‘She isn’t, Sam. Compared to you, she’s nothing—’
‘Don’t lie to me, Craig.’ She howled, and rubbed an arm across her tear-streaked face. ‘I’m fat, my face is blotchy, I’ve got fucking cellulite on my arse, I feel like shit all the time, you’re never here and you spend more time with that woman than you do with me. And she’s loaded.’
‘Sam, that’s not true. None of it. Well, except the money.’ He tried to scoop her into his arms, and after mock beating his chest, she relented.
‘I hate her, Craig.’
‘Join the club.’ The detective realised that he seemed to have acquired a full-on stalker; one who knew his date and place of birth, a lot about his personal history, and exact details about Sam’s pregnancy.
‘Promise me one thing,’ Sam said, her breath coming in shudders.
‘Anything,’ he said.
‘Never see that woman without someone else there.’
‘Okay.’
Gillard took a deep breath to calm himself, then rang the estate agent. He resisted the urge to blow up at her, instead asking her in detail about how this woman came to be on her lists. The answer he got was a straightforward one. Mrs Tripathi had been looking for a three-bedroom house in the area to buy for cash, and found it on the Rightmove.
‘There is nothing mysterious about it,’ the estate agent said.
‘We’re not selling to her and that’s flat.’
She sighed. ‘That’s a shame, because she’s the only person who said she might put in an offer. A cash offer, and no chain. I wouldn’t dismiss her lightly.’
Gillard gave a curt goodbye, and slammed down the phone, cursing estate agents.
‘It’s not the first time I’ve seen her car here,’ Sam said.
‘What! When?’
‘A few days ago. She parks it any old how, right across the street.’
‘Was she sitting in it? Because if you saw her spying on us, we can get her for it.’
‘Craig, she’ll just say she was house-hunting. Anyway I didn’t see her in the car.’
Gillard stalked across to the lounge window, and stared out at Trish’s bungalow.
‘Ah, now I understand,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’
* * *
‘Craig, honestly, I didn’t know her from Adam,’ Trish replied to Gillard, who was standing like an unpaid bailiff in her doorway. ‘She turned up on my doorstep a week or so ago, saying she was a journalist. She’d read about my case and had contacted my barrister saying she wanted to do a sympathetic piece about me. After checking with me, the barrister had given her my address. We had a couple of very nice afternoons together. Do you want to come in for tea?’ Trish opened the door to him.
He shook his head. ‘This woman is a stalker, Trish, and you mustn’t speak to her again.’
‘Well, she’s not stalking me. I shall speak to whom I like. It’s nice to have company. I mean it’s not as if my own nephew, right across the road, ever gives me the time of day, despite my deteriorating health and loneliness. You will be old one day, you’ll see what it’s like.’
‘Did you tell her about Sam’s pregnancy?’
Trish’s face tightened. ‘Oh no, dear, I shouldn’t think so. Though she did seem to want to know a bit about you. She already had a big thick file of cuttings about your cases, right back years.’
‘I think it’s your case that gave her the details she needed, and the link to me.’
Trish shrugged. ‘She’s obviously a very thorough researcher.’
‘I don’t doubt it. But I don’t expect it will be published. So stay away from her.’
As Gillard walked away, his aunt shouted to him. ‘You don’t want me to have any friends, do you? That’s coercive control. I should report you. You’re not fit to be a policeman, bullying an old lady. And you never thanked me for the baby clothes, did you? They took me weeks to knit with my old arthritic fingers.’
Not for the first time, Gillard was at a complete loss about how to deal her.
* * *
‘Oh no, what’s going on?’
Tuesday morning had not started well for Detective Constable Colin Hodges. Gillard had seen him peering at his phone just after eight o’clock. DC Michelle Tsu was looking over his shoulder, having heard the exclamation. He had a feeling he knew what the problem was, and made his way across the office to stand behind him.
‘The stock market’s just opened and my bloody shares are down 57 per cent,’ he said.
‘Nosh2U.com, is it?’ Gillard asked.
‘Yeah.’ He trotted out a string of expletives and slammed the phone down. ‘Jesus Christ, I’m down three grand.’
