What Falls Between the Cracks

by Robert Scragg

  Porter decided he would talk to Campbell about it. Emotions always ran high when anything happened to an officer, and they needed a show of strength, a message to any and all onlookers that the full force of the law would crash over you like a tidal wave if you dared raise a hand to one of theirs. Men like Bolton and Locke would read anything else as a sign of weakness, and that was the last thing they could afford right now.

  He checked his watch. Almost three hours until he was due to meet Rebecca Arnold. The thought of meeting her triggered a mental leap to Natasha Barclay. An image of her face from one of the pictures they had taken from her flat floated accusingly to the surface in his subconscious, smiling at him across the decades. His eyes flicked guiltily to a folder on the edge of his desk, then away again to where the photograph in question lurked inside, and he scolded himself for barely giving her a second thought since yesterday. He was usually good at compartmentalising, too good sometimes, but Bolton’s apathy in the interview room had bordered on amusement at times, and made Porter bristle with anger.

  He looked down to see his right hand had taken on a life of its own and curled into a fist at the thought of the big man, and he forced himself to relax. Bolton would slip up, make a mistake, if not now then eventually. His sort always did, and when that day came, Porter would be waiting. He was nothing if not patient, and for a man like Bolton, he would wait as long as it took.

  Porter had joked about learning to decipher the financial side of Locke’s business, but after more than two hours of patient explanations by Styles, he decided that he would happily let his partner keep the mantle of translator for this particular foreign language. He grasped most of the basics, but when Styles started explaining some of the finer points of corporate takeovers to him his eyes just glazed over.

  Luckily, he didn’t need to be a financial whizz to understand the scale of Locke’s empire. Including the parent company, it spanned fifteen separate companies. They laid claim to an empty meeting room and transferred everything they uncovered onto a whiteboard. Each company had its own box, complete with the type of business, date and price of purchase and previous owners. Slowly but surely, a wide-based pyramid formed, with Locke & Winwood as the tip. Porter popped the top back on his marker pen with a loud click and stepped back to admire his work, Michelangelo surveying his Sistine Chapel.

  ‘Whatever else he is, he’s a shrewd businessman,’ said Styles, very matter-of-fact. ‘He runs the show end to end. No outside input unless absolutely necessary.’

  Porter came around the table to where Styles sat and slid into the empty chair beside him so they both faced the board, interviewers getting ready to interrogate their suspect.

  ‘How do you mean, end to end?’

  ‘Look at what it is they do.’ Styles pointed to the leftmost box and worked his way across. ‘He’s got four separate haulage firms: Atlas down south, and the others all at major ports. Each of those locations has a sister company nearby that owns the warehouse space for storage. His site security and vehicle maintenance are all handled by another offshoot. Basically it’s all done in house—’

  ‘—so there’re no outsiders to stumble across something they shouldn’t,’ Porter finished the sentence for him.

  ‘Exactly. There’s got to be legit stuff going through these as well, but they’ll have trusted people on the inside at each place who can mark any special shipments and make sure they get handled the right way.’

  ‘So if it’s such a close-knit family, how do we get past that, then? We can’t exactly charm our way in.’

  ‘Shame there’s no way of knowing which ones are the more interesting shipments,’ said Styles.

  ‘There’s not much we can do at this stage even if we did – no probable cause.’

  ‘Now, now, guv, you’re not usually so quick to admit defeat. What if we received a call from a concerned employee saying that a particular truck from Atlas, for example, had been stolen earlier that day? We’d be compelled to pull them over to check it out.’

  Porter smiled. ‘Since when did you turn into such a scheming little bastard? You’re meant to be Sherlock, not Moriarty.’

  ‘Glad to see you’ve finally come to terms with me wearing the deerstalker in this relationship.’

  Porter swatted the jibe away with a wave of his hand. ‘I’m all for being creative, but when we bring any of them in again, it has to be done right. If Bolton comes back in here, the only way he leaves is still in cuffs and on his way to a cell.’

  Styles nodded. ‘Amen to that.’ He pointed back at the whiteboard. ‘I want to spend a bit more time on this later as well. Something doesn’t feel right about the way he’s bought the others out.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘I’ll need to do a bit more digging, and none of them came as cheaply as Atlas, but Locke bought them all for a fraction of what you’d expect the market value to be.’

  ‘You’re saying he’s not just got an eye for a bargain?’

  ‘I’m saying that there’s enough smoke and mirrors around the Atlas takeover to suggest the slump in business was engineered. Maybe he makes a habit of driving the price down in his own unique way. Maybe Barclay wasn’t the only business owner to get a visit from Little and Large?’

  ‘That’s a lot of ifs, but fine, check it out. Might be interesting to see if any of the others who sold out ended up like Barclay. I wouldn’t mind a chat with them if they handled their own buyouts better than he did.’

  They lapsed into silence as they studied the chart for few more seconds. Porter couldn’t decide if it looked more like a pyramid or an iceberg. If it was the latter, and this was just the tip, Porter wondered just how far the rest of Locke’s empire extended below the waterline, and how many others like Barclay had underestimated it, and sunk without a trace.

