Settled Blood (4 page)

‘About twelve thirty?’ Daniels suggested. ‘Sorry not to be more specific, Sam. The man we think may be the IP’s father has a long way to travel. I’m meeting him at
headquarters and I’ll let you know as soon as he arrives. His name is Adam Finch. I’ll accompany him, as will Detective Chief Superintendent Bright.’

Daniels completed the arrangements and hung up. She had reached her Toyota. Opening the door, she took off her coat and threw it on the passenger seat before climbing in. The inside of her car
smelled fresh and clean. She started the engine, but didn’t immediately move off. First she dialled Gormley’s mobile. It went straight to voicemail so she tried Robson instead, this
time with more success. She gave him a quick update on developments and asked him to pass the information on to the rest of the team.

‘I’ll be off the radar for a while,’ she said. ‘Any problems, text me.’

Robson told her there was absolutely nothing doing up at High Shaw. He asked if there wasn’t something more useful he could do, his resentment reaching her down the line.

‘Be patient, Robbo. Let’s take it one step at a time, shall we?’

She hung up.

Engaging first gear, she drove away from headquarters and out on to the main road heading for Etal Lane in Westerhope, Newcastle Area Command. It was only a short journey, a distance of four and
a half miles, give or take a few hundred metres. Passing the airport on the way, she wondered how much detail air traffic control might hold on light aircraft movement.

Parking the Toyota in a bay reserved for the Area Commander, she got out and locked it, hoping it wouldn’t be clamped by the time she returned. As she rushed into the building, there were
many questions running through her mind in relation to her victim’s cause of death. The man who’d found her had been transported to the station in a patrol car and had been made to wait
for over an hour.

He looked bored as she entered the interview room.

‘Mr Bull, I’m so sorry for having kept you . . .’ Daniels held out her hand. ‘I’m Kate Daniels, Senior Investigating Officer. I had no idea I’d be this
long.’

‘Pleased to meet you.’ Frank Bull sat back in his chair and yawned. Holding up a foot in a thick green woollen sock, he explained that Forensics had seized his footwear to take a
cast of the sole for comparison with boot prints they had found at the scene. He was red in the face and dressed for hiking, had too many layers of clothing on to be contained in a centrally heated
office block. ‘It wasn’t smart, finding your body, was it, DCI Daniels? Should’ve kept walking, shouldn’t I? Instead, I’ve been walking down memory lane.’ He
yawned again. ‘Excuse me! I’m not used to being inside for very long these days. In my former role as a police officer, I spent many an hour in rooms like this one.’

Daniels phone rang: BRIGHT CALLING.

Bull saw a look of frustration cross her face before she had time to hide it.

‘Better order lunch then.’ He smiled, accepting that she was about to ask him to wait even longer. ‘Grub still as bad as ever?’

‘I’m so sorry. I wish I could be in two places at once, but I can’t. I’ll call Hank Gormley, my DS. Ask him to take your statement immediately. Then you can get on your
way, as long as you leave a contact number so I’ll be able to reach you.’

T
he viewing room of any city morgue is grim at the best of times. For Adam Finch, this was the worst of times. His near-perfect life had fallen apart spectacularly in the past
few hours. He looked small and insignificant standing beside a corpse covered with a green sheet, flanked on either side by Bright and Daniels.

The DCI spoke softly, not wanting to pressure him. ‘Are you ready, Mr Finch?’

Finch nodded. Anxiety seemed to have aged him in a matter of minutes. Daniels lifted the sheet exposing the dead girl’s face and took a step back as Finch leaned over the body. He shut his
eyes but said nothing. She thought he was praying and allowed him a moment of silence. When he opened his eyes, a single tear ran from his eye and dripped off the end of his nose on to the
girl’s cheek, making it look like she was crying too. That was when he fell apart.

Daniels exchanged a concerned glance with Bright. He placed a steadying hand on his friend’s shoulder and guided him from the room into the corridor beyond.

‘I’m so very sorry, Adam,’ Bright said as they left the room.

‘No . . .’ It was almost a sob. ‘It’s not her. It’s not Jessica.’

