Zoe wasn’t about to give Rhodri the history of her relationship with Chris Donnelly. “Like I say, hopefully not.”
“Anything I can do to help?”
“Not right now. You got Connie with you?”
“Course, boss.”
“Ask her to talk to Mo, follow up on any more forensics. One of you get onto Dr Adebayo, find out if they’ve done the post-mortem yet. I’ll be with Mo soon, tell him to expect me.”
“No problem, boss. You want me to do some more sniffing around Erdington?”
“If you can do it without pissing anyone off.”
“That’s my speciality.” She heard the smile in his voice. Maybe if he did go for the Sergeants’ Exam, a unit where this kind of activity was valued would be a good match for him. Like Organised Crime. Or Professional Standards.
“Thanks, Rhodri.” Zoe’s phone buzzed. She glanced at it; another call was coming in. Her chest sank.
“I’ve got to take this, Rhod. Speak soon.”
She switched to the other call. “Mum. I’m working.”
“Zoe love, I’m having a crisis.”
Zoe felt her chest grow heavy. Her mum was a recovering alcoholic and had experienced plenty of ‘crises’ in her time. Some no more serious than running out of vodka.
“What is it? It’ll have to be quick.” The traffic was moving now and Zoe was on the Aston Expressway. She indicated to change lanes and avoid finding herself on the M6.
“It’s my boiler, love. It’s packed up.”
“I’m not a plumber.” Zoe filtered into the lane for the north of the city.
“I was hoping you might know one.”
Zoe gritted her teeth. “Look in the Yellow Pages, Mum.”
“Even I’m not too old and crap to know there’s no such thing as the Yellow Pages anymore.”
“You’d be surprised.” Zoe knew the Yellow Pages still existed; Connie had used it on a case last year. “Surely you have a number for a plumber, Mum?”
“I’m not the bloody Yellow Pages, am I? Why should I?”
Because most people in their seventies were organised about things like getting their boiler serviced, Zoe thought.
But not Annette Finch.
“OK,” Zoe said. “Nicholas is at home studying. Give him a call, ask him for the number of the company we use. It’s on the fridge. Don’t keep him long, though. He’s got to study.”
“Don’t worry, love. I’ll be quick as a lamb’s tail. Be nice to talk to him.”
Zoe rolled her eyes. “He’s studying. Please…”
“It’s fine, girl. Stop worrying so much.”
The line went dead. Zoe took the fork after Six Ways and headed towards Boldmere and the crime scene, unsure who was more annoying: Chris Donnelly, or her mum.
Chapter Sixteen
Zoe pulled up at the end of the cul de sac and walked towards the house. A Forensics van was outside along with a squad car, Mo’s car and two others she didn’t recognise.
She flashed her ID at the constable outside and stepped into the house. Raised voices were coming from the kitchen.
She walked in to find Mo, Adi and Donnelly all shouting across each other. To be fair, Adi and Donnelly were doing most of the shouting; Mo had his arms raised and was trying to get them to calm down.
As she entered, they turned to her as one.
“Guys,” she said. “You’re making enough noise to wake the dead here.”
Donnelly gave her a look of disdain. She approached him, her hand out. “DCI Donnelly. I’m sorry for your loss.”
“You don’t bloody sound it.”
“I know what it’s like to lose a colleague.”
He grunted. Adi opened his mouth to speak but Zoe raised a hand.
“Surely there’s a better place to have this discussion,” she said.
“You don’t even know what we’re discussing,” snapped Adi.
Zoe turned to him. Adi had never lost his temper with her. Never.
“Sorry,” he said, wiping a gloved hand across his forehead. “I didn’t mean to…”
“It’s OK. DCI Donnelly, can we talk in the garden, please?”
“One of my team has been murdered, on our patch. I don’t see why Force CID are tramping all over this, throwing your weight around. Don’t forget you used to—”
“I used to work for you, yes. And so did Mo. But this is a serious crime. As such, it’s a Force CID case.”
