was sixty-six, at the end of his career, highly regarded for his past work, especially overseas, but not very active now. So one theory might be, if an extremist group was responsible, that it was intended as a provocative act, to strike down a figurehead. Something like that.’
O’Brien took this in, munching on his sandwich. ‘He was shot, wasn’t he? Anything on the gun?’
‘We haven’t found it yet,’ Bren said. ‘But we did find one of the two cartridge cases, and both bullets, one still in the body and reasonably intact. So far the best information we have is 7.62 millimetre, of East European make.’
‘No hint of any drugs in this? He wasn’t making a fuss about student drug use, dealers on campus, anything like that?’
‘Not as far as we know.’
‘I was thinking of a possible Turkish connection. Since the Turkish mafia moved into London they’ve cornered a big slice of the drug market, of course. I just thought, if he’d upset someone, the style of killing fits. Giving a public warning to people to keep their heads down. But I suppose the same would apply with your religious extremists. Nobody’s claimed responsibility, then?’
‘No, but they wouldn’t necessarily need to,’ Brock said. ‘The timing was significant. Springer was just about to deliver a public lecture in which he was going to compare religious fundamentalists to Nazis. He was killed as he approached the lecture theatre. The killers may have thought that speaks for itself, and they don’t need to risk making a further statement.’
‘If it was a religious thing,’ Bren said, ‘you’d have to assume it was an international group, wouldn’t you, not UK based? There’s been nothing like this before, has there? I mean, we’re not talking about our own migrant community, are we?’
O’Brien sat back and wiped his mouth. ‘There’s no real distinction, Bren. If your family’s been settled in Brentwood for three generations, your picture of the world is London, know what I mean? But for new immigrants, with stacks of close family connections back in the old country, the world is London plus Jamaica, or Bradford plus Karachi. You can’t put a wall around, say, the Mujahadin or the Tamil Tigers, and say they’re foreign and far away. They’ve got brothers and cousins in the next street to you, like as not.’
‘So you think there might be a local connection?’
‘Could be. It ain’t easy to walk into a foreign country and find your way around, and discover all about your victim’s movements and habits, without getting noticed. A bit of local help goes a long way.’
Brock’s phone burbled. He listened for a minute, then rang off. ‘How would you like to have a look at our killer, Wayne? They’ve been working at enhancing the security video and they reckon they’ve done about as much as they can. They’re setting it up upstairs.’
They met Leon Desai and a technician from the electronics laboratory in one of the upstairs rooms, and sat down around the screen. The small and fuzzy images which they had seen previously were now transformed, the face of the gunman filling the picture.
‘Is that colour right?’ Brock asked, pointing at the areas of skin that showed around his lips and eyes. They were distinctly brown rather than white.
‘So-so,’ the technician replied. ‘I had to manipulate the colours, and that was as close as I could get, using the glimpses of teeth and tongue and the whites of the eyes as parameters. But it wouldn’t be reliable enough to use in court.’
‘We spent the last hour with a lip-reader,’ Leon said, ‘trying to make out what he was saying. Unfortunately the victim’s head obscures part of his mouth towards the end. She wasn’t all that happy about it, but this is her best guess.’
He looked uneasy as he handed Brock a folded sheet of paper.
Brock unfolded it and stared, his frown deepening. ‘Good grief,’ he murmured.
He handed it to Bren, who read out
O’Brien took this in, munching on his sandwich. ‘He was shot, wasn’t he? Anything on the gun?’
‘We haven’t found it yet,’ Bren said. ‘But we did find one of the two cartridge cases, and both bullets, one still in the body and reasonably intact. So far the best information we have is 7.62 millimetre, of East European make.’
‘No hint of any drugs in this? He wasn’t making a fuss about student drug use, dealers on campus, anything like that?’
‘Not as far as we know.’
‘I was thinking of a possible Turkish connection. Since the Turkish mafia moved into London they’ve cornered a big slice of the drug market, of course. I just thought, if he’d upset someone, the style of killing fits. Giving a public warning to people to keep their heads down. But I suppose the same would apply with your religious extremists. Nobody’s claimed responsibility, then?’
‘No, but they wouldn’t necessarily need to,’ Brock said. ‘The timing was significant. Springer was just about to deliver a public lecture in which he was going to compare religious fundamentalists to Nazis. He was killed as he approached the lecture theatre. The killers may have thought that speaks for itself, and they don’t need to risk making a further statement.’
‘If it was a religious thing,’ Bren said, ‘you’d have to assume it was an international group, wouldn’t you, not UK based? There’s been nothing like this before, has there? I mean, we’re not talking about our own migrant community, are we?’
O’Brien sat back and wiped his mouth. ‘There’s no real distinction, Bren. If your family’s been settled in Brentwood for three generations, your picture of the world is London, know what I mean? But for new immigrants, with stacks of close family connections back in the old country, the world is London plus Jamaica, or Bradford plus Karachi. You can’t put a wall around, say, the Mujahadin or the Tamil Tigers, and say they’re foreign and far away. They’ve got brothers and cousins in the next street to you, like as not.’
‘So you think there might be a local connection?’
‘Could be. It ain’t easy to walk into a foreign country and find your way around, and discover all about your victim’s movements and habits, without getting noticed. A bit of local help goes a long way.’
Brock’s phone burbled. He listened for a minute, then rang off. ‘How would you like to have a look at our killer, Wayne? They’ve been working at enhancing the security video and they reckon they’ve done about as much as they can. They’re setting it up upstairs.’
They met Leon Desai and a technician from the electronics laboratory in one of the upstairs rooms, and sat down around the screen. The small and fuzzy images which they had seen previously were now transformed, the face of the gunman filling the picture.
‘Is that colour right?’ Brock asked, pointing at the areas of skin that showed around his lips and eyes. They were distinctly brown rather than white.
‘So-so,’ the technician replied. ‘I had to manipulate the colours, and that was as close as I could get, using the glimpses of teeth and tongue and the whites of the eyes as parameters. But it wouldn’t be reliable enough to use in court.’
‘We spent the last hour with a lip-reader,’ Leon said, ‘trying to make out what he was saying. Unfortunately the victim’s head obscures part of his mouth towards the end. She wasn’t all that happy about it, but this is her best guess.’
He looked uneasy as he handed Brock a folded sheet of paper.
Brock unfolded it and stared, his frown deepening. ‘Good grief,’ he murmured.
He handed it to Bren, who read out
Similar Books
