What Falls Between the Cracks

by Robert Scragg

  Deputy Commissioner Adam Nesbitt was in attendance, moving slowly from handshake to handshake, weaving through the knots of black uniforms. He reminded Porter of a politician working the room. Porter himself merited no more than a nod and a smile before Nesbitt moved on to speak with Superintendent Campbell. Porter didn’t need to be able to lip-read to know he figured in the conversation. Campbell’s not-so-subtle glances in his direction told him all he needed to know. He’d worry about that if and when it came back to bite him.

  Porter slid into a pew at the back of the chapel next to Styles, and watched as Gibson’s family were ushered into the front row. He had taken his place there once. Next to Holly’s parents. Confused from the conflict of comforting reassurance from others that despite your loss you’re not alone, but all the while longing for them to leave so you could let the grief wash over you and be done with it. Porter tried to let his mind wander, think about something other than funerals. Anything would do. He thought of Natasha, but that darkened his mood even more. Mike had quite the crowd, but Natasha had no one who even cared enough to look for her. Who would she get? The last funeral he had been to was the father of a friend. You could count the mourners that day on two hands, including the priest, and that had somehow amplified the sadness of the occasion. Even though he had only ever seen Natasha in photographs, he couldn’t help feel that she deserved better than that.

  Porter forced himself to focus on the picture of Mike Gibson that sat atop the coffin. Today was about Mike. Not Natasha. Not Holly. Even thinking her name in a place like this brought back the all-too-familiar hollow feeling in his stomach. His mouth felt dry, as if he’d had a few the night before, and he felt himself start to fidget in his seat, desperate to be anywhere but here.

  He forced himself to sit still, fixing his gaze on the photo as the priest worked his way through the service, right up until the curtains whirred along the rail, obscuring it from view. He filed out into the aisle with the others, feet shuffling in frustration, needing to get out into the fresh air and away from all this.

  ‘Plans for the day, then, guv?’ said Styles, once they were outside.

  ‘We see what Reid has for us when we get back. No point planning too far past that, yet, cos that could change everything.’

  Styles nodded. ‘It could, but – and I don’t want to rain on your parade here because there is a but – if it only shows a frame every three seconds, we might come up empty-handed even if he was there.’

  ‘What do you mean “if he was there”? Of course he was there. He’s—’

  ‘Whoa, easy tiger.’ Styles raised his hands in surrender. ‘I agree. I’m just saying there’s a chance that he did whatever he did in however many seconds of nothingness between frames.’

  Porter was painfully aware of the odds being stacked against them, and didn’t have a concrete plan beyond that, but decided to cross that bridge when they came to it.

  ‘Emma’s invited you round for dinner on Sunday. Roast beef and all the trimmings, if you can make it?’

  ‘Let me check my packed social calendar, but there’s a good chance I’ll be free.’

  ‘So that’s a yes, then?’

  Porter smiled and nodded. He spotted Anderson breaking away from the crowd, making a beeline for his car. ‘Hang on, let me grab Anderson for a sec before he vanishes again.’

  He half-walked, half-trotted down the road that led back to the main gate of the cemetery, and was within twenty feet of Anderson when he reached his car.

  ‘Anderson, you got a second?’

  Anderson turned around, keys in hand. Porter saw what looked like a roll of the eyes as he clocked who was chasing after him, but was too far away to be sure.

  ‘I’m on my way back to the station. Can it wait till then?’

  ‘It’ll only take a minute.’

  Anderson glanced from his car and back to Porter, weighing up his options. Porter slowed his pace, but kept moving towards him, as if closing the distance might sway the decision. Anderson shrugged and relented.

  ‘Fine, whatever, as long as it’s literally a minute. Places to go, people to see and all that.’

  Porter stopped when he drew level with the tail end of the car, and slid his hands into his pockets. He gave Anderson his best ‘we’re on the same side’ smile.

  ‘Just wondered how it went with Locke yesterday? We didn’t get a chance to talk about it.’

