‘This kill is different, but it’s also the same. We thought gang-related when we saw her on the autopsy table. What was it the coroner said, Rafferty, about silence?’
‘He thought the removal of the lung meant “Don’t breathe a word,” that someone was being blackmailed into silence.’
‘Exactly. All three kills involve coercion, all three have connotations of gang involvement, and all three bodies were mutilated. But Kennard doesn’t fit the rest of the pattern.’
‘Why not?’ Ayala said. ‘The old ladies at the bingo hall said she nicked stuff from the local shop and that she might have been a bit of an alcoholic. That’s potentially criminal. It fits with Rafferty’s vigilante theory.’
‘Kennard was posed on her husband’s grave. That to me says that there’s a personal connection between her and her killer. Who else would know where her husband was buried?’ Morton said. ‘Which brings us back to her kids.’
‘I’m not convinced,’ Rafferty said. ‘Primrose Kennard was dying. If her sons wanted her dead, then why wouldn’t they just let her die? They saved her life by donating a lung lobe each. Without that, she’d have been gone in months.’
‘That would have given Primrose a chance to cut them out of her will. Highgate is pricey, and Primrose owned that big old Victorian house free and clear,’ Morton said. ‘Even independently wealthy men might be tempted by such a prize.’
‘Then, where do we go next?’ Ayala said.
‘You two keep digging. Find out everything you can about the three victims. If there’s even the slightest chance there’s a connection among the three, I want to know about it. And send someone over to Mayberry with a laptop. I promised I’d see to that.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘To talk to the only men in Primrose Kennard’s life.’
Chapter 31: Sum Greater Than the Parts
Monday April 13th 15:00
Despite the superintendent’s warnings of dire consequences, Morton had to return to the offices of Nuvem Media Associates. He wasn’t entirely convinced the twins were behind their mother’s murder. They had no apparent motive, though their alibi was shaky at best.
Despite that lack of evidence, Morton felt certain the twins were hiding something. It didn’t help that they were thoroughly dislikeable human beings who had shown little emotion when informed of their mother’s murder, and had set the superintendent on him after Morton had asked a perfectly valid question as to their whereabouts on the night of Primrose Kennard’s murder.
The twins saw him coming a mile away. As Morton crossed the road, he watched them break away from the group they were talking to, abandoning their would-be clients to intercept Morton at the entrance.
‘Didn’t we tell you to talk to our lawyer?’ Freddy demanded. ‘One more step and I’ll sue for trespass. You’re not welcome here.’
Morton stopped in his tracks. He was halfway through the door and was obstructing the twins’ access to the pavement.
‘Gentlemen,’ he said in an effort to placate them, ‘I’m not here to cause you any trouble. I need to ask a few questions. If you want to call your lawyer and do this at New Scotland Yard, then we can, but I’m sure you don’t want that disruption to your day.’
The twins’ anger dissipated. They turned away and spoke in hushed voices for a few moments.
‘Look, we’ve got clients in,’ Freddy said. ‘We’ll be done in twenty minutes.’
‘Then I shall wait in the coffee shop across the street, where I can see you. If I see you disappear out the back entrance, I’ll be forced to assume you’re resisting arrest. Is that fair?’
‘Alright,’ said Chris, the other twin. ‘But you’re still not coming into the office. We’ll come to you when our meeting is over.’
True to their word, the twins joined Morton at the coffee shop twenty minutes later without any further trouble.
‘Let’s get on with it, then. What do you need to know?’ Freddy asked.
‘Where were you on the third of September six years ago?’
Christopher burst out laughing. ‘Are you serious? Who on earth would have any idea what they were doing on a random date years in the past?’
‘Someone who committed murder that day. I imagine that would be somewhat memorable,’ Morton said drily.
‘Well, we didn’t. Just like we didn’t murder our mother,’ Chris said. ‘Are we to assume, then, that you have another victim in mind? Was our mother killed by a serial killer?’
Morton ignored the question. ‘Where were you on Thursday?’
