The Informant (2 page)

Kaz smiled equably. Through the door her freedom was waiting. She felt almost high, suffused with the natural joy of being alive. She took a deep breath and wished she could hold on to this
precious feeling, this golden moment. For she knew one thing for certain: it wouldn’t last. Once she stepped outside there would be no respite, it would all begin again.

A fine drizzle was falling as Detective Chief Superintendent Alan Turnbull picked his way through the plastic bags, cans and tar to where SOCO had set up their tent on the
foreshore. The river was still ebbing; steely grey, it stretched away into the morning mist. He could’ve stayed in the office twiddling his thumbs until the call came through from the SIO,
but uncertainty made him nervous. If their suspicions were correct, he had to know. He had to know now because this could be the game changer he’d been waiting for.

He stopped at the outer cordon and as he signed the crime scene examiner’s chit Detective Sergeant Nicci Armstrong emerged from the tent, suited, booted and gloved. She pushed back her
hood, registered his presence without a flicker and headed towards him. Turnbull frowned. She had an attitude about her – chippy, arrogant – to his mind not an attractive combination in
a young woman. Of course you couldn’t say that nowadays, but he thought it anyway.

He surveyed the terrain with a professional eye; focus on the job, that had always been his technique for keeping uncomfortable feelings at bay. There were half a dozen people in protective
gear, working quickly to stay ahead of the tide. He knew managing the scene, preserving every scrap of evidence, was important, nevertheless the rigmarole annoyed him. The cost of all this
scientific expertise soon added up. In the end would it really tell them a single thing they didn’t already know?

Armstrong looked flushed and irritable; the Velcro fastening on the suit had chafed her neck. Turnbull scanned her. She could’ve done with a touch of make-up. As she joined him she painted
on a smile.

‘Morning boss. Bit chilly.’

‘Is it him?’

Armstrong swallowed hard; bile stung the back of her throat. She’d seen most things, pulled enough corpses out of the river. But this was different. A ghost of familiarity remained in the
face even with lamprey eels feasting on the brain. She gave Turnbull a curt nod.

‘Yeah we think so. We’ll need to run a check on DS Marlow’s dental records and DNA to confirm though.’

Turnbull nodded. ‘Still got his teeth then?’

‘The lower jaw’s intact. Well just about. Obviously the body’s been in the water for some time.’

Turnbull wiped a film of rain from his face, turned to stare at the cranes sedately swinging over the shell of some luxury apartments rising up on the far bank of the river. He wondered what the
asking price would be; north of a million certainly. Then he caught Armstrong’s eye. Her face a rigid mask, she was waiting for him to speak. He shook his head.

‘Confident bastard isn’t he? But this time he’s overreached himself.’

Armstrong shifted her balance from one boot to the other. She could feel the squelchy silt sinking beneath her. She’d been up since six. This was hard enough, finding a colleague, a mate
like this; she wanted to get on.

‘Can I organize you some kit boss, so you can take a look?’

Turnbull exhaled, he was wet and certainly not about to scrabble into a clammy plastic suit in the cramped confines of a SOCO van. He gazed out across the river, avoiding her eye.

‘No, I’m due at a meeting with the Assistant Commissioner. Email me a preliminary report by lunchtime.’

Armstrong nodded. ‘Do you want the digital recording as well? We’ve got some three-sixty spherical images on R2S.’

Turnbull shot her a belligerent look as he wondered what that load of high-tech kit was costing his overstretched budget. He sighed. ‘No, a written summary’s fine.’

She dipped her head. He could see she was struggling. Had she been close to Marlow? He had no idea. This whole thing was a grade-A fuck up. But he was certain of one thing: he wasn’t about
to carry the can.

He reached out to pat her arm, felt her body stiffen, retreated into a perfunctory smile. ‘I realize this isn’t easy Sergeant, but . . . we’ll nail him. Don’t you worry
about that.’

Armstrong watched him trudge back to his car. She didn’t know why he’d come. Maybe it was guilt; she supposed it was possible that behind the slick facade there lurked a conscience.
As a rule the boss didn’t concern himself with actual detective work – he delegated. Armstrong had never had that much direct contact with him outside of team briefings and her gut
feeling was that she wanted it to stay that way.

