by BIBA PEARCE
He liked the way the boss had thrown that in there, almost as an aside. “A representative? Who?”
Lawrence’s face broke into a smile. “Someone we know, actually. She’s gone up in the world since the Stalker case last year.”
Rob felt his stomach lurch.
“Jo Maguire,” said the Superintendent with a flourish. “At least it’s not a stranger,” he added. “You guys worked well together, if memory serves. Things could be a lot worse.”
They had worked too well together, that was the problem.
Rob forced a smile, but it turned into a grimace. “When’s she arriving?”
“This afternoon. They’re not wasting any time on this one. These county lines gangs have been getting a lot of bad press, especially because they target youngsters and vulnerable adults. There’s even talk about charging them under human trafficking legislation in addition to drug dealing, because it offers a longer prison sentence.”
Rob had read about that. The theory was if they lumped the drug gangs with child abusers and human traffickers, the lowest of the low, they’d lose some of their sheen, particularly on the inside.
“Okay,” he said. “But this is still our case, right? We’re not handing it over to the NCA?”
Lawrence didn’t meet his eye. “For now. If this murder is related to their wider operation, then we may not have a choice. Apparently, they’ve had several players under surveillance for months in preparation for a massive country-wide crackdown.”
“Of course it’s connected.” Rob’s coffee suddenly tasted sour. “The guy’s a drug dealer. Someone obviously wanted him dead.”
“I’m sorry, Rob, but it is what it is. We have to play ball.”
Rob sighed. That much was true, but he didn’t have to like it.
* * *
As soon as he left Lawrence’s office, he went outside for a cigarette. So what if it was only eight thirty in the morning? He lit up and drew the smoke deep into his lungs.
Jo Maguire.
Fuck.
He didn’t think he’d ever see her again. She was head of the Lewisham Major Investigation Team, or she had been when they’d worked together on the Stalker case. Now, apparently, she’d moved to the National Crime Agency. He wondered what had brought on that move, then decided it was none of his business. She’d always been ambitious. Besides, she was a good detective — she deserved it.
He exhaled, watching the smoke mingle with the cold morning air. His affair with Jo seemed like ages ago, even though it was only last spring. Yvette had moved out, told him it was over. He’d been confused, and if he was honest, bitter that his fiancée hadn’t understood the demands his work placed on him. He took another drag. Not much had changed in that regard. Then there was Jo, a five-foot-ten blonde bombshell with an easy, down-to-earth manner and cute dimples to go with it. Within hours, she’d had the whole department, himself included, eating out of her hand. And now she was back.
And now, he was married.
He shook his head and studied the glowing butt of his cigarette. Yvette had never needed him more. The guilt washed over him again, as it always did when he thought about what had happened. It was thanks to him she was stuck inside suffering from panic attacks, unable to leave the house.
“Is it that bad?” quipped DS Luke Anstead, a colleague Rob had worked with before but was now assigned to a different team. They’d given up smoking together last year as a New Year’s resolution and had lasted four months before, under mutual agreement, they’d given up giving up.
Rob flicked his butt into the gutter and fell into step beside him. “You’re in early today.” They entered the thick glass doors of the MIT building, both nodding towards the duty sergeant.
“Yeah, Amy has taken the kids to her parents’ in Essex, so I’ve got the house to myself. For once I didn’t have to wait in line for the bathroom this morning.”
Rob chuckled. He couldn’t imagine a house full of kids. Yvette had made it quite clear when they were dating that she didn’t want children. As an ex-lingerie model, he could understand why. She’d made her money off her figure. Given his job and the long hours he worked, he’d agreed, but every now and then he thought it might be nice to have a son to take to the Arsenal game or a daughter to . . . what? He didn’t even know what girls did. Ballet?
