The Jackdaw

‘So you called 999?’

‘I had to – I mean, I had to do something.’

‘You did the right thing,’ he encouraged her, reminding himself to go softly.

‘I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. That’s when I phoned the police, but by the time they got here he was long gone and then I saw the news and found out that he’d been murdered – live on the Internet. Terrible. Just terrible.’

‘Which is why I need you to remember everything you saw,’ he told her as warmly as he could, ‘to help us catch the man who did this as quickly as possible.’

‘Of course. But I wouldn’t want anyone to find out I’ve spoken to the police. I mean, what if the killer found out? He could come after me.’

‘He won’t,’ Sean tried to reassure her, resisting the temptation to roll his eyes. ‘We don’t think organized crime’s involved here. This one’s not the type to go after witnesses.’

‘You don’t think?’

‘No. I don’t. But we can keep your identity secret, even if you end up giving evidence in court.’ He could have kicked himself as soon as he said it.

‘In court?’ she almost shouted. ‘I don’t think I could give evidence in court.’

How he missed southeast London. He would have arrested her for obstructing an investigation by now and dragged her back to Peckham nick to be interviewed there. ‘It’ll probably never come to it,’ he lied, ‘but you do need to tell me what you saw.’ She appeared unconvinced. ‘I’m sorry,’ he eventually told her. ‘You really have no choice, but there’s nothing to worry about.’ Still she said nothing, as if she was still considering the options she didn’t have. ‘Why don’t you start by showing me where you were when you saw Mr Elkins being attacked?’

‘I was in my bedroom,’ she told him, but made no move towards it.

Why were people always so much more bashful about showing their bedrooms than any other room? he wondered – as if it was the one room that betrayed our personal life more than any other.

‘Don’t worry,’ he tried to joke. ‘If it’s in a mess I promise not to tell anyone.’

‘No it’s not that,’ she stumbled a little. ‘Please. Follow me. It’s on the second floor.’

She led him to the stairs and up to the second-floor master bedroom that looked about the size of Sean’s entire ground floor. He followed her to the window that overlooked the street below and they both peered down on the quiet road.

‘It’s usually like this,’ she told him. ‘Quiet and private.’

‘So did you notice the white van parked up before the attack? It must have stood out a little.’

‘I did notice it,’ she admitted, ‘but it didn’t bother me. There’s always tradesmen of one type or another in the street.’

‘Did you notice how long it was there for?’

‘I … I really couldn’t say.’

‘When did you first notice it?’

‘Again, I’m … I’m not sure.’

‘Well, what were you doing?’

‘Goodness. So many questions.’

He realized he was moving too quickly and tried to back off a little. ‘What I mean is … try and think back to what you were doing the first time you saw the van. What drew your attention to it?’

‘Nothing particularly … just, nothing.’

‘Were you here – by this window?’

‘No. No I don’t think I was, actually.’

‘Then where? Outside? Inside?’

Her eyes began to flicker with recollection. ‘Neither. I was neither.’

‘Excuse me?’ he asked, his turn to be confused.

‘I was at the front door, which was open for some reason.’ He let her think for a few seconds. ‘I remember. I’d just taken delivery of a parcel, something I’d ordered online, some new sheets for the children’s beds, so that would have been almost exactly five. Yeah, definitely, because Marie, our nanny, had already picked the kids up from school and was giving them tea when the parcel arrived.’

‘Good,’ Sean told her. ‘Was there anybody by the van or in it?’

‘No,’ she told him flatly. ‘Definitely no one by it and if there was someone in it, which I’m sure there was now, I couldn’t see. It had those darkened, tinted windows.’

‘Was the window down maybe?’

‘No. I don’t think so.’

‘Perhaps it was down slightly,’ he suggested, ‘to let smoke from a cigarette out, or maybe you heard a radio playing inside.’

‘No. No. Nothing. It was lifeless.’

‘So when was the next time you saw it?’

‘When the poor man was being dragged into it.’

‘And when was that?’

‘Just before I called the police – seconds before.’

Sean recalled the time the case file said the 999 call was made at – just after six pm. ‘What did you see? Tell me everything you saw.’

‘Well, I was here, close to the window, checking the housekeeper had cleaned properly, she doesn’t always, and some movement outside, on the other side of the street, caught my eye.’

‘That’s where the van was?’ Sean interrupted. ‘On the other side of the street?’

‘Yes,’ she told him, ‘otherwise I probably wouldn’t have noticed anything.’

‘Go on.’

‘So I looked out of the window and saw one man almost lying on the floor while this other man wearing a ski-mask was leaning over him, beating him about the head with this little black bat thing.’

‘How many times?’