by Eva Hudson
Faber wriggled under the force of Ingrid’s restraint. “You saw it too, agent.” Faber managed a smile that released a rush of anger in Ingrid’s chest. Heat radiated up into her throat and face. She kept her forearm pressed against Faber’s neck. Her other hand, still gripping the phone, pushed into her stomach.
“The police released you, accepting you arrived at Lauren’s apartment for the first time at eight twenty a.m., the morning after she died. So now you’re free. And clear. So you pay Professor Younger a visit. You offer him a shoulder to cry on in his time of need. You suggest that with Lauren dead, the two of you can be together.”
Another flicker of reaction. Faint, but unmistakable. Distant engine noises roared up the stairwell.
“But Younger rejects you again. Again, Madison. You’ve removed the main obstacle between you, but he tells you where to go. And that is unforgivable. So you move to phase two of the plan. And for this you need someone on your side. Someone, perhaps, whose job it is to support US citizens in the UK. And how lucky for you this person also lost someone. What great leverage that gave you. And what an easy mark I was. Your years of studying psychology really paid off, didn’t they?”
Faber raised her eyebrows, a smile faintly playing across her lips.
“Oh, you should feel smug. I went all out for Younger. Like he was public enemy number one. Choose between an American citizen in fear for her life and an arrogant, egotistical English college professor with dubious morals? It was no contest. I almost admire your cunning and inventiveness.”
“My inventiveness? You’re the one making the whole thing up.”
“I’m congratulating you, Faber. Can’t you at least congratulate me on finally working it all out?”
Faber looked right and left, but no one was coming to her rescue. “An imagination like yours is wasted at the FBI. Aren’t you trained to deal in cold, hard facts?” She balled her right hand and slammed a fist into Ingrid’s ribs, inflicting enough pain for Ingrid to loosen her stance. Faber wriggled free and headed for the stairs. Ingrid took a second to suck down as deep a breath as she could manage and gave chase, taking the steps three at a time. Faber reached a half-landing and pulled a fire extinguisher off the wall. It was heavier than she was expecting, and instead of aiming it at Ingrid’s head, she swung it at her shins, sending her toppling downward. Ingrid’s tight grip on her phone meant she couldn’t break her fall properly, and she let out a yelp of pain before clambering onto all fours. She looked up at Faber. She held the fire extinguisher in both hands and brought it down hard. Ingrid rolled out of the way, making Faber lose her balance. Men’s voices drifted in from outside. Maintenance workers most likely. Ground crew.
“Is that what you did to Lauren?” Ingrid was breathing hard; her entire torso was circled with pain. She forced herself to standing. “Did she put up a struggle too?” Ingrid lunged at Faber, holding her against the banister with her body weight, arching Faber’s back over the handrail. A fall from this height was either life-changing or life-ending. “You know what always bothered me about your testimony?” Ingrid said. Her chest rose and fell with each painful breath. “It took me a while to work it out. Can you guess what it was?”
A flicker of something flitted across Faber’s face. Fear or curiosity?
“You told the police you had a key to Lauren’s new apartment. But why would she give you a key? She loathed you by then.” Ingrid shifted her weight, pushing Faber further over the handrail. “So either you got it from Stuart Younger when you were planting her phone in his house and stealing his sweater, or much more likely is you took it the night before. Lauren was high because you’d made sure she hadn’t received the placebo. I can imagine you saying to people at college, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll make sure she gets home OK.’ And then when you’re alone, something happens. Either she trips and falls, or she says something about Younger, something that makes you flip, and you shove her so hard she falls. She hits her head. She loses consciousness.”
The fight went out of Faber’s body. She slackened. Softened. But Ingrid held firm.
“Instead of calling the EMTs, you start planning. You wait until you’re sure she’s dead. You take her key. You take her phone. Her laptop. Maybe you thought you’d make it look like a robbery. Am I close, Madison?”
Faber arched her back, then brought her head forward sharply, slamming her skull into Ingrid’s cheek, sending her backwards. She slipped free of Ingrid’s grasp and turned on her, pushed her against the banister and bent her over the rail, which dug into her rib cage. Ingrid winced. Faber pressed her advantage. Ingrid knew Faber’s only hope was to silence her and get on her flight. No one would find Ingrid’s body until the annex was reopened, and by then Faber would be in the air. Ingrid stared at the concrete floor two flights down: it was plenty high enough for a fatal fall.
Faber brought up her knee, the force of the blow pressing Ingrid harder into the metal and finally ejecting the phone from her hand. Ingrid watched it fall through the air and clatter to the ground below. She released the breath that had stalled in her throat, emitting a deep, guttural cry. Madison released her and Ingrid turned painfully. Faber picked up the fire extinguisher and windmilled her arm, swinging it up toward Ingrid’s head. Ingrid ducked out of its path, and her momentum took her over the top, somersaulting into the void. She reached out, grabbing the banister with one hand, then the other, her legs dangling below. Faber raised the fire extinguisher, and with both hands she brought it down hard, aiming for Ingrid’s fingers.