‘Copenhagen,’ Freddy said. ‘We had a meeting with investors, and we spent the rest of the weekend there before coming back.’
Damn.
‘Does the name Niall Stapleton mean anything to you?’
‘No. Should it?’
‘What about Amoy Yacobi?’ Morton prodded again.
‘Do you have something on our mother’s killer or not? We have a right to know.’
‘No, you don’t,’ Morton said bluntly. ‘You’re hiding something from me still.’
Freddy and Chris exchanged glances, as if they were sharing a secret telepathically. The former rubbed at his chest uncomfortably.
‘No, we’re not,’ Chris said. ‘And if that’s what you think, then this interview is over.’
Chapter 32: A Closer Look
Monday April 13th 15:00
If Morton wanted proof, then Ayala would find him proof. The diamonds had been swapped out for cubic zirconia by someone, and those substitutes had to have come from somewhere.
It took some ingenuity, but Ayala managed to wangle access to the faux diamonds with a plea to Xander Thompson. The SOCA head honcho seemed bemused, but there was little risk of anyone stealing fake diamonds, so he approved Ayala’s request without a second thought.
The evidence bag was delivered to an evidence examination room several floors below the Murder Investigation Team’s offices.
Rafferty cast a watchful eye as Ayala carefully cut the evidence bag open and then amended the chain of custody record to indicate that it had been opened once more. It was odd. The paperwork was complete and correct. Nobody had mishandled the bag, and there was no sign of an evidence clerk attempting to sneak diamonds out of New Scotland Yard.
In any event, there were checks and balances in place to prevent the removal of evidence from the evidence lockers. Two people had to sign any item out, and if the evidence had a value over a thousand pounds, then one of those people had to be ranked DCI or higher, which all made the idea that the bag had been tampered with unlikely.
And yet the truth was right in front of him. Rafferty had borrowed a diamond tester from the forensics department, and the stones were stubbornly refusing to light up as diamonds despite both Ayala and Rafferty giving the test a whirl.
The test was straightforward enough. It was called an electrical conductivity test. A battery-powered probe heated up a small metal tip, which had to be pressed against the gemstone to be tested. That applied heat to the stones, and then the tester returned a rating based on how quickly they cooled back down.
Diamonds would conduct that heat away in seconds, allowing them to be easily identified. There was the chance of a false positive, but false negatives were much less likely, especially after several tests.
There was no doubt in Ayala’s mind: the stones in the evidence bag were not diamonds.
‘There’s something strange going on here. These don’t look like they’ve been touched since Morton and I collected them in Hatton Garden. The records are all perfect. So, why aren’t these diamonds?’ Ayala said to Rafferty.
‘Don’t ask me, Bertie boy. They look pretty enough to me.’ Rafferty held one up, and, even under the pallid glare of New Scotland Yard’s strip lighting, they looked as sparkly as anything Ayala had ever seen.
‘Hang on. What if it’s the tester?’
‘Ayala, you’re clutching at straws. You know Professional Standards would have been
dead sure they were fakes before they yanked you and Morton in for questioning.’
‘It’s my name on the line, here! They think I nicked the diamonds!’
‘Then do another test if it’ll make you happy. There’s got to be a microscope in here somewhere.’ Rafferty looked around the room, searching among the plethora of equipment crowding out the counter running around the perimeter of the room.
‘Yeah. There.’ Ayala pointed. ‘Right next to that TV.’
Ayala turned the microscope on, and the television screen flickered to life. ‘Cool!’
‘Boys and their toys,’ Rafferty muttered. ‘Let’s have a butcher’s, then.’
It took a few minutes of Ayala twiddling the dials before the diamonds came into focus, but when they did, they were writ large upon the screen.
‘They look perfect,’ Rafferty said.
‘Too perfect. We’re at 100x magnificent. We should be seeing inclusions in the stones. Small dark bits,’ he added.
‘I know what inclusions are. Can’t you get flawless grade diamonds?’
‘Sure. But they’re graded flawless if you can’t see inclusions at 10x magnification. We’re looking a lot closer. And look at the edges.’ Ayala pointed at the screen.
