Cold Revenge (2015) (27 page)

‘Sit down,’ he said abruptly. Joad did as he was told.

Enver had guessed that Hanlon would have been photographed on some form of internal security system. So she had.

Arkady slid a high-resolution photo of Hanlon across the top of his desk. Joad’s eyes widened as he saw who it was. He immediately decided to lie for the moment. It’s what he usually did.

Arkady had noticed Joad’s reaction.

‘Do you know who this is?’ he demanded.

Joad shook his head. ‘No, I was just admiring the view. Nice tits, bit small for me, not like Nadezhda,’ he added hopefully. Arkady stared at him coldly. ‘I’m sure I can find out for you, though,’ said Joad.

‘I hope you can,’ said Arkady menacingly.

‘If she’s on our system, it might take some time,’ said Joad, pulling a face.

‘Then make time,’ said Arkady.

Joad put his serious face on. ‘I’ll run her through databases for you. Do you have fingerprints? That would be a huge help.’

‘No,’ said Arkady.

‘She sounds like a professional,’ said Joad. He frowned to indicate the difficulties he would face.

‘Meaning?’ said Arkady.

‘I mean, she might not even be on our system,’ warned Joad. He was warming to his task. ‘But I swear to God I’ll pull all the stops out.’

‘You do that,’ said Arkady. ‘And I will want some form of address, some knowledge of how to get hold of her.’

Joad thought carefully. ‘I’m sure that can be done, if I can track her down. And I take it you’ll want any other relevant information.’

‘Yes.’

‘What’s she done, this woman?’ asked Joad, curious to know how Hanlon had come to Arkady’s attention.

‘Pissed me off,’ said Arkady.

Enver looked across the table at the twin figures of DCI Murray and Assistant Commissioner Corrigan. He had forgotten exactly how tall Corrigan was, and he looked even bigger in his uniform. Murray yawned and scratched his bald head.

‘Sorry, sir, sorry, Enver,’ he said. ‘We’ve got this new puppy and we keep her locked up in the utility room at night because she’s not house-trained, and she whines all night. Worse than the kids.’

‘Yes, sir,’ he said.

Corrigan said nothing, but Enver noticed a flicker of impatience running across his slab-like face. We’re not here to talk about the puppy, the expression said.

‘The AC is with us today for a brief assessment report on the philosophy killings,’ said Murray. ‘I’d be grateful to you, DI Demirel, if you could give him a brief summary.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Enver. It was the kind of thing he excelled at. He had a retentive memory and a gift for precis. He also had the advantage of knowing that Corrigan was well disposed towards him. Enver had made reports to senior officers in the past, who had taken a cruel delight in deliberately misunderstanding, or misinterpreting, facts to make him look ridiculous. He guessed it was a typical power game. Belittling your juniors.

Corrigan was not like that. He was, however, immensely shrewd and a couple of times Enver noticed him raise his eyebrows and make a note on a pad of paper. After a while, the paper was annotated with short sentences in his neat handwriting and ominous-looking question marks.

‘And how has DCI Hanlon been getting on in her information-gathering role?’ asked Corrigan. His eyes were fixed gently but firmly on Enver’s.

It was the question that Enver had been dreading. Corrigan knew Hanlon very well. He knew that she was quite capable of acting irregularly. He was superb at evaluating data and he could see that Enver’s report, while excellent, was expertly side-stepping around certain contentious issues.

Namely, Hanlon. Corrigan was extremely fond of Hanlon. He found her honesty, her incorruptibility and her integrity admirable, but above all he found her compelling. He wasn’t drawn to her because of anything, he had to admit, it was more in spite of. She was cantankerous, unpredictable and a huge source of trouble. And he also knew he would go to extraordinary lengths to protect her. He knew that Enver felt the same. She’d nearly got him killed, had got him shot in the foot, he was lucky not to have been crippled, and here he was, still loyally covering her back. He would bet good money that Enver knew an awful lot more about her activities than he was letting on.

Enver, correctly, put the AC’s presence here as a kind of warning not to overstep the mark. He scratched his moustache, which he did when he felt hesitant.

Telling the truth was out of the question. How could he even begin with the Belanov incident? But just for a second he felt an overwhelming desire to make a clean breast of everything, to pour his heart out to Corrigan. He resisted the temptation.

Let Hanlon deal with it, he thought. She created the situation in the first place.

‘Fine, sir.’ He hesitated. ‘She does have some theories that may impact upon the case, I believe.’

