It was another hour before Lydia got in touch, and she insisted that we meet at the Dog and Duck to discuss what had been happening at the station. After the week I’d had, I wasn’t in the mood for another social, but I had to hear about Charli. A drink would surely help me stomach the news.
I turned up to the pub shortly after six o’clock and found Lydia sitting at the same table as before. This week she was dressed in her work attire, a fitted blazer and pencil skirt, presumably having come straight from the station. She looked exhausted, but still got up and greeted me with a kiss on both cheeks, which caught me off guard.
‘What a couple of days,’ she said, returning to her seat. ‘I’ve never known anything like it.’
‘Are you having the usual?’ I asked.
‘Make it two. I’m going to need both for this.’
With four drinks between us, I invited Lydia to start filling me in on everything that had happened.
‘It was a neighbour that reported it,’ she said. ‘An elderly Indian lady. Anjali something or other.’
‘Sharma,’ I said.
‘Yes.’ She frowned slightly, adjusting her glasses. ‘How do you know that?’
‘Charli must’ve mentioned her,’ I replied quickly. ‘Sorry, go on.’
‘Well, this neighbour had apparently called the council to complain about a burial in the allotments across the road. That ties back to Charli’s dog story. The council sent a couple of diggers to check over the site on Wednesday, for fear of a dead animal being down there with the vegetables. Instead of finding a dog, however –’
‘They found Deacon Walker,’ I finished. ‘So, where was the dog?’
‘No idea,’ she said. ‘Not down in that hole, that’s for sure.’
‘Do they know how Deacon died? The cause of death?’
‘That’s where the fun really starts,’ she said, and took a huge mouthful through her straw. ‘So, first we have to go back to the thirteen inmates at the Scrubs. Hold on, I’ll need to get this right …’ From her packed work bag on the chair beside her, she produced her laptop and opened it up on the table. ‘Right.’ She leaned closer to the screen. ‘The coroner’s original verdict was that every one of those inmates had smoked synthetic cannabinoids, which caused a severe reduction in respiratory function, bleeding in the lungs and vomiting, a soaring heart rate that initiated cardiac arrest, ending with total respiratory paralysis and multiple organ failure.’
‘And Deacon Walker?’
‘The findings were identical,’ she said solemnly. ‘Cardiac arrest, respiratory paralysis, multiple organ failure.’
‘So he smoked the same bad batch of Spice.’ I said. ‘It’s a blend of dodgy chemicals, for God’s sake, how can that be classed as intent to kill?’
Lydia shook her head. ‘He didn’t smoke anything, and therein lies the twist. It was never the Spice that killed them. Any of them. Not exactly.’
‘So, what did kill them?’
‘Nothing very technical, as it turns out.’ She turned back to her screen. ‘An aconitine, an alkaloid toxin produced by the aconitum plant. More common names of the perennial aconite variants are wolfsbane, monkshood and the queen of poisons.’
‘Wolfsbane,’ I repeated. ‘Sounds like something out of a Harry Potter novel.’
‘Don’t you ever listen to Gardeners’ Question Time?’
‘No, I can’t say that I do.’
‘All of these poisonous plants still grow wild throughout the UK, Elliot. They’re astoundingly common. It was the purple flowering Aconitum napellus, the wolfsbane, that officers found growing freely to the rear of the allotments in which Deacon Walker was buried. The roots of these plants are the most poisonous parts and, if ingested, a single tablespoon of aconitine tincture is likely to be fatal. They think that Walker had swallowed close to half a pint’s worth of this tincture, which had been disguised in a lethal cocktail of various alcoholic drinks including whiskey and gin.’
‘Christ,’ I said. ‘But the inmates of the prison, they hadn’t swallowed poison.’
‘Which is precisely what I said down at the station. Apparently, these toxins are notoriously difficult to detect through conventional methods. The original findings came down to the fact that there are no existing reports on the effects of smoking the aconite plant.’
‘Nobody has ever been stupid enough to try, I suppose.’
‘Exactly. It was only through symptomatic similarities between the prison deaths and that of Deacon Walker that they’ve been able to retroactively classify the toxin hidden within the synthetic cannabinoids. The thirteen inmates didn’t die as a result of misadventure. They were poisoned.’ She took another huge drink, and I did the same. ‘Do you remember me telling you before that Spice is often sprayed onto plants like oregano?’
‘The Spice was sprayed onto this poisonous plant?’
‘That’s the theory,’ she said, eyes bright behind her lenses. ‘It looks like our client might be bang to rights, Elliot, unless you can come up with any brilliant ideas.’
I shook my head, momentarily closing my eyes. ‘Nothing jumps to mind. As all criminal defendants are innocent until proven guilty, I always start my consideration of the evidence from that premise. However, it has to be said that the evidence against Charli Meadows is strong, relentless and, most worryingly, all one-way traffic. The drugs were found in her car. They were the same basic type that had killed thirteen inmates only days beforehand. Those men were poisoned in the same way that her boyfriend, a convicted drug dealer who ran the line with children, was poisoned. And the poison was found growing on her allotment.’
Lydia closed the laptop. ‘Children? What makes you think he used children?’
I shrugged, swallowing a mouthful of lager. ‘Just something I heard.’
‘Heard where?’
‘Oh, you know. On the street.’
‘The street?’ She smiled. ‘OK, Columbo, you’ve snagged my interest. What else have you heard chasing hot leads on the mean city streets?’
‘It all comes back to this county lines operation,’ I said. ‘These Cutthroats, the gang involved in Zara’s drug trial, are organised, Lydia. Organisation is essential, but it can also be a weakness.’