  Superintendent Campbell was on a call when Porter knocked on his door, but waved him in, holding up a finger to signal he wouldn’t be long. Porter stayed standing until Campbell finished his call and told him to take a seat. Porter perched himself on the last few inches of the chair. He never felt entirely comfortable around Campbell, and didn’t want to draw out the conversation any longer than he had to.

  Campbell was a big man in a little man’s body. He tried too hard on all fronts. Too loud. Too gregarious. Too officious. His pale, pasty face was the result of too much time in the office, too little exercise, and the last few years had seen him turn into the bigger man, quite literally, but just not in the way he would have wanted. He was starting to grow jowls, and it was almost worth pissing him off to see them wobble like the last turkey bitching about Christmas. Rumour was that he’d been a decent copper in his day, leading the charge against some of the city’s biggest drug dealers and gangs, but Porter had only ever known him wedged behind a desk.

  ‘Morning, Porter, what can I do for you today?’ he asked in a self-important tone.

  Porter had prepared a sales pitch to try and tie the Natasha Barclay case together with the investigation into yesterday’s events. That meant annexing the drugs angle as well. With Bolton being a key suspect in Gibson’s death, any move against him could affect their strategy to take down Locke and his organisation.

  Campbell listened without saying a word, peering at Porter over steepled fingers. When Porter finished, there was a brief silence while Campbell considered the options. Finally, he spoke.

  ‘I’ll be honest with you, Porter, what you’re saying isn’t totally without merit but I’m not convinced. What about Anderson, for starters? He and Whittaker have put a hell of a lot of hours into the drugs angle and, besides, Gibson and Simmons are their people. You could argue they have more skin in the game. I can guarantee Superintendent Milburn won’t let it go easily when the time comes to make any arrests.’

  Roger Milburn was Campbell’s peer and headed up the drugs squad. He was a no-nonsense old-school copper, fiercely protective over his people and their cases, and would almost certainly put up a fight.

  Porter
shrugged. ‘We’ve got three murders now, guv. They’re stacking up, and no disrespect to DI Anderson, but he’s got no experience running a murder investigation.’

  ‘Three?’

  ‘Yep, three. I want to officially treat Natasha’s disappearance as suspected murder. No way she’s walked away after injuries like that. We’ve already got two solid suspects in Bolton and her father. We already have motive if it turns out to be the dad, and we can place Bolton inside her flat so he’s still a contender. Think of the headlines if we can close this one after this length of time. It’s about time we got some good press.’

  ‘And if we don’t close it?’

  ‘Then nobody even knows. Nobody reported her missing. The press doesn’t know about it, and the only people that might care, the family, don’t seem to give a shit. It’s win-win on that front.’

  ‘What about Gibson and that other chap, Carter? Anderson was there on the scene.’

  ‘He was, sir, that’s true, and no disrespect’ – Porter made a show of looking around for eavesdroppers even though he knew the door was shut – ‘but that was a massive balls-up. No way should Simmons and Gibson have been allowed to charge in on their own like that. Anderson’s cut corners in the past, and there’s a chance he might do so again here to make sure no mud sticks to him. Besides, worst case, if we can’t nail anyone for Carter, maybe it was an accidental death and doesn’t even hit the murder stats?’

  Porter hated himself for appealing to Campbell based on office politics and public opinion, but it was the best way to play him from experience. Campbell was a pen-pusher who lived and died by the crime statistics. Closed cases were his currency, and Porter needed his blessing to merge the two. He sensed that Campbell was wavering and played his trump card.

  ‘Besides, Anderson will be wandering off into the sunset in three weeks, and we need continuity. He’ll just be passing on to someone else then anyway, so why not me, now? He and Whittaker can stay involved on the drugs side, but I really want this one done right, and that means me taking point.’

  Campbell stroked his chin thoughtfully for a full five seconds before giving an answer. ‘Alright, Porter, I’ll speak to Milburn and see what we can agree. We can call it a joint task force or something like that. Now what was the other thing you wanted to speak to me about?’

  Porter had deliberately waited to get Campbell’s support before he mentioned the picture of the deputy commissioner posing with Locke. Campbell’s face visibly paled when Porter told him what he’d found.

  ‘Who else knows about this?’

  ‘Just me and Styles for now. I’ll be briefing Anderson and Whittaker later today.’

  ‘See that it goes no further for now,’ said Campbell. ‘I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about. The deputy commissioner attends dozens of these things every year, but leave that with me. Do not move against Locke before I’ve had a chance to see if we’re exposed in any way.’

  ‘Understood, sir.’

  ‘And I want daily updates. I’ll call you later after I’ve spoken to Milburn. Now if that’s all, I’ve got a meeting in five minutes.’

  Porter thanked him and headed back downstairs to grab coffees for himself and Styles. He tried to leave the politics to others when he could, but if doing it this way meant he led on both cases, and helped keep Natasha in the spotlight as well, then it was a means to an end. He guessed it was the same in the private sector. There would always be those jostling for position instead of focusing on the task at hand. He classed himself as more of an idealist. High rates of case closure were good, but not because it was a numbers game. It was good because the higher the number, the more people paid for their crimes, the more families would feel justice had been done, and the more people Porter could look in the eye and say he had done everything in his power to make things right.