T
he Jaguar sped off with Daniels’ Toyota following close behind. The fiasco at the morgue had riled Bright, so much so that he’d ordered her to accompany Finch home
in return for access to his daughter’s room. For all that abduction was a very serious offence – if indeed that’s what it was – Daniels wasn’t too chuffed with the
arrangement. In fact she was really pissed off. She was an SIO with a murder enquiry to run. Besides, Adam Finch had told them that this wasn’t the first time his daughter had taken off and
on previous occasions she had always turned up safe and well. She’d been living away from home for eighteen months now, and they weren’t in regular contact.

Fuck’s sake: he didn’t even have an address for her!

As the miles rushed by, Daniels’ frustration grew. She wondered if she were on a wild-goose chase when she ought to have been concentrating her efforts on finding the identity of a woman
lying in a freezer in Newcastle. Passing a sign for Yarm, her phone rang. Stanton had faxed his preliminary report to the incident room and an officer had called him back confirming receipt of it.
But he never left anything to chance and wanted to let her know personally. It was as he’d feared: the dead girl had hit the ground with incredible force.

Daniels thanked him and hung up.

She tried Gormley’s mobile.

This time he answered.

‘You manage to interview Frank Bull?’ she asked.

‘Yep . . .’ His voice was breaking up a little. ‘He seems genuine enough to me, but his evidence hasn’t taken us any further forward.’

‘Where are you now?’

‘Heading back to High Shaw.’

‘You sent Bull on his way?’

‘Yeah, conditional on daily contact until you tell him otherwise.’

‘Good. You know what to do, Hank. Start with the local airports: Newcastle, Carlisle, Sunderland. If necessary we can fan out from there. I want details of all private airstrips and
military establishments within a fifty-mile radius, plus a large-scale map of the area. Make sure it’s detailed enough to show us all we need to know. Get Robbo to help too and put Lisa on
missing persons, liaising with Durham Uni. Tell her we’re looking at med students in particular and keep the uniforms busy ’til I’m back. I could be a while.’

Half an hour later, Daniels followed the Jaguar as it turned off the main road leading to Finch’s estate. Pulling up behind it at the front door of the Mansion House
,
she could see
that a glass partition separated Finch from his chauffeur. Sensing her interest, Pearce glanced in her direction. Checking his rear-view mirror, he mouthed something to his boss before cutting the
Jaguar’s three-litre V6 diesel engine. Pearce took off his cap as he got out of the car and placed it under his left arm, military fashion. With a gloved hand he opened the rear passenger
door and waited for Finch to emerge.

As Daniels climbed out of her own car she heard a mobile phone bleep twice.

Finch went for his pocket as his housekeeper appeared through the panelled front door. She ran up to him, waiting to take his coat. He waved her away and she turned tail and went back inside. As
they followed her in, Daniels registered the man’s coldness. There was something about him she didn’t like. She studied him closely as he fumbled with his specs, relief replacing
concern on his face as he peered at the tiny screen.

His tone was more annoyed than reassured. ‘I seem to have wasted your valuable time, Chief Inspector.’ He held up the phone. ‘Text message from my daughter.’

Daniels swore under her breath but was taken aback when Finch suddenly handed her the mobile and rushed from the hall, retching. The chilling message had only six words:
I TOLD YOU TO STAY PUT!
Finch was being watched.
Daniels looked around her, waiting for the businessman to resurface. Although elegant, the house
was formal, silent, and bloody cold inside. Dog-leg stairs led up to the floor above, to Jessica’s room and possible clues to whoever was holding her against her will. From the plethora of
art on the walls, she formed the impression that Finch was definitely old money, not new.

Had his inherited wealth made him a target for blackmail?

Her eyes fell on the open library door. Beyond it, a portrait of a beautiful young woman hung above a fireplace large enough for a small person to stand up in. Finch rejoined her, looking ashen
but composed. Apologizing for leaving her alone, he offered her something to drink after their long journey south.

Daniels declined. She had to get on.

Finch nodded. ‘Of course.’

‘Can I call someone for you?’

Finch shook his head and turned away, pressing a bell-push on the wall, mumbling something she didn’t quite catch.

‘I need to keep this.’ Daniels held up his mobile. ‘Do you have another you can use?’

Finch nodded. ‘It’s obvious they’re watching me. What the hell do they want?’

