Kitabı oku: «BAD BLOOD: A DI Charlotte Savage Novel», sayfa 4
He’d spent the afternoon summarising Kemp’s final report and dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s on a longer document which pulled together a whole mass of intelligence from numerous sources. Now he slid copies of the document across the table to DSupt Hardin, DCI Garrett, DI Phil Davies and DI Savage. Savage smiled at him and Riley thought she looked happier than she had for a while. Her husband had returned from a long stint away so maybe that was the reason. It could certainly explain the sheen of her red hair and the smartness of her attire; Riley couldn’t remember seeing her appearing quite so attractive before.
He leant back in his seat and wondered if he might be considered infantile himself for thinking his boss was looking sexy. Davies sat opposite and he glanced at Savage and then looked across at Riley and winked. There was no chance of anyone thinking Davies was sexy, Riley thought. He slumped down in his chair in a crumpled brown number which Riley wouldn’t have been surprised to learn had come from a charity shop running a discount promotion for items they couldn’t clear. Even from across the table Riley could smell several nights’ worth of beer and fags in the clothing.
Mike Garrett’s clothing had, literally, been cut from a different cloth. Riley didn’t think much of the older detective’s abilities – the man was too cautious, too rule-bound – but he’d always admired his suits.
Hardin was Hardin. Bursting out of his shirt, almost knocking over the pot of coffee when it arrived, and then grabbing a couple of biscuits with one hand while typing on his laptop with the other.
‘OK, Sternway.’ Hardin turned to his laptop and clicked again. He reached out and adjusted the angle of the screen, and for a moment Riley feared he was going to swing the computer towards them and show one of his dreary PowerPoint presentations. Instead he leant back in his chair and ran his tongue over his lips before continuing.
‘So, Darius had his final meeting with our undercover officer earlier, nom de plume Mr Martin Kemp. Mr Kemp is returning to his force and Darius,’ Hardin nodded over at Riley, ‘is off on holiday in a couple of days. Now we’re just waiting on the intel. As soon as Kemp gets the word he’ll let us know. I’m pleased to say Sternway is finally drawing to a close and there will be no happy ending for Mr Kenny Fallon. Not this time.’
Riley switched off as Hardin began to map out the final stages of the operation. He knew the details back to front, had worked on them with Kemp and Hardin. As the DSupt elaborated on the endgame Riley hoped his words wouldn’t come back to haunt them, since Hardin had been placed in charge of Sternway precisely because of the failure of previous investigations. Usually an operation focusing on somebody such as Fallon would have been dealt with by SOCIT – the Serious and Organised Crime Investigations Team – however, rumours had been spreading of one or two bad apples within the police, someone even going so far as to distribute flyers around city car parks which accused the team of corruption. The allegations were without any evidence or reason, but the brass over at force HQ in Exeter had panicked and decreed the next major operation dealing with organised crime would be run independently of SOCIT and by someone with an unimpeachable record. Enter DSupt Conrad Hardin, mates with Simon Fox – the Chief Constable, friends in the local military and bogey golfer who could cheerfully lose to the worst. With Mr Clipboard, checkbox, do-it-by-the-book Hardin in charge, what could possibly go wrong?
Riley blinked as he heard Hardin mutter his ‘bloody good policing’ catchphrase and peer over at him for an answer. He had no idea what he was talking about but he managed a ‘yes, sir’, and Hardin continued.
‘If our intelligence is correct, the cargo vessel we are interested in may even now be loading in Rotterdam. At some point in the next few days the vessel will be passing approximately ten miles south of Plymouth, where it will drop a package overboard. Once the vessel is well clear, Gavin Redmond will head out in one of those f-off yachts of his and pick up the goods.’
When Riley had first come onto Sternway and heard of the arrangement he’d had to concede it was clever. The pickup boat never had to go more than a few miles offshore and never anywhere near the ship which dropped the drugs. All it required was knowledge of the tidal streams and a short-range tracking device. Plus a little faith from the crew on the cargo vessel that the millions of pounds worth of drugs they were heaving overboard were going to end up in the right hands. All Customs and Excise’s fancy plotting equipment – which mapped out the closest point of approach of suspect vessels and watched for small boats making regular trips across channel – proved useless against such a tactic.
