Deadly Intent (16 page)

Peter collected the plates and started to make some coffee.

"What else do you know about this drug?" Anna asked.

"Only what I've told you. Do you take sugar?"

"Nope, and I'll have it black as I have to drive home."

Pete wasn't looking at her as he finished stacking the dishwasher. "You could stay here."

Anna flushed. She said it too quickly. "No, no—I'll go home."

"Okay, up to you." He still had his back to her.

"Fentanyl," she repeated.

"Yep, but don't quote me. You know Fielding—he's now doing a full toxicology report, so it won't be passed on until he's totally sure, and that'll take eight to ten weeks."

"But why did he say it to you if he wasn't positive?"

"He wasn't; it was just a possibility. Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned it." The coffee grinder went into action, so they couldn't really continue the conversation until it was finished.

"Do you know if they got anything from the Mitsubishi?"

"I think there was a residue of blood, a very small swipe on the side of the front driving seat, but it's not been tested yet."

"Was it wiped clean apart from that?"

"Yeah, but they may have something from the glove compartment: apparently there was a map inside which they want to test."

Anna had opened the glove compartment and looked over the map. She hoped she hadn't smudged any possible prints. "I was wearing gloves," she said, and he turned to her. "I opened it up and looked at the map. There was also a torn piece of notepaper."

"Naughty! You know how fragile prints are to get off paper."

"Sorry. At that time, we didn't know there was a body in the back."

"Coffee, and some nice chocolates," he said, placing a cup down.

They sat opposite each other again. This time, there was an awkward pause.

"You
can
stay here, you know," he said again. "That's a very comfortable sofa."

"No, I should get back—it's been a long day."

"For both of us."

"Yes, but I've really enjoyed this evening."

"Good."

"Maybe I could cook dinner for you at my place?"

"I'd like that."

Anna sipped her coffee. "I'm not sure when. I don't think we have any weekend leave—maybe next week sometime?"

Pete looked at her, his head to one side. "Whenever." He picked up his coffee cup and gestured for them to go into the lounge area, saying it was more comfortable. Anna hesitated, wondering if he was going to slide onto the sofa next to her and make a pass.

He didn't. He sat in one of the easy chairs. "What's your take on this?" he said.

"My take? You mean, as a whole on the case?"

"Yeah."

"I'm unsure. It's very much a jigsaw puzzle at the moment, with a lot of missing pieces."

"Like what?"

She suddenly felt very tired, and didn't really want to get into explaining herself or discussing the case. "Just things that don't add up," she said.

"Like what?"

She sighed. "Well, for one, my biggest issue is: what was Frank Brandon doing in that squat?"

"Scoring for someone?" "Maybe."

"When you're hooked, you'll go to any dump to score, be it in Chalk Farm or wherever, so it doesn't surprise me that he was visiting the squat. People take big risks."

"Yes, I know."

"You don't want to talk about it, do you?"

"To be honest, Pete, I'm whacked out."

"Sorry."

"It's okay, it's just having to deal with Donny Petrozzo's mentally disturbed widow, interviewing the guys who were scoring from the drug squat, talking to the girl who hoped to marry Frank Brandon ... it takes its toll." Anna finished her coffee. It was almost eleven o'clock.

"I'm sure it does." He stood up, and smiled. "You should go."

She nodded and reached for her briefcase. "Thank you for tonight."

"My pleasure, and Anna—I'll wait for you to call me, okay?" He kissed her cheek and walked her to her car. "Good night."

She smiled and put the key into the ignition, starting up the engine. He stood, watching her drive away, before he went inside to roll a big fat joint.

By the time Anna was ready for bed, it was after midnight. Sleep didn't come easily; she kept on listing in her mind the many loopholes and loose ends of the case, then thought about the evening, and about Pete Jenkins.