‘You shouldn’t waste your money like that,’ Michelle said. ‘Buy an index fund and you don’t get this trouble.’
Hodges wheeled round to glare at her. ‘Yeah, hindsight scientist are you? I wish I’d sold last week.’ The profanities continued as he held his head in his hands, his face almost the colour of his beard.
Michelle and Gillard shared an eye-rolling glance, and the young female detective tiptoed away from this financial crime scene.
‘About the Iris McQueen case, Colin.’
He groaned. ‘Sorry, sir. I’ve not had chance—’
‘Well, amazingly, I have. We’ve traced an address, and are going to make an arrest. Come on, get you coat, it’s pouring outside.’
* * *
On the half-hour journey to Staines, DC Hodges apologised profusely for again neglecting the case.
Gillard chuckled. ‘You can look on your loss of three grand as the Almighty’s way of punishing you, can’t you?’
The detective constable groaned, and then spent the next ten minutes of the journey lamenting that he ever got seduced into buying shares in businesses he didn’t understand. The conversation ceased when the unmarked Vauxhall arrived outside at number 9, Omdurman Terrace, where the suspect, Aidan Noonan, seventeen, lived with his grandmother. The two officers were just getting ready for the arrest when a rangy, bearded youth wearing a paint-stained hooded top, jeans and brand-new trainers emerged from the front door. He squinted up at the rain, and shucked his hood up.
‘That’s him,’ Gillard said. The detectives hadn’t had time to reconnoitre the area, a maze of Victorian terraced streets, split by back alleys, originally for outside toilets but now containing lock-up garages and wheelie bins. The suspect looked athletic and there were plenty of opportunities for him to escape. There were other reasons why a chase might not be a good idea. Several years ago Hodges had collapsed with chest pains after attempting to chase an eleven-year-old female shoplifter up the stairs of a council block. Gillard had a more subtle plan, which he quickly shared with his subordinate.
Hodges clipped one bracelet of his handcuffs around his own wrist, hiding the other in his palm.
‘Ready, Colin?’ Gillard said, then getting a nod of agreement drove the car slowly parallel to the pavement along which Noonan was walking, which fortunately was not blocked with parked cars. From the passenger seat, with the window down, Hodges called out to the lad. ‘Eh mate, which way to Cash Converters. Got some computer games to sell.’
The lad was immediately interested and sauntered up, to the car. ‘What you got?’ he asked. ‘You got Dead Rising?’
‘Hang on a minute,’ Hodges said, turning round to look at the back seat.
‘I’ll get it,’ said Gillard, getting out of the driver’s seat as if to open the back door.
The lad looked up, and there was a flash of recognition as he saw Gillard’s face. ‘Fucking cops!’ he bellowed, jumping backwards.
But Hodges had already slipped the second bracelet over Noonan’s wrist, which had been resting on the car window ledge. It probably only took Gillard three seconds to get around the vehicle but in that time Noonan had made a monumental and not wholly unsuccessful effort to pull an eighteen-stone detective through a small car window, rocking the entire vehicle as he braced his foot against the sid
e. The lad had one arm and Hodges’ head out already, and was just getting into his stride punching the latter with his free fist.
Gillard knew how to make the first punch count without leaving a mark, and it went in deep and hard to the youth’s midriff. Noonan folded like an unwanted deckchair, gasping for breath. The most time-consuming element of the whole arrest turned out to be untangling the two men, both struggling but connected by their awkwardly-bent arms through the window of a, now open, car door. Housewives in housecoats and slippers appeared on the doorsteps to watch this noisy Laurel and Hardy caper. It was only when Gillard knelt on the lad’s back and handcuffed his other arm that Noonan ceased to struggle for long enough for Hodges to unlock his own wrist with the fiddly keys.
On the way back to Mount Browne, Gillard sat in the back with their prisoner, while Hodges drove, complaining ceaselessly about the bruises he had incurred on his face and arm from having it pulled against the car door frame time and again.
