by P. F. Ford
‘I was wondering if perhaps you have friends in high places.’
Slater couldn’t stop himself chuckling. ‘Who, me? I’ve probably got one or two enemies up there, but I’m not the “friends in high places” type.’
‘Well, someone pulled the plug on my case, and you were the only person we had spoken to.’
‘Is this an official visit?’ asked Slater.
‘Good God, no. As I said, I no longer have a case to investigate. Officially, I have no reason to speak to you.’
‘You’re taking a bit of a risk, then, aren’t you? I mean, if it was me who stopped the case, I could easily drop you right in the crap now, couldn’t I?’
‘You could if it was you,’ said Robbins. ‘But if I thought you were the sort who would do that I wouldn’t be here.’
‘So, let me get this right,’ said Slater. ‘You’re here, in your own time, because you want to know why your case has been closed down, is that it?’
‘That’s about the size of it.’
‘Why me?’
‘Who else am I going to turn to?’
‘But what makes you think I can help?’
‘Because you’re involved in all this somehow. I just haven’t figured out how.’
‘I told you I have no idea who Lenkov was, and I don’t know why someone used a car just like mine to kill him.’
Robbins studied Slater’s face and then smiled. ‘My DS might be a bit green, Mr Slater, but I’m not a fool. You know a lot more than you’ve been letting on, and while I don’t believe you’ve tried to kill anyone, I’m pretty sure you’re as keen as I am to know why someone has used a car with cloned number plates to blow up Yuri Lenkov.’
‘Cloned number plates? You didn’t tell me that before.’
‘I didn’t know until yesterday. I made a point of catching up with forensics before I handed everything over. I learned some fascinating stuff.’
‘I take it your car’s outside?’
‘I did think about using my broomstick, but it’s warmer in the car.’
‘Then would you give me lift? I’ve got to pick something up from the railway station.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Trust me – you’re going to want to see it. We can talk on the way.’
* * *
‘So, what did you learn?’ asked Slater, as Robbins drove him away from his house.
‘The forensics team think there was already a bomb under the car when Lenkov planted his bomb. Someone detonated it while he was next to the car.’
‘Ah, so that explains it.’
‘Explains what?’
‘We were talking about this after you left yesterday. We thought someone must have been watching Lenkov plant his bomb and then, somehow, they had detonated it remotely, but we couldn’t see how you would do that. But, of course, if there were another bomb hidden away, it would have detonated his at the same time.’
‘I can tell you something else, too,’ said Robbins. ‘We confirmed it wasn’t your car. When they eventually checked the VIN against the DMV database, they could see it was a car exactly like yours, but not yours. The number plates were cloned.’
Slater was tempted to tell her he already knew it wasn’t his car, but he didn’t want to spoil the surprise. ‘Where did the car come from?’
‘We didn’t get that far, but my guess is it was stolen. I can check that out, but I wanted to keep my head down for a day or two. I intend to check all the CCTV footage I can find as well. Someone drove that car into Winchester, and if one ANPR camera caught it, there must be others, too.’
Slater thought it was only fair that if Robbins was prepared to share information, he should too. ‘If we’re sharing information, you should know we think Samantha Brearley could be working for MI5.’
Robbins stared straight ahead. ‘That would explain a lot. She’ll be the one with friends in high places then. How long have you known?’
‘I know it sounds unlikely, but I worked with her for months and never suspected a thing. It was Norman who suggested the possibility. He thinks she was working undercover when we met, and she couldn’t tell me because she didn’t know if she could trust me.’
Robbins was smiling now. ‘You mean you went to Thailand with someone who wasn’t who she said she was?’
Slater felt his cheeks glowing. ‘I admit it’s embarrassing, but I had no reason to question who she was.’
‘But was it worth it?’
‘I don’t think that’s relevant, do you?’ he said.
Robbins pursed her lips thoughtfully. ‘Can I hear the sound of a gentleman being discreet?’
‘I couldn’t possibly say.’
‘Good grief, it is, isn’t it? What a refreshing change!’ Robbins turned her car into Station Road. ‘Right, we’re here. Where do you want me to go?’
‘The car park,’ said Slater, pointing to their left. ‘Over there.’
Robbins followed his directions. ‘We’re not stopping, are we?’
‘Not for long,’ he said, pointing to a Range Rover ahead of them. ‘Right there will do.’
‘Wait a minute. Is that …?’
‘My car? Yes, apparently it’s been here for days.’
‘But it can’t have been. I put out a priority search for it on Wednesday afternoon.’
‘Yeah, maybe,’ said Slater, easing his door open, ‘but the station car park wouldn’t be where you’d expect to find it, would it? They only spotted it this morning because they always do a tour of the station on Sunday mornings.’
Robbins stopped the car and jumped out with him. ‘Careful, it could be booby-trapped.’
‘I don’t think so, do you?’ he said, pointing at the windscreen, which had several parking tickets attached. ‘It’s been here for days looking at that lot.’
Slater was quite confident the car would be safe, but even so, he got down on his knees and made a cursory inspection underneath before he unlocked the car.
‘Before you press the button on that key fob, can we stand back a bit?’ Robbing asked nervously.