She really liked him, she decided, and couldn't quite understand why she was so reticent about showing it. He was such a different creature to James Langton—and, she was certain, far nicer—but even the comparisons meant her last thoughts before she fell asleep were of Langton. He was a hard act to follow. After all these months, he still had a stranglehold over her emotions. She knew that she was still in love with him, no matter what he had done. Anna had only enough time to check over a few of Frank Brandon's papers before leaving for work. His bank statements were interesting: judging by the amount of money in there, Frank and Connie would have had more than enough to get married and make a down payment on a property. But where did that leave his marriage to Julia? Anna made notes as she read, underlining the fact that Frank began working for Donny Petrozzo, but did not own a suitable car. She wanted to cross-reference with Donny's diary, as Frank drove Donny's Mercedes for the clients. She would check through the registration numbers taken from Jeremy Webster's list, though she doubted it would be among them. She had barely started cross-referencing Franks papers with Donny's diary before it was time for her to leave.

CHAPTER 8

Anna's flat was strewn with packing cases and boxes, but at least her shower was hot, and the garage doors opened and closed without any problems. She was at the station by eight-thirty, ready for the briefing session with Cunningham. Before it began, she went to check out with the officers a few of her queries. She got one hit straightaway.

One of the cars listed by Jeremy Webster as being parked in the forecourt of the estate was registered to a Miss Ella Douglas. As the car, according to Webster, had not been parked there on the night of the murder, they had not pressed to get the details. One quick phone call to Ella told Anna that Donny had insured the car for her to drive his wife to her various doctors; he had registered it at Ella's address. This was a step forward. It meant that Donny Petrozzo could have been to the drug squat in that car.

Anna returned to her office and put in a call to Pete to see if there were any new details on the fingerprints taken from the squat, and whether Donny Petrozzo s were among them. She spoke to one of his assistants. As with the car license plates, it was a slow process of elimination and match. Anna reminded the assistant that they had identified Donny Petrozzo by his fingerprints and that, as they were on record, they could easily check with the data bank. She was told that they had thirty prints being tested. Anna was frustrated by the delays, but knew that forensics had their work cut out for them.

Another step forward was that the swipe from the Mitsubishi had now been verified as the same blood type as the blood found on the bullet. Anna marked this detail up on the incident board. There was now a mass of data, with red arrows, linking the evidence gathered to date.

Anna was joined by Gordon, who had not found evidence of a marriage certificate issued to Julia Kendal in the UK. He had found out birth dates of her two children from the registration. No father was listed on the birth certificates. Was the marriage to Frank Brandon a sham, as seemed likely now? Why the wedding photographs, then?

There was still no postmortem report back from the lab for Donny Petrozzo, as they were waiting for the toxicology report. Nor was there any reference to the drug, Fentanyl, that Pete had mentioned as a possible cause of death. The surveillance report on Julia Brandon offered up no suspicious outings or visitors; however, they had by now gained access to her finances—despite the interference from her accountant, who had tried to block them at every level. Julia Brandon was a lot wealthier than they had first believed.

The lists of different accounts and deposit facilities presented them with a maze of names and offshore companies. She had access to big money; however, she was unable to withdraw it without notifications. Some accounts were in her daughters' names, but most were off-the- shelf companies. The ballpark amount, and this was still being assessed, was in the region of fifteen million pounds. Added to these investments was her ownership of properties, including one on the Isle of Wight.

Anna sat with the officers who had been assigned the job of digging. They were flabbergasted by the complicated paper trail. Where had this money come from originally? At the moment, they had no idea. What they did have details of, however, was how the money moved around.

With the value of the dollar so low, a lot of monies were being moved into accounts in the USA. Then no sooner had the exchange taken place than the money was moved to another bank in another city.

"It's got to be drug money," Anna said, and the others agreed.

They had little on Julia Brandon's previous financial situation, but they had traced a small account in the name of Julia Kendal in Oxford, where she had been born and brought up. Both her parents were deceased, but there was a sister living in a village just outside Stratford-upon-Avon. Honour Kendal was married to Damien Nolan, a professor of chemistry at Oxford. As far as they could ascertain, the Nolans were a respectable married couple. They had no children, nor did they have a property in their name, and money was tight. Academics were badly paid, and Honour did not have a full-time job.