  Anderson reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a crumpled pack of Marlboro Lights.

  ‘What do you mean? Jon ran through that with us in the briefing yesterday. Not much more to say other than what he told you, really.’

  He shook a cigarette out and placed it in his mouth, fumbling for his lighter with his free hand.

  Porter kept his smile in place. ‘We did, but if you remember, he said you guys had to split up for part of it. Said he went for a wander round the warehouse floor while you stayed with Locke and Bolton.’

  ‘Yep, and?’ Anderson said curtly, the cigarette between his lips now, dancing with every word.

  ‘And I’m wondering what they had to say for themselves. From what Campbell said yesterday, Locke sounds fairly confident that we’ll find nothing.’

  Anderson drew the smoke into his lungs and turned his head a few degrees, firing a smoky dart over the roof of his car. ‘Yep, he certainly does, but if it’s there we’ll find it.’

  ‘That’s the thing,’ said Porter, taking a step closer. ‘I was thinking about that, thinking about why make the offer. He must be confident there’s nothing to find, at least nothing anywhere we know to look, anyway. Then I got to thinking about Carter, and why he ditched his mic, and how Bolton seemed to have his getaway planned that day.’

  ‘So what are you saying, then?’

  ‘Not sure, really. I’m just thinking out loud, but when someone is a step ahead it tends to be cos they know what’s coming.’

  ‘You’re thinking Locke has someone on our side of the fence?’

  Porter arched his eyebrows. He had, as it happened, but wasn’t ready to voice any suspicions yet. ‘I was going to say maybe he has a man following one or more of us, so he knows when we’re coming for him, but that’s an interesting point you bring up. Guess anything’s possible.’

  Anderson shot a quick glance first over Porter’s shoulder, then his own. He moved closer now so they were only a foot apart. When he spoke, his voice was low despite there being nobody else within twenty feet.

  ‘I didn’t want to say anything in the room yesterday, but I think you could be right.’ His eyes continued to scan the surroundings as he talked. ‘About a month ago, I ran into a guy I arrested years back for dealing. He looked more nervous than he should so we started talking about reasonable grounds for a rummage through his pockets and his rucksack. He of course swears blind there’s nothing to see, and asks if I’m interested in a little information instead of a wasted search, as he puts it.’

  Anderson paused for another drag on his cigarette. Porter glanced behind. The mourners had drifted away now, and he saw Styles leaning against their car over by the gates, hand to his head, presumably holding his phone.

  ‘So I was expecting the usual bullshit of rumours of some deal coming up that he’ll give me on a plate, but then he springs it on me. Says there’s a big outfit based down by the river, someone we’ve never heard of. Someone with a copper on the payroll.’

  Porter’s eyes widened. It had been nothing more than a theory in his mind, one he hadn’t even shared with Styles yet, not through any mistrust but because he couldn’t quite convince himself it could be true.

  ‘And what did he tell you about this copper? Can he describe him or her?’

  ‘He went one further than that. He gave me a name. Well, a first name at least.’ Anderson took one more hit of nicotine before flicking the remaining stump, end over end, to the ground. He squashed it with his heel and dragged his foot back and forth a few times to finish the job. ‘He said the guy’s name w
as Mike.’

  ‘Mike? As in our Mike? Mike Gibson?’

  Anderson’s eyes widened in alarm. ‘Keep it down,’ he warned. ‘I can’t prove it, but I had noticed Mike acting a little strange lately.’

  ‘Strange, how?’

  ‘Strange as in the way he worked the case at times. Nothing solid I could pin down, but you just get a feeling when something’s not right, you know? My guy says he saw him twice with Bolton. I showed him a pic and he ID’d Mike. Next time I saw Mike I asked him a question about the last time he interviewed Bolton, and he started telling me about when we’d questioned him about an assault. Not enough evidence for it to bring him in and charge him, of course, but Mike swore blind that was the last time he’d spoken to him.’

  ‘And you think what, then? That they killed him because they thought he was playing them? Double-crossing them?’

