by Dane Cobain
“Then get on with it,” Leipfold said.
So she did, and they worked on in silence for an hour or so, the stillness of the office broken only by the recording as Maile tinkered with it.
At last, she whistled softly and said, “Looks like whoever made the recording knew exactly what they were doing.”
“How so?” Leipfold asked.
“They double encoded it,” Maile said. “If I’m right—and I’m pretty sure I am—they recorded their voice onto a cassette tape, digitised the recording, applied the vocoder—”
“The what?”
“Software to change the voice,” Maile explained. “I need to figure out what was used if we want to reverse engineer it and get a glimpse of the original audio. After they applied the vocoder, they converted the digital audio back into analogue by playing it back and re-recording it on the cassette. Then that cassette was duplicated by your journalist friend, which further distorted the signal.”
“Sounds complicated,” Leipfold said.
Maile shrugged. “It is. But that’s why you hired me, right?”
Leipfold grunted.
“If it helps,” Maile continued, “we’re dealing with a professional. Someone’s put a lot of thought into how to make decoding this audio more difficult.”
“It helps,” Leipfold said. “So what’s next?”
Maile whistled softly and checked the file she’d been working on. “Tough one,” she said. “I’ll start asking around and downloading a few trials so we can get a decent comparison. It’s a long shot, and I don’t think we’re likely to find anything. But a long shot is still a shot.”
Leipfold nodded. “Then what are you waiting for?” he asked. “Get to it.”
* * *
While Maile was working on the recording, Leipfold suited up and hopped onto Camilla. She was running low on fuel, so he stopped off at Sainsbury’s to fill up before riding on to Dulwich, where FunRunz was based.
Leipfold did a double take when his GPS said he’d arrived. He was standing in the middle of a housing estate, a grey place with grey pavements, grey buildings and grey-faced youths skipping school to smoke cigarettes. It wasn’t the kind of place where you’d expect to find a business. It wasn’t even a place where you’d want to leave a motorbike, but if the courier felt safe then that would have to be good enough for Leipfold. He found a place to park Camilla and triple-checked he’d locked her securely. Then he looked up and down the street to find the right number.
He spotted a FunRunz sign outside number sixty-five, just six doors down from number fifty-three, where Camilla was parked. The company’s logo, the silhouette of a motorbike inside a yellow circle, was emblazoned across a large, aluminium board beneath an arrow directing visitors down the side of what would otherwise have looked like a normal house. The FunRunz office was tucked away to the side of it, through a cast-iron gate and a side door and into a room that looked suspiciously like a conservatory but which was touted as an office.
Leipfold knocked on the door.
It was opened by a tall, broad-shouldered man with clean white teeth and a charismatic smile. He was dressed in his leathers, except for his jacket, which was draped across the back of a chair. He was wearing a vest top, and his long arms hung down beside his tight stomach. Leipfold thought he could’ve used a shave, but he supposed that the man spent most of his time with the visor down.
He introduced himself as Asif Shaktar and offered Leipfold a seat. “How can I help you?” he asked.
Leipfold took the seat and explained who he was and what he wanted. Shaktar, meanwhile, told Leipfold a little bit about the business.
“I run things around here,” he explained. “From taking the calls to making the drop-offs. The pay is good, but the hours suck.”
“Excellent,” Leipfold said. “Then you might be able to help me. I’m looking for one of your customers.”
“Clients,” Shaktar replied. “I call them ‘clients.’ And I’m sorry, I can’t help you. I keep a tight ship. Client confidentiality and all that.”
Leipfold reached into his pocket and pulled his wallet out. He scrabbled around inside it and found a couple of notes. He took them out and held them up while he slipped his wallet back into his pocket.
“You sure?” Leipfold asked. “It’d be better to talk to me than to wait until you hear from the police.”
“The police?” Shaktar’s brow furrowed. He sighed and crossed his meaty arms. “What do you want to know?”