She clasped her hands together, leaning closer and lowering her voice. ‘In what way?’
‘The dog,’ I said. ‘Charli’s dog. Biggie. Did you ever see it?’
‘God yes.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Some kind of white pit bull, the size of a horse. I don’t want to sound like a heartless bitch, but I think somebody did those kids a favour getting that thing out of the house. It wasn’t exactly the sort of animal you’d want loose around a toddler. She had to lock it in a separate room when I visited last month.’
‘Exactly!’ I said. ‘Only, it wasn’t a pit bull. It was an incredibly rare, banned breed. A Dogo Argentino. Deacon Walker gave the Meadows family that dog as a gift. Now, under ordinary circumstances, it would never have struck me as important. But it’s the breed, Lydia. This gang, wherever they go, however far their tentacles have already reached, there’s always a big white dog waiting at the end of the line. It’s like a calling card. A symbol of their power, perhaps, the mark of their organisation. Unfortunately for them, it’s also the link connecting their operation. I suspect that they chose this rare breed to stand out, but anything so rare can be traced.’
She seemed genuinely amazed. ‘Traced to where?’
‘Jacob Werner.’
‘And who on earth is Jacob Werner?’
‘He’s a sadistic little bastard operating out of Croydon,’ I said. ‘A worm. I’ve represented him a few times over the years, always for some low-grade, slimy shit. A few weeks ago, he was brought to me on a charge of breeding dangerous dogs. From what I gather, he breeds pit bull terriers for semi-professional fighting, but he also has some sort of contract to breed these rare Dogo Argentinos for county lines defence.’
‘Wow.’ She leaned back in her chair and finished the first of her drinks. ‘You really are Columbo. But if you’re right, and this particular breed of white dog is bred for county lines dealers, and Meadows had one of these dogs … Well, that doesn’t exactly help our case, does it? In fact, it only suggests that she really was one of their dealers and enforcers, as the prosecution have been suggesting all along.’
‘You’re right. It doesn’t help our case at all,’ I said. ‘Neither does the fact that Deacon Walker conducted his business from an Audi with the registration DM1, not DW1, which would have been the obvious choice for his initials.’
Lydia slid her second drink towards her, stirring ice. ‘What relevance does that have?’
‘Charli told me that this Audi wasn’t really Deacon’s car at all. That he sometimes borrowed it for part-time hours as an Uber driver. I didn’t believe her at the time, but now I’m starting to suspect that it really was loaned to him, and for something more sinister than taxiing passengers.’
‘Loaned to him by who?’
‘DM,’ I said slowly. ‘Delroy Meadows.’
‘Why would Delroy lend his car to his sister’s boyfriend? And, even if he did, what does that matter to us? More to the point, why wouldn’t Charli just tell you that the car belonged to her brother?’
‘Perhaps Deacon Walker worked for Delroy Meadows,’ I said, thinking out loud. ‘Maybe he borrowed the car for running Delroy’s part of the distribution line and, somewhere along the way, he fell into a relationship with Charli.’
‘It’s an interesting story,’ Lydia said, wincing a little as if she was struggling to keep up, ‘but where does it take us?’
I took a deep breath and checked the mirror behind her for anyone standing near. Then, satisfied that we had the corner to ourselves, I lowered my voice. ‘Have you ever heard of a man called Roy Macey?’
‘The name rings a bell. Some old villain, before my time. Krays era, I’d guess.’
‘A little later than that,’ I said. ‘Seventies, early eighties. He used to run a huge slice of the drug trade in the East End until he retired to Spain.’
‘Oh.’ She shrugged. ‘What about him?’
I leaned closer, quieter still. ‘Well, I’ve heard it said that he’s running things again.’
‘He’s back in the country? He must be in his eighties.’
‘No, I don’t think he’s back over here. But, if rumours are anything to go by, he’s attempting to unite all the postcode districts into the biggest county lines operation this country has ever seen.’
Lydia eyed me for another moment, then laughed. ‘Spooky, Elliot! You’re not serious?’
I sat upright, a little annoyed. ‘Why not?’
‘Oh, come on,’ she said. ‘Are you actually suggesting that we stand up in a court of law and tell the prosecution to release our client, because a drug dealer from fifty years ago is actually responsible for these murders? We’d be laughed out of the door!’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t know. But I heard that this entire operation is being organised by a pair of twins. Roy Macey’s twins. Apparently they’re doing the groundwork over here for him.’
‘Oh God.’ She snatched up her drink. ‘You’re going to tell me you think it’s the Meadows twins, aren’t you?’
‘Why not? The pieces fit!’
She cleared her throat. ‘I don’t mean to sound rude, but that would take more than a simple name change, Elliot. I don’t remember much about Roy Macey, but I’m pretty sure he was a white guy, and, well …’
‘I’m not suggesting that Charli and Delroy are actually Macey’s children. But what if the story has been twisted through word of mouth? What if the Meadows twins really are behind all of this, and they’ve intentionally used the Macey name to create a sort of bogeyman for everybody to fear? What if they’re acting under an existing brand, so to speak?’
‘Then I’d say that we are well and truly up shit creek. Instead of providing us with a defence, Elliot, you have just postulated an almost airtight case for the prosecution.’
‘Oh.’ I looked down into my drink, thinking it through. ‘Yes, it seems I have.’
She shook her head. ‘Now, do me a favour, won’t you? Take that planet-sized brain of yours and do the exact bloody opposite.’
Unfortunately, I couldn’t.