  Anderson just shrugged. ‘No idea, and I could be way off the mark here. I’ve not even told Jon, it’s that tenuous. But yeah, maybe following them to that building was no accident. Maybe that was their plan all along. Maybe they’d had a falling-out, or maybe Mike had a crisis of conscience, who knows? Either way, that could explain why they killed him, but didn’t finish the job on Simmons.’

  As much as Porter wanted to discount the possibility of one of their own turning on them out of hand, the objective part of his brain kicked in. It would explain why they’d known about Carter’s mic, why they were opening their doors for inspection now. They would have moved everything that Gibson knew about in case he was double-crossing them. How compromised might they still be now that Mike was dead and not feeding them any more information?

  ‘We have to take this to Campbell,’ he said finally.

  ‘And say what? We have an anonymous tip one of our team was dirty, but absolutely nothing to back it up, a copper who, by the way, we’ve given the all-singing, all-dancing funeral to for dying in the line of duty. I’m sure that’ll get me in his not-so-good graces alongside you. No bloody thank you.’

  Porter chewed on his bottom lip. He knew Anderson was right, but it was the proverbial rock and hard place. If he told Campbell, there was a good chance it would be dismissed out of hand, with no supporting evidence and the alleged conspirator dead. If he didn’t, and it came out later in the investigation that it was true, it could hurt them. Correction, he thought, it could hurt him. By then there was a good chance Anderson would be sitting somewhere sunny collecting his pension.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said finally. ‘Let me think about it. Who’s your guy, the one who pointed the finger at Mike?’

  Anderson shook his head. ‘I promised I’d keep his name out of it unless we needed him to testify, and Mike’s not getting arrested any time soon.’

  ‘What if it was true and Mike wasn’t the only one?’

  ‘Then that’s a whole other problem that none of my sources have flagged, so I won’t be losing too much sleep about it. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve really got to get going.’

  Porter nodded and promised to keep the revelation, if it had enough substance to qualify as that, to himself for now. He watched as Anderson drove slowly through the gates and accelerated away towards the main road.

  Styles had finished his call and was waiting in the car. ‘What’s Anderson’s craic, then? Anything to report?’

  Porter hesitated before answering. ‘Nothing worth repeating. Come on, let’s get back.’ He rarely kept things from his partner, and it wasn’t a question of trust, more that it felt wrong to even hint at something that dark at Gibson’s funeral, and it was only hearsay, a throwaway remark made by a criminal trying to curry favour with an officer. He filed it away as something to look at later, and gazed out of the window as they pulled away.

  Porter had known Gibson mainly by reputation, but what he had heard was all good. He knew there would be a strong push to bury it either way, regardless of whether any case against Locke or Bolton held up, no pun intended bearing in mind Gibson’s untimely ending. Any acknowledgement of corruption inside the department, even when rooted out and exposed to the light, did more harm than good. That push would come from Milburn, and Campbell would support him in return for a favour to be cashed in further down the line.

  Rooting around in the mess left behind wouldn’t change the outcome for Simmons or Gibson, but Porter wasn’t sure he could balance his own personal scales if he left it alone. Doing nothing would somehow cheapen the sacrifice that his colleagues had made. Whether they would do it for him or not was another matter, but he had to believe that they would, had to believe that doing the right thing still meant something. If it didn’t, then what was the point in doing what they did?

  He decided it was too early in the morning to be getting so philosophical, and let it go for now. It would be easier if he could talk to Anderson’s source, but he didn’t expect a change of heart there any time soon. There had to be another way to approach it. Whether he could figure that out in time to make a difference in the case was another matter, but he’d give it his best shot.

  ‘So here’s an interesting little revelation for you,’ said Styles.

  Porter looked up from his screen. Three strong cups of coffee and a croissant that tasted marginally better than cardboard had done nothing to kick-start his creativity. This morning had left him feeling sluggish, present day priorities in a tug of war with bittersweet memories; Porter stuck in the middle, unable to focus. He stared back at Styles for a few seconds before realising his partner was waiting for a response.