‘What about them?’
‘They’re too round. That’s a giveaway.’
‘Hang on. In the corner. That’s not perfect,’ Rafferty said.
There was something on the girdle. Ayala moved the focus over to it.
‘That’s just a laser inscription. It’s not an inclusion. It’s part of the security. All expensive diamonds are laser-etched with a serial number.’
‘Ayala.’ Rafferty looked at him as if he were an idiot, her hands planted on her hips.
‘What?’
‘Think about it.’
‘What?’
‘I’m only going to say this once. They’re. Not. Diamonds.’
‘I bloody know that, woman.’
‘So, why then, Bertie boy, do they have a laser inscription on them that would only be applied to a diamond?’
‘Huh.’
Ayala sat there, flummoxed, while Rafferty went in search of someone who might be able to decipher the codes. By the time she returned, Ayala had begun to write down a list of each code inscribed in the stones in the hopes of finding a pattern.
Zane followed Rafferty inside, pulled up a chair back-to-front, and sat down near Ayala. ‘I hear we’ve got some diamonds which aren’t diamonds which are inscribed like diamonds. Sounds fun.’
‘Yeah. We were inspecting the fake stones and found laser inscriptions on the girdles, like on real, valuable diamonds.’
‘Is that the list of codes?’ Zane said. ‘Mind if I take a look? Codes are kinda my thing.’
Without waiting for permission, he snatched up the list. His jaw dropped as he read.
‘What is it, Zane?’ Rafferty asked. ‘Are they random gibberish designed to make the fakes look good, or what?’
‘They’re not gibberish,’ he said slowly. ‘They’re Bitcoin addresses.’
‘And what are they?’
‘Cryptocurrency. Digital money.’
‘How much are they worth?’ Rafferty asked.
‘Let’s find out.’
Zane went to fetch his laptop. When he returned, he loaded up his own bitcoin wallet and executed a digital transfer from the 30-bit wallet denoted by the first code on the list.
Successfully redeemed: 50 Bitcoins.
‘Holy shit. How many of these codes are there?’
‘Seven hundred and twenty.’
‘If each of these Bitcoin wallets holds fifty Bitcoins, then you’re sitting on thirty-two thousand Bitcoins.’
‘What’s that worth in pounds sterling?’ Rafferty asked.
Zane clicked through to find the current exchange rate of Bitcoins to GBP. ‘These stones are worth just north of ten million pounds.’
Chapter 33: Hiding in Plain Sight
Monday April 13th 15:00
The morgue was as quiet as ever. Morton passed a diener in the hallway, and but for a nod, the morgue assistant might as well have been a ghost in the night.
Chiswick could be heard singing loudly as he worked. It wasn’t a song that Morton recognised, but then Chiswick wasn’t much of a singer. As Morton approached Exam Room 4, he heard the whir of an electric motor. Chiswick was busy cutting open a corpse.
When he saw Morton lurking in the hallway, Chiswick gave him a quizzical glance, killed power to the motor, and emerged wearing a plastic bib that was streaked with blood.
‘David. To what do I owe the pleasure?’ Chiswick extended a bloody-gloved hand.
Morton looked at the hand and then back up at Chiswick.
‘Ah. Right. Sorry about that.’ Chiswick wiped his hand down his chest.
‘Do you have a minute? I’d like to talk about an old case you worked. Amoy Yacobi.’ Morton watched the coroner carefully for a reaction.
The coroner didn’t react. His brow furrowed up as if he was trying to recall the name. Finally, he said, ‘What about him?’
‘You remember the case?’
‘If it’s the one I’m thinking of, it’d be hard to forget. He was the guy they found hanging from a meat hook over Smithfield’s way, right?’
‘That’s him.’
‘His throat was cut, and he bled out,’ Chiswick said. ‘What more do you need to know?’
It was oddly terse. The coroner was rarely so defensive about his past cases.
‘Could you have missed anything?’ Morton asked.
