by Eva Hudson
“I’ve got Tylenol,” she said as Ingrid reached the threshold.
There was no way Ingrid was up to taking the stairs, so she punched the button and called the elevator. Two minutes later, she passed the security barriers in the lobby and walked out into Grosvenor Square. It was almost dusk, and the spring warmth had gone from the air. She buttoned up her coat, checked for traffic and stepped into the garden square, where crocuses and primroses welcomed her. The cinder path led her past several empty benches, but it was a little too cold to sit down. She breathed as deeply as her battered ribs would allow, and held tightly to her cell.
An out-of-area message flashed on her screen. She hit the connect button.
“Agent Skyberg.”
There was a slight delay on the line. “Hi. Is that Ingrid?”
“Speaking.”
“I have some information for you.”
She kept walking. “Who is this, please?”
“You made an inquiry about an agent called Mulroony.”
“Is that you?” Ingrid’s mouth was dry. She pushed a finger in her ear, determined not to miss anything.
“We have only one record of a Dennis Mulroony.” The voice was male, East Coast, and educated. He sounded middle-aged, but with the quality of the line, it wasn’t possible to be sure.
Ingrid’s pace had picked up. She still couldn’t quite believe Marshall had come through for her. “And what is that record?”
“London, Legal Attaché Program, April till December 2012.”
“That’s it?” Mulroony had only worked at the embassy for eight months? She was sure, when Sol had recruited her, he’d said her predecessor had been there for years.
“There are no other records.” He paused. “No college records, no public records, no birth or death certificate.”
“You’re kidding.” Ingrid strode out of the square and walked north toward Oxford Street. “He’s disappeared?”
“Right off the map. You have any other questions, agent?”
“Any idea what his security clearance was when he worked in London?”
“Negative, agent.”
Ingrid’s thoughts were spinning, trying to work out which questions to put forward, but leery of asking any when she did not know whom she was speaking to. “Thank you. Were you also asked to research Greg Brewster—” she stopped herself, considered the ramifications of revealing she knew his occupation, then proceeded “—the arms dealer?”
“Affirmative. Gregory James Brewster is an alias for Sidney Joseph Baxter. He is booked on a flight from Oman to London, arriving Heathrow twelve twenty-five tomorrow.” The line went dead.
Ingrid checked the last-number feature on her phone. It only said ‘international,’ but she dialed it anyway. She wasn’t surprised to get a message saying the company was unable to connect her call, with the helpful suggestion she should check the number and try again. Her stride had slowed to a shuffle as she absorbed not only what she’d just been told, but also that Marshall had put himself out for her. She should call him. She was scrolling for his number when an incoming call vibrated her phone. It was Ralph Mills.
“Hey, Ralph.”
“How are you? I heard about what happened.”
“I’m fine.” She shifted the phone from left hand to right, the soreness in her left arm suddenly too painful to ignore.
“I have some news. Thought you might like to know Lauren Shelbourne’s mobile phone has become active.”
38
“I had no idea your injuries were so bad.” Ralph Mills rushed toward her. “Should I take you to the hospital?”
It was her face, Ingrid realized. Her hip, right thigh and ribs were in much worse shape, but a woman with a grazed cheek and bruised eye was guaranteed to attract the wrong sort of attention.
“Really—it’s nothing.” Ingrid was tempted to say ‘stop acting like my mother’ except Svetlana Skyberg had never shown as much sympathy and concern in all the years she’d raised her. Mills offered her his hand, and reluctantly she took it. The visitors chairs in Lewisham police station were particularly low, and she was actually grateful of the gesture. He led them out of reception and swiped them through into a network of corridors that was starting to be familiar.
“Tell me about Lauren’s phone.”
“Like I explained earlier, it was switched off again before we had a chance to triangulate.”
“Do you have a rough idea where it was used?”
“Greater London.”
“Oh. How long was it on for?”
“Less than five minutes. And it didn’t make any calls or send any texts.”
“But Natash… DI McKittrick has called off the inquest?”
Mills pushed open a door. “I haven’t had confirmation, but I imagine that’s a formality. If Lauren’s phone was stolen, that puts a whole other spin on the crime scene. We’ll go over everything again.”
Part of Ingrid was elated—she’d always thought there was enough about Lauren’s death to suspect foul play—but she also knew the pain that knowledge would inflict on the girl’s parents.
“And any sign of Younger? Do we know where he went after visiting Klaason?”
Mills shrugged apologetically. “We’ve got officers watching his house and the college.”
“What about airports and train stations?”
“We don’t have that kind of manpower available. But his wife has surrendered his passport, so we don’t think he’ll try to leave the country.” He pulled an apologetic face. “Right now the London Crime Squad, whom I am about to introduce you to, are trying to match up the serial numbers of the twenty-pound notes Klaason had on him with the cash withdrawn using Younger’s bank card. As soon as they’ve proved that link, they’ll issue a ‘perverting the course of justice’ arrest warrant.” He held open another door for her and they entered a corridor lined with doors and plastic seating. “Delivering cash to a known felon to aid his escape is serious enough for us to lock him up for a while.”