  ‘Sorry, I was miles away. What did you say?’

  ‘I said she had a good poker face.’

  ‘Eh? Who? What are you on about?’

  ‘Mrs Locke. She had a good poker face.’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about? Spare me the build-up.’

  ‘She lied to us. About her trips to see Natasha.’

  That got Porter’s attention, and he sat forward, leaning both elbows on his desk. ‘What do you mean, she lied? What have you got?’

  ‘According to this’ – he pointed at his screen – ‘in the six months following Nathan Barclay’s death, Mrs Locke did leave the country twice, but I’m fairly sure she didn’t go anywhere near Poland.’

  ‘How do you know that? Where was she? Can we prove it?’

  ‘One question at a time,’ said Styles, holding his hands up to fend off any more. ‘I know because I checked. She was in New York and Paris. Yes, we can prove it.’

  ‘Checked, how?’ Porter was intrigued, but sceptical. As much as he abhorred the concept of terrorism, it had made tracking international travel much easier, both inside the European Union and beyond. They were talking about three decades ago, though, a time when kids could visit the pilot in the cockpit and you could carry a bottle of water through customs without security jumping all over you. He was pretty sure passenger manifests wouldn’t stretch back that far.

  Styles tapped a finger against his nose and winked. ‘Friends in low places. Mrs Locke booked flights using a Visa card both times. I know a man who can dredge up all sorts from my days back in financial, even from thirty years ago.’

  ‘She could have paid cash,’ Porter ventured.

  ‘She could have, but you don’t believe that any more than I do.’

  Porter sat for a moment, mind racing before he spoke. ‘Give me specifics.’

  Styles flipped open his notebook and recited the dates he had scribbled down for each trip. As well as the dates, there were a number of transactions at each destination consistent with a fortnight in New York and a three-day stay in Paris.

  ‘There’s no doubt she was there. Question is, why lie? Also, did she lie to her hubby, or does he know where she really was?’

  The silence hung between them as they stared across the desk at each other, the hint of a smile creeping on both faces confirming the shared thought.

  ‘OK, what do we do now?’ asked Styles. ‘She’s off limits unless we get Campbell on board. I’ll back you
if you want to try again so soon, but …’ The way he let the sentence trail off told Porter everything he needed to know about his partner’s desire to take it to Campbell again so soon.

  Porter opened his mouth to speak when it hit him. ‘We go and see her,’ he said.

  ‘Just like that?’ said Styles. ‘And your grand plan for not getting us both hauled in front of Campbell and Milburn is … ?’

  Porter shook his head. ‘She won’t talk, not this time. Think about it. She’s cornered by her own lie.’

  Styles looked blankly at him, so Porter continued, speaking slowly, checking out the strength of his argument as he went.

  ‘First off, we have her lying to two police officers investigating her stepdaughter’s disappearance and probable murder. Why would someone lie about that unless they had something to hide? Secondly, if she lied to Locke as well, she’s going to have to try and spin the same lie to him if we call her out on it. She’s hardly going to call him up this time and say “Honey, I just fed the nice officers a line of bullshit which makes me a potential suspect. Could you make a few calls and clean this one up for me?”, now is she?’

  Styles shrugged. ‘Maybe he knows about it.’

  Porter barked a short laugh. ‘You think after everything we know about him he’s that sloppy? Anything’s possible, I suppose, but I seriously doubt it.’

  ‘What are we saying, then, that she had something to do with Natasha disappearing, and made up these trips to cover her tracks so Locke wouldn’t suspect her?’

  Porter felt a tightness forming across his shoulders from hunching over a desk for too long, and rubbed at it with one hand. ‘Honestly? I don’t know. Maybe. We know they didn’t get on. We know she’s hiding something. People make bad choices in the heat of the moment. It would explain why she had Locke call up the deputy commissioner. Maybe she’s trying to scare us off.’