She gave the warning about the police a moment’s thought and then decided to ignore it. The police had to know; she just needed to think who to send it too. She checked a briefing note she’d been sent – and it was there that she saw the name Brian Hooley.
She remembered him, an older man who hadn’t known much about technology but certainly wasn’t letting that get in this way. His attitude suggested that, while bad guys might wear different clothes nowadays, they were still only interested in one thing: the money. He had only spent a short time with them, but it was clear he had a lot of authority within the investigation.
Then she recalled the younger guy who’d been with him. Tall, skinny and intense, he’d said nothing and looked at everything. She employed a lot of people like that, but it was surprising to find him working with the police rather than a tech company.
She checked the time. Though it was mid-morning here, it was early evening in the UK. Urgently, she reached for a phone and called Hooley’s number.
It rang several times before he answered. Wherever he was, it was incredibly noisy. At first, he couldn’t follow what she was saying, but he got enough to suddenly become all businesslike.
“Hang on. I’m going outside where it’s quieter. If you lose me, call back.” There was a short delay and then she heard his voice more clearly. “Can we start at the beginning again?”
Taggert didn’t hesitate, explaining who she was and why she was calling. In a clear voice she described the images in detail, told him what the message said and then let him hear it over the phone.
Hooley felt that burst of adrenaline that comes with major developments. His first thought was that Mary Lou Healy appeared to be in extreme danger and that her boss was behaving brilliantly, given impossible circumstances.
“Make sure you impress on the people you tell that Mary Lou’s life is in the balance here. It is vital this does not get out to the media or I fear she will be killed instantly. I’ve got a lot of people to call and I’m going to start with my colleague Jonathan Roper.”
“I remember him from your visit to the London HQ. My security people have checked the email and say there’s no sign of any tricks so I can forward this on to you.”
“That would be great – but the best person to send this too is Jonathan. I’ll give you his email address and his number. Call him as soon as we finish and repeat our conversation. Tell him I’m on my way in.” He hesitated before going on. “I’m going to call my boss, Julie Mayweather, the Commissioner, and bring her up to speed. Then the office can brief all the units involved. I’m going to need you glued to that phone for the next few hours. I’m not being rude – but no personal calls.”
As soon as he cut the connection, she forwarded the email to Roper before calling his mobile number.
Roper answered straight away. “One moment. I’m just about to watch the video.”
It was only while she was waiting that she wondered how he had known she was on the phone. Before she had time to think about it, he was back.
“Is that it?” he demanded. “Is there anymore?” It was the first of a series of questions he fired at her.
“What do your security people say?
“Have they been able to identify where it’s come from?
“When did you open this?
“Did you get any warning?
“How long has Mary Lou been missing?
“Is she trustworthy?
“Could she be involved in this?
“Can your people track Mary Lou’s last movements inside the London office?
“Have you organised a check of her email and phone logs?
“Is there anyone in London she might have spoken to?
“What is her home address?”
The bombardment left her reeling.
“Mr. Roper, please slow down. I can’t keep up. What I can tell you is that I received the email 18 minutes ago and I do not believe for a moment that Mary Lou is anything other than a victim in this.”
Roper offered no apology. “Would you like me to repeat the questions?”
“Yes please, but slow down. I’m going to make a list.”
“OK, make your list, but first give me her address. I need to get there as quickly as possible. I’ll come back to you in a moment.”
She breathed a sigh of relief that she could provide the information. As soon as he had the address, he broke the connection without a word. She had never spoken to someone so intense, but she suspected he might be the perfect person to save Mary Lou.
While Roper was firing questions at Josephine Taggert, Hooley was extracting himself from the wake.
The news he’d received from Taggert might have been grave, but at least he had just the excuse he needed to leave the group of close friends and colleagues who were seeing Asmus out on a tide of alcohol. Hooley had remained determinedly sober and word had quickly got around that he was not drinking because catching the killer, or killers, was his key priority. He was happy to be there for the wake, but he was not going to drink.
Leaving, however, took a little time. Hooley was treated to hugs and teary-eyed encouragement before he was able to swap the overheated atmosphere for some fresh air. Anyone who believed that middle-aged men didn’t know how to get in touch with their feelings had never met this lot after a few pints. Hooley expected that more than a few would be paying a heavy price tomorrow.
The wake had ended up in the downstairs bar of the Coal Hole, a classic Victorian pub on the Strand. Hooley emerged into daylight and the usual throng that made the Strand such a busy place. As he headed east towards Charing Cross, he debated on the way whether to go by car or tube. Given it was peak rush hour, he reckoned a car journey would be painfully slow – so he decided to jump on the District Line service from Embankment station. It was just a few stops up to Victoria, and from there a short stroll to the office.
Chapter 47
Mary Lou Healy had been left alone with her thoughts and it wasn’t a happy experience, veering between fear and self-recrimination. What made it even worse was that, with the light on in her “cell”, she had no way of judging the passage of time.
