She saw McCracken and another officer walk into the interview room where Duchamps, now wearing a grey tracksuit, was waiting. The formalities over, McCracken opened a folder containing the three envelopes from Duchamps’s safe.
‘Before we go any further, Mr Duchamps, we are questioning you in relation to a terrorist incident in the Triangle Building in Brussels at the offices of the European Investigation and Regulation Service. One of the employees was killed in the incident, so there’s a murder charge on top. We are liaising with our Belgian colleagues who have asked us to process you under the EIRS protocols. Do you understand? Please speak your answer.’
‘Yes.’
‘You have been identified by one of our officers as this person entering the building at 09.03 three days before the bombing.’ McCracken ran the CCTV footage at half-speed.
‘That’s not me.’
McCracken looked at him, at the video, then back at the trader’s face. ‘That looks like you to me and I have twenty-twenty vision. The tech staff have used facial recognition software and they say it’s you. So let’s take it that it’s you.’
‘No comment. And I want a lawyer.’
‘We’ll get that arranged in a little while. But in the meantime, you can tell me why you signed in at the Triangle Building under a false name. Why was that?’
‘That’s not me.’ His voice was becoming shrill. ‘And you can’t interrogate me like this without a lawyer.’
‘We’ve established it was you, and as it’s terrorism related, yes, we can. We have two whole days together first.’ McCracken nodded to his colleague who produced a printout. ‘I’m showing Mr Duchamps a scan of the ID in the name of Lucas Boulting sent to us by the Triangle Building security team. It shows a photo identical to the one on Mr Duchamps’s driving licence and in his passport.’
Even on the monitor in the observation room, Mel could see Duchamps’s face shining with sweat. He passed his hand across his mouth.
‘We’ve established you were in that building on a false ID. What were you doing there?’
Duchamps shook his head. McCracken leant back in his chair and waited for a moment, then lunged forward.
‘You know what I think, Billy? You were planting a bomb. A bomb that killed a woman and endangered the lives of tens, if not hundreds of other people.’
‘No, no!’
‘I think yes.’ McCracken stared at Duchamps until the other man dropped his gaze. ‘Let’s look at Lucas Boulting. The information on the ID you showed at the Triangle Building belongs to this man.’ McCracken passed a photograph and a copy of a death certificate across the table to Duchamps. ‘I’m showing Mr Duchamps a picture of the last photograph of Lucas Boulting taken in his nursing home two weeks before he died and the death certificate.’
A tired face, heavily wrinkled, topped by a crescent of fine white hair looked out of a selfie taken with a care attendant; the mildly questioning look on the older face contrasted with the fully terrified one of Duchamps.
‘Now that’s not you, is it? Why don’t you tell me where you got this ID from?’
Duchamps shook his head. McCracken gave a theatrical sigh. ‘You could save us all a lot of time and budget by telling us. Cooperation and saving taxpayer money always looks good at trials.’
This time Duchamps shook his head violently.
‘If you’re afraid of somebody, Billy, afraid they’ll get you if you help us, we can protect you.’
Duchamps gave a bitter, abrupt laugh, but said nothing more.
‘I’ll give you a few minutes to think about it. Interview to pause for comfort break.’ McCracken’s finger hovered over the recording machine LCD screen. He turned to Duchamps. ‘Tea, coffee? You okay with a sausage roll or similar?’
‘My favourite,’ Duchamps answered.
McCracken tapped the ‘Stop’ on the recording equipment screen.
In the observation room, Mel frowned. What the hell was that about? The two officers watching with her looked equally puzzled.
‘Never seen Crackup be that nice before. He going soft?’ the woman said. Before Mel had a chance to say anything, the door opened and McCracken came in grinning.
‘Got him.’
‘What do you mean?’ Mel bit.
‘Remember that plastic box containing a sandwich in Duchamps’s backpack when it was scanned at the Triangle Building? We wondered if it was because he had a food fad. Sausage rolls contain wheat, fat, pork, gluten, egg, milk, salt, sugar, enough E-numbers to break your heart and probably a spoonful of monosodium glutamate. Washed down with a mug of caffeinated tea or coffee, you couldn’t claim to have any sort of food allergy if you ate that lot. Just make sure somebody saves the wrapper.’