The housekeeper arrived in the hall. She hung back, waiting for instructions. Finch ignored her as if she wasn’t there. He was deep in his own dark thoughts. Daniels glanced again at the
portrait in the adjoining room and asked if she might take a look. The library was a magnificent room furnished with antiques and several thousand books. Some of the larger volumes looked ancient.
Daniels figured there would be first editions among them, a treasure trove of history dating back to who knows when.

On closer inspection, the portrait above the fireplace was stunning. It was painted in oils and mounted in a heavy gilt frame, the like of which Daniels had only ever seen hanging in an art
gallery. It was probably worth a small fortune, as was the exquisite piece of jewellery around the subject’s neck. The artist had signed and dated the portrait not so very long ago, with a
flamboyant
FF.
Making a mental note to follow that up, Daniels asked Finch when the painting was commissioned.

‘Before she went to university . . .’ Finch said, eyes fixed on the painting. ‘Getting her to sit was hopeless. My daughter is a wonderful free spirit, but wilful to the point
of being downright obstinate at times. No sense of ancestral history, I’m afraid, unlike her mother.’

Daniels knew he was a widower. Bright had told her as much. She couldn’t help wondering what had happened to the late Mrs Finch, but decided that now was not the time to pry into his
personal affairs. In the past few hours, Adam Finch had faced a parent’s worst nightmare. He didn’t need her adding to his grief, reminding him of the wife he’d once had. There
would be time enough for questions later, and every reason to hope that his daughter was still alive.

For now.

Looking up at the painting, Daniels said, ‘She’s very beautiful.’

‘And very like the young woman I saw earlier,’ Finch said.

His jaw bunched, his eyes growing cold. It was as if he’d read her mind.

‘Yes, I’m so sorry we put you through that.’

‘I’ve work to do, DCI Daniels.’ It was a dismissal. He pointed towards the door where his housekeeper was still waiting. ‘Mrs Partridge will show you to my
daughter’s room.’

D
aniels woke early, unable to sleep, and spent the next half-hour on her new treadmill, feet pounding, giving it her all – heart monitor showing she was at the peak of
fitness.

A digital clock clicked forward a notch – 06:00.

She killed the machine, ending her workout, and walked back to her bedroom undressing as she went. There was a pile of neatly folded clean clothes on a chair by the door put there the night
before; shoes and briefcase on the floor beneath; a banana, a bottle of water and car keys on her bedside table in case of a call-out during the night.

Thankfully there hadn’t been one.

Daniels jumped in the shower, deliberating the day ahead. It came as no surprise that there was too much to do in too little time. That was the reality of being an SIO. She would spend the day
prioritizing actions, house-to-house, forensics, press, TV, public relations, liaison with HQ and dealing with scene issues. Both ends of the enquiry would be tricky and time consuming. Searches of
areas surrounding Housesteads and the Mansion House involved outbuildings, difficult terrain and woodland, taking up valuable resources, financial as well as human.

Please God nobody call in sick.

She dressed quickly, a pair of black pants and a silk blouse, the top button left undone. She dried her hair, tied it up and applied a little make-up. A last check in the mirror and she was
ready for anything.

H
igh Shaw cottage was shrouded in early morning mist. Without knocking, she opened the door to the Mobile Incident Unit and came face to face with Police Constable Kevin Hook.
He was around thirty years old with a great body, much of which was on display. He’d cut himself shaving in two places, was only half dressed and was holding a steaming mug of coffee.

‘Too early for you is it, Constable?’

‘A little . . .’ Hook stuck out his hand. ‘Name’s Kevin, ma’am.’

Daniels accepted the greeting. ‘I won’t shake it too hard, Kevin. I’m worried about that towel. Is anyone else here?’

‘Only DS Gormley . . .’ Hook grinned. ‘I thought you were staying on here last night, ma’am? Or that’s what I was led to believe, anyhow.’

‘I was late back from Yorkshire.’

They both turned to the sound of a vehicle approaching. Seconds later, a rusty old Ford Fiesta limped up the lane. The car was full to bursting, its suspension unable to cope, DS Robson and DC
Lisa Carmichael in the front, DCs Brown and Maxwell in the back. They all got out and trooped inside the cottage, Daniels following them in.