“Do you remember delivering a package to The Tribune?” Leipfold asked.
“Yes.”
“Good,” Leipfold said. “I need to know who sent it.”
Shaktar frowned. Then he sidled over to his desk and sat down in front of his computer. “I don’t know,” he said.
“You mean you’re not going to tell me?”
“No,” Shaktar insisted. “I can’t. The guy paid extra for my silence, cash in hand. I didn’t take down his details.”
“But you must have met him.”
“Not really,” the courier said. “I only did a couple of runs for him. He used one of those voice-changer gadgets and insisted on leaving his parcels at the end of my drive and dropping me a call when he was ready for me to collect. Only, there was one time…”
Leipfold leaned forward in his seat. “Go on,” he said.
“One time he came round while I was making a sandwich. I thought I heard a noise from outside and went to check it out. There was no one there, of course, but there was a package all right.”
“And?” Leipfold prompted.
Shaktar shrugged. “I thought I saw the back of his head, just turning round the corner at the end of the road. I couldn’t tell you much, though. He just looked…”
“Normal?” Leipfold supplied. “Average height, average build, probably somewhere in his thirties?”
“How did you know?” Shaktar said.
* * *
Leipfold got back to the office after darkness fell, and when he opened the office door, he almost blindsided his assistant. Maile had been on the other side of it, presumably getting ready to leave the place, and Leipfold’s arrival made her jump and spill the contents of her handbag. He caught her pepper spray before it had a chance to hit the floor.
“You might want this,” he said, handing it back to her.
“Thanks,” she said, grabbing the canister and stashing it in its usual place in the pouch at the top of her handbag. “Can’t hang around tonight, I’m afraid.”
Leipfold smiled. “Another date?” he asked.
“Hell no,” Maile replied. “I’m meeting Kat for a drink.”
“Ah,” Leipfold murmured. “A lady date. Give her my regards.” He took his jacket off and hung it on the back of the door, then wandered over to the kitchen to turn the kettle on. “It’s a shame,” he shouted, as the kettle started to heat itself up and to spout a little steam. “I thought you might want to talk about the case.”
Maile had finished packing her bag up and was on her feet, pulling her coat on. But at Leipfold’s remark, she sat back down again. “Go on,” she said.
And so Leipfold brought her up to speed and told her about his meeting with Asif Shaktar, the man from FunRunz. When he told her what he’d said about his brief glimpse of the mysterious visitor, her eyes widened.
“Average height and average weight?” she asked. “Could be the same guy that Lukas White described.”
“Yeah,” Leipfold said, “or any of a million others in the city. It’s a long shot.”
“A shot worth taking, though.” Maile paused for a moment, then stared thoughtfully at her blank computer screen. “Hmm,” she said. “I’ve got an idea.”
Leipfold grinned and scootched over to her desk, rolling across the ugly wooden floor on his computer chair. “What is it?” he asked.
Maile grabbed her tablet from its resting place in her bag, a foam pocket with a cork lining to fully protect it from the elements. Her long, slender fingers with their messed-up cuticles marched across the screen and summoned up her photos. She tapped on one of them, a screenshot, and brought it up on the screen.
“Check this out,” Maile said, handing the tablet over to Leipfold. “It’s the composite I made when I spoke to Lukas. Notice anything?”
“Yeah,” Leipfold said. “I do. He’s got short black hair and he’s an average height and weight.”
“You reckon this is the man we’re looking for?” she asked.
“Maybe,” Leipfold replied. “Whoever he is, I’d like to talk to him.”
“So what are we going to do?”
Leipfold shrugged. “You’re going to go and meet Kat,” he said. “And I’m going to stay at the office. Send me that photo before you go.”
“What are you going to do with it?”
“I’m going to send it to Siobhan Dent,” Leipfold replied. “The journalist at The Tribune. She’s going to want to see it.”
