‘Don’t get me wrong,’ she said. ‘I think that the pair of them were up to no good in that flat. Barrington is a piece of shit, and so was Joey Cobb. They were doing a deal of some kind. But in a way, that’s just another fly in the ointment.’
‘You mean the money and the drugs we found.’
‘Exactly. There is no way on this earth that Barrington Daley would have thrown that away. Some of it probably went through his hands in the first place. But even if we assume it didn’t, even if we also make the unlikely assumption that Barrington didn’t know Joey had it on him at the flat, I cannot believe that Barrington wouldn’t have searched Cobb and his belongings after killing him. He would have found the money and the drugs, and he would have kept them.’
‘So where does that leave us?’
Hannah stared out of the window. She could see the upper floors of Erskine Court, a bleak column supporting even bleaker clouds.
‘If we give Barrington the benefit of the doubt – and I’m not suggesting for one minute that he’s totally innocent in all this – then something happened to Cobb after he left the flat. The mobile data tells us he didn’t move out of the range of the phone mast that serves Erskine Court. Admittedly, that’s a fairly big area, but one thing we do know is that he definitely didn’t go home. And yet, someone told the taxi driver that Cobb had arranged a lift with a friend.’
‘You think it could have been the killer who spoke to the taxi driver?’
‘I think it’s likely. I don’t think we’re at all far away from Joey’s murderer.’
‘So what’s our next step, boss?’
‘We start at the place Joey was last seen alive and work our way out. We try to follow in Cobb’s footsteps. Somebody somewhere must have seen him.’
‘You want me to arrange a door-to-door?’
She pushed her mug to one side. ‘No time like the present. Let’s make a start.’
She asked the café owner for the bill. While they were waiting, Hannah’s phone rang. She answered, listened, hung up.
‘Well, that was interesting,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘The lab has found Cobb’s prints on the bags of drugs. They’ve also found some other prints on them, and on the bin liners.’
‘Barrington’s?’
‘Nope. They’re not in the system.’ She looked up at the flats again. ‘So whose are they?’
18
When Hannah and Marcel returned to the building – now armed with clipboards and writing pads – the youths were still in the foyer. Despite what she had said earlier, Hannah decided they had nothing to lose by asking them a few questions.
As soon as she approached, the lads all stood in a line and put their wrists together, as if waiting to be handcuffed.
‘Very funny,’ Hannah said. ‘Do you lot live here?’
‘Depends what you mean by “live”,’ a ginger-haired lad said. He got the prize for being shorter and uglier than the rest, and was therefore probably the leader.
‘All right, Socrates. I wasn’t trying to start a philosophical debate.’
‘My name’s not Socrates. Do I look Brazilian?’
Hannah went to explain that she wasn’t referring to the footballer, then decided it wasn’t worth the effort.
‘So what is your name?’
‘Phil.’
‘Phil what?’
‘Phil McCavity.’
This got a laugh from his colleagues, and he puffed out his chest.
‘Are you sure it isn’t Oscar Wilde?’
‘No, I’ve just told you it’s—’
‘Never mind. Okay, Philip. Do you live here or not? And before you get all existential on me again, what I mean by that is: is your home address in this building?’
‘What does eggs essential mean?’
‘Forget the eggs, Philip. Focus your brainpower on the question.’
‘Not exactly.’
‘So no, then.’ She scanned the other faces. ‘What about the rest of you?’
No response.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll keep this brief. You clearly spend a lot of time here, although God knows why. Not exactly the Ritz, is it? Have you ever seen this guy here?’