He shook his head. He’d lost almost all his hair since she’d last seen him, and his face had become even greyer than before. Chris Donnelly had always been a nondescript, weaselly man, but now he’d lost even more colour and resembled a ghost.
“How are you?” she asked him.
“I’m fucking fine. Just tell me where the pathologist has taken Raif.”
Zoe looked at Mo, shrugging her shoulders. “D’you know?”
“City Hospital,” he said.
She turned back to Donnelly. “You’ll want to pay your respects. I’m sure Doctor Adebayo will be very accommodating.”
“It’s not just that, and you know it.”
“Sir. I’ve been made SIO on this case and you have to respect that.”
Chris Donnelly had patronised her and belittled her when he’d been her sergeant. She’d tolerated it, focusing on the times he was supportive and even caring. Like when her dad had died. But now he was out of order. He might be her senior officer, but she was in charge.
“Sir, please can we go outside? I have questions I need to ask you.”
Donnelly checked his watch. “OK. But I’m straight off to the morgue after.”
“Fair enough.” Zoe gave Mo a nod and he followed as she led Donnelly into the living room next door. The door to the decking was open.
“We can talk here,” said Donnelly. “Unless the FSIs still need it.”
“Adi?” Zoe called out. He put his head round the door. “Are we OK to stand and talk in here?”
“Fine. Don’t move around too much, yeah?”
“No.”
“And I need to talk to you afterwards.” He flicked his gaze to Donnelly and back to her. She nodded, understanding that he didn’t want to tell her why.
Adi closed the door and Zoe looked at Donnelly.
“I’ve been told that DS Starling had been off work for a couple of months.”
Donnelly’s face hardened. “Where did you get that from?”
“It’s not exactly a secret.”
“No.”
Zoe heard footsteps in the hallway outside. Adi raised his voice again. This time a woman was speaking to him. Zoe frowned.
“What the—?” she said through gritted teeth. She needed to get control of this crime scene, and fast.
“D’you mind waiting here for a minute, sir?” she said to Donnelly.
He grunted.
“Thanks.” She slid out of the room, not envying Mo left alone with their old boss, and went into the kitchen.
“DS Kaur?”
A short Asian woman with long dark hair tied back in a bun stood with her back to Zoe, speaking to Adi. She turned at the sound of Zoe’s voice.
“DI Finch. Good to see you.”
Zoe twisted her lips. Seeing Layla Kaur was never good. The woman worked with Carl in Professional Standards; she’d been the one assigned to interview Zoe when she’d been suspected of working with Ian Osman on the airport bomb.
“I’m going to have to halt whatever it is you’re doing here,” DS Kaur said.
“Sorry?”
The DS took a sheet of paper out of her inside pocket and handed it to Zoe. Zoe looked it over. Unlike Donnelly, Kaur had come prepared.
“PSD are taking over this investigation?” Zoe said.
“We are.”
“Why?”
“You know I can’t tell you that, ma’am.”
Zoe clenched both fists. “I know he was a copper, but there’s nothing to indicate this wasn’t an ordinary murder. Not yet, anyway.�
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Adi cleared his throat. Zoe flashed him a look. He knew something, didn’t he? Maybe that was what he’d wanted to talk to her about.
“I guess I have no choice,” Zoe said.
“Thanks for your cooperation,” DS Kaur replied.
Zoe turned to the door. As she put her hand on it, she spoke to Adi. “I’ll see you later, mate, yeah? White Swan, like we said.”
Puzzlement crossed Adi’s face, followed by a brightening. Oh hell, Zoe thought. He thought she was asking him out.
Then he realised. His features dropped and he looked into her eyes. “Of course. Yeah, see you at eight.”
“Good.” She stepped back into the living room. Mo and Donnelly stood at opposite ends of the room, ignoring each other.
“We’ve got to leave,” she said to Donnelly. “All of us. PSD are taking over this case, and I’m hoping you can tell me why.”
Chapter Seventeen
Ian allowed the guard to lead him out of the courtroom and into the corridor leading to the cells. He’d been lucky so far; he’d been given bail and hadn’t spent more than a few hours in a cell. So he shuddered as they approached the area, the guard’s keys swinging on his hip.
