“What d’you want me working on, boss?” asked Mo.
Dawson shook his head. “You’ve got to pick up the slack on our other cases.”
“The Super made it clear this is the priority.”
Dawson took a step towards Mo. “Look, DS Uddin. Half of West Midlands police is on this investigation. They ain’t gonna miss one crummy DS. But if we drop the ball on our other cases, that will get noticed.”
Mo pushed his shoulders back. “I can keep an eye on that at the same time as working this case. I just don’t think Randle will be happy if we—”
“You let me be the judge of what keeps David Randle happy, eh? You’re an experienced copper, you can handle this case alone.”
“I’ll need more involvement from Sheila Griffin.” Sheila was a DS in the Organised Crime division.
“She’s already helping you, isn’t she?”
“She’s got a full caseload. It’ll need to come from up the chain.”
“I’ll talk to her DI.” Dawson pushed his specs up his nose. He’d only started wearing them a couple of weeks ago and they made his eyes seem tiny. “But make sure it stays our case. This is gonna be Force CID’s collar, not Organised Crime’s.”
As far as Mo was concerned, it was irrelevant who took credit when they eventually did arrest the men behind the brothels that had been springing up around the city like a rash. The important thing was to make the arrest.
But he knew better than to tell DI Frank Dawson that.
“Sir.”
He sat at his desk and opened up his computer. At that moment, more than anything, he wanted to walk out of the office and yell at a wall. He wanted to find Zoe and let off steam. But she’d been given the task of tracking down the bomber: she’d be busy.
Lucky Zoe, he thought, as he started trawling through case records.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Sameena Khan lived in a 1930s semi in Hall Green, in the south of the city. The house had probably started off cramped and dark, but a vast glass box at the back now filled it with light.
Zoe sat on a large leather sofa, a mug of coffee in her hand that Sameena had insisted her daughter make. Jamila. The girl had been a witness too. She’d looked distracted as she stirred instant coffee into hot water. She didn’t notice her waist-length dark hair spilling into Zoe’s mug as she stirred.
Sameena sat opposite Zoe on an identical sofa. She had her feet on the floor, her legs together and her hands folded in her lap. Her jeans looked like they’d been ironed.
“I’m sorry to have to make you relive it,” Zoe said. “But we need to find out anything we can about the woman. You’re the last person who spoke to her.”
Sameena nodded. She glanced at her daughter, who sat on a high stool next to the kitchen island, twirling her hair and staring at her phone.
“Jamila love,” she said. “Why don’t you go to your room for a bit? You can watch YouTube.”
“But it’s only eleven.”
“I’ll relax the rule today.”
Jamila perked up. “OK.” She slid down from the stool, grabbed a pack of Chocolate Digestives and left the room.
“It’s hard on her,” Sameena said. “She thinks I should have done as the woman said. Not talked to her.”
“Done as she said? What was that?”
“She said ‘run’. When I approached her. She opened up her coat.” The skin under Sameena’s right eye twitched. “Then she looked at me and said ‘run’.”
“But you didn’t?”
“No. I… I’m not sure what I was thinking. Foolish of me, with Jamila there. I told Jamila to get away, to go to the churros bar.” She looked up. “We were heading there, you see.”
“And did she?”
“Sorry, did she what?”
“Jamila, did she move away?”
“Not as far as I wanted her to. She stayed where she could see me. Where she could hear.”
“And what did you do then?”
Sameena pursed her lips. She sipped her coffee and looked out of the window. The garden was small, bare at this time of year.
She looked back at Zoe. “I’m a social worker. I’m used to… difficult situations. People. I’ve been threatened plenty of times in my job, had people pull knives on me. I was punched once.” She pulled her hair back to reveal a scar on her temple. “The man went down for two years. He shouldn’t have, he wasn’t a criminal. Well, not before that.”
“Tell me what you said to the woman. With the bomb.”
Sameena blinked. “Sorry. My mind. It wanders, since…” She put the coffee on a glass-topped coffee table and plunged her hands into her lap, together as if in prayer. Her fingernails had been bitten. “I tried to talk her down. To persuade her not to do anything. I assumed that someone would have spotted her, that maybe I could distract her until the police arrived.”
“Did she talk back to you?”
Sameena shook her head. “She just stared at me. There was me, standing there, babbling on like some fool. The world disappeared. It was like she was at the end of a tunnel, shooting back and forward in front of my eyes. Everything else went blurry. I don’t know if anyone else was nearby, if they’d called the police.”
“What did she look like?”
“Medium height. She wore a green headscarf, I couldn’t see her hair. She had… I’m not sure what colour her skin was. She wasn’t Asian, I can tell you that. If you’re thinking this was an Islamist group, then she wasn’t from Pakistan or Afghanistan.”
Where the bomber came from had little bearing on her motives, Zoe thought. “How do you know?”
“When she said run. She had an accent, but it wasn’t one I recognised.”
“Did she have any distinguishing features? A birthmark, scars, wounds?”
“There was a bruise on her cheek.” Sameena raised her hand to her own cheek. “Right here. It was yellowing.”