The ploy might have gone unnoticed if Fallon hadn’t made the mistake of using Tamar Yachts and Redmond as a way of washing money too. Tamar owned a subsidiary charter company in Nassau, out in the Bahamas. A swish website showed a number of top-end crewed yachts costing tens of thousands of dollars a week to hire and every month a payment appeared in Tamar’s bank account, the funds originating from a Bahamian bank. Twice a year Tamar Yachts paid Fallon a hefty dividend from his shares, the sums involved matching the supposed income from the charter business. An HMRC investigator, risking the wrath of her boss, decided to take an unauthorised trip to the Bahamas. She discovered nothing. Literally. The charter company didn’t exist, other than as a managed office sharing an address with hundreds of other companies. It was then that HMRC had contacted the police, realising the income flowing in from the dummy charter operation was most likely drugs money.
‘You all know your roles,’ Hardin said, leaning forward and jabbing a finger at each officer in turn. ‘Phil will liaise on additional evidence, Mike will run the interviews, Charlotte will manage the post-arrest local inquiry teams, and Darius, when you return from your jaunt, you’ll be collating the threads and working with the team to turn what we have into something the CPS will wet their knickers over. Finally the Tactical Aid Group will be carrying out the raids and you can bet I want you guys there as well to prevent the trigger-happy cowboys messing everything up. Apart from that it is just a waiting game. Questions?’
There were dozens. Operational, technical, legal, Hardin dealing with each in turn in his methodical manner. An hour later and he wrapped the meeting up with a final pep talk.
‘The objective is to shut down the city’s drug supply network and catch Fallon red-handed. Once we have Fallon we will be able to round up everyone from him down. It’s been tried before and we’ve always made a hash of the endgame; Fallon has always evaded us.’ Hardin paused, looking gloomy, before smiling and adding with a whisper: ‘Until now.’
Riley glanced across at his fellow officers. Garrett wore a serious expression whereas Davies grinned, eager to be up and at them, kicking down doors and smashing heads. DI Savage smiled at him again.
Afterwards, as they left the room, Savage came across to them.
‘If, Darius – God forbid – this all goes wrong, you’ll be glad to be on a beach four thousand miles from here.’
‘If this goes wrong, ma’am,’ Riley said, ‘I think a million miles might be a safer distance.’
Alec Jackman lay back on the bed in a state of post-orgasmic exhaustion. The girl beside him slept, almost silent, the only noise the faint sound of her shallow breathing. Jackman traced the line of the sheet as the material rose along her legs to her hips and fell down to her waist. She had pushed the sheet down from the top half of her body and Jackman let his eyes rest on her breasts. Round, but small and pert. Tiny goosebumps marked the mesmerising curves and her nipples stood erect.
As Jackman pulled the sheet up to cover her, the girl stirred and yawned, but she didn’t wake. She would be tired. Worn out. Sometimes the young ones were shocked at what he could do. What he could still do. Most men of his age weren’t as fit as him, most were heading downhill toward a six-foot hole in the ground and oblivion. At times like this Jackman almost believed he would live forever. Rubbish, of course, but there was no reason he shouldn’t go on enjoying himself as long as possible. And he usually went on a long while. The coke helped, although he hadn’t done much. The drug was mostly for the girl’s benefit. A little inducement to keep her sweet.
Jackman glanced at the bedside clock. He ought to be out of here, he had an important meeting to get to and then home to his wife, Gill. He had promised he wouldn’t be too late and he didn’t want to push things, even though he realised she probably had an inkling of what was going on. She knew the score. Understood the price to pay. All those shoes, handbags, the hired help, the nice house. The goodies cost money and the girl was payback. One squeak from Gill and she could say goodbye to the little treats and the lifestyle as well. Glamour, parties, trips abroad, local recognition. Without him she had nothing.
Then there was his brother-in-law, Gavin Redmond. Gill owed Jackman for him too. The idiot should have been rolling in dough with the yacht business he ran, but he seemed to piss away the stuff. A few years back Jackman had helped him get the company back on a sound footing by finding a new investor and an extra revenue stream. The sideline was far from legal, but nobody got rich keeping to the rules. The bankers proved that.
He sighed and got out of the bed, found his jacket and rummaged in a pocket for his pack of cigarettes. Like the cocaine, he knew he shouldn’t, but this would be the first of the day. Self-control. Like with the girl. He’d come as the gasp from her own orgasm spread a smile across her face. Now Jackman smiled too. A real cutie, this one.
