Early Shift
On duty: DC Nisha Chakraborty and DC Zoltan Kaminski
London.
1972. August.
The grey morning light seeped around the edges of the rooftops, not quite penetrating down to the narrow alleys that ran through the Barrel. The streets had their own hangover, shutters for eyelids, doors half-open and venting odours from within, an odd quiet hanging in the air compared to the previous night. Visitors from across London had retreated to their safer neighbourhoods, leaving the more permanent residents to clean up the mess.
Kaminski dropped his cigarette to the floor and ground it down with his heel. “Make sure the rear exits are secured before we go in,” he said, the sergeant nodding as he continued readying his officers. “I don’t want anyone getting out through doors, windows, secret passageways or fucking hot air balloons. We think the boss man is in there, most of the staff are still clearing up the place. I want to talk to all of them.” He turned to the others: Chakraborty present, of course, but Clarke also, looking like he hadn’t slept and was about to fall into his own grave. “I need you to identify your witness. Point her out and we’ll get her into protective custody. And we’ll talk more about you stealing our case later.”
Clarke shrugged. “Fine. I gave it back to you. You can thank me later.”
“OK, let’s go,” Chakraborty said, “we don’t want any lookouts sending out a warning before we get in.”
They moved all at once, officers surrounding The Palinese Express, blocking all routes in and out - easier said than done in the Barrel - and then converging on the building. Kaminski and Chakraborty followed the sergeant through the front door, the bouncers being held off to one side. Kaminski winked at one of them as he passed.
Inside there was a rush of panicked bodies, as those still in the building tried to either hide evidence of nefarious activities or distance themselves from it. Kaminski caught a glimpse of suited legs disappearing up a staircase at the back of the main room and pointed officers in their direction. A minute later it was over, dejected faces all around and officers corralling everyone into small groups. He could see a mix of humans and aen’fa, though it was clear who was in charge. The aen’fa - male and female - all shared the same look of dejected resignation.
Clarke approached. “We’ve got her,” he said. “I’m going to clear out before anyone recognises me from earlier.” Kaminski nodded then headed towards the stairs.
Climbing to the upper floor, Kaminski placed a hand on Chakraborty’s shoulder. “Good job Clarke was paying attention for once.”
She look at him sceptically. “We’d have got here on our own.”
Kaminski made a non-committal noise, then pushed open the door to what turned out to be a manager’s office of sorts. Inside there were two police officers flanking the door, and another examining the contents of a large, ornate wooden desk. Upon the walls were mounted a variety of unusual skulls; unusual in that they were not of Earth origin. Palinese species, then, and Kaminski was somewhat relieved to not see a koth or aen’fa represented. A man in a sharp suit was sat on a chair, looking annoyed and out of breath but otherwise unconcerned.
“What’s your name?” Chakraborty asked.
The man tilted his head and looked her up and down, deliberately lingering on every curve of her body. “I’d love to know your name, darling, but I don’t need to tell you mine until my lawyer arrives.” His voice was higher pitched than Kaminski expected.
The officer at the desk held up a business card. “Says here his name is Malcolm Ellis.”
“I can see I’ve got some crack detectives here,” Ellis said with a grin.
“Mr Ellis,” Kaminski said, “you’ve seen that we have a warrant, we’re searching your premises as we speak. It’s going to be a lot easier on you if you cooperate.”
Ellis nodded, then crossed one leg onto his knee. “Yeah, you see, where it’s best for me is if I wait for my lawyer, while you fail to find anything of interest. I run a reputable massage parlour. Nothing illegal goes on here.”
Kaminski moved around the office, examining the shelves. There were all sorts of trinkets that also looked like they were of Palinese origin. “You like collecting artefacts from Palinor, Mr Ellis?”
“What can I say? I’m a connoisseur.”
“People as well?”
“What’s the supposed to mean?”
“Your staff, Mr Ellis,” Chakraborty said, standing close to where the man was seated, “are they all legally resident in Great Britain? Are they all fully documented?”
The man shrugged. “We do the usual checks. Best we can, but it’s not up to us to run the customs department down at the portal station, is it? You got a problem with illegal immigration, go talk to them.” He was confident, more so than he ought to be. “And if you don’t mind me making an observation, you don’t look like you’re from around here, either.” He turned to Kaminski. “Your accent ain’t exactly local, now, is it?”
“You know, you’re in an awful lot of trouble here, Mr Ellis,” Kaminski said, “and I’m thinking you’re probably not the man at the top. You really going to take the fall for someone else?”
“Hey, if I’m not at the top, then it isn’t very far to fall, is it, Mr Clever Policeman?”
“That depends how high the scaffold is. Murder isn’t something you walk away from.”
The man’s face paled and his eyes narrowed. “Wait a minute, murder?” He laughed nervously and glanced around the room, as if looking for support. “What are you on about?”
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“I’m sorry,” Chakraborty said, “did you think we were here about your Palinese sex theme park? Or using undocumented workers? I mean, both can get you in trouble—”
“A lot of trouble,” Kaminski interjected.
“—but we don’t really care about any of that. This is all about the body we’ve got down at the morgue.”
Ellis swallowed loudly, eyes darting between them both.
