not working, their visit to the social club was a fixture. The decoration needed attention; the tiny round tables often rocked, and no one would have wanted to walk across the carpet with bare feet. But it was somewhere Stacey felt comfortable. In some odd way, it reminded her of the canteen at what she described variously, as her boarding school or finishing school. A place where she could leave her table and know no one would touch her belongings because everyone knew who everyone was. The bar took up most of one side of the room, and in one corner, a large television dominated the evening on a match day. And on those evenings, all the seats would face the screen, and conversations centred around the match.
During half-time, she roamed the packed tables, asking if anyone had seen Kyle. Then she returned to enjoy the match and the second helping of chips she was sharing with the lads.
‘He arranged to meet me here for the match. You know, fish and chips and football.’ But no one knew, and Stacey sat with a couple and watched the second half without making too much of a scene when a goal was disallowed. As she said to her friend at the table, it was never off-side. And since she was only on her third vodka and lime, she could easily explain the offside rule.
‘If you’ve robbed a bank or rooked the public, you can afford a flat at the front. If you are an honest, hard-working girl, you live in a flat a mile from the seafront, near the football ground. Great, only you can’t see the match.’
‘You there, Lover?’ She heard her voice ricochet off the magnolia-painted walls and black and blue vinyl-tiled hall floor and walked through to the main room, having added her mauve puffer jacket to Kyle’s hanging by the front door.
‘I know you’re in there. What did you have for tea?’ She glanced at the washing up in the kitchen. The same as she had left it hours earlier. ‘Typical. You were out with your mates all afternoon; you might have done the washing up from breakfast. Shall I put some chips in the oven? I’m starving.’
She walked into the main room; Kyle was staring at the blank screen of the television.
‘I asked if you wanted some chips?’ He did not move or acknowledge her. ‘I thought you were coming down to the club for the match.’ She turned to the mirror and arranged her hair into a bun using an elastic band that she found amongst the photographs, cheap ornaments and dust on the mantle shelf. ‘We won, six nil. It should have been seven, but the ref needs better glasses, or someone needs to teach him the facts of life.’ She turned towards the settee; half a glass of whisky and a few crisps were on the table, and a copy of ‘The Sun’ spread across the cushions.
That was the moment Stacey noticed the blood. The moment she realised Kyle had not moved or spoken to her since she had come home. That was when she remembered Kyle always had three ice cubes in his whisky. Not warm water. The moment she realised her lover, benefactor, agent provocateur, and wife-beater was dead. She stood for a few moments with her head on one side.
‘Jesus Kyle, that’s typical. You dump out just when I was going to tell you the news.’ She looked around the flat. ‘And now, I’m all alone in the world. Christ, that sounds like a line from Disney.’ Stacey looked down at her partner and smiled to herself.
‘I suppose I should scream. They always scream on Eastenders. The trouble is, I’ve never been good at screaming. But I will miss you, Kyle. I always felt safe next to you despite everything. It didn’t matter if it was a pub in Hackney or a back alley in Whitechapel; I was always safe with you next to me. Skinny five foot six, but no one took the piss.’ She sat in a side chair opposite and ran her hand over the greasy fabric of the arms. Finally, she felt herself crying.
‘The thing is, Kyle, there would always be time; I knew you loved me, even without saying. But there was always time for that.’ She laughed to herself. ‘And you always had a scheme to make money. But it never worked, and you never asked where the cash came from when we were broke. Bit of luck, women have a business asset they can turn to when things get rough.’ She turned the fan heater off and opened the swing windows.
‘Christ, it’s hot in here. We need some air in here, lover. If I didn’t know, I’d say you’d been smoking the merchandise.’
Then she rang the ambulance, walked through to the kitchen, and made herself a black coffee.
‘It’s going to be a long night for both of us, lover.’
Detective Sergeant Martin Tinsley turned the steering wheel of his Land Rover, narrowly missing a group of drunken teenagers that had crossed from the Golden Nugget amusement arcade to the seafront.
‘Southend in the summer. And madness prevails.’ He mumbled under his breath.
‘I hate to remind you, Boss, it’s only the beginning of March. It will get much worse.’ Martin took a deep breath and thought about the holidaymakers who throng the Southend Sea Front during the summer months.
‘Don’t remind me. How many lost children, keys, husbands, and cases of beetroot sunburn did we have last year?’ He pulled over onto the paved area near the public toilets and handed his Detective Constable his coffee cup.
‘Watch the shop for a minute, Hamid. I need a pee.’
Martin leapt out of the utility vehicle he always chose and sprinted to the gents’ toilets. Kahn leant back in the passenger seat and rested his eyes. He had been on an early turn, and it was now eleven in the evening—a double shift with very little progress on any of the cases they were pursuing.
The sea was calm, and the few lights on the pier reflected off an almost flat mirror-like surface. The image moved rhythmically, side to side, and Hamid could barely keep his eyes open. It was a restful, wonderful place to live, somewhere he never regretted moving to from Bradford when he married three years earlier. He had never raked up the courage to tell his family he had requested the move; as far as they were concerned, moving went with the job. Regrettably, he said he would miss his family but needed to keep the job. And his wife loved the school she taught in. They did miss their families and friends, but they did not miss the weather, the street fights and the racism that seemed to be growing in some Northern towns.