Chapter Ten
Meeting Marc Allman
A LAZY SUN ROSE and cast its grey light across London, and Leipfold climbed out of bed shortly afterwards. It was a Sunday, which was theoretically his day off, but that was no excuse for a long lie in. James Leipfold was many things, but undisciplined wasn’t one of them. He’d had routine and efficiency drummed into him back in the army. Even when he was hitting the bottle at his hardest, he still did the same old shit. He just did it while drunk.
Leipfold lived in a tiny box flat about a mile away from the office. The place was so cramped that every square foot was accounted for, with a well-worn path from the door to the bed, the wardrobe and the bookcase. Other than the books, there were no signs of occupation, and the place looked more like a sterile room at a small hotel than the regular haunt of a private detective. But Leipfold didn’t care. The less time he spent there, the better.
He brushed his teeth in the bathroom, then returned to his room for long enough to stash his toothbrush and to grab his jacket. He checked he had his keys, his phone and his wallet, then left the tiny room behind and made his way outside. February was drawing slowly but inevitably to an end. While it was still too cold to dust off summer clothes, there was at least a hint of the impending spring.
Leipfold stopped off at the corner shop to grab a pint of milk and the day’s papers, then ambled slowly towards the office, meandering up and down the side streets with no real purpose other than to burn some time while he thought things through. But he couldn’t meander forever.
By the time that he made it to his desk, he’d worked up an appetite. Luckily, he had a secret stash of instant noodles for when he spent the night in the office and needed something to keep him going, so he nuked a bowl in the microwave, popped the kettle on and settled into his usual routine.
Halfway through the bowl of noodles, he paused with the spoon still in his hand and smiled appreciatively as he read Siobhan Dent’s latest article. She’d included the picture he’d sent to her, the composite sketch that Maile and Lukas had made. The article included Leipfold’s office number and his web address, and he’d seen the emails piling up in his inbox when he checked his phone in the morning. But better than that, it was also another piece of publicity. In practical terms, it was the next month’s rent.
He finished flicking through the paper and turned his attention to his emails, moving the most promising leads into a separate folder so he could follow them up in the afternoon. Then he went back to the paper, flicking through to the crossword and loading up the timer on his phone.
He was six minutes in when he was interrupted by the buzzer. He scowled, paused the timer and raced over to the intercom, which he grabbed from its holder and held up to his ear. “Hello?” he barked.
“Mr. Leipfold.” The voice on the other end of the line sounded authoritative but beaten, like a man who’d grown used to power and then lost it and was ready to go gently into that good night. Leipfold had to strain his ears to hear him, as usual. The traffic filtered down the alley from the main road and made its way through the condenser mic at a level so loud it sounded like his visitor was standing in the middle of the street. “I want to talk to you.”
“I’m sure you do,” Leipfold replied. “Everyone does, these days. Who are you and what do you want?”
“My name’s Marc Allman,” his visitor said. “Please, let me in. I need to talk to you.”
“Why?”
There was a pause that accentuated the sound of the traffic. Allman said something softly that Leipfold didn’t catch. He asked Allman to repeat it.
“Damn it,” Allman replied. “I said, ‘You put my face in the bloody newspaper.’”
Leipfold buzzed him in.
* * *
Leipfold greeted Allman at the door and offered him a seat in the reception area. He didn’t offer him a drink.
Marc Allman was a nondescript white guy in his early thirties. He had short, black hair and a slight stubble, with deep blue eyes that held no life in them. He had been wearing sunglasses, despite the grey glaze of a muggy February, but he removed them when he entered the office and stashed them away in a pocket. He carried himself confidently, but one shoulder was slumped as though he’d recently suffered an injury. His shirt was white but his trousers were black, as was his jacket. Allman looked like he’d stopped by the place on his way to a major awards ceremony, and he smelled slightly of peppermint and aftershave.