At the briefing, Cunningham seemed her usual lackluster self. Arms folded, propped on the end of a desk, she asked the team to give an update. Anna sat through all their findings silent, waiting for her turn.

"DI Travis, you got anything new for us?"

Anna stood up and went to the incident board. "As you can see, I've added some of the information that I have been working on. There s nothing that really stands out, other than the possible links—but again, it could all be coincidental."

"Like what?"

Anna took a deep breath. "Okay, this is just surmising, as I have to do some cross-checking with Donny Petrozzo's diary and with some items I got from Frank Brandon's fiancee ..."

This created a murmur, because no one had heard about any fiancee.

Anna pointed to the board, where she had written up Connie's details. "She was very distressed, obviously. What is interesting is that Frank told her that he had some big job on. However, he didn't want her to know what it was; he said only that the job was one that would pay a substantial amount—enough for them to marry and buy a place."

"Did you find out anything about this job?" Cunningham interjected.

"No. All I know is that it was connected to Donny Petrozzo, whom Frank worked for. Frank owned a VW Golf, which we need to trace; itwas not a car to chauffeur clients in. We have him working for Donny up until about six months ago. This takes us back to Julia Brandon. When did they first meet? When, or how, did he start to work for her? We have no UK marriage license. We know he lived at her home in Wimbledon, but it's possible he just slept in the spare bedroom. However, she claims to be his wife: her accountant even arranged a big life insurance policy." Anna referred to her notes. "We need to verify if the money does go to Julia, or whether Frank arranged for his girlfriend to be taken care of, if anything happened to him. If he did, then he was obviously aware of the job being risky." As they had nothing yet from surveillance, Anna suggested that Julia be brought in for further questioning.

Anna held the floor as she talked about Julia Brandon's megabucks, and why it didn't quite add up. Cunningham was staring at her. Anna licked her lips, turning over a page in her notebook. "Okay, this is what I'm spinning. If Julia s ex-partner, as we have discussed—or I have, with the chief—could possibly be Alexander Fitzpatrick, then her money is from drug dealing going back twenty or thirty years."

There was another murmur around the team: they were not privy to who Fitzpatrick was. Anna gave a brief rundown of his drug-trafficking career, and then continued. "Fitzpatrick has remained on the Most Wanted lists since then, but what if he has returned? Could
lie
be the man seen in the Mitsubishi? Whoever it was got clipped by a bullet. We now have a match from the bullet and from the jeep. He might even be quite badly wounded—we don't know—but the main query is, if this was the kingpin drug dealer,
why return?
If he is the money behind Julia, then he could easily live a life of luxury and remain undetected. We also, to date, have no verification as to who exactly owned the Mitsubishi."

Cunningham stood up, then sat back down, folding her arms. "Why, if you think he's here, would he want to score from a shithole drug dive?"

"Maybe he didn't want to score. Maybe there was something inside that drug squat that he wanted."

"Like what?"

"I don't know. Our big loose end is we still do not know who wasinside that squat. We've been tracing all the owners of the vehicles, and the prints, but they're small fry. We don't have any that would give us a possible reason." Anna could feel the room tense, the officers listening and making notes for themselves.

She crossed back to the incident board. "The link is, I believe, Donny Petrozzo. We know he was a small-time drug dealer, so he would maybe know the guys dealing in the squat." She hesitated; this was all supposition. "What if Donny knew Alexander Fitzpatrick? For us to get confirmation of this, we'll have to go way back into his background and records. In one of Donny's pickups at the various airports, did he collect Fitzpatrick? He would only be in this country for something big, or emotional—which brings me back to Julia Brandon."

"Wait a minute." Cunningham shook her head. "Would someone like Fitzpatrick use a lowlife like Donny Petrozzo? I don't think so. I'm really not going along with the suggestion that a man wanted on every country's lists is going to drop into the UK and then hire a small-time guy like Petrozzo."