‘Now you’ve brought this subject up, there’s something I wanted to ask. Why didn’t you call the Bomb Squad the other night?’
‘Two reasons; first, I figured if there had been a booby-trap it would have detonated with the bomb. Second, If I had called them, they would have called MI5, and I wouldn’t have got a look in. It was my case. Why should I let them take over?’
‘You’re right. I would have done the same,’ agreed Slater.
‘I still think we need to be careful here, though.’
Slater scoffed. ‘Do you honestly think that’s necessary?’
‘At least let’s use my car as a shield.’ Robbins moved across to her car, but Slater was still unconvinced.
‘I know you think I’m overdramatic,’ she said, ‘but humour me, will you?’
He gave her a wry smile and joined her behind her car. ‘You might want to get your head down,’ he said. ‘I tell you what, why don’t I do a countdown?’
‘This isn’t funny,’ she said. ‘It’s less than a week since I last had to deal with scattered body parts.’
Slater conceded the point. ‘Okay, fair enough, but I’m sure you’re wrong.’ He raised the key fob so she could see it. ‘Right here goes then: five, four, three, two, one ... Boom!’
There was a soft popping noise as the doors unlocked. Robbins looked up at Slater’s grinning face from her position crouching down behind her car.
‘Oh, ha, ha, very funny,’ she said. ‘You could have got your head blown off.’
‘Maybe it’s wired to the ignition. Stay there a minute while I check.’
‘No, wait,’ she began, but it was too late; he was already swinging the door open and climbing into the driver’s seat, easing it back to its full extent.
He grinned at her and pushed the start button. Sure enough, the engine roared to life.
‘There you go,’ he called. ‘Good as gold.’
‘That was bloody stupid, and reckless,’ she said, walking across to the car. ‘You had no idea if it was safe. You could have been—’
‘You’re just annoyed because I was right,’ said Slater. ‘Now jump in and see if you can find any evidence.’
‘Evidence of what?’
‘Who drove it here for a start.’
‘It was a woman,’ she said with certainty.
He looked at her enquiringly, and she returned his look with a satisfied smile.
‘You just pushed the seat way back,’ she said.
‘Ha!’ he said. ‘You’ve done this sort of thing before, haven’t you?’
‘Do you always joke about everything?’
‘Hey, look, there was a time when I thought I was the most hard-done-by bloke in the world and I used to take everything seriously. Then I met a guy called Norman. Now there’s a guy who’s had some serious crap to deal with, and yet he can still see the funny side of most things. I thought, if he can find a way to deal with all his shit and still smile, then so can I.’
‘So now everything’s a joke, is it?’
‘Of course not, but you’ve got to keep it all in perspective. I mean, there’s always someone in a worse situation, isn’t there?’
‘There is?’
‘Take the other night,’ Slater continued. ‘You probably thought it couldn’t get much worse when you found that Russian guy with his legs blown off, but it could have been much worse. You could have been him, couldn’t you?’
‘I suppose when you put it like that.’
‘Every cloud has a silver lining.’
‘And that works for you, does it?’
‘You didn’t go home and cry your eyes out after you found Lenkov, did you?’
‘I took my mum’s dog for a long walk.’
‘And I bet you do that every time you get a shit situation,’ said Slater. ‘It’s how you cope, right? We all have to find a way to deal with it or we’d never survive. You walk your mum’s dog; I try not to take it too seriously.’
‘And does it work?’
‘Most of the time, but not always,’ he admitted. They carried on searching in silence until Slater spoke again. ‘There’s sod all of any use here, is there?’
‘Nada,’ she agreed.
‘What do we do now?’
‘What do you want to do?’
‘I’d like to find out why someone needed to use a copy of my car to kill a man called Lenkov.’
‘But all my evidence has been taken away, and we’ve been warned off.’
‘You’re the one who’s been warned off,’ said Slater, ‘not me.’
‘You could get your girlfriend into trouble.’
‘How many more times do I have to tell you – she’s not my girlfriend.’
‘Alright, but you could get yourself into trouble.’
‘Me and trouble are old friends, and anyway, with the resources at my disposal these days there’s no guarantee I can get anywhere near the truth.’
‘I’ve got resources,’ Robbins said.
Slater turned to look at her. She met his gaze and held it. ‘I don’t think you should get involved.’
‘What, are you my dad now? I’m a big girl. I’ve been making my own decisions for a long time.’
‘You’d be taking a big risk.
She nodded to acknowledge the truth in his statement. ‘I don’t like the idea of someone being able to walk into my town, blow someone’s legs off, and then sweep it all under the carpet as if it never happened.’
‘They would tell you a man like Lenkov got what he deserved.’
‘And they might even be right,’ she said, ‘but I still want to know who did it, and why they needed to come to Winchester to do it.’
‘I’ll bet it was a random choice. Stick a pin in a map, anywhere outside London.’
She pulled a face. ‘I’d like to think it was something better than that.’
‘A tenner says I’m right.’
‘God, I hope you’re not.’
‘Does this mean we’re a team?’ he asked.