The lighter flared and he drew on the cigarette. Redmond was pissed off about the girl. As he would be, the girl being his own daughter, Jackman’s niece. Not blood related of course, but still, the frisson was there. Something to do with some of his wife’s genes being in the girl, Jackman suspected. He thought about Redmond again. In truth the idiot worried him. Lately he’d looked tired and nervous. Jackman had told him to get a grip. He only had to hold himself together for a few days and then they’d be quids in. All of them. On the other hand, one wrong move and everybody was going to get screwed.
Unless …
The meeting could change things and swing the possibility of success their way. Jackman went to the bathroom and then quickly got dressed.
Thirty minutes later he pulled into the car park at Jennycliff, a parkland area to the south of the city which sat above cliffs on the eastern edge of Plymouth Sound. Over the sea the light had long gone from the sky. The daylight, anyway; a swathe of orange off to his right painted the underside of the clouds and below, the city glowed.
Jackman sat in his car, tapped his watch, waited. He shivered as the air in the car cooled. Early evening dog-walkers returned from the park and loaded their charges into the back of cars. A couple of hardy runners headed home.
The minutes ticked by and the legitimate visitors all left. A car cruised in, followed by another, and then another. They parked up one end, the interior light in one car flicking on, a woman and a man visible inside, while a couple of men climbed from the other cars and skirted the vehicle, cameras in hand.
Usually the proximity of sex would have aroused Jackman, but not tonight. He turned his attention away from the free show and towards the car park entrance where a pair of headlights announced a new arrival. This time the vehicle didn’t head up the slope to the top but pulled alongside Jackman’s car. Even in silhouette the pickup looked like it had seen better days. Patches of white filler adorned the dark bodywork and one wing had a large dent. When the interior light went on it illuminated a bulky man with a beard. A woolly hat perched on his head struggled to cover large ears.
The man nodded across at Jackman and then reached over and opened the passenger door. Jackman got out of his car and ducked down into the passenger seat, closing the door. The light went off and Jackman heard the man sniff and cough, a waft of bad air coming Jackman’s way a few moments later.
‘Well?’ Jackman said. ‘This isn’t the sort of place I usually come for a meeting so let’s get on with it.’
‘It?’ the man said.
‘Kenny Fallon said you had something for me. You hand it over and he lets you go about your business.’
‘Cash. Up front. He promised.’
‘Look, you’re a poacher, a petty housebreaker when you get the chance. Some pheasants, a rabbit or two, a laptop or phone if you spot an opportunity when you’re out and about. I can’t see what you can have come up with that’s got Kenny so excited, but if it’s good you’ll get your money.’
The man stirred, shifted in his seat as he retrieved something from a pocket. A little screen popped into life in the gloom.
‘A phone? I hope you’re not winding us up. Where did you nick it from?’
‘I didn’t, it’s mine.’ Fingers swept over the surface of the phone and a movie clip started to play. ‘I want five thousand for this.’
‘Five thousand? You’re crazy.’
‘When you’ve watched it, you’ll pay.’
‘Let me see then.’ Jackman leant over, trying not to inhale the mixture of bad breath and sweat.
Poor quality video played on the screen. Black and grey chunks of pixels swirling. Static on the audio track. That, and the sound of heavy breathing. Jackman was about to ask the man what the hell he was playing at when a bloom of light grew and danced in the centre of the picture as the camera zoomed and struggled to focus. Then the image steadied and Jackman was able to resolve the jumble of light and shadow. As the film ran on he realised this was dynamite, and a minute or so later when the clip finished he had to struggle to contain his excitement.
‘Good, eh?’ A finger touched the screen and the man pocketed the phone. ‘Five thousand.’
‘How the hell did you get that?’ Jackman felt his heart beating, but tried to remain calm. ‘I mean, were you waiting there or what?’
‘I was in the area on business. There’s a holiday home, couple from London. They’re down here every weekend and they’ve got careless. They started to leave a few things around the place and I spied them through the window. There’s a key under the flowerpot for the cleaner. They’ve got the brains to earn all that money but really they’re as thick as they come. I—’
‘Alright, I understand. Get on with it.’
