The Conspiracy Theorist Read Online Free PDF Page B

you?’
    ‘No.’
    Symonds seemed pleased with this.
    ‘Well, if I tell you what I told him,
will you be happy?’
    ‘I hope so.’
    He sighed.
    ‘Okay, there were about seven of
them—not just the two of them.   Been down to get a McMuffin down Kings Cross.   That bit was just the two of them: Djbril and Darren.   That’s where they were identified.   That’s why only they was identified.   CCTV.   No hoods or caps in McDonalds, you see.’
    ‘Up early, weren’t they?’
    Symonds laughed.   ‘Hadn’t been to bed.   The little rascals.’
    ‘Bit young to be out all night?’
    ‘They weren’t out.   Not out-out.   Round Darren’s gaming.’
    ‘After McDonalds they walked home?’
    ‘Some walked.   Some on bikes.   You know these kids.’
    ‘And they witnessed the mugging?’
    ‘Witnessed is big word.   They see the end of it.   So they
say.   Just these guys in suits,
they say, batting an old man on the floor.   They thought he was a tramp, as if that mattered.’
    ‘What did they do?’
    ‘They started to go over.   God knows what was in their little minds.   We tell them to stay away from that
stuff.   Do not get involved.’
    ‘But they didn’t?’
    ‘No, these guys—shaven headed,
white guys in suits, suits with red linings—one of them stands up and
shows them he was carrying a gun.   Doesn’t even get it out.   Just shows them the holster.   Clear warning to go away.’
    ‘And they did?’
    ‘Course they didn’t.   They waited, and then they went
over.   They had enough sense not to
touch the old guy.   They pick up
the mobile.   One
of the little kids.   Darren
tells him to drop it.   So the kid
drops it into a bin.   Keep Britain
Tidy.   Another bus was coming along
now so they leg it.’
    ‘Quite a lot there.   I still can’t understand why Richie didn’t follow it up with the
boys.   Take statements.   No disrespect to you.’
    ‘None taken.’ Reuben Symonds looked
pained.   ‘It is a difficult time at
the moment, what with the hot weather.   The community don’t want to see anything pinned on one of their own.   Besides I get the sense Richie knows who
done it.   Might need the boys as
witnesses later but not till he’s got them guys under lock and key.’
    ‘Who do you think they are?’
    ‘No idea.   Could be anyone these days the way London is.’   He looked up.   ‘What about you?’
    ‘Me?   I’m out of date.   One thing I do know is that most muggings don’t become murders.   This isn’t New York or Bogota.   In London, most serious crime is
professionalised.’
    ‘That’s what I thought,’ he said.   ‘A hit.’
    ‘Even so,’ I said.   ‘Richie would need the
boys’ statements now.   It
doesn’t make sense.’
    ‘Nothing you guys do makes sense to
me,’ Reuben Symonds said.   ‘That’s
one of the problems.’

Chapter Five

 
 
    When
I left the Community Office, I rolled a cigarette and lit it.   My phone buzzed in my breast pocket
like a heart tremor.   There were
three missed calls on my mobile.   They were all from Mrs Jenny Forbes-Marchant.   On the third occasion she had left a rather exasperated message
asking me to call her back.   I
figured she had something to tell me, so I thought I’d go and hear it first
hand while I was in London.   See if
she could tell me anything about her father’s death and why the police were not
investigating it.   But mostly I
wanted to know if Doug Richie was back to his old tricks.   His involvement didn’t exactly make it
personal, but my involvement did.   I could not get over the fact that Sir
Simeon Marchant was on his way to see me when he was killed.   And the fact that I could have done
something to stop it still rankled with me—badly.  
    Like her father before her Jenny
Forbes-Marchant was not a difficult person to locate.   Sometimes I wonder what investigators did before the internet .   Probably spent a lot of time on the phone, or