Everyone Lies (47 page)

Fennimore nodded towards Enderby’s desktop computer arranged neatly to one side of his desk.

‘May I?’

Gifford looked like he might leap up and shield the equipment from Fennimore’s impertinent attention, but Enderby said, ‘Of course,’ and, with a frustrated sigh, Gifford subsided.

Fennimore explained the combination of numbers and letters Marta had written on the back of the photograph in her journal. He typed it in to the word processor. ‘A coded password,’ he said. ‘Presented in the right font, it spells a name.’

‘Rika-19,’ Enderby read.

‘Marta’s sister – aged nineteen when she died.’ He explained the purpose of the students’ F: Drive – emphasizing its privacy and security. ‘We think the password will allow access to Marta’s university F: Drive,’ he said as he typed in commands. ‘I won’t risk compromising the evidence at that location, but a lot of students have multiple email addresses, and one of Marta’s student friends gave us a webmail address for her.’

Simms sat up, her expression changing from defeat to wonder, and then impatient anticipation.

He turned the monitor so they could all see.

There were dozens of files on Marta’s Gmail account. All sent from a Hotmail account. Every email had multiple attachments.

The file names were self-explanatory: Notebk1, 2 and so on through to Notebk33. ‘I think she scanned pages from her notebook and emailed the images to herself,’ Fennimore told them. ‘Rob1, Rob2 and Rob3 are, I believe, photographs of Detective Superintendent Tanford, or evidence implicating him.’

Simms was staring at him.

‘Now, anyone with the account details can upload or access material from Gmail and Hotmail, but both service providers keep a full audit trail because of their susceptibility to attack by email viruses and bots, so I didn’t see any harm in taking a peek at “Rob 1”.’

He clicked on the email attachment and angled the monitor so they could all see.

They were looking at a photograph of Tanford, caught unawares. ‘Clearly that’s DCS Tanford,’ Fennimore said. ‘It would be a simple matter to match this image to the interior of Francine’s massage parlour.’

Gifford sat frozen, gripping the arms of his leather office chair.

Fennimore grinned. ‘Bet you can’t wait to get a look at the rest of those files, can you, Stuart?’

48

‘Give a man enough rope and he’ll hang himself.’

O
RIGIN
U
NKNOWN

Chief Constable Enderby granted Kate Simms the privilege of arresting Detective Superintendent Tanford; she was supported by a nervous Detective Superintendent Spry. Tanford was carrying the throwdown Marta had called on the night she was murdered. Mobile phone records also linked it to the Henrys.

Four years before, Tanford was a DI in Newcastle, working Vice. He moved to Humberside Police, got promoted to DCI; he had even headed up one of the teams investigating the abduction rapes in Hull. Humberside police would want to talk to him about that, but for now he was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit misconduct in a public office and conspiracy to supply Class A drugs.

The drugs seized in Operation Snowstorm were supposed to have been destroyed three weeks before Kate was assigned to the ‘overdose’ case review. The Customs and Excise Incineration Log, which DS Renwick claimed he and Tanford both countersigned, showed only one signature – Renwick’s. They had only Renwick’s word that he acted under Tanford’s instruction. As Tanford predicted, there was no trace of him at Marta’s flat; in fact the only trace evidence was a hair and a footwear impression, both matched to Renwick. He was wearing the incriminating shoes when he was arrested.

DCI Simms and DC Moran were to conduct the initial interview, with Fennimore watching via video link and advising Simms via audio. They discussed interview strategy, sitting in her office.

‘I think we should lead with the drugs charges.’

Fennimore agreed. ‘The strongest evidence is in the association with the Henrys and the recycling of seized drugs.’

‘If I can get him on the back foot with that, maybe he’ll slip up on the murder.’

She looked pale as she guided him to the room where the video link had been set up for him. He turned on the monitor. Tanford was already installed in the interview room with his solicitor. Moran sat opposite. Tanford looked relaxed, and even seemed to be sharing a joke with the solicitor.

Fennimore slipped on a set of headphones with integral mic and Kate said, ‘I’m just next door.’

‘Nervous?’ Fennimore asked.

‘No,’ she said, and a shiver of emotion rippled across her face. ‘Terrified,’ she admitted with a wan smile.