* * *
Noonan was left to stew for a few hours in the cells, and then Hodges came for him with Hoskins in tow. Faced with the electronic download evidence, he confessed in short order, but showed his true criminal proclivity by steadfastly refusing to identify the other hooligan who had mugged Mrs McQueen. Noonan had a fair bit of previous, some of it involving violence.
‘You’re going down for a while, sonny,’ Hodges said. ‘GBH and racially aggravated assault, assaulting a police officer, theft and a few other things probably. We’ll hit you with everything we can.’
Gillard, meanwhile, slogged his way back to the incident room.
‘Perfect timing, sir. There’s an urgent call for you,’ said Michelle Tsu, holding up a receiver. ‘Owen Cathcart from the Telegraph.’
The detective took up the offered handset. ‘Owen, how are you?’
‘I’m run off my feet with the Nosh2U debacle, biggest corporate collapse for years on the cards. I take it you’ve seen the news on Empire of Spice?’ Cathcart asked.
‘No, I’ve been a bit busy. What’s happened?’
Cathcart laughed. ‘The company put out a one-line statement, to say that it was the subject of an approach which may lead to a takeover bid. The shares are up 20 per cent.’
Aware that he was party to privileged information about Johnny Lam’s interest, Gillard gave a cautious response. ‘Oh yes. Did it say who it was from?’
‘No. Unless a deal has been agreed, it would be unusual to name the bidder or the price. I was just wondering—’
‘I couldn’t possibly comment, Owen.’
He chuckled softly. ‘No, absolutely, of course. The investigation is highly confidential. Still, I presume you have talked both to Mr Lam and to Global Foods?’
‘I can neither confirm nor deny any conversations or interviews we may or may not have had in relation to the inquiry.’
Cathcart chuckled again. ‘Aha, Craig, I see a great future for you in public relations. That was very deftly handled, if I may say so. Still, worth a try.’
‘Always great to talk to you, Owen,’ Gillard said. ‘But I’ve got an urgent appointment.’ He ended the call. He certainly wouldn’t let a journalist know that the person he planned to meet was the evasive Johnny Lam. If anyone had a financial motive for killing Mrs Roy, it was the Anglo-Chinese billionaire. And now, with this takeover offer, it seemed he had made his move.
* * *
It had taken a long time for Surrey Police to pin down Johnny Lam for a meeting. His PA had done a phenomenal job of deflection, deferral and procrastination. Shireen Corey-Williams had been passed from pillar to post, and had herself been interrogated by Lam’s terrier-like corporate lawyers about what kind of questions the great man was going to be asked. It was only when Shireen refused to submit a list of written questions, but instead threatened to close down the company’s entire London headquarters and seize all its computers, that Hong Kong & International Cuisine finally agreed to play ball.
Shireen let Gillard know about the breakthrough and now, after taking the train from Guildford to Waterloo, the two detectives arrived at the steel and glass tower on London’s South Bank which housed the company’s headquarters. They were met from the lift by the senior vice president for PR. She then took them to a large dark-panelled meeting room where they waited for a few minutes before a dapper figure in a light grey suit and kingfisher blue tie strode into the room, flanked by no fewer than four dark-suited, middle-aged men, barely a grey hair out of place between them.
‘I’m Johnny Lam, and this is my legal team,’ he said, gesturing behind him. They all sat at a large oval table, Lam flanked by his attorneys, who laid out tape recorders and notepads. ‘So sorry that you have been kept waiting. I think you know why I’m so busy.’ Lam slid his phone across to the detectives. The real-time share price of Empire of Spice Plc was displayed, winking blue or red as the price fluctuated up and down. ‘So I’d appreciate it if you kept this brief.’
‘I’ll get straight to the point, then,’ Gillard said. ‘I’m here today for one reason only, and it relates to the death of Mrs Roy.’
Lam nodded, his attention drawn to the phone, and then back to Gillard’s face.
‘I take it you confirm that the takeover offer is from your company?’ Shireen said.
‘Mr Lam does not have to disclose—’ one of the suits said.
Lam waved his advice away. ‘Yes. It’s my bid.’
‘What price are you offering?’ she continued.