‘How bloody dare you, David! Since when have you known me to half-arse anything?’ Chiswick’s cheeks flared, and he turned sharply on his heel and stomped off towards his office.
Morton thought the coroner was gone, but then he heard a printer whir to life. Chiswick returned carrying a bundle of paper a quarter of an inch thick. He roughly thrust the printouts at Morton.
‘That’s everything I’ve got.’
Morton balanced the pile on his left arm and began to flick through. There were blurred photos of the tattoos Morton had seen in the crime scene photos, but they didn’t belong to any gangs that Morton knew of. He made a mental note to shoot a copy over to Xander Thompson for a second opinion.
Yacobi’s medical history was included in the file. He’d been shot, stabbed and beaten three times in the six months preceding his death. On the last occasion he’d been stabbed sixteen times and had required an enormous blood transfusion of six pints just to survive the night.
‘Look all you like,’ Chiswick said. ‘There’s nothing in there that’s medically relevant to his death. His throat was cut and he bled out. End of story.’
Chapter 34: Exposure
Monday April 13th 16:00
Morton caught up with Ayala and Rafferty after his meeting with the coroner. The Bitcoin revelation made sense. It was physical, yet intangible. Safe, but moveable. It came as no surprise that a member of the Bakowski family would get creative with stashing away their ill-gotten gains. The biggest win was that the discovery cleared Morton and Ayala of all wrongdoing and fixed what could have been a lingering stain on their reputations despite their innocence.
Morton had just enough time to ping off two emails before the next meeting of the day.
The first was to Xander Thompson to bring him up to speed. The second was to Kieran O’Connor at the Crown Prosecution Service. The lawyer had been instrumental in obtaining Proceeds of Crime Act seizures of the Bakowski family’s ill-gotten wealth, and the Bitcoins would now need to be the subject of such an application.
The meeting was an unpleasant one. The superintendent had summoned Morton again.
‘Sit.’
‘Sir, I–’
‘I said sit down, Morton.’
Morton sat. He felt like a naughty schoolboy being chastised for turning up to class late. ‘Sir?’
‘Did I or did I not tell you not to harass the Kennard twins? Did we not sit in thi
s very office with them and promise to leave them the hell alone?’ The superintendent thumped his fist down on his desk, causing his mug to jump clear off the desk and land on its side, mercifully devoid of liquid.
‘That was before new evidence came to light.’
‘What bloody evidence?’
‘The twins came up in connection with two other murder investigations. I was well within my rights to ask them for an alibi. They agreed to the interview.’
‘Oh, they did, did they? Then, why did I just take a call from their lawyer?’
‘I guess they had a form of buyer’s remorse, sir. But the Kennard twins aren’t why you’re angry with me,’ Morton said. ‘You’re angry I sent Mayberry into danger.’
‘You’re damned right about that. The more I think about it, the more apparent it is how reckless you’ve become.’
Morton stood. ‘If you honestly think I made the wrong call, then fire me.’ Morton eyed the superintendent, fearing for just a moment that brazenly calling the superintendent’s bluff could backfire.
‘I’m not going to fire you.’
‘Then we’re wasting time that I could be using to catch a killer.’
‘Morton. Wait. This is your final chance. If you contact the twins again without talking to their lawyer first, I will fire you. You cannot keep ignoring orders and expect to remain in the Met’s employ. Am I making myself clear?’
‘Crystal.’
‘Then take this.’ The superintendent stretched out a hand containing a scrap of paper which had the name of the twins’ lawyer and his contact details scrawled on it: Tenchi Shimizu, In-House Counsel, Nuvem Media Associates.
Chapter 35: Only the Guilty
Monday April 13th 15:45
The teacher proved to be the hardest to watch of them all. She rarely left the privacy of her flat, and so I had to watch her on the few occasions that she did. I found it odd how little she socialised. For someone of her age, she had few friends – even fewer than the old lady. After weeks of surveillance, I had seen just one repeat visitor. A boy. He had to be the key to understanding her lifestyle.
The Patient Killer (A DCI Morton Crime Novel Book 4) Page 13