Ian had been here plenty of times. He’d given evidence in the courtroom he was being tried in. It was the Crown Court, so only indictable offences were tried here, but he’d seen his fair share of those. Among the more recent ones were an armed robbery in Northfield last June, and a domestic assault in September. He could still see the face of the accused in that last one, silent tears falling throughout the trial. That hadn’t stopped the jury finding him guilty, and the judge handing down a sentence approaching the top end of the guidance. His ex-girlfriend’s face had been cut to shreds, she’d been lucky to live. Ian shuddered at the memory of it.
He heard footsteps behind and turned to see his solicitor Jane Summer approaching. “I need to talk with my client,” she said. “He’s entitled to a legal consultation before you lock him up.”
The constable grunted. They turned back in the direction they’d come and Jane walked ahead, her footsteps brusque. Her hair was dishevelled and her shirt hung out of the top of her skirt. He hoped the jury wouldn’t be affected by the fact that his lawyer looked a mess.
At least he had that Mr Syed, the barrister. He’d conveyed a sense of serenity in court, the air of someone utterly unbothered by what was happening. He probably was. Ian was just a number to him, one in a long line of defendants he had to stand up for, regardless of what he thought of them.
Jane opened the door to a meeting room. The constable stopped outside and unlocked Ian’s handcuffs. He rubbed his wrists then entered the room. Syed was already waiting for them.
“Ian. How are you feeling?” he asked. He didn’t look like he was interested in the answer.
Ian frowned at him. “Oh, I’m just fine and dandy.”
“He asked you a genuine question,” Jane said.
Ian held the barrister’s eyes. “I’ve got a splitting headache and my feet ache from all the standing but yeah, other than that I’m doing OK.”
“I feel it went well today,” Syed said as he sat down.
Ian shrugged. He’d avoided the eyes of the jury while the lawyers were making their opening statements, worried they might think he was shifty if he stared at them. Now he was worried that not looking at them make him seem even shiftier.
“Should I make eye contact with the jury?” he asked.
“Do what feels natural,” Jane said. “We can’t coach you.”
“Yeah, but…”
Syed leaned forward. “If you try to put on an act, they’ll see through it. Just hold yourself steady, do what you’re told by the clerk and the judge, and react in whatever way is natural for you.”
Natural. Standing there listening to them accusing him of involvement in a terrorist attack. He’d had nothing to do with the bomb at the airport, or the one at New Street. He hadn’t even known the New Street bomb had happened until he was at the airport.
But the evidence that he’d been accused of planting on Nadeem Sharif… yeah, he knew about that. When they mentioned that in court, that was when he struggled to work out how he should hold his face.
“They were going to call some police witnesses today,” Syed said. “At least, that’s what we thought. But they were pulled away to a crime.”
“What kind of crime?”
“You don’t need to worry about that,” said Jane.
But he did. He was still a detective inside, even if he’d been stripped of his rank. He wanted to know what was going on.
“Just tell me.”
“I don’t even know,” said Jane. “And I don’t think it’ll help you to let yourself get distracted.”
Ian turned to her, his face hot. “Distraction is good. I need something to think about other than the prospect of going to prison. Do you know what they do to police officers in there?”
She blushed and glanced at the barrister, who sighed. “Very well. We’ll bring in a local paper tomorrow. You can read it, keep in touch with what’s happening outside these walls.”
“Thanks.”
“OK,” said Syed. “Sit down and we’ll let you know what to expect tomorrow.”
He did as he was told.
Syed flicked through a file on the table. “Assuming they bring in the witnesses who were due today, tomorrow your former colleagues will be testifying. DI Zoe Finch and Detective Superintendent David Randle.”
“Randle?” Ian hadn’t known if his old boss was going to be called.
“Yes. He was on the scene, he’ll be appearing for the Crown. I’ll be trying to cast doubt on his trustworthiness.”