‘I heard an almighty smash as I was going through their stuff. When I rush out I see the car upside down. I recognised her immediately. I was about to make a run back into the woods when something made me stop. I whipped out the phone and started to film. Twenty minutes later the place was crawling with police, the fire brigade, ambos, everything. That’s when I legged it.’
‘Give me the phone.’ Jackman reached into his back pocket and extracted his wallet. Pulled out all the cash he had. Two fifties and a bunch of tens. ‘Here.’
‘A couple of long’uns? You must be fucking joking.’
‘I don’t carry five K around. You’ll get the rest once Kenny’s seen it.’
‘But I need my phone. Anyway, how do I know I can trust you?’
‘It’s not me, it’s Kenny. He plays fair. And when he doesn’t play fair he sends someone round to kick your head in. You don’t have a choice. You’ll get your phone back tomorrow.’
‘Alright.’ The man grunted, retrieved his phone and dumped it in Jackman’s hand, in exchange for the money. ‘Five thousand. Remember?’
‘Sure,’ Jackman said pushing the door open and gulping fresh air. ‘I’ll be in touch.’
The engine started up as Jackman slammed the door and the car jerked forwards and then slewed out of the car park.
Jackman stood still for a moment. Let out a breath. Felt in his pocket for the phone. The smooth surface tingled the ends of his fingers, almost as if there was something magical about the object. He smiled, glanced up to the doggers at the top of the hill and then thought of the girl waiting for him back at his flat.
‘You lucky, lucky boy,’ he said to himself as he climbed back into his car.
Chapter Six
Nr Bovisand, Plymouth. Tuesday 15th January. 6.45 a.m.
Tuesday morning, Savage was roused early by Jamie snuggling into the bed and wanting to know when Father Christmas was coming again. Pete muttered something along the lines of ‘never, if you don’t let him get some more shut-eye’, but by then Savage was wide awake, all chance of further sleep gone.
Down in the kitchen for breakfast Pete stifled a yawn, let it slip into a smile and then put his arm around her when she came over. He was finding it difficult, she knew. Adapting to a permanent life ashore was always going to be tricky after the routine of his previous existence. He loved Samantha and Jamie as much as she did, but often he’d only seen them at their best. Day-to-day was a totally different experience for him.
As Savage drove in to the Stonehouse area of the city to catch up with the inquiry teams, she let her thoughts mill around. Concluded that although things could be better, they could be a whole lot worse too.
By the time she arrived the sun had crawled up over the horizon into a clear sky, a smudge of cloud off to the south-west and a change in the wind direction hinting at an end to the cold conditions of the last couple of days. A call to DCI Garrett informed her that yesterday’s door-to-door trawl hadn’t produced anything fresh, so she made her way back to Owers’ flat at one twenty-one Durnford Street. John Layton’s Volvo stood alongside a resident’s parking sign, an ‘On Police Business’ sticker on the inside of the windscreen. Layton sat in the front passenger seat, spooning something from a pot into his mouth.
‘Yogurt and muesli,’ he said as the window slipped down. ‘A bit nineteen eighties but still as good for you now as it was back then.’
‘Sorry,’ said Savage. ‘I messed up. Too eager I suppose.’
‘And I apologise for getting angry,’ Layton said, finishing the last of the yogurt and stuffing the plastic pot and spoon in a paper evidence bag. He took his Tilley from the dashboard, got out of the car and plonked the hat on his head. ‘I blame it on my daughter. Ever since she was born … well, you know, don’t you?’
Savage did know. When her own daughters, the twins, Samantha and Clarissa, had been born, something had changed in the way she approached police work. Cases involving violence towards the innocent or powerless became magnified in their importance. The crimes became personal, as if they had been committed against her own family, and the anger and despair could only be ameliorated by catching the perpetrators. Or, as in the case of the man who’d tried to abduct her daughter Samantha – the serial killer Matthew Harrison – seeing that he received a fiery retribution.
‘Can I go in?’ Savage asked, swallowing a lump of emotion.
‘Yes, of course. I’ve nearly finished so there’s no need to worry about suiting up this time. Just about to check the U-bends in the bathroom and then I’m done.’
‘U-bends?’ Savage said. ‘As in plumbing?’
‘Yes. You get hair and nail clippings and all sorts in them. You should have a gander at yours sometime, you’d be surprised how much gets stuck down in amongst the sludge and gunge.’
‘Yuck,’ Savage wrinkled her nose. ‘I don’t want to think about it. If I want to get them cleaned I’ll call a plumber.’
