SEE HER DIE a totally gripping mystery thriller (Detective Jeff Rickman Book 2)

by MARGARET MURPHY

  Rickman stood next to the whiteboard and scanned the room. The eagerness was easy to read on the faces of the younger officers. DC Reid was flushed and he leaned forward in his seat. Even the older hands like Garvey seemed refreshed and revitalised by this new development. Naomi Hart had positioned herself with her back to one of the desks near the windows. She looked cool and unapproachable, her blonde hair tucked carelessly behind her ears, her flawless features betraying no emotion; but Rickman knew of old that she was ambitious, and the significance of this extraordinary turn of events would not have passed her by.

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘What do we know?’

  There was a pause while everyone waited for somebody else to start. Eventually, Reid spoke up, unable to contain himself any longer. ‘We’ve got an idea what she looks like.’

  ‘So I’ll know who I’m looking for at the meet,’ Foster said.

  ‘Stolen ID.’ Rickman didn’t see who had called that one out.

  ‘She’s a computer whiz,’ Hart said.

  ‘We’ve got her car details,’ Garvey said.

  ‘A high visibility sportster,’ Rickman agreed. ‘But no sightings. She may have it garaged, or we might just have been unlucky — and there’s nothing like hard work for making luck change.’ This was for the benefit of the unlucky few who were currently driving from garage to garage, circulating pictures and the ID number of Megan’s car.

  ‘Possible oil rig accident.’ Voce said this. He looked strained and a little depressed.

  ‘How’s that going?’ Rickman asked. It was interrupting the flow of ideas, but he felt that Voce needed a bolster in front of the rest of the team.

  Voce shrugged, a small gesture that seemed to cost him a disproportionate amount of effort. ‘Nothing so far — two more to go.’

  ‘Well, keep at it,’ Rickman said. ‘It could be part of her “cover story” — we can’t take anything she says at face value. But even if it only eliminates the oil rig accident as a lead, it’s important to the investigation.’

  ‘One thing she did say,’ Foster said. ‘“The killings go way back.” Killings, plural.’

  ‘So we might be looking at other unsolved murders,’ Rickman said. ‘Bear that in mind. What else?’

  ‘She’s got us by the short and curlies.’ This was Tunstall’s contribution, and it raised a laugh, mostly because it was said with such despondency.

  ‘Except we have something she wants,’ Rickman said.

  ‘The killers ransacked the house,’ Hart said. ‘So maybe they were after the card as well.’

  Rickman waited. Something magical was happening here. If you were lucky — if you got a good team and the right breaks — they began to think as one, voicing opinions, random thoughts, off-the-wall theories without embarrassment or fear of being shouted down. On these occasions extremely useful intuitive leaps could be made.

  ‘What she said—’ It seemed that Foster’s bad mood had evaporated with the heat of energy in the room. He focused on a spot on the ceiling. ‘I’m trying to remember her exact words. She didn’t say, “I’ll give you her killer”. She said, “I’ll give you the person responsible”.’

  ‘Suggesting that the killing may have been ordered,’ Rickman said.

  ‘It’d help if we knew who’s paying Kieran Jago’s fees,’ Garvey said.

  ‘I’m all over that.’ Foster was concentrating so hard he didn’t even realise the potential for a cheap laugh in his last statement. ‘I think we should keep on looking for a criminal connection.’

  ‘Based on?’

  Foster looked at Rickman, a slight frown creasing his forehead. ‘Nothing specific — but she sounded awful bitter about police protection. She doesn’t like us, doesn’t trust us.’

  ‘Maybe she doesn’t trust us because she’s a criminal,’ Rickman said, thinking aloud. ‘And maybe it’s because she was placed under police protection and they botched it.’

  ‘We checked with witness protection, Boss,’ Hart said. ‘They’ve got no record of a Megan Ward.’

  ‘They wouldn’t, if that wasn’t the identity they gave her. If she had to reinvent herself because of some failing of the system, she would be bitter — wouldn’t she?’

  ‘Well, yeah,’ Hart agreed, ‘but . . .’

  ‘But there’s no way of checking.’ Rickman said, finishing the sentence for her. He sighed. ‘Another one for the back burner.’