I bet you will, Ian thought. He was still torn between revealing Randle’s secrets and protecting the man. Tell all, and he might get a shorter sentence. But then he’d have made some dangerous enemies, and anyway, he stood a better chance in prison if there were people on the outside protecting him. Randle was one of those people, and Trevor Hamm was another.
“Ian, are you sure you don’t want to tell us any more about David Randle?” Jane asked. “It could help your case.”
Ian shook his head. “There’s nothing to say. I hardly had any contact with the man.” He avoided her eye.
Syed sighed and closed his file. “Fair enough.” He exchanged a glance with Jane. “Maybe tomorrow you might think differently”
Ian gave him a puzzled look. What was he planning to do in his questioning of Randle? The Superintendent was cool to the point of glacial, unflappable. If Syed thought he could needle him, he was wrong.
Chapter Eighteen
Zoe walked towards the street, her stride brisk. Donnelly stopped at a brown Nissan. It suited him.
“I still need to ask you some questions,” she told him. “Can we talk in my car?” She looked back at the house. Two officers she didn’t recognise were heading inside: PSD.
“You heard the woman. This isn’t your case anymore.”
She raised her eyebrows. “You want to find out why DS Starling died even more than I do. If we leave PSD to it, it’ll all be hushed up.” She paused. “Just one chat.”
He cocked his head. “OK. But only because we used to be colleagues, and only cos I can’t stand those PSD bastards.”
She smiled, trying not to think about the fact her boyfriend was ‘one of those PSD bastards’. Did Donnelly know she was going out with Carl?
“Thanks.”
“But not in your car. I don’t want them seeing us talking. There’s a pub on Boldmere Road, a Wetherspoon’s. It’s big and anonymous. I’ll see you there in five minutes.”
Zoe nodded and watched him get into his car. She had to trust that he’d be true to his word, that this wasn’t just a way of brushing her off.
“You coming too?” she asked Mo.
He grimaced. “Wetherspoon’s.”
“Beggars can’t be choosers.”
He shrugged. “See you in five.”
She hurried to her Mini, Donnelly’s car passing as she opened the door. Once inside, she looked across at the house, wondering exactly what had brought PSD here. Adi was still inside; had he shared something with them? Did Mo know about it? Everything had happened so fast, she hadn’t had a chance to speak to him.
Get this chat with Donnelly out of the way first, she told herself. Then Mo could bring her up to speed.
The lights where Boldmere Road met the Jockey Road were playing up and she waited in a jam for five minutes, tapping her foot repeatedly on the brake.
“Come on,” she muttered. The longer Donnelly sat in this, the more likely he was to simply carry on driving and head back to Erdington.
Once through the lights, she sat in slow traffic for a few minutes then spotted the pub on her left. There was a car park just past it. Mo parked next to her and they walked towards the pub. There was no sign of Donnelly’s Nissan.
“I hope he hasn’t bailed on us,” she said as they walked into the pub.
“There he is,” said Mo. “At the bar.”
Relief washed through Zoe as she approached Donnelly. It was five thirty and the pub was starting to fill up.
“I’ll get this,” she said.
He smiled at her. “Won’t say no to that. Pint of Guinness.”
She caught the barman’s eye. “Pint of Guinness and two Diet Cokes please.”
Mo cleared his throat. “I’ll have a cup of tea.”
“A cup of tea?” Zoe pulled a face.
“Coke makes me gassy. They do tea here, see?” He indicated a sign above the bar.
“Fair enough.”
The barman poured the pint and her Coke and handed Mo a mug with a teabag in it. “Hot water’s round there.”
Mo wrinkled his nose and went to fill his mug. Zoe walked to the back of the pub and found a table in a quiet corner. Donnelly trailed behind.
When Mo had rejoined them, she took a swig of her drink and placed it down on the table. “So,” she said.
“So,” replied Donnelly. He wiped beer froth from his top lip. “You want to know about Raif.”
“Is it true he’s been off work the last two months?”
Deadly Fallout (Detective Zoe Finch Book 6) Page 6