Examining the door, she ruled out any chance of escape. It was made of solid wood with large hinges and a heavy-duty lock. It wasn’t sophisticated but it worked. At least Street had kept his word about removing her restraints. She also had a supply of sandwiches – but there was cold comfort to be had in choosing between tuna or ham.
At some point, Street had appeared and stared at her for a long time, saying nothing. It was a deeply unpleasant experience which made her feel as if he had somehow stripped her naked. Finally, he spoke. “Are you sure there’s nothing else you need to tell me? Something that might have slipped your mind. I know I’m repeating myself, but it won’t go well for you if I discover you’ve been hiding things.”
He needn’t have bothered. She was an extraordinarily pragmatic woman and had already decided she was not going to suffer if she didn’t have to. Oddly, the thought of death didn’t unduly trouble her, but the prospect of cruelty did.
“You really don’t have to worry. I’ve gone over our conversation so far, and I can’t add any further information. At least not anything that jumps out. If that changes, I promise I’ll tell you.”
He stared at her again and then licked his lips. She held back a shudder, vividly recollecting documentary footage of a Komodo Dragon tasting the air with its tongue.
“What can you tell me about the new ‘bendy phone?’” As he spoke, he mimed quotation marks in the air with his fingers.
She thought hard. He would know more about that than her. He was one of the more successful players. Not in John Ryder’s league, something that always annoyed him, but Street’s was a well-known brand none the less.
“I don’t know much at all. I booked the hotel room he was staying in – but all he’d given me were the dates he wanted, no details about why he was coming, other than it was part of a global marketing
exercise. There was nothing out of the ordinary about that. All our marketing tends to be global. I wondered if he might announce price cuts because there’s been a lot of stuff about ‘price fatigue’ at the top of the market. As for the O2… Well, the booking was made by someone in the marketing team so there was nothing surprising there. I did get a slight warning that morning but again, no details. Since then, we’ve done nothing but try to find out more. The whole company has been involved in that. But… with John so badly injured, we didn’t know where to look. At the time you grabbed me, my contacts hadn’t come up with anything.”
She noticed he was looking at her in an extraordinarily intense manner. His forehead had gone shiny and there was a trace of perspiration on his lower lip. His eyes looked bright, almost feverish.
Healy had never seen him like this before. He normally had supreme physical control, so this was totally out of character. She tried to think what it was about the bendy phones that might have triggered the response.
It wasn’t a lot. A Chinese company had shocked John Ryder by demonstrating their own technology and showing that they were way ahead of the pack. The models Ryder himself had produced so far were quite poor – but, even so, Mary Lou had total confidence in his ability. Before the bomb attack, she would have said he was sure to deliver, even if there were a few setbacks along the way.
Now she wasn’t so sure. Privately she wondered if he’d been rushing at it. With the 5G roll out due very soon, many experts were claiming it was the perfect time to introduce new models that could be converted from a phone to a tablet with a flick of the wrists. Some analysts had even predicted that companies like the Ryder Corp would be in trouble if they got left behind by new and more nimble rivals. Mary Lou found that hard to believe – but it had hit the stock price.
Even then, her faith in John Ryder was such that she hadn’t given it a lot more thought. She knew he would have an answer to the problem and they just had to wait for him to reveal it. He’d never let them down.
But everything had changed with that bomb attack. Even if he lived, he might not be the same man who had taken to the stage. It forced her to confront the thought that the company had allowed itself to be overtaken by new competitors. If a week was “a long time in politics,” people should try spending a morning working at the cutting edge of new technology.
She snapped out of her reverie to see that Street was still staring at her. What was making him act so weirdly? He clearly wanted to know what she was thinking – but was it because he needed information, or was it because he wanted to check her knowledge against something he already had?
She looked at Street closely. Her eyes widened and she sucked in a gulp of air as she suddenly accepted a truth she had been trying to ignore for some time.
“You’re responsible for trying to kill John Ryder!” She knew she’d been avoiding this reality because her own feelings of guilt made her feel culpable in some way. Out of nowhere self-doubt turned to hatred. Her rage was back, and that little voice in the back of her head – telling her to be cautious – was quickly overruled. “He’s a far better man than you will ever be. More intelligent, more popular, a better leader. You aren’t worth the ground he walks on, so you tried to bring him down to your level. Is that what this all about? Your jealousy?”
Her voice had risen. His face appeared quite still – but, as she looked into his eyes, she could glimpse madness.
Another thought struck her.
“It was you behind those other attacks as well. Why? Why did you have to kill so many innocent people? What do you possibly hope to gain? You may have ruined John’s life, maybe you’ve even killed him, but there’s no way – absolutely no way! - you get to just walk away from this!”
Street leaned over and kissed her on the head. There was no emotion in it. His lips were cold and slimy, and it felt like an assault.
Then he stood and left the room, his silence an eloquent answer to her questions.