But on this warm March night, on patrol with his friend and mentor, Martin, Hamid felt life was rolling in his direction, and he smiled at the thought of the rain in Yorkshire. He watched Martin chatting to a group of lads. He was talking about the football match the previous evening. West Ham against Manchester United with two disallowed goals and one nil to Manchester, Martin felt robbed.
Hamid watched the hand gestures of the ball going into the net and how close the off-side rule was. They were all laughing and shaking their heads. Then the radio burst into life.
‘Control to D3.’
‘D3 responding.’
‘Please attend Springfield flats – floor six, uniform in attendance.’
‘D3 wilco.’ Hamid gave the siren a single bleep, and Martin swung around, waved to the lads, and sprinted back to the Land Rover.
‘Looks like trouble, Boss. We’re backing up Uniform.’
‘Great.’
‘You were chatting about the match?’ Martin backed onto the main road and flicked his blue lights when a motorist beeped him.
‘Partly. They were telling me about county lines. The outsiders are upsetting the balance. Causing a lot of trouble.’ Martin swung the Land Rover across Marine Parade, turned on his blue lights and left at The Kursaal towards Queensway. He skimmed along the double carriageway road to the roundabout near the station, then turned right at Victoria Avenue.
‘Upsetting the balance of power in the drug trade. That’d be a shame. Blimey, the thought of the local dealers struggling to keep going against the cheaper competition will keep me awake at night.’ Mohamid Kahn said.
‘Yea, well, the trouble is, we’re talking about youngsters acting as couriers. Getting the next generation hooked on the crap, squeezing out the legitimate dealers and shipping in rubbish.’
‘You sound like you think we should support the local dealers.’
‘As far as I am concerned, they are all like the dog shit we used to see on the pavements. If I could wipe them off our streets, it would be the next best thing to free television licence every year for the rest of my life.’ Hamid smiled across the front of the car. ‘But the fact is, the problem is not with the dealers, but idiot children, who get hooked.’
‘You don’t have children, do you, Martin?’
‘No. Neither do you.’
‘I’ve got a younger brother.’ Hamid rocked his head. ‘I keep him out of trouble when I can, but if Dad knew what I know, he’d crucify him.’
‘Bring him down to Southend; we’ll take care of him.’ Hamid nodded.
‘I might do that. Has it ever occurred to you that we are the people who make the most money from crime?’ Martin glanced across at him. ‘The thing is, the average life of a drug trader is probably five years, and they might earn a few grand. We thrash around and make their lives hell and earn a good wage, holidays and a pension.’
Martin was concentrating on the traffic.
‘Yeah, well. As they say, stick to the old blue light.’ His voice trailed off as he took the turn too quickly and almost rolled the Land Rover. Hamid grabbed the side handle, and Martin smiled across at him. ‘Calm down; you’ll not be meeting your maker tonight.’
Martin drove down the main road towards Prittlewell and the football ground.
Five minutes later, they arrived at flat four on the sixth floor, where a PC was draping the front door with yellow ‘crime scene’ tape.
‘Trouble at Mill, Jarvis?’ PC Jarvis handed the two officers the white forensic kit.
‘Fraid so, Boss. Doc’s inside looks red with anger or red wine, but I’m not sure which. Taxi here, so at least that’s okay.’ Martin nodded, walked into the tiny hallway and noted the coats on the hook – two women’s and a man’s thick anorak. The doctor merely needed to ascertain that the patient was dead and try to get an idea of his departure time, as Doctor Fairlane always put it.
‘Evening Doc. Is this the subject or the chief suspect?’
‘I missed a bloody good sweet – Eaton Mess – after a mediocre dinner. I also missed a talk I’ve been looking forward to for weeks to attend your bloody murder. Rotary dinner at the Bull – missed the main speaker. I presume County will pay for my taxi.’ Despite the white forensic uniform, the doctor looked like his normal, elegant self.
‘What can you tell me?’
‘From the temperature in the lounge, which is about sixteen degrees, because your lot won’t give these poor buggers a decent price for their electricity, I’d say he’s been dead for about an hour or so. The body temperature, we assume, is thirty-seven. He is currently still warm, at around a core temperature of thirty-five. In this ice box, they call a lounge; he would lose temperature at around two degrees per hour, slowing as it approaches the ambient temperature. Do you follow?’ Martin nodded. ‘There is little or no rigour, and he is still warm to the touch, so less than three hours, probably more like an hour.’ Again, Martin nodded.
‘Between eight and ten this evening.’
‘All that, without using your fingers. Whatever next?’
‘Do we know the cause of death?’
‘There’s not much blood, so I’d say he died of a heart attack. But the question is, what caused the cardio infarction?’ The doctor raised his eyebrows. ‘You’ll know more when he’s on the table, and your fellow’s opened him up. But I suspect the carving knife through the back of the settee might have something to do with it.’