"Maybe he had no option," said Phil Markham.

Anna felt the team was backing her theory, but Cunningham wasn't. She certainly made as much clear when she called the briefing to a halt, requesting Julia Brandon be brought in that afternoon. She gave out assignments to various officers to run a final check on all the license plates; she would put the pressure 011 the labs to come up with something they could work on. She wanted Frank Brandon's VW traced and she wanted to know who owned the Mitsubishi that Donny Petrozzo's body was found in—the same jeep as seen at the drug squat. They seemed to be treading water; she gave them a short sharp lecture to all pull their socks up and to return to base for another briefing that evening.

Anna went back to her poky office, and decided to use the rest of the morning to check out Donny s diary.

Phil Markham knocked and entered, closing the door. "She's weird, you know. Why sit on everything you just said?"

"Maybe because it's just supposition?"

"But what if it isn't? We know Donny dealt in cocaine and grass to

anyone that wanted it. He had to score, so it would make sense that he used that drug squat."

"We've not put him in there yet, though," Anna replied. "We do have his car license number plate, listed by Jeremy Webster, but
not
on the night of the murder."

"That fucking lab is really dragging its heels. I've been on to them and so has the rest of the team."

"Yeah, well, they are a bit snowed under."

"You can say that for the autopsy report as well. Donny Petrozzo was found how many days ago—and they still can't give us anything. The only big move we got was you finding that bullet, and Petrozzo s body. Surely we should know by now who owns the Mitsubishi?"

"They say it's got stolen license plates."

"Right. We're running around like headless chickens."

Anna leaned back in her chair. "I think Julia Brandon has the answers to a lot. 1 mean, look how much money she's got. No way does she match up with Frank."

"Cunningham's got me checking out A and E's at the local hospitals for anyone coming in with a bullet wound."

"You may get lucky."

"I doubt it. If you've got a load of cash, you go to a private doc in Harley Street." He put on a posh, upper-crust voice. "Out shooting; just got clipped instead of the ruddy pheasant."

Anna laughed.

"You want a drink at lunchtime?"

She shook her head. "No, thanks. I'm on the visit later to Julia Brandon's sister. I've got to schlep all the way out to Oxfordshire but I'm quite looking forward to it."

"Another time, then."

"Okay."

Phil grinned and winked. "Good work, Travis. You're keeping us all on our toes."

Phil left and Anna went back to Donny Petrozzo's diary. Donny listed pickups, drops, deliveries, and functions; she started to see
some
kind of code by certain names. There were black dots—nothing else,

just dots—which coincided with times he drove Paul Wrexler and Mark Taylor. Both, she knew, scored from Donny. The dots were also alongside entries for various other names; then sometimes a square with a dot inside. She plowed on, page after page, until she reached eight months ago and saw the name and initials of Frank Brandon.

FB was used about four times a week for long-distance drives and airports, hauls that Donny obviously didn't want to be bothered with. Then, eight months ago, Donny had four Heathrow airport trips in one day. FB took two and he took the other two. Beside the last one, Donny had done something that he hadn't on any other page: put a red ring around Flight 002 BA Miami. The red ring was deep, as if he had pressed the pen into the paper hard.

Before Anna could continue reading, someone tapped on her door and DC Pamela Meadows popped her head around it. "We have a possible connection for you regarding Donny Petrozzo and Alexander Fitzpatrick."

"You do?"

"Yes. It's not like they were buddies or anything like that, and maybe they never even met, but previous to his other charges, Petrozzo was sentenced for burglary at the Old Bailey in 1979."

"Go on?"

"Well, Alexander Fitzpatrick was being tried in court one, for drug trafficking after a massive raid: twenty million quid's worth."

"You're kidding me!"

"No. Fitzpatrick jumped bail and has been on the run ever since. Petrozzo served a few years and then went straight for seven years, before he was picked up again for fencing stolen property and got an eighteen-month sentence—"