Turnbull allowed his shoulders to sink into the leather upholstery of his chauffeured BMW as he considered the potential fallout from Marlow’s death. Could he be accused
of recklessness in placing an officer so close to a villain like Joey Phelps? There’d be an internal inquiry of course, but that was window dressing, he’d weather that. Undercover work
was a dirty little secret and it was in everyone’s interests it remained that way. The one thing Turnbull didn’t doubt was that Phelps had murdered his officer. Knowing Phelps it
would’ve been a brutal end but it didn’t do to dwell on that. DS Marlow had volunteered for the job. He’d been well trained, seemed tough enough. Turnbull tried to recall his
first name; it was Phil, no, maybe it was Alex.

He stared at his BlackBerry, then tapped out a quick memo to his PA: make sure the DNA gets fast-tracked, set up a meeting with Marlow’s family. It was important he do this right, break
the news himself. They’d want details, which of course they couldn’t have. He’d try to placate them with a speedy post-mortem and an offer of help with the funeral costs. He
paused. He could put Marlow up for a medal, but then one of the broadsheets might start digging. That wouldn’t please the Assistant Commissioner and keeping her onside was essential.

Turnbull gazed out of the window; on an open stretch of dual carriageway the car was cruising at speed before hitting London traffic. A small, private smile crept over his features. This was
also an opportunity he could never have foreseen. He was sorry Marlow was dead, obviously he was. Still, it opened things up, put the Phelps inquiry on a whole new plane. Turnbull knew it was his
moment but did he have the balls?
Carpe diem
, a Latin tag from school, flitted through his mind. He’d hated that place, being a poor kid in a rich kids’ school. But the bitter
memory galvanized him. He speed-dialled his office. His PA answered on the second ring. He didn’t bother with any preamble.

‘Who’s that new DC . . . the pretty one?’

‘You mean DC Forbes, sir?’

‘No no, not her, the lad. Dark curly hair, looks a bit like a male model.’

‘Oh, you mean DC Bradley.’

‘Bradley! That’s him. I want to see him as soon as I get back. And find out exactly when Karen Phelps is due for release. Ring the prison governor, say we want a delay so we can
interview her again.’

It was over six years since Kaz had travelled on the tube. She’d been given a rail pass for the journey down to Euston but now she was on her own. She stood in front of
the ticket machine like a tourist. The queue behind her was getting restive. People somehow seemed different, impatient, aggressive. The city was full of foreigners and snatches of languages she
couldn’t begin to fathom. Behind her some Slavic-looking type was jabbering away to her mate; as Kaz continued to dither, the woman glanced at her with contempt, asked if she planned to buy a
ticket any time soon. Kaz turned. Inside she wouldn’t have taken that kind of lip, she wouldn’t have had to. She fixed the woman with a glacial stare.

‘In a hurry are you?’

The woman caught her steely look, glanced nervously at her friend. Kaz smiled.

‘Only I been in the nick. Armed robbery and GBH. They just let me out. Can’t remember how you work these things. Maybe you could help me?’

Kaz had their attention now, she had the attention of the whole queue. The two women backed away, mumbling something in Bulgarian. A tall, sleek black dude behind them grinned to himself.

‘You touch the screen, love. Don’t matter where. Then it brings up your choices.’

Kaz followed his instructions. A list of options flashed up before her.

‘Blimey, bit full on innit?’

The black dude looked her up and down. Tall for a woman, slender but with no hint of fragility; you could tell she worked out. The hair was thick, silky brown, grazing her collar. But what
struck him most were the eyes, dark and watchful. She was fit and then some. He toyed with getting her number, but he was in enough trouble already with his old lady. He smiled wistfully.

‘I had the same problem when I got out. Spent the first month feeling like a fucking Martian.’

Kaz selected a travel card, fed in the coins, collected her ticket and gave him an appreciative nod.

‘Cheers mate.’

‘You take it easy, eh.’

Their eyes met. She knew exactly what he meant. She wanted more than anything to take it easy, if only people would let her.

Kaz emerged from St Paul’s tube station and consulted the scrap of paper in her hand. The offices of Crowley Sheridan Moore occupied a whole floor of a refurbished
sixties block off Cheapside. Metal-framed windows and plastic cladding had been ripped away to be replaced with wall to ceiling smoked glass. The lobby was now a double-height atrium with what
looked to be a full-sized palm tree in the middle. She gave her name at the desk and a chirpy receptionist suggested she wait in the coffee shop. Someone would be down to collect her.