“What about her clothes? Were they clean?”
“Scruffy, but clean. She wasn’t homeless, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
Zoe wrote in her notepad. “So you were talking to her, and then what happened?” Sameena had got out of the building unscathed.
“After a while she started screaming. She told me to” — a glance at the door — “to fuck off. It snapped me out of it. My trance, or whatever you want to call it. The world came back, I saw Jamila shouting at me, crying. So I ran. I grabbed my daughter’s hand and I pulled her out of that place as fast as I could.”
“Where were you when the bomb detonated?”
“Halfway up New Street. Your vans were there by then, I saw police running towards the station. I read that she had a hostage, a girl.” Sameena gasped. “When I think that could have been Jamila…”
Zoe gave her a reassuring smile. “You did the right thing. You protected your daughter. And the hostage survived.”
Sameena grabbed a tissue from a box on the coffee table. “The right thing? Really? If I’d carried on talking to her, your lot might have got to her. She might not have killed that policewoman.” She blinked. “I could have stopped it.”
Zoe shifted forwards in her chair. She wanted to put a hand on this woman’s knee, but felt uneasy. “You couldn’t have stopped her. And it wasn’t your job. That was our job.”
Sameena’s chin trembled. “We all failed.” A tear dripped onto her jeans.
Zoe straightened her back. “You didn’t, I promise you. You and your daughter got away uninjured. You did the right thing for her.” She imagined what she would have done if she’d been caught with Nicholas in a similar situation. Would her maternal instinct kick in first, or her training?
“I do hope you’re right, detective. Because right now I think I’m going to regret this for as long as I live.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Sofia phoned Titi for the fifth time. She didn’t bother leaving a message; she’d left three already.
Mrs Brooking watched her, eyes narrowed, as she paced t
he kitchen. What was the woman thinking? Had she seen the children, but was lying about it? Had she been involved in getting them out of here?
“They must be somewhere,” Sofia said. She would call Adam. He’d seen the kids, he’d been with her.
She didn’t have his number. They all used unregistered phones that didn’t leave a number when they called her. Titi said it was for security, that everyone did it here. He’d set her phone up the same way.
She hadn’t been to his office. He’d told her it was in Solihull, a wealthy commuter town not far from the house. But she had no address and no knowledge of Solihull.
“Perhaps I can get you a cup of tea,” said Mrs Brooking. “That might calm your nerves.”
“I don’t need nerves calm. I need to speak to Titi.”
Sofia rubbed her forehead. The children were missing, and more importantly, so was her sister. She’d been on that plane, she’d been led away by her boyfriend’s men, but she hadn’t been brought here.
“Do you know where Andreea is?” she asked the housekeeper.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know who that is.”
“You have heard us talk about her. She is my sister.”
“I don’t eavesdrop on your conversations, miss.”
Sofia clenched her fist. This woman heard everything they said, she was sure of it.
She blew out a long breath. “I want to go shopping.”
“Very well. You’ll need a driver.”
“I will call a taxi cab.”
“I’m not sure if that’s such a good idea, not when we have—”
Sofia held up a hand. “I go upstairs, get dressed.”
She ran up the stairs and flung open her bedroom door. She wanted to run into the other bedrooms again, to check for the children. But she’d already done that enough times, Mrs Brooking following her from room to room like a shadow.
How were the beds so clean? What had happened to the children’s clothes? Only one person tidied up around here, and that was the housekeeper.
She knew.
Sofia had to get away from her.
The doll was in her pocket. She dumped it on her bed and stared at it as she got dressed. It was the only evidence she had. It might lead her to the children.
And if she found the children, maybe she would find Andreea.
She straightened the jacket she’d picked out – designer, bought for her by Titi the week after she’d arrived – and went into the cupboard where she kept her handbags. She had a white one that matched it.
She stopped.
There was a space where yesterday’s bag should be. Her pale blue one, the Gucci one, the one she carried most often. She hadn’t put it away.
She always put her bag away. Every night, she emptied it and put it in the cupboard. Handbags this expensive needed to be looked after, they were precious. And she didn’t want Mrs Brooking going through them while she slept.
She ran downstairs, racing through the kitchen and checking the surfaces: worktops, chairs, bar stools. She went into the living room and searched the area around the sofa where she’d waited for Titi the night before.
“Mrs Brooking, have you seen my handbag? It is blue one, with flower embroidery.”
The housekeeper was in the doorway, watching Sofia’s panic. “Sorry, miss. You always put your bag away at night.”
“You have not tidied it?”
“I haven’t.” A frown. “Have you lost it, miss?”
Sofia gave her a look of disdain. Don’t patronise me, she thought.
Maybe she’d put it on one of the children’s rooms, when she was tucking them in. But she’d searched those rooms when she’d been looking for the children. She’d found a doll under the bed, surely she would have found her favourite handbag.
Had she left it in the van? Her heart lurched: Titi wouldn’t be happy if one of his men found it.
She leaned against a wall. Losing the bag was a setback, but it wasn’t the most important thing. She had to focus.
She picked up the phone in the hallway. She’d never seen anyone use it, but she assumed it worked.
