never met, and Detective Inspector Ethan Cain, the toerag who happened to be my ex-husband.
It didn’t surprise me that Ethan had been assigned to the case because it was on his patch, and he was part of the murder team. It also didn’t surprise me when he failed to answer his mobile. I knew it’d be because he either wasn’t ready to talk to me or he was too busy. No matter, I thought. I’d call again later when he was bound to have more to tell me anyway.
The second call I made was to another contact inside Wandsworth nick. He was a senior officer in the uniform division who’d been feeding me with information for years, despite the crackdown on the cosy relationship between the press and the police that followed the Leveson Inquiry. I referred to the officer as Doug, although that wasn’t his real name. In fact I gave false names to all my police contacts because it meant there was less risk of them being outed.
Doug, who was well rewarded for his indiscretion, provided me with some useful off-the-record information.
‘Word is the murder took place between half ten and midnight,’ he said. ‘Megan Fuller suffered a single stab wound to the throat and probably died instantly. There’s no sign of a break-in, but neighbours have reported hearing raised voices around that time.’
‘Is it true the body was discovered by her father?’ I asked.
‘Correct. He called at the house at just after seven this morning.’
‘Have you got his contact details?’
‘I only know that he lives in Lewisham. I’ll have to text you the full address when I have it. But I do know he’s still in Balham.’
‘Where exactly?’
‘He’s at a neighbour’s house. I’ll try to find out which one and text that address to you as well.’
I hung up and looked out of the window, saw that it was shaping up to be a beautiful day. The puddles from last night’s persistent rain were already slowly disappearing, and the sky was an insane shade of blue.
The streets of Peckham were teeming with life. Shops were opening and stalls were being set out. It could have been a scene from John Sullivan’s classic TV sitcom Only Fools and Horses, which was set in Peckham but was actually filmed mostly in Bristol. The series followed lovable rogue Del Boy Trotter and his hapless brother Rodney, and it depicted Peckham as a place filled with harmless villains and wheeler-dealers, while making it appear overwhelmingly white and British.
In reality Peckham was one of London’s most ethnically diverse districts, with a high percentage of the population being black African and Caribbean. Drugs, guns, knives, and street gangs continued to be a problem despite the regeneration. I’d lost count of the number of stories I’d written about crime in Peckham since I started out as a young reporter on the South London Times. Living and working in the community gave me a unique insight, as did the fact that I had experienced first-hand the consequences of endemic crime and violence.
At school I witnessed no fewer than four stabbings, and I once saw a boy of 12 shoot another boy dead in the playground with a gun stolen from his uncle. At the age of 15 I was attacked by three boys when I made the mistake of visiting a friend’s flat on the notorious North Peckham Estate. I suffered a black eye, bruised ribs, and a fractured wrist. I only escaped being raped because someone raised the alarm and my assailants fled.
When I was 14 my stepfather Tony was shot dead while walking along a street in Tulse Hill. My brother Michael was 9 at the time and the loss of his father turned him against the world. He joined a febrile gang known as the Peckham Boys, and my mother and I eventually lost control of him.
After five years of running wild he himself was killed when a rival gang member smashed his skull with a machete in a dispute over drugs.
Some years later – in 2011 – I was in the thick of it again when the London riots spread to Peckham. I won’t ever forget the fear I experienced while reporting from the front line as young men wearing hoods set fire to shops and cars and threatened anyone who got in their way.
The stories I filed during the riots earned me a journalism award and brought me to the attention of the national press. I then worked as a freelance journo for a spell and managed to come up with a string of exclusive stories about the crime scene south of the Thames.
By this time I had a large number of contacts within the police and underworld, and I’d built a reputation as a reliable reporter. This was despite the fact that I often sailed close to the wind by employing unethical methods to get a story. Like a lot of reporters I used to hack mobile phones and use unauthorised electronic surveillance to spy on people. I had also resorted to posing as a police officer to elicit information from those who wouldn’t otherwise have parted with it.
It wasn’t something I was particularly proud of, but then I took the view that the end justified the means.
For me the job wasn’t just about chasing down juicy stories and seeing my name emblazoned beneath the headlines. There was actually more to it than that. Deep down I was motivated by a higher purpose, a compulsion to get at the truth even if it meant occasionally breaching the ethical boundaries. Nothing was more satisfying than exposing wrongdoers and causing criminals like Danny Shapiro to be brought to justice. Working as a crime reporter on The Post allowed me to do just that. The paper approached me after I started selling them stories, and within a couple of months Grant Scott decided to call me The Ferret.
‘I can’t help but admire you, Beth,’ he told me. ‘You unearth more exclusives than the rest of the team put together. And that’s no mean achievement. I’ve never known anyone to be so passionate about their work. For the paper’s sake I hope you never come off the boil.’
I had always considered Balham an upmarket version of Peckham. The streets were cleaner, the shops more varied, and the people seemed a lot friendlier. It also boasted an underground station, which Peckham lacked.
Megan Fuller’s house was in Ramsden Road, one of the area’s longest and smartest streets. The cabbie dropped me close to the scene of activity. A police cordon had been set up across the road and traffic was being diverted.
Four patrol cars were parked beyond the incident tape and two of them were displaying flashing blue lights. There were cops in high-vis jackets everywhere and the air was filled with police radio static.
I stood on the pavement for a few moments to get my bearings and decide how to approach things. The house was behind a high privet hedge. It was near the top end of the road and had an attractive red-brick Victorian façade.
The media scrum was just getting started. I spotted two reporters I recognised from the nationals and there was Billy Prior, the photographer from The Post. The TV crews hadn’t yet arrived but they were no doubt on their way. Soon there’d be a crowd of us jostling for position as we sought to gather the facts.
The paper expected me to file copy as quickly as possible for both print and online editions of the paper. I was already in a position to freshen up the story with what Doug had told me, plus I could throw in colour about the crime scene and get a few quotes from shocked neighbours.
I made a quick note of what was going on. Police were searching gardens and drains. One officer was videoing the scene while another was taking photographs.
I moved right up to the incident tape. Asked a uniformed officer if the detectives in charge were prepared to provide us with an update.
‘Not just yet,’ he said, gesturing towards two figures standing on the path leading up to Megan’s front door. ‘As you can see they’re tied up. But I’ve been told that a statement will be forthcoming within the hour. I know they’re keen to make an appeal for information.’
I had assumed the pair were scene-of-crime officers. One of them was wearing a protective forensic suit and the other was slipping into one.
Now I recognised both of them. The guy already wearing the suit was DCI Jack Redwood. The other man was DI Ethan Cain, my ex, and it looked as though he had only just arrived.