Back in the interview room, McCracken opened the first envelope and looked up at Duchamps.
‘Now, my financial specialist says this is a trading agreement between you and a Gérard Rohlbert. Tell me about him.’
‘Just a trader I know. He died a few weeks ago. He wasn’t anything special.’
‘This document states that you would conduct transactions together and after putting it through your company, you would split the profits, twenty-five per cent to you, seventy-five per cent to him. Why such a difference?’
Duchamps shrugged.
‘Were you paying him back, Billy?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Because in this next envelope, there’s a letter signed by the two of you—’
Duchamps shot his hand out to grab the letter, but McCracken was quicker.
‘Naughty,’ he said. ‘So you owed Rohlbert money and this is how you paid him back. Gambling’s an expensive habit, isn’t it?’
‘Go fuck yourself.’
‘Not today, thank you. Now this third envelope intrigues me. It looks like insurance. I’m showing Mr Duchamps a printed note and the C5-size envelope it was in which has a UK stamp on postmarked London W1, November last year. I’ll read it out: “Tickets enclosed for the train to Brussels. Good luck.” Signed with a symbol – a series of loops and a Greek letter with a minus one superimposed.’ McCracken replaced each item in their respective envelopes. ‘Now several questions occur to me. First, what were you going to Brussels for?’
‘A meeting. I go there a lot.’
‘We’ll need the names and contact details of who you met and where.’
‘They didn’t show up.’ Duchamps’s voice was part defiant, part sulky.
‘Convenient. Where were you supposed to meet?’
‘In a café in the Marché aux Fromages.’
‘Doesn’t sound very businesslike.’
Duchamps paused. ‘It was a “get to know you” meeting.’
‘I see. So why did you go on to the Triangle Building after that?’
‘I keep telling you I didn’t.’
McCracken’s turn to pause.
‘Why did you keep the note?’
‘I don’t know.’
McCracken raised an eyebrow.
‘Bit of insurance, was it?’
Duchamps said nothing.
‘A very dangerous thing to do, sending you the tickets by open post,’ McCracken continued. ‘I’m wondering why the sender didn’t order them digitally and just send you the PIN number to retrieve them. More importantly, who bought the tickets for you?’
Duchamps tightened his lips and stayed silent.
McCracken waited for a full two minutes then terminated the interview.
As Duchamps was led away, McCracken said, ‘You do realise that whoever sent you the tickets is throwing you to the wolves, don’t you?’
* * *
‘What did that jerk mean Gérard was “nothing special”?’ Mel was so incensed by Duchamps’s words she wanted to go in there and tear him apart.
She sat with McCracken in the canteen, barely touching her sandwich.
‘Well, it’s looking as if Rohlbert was significantly special, more special than we thought. And put your claws away. I can’t he
lp it if your lover boy is turning out to be a class one villain.’
Mel’s chest tightened, and she gasped. ‘You don’t know that.’
‘Oh, come on.’ McCracken rolled his eyes. ‘Even a halfwit can see he’s fiddling the books as well as rolling Duchamps over.’
Mel stared at McCracken, infuriated by the sneer on his face and the sarcastic tone in his voice. How bloody dare he? This… this prolo talking in such a common way about the man she’d adored, a man a hundred times more cultured and able than he could ever imagine being.
As if by instinct, she reached across and slapped McCracken full in the face.
All conversation in the noisy canteen died. A knife clattered on a plate, then silence. Mel stared at McCracken’s surprised face, then at her smarting hand. Her temper slaked, she couldn’t move. Heat crept up her neck and face as all eyes and ears waited for the thunderburst from McCracken.
‘Feel better now?’ he said. ‘Pass me the sugar, please.’
She stared at him.
‘In your own time, of course,’ he added.
‘I-I’m so sorry,’ she stuttered.