Leipfold looked him over and made a couple of early deductions before sitting down beside him. Allman stared at him and said nothing, waiting for Leipfold to speak. He was using the same trick that Leipfold often used on his suspects. Silence was a powerful tool, a way to force people to talk out of sheer pig-headedness, taking advantage of their primal need to avoid embarrassment. And to Leipfold’s chagrin, it worked on him.
“You know, it’s funny,” he said. “You really do have a bland appearance.”
Marc Allman said nothing.
“Apart from the suit, that is. You don’t look much like the mock-up.”
“Are you kidding?” Allman scoffed. “It’s the bloody spitting image of me.”
“I know,” Leipfold said. “I just wanted to see if I could get you to talk.”
“Well done,” Allman replied. “I saw the piece in the paper, Mr. Leipfold. What the hell do you think you’re playing at?”
“What?” Leipfold said, innocently. “It only said you were a person of interest. It’s not like I accused you of being The Tower Hill Terror. Got a guilty conscience?”
“No, I haven’t.” Allman frowned and ran a hand through his hair. “Listen, if you throw enough mud, it sticks. I haven’t done anything. Honestly, I’m in the dark about the whole thing. I mean, I heard about the murders, of course. But I had nothing to do with any of it. For all I know, I’m next.”
“With any luck, there won’t be a next,” Leipfold said. “Perhaps you can tell me what you know about a kid called Lukas White. And a delivery guy called Asif Shaktar.”
“Who?” Allman looked genuinely confused, and Leipfold even felt a little sorry for the guy.
Leipfold sighed and led Allman over to his computer. He tapped a few keys and clicked a few buttons, pulling up photos of the two men. There was a flash of recognition in the man’s eyes.
“Ah,” he said. “I think I know what this is all about. I recognise both of those men. The first one was the boy I paid to post a photo. And the second was the man I paid to make a delivery.”
“Aha! So you admit it!”
“Of course,” Allman replied. “But I didn’t kill anyone.”
“Then where in the hell did the photo come from?” Leipfold asked. “And what about the parcels?”
“That’s easy.
A guy paid me to do it.”
“Did he now?” Leipfold asked. “Don’t tell me. I bet I can guess what he looked like.”
* * *
It was twenty minutes later and the office was in uproar. Leipfold had paused the conversation to make a cup of coffee, then asked Allman to help himself to ginger biscuits while he paid a visit to the little boy’s room. While he was there, he put in a call to Jack Cholmondeley and then activated his voice recorder before heading back to his desk.
The cops arrived shortly afterwards, while Allman was still tucking into the ginger snaps. With the intercom fixed, Leipfold had buzzed them in without taking his eyes off his visitor, and Allman first knew about it when the telltale uniforms of the Metropolitan Police appeared in the doorway. Cholmondeley was leading the pack, and he’d brought Constable Yates along for the ride.
“Mogford and Groves are on their way,” he explained when Leipfold led him into the office. “We don’t want Mr. Allman to get any ideas about running away from us, do we?”
Allman leapt abruptly to his feet, his face a hot mess of rage and confusion. “What the hell?” he shouted. “Mr. Leipfold, what did you do?”
“I called the police, Mr. Allman,” Leipfold said.
“But why?”
“You’re a suspect in two murders,” Leipfold reminded him. “Like it or not, it’s my duty as a citizen to make sure that the police get to speak to you. But don’t worry. If you’re innocent, you’ll be fine. Justice is a fine thing.”
“Justice,” Allman spat. “Hah!”
But he didn’t get a chance to say much more because Mogford and Groves arrived and crashed the party. They told Allman they wanted to ask a few questions and that he could either go along to the station of his own free will or they’d arrest him there and then. He took the first option, and Groves led him out of the building with Mogford and Yates in tow.
“You coming, boss?” Mogford asked, pausing on the threshold to look back into Leipfold’s office where the two men were still standing.
Cholmondeley shook his head. “You lot go on,” he said. “I’ll make my own way back.”