That was something.
“Millsy!”
Ahead of them a short, female detective with a huge smile bowled over to them and slapped a hand on Mills’s, shaking it hard.
“You might have to be gentler with Ingrid,” Mills said. “Agent Skyberg, this is Detective Constable Cath Murray. We used to work together.”
“Ooh, yes, you do look a bit ropey.” Cath had a northern accent and scruffy short hairstyle that made her look like she was up to no good. Ingrid took an instant liking to her. “Call me Cath. It’s a real pleasure to meet you. I’ve heard so much about you.”
“Really?” Ingrid was incredulous.
“Ralph’s been singing your praises nonstop.”
Mills’s cheeks reddened. “I’ll, um, be next door. If you need anything at all, Cath’ll sort you out.”
“I’m sure I’ll be fine—thank you.”
Mills shut the door behind him, and Murray led Ingrid into an observation room. She pulled a chair out from under a wide desk, with two huge TV monitors set on top. “You look like you need all the rest you can get. Take a seat.”
Ingrid eased herself onto the chair, careful to avoid any sudden jarring movements. “Ralph mentioned you were part of the initial interviewing team when you brought Klaason in.”
“I work in the London Crime Squad. Just started, as a matter of fact.” She beamed at Ingrid. “I sat in while the SIO questioned Klaason about his industrious little setup in Deptford.”
Ingrid focused her attention on the left-hand TV monitor.
“But now Homicide and Serious Crime Command—”
“McKittrick’s team?”
“Exactly. They want to talk to him about the girl they found in New Cross.”
The monitor showed Klaason sitting very calmly at a three-foot-by-four-foot table. He had a shaven head, sallow skin and broad, dark features. His ethnicity was hard to determine, but Ingrid would guess he had ancestors from central Asia. There were no obvious signs o
f injury from falling off the bike. But then Klaason had been wearing a motorcycle helmet and a thick leather jacket when they’d hit the ground. His face was completely blank. The right-hand monitor displayed a wide shot of the interview room. Sitting next to Klaason was a neat woman in a smart suit. Her face was set in a scowl. Neither of them spoke.
“What did Klaason tell you during the first interview?” Ingrid asked.
“Bugger all. It was as much as we could do to get him to confirm his name and date of birth. He didn’t even give us an address.”
“And you’re here in case he says anything relevant to your investigation?”
“Correct.” Murray shuffled in her seat. “Great detective work, by the way, finding him like that. Not to mention brave. Really impressive.”
Ingrid smiled. “Thanks.”
The monitor showed McKittrick and Mills enter the interview room. They made their preliminary introductions, stated clearly that the interview was being recorded—Klaason glanced up at the camera and blinked—and McKittrick kicked off the interview.
“When did you start supplying narcotics to Lauren Shelbourne?”
For an opening gambit, it was nothing if not direct. Klaason stiffened. But remained silent. It was a bold move by McKittrick.
“OK,” McKittrick said, “let’s start with something easy. How long have you known Professor Younger?”
“I’m sorry, my English is not so good. Can you repeat the question?” She did and Klaason responded with: “No comment.”
The microphones in the interview room were very sensitive—Ingrid heard McKittrick failing to suppress a sigh.
“He did the exact same thing with us,” Murray said, her voice low, as if the four people in the room at the other end of the corridor might hear her. “His English is perfect—he refused an interpreter.”
McKittrick cleared her throat, then said, “We’ve checked with the college’s admission records. You started at Loriners last October. Studying psychology. Under Professor Younger.”
“If you already have the information, why are you asking me?”
“Where were you on Monday the fourteenth of April between the hours of midnight and eight a.m.?”
“How would I know that?”
“The date may have stuck in your memory, given it’s the day Lauren Shelbourne died.”
Again there was a definite tensing across Klaason’s shoulders. Ingrid leaned forward, closer to the monitor, wishing she were conducting the interview herself.
“I don’t see why.” Klaason stretched his neck left, then right, then rolled his shoulders.
“You knew Lauren Shelbourne?”
“No.”
“You were a member of the same research group.”
“It’s a big project. Lots of people take part.”
“Are you denying you met Miss Shelbourne?”
Klaason folded his arms and stretched out his legs under the table, kicking Mills’s feet in the process. He didn’t apologize. “I’m not denying anything. My English, sorry… I mean I didn’t know Lauren well.”
“Did you ever visit her in her flat?”
Klaason started to answer, but his lawyer grabbed his arm. “No comment,” he said.
“Here we go again,” Murray chimed in. “We had nothing but ‘no comments.’ Even when we told him we had masses of forensic evidence placing him at the meth factory. But at least that wiped the smile off his face.”
Ingrid pulled back from the monitor and turned to Murray. “Do you know how many DNA samples were collected from Lauren’s apartment?”
“No, I’m not on that team.”
“So we don’t know if Klaason’s DNA was found in her apartment?”
“Don’t quote me on it, but I doubt it. When the pathologist said it was accidental death, the lab wouldn’t have prioritized samples from that investigation.”
“But now the case has reopened, there might be samples to test?”