‘I expect you are. Been wanting to do that for weeks, I’d think.’
His eyes were hard, but he carried on as if nothing had happened. She was conscious of everybody watching. How could she have lost control like that? Mortified didn’t begin to describe it.
‘Come on then, let’s get back to work.’
She nodded, unable to speak, and followed him out. Back upstairs, he gestured for her to follow him into a side room. She hesitated, but he grabbed her wrist and pulled her in, slamming the door shut behind her. He flicked the lock catch with his free hand. Still holding her wrist, he pulled her close. Now his eyes were boiling.
‘If you ever do something like that again in public, I’ll give you such a good hiding you won’t be able to sit down for a week.’ Fury bounced off him.
Mel caught her breath. He meant it. But she’d been wrong, so wrong. It was a juvenile habit of his, that way of talking, like those louts in the shower. She should have taken account of that.
He was still holding her close. She caught the scent of lemon and bergamot. The warmth of his body rose from the neck of his shirt. His breathing quickened, and he blinked. She tilted her head up almost by instinct and her breath mingled with his. His grip on her wrist tightened and he bent over her.
Then her phone rang.
22
‘Ah, bonjour, Aimée.’ Mel coughed. ‘Mais non. Tout va bien.’ Pause. ‘Génial. A bientôt.’
Mel tapped the end call symbol and shoved her phone in her back jeans pocket. She turned to look at McCracken, but he was standing with his back to her, his hands in his pockets and shoulders hunched over. She didn’t know what to say. Should she just leave? No, it would be cowardly to flounce out. She had to work with this man.
‘Listen, I’m sorry I embarrassed you,’ she said. ‘I apologise again for striking you.’
He didn’t move.
‘If you find it awkward to work with me now, I’ll ask Mr Stevenson to reassign me.’
McCracken turned slowly. Just for a nanosecond, Mel glimpsed a stricken look, but it was replaced so quickly by his usual cynical expression that she thought she’d imagined it.
‘Apology accepted. And don’t think you’re that important that I need to be bothered.’
What the hell did that mean? The red tinge on McCracken’s face was growing and a purple bruise already blooming on his cheekbone. God, she’d really walloped him. But his words about Gérard had stung. Could her clever, sexy and perfect fiancé have really been that manipulative person described in Duchamps’s documents? If so, she hadn’t known him at all. Even Gérard’s father had hinted at the funeral about Gérard being mixed up in shady dealing. Surely, she would have known in her heart if he wasn’t being honest? There had to be another logical explanation.
‘Well, let’s get back to work.’ McCracken snatched the door open. As he went to leave the room, he turned back to face her.
‘When I said I’d give you a hiding, I meant a fair fight in the gym. I’m not such a pleb that I’d beat up a woman, whatever you think of me.’
* * *
Mel tried to keep her thoughts focused as she watched McCracken press Duchamps further. She’d ignored the stares from others as had McCracken when they’d walked into the incident room. They’d sat at one end of the conference room table together and he’d opened the file to discuss the next line of questioning as if nothing had happened. Except Mel had been completely and physically aware of his presence. Would her embarrassment ever go away? Now she was watching him again from the observation room.
‘I’m showing Mr Duchamps a printout of the scan of a small backpack timestamped at 09.03.’ He pushed the sheet over the table. ‘Now, nobody’s pretending any more it wasn’t you going through the Triangle Building security. Tell me what was in your bag.’
‘I don’t have to tell you anything and that’s not my bag.’
‘This is a list of items in the identical bag we found in your office, Billy. Now let’s compare it to the scanned bag contents. Notebook, laptop, two pens, one with a very fancy clip. I’d say that was the same pen. And I think a jury would agree.’
Duchamps fidgeted.
‘Tell me what’s in that plastic box.’
‘Looks like a sandwich.’
‘Oh? But there are plenty of places to get a drink and bite to eat in the building. And weren’t you supposed to be meeting somebody for lunch? Why did you need a sandwich?’
‘Some people have food allergies,’ Duchamps trotted out like a prepared line.