  ‘She isn’t on the DNA database,’ Foster said. ‘So either she’s smart, and she’s escaped detection, or if she was arrested, it must have been before the millennium.’ Since year 2000 an increasing number of DNA samples had remained on file even if no charge resulted.

  Rickman ran his thumb down the scar on his chin. ‘What if we’re looking for the wrong person on the database?’ he said.

  ‘I don’t get you,’ Foster said.

  ‘She’s running from something — and so far, it doesn’t look like it’s from the police,’ Rickman said. He remembered Tanya’s words the night before: You must wish you could walk away from all this. ‘Maybe it’s family she’s running from.’

  Foster looked at him like he was taking this too personally. ‘Yeah, well, we won’t know that until we know who her family is, will we?’ he said. ‘In the meantime, I say we go with what we’ve got. Like finding out who’s paying Kieran Jago.’

  Rickman nodded. Foster was probably right: he was probably reading more into the situation that was entirely rational. And he didn’t want to get a reputation for irrationality. ‘What else do we need to know?’ he asked, throwing the discussion open again.

  ‘What the killers were after,’ Garvey said.

  ‘I don’t want to sound silly . . .’ It was clear from Tunstall’s tone that he meant Garvey’s suggestion sounded pretty silly to him. ‘But, don’t we know that already?’

  ‘Do we?’

  ‘They wanted the credit card, didn’t they?’

  ‘I don’t work on assumptions, Chris,’ Rickman said.

  ‘But that’s what Naomi said—’

  ‘She said maybe they were after the card,’ Rickman corrected him. ‘But just because Megan seems to think it’s important doesn’t mean the killers did. They might not even be aware of its existence.’

  ‘Oh, aye . . .’ Tunstall was evidently trying to understand, but any other possibilities seemed beyond him.

  ‘Maybe they were after Megan,’ Hart said. ‘They might have thought she was still there. Or maybe it was something else we discarded as unimportant — or maybe it’s something we already have as evidence but haven’t identified as such.’

  Tunstall nodded thoughtfully.

  ‘It’d really help if we knew what’s on the card,’ Hart added. ‘That computer of hers must be worth five thousand plus. But she wasn’t bothered about it. She wanted the shoebox — and the only thing of any possible worth in the shoebox is the card. So whatever’s on the card must be worth a hell of a lot more than five thousand.’

  ‘What’s the latest on that?’ Rickman asked.

  She shook her head. ‘Whatever’s on there is encrypted. Technical Support is still working on it.’

  He looked around the room. ‘Anything else?’ He waited a moment longer while they tried to think of some other killer suggestion, honest-to-god zeal and naked ambition battling it out on their faces.

  ‘Final question,’ he said. ‘How can we find out what we need to know?’

  These three questions What do we know? What do we need to know? And How do we find out? were the basic tenets of any good investigation, and Rickman was not embarrassed to use them, even if it raised eyebrows amongst some of the old cynics. Rickman had his own ideas about which direction the enquiry should take from here, but he wanted to hear from the team.

  ‘Keep on doing what we’re doing,’ Garvey said with a shrug. ‘The interviews, the leg-work, the background checks on families involved in oil rig accidents—’

  Rickman saw Voce shift uncomfortably in his seat.

&n
bsp; ‘Unscramble whatever’s on that card,’ Reid said.

  ‘Put a trace on Sergeant Foster’s mobile.’ Hart leaned comfortably against the desk, her feet extended a little in front of her; her long legs seemed to draw the eyes of the men on the team. ‘With triangulation,’ she went on, unaware of the unwarranted attention, ‘they could probably pinpoint her phone to within a few metres.’

  ‘That’s if she uses her mobile,’ Reid said.

  ‘Well, let’s hope she does, eh, Reidy?’

  ‘That’ll do a lot of good, won’t it — hope?’

  Rickman saw irritation in Hart’s face. She remained in her relaxed position, but her hands gripped the table and her jaw tightened.

  ‘What would you suggest—’ She stopped abruptly and scooped her own mobile from her jacket pocket. The men closest to her could hear the faint buzz of the vibration alert. ‘Sorry boss,’ she said. ‘I should take this.’