There was a dial tone. But how was she supposed to find the number for a taxi?
“Miss? Can I help you?” Mrs Brooking asked.
“I want taxi, so I can go shopping.”
“Leave that with me,” the housekeeper said. She pulled a mobile phone from her pocket. Sofia eyed it jealously.
“Kyle? Miss Pichler wants to go shopping. Can you send a car for her?”
Sofia felt her body hollow out. Damn. She’d never find Andreea or the children if she had yet another of Titi’s men with her.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“How’d it go with the witnesses, boss?” Rhodri was at his desk, a cup of tea and a half empty packet of Hobnobs at his side.
Zoe took a Hobnob. She grimaced at the tea: so strong it was orange. “The woman who spoke to the bomber didn’t get much more than that she had a bruise. Ian spoke to the hostage, but she was in too much of a state to remember anything useful.”
“Post-mortem must have been rough.”
Zoe ate the last of her biscuit and took another one. “The bomber is in pieces. At least Inspector Jameson wasn’t in such a bad way.”
“It’s tragic,” said Connie.
“All the more reason to find out who was behind it. Are you getting anywhere with the CCTV?”
“We’ve got the recordings from the station,” said Connie. “And one from a building opposite the back entrance that we think shows the bomber going inside.”
“Anything from social media?”
“Plenty,” said Connie. “Half of Facebook was videoing Sameena Khan talking to the bomber.”
“Any close ups?”
“They all stayed a sensible distance away.”
“They should have got themselves out of the building, not filmed the bloody thing.”
“Too right,” said Rhodri. Connie shrugged.
“OK then. Show me the best images you’ve got.” Zoe put her coat on the back of Ian’s chair and dragged it up to Connie’s desk. Ian would be back soon.
“Boss. The CCTV is on my computer.” Rhodri gave her a sheepish grin from behind his monitor.
“Right.” Zoe dragged her chair round to his side of the desk. Connie did the same.
Rhodri pressed some keys and an image of the back of New Street Station came up on his screen.
“Where’s this taken from?” asked Zoe.
“Office building,” said Rhodri. “Right opposite.”
She nodded.
The steps leading up to the station entrance were busy. It was a Saturday afternoon and the city would have been full of shoppers. This side of the station, despite officially being the main entrance, was the quietest, since it didn’t lead directly to the main shopping area.
“What am I looking for?” she asked.
Connie pointed at the right-hand edge of the screen. “She’s going to appear here in a minute. Green headscarf, bulky black coat.”
Zoe leaned in. After a few moments a woman came into shot, just as Connie had described.
“Do we know for sure that’s her?”
“We’ve pieced together her movements inside the station,” said Rhodri. “We’ve got her right up to the moment the bomb goes off.”
The woman walked up the stairs to the station. She moved steadily, not rushing and not dawdling. She was careful to avoid making contact with the people she passed, swerving to avoid a family and stopping to let a man in a hoody pass as she got to the top.
She disappeared into the darkness of the station and Zoe tapped her fingers on her knee, impatient.
“What’s next?”
“This one,” said Rhodri. The picture on his screen was replaced by a shot from inside the station. The camera was above the door the woman had just entered by and showed her walking from the bottom to the top of the screen, heading into the station.
“I assume you’ve watched these al
l the way through?” Zoe asked.
“We have,” said Connie.
“I don’t need to see it all if you have. Show me the highlights. Does she talk to anyone? Does she go into any shops, buy a train ticket?”
“Watch this,” said Connie.
Rhodri flicked to a video of the top of the escalators leading up from the station concourse to the shopping centre above. He pointed to the closest escalator. “She’s on that one.”
The woman in the headscarf moved into shot as the escalator brought her to the top level. At the top, she stumbled off as if she’d tripped.
“Run that again,” said Zoe. “Slower.”
Rhodri rewound the video and the woman slid into shot once again, moving upwards at a snail’s pace. Once again, she stumbled as she reached the top, almost losing her balance.
“Why does she trip?” Zoe asked.
“She could have caught herself on the top of the escalator,” Connie said. “Happens to me sometimes.”
“She would have been distracted, like,” said Rhodri.
“No,” said Zoe. “She would have been careful. There’s a bomb strapped to her chest. She doesn’t want to go setting it off by accident.”
The door opened and Ian walked in. “That was rough,” he said.
Zoe gave him the best smile she could muster. “Ian. Grab a chair and help us with this video.”
“You’ve got my chair.”
“So find another one.”
Ian went into Zoe’s office and brought out her chair. He placed it behind her and sat down, his breathing loud in her ear. She wrinkled her nose.
“We’ve got video of the bomber entering via Station Street,” she said. “Then we’ve got her at the top of the escalators, stumbling as she gets off. I reckon she might have been pushed.”
“Pushed? Why?” asked Rhodri.
“Maybe someone wanted to make sure she went ahead with it. They were steering her into place.”
“That would have been risky,” said Ian. “If she had an accomplice, they wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere near the bomb.”
Deadly Terror (Detective Zoe Finch Book 4) Page 10