‘He’ll be confident. He’s police – he knows how to clean up a scene, and let’s face it, he’s managed to remain undetected for a long time. But he isn’t infallible, Kate; he kept the throwdown, which was incredibly stupid – Professor Varley might call it arrogant, from a psychological viewpoint – and he will have made other mistakes.’

Kate nodded. They had already discussed some of those potential errors, and she would confront Tanford with them during the interview.

‘He despises forensic psychologists,’ Simms said. ‘I’ll see if I can needle him with Varley’s profile of him.’

Tanford’s legal representative was Sam Carr. Known as ‘Slippery Sam’, he mostly represented celebrities who could afford to pay his exorbitant fees.

After running through the formalities, Simms said, ‘You claim you weren’t present at the faked disposal of heroin which had been seized during Operation Snowstorm?’

‘I’m not “claiming” anything,’ Tanford said. ‘I’m stating a fact: I wasn’t there, as you will have seen from the Incinerator Log.’

‘You’re expecting me to believe that you let a sergeant dispose of a large quantity of Class A drugs on his own?’

‘My client exercises his right to silence,’ Carr said firmly.

‘Your client is insulted by the suggestion,’ Tanford said.

‘Detective Superintendent …’ Carr began, but Tanford waved him away.

‘Obviously I did not allow DS Renwick to dispose of the drugs unsupervised. I buddied him up with a senior officer.’

‘Who?’

‘I can’t recall.’

‘Isn’t that odd? It was only three weeks ago.’

‘It’s been a tough three weeks.’

His solicitor sighed loudly.

‘Care to elaborate?’ Kate asked.

Tanford smiled, for once taking his solicitor’s advice.

‘We’ve made extensive inquiries,’ Simms said, ‘but we haven’t been able to identify your elusive “senior officer”.’

‘Are you surprised?’ he said. ‘If they admitted that, they’d be admitting liability.’

Carr tried again, resting his hand on Tanford’s arm, but the superintendent shook him off.

‘Look, I led Operation Snowstorm, why would I compromise it?’

‘Self-aggrandizement,’ Simms said.

‘What?’

‘The forensic psych said to look out for that as a character trait,’ she said.

Fennimore saw a flicker of reaction – Tanford would not like to be reduced to a set of character traits.

‘Operation Snowstorm was a joint operation set up last minute following intel from HM Customs and London Met,’ Simms said. ‘You didn’t
lead
it, you just handled the Manchester end. And, as for compromising it, the Customs people were very disappointed that the big boys – the suppliers and moneymen – somehow got clean away.’

‘And you’re suggesting I facilitated this bit of escapology?’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘Well, clever me. But you’ve searched my office, my house, my police
and
home computers. Have you turned up one shred of evidence against me?’

Carr was red in the face, but Tanford ignored him – fascinated, it seemed, by Simms, watching her every gesture, devouring her with his gaze.

‘Your laptop hard drive has been electronically fragmented,’ she said. ‘We haven’t found anything to prove or disprove your innocence.’

He smiled. ‘That’s very Jesuitical of you, Katie.’

‘Please address me as Chief Inspector,’ she said. ‘Perhaps though, you could explain why you chose to electronically “shred” the files and data on your laptop, Chief Superintendent?’

His smile broadened.

‘For the record – DCS Tanford made no response.’

He scratched the side of his nose, and Carr relaxed in his seat, satisfied.

‘Renwick says that
you
went with him to oversee the incineration of the heroin. That it was
your
idea to switch the drugs for an inert powder that would pass for the real thing.’

‘Well, he would, wouldn’t he? But the fact is,
Chief Inspector
, my signature isn’t on the Incinerator Log,
because
… I. Wasn’t. There.’ He pressed the tip of his index finger on the table three times, punctuating each word, speaking in an emphatic but entirely reasonable tone.

‘Okay,’ Fennimore said and Simms jumped at the sharpness of his voice in her ear. ‘Renwick swears he saw Tanford sign the log, so Tanford only faked signing it. But his DNA could still be on the relevant page.’

Tanford was watching her, one arm hooked casually over the back of his chair.