Kaz skirted round the tree and wandered into the coffee franchise. Several earnest-looking suits sat at separate tables busy with their laptops. A boy with broken English and
‘barista’ on his T-shirt served her. She ended up with a huge corrugated cardboard cup of coffee and foam and not much change from a fiver. Inside, coffee came in white Styrofoam cups
and tasted stewed and bitter. What she held in her hand now was three times the size, a sculpted artefact. She set it down on a table and was about to take out her sketchbook to draw it when she
saw Helen Warner sailing towards her through the security scanners.

Dark tailored jacket, pencil skirt. Kaz had never seen her wear anything else. But today the shirt was dove-grey, reflecting her eyes. Helen grinned broadly, threw out her hands, palms upwards,
as she clipped across the floor towards Kaz.

‘Karen, this is a surprise. When I phoned the governor’s office, they said your release had been delayed until tomorrow.’

Kaz shrugged and smiled. She’d waited too long for this moment. Now it felt really weird, finally being on the outside, no one watching every move, listening to every word, meeting in a
coffee shop like anyone else. It floored her. She thought Helen was about to hug her, so she stepped back then immediately regretted it. They faced each other awkwardly. Helen took charge.

‘Typical prison service. Right hand doesn’t know what the left hand’s doing. But hey, you’re out! That’s the important thing. Can I get you another
coffee?’

‘Nah, this one’s big as a bucket. Hope you don’t mind me just turning up. I sort of, I dunno, I came to say thank you . . .’

Kaz could feel her colour rising even as she tried to laugh off her embarrassment.

‘Fuck, I had this all planned out! Proper little speech. I probably shouldn’t have come.’

Helen shook her head and smiled.

‘Don’t be silly. It’s great to see you.’ She glanced around. ‘Quite a change of scene, odd for both of us. Come up to the office and we can have a chat.’

Helen brushed Kaz’s shoulder with the tips of her manicured nails and steered her towards the lift.

It was more than five years now since the elegant Ms Warner had strolled into the visitors’ pen at Styal and informed Kaz that Fred Sheridan, the Phelps’s family brief since the dawn
of time, had succumbed to a heart attack and died. Helen introduced herself as a newly qualified solicitor in Fred’s firm and explained she was now Kaz’s legal representative.

At the time Kaz was puzzled. How did a posh bird like Helen Warner end up working for a renowned villain’s brief, money launderer and rogue like Fred Sheridan? But she didn’t ask.
She didn’t talk much back then. Little more than a kid, on remand, but with the prospect of serious time to do, she scored all the gear she could get and let the rest wash over her. Still,
from the outset she was mesmerized by Helen.

As they stood side by side in the mirrored lift, with half a dozen others, Helen glanced at her and smiled.

‘No family reception committee then?’

‘Didn’t tell them.’

Helen nodded. The lift doors opened at the fifth floor. ‘Probably wise.’

From their earliest days Helen had trodden a fine line, never directly critical of the Phelps clan, yet always encouraging Kaz to look at her loyalty to the family. For the first year of her
sentence Kaz refused to cooperate with the prison authorities in any way. She was hard then, rock-obstinate like her old man. She wouldn’t talk about the robbery; an appeal failed because she
refused to drop Joey in it, even though he was the one who’d given the cashier a murderous kicking. If he’d taken the GBH rap instead of her, her sentence would’ve been halved.
And Joey was barely seventeen at the time. A couple of years in a young offenders’ unit. For him, it would’ve been a doss. But Kaz kept her mouth shut.

With infinite patience Helen finally coaxed Kaz into revealing why. In the first place it never occurred to her not to. She was the one who got nicked, that was just bad luck. But to have told
the filth the truth, pointed the finger at her own brother, it was simply unthinkable. Everyone would’ve turned their backs. The old man himself would’ve been shamed into doing
something about it.

At this point Helen had laughed; surely even a gangster like Terry Phelps wouldn’t harm his own daughter. Kaz, still hollow-eyed then on prison crack, shook her head. They lived on
different planets, her and her posh new brief. Kaz knew only too well what it felt like to have the old man’s calloused paw leave a bruising imprint on her throat. And when he had plenty of
whisky inside him, he had enough rage to kill anyone. At the age of five, through a chink in the door, she had seen with her own eyes what Terry did to her cousin Val. Val went on a date with a
local plod who fancied her, drank a bit too much, talked a bit too much. Kaz’s mum later explained that Val had gone away, to live abroad. They wouldn’t be seeing her again.