Corrigan raised an eyebrow. ‘Really, do go on, I’d be fascinated to hear a DCI Hanlon theory.’ His tone was dry, ironic.

‘Yes, sir.’ Enver thought of Hanlon’s strong, slightly arrogant features and the impossible situations she landed him in. I could strangle you, he thought.

There was a pause while he frantically racked his brains for something noncommittal to say. Murray yawned.

‘I’m all ears, Detective Inspector,’ Corrigan added helpfully.

Enver said smoothly, ‘I wouldn’t like to pre-empt anything the DCI has, sir. I’m sure it’ll all be in her report, a full and comprehensive account.’

‘I’m sure it will,’ said Corrigan with more than a hint of sarcasm. ‘Until that happy day, let’s hear your side of things.’

Sod it, Enver thought, it’s what she wanted after all. He took a deep breath. ‘I rather think, though, sir, that she may have doubts as to Dr Fuller’s guilt.’

Corrigan nodded. ‘Ah yes, Dr Fuller. He seems to be trending quite a bit on Twitter of late. Have you followed any of the gossip yourself, DI Demirel?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Well, @LionofAfrica15 has posted some hair-raising images of Dr Fuller online. I think the Lion might well be a cleaner at Queen’s College. Have you seen it?’

‘Not as such, sir.’

‘Dr Fuller is handcuffed to a whiteboard. He seems to have been beaten up. Does this ring any bells, DI Demirel?’

‘I’ll certainly look into it, sir,’ said Enver.

‘#DrFullerphilosophy. That should take you there,’ said Corrigan.

‘Yes, sir,’ said Enver. Bloody Hanlon, he thought.

‘I’m sure it’s got nothing to do with the Metropolitan Police,’ said the assistant commissioner menacingly. ‘Why don’t you try asking DCI Hanlon about it? She might favour us with one of her theories.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Enver unhappily.

The discussion switched to other, more mundane aspects of the case and its wider ramifications. Time passed slowly until Corrigan stood up, towering over the table. ‘Well, I’d best be off. Tell DCI Hanlon I was asking after her.’

‘I will, sir,’ said Enver. He and DCI Murray watched him leave. Message understood, thought Enver.

Murray turned to him and said, ‘Right, Fuller. I happen to share DCI Hanlon’s concerns, up to a point.’ Enver looked at him in surprise. ‘I’m not a hundred per cent happy with the case against him as it stands and the CPS are making concerned noises about the Oxford end of things, but that’s not our concern. I take it you’ve got nothing to add to this?’

‘No, sir,’ said Enver. Not unless you count DCI Hanlon beating Fuller up and then threatening to emasculate a Russian criminal, then perversely coming to the conclusion that Fuller was innocent.

Murray smiled happily.

He was by nature a glass-half-full kind of a man. He was very relaxing to work with, not like some DCIs Enver could name.

Murray hadn’t particularly cared that Corrigan had been down checking on the progress of the case. As far as he was concerned, he’d done his best. His conscience was clear.

‘Well,’ said Murray, ‘there’s one thing I would like you to do. I want you to go up to Leeds and interview Abigail Vickery’s mother.’

Enver raised his eyebrows. ‘Yes, sir. And to what end?’

Murray took his glasses off and polished them on the fat end of his tie. ‘As of course you know, one of the theories swirling around Fuller is that Abigail was his first victim. That’s seven years ago. What I really don’t want to have to do, is track Fuller from then until now, looking at unsolved assaults and sex crimes in places associated with him. All that time, all that effort, all that cost.’ He shook his head. ‘I know you looked into the police and coroner’s reports but I want you to have a word with the mother. Police reports don’t always hit the mark, do they, DI Demirel?’

He spoke innocently enough, but Enver thought of the gaping holes in his own report. First Corrigan, now Murray. No one really believes me, he thought gloomily. Murray carried on.

‘I contacted Alison Vickery. She’ll be at home on Monday. No sense dragging her down to the local nick, maybe opening old wounds. Go and see her, find out what she thinks. It’s as simple as that.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Enver.

‘I got DS Fremlin to book you rail travel. Go to him and he’ll give you the ticket documents. I’ll see you, I guess, on Tuesday or Wednesday.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘At least with you, Enver,’ said Murray, ‘I can rely on you to be discreet and tactful. It’s a terrible thing to lose a child, so handle her gently, yeah.’

