No Human Enemy (Suzie Mountford Mysteries) Read Free Page A

belonged to the Parish Church of St James, on the edge of the invisible frontier where Camberwell drains into Walworth.
    Brian pulled over and they stopped, parking before the convent’s main entrance in Silverhurst Road, a big, smart signboard next to the door saying, Convent of St Catherine of Siena, Teacher of the Faith.
    Tommy coughed, ‘Here we are then. Holy, Holy, Holy. All the Holies. Let’s get cracking.’
    ‘Who’s meeting us here from the local nick?’ Suzie had spotted a figure stepping towards them out of the shadow of the high grey wall into the blinding sunshine, reaching for the door on Tommy’s side.
    ‘According to Billy, their ranking plain-clothes officer. A DS, name of…’
    ‘… Magnus,’ she said, recognising him. ‘Philip Magnus. Pip Magnus. Watch him, Chief.’
    Tommy nodded and opened his door before Pip Magnus got to it. Suzie slipped out and was on her feet by the time Tommy Livermore exited the car. Behind her Emma Penticost had parked her MG and now stood four paces behind the detective chief super’s left shoulder, a stunning athletic figure, prematurely ash-grey hair and that stance that would make even a jaywalker think twice. Emma, Tommy would say, was their secret weapon, their doodlebug, one of the very few police officers allowed to go armed. Certainly the only woman officer with that privilege.
    Pip Magnus wore a grey double-breasted suit with fashionably wide lapels, the jacket a touch too tight, straining at the cross button, a grey trilby cocked to one side covering his thatch of straw-coloured hair, everything else in place: the thickset figure running to fat, rubbery lips and slightly bulging eyes, high colour in the cheeks. ‘Mr Livermore, sir. Good afternoon, we’re honoured, sir.’ Hand out, drawn back a little like the handle on a slot machine. ‘Detective Sergeant Magnus, sir. Pip Magnus.’
    Tommy barely touched the hand, nodded and asked what it was all about and, as he did so, Magnus turned his head and saw Suzie. ‘Suzie!’ he said, registering a slight shock. and Tommy didn’t miss a beat.
    ‘WDI Mountford. You know each other?’
    ‘I’m sorry.’ Magnus hadn’t heard about her promotion. ‘Sorry, ma’am. Yes. Knew each other. Camford Hill. Lifetime ago. Met you there as well, sir. When you came over…’
    ‘Quite,’ Tommy said, ‘half a lifetime back.’ Suzie didn’t even open her mouth. Pip Magnus had been a close crony of DCI Tony ‘Big Toe’ Harvey, now in Wormwood Scrubs for being bent as a corkscrew. Suzie had served under Harvey and worked with Magnus when he was a detective constable. Slippery as the proverbial eel. ‘Might as well use grease instead of soap,’ someone had said of him.
    ‘Well?’ Tommy took a step past Magnus towards the convent door. ‘We going in among the holy ladies or not?’
    Magnus put an arm out as though to bar his superior officer’s way. ‘No, sir. If you don’t mind … really I’d like to show you where the doodlebug came down. This way, sir,’ pointing towards Easter Park.
    They could all see activity at the end of the road where it turned into Easter Park, with Easter Road running off to the right. Dust still hung in the air, vehicles were parked close to the wall and there was constant movement around what was obviously the incident.
    Suzie glanced at the convent’s façade: dirty grey stone; three wide steps up to a solid, four-panelled oak door; three windows reaching away on either side, and three above on the second storey with an extra one above the door, the windows set into pointed arches and barred with grilles let into the stonework. Above the façade there were five stone decorative gables, the middle one containing a statue of St Catherine standing in a tall niche looking down benignly from the roof, a book open in her hand, the other raised in benediction.
    Giving us her blessing, Suzie reckoned.
    Away to the right a wall swept to the natural end of the road, slightly lower