Mary Lou Healy leant back against the wall, hugging her knees against her breast and rocking backwards and forwards as she tried to calm her racing thoughts. Once again, rage and terror were battling for control.
Moments later, and to her surprise, Street came back. His expression was cold, his eyes burned. “One more thing,” he whispered. “I’m going to let you think for a bit. But, when I come back, I need you to tell me all you can about Jonathan Roper.”
Chapter 48
Mary Lou’s apartment was a short walk from Liverpool Street station. Part of a concrete and glass building that wouldn’t win any design prizes but did the job, it was eight storeys high and she lived on the fifth floor.
Roper had been allowed into the building after showing his ID to a resident coming out. Inside, he decided to walk up the steps rather than take the lift. He hadn’t done enough exercise recently. He didn’t rate the workouts with Hooley.
The apartment was compact, designed to make the most of the space. There was an open plan area that housed a compact kitchen, an oval shaped glass table that served multiple purposes, if the box of cereal sitting next to a printer was any sort of clue, and at the other end of the space were two, small, brown leather sofas placed at right angles to each other. A pile of cushions on one suggested where Mary Lou sat to watch the large flat screen TV hanging on the wall.
The flat also boasted two double bedrooms and two bathrooms. The biggest bedroom was obviously Mary Lou’s and the second seemed to be more of a storeroom which also had an exercise bike. The colour scheme was beige, brown and cream. Roper approved. It wasn’t as minimalist as his own apartment – the DCI had called it “bleak” on his last visit – but it came quite close.
He walked back into the open plan area. There was one thing he didn’t approve of. The cat that was sitting in a basket under the table. Cat fur made his nose and eyes itch. He was glad Taggert had warned him. He made a mental note that they needed to get the RSPCA involved to take care of it.
A team had arrived ahead of him, including a security specialist who bypassed the alarm system. The forensics team were busy doing their job and Roper was ordered into a plastic suit, shoes and head gear. The CSIs had already found plenty of fingerprints but, as the lead woman put it, “I don’t know who these belong to, but so far they’re all the same and the smart money says it has to be the owner.”
Roper looked around again. He realised she was probably quite similar to him. Her home had few possessions, and everything was in its place. He often disliked other people’s homes because they were too cluttered.
He sat on the settee and thought some more. If she was similar to him, she probably had trouble making friends, maybe spending her time buried under piles of work. He noted she had just one picture on display, a smiling older version of herself who he guessed was her mother. No father though, they might need to look into that.
He carried on with his careful check and in her bedroom, he registered the small pile of books by her bedside table. Most of her generation used digital downloads, unless it was for topics of special interest.
The books were nearly all biographies of the so-called Tech Titans. Among them work on John Ryder, Charles Lim the Chinese billionaire and the Brit, Peter Street. The only exception was a sign language manual He flicked through it - the Makaton system for use with young children. He wondered why she had it, maybe she was a volunteer working with children? Or maybe she was more like him than he had realised. During her own school days had she also needed access to sign language to help her get along? It was another thing to check out.
He replaced the manual and finished off his careful check of the flat, finally satisfied that it had given up its small haul of clues. He was glad he’d come. The visit was allowing him to create a detailed portrait of Mary Lou, and in the long run that might prove absolutely critical.
◆◆◆
Back at Victoria, Brooker and Hooley were comparing notes. The DCI was keen to know if they’d had any luck with the CCTV footage.
“All being looked at right now.” She tapped her fingers on her desk to emphasise the point. “Because everyone must swipe out, we know what time she left the Ryder building. There are loads of street cameras around the area, so we’re working to track her route.”
“And we’re doing the same where she lives?”
“Of course,” said Brooker. “Both places are getting equal attention, but Jonathan and I agree that work looks the best bet.”
“What makes you feel that?”
“We’re working on the theory that she went from work to a place where she was grabbed.”
“I’m not totally convinced by that argument,” said Hooley. “But I’m happy to go with your gut feelings...”
Brooker smiled. “You should also know that Jonathan and I are approaching the algorithm in a different way.”
Hooley never liked this type of discussion because he found himself saying things he didn’t really understand. “So, what changes did you make?”
“We went back to the beginning and tried to put ourselves into the minds of the people behind these attacks. We know that it involved trained military personnel, so we asked who would have had those contacts. We changed our thinking after nothing showed up on sports people. Now we are wondering if it is someone with military training and we assume the person doing the hiring must be seriously rich. I know this sounds obvious, but they have to be loaded into the search terms. Whoever set this up will have needed somewhere to store a lot of equipment, even people, and do it very quietly. That would need something like a warehouse facility on an industrial estate, where no-one’s worried about who come and goes.
“We also wanted to try and build in some factors around motive. Jonathan said that, if you’d been here, you’d have told us to follow the money, so we made that our first point. Who would have benefited? We couldn’t find anything that linked all three attacks, at least not that we’ve found yet, so we took each incident separately.”
Just Kill Them Page 20