Simms said, ‘Low Template DNA is a miracle of science, don’t you think? Say, for example, you rested your hand on the page when you faked signing the log, you might have rubbed off a few skin cells. D’you think I should ask for DNA trace on the log?’

He didn’t move.

‘I think I will – yes, it’s definitely worth a shot,’ Simms said. ‘I’ve already requested cell site analysis of your mobile phones. It’s always helpful to have the victim and the suspect locked together when a crime is committed, isn’t it, Detective Superintendent?’

Fennimore watched as Tanford realized that the same could apply to the night of the murder – that his phones would place him with Marta when she died.

Simms waited a second, then said, ‘No response.’

‘As for your dealings with the Henry brothers – we have Marta’s written testimony.’ She flipped through printouts from the JPEG files and Word documents they had already recovered from Marta’s webmail and university accounts. ‘I’m looking at dates and times you went to the Henrys’ massage parlour. Dates, times and duration of meetings you had with Sol and Frank Henry …’ She glanced up at him and smiled.

He hadn’t been expecting this.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Marta made back-ups.’

‘Sadly, Marta is dead,’ Tanford said, without a trace of regret.

His solicitor raised a finger, but Tanford carried on: ‘It’s debatable whether the CPS will allow her files into evidence.’

‘Well, it’s good of you to show concern,’ Simms said. ‘But I can corroborate that I saw the original notebook, and I’m sure her family and friends will confirm that the electronic copies are in Marta’s handwriting. So – thanks again – but I’m hopeful.’

He spread his hands as if to say,
Your time you’re wasting, not mine.

‘Marta
wanted
us to know everything. She filled her notebook with information written in English because she wanted us to know. She listed her code and alias for Crimestoppers on her university account because she wanted us to know.’

That shook him – he’d been relying on the anonymity of Crimestoppers.

‘She really messed up your supply train, didn’t she? You thought Operation Snowstorm was a temporary setback. You’d get by, cutting the deals a bit thin for a few months. You’d put the drugs back into circulation when things calmed down. But things just
kept
going wrong, didn’t they? Intel kept coming in via Crimestoppers – tip-offs
you had to act on
even though you were killing your own business. She must have driven you half mad.’

Fennimore saw something flare in the inky black of Tanford’s eyes.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That was
all
Marta. Shall I tell you why she did it? Oh, but you know all about that. Renwick got to the cemetery before I did, so you already know that she and Rika were sisters. Marta came to England to punish the men who made her sister an addict. One brave young woman, acting alone, and she got you on the run – you and the Henrys and Renwick and whoever else you’ve corrupted along the way.’

Tanford scratched his nose again. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, feigning confusion. ‘Was there a question in all that garbled nonsense?’

Fennimore couldn’t see Simms’s face, but she bowed her head to look at the pile of documents under her hands and then raised slowly up again to Tanford, her back straight and stiff.

‘I put it to you that you have engaged in supplying Class A substances, that you have stolen drugs seized in police operations and you have corruptly accepted payment for those banned substances from Solomon and Francis Henry. Furthermore, you have involved other police officers in your illegal actions.’

Tanford watched her through half-closed eyes. ‘I put it to you that you’re full of shit,’ he said.

‘Don’t let him get to you, Kate,’ Fennimore said. ‘He knows we’ve got enough to charge him with the drugs offences – you’ve got him scared.’

‘Your mobile phone log shows that you spoke to the Henry brothers around the time of Marta Aizupiete’s death,’ she said. ‘Would you care to comment on that?’

The solicitor spoke up. ‘This is an improper line of questioning – my client has not been charged with matters relating to any death.’

‘No?’ She found a sheet in the file and slid it across the desk. ‘Tell that to the parents of the addicts who died from the penicillin-contaminated deals your client and his business partners put into circulation.’ She left the solicitor to read the list of the dead and turned her attention to Tanford.

‘I believe that cell site analysis of your mobile will put you with Marta in the restaurant where she had her last meal, and later at the Henrys’ sauna. I believe it will put you with her when she was attacked. CSIs are taking apart the Henrys’ sauna as we speak. A lot of blood was shed and cleaned up at their salon – we’ve already identified it as Marta’s.’

‘Looking bad for the Henry boys, isn’t it?’ he said in a confidential tone. ‘Look, I’ll save you a bit of time – I was with her.’