‘Including you?’ McCracken waited.
‘Yes, I can’t eat just anything. No E-numbers or high salt.’
‘So you took a special sandwich with you that day.’
‘Yes, because—’ Duchamps’s face went white. ‘Oh, God.’ He covered his face with his hands.
‘Was that what they told you to say, Billy?’ McCracken’s voice was uncharacteristically gentle.
‘Yes,’ Duchamps whispered.
‘That’s very helpful, Billy. Well done. Now one last question then we’ll take a break. We found a note in Gérard Rohlbert’s effects with your safe combination. If you remember, my colleague recognised it as soon as the locksmith got the first three numbers out. Now why did Rohlbert have that?’
‘He… he said he was being pressured and wanted to know where to put his hands on some easy cash instantly. I don’t think that was it at all.’ Duchamps looked up at McCracken. ‘It was once when he came over to see me. He was such a cocky bastard. He insisted on making sure I was sticking to our agreement, so I got the thing out of my safe and waved it in his face. He was standing near the open safe and spotted the envelope and note about the tickets. He reached in and grabbed them. I can still remember how surprised he looked. I wondered if he’d recognised the funny symbol. He didn’t say anything. But I think he wanted to know that note was safe but where he could get at it. He grabbed my collar and told me he’d cut my balls off and stuff them in my mouth if I ever let anybody see it but him..’
Now McCracken had broken the seal, Duchamps wouldn’t stop pouring out his story. Mel stared at the screens and listened in horror; it was like a cop conspiracy series on the television, twisting and turning. But this was real. Thank God the room was dark. None of her colleagues in the room could see the tears welling up in her eyes. McCracken had been right, which made her regret her slap even more. She stood up, knocking her notebook onto the floor. She clenched her fists and shrank back into the gloom of the opposite side of the room.
The door opened. Patrick Stevenson entered and took the chair Mel had just vacated. He waved at the other officers to leave, but didn’t say a word to Mel; his eyes flitted from one screen to the other.
Duchamps had been told to leave the ‘sandwich box’ in the visitors’ WC at a certain time on the Wednesday then take his time washing his hands.
Exactly five minutes after he’d entered the cloakroom, his instructions were to leave, then make his way out of the building.
Stevenson grabbed his phone.
‘Leroy? Get me any video that captures people going into the visitors’ WC on the ground floor between 8 a.m. on the Wednesday before the bombing and 12 noon on the Saturday itself. Upload it onto the secure server and get a sealed digital copy made.’
‘But that will include hundreds of people,’ Mel said out of the darkness as Stevenson pocketed his phone.
‘Yes, of course.’ He kept his gaze fixed on the screens. ‘Everybody will have to work double hours, including you. But we’ll be able to narrow down the number of people who could be the bomber, if your insider theory is correct.’
* * *
Just after nine that evening a tall figure was shown into the conference room. Blond, blue-eyed, wearing tailored jeans, a leather jacket and a confident air, he dropped his large backpack in the corner and spotted Mel.
‘Mélisende. Bonjour.’ He bent and kissed her on each cheek.
‘Hello, Andreas.’ She smiled at him. One person who wasn’t annoyed with her. ‘Let me introduce you to Director Stevenson.’
‘Welcome to London, Kriminalkommissar Holzmann,’ Stevenson said and shook his hand. ‘This is Inspector McCracken, also assigned to the EIRS. Kommissar Holzmann joins us from the financial crime section of organised crime at the Bundeskriminalamt in Wiesbaden.’
The two younger men studied each other, but nodded in a friendly enough way. McCracken didn’t go as far as a smile.
‘You’re booked into a hotel near here for tonight,’ Stevenson said to Holzmann. ‘We’ve rented a flat for you within walking distance of the secure location at Westway,’ he added. ‘You’ll go out there tomorrow and you can get started. There’s plenty to keep you occupied for some time, but first we urgently need an overview to highlight any areas we should concentrate on as a priority. Mélisende can bring you up to speed on the background.’
Double Identity Page 13