Kaminski moved in closer. “We’ve got enough evidence already to take you in. Are you really so sure we’re not going to find anything else here which could make it worse for you?”
There was a knock on the door and an officer poked his head in. “Got something for you, guv,” he said.
“Well, what d’you know?” Kaminski smiled at Ellis as he moved back into the corridor. “What is it?”
The officer held up a transparent evidence bag, containing a large, ornate sculpture of a winged creature about the size of his forearm, cast in a hard resin and painted red. Kaminski stared at it, then took another cigarette and lit it. “That’s one ugly son of a bitch,” he said.
“Yes, guv,” the officer confirmed. “I don’t think it’s very realistic.”
“Where’d you get it?”
“In one of the private rooms. I think it’s meant to be one of the gods from Palinor. Look here—” the officer held it up at a particular angle “—see the top of the head, here?”
“Don’t poke my eye out with it.”
The officer pointed at a chipped area, where the paint had flaked away.
Kaminski smiled. “Very good, Robinson. Very good!”
*
Clarke needed to get some sleep, but there was no point going home. His shift would begin at three that afternoon and it was already already mid-morning. He had wheeled two office chairs together to create a makeshift bed from them and his jacket, but it was a rapidly failing experiment.
He felt old.
Once again he was on his own - Styles having sensibly gone to get some real rest - while his colleagues attended to his unfinished business. Chakraborty and Kaminski he liked, at least. He’d done his part, finding Shona in the chaos of the raid. An officer had arrested her and discreetly removed her from the premises. To an observer she was one of many staff taken from The Palinese Express that morning; the difference being that her destination was a meeting room far from the others. She would be questioned, rinsed for all the information she had, and kept in protective custody for a period. With any luck she’d be given help to leave London, go some place else where nobody would know her face or her name. It would be hard, probably for the rest of her life, and none of it would bring back her friend, but she’d be alive.
He stared up at the ceiling fan, still rotating determinedly despite the hopelessness of its efforts.
The phone rang; it was Kaminski. Clarke held the receiver groggily to his ear, half sat up and leaning heavily on one elbow. “You hit it spot on, Yannick,” came Kaminski’s voice. “We got the murder weapon. Might have been an accident during some rough play with a client, we’ll see, but we can tie the girl to the venue through the paint match. Nice work.”
Kaminski rarely used first names. “Any idea who did it?”
“Not yet, but we’ll get there. They keep surprisingly comprehensive records. Remind me never to frequent one of these places. The boss man rolled over after a light tickle and is spilling his guts.”
Clarke grunted. “Callihan’d be pleased.”
“He would.” There was a pause on the other end of the line. “Clarke, this goes deeper than we thought. The girl was an illegal resident, and she’s not the only one. Turns out this place has a steady turnover of girls and boys coming over from Palinor.”
Anyone passing through the portals required ID - it had been that way for decades, after some of the early immigration scares the previous century. “Undocumented? How are they managing that?”
“That’s the thing,” Kaminski said, “boss man here has already squealed on the name of his higher-up. Chakraborty reckons we’ve stumbled on a whole trafficking ring. This case is as much yours as it is ours. If you want in, Clarke, you need to come meet us at the portal station. We’re about to head there now; the warrant’s being drawn up as we speak.”
The portal station. It was a twenty minute walk - the SDC’s offices had been positioned deliberately, perhaps symbolically, close by, even though their work rarely required them to go to the portal station itself. People trafficking, then. Callihan would have been there in a heartbeat. Clarke smiled, straightened, took his jacket from his lap and slung it around his shoulders.
“I’m on my way.”
*
Something didn’t make sense. Several things, in fact. Detective Inspector Christopher Bakker did not like loose ends. Running a tight ship was what allowed him to leave at night and switch off. Police work stayed at work, family stayed at home. Anybody or anything which disrupted that would feel his ire: he didn’t go to work to make friends.
The emergency call transcripts lay on his desk. The door to his office was closed; he didn’t want anyone else on this, not yet. Not until he had something. Through the blinds he caught sight of Clarke on his way out the door. On the right of the desk was another transcript, of the calls made between Control and Clarke and Callihan’s vehicle on the morning of the koth encounter the previous month.
Working backwards, he checked the time stamp for when Callihan acknowledged receipt of the message from Control about the disturbance. The call to emergency services had taken place four minutes prior, according to the other transcript. There were the caller’s words, reporting sounds of a violent exchange in Sterling Court. He backed up the timeline further, cross-referencing the car transcript. Clarke had reported their location to Control twenty minutes earlier, while Callihan was doing a tea run at a local cafe.
Bakker could sense a detail was lurking, waiting to be noticed. Officers had spoken to the original caller from the tower block in the aftermath; he’d approached the police line and introduced himself, willing to answer any questions. That had struck Bakker as odd when he’d read it in the report, especially given the less-than-savoury location, but the man’s details had checked out and matched the call transcript. Martin Chambers, 330 Sterling Court. Dock worker.
Not entirely knowing why, but unable to resist the impulse, Bakker picked up his telephone and dialled the number on the transcript; the number of 330 Sterling Court.
“This number has been disconnected,” came the pre-recorded message, followed by an ugly beep.
The corners of Bakker’s mouth turned up slightly. Not quite a smile. There was his loose end. Time to pull on it.