“Not my area, I’m afraid.” Murray nodded at the screen. “You’d need to ask those two.”
Ingrid switched her attention back to the monitor, aware the conversation had restarted in the interview room. She caught the final few words of a sentence. “… my client has already been answering questions for several hours.”
“Not answering them, more like,” Murray said.
McKittrick forced a smile. “He had a lengthy break between interviews.”
“My client hasn’t eaten.”
“Answer a few more questions and we’ll get him a sandwich, how about that?”
“Make sure it’s no more than two.”
McKittrick rolled her eyes. “I’ll decide how many questions I ask. Mr. Klaason, I realize your solicitor has advised you to assert your right to silence, but you have to remember that if you fail to tell us something that may help your—”
Klaason held up a hand. “It’s too complicated. My English… I told you…”
“Is good enough to study a degree course at one of the UK’s top universities.” McKittrick forced another smile. “If we discover you have visited Miss Shelbourne in her home, it won’t be—”
“I never did!”
“So you didn’t provide a delivery service when Miss Shelbourne requested more drugs?”
“You’re crazy. I never supplied her with drugs.”
“Is that so?”
The lawyer grabbed Klaason’s arm again; he batted her hand away.
“Ask Younger—he knew her better than anyone.”
“What do you mean?”
Klaason slumped forward, resting his elbows on the table. “He was screwing her.”
“How do you know that?”
“He told me.”
“So you and Professor Younger are quite close?”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“But he told you about his sex life. Isn’t that quite an admission, given he’s a married man?”
“I’m sorry, my English…”
“Change the bloody record!” Murray shouted unhelpfully at the monitor.
“You say you never supplied Lauren Shelbourne with drugs?”
“That’s right.”
“So how do you explain the high levels of methamphetamine in her bloodstream at the time of her death?”
“What?”
“You’re the man manufacturing the stuff, not two miles away from her home. You studied with her. You can understand why we might think there’s a connection.”
“I never gave her anything. If she was taking meth, it has nothing to do with me.”
“Nothing?”
“No comment.”
“I think we’ve moved beyond that now, Timo.” McKittrick sniffed loudly, then spread her fingers flat against her notes. “Let me ask you a different question. Did you supply Stuart Younger with LSD and methamphetamine?”
Klaason didn’t reply.
“Mr Klaason, a young woman has died. A brilliant young woman, by all accounts, a woman whose life revolved around Loriners College. Her only friends in London study at the college. Her Oyster card shows she hasn’t moved more than a mile from the college in the past month. Her mobile phone records show she had not made or received calls to any person we have not been able to speak to—”
A flicker of alarm on Mills’s face confirmed that McKittrick was lying about that.
“—so as far as we have been able to establish, it is extremely probable that she obtained the drugs that killed her from the campus. A campus where you appear to be the main dealer—”
The lawyer interrupted. “My client is highly unlikely to be the only dealer at the college.”
McKittrick ignored her. “—and it seems worthy of my time to see if you can help me find out why this bright and brilliant woman, with no previous history of substance misuse, had such large quantities of drugs in her system.”
Klaason was silent.
McKittrick circled something in her notes. “Mr Klaason, you are looking at a minimum of eight year
s in prison for the production of methamphetamine, but I am willing to put in a good word with the London Crime Squad if you tell me what you know about Lauren Shelbourne and how she came to have drugs—very likely your drugs—in her system.”
His lawyer cleared her throat and whispered something to Klaason, who nodded.
“I have nothing to do with Lauren dying, OK?”
McKittrick and Mills said nothing.
“But I did give stuff to the professor.” The lawyer held onto his arm. He pushed her away. “Ask Younger how come she was taking meth. Ask him why she ended up dead.”
There was a knock on the interview room door and a uniformed PC stuck her head through the door. McKittrick got up and spoke to her. They exchanged a handful of words before the inspector returned to the table and officially suspended the interview. Mills followed her eagerly out of the room.
The observation room door opened a moment later and the two of them walked in.
“What a result!” Murray said. “Great work.”
She high-fived a beaming Mills. “It gets better than that,” he said.
Ingrid’s eyes widened. “What’s happened?”
He looked to McKittrick. “Can I?”
She was smiling too. “Go for it.”
“Uniforms say Lauren Shelbourne’s phone is active again.”
“And this time they’ve got a location.” McKittrick paused for dramatic effect. “It’s within a fifty-meter radius of Stuart Younger’s house.”
39
Jen got such a shock seeing Ingrid at her desk, she almost dropped her coffee.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Please tell me you didn’t sleep here last night.” Jen took off her coat, opened her umbrella to dry, and switched on her computer. It had been raining hard since Ingrid had got up at six.
“Do I look that bad?”
“Jeez, no. Totally no. Except for, you know…” She gestured to the bruising on Ingrid’s cheek, which was now deepening from mauve to eggplant. “How come you’re in so early?”
Ingrid explained she was in no state to go for a run, and even lying flat was painful. There was also the small matter of Greg Brewster’s return to the UK at lunchtime, and she had much to plan. “Also, the deputy chief wants to see me.”