‘I think that might be taking it a bit too far. Anyway, I thought you were already in a team. What’s Norman going to think about this? Aren’t you supposed to be working with him?’
‘If I know Norm, he’ll be happy to get involved as well.’
‘Don’t you have a case already?’
‘Yeah, but we should be able to work both. It’s not as if we’re going to be able to work very fast on this, is it? If we raise our heads too high above the parapet, they’ll be onto us straight away.’
Slater looked at his watch, jumped out of the car, picked all the parking tickets off his windscreen, and climbed back in. She reached out a hand, and he gave her the tickets. She quickly looked through them.
‘How about a strategy meeting?’ he asked.
‘What?’
‘Strategy, you know, how we’re going to do this.’
‘Yes, I know what strategy is, thank you. I was looking at these parking tickets. They don’t look right to me. What do you think?’
She passed one of the tickets back to him, and he stared at it. ‘Sorry. Traffic management was never my field.’
‘Can I take them with me?’
‘Be my guest. You can pay the fines for me if you like. Anyway, strategy meeting.’
‘What have you got in mind?’ she asked, suspiciously.
‘Have you had any breakfast? Only I haven’t, and I’m starving. I know a place that does a fantastic full English.’
She studied his face. At least he hadn’t suggested they went back to his place. ‘I am hungry.’
‘Come on then, park your car and jump in. I’m paying.’
She parked her car, climbed into the passenger seat, and settled back into the comfortable leather seat.
‘So, this is how rich people live,’ she said, admiring the interior of the car, as Slater pulled away.
He shrugged. ‘It gets me from A to B.’
‘Oh, come on,’ she said, ‘this is one tasty motor. Don’t tell me you don’t enjoy driving it!’
He smiled at her. ‘I’d be a liar if I said it was run of the mill, but at the end of the day, it is just a car.’
She laughed and shook her head. ‘But the bragging rights are pretty high, right?’
‘I suppose. Look, if we’re going to be playing for the same team, can I ask you something unrelated?’
‘You can ask, but if it’s personal I might not answer.’
‘Have you ever heard of a guy called Scott Mulvaney?’
‘Ah, so it’s not personal,’ she said. ‘Is this to do with the case you’re working on?’
‘That’s where his name came up.’
She thought for a moment. ‘I can’t say the name rings a bell. Why? What’s he done?’
‘He did time for something violent. He spent the last year of that sentence in Lockstock Open Prison.’
‘When was this?’
‘He would have been released from Lockstock about three years ago, give or take.’
‘Okay, so why do you want to find him?’
‘He told a guy he was offered fifty grand to kill a woman in a caravan.’
‘And did he?’
‘That’s what I’m hoping to find out. Even if I could find out who offered the money, it might be a big help.’
‘If this breakfast is as good as you say it is,’ Robbins said, ‘I might be persuaded to make some discreet inquiries.’
‘It’s a deal,’ said Slater. ‘Trust me – you won’t be disappointed.’
Chapter 19
‘We were right about her being taken off the case, then?’ asked Norman when Slater told him about Robbins on Monday morning.
‘Right on the money, which means you were almost certainly right about Watson being some sort of undercover spy.’
‘So, how are we going to work both cases? Does this mean you’re not going to be working the Steve Harris case?’
/> ‘I don’t think it’s going to come to that,’ replied Slater. ‘Robbins is going to have to be careful what she does, and I promised not to go dropping her in the crap by making lots of waves. I’m going to have to wait to see what she can uncover. It’s going to be very much a case of softly, softly. It might even turn out that we don’t get anywhere.
‘And as for the Steve Harris case, I intend to be working with you just like we were before, and now we’ve got a contact in Winchester nick who might be able to help too.’
‘So, what do you need me to do?’
‘Help me make sense of anything we find. Is that okay?’
‘Is that okay? Are you kidding? Look, someone dragged you into a murder case by using a copy of your car to kill a guy. I’ll help in any way I can.’
‘Thanks, Norm. I told Robbins we could count on you,’ said Slater. ‘And I think it’s pretty obvious Watson is the “someone” in question.’
‘It’s difficult to see how she couldn’t be involved, but unless we can prove different, I would think she was probably working to orders, so let’s not rush to judge, huh?’
‘It would be a bloody sight easier if she’d only talk to me,’ said Slater.
‘She’s probably following orders about that, too.’
Slater sighed. ‘Yeah, you’re probably right.’
‘So, Robbins is okay?’ asked Norman.
‘Yeah, she’s alright.’
‘She does understand the risk she’s taking?’
‘I tried to persuade her she needn’t get involved, but she’s had her nose put out of joint, and she wants to know who’s responsible. She knows the risk – that’s why she’s going to be very careful and take her time.’
‘And you think you can avoid getting carried away and landing her in trouble?’
‘I’m a changed man, remember? I’m much better at thinking before I act.’
‘Actually, I have to confess I was impressed with the way you handled that young DS Wesley. He was trying so hard to wind you up.’
Slater folded his arms. ‘Well, there you go. That proves my point.’
‘Remember: Robbins is sticking her neck out for you.’
‘I know, Norm. Trust me, I’m going to be on my best behaviour.’