‘That isn’t public knowledge,’ Lam replied, looking to his associates for backup. They shook their heads in agreement, ‘It’s a share swap, whose value depends on the value of my own company’s shares offered in exchange.’
‘It’s normal to offer a cash alternative too, isn’t it?’ she persisted.
Lam’s smile weakened. ‘Yes, but I don’t see what relevance this has to the murder—’
‘We’ll determine the relevance,’ Gillard interrupted. ‘Would you prefer this conversation to continue in a police interview room?’
Lam shrugged. ‘The cash offer is 646 pence a share.’
Shireen checked her own phone. ‘That’s 25 per cent below yesterday’s closing price, Mr Lam, and 34 per cent below the current price.’
‘You see how much market sensitive information you currently possess?’ Lam asked, steepling his hands. ‘The market doesn’t know, but you do. Be very careful.’
‘We also know about the £108 million liability in the accounts,’ Shireen said. ‘I can guess, from the lowballed bid, that you do too.’
The businessman’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, and he exchanged looks with his lawyers. ‘A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, young lady.’
‘Can we wrap this up? Mr Lam has a series of urgent meetings in the next hour,’ said one of the attorneys.
Gillard leaned forward. ‘Mr Lam, you have been trying to buy Empire of Spice Holdings for at least a decade, have you not?’
He nodded, a slight grin playing on his face.
‘Mrs Tanvi Roy was implacably opposed to selling, not just to you, I understand, but to anyone. Now she’s dead, the company seems minded to entertain your offer. To my way of thinking that changed view makes you one of the few people with the motive to kill her.’
Johnny Lam roared with laughter, and it looked genuine. ‘That is one of the most simplistic and absurd statements I’ve ever heard.’ The smile vanished, to be replaced by a pointed finger. ‘I adored Tanvi. She was a delight, a very good friend, and an extremely astute businesswoman. I was mortified when I heard of her murder. But I’m also a businessman. It was clear to me that there was a lack of management depth to take Empire of Spice forward to the next level. It was only when I looked more closely at the state of trading that I realised how the company had taken a wrong turning, and, indeed, the sooner someone with vision and experience took control, the better for all stakeholders.’
‘Your offer is only two thirds of what you offered two years ago,’
Shireen said.
Lam shrugged and spread his arms. ‘As I think you know, the company is quite simply not worth as much as it was previously. If somebody else wants to offer more that’s entirely up to them.’
‘But the deadline you gave doesn’t allow enough time for a rival bidder to do the due diligence on this hole in the accounts.’
Lam grinned. ‘That’s business. I’m leveraging my knowledge of the situation. Harry Roy isn’t enough of a risk taker to gamble the company on getting a higher offer once mine expires.’ He checked his watch. ‘The market closed ten minutes ago, at 4.30 p.m. The deadline for accepting the bid is noon on Thursday. That gives Empire of Spice just thirty-six hours to save themselves. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have urgent work that calls me.’
Gillard checked his watch, and nodded at Shireen. ‘Just one final thing,’ Gillard said, leaning forward and picking up Lam’s phone. ‘We have a warrant to seize all of your personal electronic devices.’
‘What? Not today, of all days!’ Lam exclaimed.
Shireen passed across photocopies of the warrant, one to each lawyer. ‘We’re also going to take a cheek swab, to see exactly where your DNA turns up.’
At that moment, the door to the meeting room opened and five uniformed officers from the City of London Police stepped inside, their hands full of clear plastic evidence bags.
Chapter 17
Gillard got back to the incident room at Mount Browne two hours later, and spotted a disconsolate Colin Hodges browsing eBay on his PC.
‘Not got any work to do, Colin?’
‘Yes, sir.’ Clearly embarrassed at being caught, the detective minimised the screen. Underneath it was some dashcam footage. ‘I’ve been trying to find out if we can get any further leads on the Toyota after it got into Esher on the Sunday. Not getting anywhere, actually.’
‘What about at the other end of the journey? We’ve got the ANPR cameras on the roadworks on the way into Esher. Can you call up those details again please?’
The Body in the Snow Page 22