Now they had Trigger, they were getting quite domesticated, but Yvette was in no state to have children, even if she wanted to. With that in mind, he said goodbye to Luke and made his way to the second floor, where the Family Liaison Team was based. He spotted Becca Townsend immediately. She was laughing with another female officer, a cup in her hand. For someone who dealt with grief all the time, she was a remarkably upbeat woman. He supposed you had to be, or it would drag you down.
“Hi, Becca,” he said.
She gave him a wave. “It’s nice to see you, Rob. How have you been?”
Becca had worked with the relatives of the victims on some of his past cases, and he’d gotten to know her fairly well. A soft-spoken, matronly woman with sympathetic eyes and a warm smile, she was just the type of person Yvette would listen to. He hoped.
“Do you have a minute?”
She nodded. “Come on, let’s go in here.” He followed her to a small incident room with a four-seater table surrounded by soundproof glass.
“Now, what’s bothering you?” She gave him an encouraging smile.
He took a deep breath. “It’s Yvette.”
She nodded knowingly. “Is she still having trouble?” Becca knew what had happened — it wasn’t a secret.
“Yeah, I think she’s getting worse. She won’t leave the house, she’s not eating, she’s smoking way too much. It’s been eight months now, shouldn’t she be getting over it?”
He was the type of person that took the bull by the horns. If he was afraid of it, he’d confront it, but then his job was to run head first into danger while everyone else was running the other way. Perhaps he was used to it, but watching Yvette’s decline, he’d never felt so helpless.
“Is she having panic attacks? Flashbacks?”
He ran a hand through his hair. “I’m not sure about flashbacks, but she’s definitely having panic attacks.”
“It sounds like she might have a touch of PTSD,” Becca said. “She needs help. Closeting herself away and refusing to face the world will only make things worse.”
“Will you talk to her?”
Becca raised her eyebrows in surprise. “I’m sure the department would pay for a therapist.”
“She won’t see a therapist. She’s met you, and I think she’ll talk to you. You’re a trained trauma counsellor. Please Becca. I don’t know what else to do.”
Becca nodded slowly. “Okay, I’ll have to clear it with my boss, but if he says yes, I’ll go to see her tomorrow afternoon. I have some free time then.”
He took her hand. “Thank you, you’re a star.”
She grinned. “Anything for you, Rob.”
Rob went back upstairs feeling like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. If anyone could get through to Yvette, it was Becca. He knew it wouldn’t be a quick fix, but he was looking forward to having his wife back.
* * *
The cleaner’s name was Tatiana Barszcz and she was from Warsaw. She’d been in the UK for seven years and worked as an independent cleaning contractor. She lived in Hounslow, close to the airport, and a squad car was bringing her in for questioning right now.
There were several CCTV cameras in the streets around Yousef’s house but annoyingly none that picked up his end of the road, his driveway or the front entrance. The pathologist had put the time of death between four and eight o’clock on Monday evening and so the CCTV team, aka Mike and Jeff, were scrolling through footage of the surrounding area looking for anything suspicious during that time frame. So far, they’d come up with absolutely zilch.
“The killer must have arrived by car,” Rob told Mike and Jeff, both of whom were looking bleary-e
yed and dishevelled after too many hours glued to screens in the warren, which was what they called the CCTV room. “And he must have come off the A4, so start there and work your way towards the house.” The A4 happened to be one of the busiest roads in West London and the continuous flow of traffic on a Monday evening didn’t make the task any easier. Still, one of those vehicles must belong to their killer.
“He might have come by train or bus.” Jeff rubbed his eyes.
“It’s possible, but unlikely.” Rob had thought about that. “Carrying a knife on public transport would be risky, particularly with the current stop-and-search law in place, and having blood spatter on his clothing would have raised the alarm. I think, for now, let’s assume he came by car, but obviously if you see anyone on foot who looks suspicious, let me know. We can’t rule anything out.”
“The cleaner’s here,” Mallory told him, once he’d grabbed his fifth cup of coffee of the day. This one had two sachets of sugar in it in lieu of lunch. “I’ve asked them to put her in Interview Room Two.”