‘Yes, sir. I’ll do my best,’ said Enver.

First Oxford, now Leeds. Who said police work wasn’t glamorous?

Joad scratched his head in annoyance. Over the weekend he had drawn a complete blank on Hanlon. His friend in personnel, HR as he now had to call it, had been transferred, and he could no longer access addresses of serving officers. The Data Protection Act seemed to be taken very seriously indeed these days. He had tried a couple of exploratory approaches but had been warned off.

He’d then got in touch with an old drinking buddy in the Met, to see if he could shed any light on Hanlon’s whereabouts. Again, a total blank. Hanlon was one of those people who everyone felt they knew, but nobody actually did. He couldn’t go back empty-handed to Belanov.

What he did next, struck him as genius.

‘Hey, Dave,’ he’d said to the desk sergeant at Summertown.

‘Hi, Ian, busy are you these days. Caught the St Giles flasher yet?’ Someone had been exposing themselves to women, students and tourists, in the centre of Oxford and Joad had been given the case. Three of the women had said ‘there was something funny’ – that is, strange – about the man’s genitals. Beyond that and the fact he had long hair, Joad had made little progress. He was in no hurry.

‘I think he’s a foreigner, Dave,’ said Joad seriously. ‘But I tell you what is strange, several of the women have mentioned seeing an Audi around at the time.’

‘An Audi,’ said the desk sergeant. ‘You amaze me, Phil. Not an Audi, oh, there’s probably only, what, a few thousand in Oxford. You’ve practically nailed him. Promotion beckons.’

‘Very funny, Dave,’ said Joad. ‘It was an Audi, like that bloody arsey woman from London was driving, the DCI. Here for the Fuller inquiry.’

‘DCI Hanlon. A TTS Coupé?’ said the desk sergeant.

‘No way was it a TTS Coupé. It was an RS,’ countered Joad.

‘No, it bloody well wasn’t.’

‘RS. I used to be in Traffic.’

‘So did I. It was a TTS.’

‘Bet you a fiver it wasn’t.’ Joad dangled the offer of the money provocatively and the desk sergeant took the bait.

‘Done,’ said the sergeant.

‘Prove it!’ said Joad.

He shrugged and typed into the keyboard in front of him, calling up the CCTV images from Friday and the approximate time. Both men watched as Hanlon’s scarlet Coupé rolled into the station car park and neatly reversed into an empty bay. The camera froze on the image of the bonnet and front number plate.

The desk sergeant looked at Joad in triumph. Ian Joad sighed and pulled out his wallet.

‘Better luck next time,’ called the sergeant.

As soon as Joad was round the corner, he pulled his notebook out and jotted down the number.

Five minutes later, he ran her plates through the PNC and had her address.

Bingo! he thought.

But if Joad was stalking Hanlon, Huss was stalking Joad.

DI Huss approached the desk sergeant with her firm, steady walk and land-girl physique. She was from generations of Oxfordshire farming stock and looked it. There were three hundred years of Husses in the local churchyard. Her lineage would have stretched way back beyond then, before recorded history for the non-aristocracy.

She could drive a tractor at ten; her father’s old second-hand MoD Land Rover when she was eleven. Now he relied upon her to fix it. It was a Series 2 1964 Land Rover, which made it almost a quarter of a century older than Huss.

She could repair fences, milk cows, trim hedges, plough and harvest. She could butcher a cow, pig or sheep, and her baking skills were formidable. She could do her father’s tax returns and sort out his computer, apart from the occasion when he had attacked it in a fury with his powerful, scarred fists. She was also a regular finalist in the BASC twelve-bore shooting contests in Oxfordshire.

Police work was dealt with in the same can-do spirit, but like most farmers Huss had a formidable temper.

Like all her family, indeed like most country people, she also held a grudge, worrying at it like a dog with a bone. Huss hated Joad.

It was Huss’s self-appointed mission to get Joad sacked. One day, please God, he would really mess up incontrovertibly.

‘Hi, Dave,’ she said cheerily to the desk sergeant.

‘DI Huss. Are you still free for the darts night next week?’

Dave Rennison ran the police team and Huss was probably his most talented player. It was a source of grave regret to him that the younger police didn’t seem interested in the game at all. Too busy farting around with stupid electronic things.

‘Wouldn’t miss it for all the world. What was Joady after, Dave?’

The sergeant explained. Huss thanked him, then walked off and out of the building. The desk sergeant’s reply had given her plenty to think about.