‘If you can find one.’
They went down the steps and into the basement flat where Layton disappeared to his plumbing duties. Savage went into the living room, where a set of floodlights on a stand illuminated several boxes of papers and files stacked ready for dispatch to the station.
She wandered out of the living room and down the corridor. Floorboards had been pulled up in places and a section of plasterboard cut away from a wall where a patch of paint appeared fresher than the rest of the flat. In the bathroom the white floor tiles gleamed under the glare of another set of lights. Layton’s legs sprawled across the tiles, scrabbling for purchase on the shiny surface. His body was wedged under the bath where he’d removed a panel from the side. Banging, huffing and the occasional swear word came floating out. Savage left him to it and moved onto the bedroom. The bed had been stripped of the Barbie cover and sheets and the tea chest Owers used as a linen bin contained nothing but air. Savage wasn’t sure what she was looking for; Layton and his team usually went through a crime scene like locusts through a field of crops and it was unlikely they would miss anything.
She stood in the centre of the bare room, thinking how Owers’ life was being taken apart. He’d probably killed Simza Ellis so he deserved all that was coming to him, but it looked as if he had been living a bleak, empty existence for years. He may have gained some perverse pleasure from his paedophilia, but was the pleasure so great it was worth sacrificing everything for?
She went back into the living room again. The blanket covering the sofa had gone, however the Freemans catalogue remained. The catalogue no longer lay open but sat placed on one arm of the sofa, as if someone had forgotten to pack it away in one of the boxes. Savage went over, picked it up and began to flick through the first few pages. As she perused the dresses she looked at the models – teens and early twenties most of them – and thought about herself at a younger age. Back then, when she’d first got together with Pete, she remembered he’d often teased her about her scruffy attire, but then conceded he preferred her without clothes anyway.
Savage smiled to herself at the memory and then shook her head. For too long her life had been on autopilot, her relationship with Pete the same. Passion had been fuelled by distance, love by his absence. Now he was back for good they’d have to work on things, make an effort. She wondered if that might include needing a change of wardrobe.
She moved on through the various sections, but nothing grabbed her. Then she reached the children’s clothes, spotting the page which had been open the first time she had seen the catalogue. She flicked on, and a few pages later the catalogue opened at a slip of paper wedged deep in the seam. At the top of the page two girls dressed in vests and knickers stood against a pastel background. Savage removed the paper. Nothing on either side. She looked back at the catalogue. Near the seam there was a hollow space, a recess cut away, inside which was the distinctive shape of a USB memory stick.
After handing Layton the catalogue with the cut-out and the USB stick, Savage left the property, strolled down Durnford Street and then up to Admiralty Street, looking to see where the inquiry teams had got to. At St George’s Primary the shrieks of children floated out from the playground at the rear. They were out of view, safe from the prying eyes of a pervert like Owers, but a minor inconvenience like that wouldn’t stop someone like him. He’d find a way. The question was, had he gone down to the Lizard in Cornwall for just that reason?
Up the street she could see two members of the inquiry team talking to Enders. Enders waved and then jogged towards her, a wide grin on his face. He reached her, breathless, words pouring out. Savage told him to calm down. Take it slowly. Enders explained the two officers he’d been talking to had scored big time.
‘We’ve got a reliable sighting of Mr Owers. He was seen scuttling up the cut at the back of Admiralty Street early Sunday evening, something about a confrontation with two other men. Then a white van drives off at speed.’
‘Have we got anything else on the van?’
‘Of course.’ The grin widened and Enders nodded over at a small sign attached to a nearby lamp post. ‘Neighbourhood Watch. The van was double-parked near the school and somebody snapped a pic with their phone. We’ve got the index.’
‘And?’
‘Registered owner is a Stuart Chaffe. Turns out he has form. Major. Went down for assaulting a police officer after being stopped on the motorway during a drugs bust. The assault was a knifing. Sliced the officer open and pulled the man’s guts out with his bare hands. Chaffe spent five years in Broadmoor before being moved to an ordinary prison to complete his sentence. He was only released last year after an eighteen-year stretch inside.’
‘Sounds like he could be old enough to be our mystery man, the one who impersonated Mr Evershed. Do we have an address?’