“Right, thanks. Let’s head down there now.”
“Mind if I come?” said a clear feminine voice behind them.
Chapter 6
Rob swung around.
“Hi, Jo,” he said casually, as if he were greeting a colleague he hadn’t seen for a while, not a woman he’d slept with, bonded with and, if he were brutally honest, fallen a little bit in love with. She still looked great — just as he remembered, except her hair was a bit shorter and swung around her shoulders, rather than up in a ponytail like she used to wear it for work. Her clear skin was almost devoid of make-up, save for a light swipe of lip gloss, and she wore an efficient black trouser suit with a soft cream blouse underneath. With a start, he realized he was staring.
He cleared his throat. “Sure, why don’t you come downstairs with us now? You can watch from the viewing gallery.”
She hesitated, and he knew she was dying to sit in on the interview, but having just arrived, she didn’t want to muscle her way in. That wasn’t her style. No, she charmed her way in, and he had no doubt that before long, the rest of his team would be bending over backwards to do her bidding. He’d seen her at work before.
“Okay, fine.” Her cobalt-blue eyes lacked the sparkle he remembered. Instead, they were rather frosty as they glared at him.
He smiled. He knew it was petty, but he refused to give in so soon. This was his case. If the NCA wanted to take it over, he’d have no choice but to let them, but for now, he was the one in charge. “Good. Let’s go then.”
He led the way down the stairs to the ground floor, conscious of Jo’s heels clicking on the concrete behind him. Mallory said nothing. As they walked past the viewing room, Mallory pointed it out to Jo, who, without glancing at either of them, pushed open the door and disappeared inside.
“Hello. I’m Detective Inspector Miller and this is Detective Sergeant Mallory. We’re going to ask you some questions about your employer, Aadam Yousef.”
The cleaner’s eyes widened. Obviously, the police officers who’d picked her up hadn’t told her what it was in connection with. “I’m not in trouble?”
“Have you done something wrong?” Rob asked her.
She shook her head. “No, sir.”
“Then you aren’t in any trouble.” He smiled, and her lips turned up ever so slightly at the corners. He saw her shoulders drop as she relaxed. She was young, probably in her early twenties and would have been pretty if it wasn’t for her pasty complexion and the dark shadows beneath her eyes. Maybe she worked too hard. Being a cleaner didn’t pay much, barely minimum wage, and the work was physical and demanding. She probably didn’t get outside much either, not that any of them did, to be fair. Anyway, her lifestyle was not his concern. “How long have you been working for Aadam Yousef?” he asked.
She thought for a moment. “Maybe six months.”
“And how did you come to work there?”
“I used to work for another lady in that street, Mrs Abrahams. She runs a hostel. I believe she told him about me.”
Rob glanced at Mallory, who nodded. He was storing away all the details in his hard drive of a memory.
“What’s he like to work for? Is he a nice man?”
Tatiana hesitated, but only for a split second. “He’s okay. Most of the time he lets me get on with it.”
“Most of the time?”
She shifted in her seat. “Sometimes he watches me work. I don’t like it, but he says he wants to talk. It gets lonely working from home.”
Rob exhaled. “Do you know what he does for a living?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I hear him on the phone a lot.” She made a texting motion. “He is always taking calls, but I don’t know what they are saying. He doesn’t talk in front of me. Always outside or in his office.”
Rob nodded. It fit with what Lawrence had told him about Yousef and the county lines gang. The calls could be to and from his network of drug dealers.
“Did you work on Monday?” Rob shifted the discussion to the day of the murder.
“Yes. I work every Monday and Friday for Mr Yousef.”
“Was he his normal self that day?”
She frowned, confused. He rephrased. “Was he acting strangely at all?”
“No.” She shook her head. “He was the same.”
“You didn’t notice him arguing with anyone, maybe on the phone?”
“No.” She folded her hands in her lap. “Has something happened to Mr Yousef?”