  He knew that kind of approach could well cost him as many allies in the long run as it would gain him, but it was the only way he could keep doing the job. His gut told him that the picture of Locke with Deputy Commissioner Nesbitt was probably innocent enough, but he knew that if it wasn’t he couldn’t let that pass. He would pursue things to a conclusion, let the chips fall where they may, and politics be damned.

  Porter stared up at the roof of the revamped King’s Cross Station while he queued for a drink at Leon. It swirled up and out from a central steel stalk, as if the glass ceiling had sprouted from the earth, metal branches criss-crossing back and forth to weave a canopy. He wondered what the same architect could do with the station at Paddington Green given half the chance, and a fraction of the budget. He shuffled to the front of the line, paid for his coffee and wandered back towards the tables out front. A shoal of young children shot past, trailing wizards’ robes behind them, chattering about Platform 9 ¾, and a stray wand nearly put paid to his coffee before he’d managed a sip.

  Rebecca Arnold only kept him waiting five minutes. She was a slender woman, mid-fifties, wearing a knee-length quilted black jacket, fastened right up to her chin, with her cheeks pink after a brisk walk from her train. Her short, pixie-like hair was cut like Demi Moore’s character in Ghost and she looked down at him with eyes questioning as she approached, even though he was the only person at the tables.

  ‘Miss Arnold?’ Porter asked, rising to greet her.

  ‘Mrs Arnold.’ She held up her left hand, a diamond no bigger than a match-head placing a sparkling exclamation point on her statement. She gave a smile that melted into embarrassment. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean that to come out as snappy as it must have sounded.’

  Porter returned the smile. ‘Not at all, Mrs Arnold. I’m Detective Inspector Porter. Thanks for taking the time to meet me. Can I get you a drink?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, thank you, Detective. I’m on a bit of a detox. No caffeine for a month.’ Porter pondered that for a second: his idea of hell.

  Rebecca Arnold unzipped her coat as she sat, revealing a plain cotton blouse and charcoal grey skirt underneath. Porter guessed at bank cashier, although he was as good at guessing professions as he was at guessing women’s ages. Being wrong about the latter was far more likely to make enemies of his subjects, so he tended to keep his thoughts on both to himself.

  ‘So you’re probably wondering what all this is about,’ he said as he sat back down.

  She nodded nervously in agreement. ‘The officer I spoke to said it had to do with Natasha. Is she alright?’ Her tongue darted out to moisten her lips.

  ‘That’s what we’re trying to find out, Mrs Arnold. I’m afraid she’s missing, and we’re looking for people she may have been in contact with.’

  Rebecca Arnold shrugged, eyebrows and shoulders moving in unison with the gesture, and frowned. ‘Like I said to the officer on the phone, I’ve not spoken to her since my final year at uni. We’re literally talking back in the eighties here.’ She raised a hand to stifle a squeak, somewhere between a laugh and a grunt.

  ‘That may be so, Mrs Arnold,’ said Porter calmly, ‘but for all we know you could still have been one of the last people to see her. No one has seen her since April 1983.’

  Her eyes widened and parallel lines of surprise scored her forehead like sheet music. ‘She’s been missing since the eighties and you’re just looking for her now?’

  ‘Nobody had reported her missing, Mrs Arnold. We didn’t know we needed to be looking.’

  ‘And now they have?’

  ‘Something like that.’ Porter sighed. He had to stop her asking her own questions and keep to his agenda. ‘Because it’s so long ago, anything you can tell us about her could be useful. Things like what kind of person she was, who she hung out with, anyone she fell out with, friends, boyfriends, those kinds of things.’

  She uncrossed then recrossed her legs, giving herself time to think. Porter had other questions to ask, but he waited her out, giving her time to revisit a decade long gone.

  ‘She was …’ she began slowly, searching for the words. ‘She was a cool person to hang
out with. We were close for a while, first because of the swimming team, but after that we stayed friends outside of school until I went off to university. We used to hang out on weekends, sneak into clubs, you know, the kind of stuff teenagers do.’

  ‘What about her family?’ Porter prompted. ‘Did she talk much about them?’

  She gave a knowing smile. ‘Yep, more of a rant when it came to her stepmum. Thought she wasn’t good enough for her dad. She was a proper daddy’s girl from what I remember, even though he spent more time at work than at home. I tried to call her after I heard about, you know … what happened to him.’ Her voice faded away to a murmur.

  ‘You said tried; did you manage to reach her?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, no I didn’t. I called her place, called her a few times, but she never answered. I went round to see her when I came back for the Easter holidays but she was never home when I called round.’

  Rebecca Arnold looked up at Porter. ‘Are you honestly telling me she’s been missing since then?’ There was a slight tremor in her voice now.

  ‘We’ve not found anyone that she has been in contact with since around that time. What about other friends or boyfriends?’