‘I think I’ll need Ariadne’s thread to find my way out again.’
‘Dot’ll show you the way, or she can give me a ring to come and get you.’
Kathy returned to the case room, where she settled at a computer and got back to trying to find references to a possible missing person called Walter.Around her other team members dribbled in, starting the day with cups of coffee and yawning accounts of what they’d done the previous night.
Tom appeared after half an hour, looking bouncy and cheerful. He said hello to Bren and the others, then Kathy walked with him to the front door.‘How did it go?’
‘Good,especially after I recognised the picture of Spider Roach on his wall.You didn’t mention that you were interested in him.’
‘No, I didn’t. How do you know him?’
‘We did a little bit of work on him, some time ago.We helped put a couple of his business buddies away. You should have mentioned it.’
‘I didn’t know we were working together then.’
‘He’s asked me to report back later this afternoon with whatever I’ve found,so maybe I’ll see you then.’He waved goodbye,and Kathy returned to her search.
It was frustrating work, and there were continual interruptions, so that she felt she’d achieved nothing by the time Tom returned. He, on the other hand, seemed to have done well. He was carrying a box of files and papers, and she showed him to a meeting room for his briefing, where they were joined by Brock and Bren.
He had been able to identify all six of the shootings referred to in the Special Branch memo. They comprised four murders, one attempted murder and one drive-by shooting. They included the two shootings that ballistics had linked to the railway land cartridges, and they had all occurred between 1981 and 1987. Tom had marked the pattern of their locations across a map of South London, like a cluster of hits on a target.
‘Interesting,’ Brock said, unfolding his half-lens glasses and peering at the map intently, as if he might decipher some hidden message. ‘You’ve pretty well exactly defined Spider Roach’s territory during the 1980s. It’s like the map of some lethal dog pissing on lampposts.’ He stuck a finger at Cockpit Lane at the centre.‘And that was his kennel.’
He sat back down with a look of satisfaction.
Tom went on to summarise what he knew about the victims. Apart from their own three corpses, there had been two West Indian, one South Asian and three white victims, all male. Two of them had criminal records-Johnny Mulroy, and a well-known Jamaican disc jockey whose charges of drug trafficking were pending at the time of his death. Three other men were local businessmen and the sixth appeared to be a chance victim caught up in a car theft.
‘Indiscriminate and non-racial,’ Brock said.‘That’s Spider.’
Kathy noticed Tom give a grudging nod of agreement, his theory of feuding Yardie gangsters apparently demolished.
‘What now?’ Brock asked.
‘We should reopen the files on the six cases. There may be witness statements describing the gunmen, maybe facial composites, fingerprints even.’
‘But all of these cases were unsolved, yes? And the matching gun was never found?’
‘That’s right. In most of the cases the ballistic evidence isn’t very helpful, which is why you didn’t get a match straight away. The name “Brown Bread” came from undercover sources. Apparently it was widely believed among young Jamaicans at the time that the disc jockey had been shot by a gun of that name, and that the gun had been used in a number of other shootings, which were narrowed down to those six.’
‘We should get ballistics to review all the evidence,’ Bren suggested.‘They’ve got better equipment now.’
They discussed the individual cases for a while, Brock listening in silence, then he sat up and told them what they would do. There were three urgent lines of inquiry, he said. The first, to be investigated by a team led by Bren, would reopen the six Brown Bread cases that Tom had discovered; a second team would scour the dozens of possible sources of film and still photographs taken in Brixton on the night of the riots;and the third,led by Kathy,would work the area from Cockpit Lane down to the centre of Brixton looking for eyewitnesses from that night, starting with whatever sources Michael Grant had promised to find.
‘Tom,’ he added, ‘you’ve been a great help with this, and I’m sure there’s more about Brown Bread and the Roach family tucked away in Branch files. Are you interested in spending a bit more time helping us?’
‘Yes, absolutely.’
‘Then, if you’re agreeable, I might ask your boss if you could be spared to work over here with us for, say, a couple of weeks. What do you think?’
‘I think he’ll probably be delighted,’ Tom grinned.
He was right, apparently, and the next morning he arrived with several boxes of files, as well as a carrier bag containing assorted bits and pieces, including his coffee mug, as if he were moving in for the duration. Bren gave him a desk next to his own, and they settled down to work on the old case files.When Kathy later went to see what they were up to, she was surprised to find the two of them in the basement, in the Bride of Denmark, the curious little private snug bar which the previous owners, a publishing firm, had lovingly constructed out of bits retrieved from bombed and demolished London pubs. Bren and Tom were leaning on the ancient bar, beer bottles in hand, heads together as if they were old mates at their local. The Bride was, to say the least,an anachronism in a Scotland Yard office building,studiously overlooked by Admin, and only Brock had ever invited outsiders down there. Kathy had never seen any of the team take a drink except at Brock’s invitation. Bren knew this, of course, and there was an awkward moment as he saw Kathy stoop through the low vault to come in.
‘Kathy, hi. I was just showing Tom around.Would you, er, care for one?’
‘No thanks.’
‘Isn’t this just the most amazing place?’ Tom said. He waved the hand holding the bottle, almost empty. ‘The stuffed lion, the salmon, the mahogany. I mean, who would believe it?’
‘Well, just don’t go telling any of your mates at the Branch,’ Kathy said.‘If head office hears we’re down here boozing all day they’ll have the wreckers over in no time.’
‘Relax, Kathy,’ Tom said expansively.‘I’m not likely to let them in on this now, am I?’ As if he were no longer one of them.‘And you know you’re partial to a drop now and again. I was telling Bren about Red Stripe. Maybe I’ll buy a case for the Bride next time I’m down Cockpit Lane.’
Kathy frowned at Bren, who winced with embarrassment. ‘I just came down to see how you’re going with the case files.’
‘It’s coming along,’ Bren said.‘Tom dug up a lot of useful stuff. How about you?’
‘Yes, making some progress. I’m going over to see the MP soon,to see what he’s come up with.Well,see you.’
‘Yes.’ Bren hurriedly finished his bottle and began gathering up the bottle tops as if cleaning up a crime scene.
Tom followed Kathy out.‘Hey, you okay? You sound fed up.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Um, I’m going out with some of the blokes tonight to play squash, otherwise . . .You free tomorrow evening?’
‘No, I’m going to see some friends this weekend.’ It wasn’t quite true, but she suddenly felt she wanted a bit of time to herself.
‘Are you sure you’re not mad at me over something? Is it Amy, me springing her on you like that?’
‘No. I liked Amy.’
‘I’m glad. She’s been talking a lot about you. She had some idea you were taking her to a path lab, but I told her that wasn’t possible.’
Kathy didn’t remember actually saying she’d take the girl to Dr Prior, but she said, ‘I may have mentioned something along those lines.Yes,I will try.When would she be free?’
‘Oh well, if you’re sure . . . any afternoon after school, I suppose.’
‘I’ll see what I can do, Tom. No promises.’