  Rickman debated for a moment. ‘Go ahead.’ He would talk to her about this later: he liked officers’ full attention in briefings. But for now, the interruption was expedient: team synergy was giving way to overly competitive points-scoring, and that would get them nowhere fast.

  Hart ducked out of the room, and Rickman was about to take up the thread when Foster chimed in. ‘I say we give her what she wants.’

  ‘The card?’

  ‘The box.’

  ‘What’s the point of that — aside from pissing her off?’ Reid again.

  ‘It might flush the cockroaches out the pantry, as me grandma used to say. And who’s rattled your cage, Reidy?’ Foster demanded.

  Who indeed, Rickman wondered. He’d have to have a quiet word with Reid as well. ‘Perhaps you’d like to expand your idea a little, Lee.’ he said.

  Foster glanced around the room. ‘We don’t know for certain she wants the card, right? I mean, if we’re not making assumptions . . .’

  Tunstall’s eyes bulged, and in a couple of the other officers, Rickman saw a mental folding of arms and cocking of heads.

  ‘O . . . kaay,’ he said, with a hint of a smile. ‘We give her the box without the card, piss her off and she demands the return of her flexible friend. What then?’

  ‘I use my superior psychological skills to get her to give us something for nothing. The name, for example.’

  There was muffled laughter which Foster took as an opportunity to ham it up a bit. ‘What?’ he demanded, all injured pride. ‘I’m more than just good looks and a dazzling smile, you know.’

  They laughed openly now, but Rickman was inclined to agree; Foster had seen the potential of the team dynamic disintegrating into a pissing contest as clearly as he had — and he had achieved several things with his little side-show. He had come up with a viable suggestion that would give Technical Support more time to work on the card. There was a better-than-even chance Foster would winkle the name of the murder suspect out of Megan. And he had defused a slightly tetchy exchange between Reid and Hart, bringing the team together — admittedly by having a sly dig at the boss, but Rickman thought it was a pretty masterly piece of psychology.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Jeff Rickman looked over at Foster and pointed at his watch, holding up his hand to indicate five minutes. Foster arrived at his office door just as Rickman turned the corner at the far end of the corridor.

  ‘Go in, Lee,’ Rickman called. ‘It’s open.’

  The office was littered with paper, sorted into piles on his desk, the top of the filing cabinet, as well as on both chairs: pink flimsies with hand-written notes of completed actions, Megan Ward’s separate from Sara Geddes’s. Computer printouts relating to previous enquiries, requisition slips, letters and memos all took up space.

  ‘Bit of a snowstorm in here, Jeff,’ Foster commented.

  ‘One of the perks of promotion,’ Rickman said. ‘I think it’s reached critical mass.’

  ‘So,’ Foster said, leaning against the filing cabinet for lack of a chair. ‘What’s up?’

  Rickman half-sat on his desk, taking care not to topple the meticulously sifted and classified stacks. ‘I don’t have to tell you this is risky, Lee.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Go along with her, but only as far as you absolutely have to.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘And if you get the opportunity, arrest her.’

  Foster tilted his head. ‘On what charge?’

  ‘Withholding information, wasting police time — use your imagination.’

  ‘And if I don’t get the opportunity?’

  ‘Buy time,’ Rickman said. ‘Arrange another meeting. If it is the card she’s really after, we’ll need verification on any names she gives us.’

  ‘And how am I supposed to tempt her to a second meeting?’

  Rickman stared at Foster, waiting for him to work it out for himself.

  Foster’s eyes widened. ‘Bloody hell. You’re not really thinking about giving her the card?’

  A smart rap at the door prevented Rickman’s response. It was Hart, and she looked like she had just won the lottery.

  ‘That call?’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ Rickman said. ‘I wanted to talk to you about that.’

  ‘Yeah, sorry, Boss — it was National Fraud Squad.’

  Rickman blinked at her brisk dismissal of his most baleful stare.

  ‘Megan Ward isn’t so invisible as she thinks,’ Hart said.

  Rickman had to admire her sense of the dramatic. He waved her in and she eased into the cluttered space. Foster seemed to catch himself staring and gave himself a shake.