A brief pause. “I’m sorry to tell you that he was found dead in his house on Tuesday morning.”
Her hand flew to her mouth and she whispered something in Polish. Her hand was shaking.
“Are you okay?” he asked her. “Do you want some water?”
She shook her head. “I’m okay. I’m shocked, that’s all.” She fought to regain her composure, but he could see the questions were flying through her head.
“He was stabbed,” he told her, watching her face carefully for clues. She was, after all, the last person to have seen him alive.
She paled. “By who?”
“That is what we’re trying to find out,” said Rob. “Anything you can tell us would be helpful.”
“I—I don’t know anything,” she cried. “I did my shift and left at midday, like I always do. Mr Yousef transfers money to my account, but he also pays for an Uber when I leave. He was good like that.” Her hand fluttered across her face. “I can’t believe he is dead.”
“Where did you go after you left Yousef’s house?” Mallory spoke for the first time.
She glanced away from Rob. “I had another client in Whitton, so the Uber driver took me there.”
“Could we have the name of your next client?” Mallory asked.
She nodded and fished in her jacket pocket for her phone. After a few moments, she slid the phone over the metal table. Mallory took the number down then pushed the phone back to her. Even though he’d memorized it, the written notes were a reminder to enter the number into the system once the interview was over. They’d be checking up on her alibi, but Rob was fairly confident she wasn’t the murderer. To start with, she was small-boned and slender. It looked like a stiff wind might blow her down. He couldn’t imagine her attacking a man of Yousef’s size. Secondly, she had no motive. Killing Yousef made no sense. It would just leave her without a job, and from the sounds of things, he was a good employer.
A thought struck him. “You mentioned Yousef used to like to watch you work. Did he ever . . . ?” He petered off, unsure how to phrase it. “Did he ever make advances towards you?”
“What?” She didn’t understand.
“Did he ever come on to you, try to touch you, anything like that?”
The violent head-shaking was back. “No! I’m not like that. I do honest work. I have a son.”
“A son?” She didn’t look old enough to have a kid. “Who looks after him while you work?”
“My moth
er.” She was sulking now. He’d offended her.
“Where’s the boy’s father?”
She shrugged and made a face like she’d smelled something unpleasant. “He lives in Poland.” Obviously, there was no love lost there.
“Okay.” He raised a hand. “That’s fine. I believe you.”
She stared at her hands. “Can I go now?”
“One more thing.” She glanced up almost fearfully. “Did Yousef say anything about expecting a guest on Monday night?”
“A guest?” She thought for a moment, her teeth biting down on her lower lip. “No, but he did ask me to clean the glasses on the drinks trolley. They get dusty sometimes, so maybe . . .” Her voice faded away. Rob knew she was trying.
He smiled. “That’s great. Thank you, Tatiana. You’ve been very helpful.”
“I can go now?” She glanced from him to Mallory and back again.
“Yes, you can go now. The lady at the front desk will sign you out.”
She nodded and stood up. Rob held the door for her while Mallory showed her to the front desk.
Jo came out of the viewing room. “I don’t think she had anything to do with it, do you?”
It was just like Jo to cut straight to the chase. “Nope, but we’ll check with her second client just to be sure.”
She nodded, her eyes scanning his face. “It’s good to see you again, Rob.”
He hesitated. “Good to see you too.”
She gave a wry smile. “I heard you got married.”
From who? he wondered. “Yes.” He fingered his silver wedding band. Why did he feel like he ought to explain about Yvette’s breakdown, the time they’d spent together in France, the impromptu wedding, the guilt? He didn’t elaborate.
“Congratulations.” He was surprised by the sincerity in her voice. He remembered how easy she was to talk to. There had never been any awkwardness between them, even after they’d slept together. She’d been as content as he was to leave things as they were.
“Thank you,” he said, relaxing a little. They headed towards the front desk. Mallory had already gone up to the squad room, presumably to follow up on Tatiana’s alibi and write up the statement. “We’ve even got a dog.”