‘Southway, ma’am. Kinnaird Crescent. Since he’s only just out of the nick he’ll have a probation officer. Shall I try to make contact and get some sort of lowdown before we head out there?’
Savage thought back to an incident a couple of years ago. In a similar situation she’d gone by the book and had a quiet word with somebody on the offender management side of things. When she’d turned up at the suspect’s house – a youth wanted for attacking a mum-to-be with a hammer – the door had been opened by a local solicitor, the lad already briefed to keep his mouth shut.
‘No,’ Savage said. ‘Better if our visit comes as a complete surprise to Mr Chaffe, don’t you think?’
Kinnaird Crescent lay on the northern edge of the city in the maze of Drives, Closes, Walks and Gardens which made up the district of Southway. Stuart Chaffe lived in a block of flats on the north side of the crescent, one of a number of five-storey blocks dotted every fifty metres or so. The road traversed a slope and the flats had been built on the lower side, meaning the ground floor – which consisted of garages – and the first floor lay below street level. Each block had a concrete bridge which led across to the entrance door. Net curtains adorned the lower windows of the flats, hiding away whatever grimness lay within. Depressing, Savage thought, as Enders drove along the crescent, past block after block of identical buildings.
Halfway along they came to the correct block. They parked up and strolled across the strange little bridge to the glass-fronted lobby area, where a list of names ran down a column of bell-pushes to the right of the locked door. ‘Chaffe’ had been scribbled in pencil alongside the number ‘324’. Three presses of the bell later, the third with Enders keeping his finger held down for a good thirty seconds, and a lanky figure shuffled down into the foyer from a stairwell to the right. Stuart Chaffe wore ill-fitting jeans and a denim jacket, his wrists and ankles protruding from the sleeves and the bottom of the trousers, as if he was a kid growing too fast for his parents to keep him in clothes. In his early forties, he appeared older, with greying hair and bloodshot eyes, his skin bearing an unhealthy pallor, as if he had returned from a long sea voyage where fruit and vegetables were in short supply. He gazed through the glass before leaning against the wall next to a bare noticeboard.
‘If you are from the good Lord Jehovah you can fuck off.’ Chaffe rubbed his eyes and yawned.
‘I have heard my boss called many things, Mr Chaffe,’ Savage said, ‘but God isn’t one of them.’
‘Pigs then? These days only pigs and religious folk dress like you two twats.’
‘Let us in, Stuart,’ Enders said, pressing his warrant card up to the glass. ‘We want a word. Or two.’
‘I was right then. All that time inside and I’ve still got a good sense of smell for crap.’ Chaffe made no move to open the door, instead he straightened and gestured around the hall. ‘Talk away. No one around to hear, just a few deaf old coots. The rest are out at work.’
‘And you, Stuart?’ Savage said. ‘Have you got a job?’
‘The name’s Stuey, not Stuart, and “Had” is the word. Gutting chickens in a factory wasn’t my idea of fun. Not after having spent the last eighteen years in a battery farm myself. Jacked it. You should have seen my proby’s face when I said I’d had enough, you’d have thought I’d knocked one out over her.’
‘Let’s talk about this inside, Stuart. You can make us a nice cup of tea and we can ask you a few questions.’
‘Tea? You’re joking, right? Believe me, sweetheart, when you’ve done a stretch like I have the last thing you are going to be drinking on the outside is tea. So, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go back and fix myself something a little stronger before you guys bore me back to sleep.’
Chaffe turned and began to move towards the stairs. Enders grabbed the door handle and rattled the door, the noise echoing around the bare hallway.
‘You own a white van,’ Savage said. ‘Were you out and about in it on Sunday evening? Maybe around the Stonehouse area?’
‘So what if I was? Got to make a living somehow.’
‘Do you have any friends who live over that way, Stuart? On the gross side, the type who like to play with kiddies?’
‘Hey?’
‘A man known as Franklin Owers. You’ll likely as not have seen his picture in the Herald. I don’t suppose you’ve heard of him, have you?’
Chaffe stood for a moment, a smirk creeping across his lips. Then he turned and walked across the hallway, his beanpole-like frame disappearing as he went down the stairs.
‘Ma’am?’ Enders had stepped back from the door and pointed to a white plate on the outside wall of the flat. ‘Says numbers two ninety-four to three twenty-four. Which means Chaffe’s flat is on the top floor, and if you remember he came down the steps.’