  ‘Well, don’t keep us in suspense,’ Rickman said.

  ‘After we circulated Megan’s picture nationwide to police authorities, I got a call from a guy I know on the Fraud Squad,’ Hart explained. ‘He wanted to know if this enquiry was related to a scam. I was going to say no, but then I remembered that Megan told Sara she was a journalist — which she patently wasn’t. He said he’d have a trawl through, put together a list of possibles.’

  ‘And?’ Rickman said.

  ‘I’ve got a web presence.’

  ‘You what?’ This came from Foster.

  ‘When you told me that Megan wanted to bring Sara’s killer to justice, I phoned Curtis — my mate — and asked him to factor it into the equation. He got all mysterious on me, told me to stay by the phone, he’d get back as soon as possible.’ Her normally creamy-pale skin was flushed, and her eyes were bright with excitement.

  ‘You still haven’t got to “web presence”.’ Foster used computers like they all did — for reports, searches and for email, but he didn’t pretend to understand ‘geek-speak’, as he called it.

  ‘Best if he explains it to you himself.’ Hart handed a slip of paper to Rickman. ‘He’s waiting for your call.’

  Rickman pulled the phone to him by the cord, then picked it up in one large hand and turned it to face him, punching in the number from the slip of paper.

  ‘Curtis Miller?’ A pause, then, ‘DCI Jeff Rickman, Merseyside Police. Curtis, I’m putting you on speakerphone — DC Naomi Hart and DS Foster are with me.’ He pressed the sp-phone button on the key pad and replaced the receiver.

  ‘Can you hear me?’ Miller’s voice was a rich baritone, warm and toffee-rich, with a hint of Jamaican in his inflexion.

  ‘We hear you loud and clear,’ Rickman said.

  ‘Okay.’

  Rickman remained perched on his desk, his arms folded and his head slightly bowed. Foster rested with one elbow on the filing cabinet; he looked newly pressed and carefully groomed, almost shining with good health. Naomi Hart stood with her back to the door. All three listened intently.

  ‘We’ve been monitoring the activities of a particular scammer for a while,’ Miller said. ‘She was selling stuff on eBay she never actually had, keeping the money small, so people couldn’t be bothered with the hassle of chasing her down.

  ‘She has several internet aliases, and honey traps all over the world-wide web.’


  ‘This is all very interesting,’ Rickman said, ‘but what makes you think it’s our MisPer? What makes you think these different aliases are one person in the first place?’

  ‘We have experts who specialise in computer forensics,’ Miller explained. ‘They can read the way you use the machine like a CSI can read a fingerprint — key-stroke and grammatical errors, common misspellings — whatever. They call it scene-of-habitation analysis. Megan Ward is a new alias, that’s why I didn’t make the connection immediately, but it’s the same person.’

  ‘She’s been using this alias for six months that we know of,’ Rickman said.

  Miller took a breath. ‘Fair point. But you have to understand we’re swamped with work. The Dutch lottery and West African scammers are cheating people out of millions — your suspect is small potatoes next to that.’

  ‘Okay.’ Rickman understood the impossibility of balancing the importance of one investigation against another. As a manager, he also knew that resources were limited, and he had learned to be pragmatic. ‘So, how does it work?’

  ‘She advertises on one of the big auction sites — say eBay. Different aliases for different specialist areas. For Star Wars she uses O.B.1.K.N.O.B.,’ he said, spelling out each character. He seemed to be waiting for them to get the joke, and when they didn’t, he said, ‘I guess you have to be a fan to appreciate it. She also does collectable pottery and signed first editions. Different names — I won’t bore you with them.’

  Miller continued: ‘She gives a postal address which looks legit — in fact it is — except she pays the legit business at the address to hold her mail for her until it’s picked up. Sometimes she uses PO box addresses, but people are more suspicious of those.’

  ‘Why don’t you keep watch on the business addresses?’ Hart asked.

  ‘We do, when we can. But not twenty-four/seven.’ He gave a short huff of laughter. ‘If I’m honest, we’ve done a few hours here and there, between jobs. We just haven’t got the personnel. Which is why we’ve never been able to catch her picking up mail from the mail drops.