Ingrid tucked her knees and dropped down. She aimed her feet onto the handrail below, turned and jumped again, this time reaching out for the handrail opposite. With every ounce of strength she had left, she repeated the move: tuck, drop, grab until she hit the concrete floor, rolling over to disperse the impact. Five years of parkour.
Faber’s footsteps echoed as she ran upward, toward the exit, toward escape. The door opened and slammed shut.
Ingrid picked up her phone. “Please tell me,” she said between breaths, “you heard all that?”
Was that cheering on the other end of the line?
“The airport team have instructions to arrest,” McKittrick said. “Nice work.”
Ingrid stared up at the steps and took a deep, weary breath. She swiped her dented helmet from the floor and began climbing, one agonizing step at a time. Ingrid reached the top and yanked open the door into the departure lounge. Three uniformed airport police officers, two holding MK5s, had surrounded Faber. The other placed her in hand restraints.
“You do not have to say anything,” he said, “but it may harm your defense if you do not mention when questioned something you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.”
Ingrid caught Faber’s eye and the girl smiled at her. “This isn’t over.”
Ingrid slumped against the wall. She wanted to answer back. She wanted to tell Faber it was indeed over, that the game was up and to see the smile permanently wiped off her face. But she wasn’t worth it. She could let the kid have the last word: after all, nothing Faber said now would make any difference.
The cops led Faber away. She yelled something about her father. About how they didn’t know who they were dealing with. She shouted that Inspector McKittrick would explain everything. Ingrid stopped listening. She collapsed onto one of the plastic seats and let her head fall into her hands. As the tension left her body, she felt sobs rise up from her chest. Sitting there all alone, her tears weren’t for Lauren or the Shelbournes. They never were: her tears were for Megan and for her fourteen-year-old self, who had never given up the search for answers. Every time she figured out a new case, it was a painful reminder she was no closer to solving the one crime that really mattered. But she would, she told herself.
“One day,” she said out loud. “I promise.”
Kill Plan
An Ingrid Skyberg Mystery
INKUBATOR BOOKS
Previously published under the same title b
y Two Pies Press (2014)
1
Special Agent Ingrid Skyberg peered more closely at the dead man. His light brown hair fell loosely across his forehead. His haircut had been styled by an expensive hairdresser rather than a barber. His suit jacket was open, revealing the deep maroon lining: a touch of flamboyance in an otherwise somber gray two-piece. Ingrid supposed he was trying to prove he had a personality. His right hand was shoved up into his left armpit. He must have fallen clutching that side of his chest. His left arm was flung over his head, the hand bent into a claw-like curl. His face was unlined, his skin clear. His lips already had a bluish tinge to them. He couldn’t have been older than late twenties.
She pulled a pair of nitrile gloves from her pocket, quickly snapped them on and stepped over the makeshift cordon of blue and white police tape strung across three office chairs.
“What do you think you’re doing! You can’t touch him!” A uniformed police officer lunged forward and grabbed Ingrid’s arm.
Ingrid stared into the woman’s face. It was criss-crossed with deep lines. Her cheeks were flushed. No doubt a result of years working the beat in all weathers. “I have no intention of compromising your crime scene, officer,” Ingrid said.
“Who said it was a crime scene?” The middle-aged officer glanced toward her youthful male colleague, as if she wanted his support. But he didn’t seem to be listening. He’d been staring at Ingrid from the moment she’d shown the two cops her FBI badge.
“If it’s not a crime, why are you here?” Ingrid asked.
“The paramedics called us in.” The cop gestured toward the two EMTs who were standing near the elevator, deep in conversation with a gray-haired man dressed in a suit even smarter than the corpse’s.
“Why did they call you in?”
The cop puffed out an irritated breath. “Why don’t you ask them?” She started to walk away and beckoned to her colleague to follow her. They disappeared around a corner at the far end of the corridor.
Ingrid stood up, pulled off the gloves and looked through the glass wall separating the corridor from the large open-plan office of Fisher Krupps bank. The morning sun was streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows. There had to be about seventy or so individual work stations on the trading floor. Over two-thirds of those were currently occupied by traders. Most of them had a phone cradled between shoulder and ear, their hands moving fast over computer keyboards. They were clearly still working despite the fact that the dead body of their colleague was lying just yards away in the corridor outside.
She approached the two men in green jump suits, an empty gurney standing between them.
“Hey,” she said and flashed her badge at the EMTs and the smart-suited man they were talking to. “Special Agent Ingrid Skyberg, from the US embassy. Can I ask you a couple of questions?”
The man in the smart suit shoved out his hand. “Richard Wennstein, I’m the manager of the trading floor—I called the embassy.” His accent was East Coast, probably New Jersey.
Ingrid shook his hand. “Thank you for your vigilance, sir.”
He shrugged. “It’s company policy here at Fisher Krupps. Anything happens to one of our US employees, we call the embassy.” He stood back a little and unashamedly scrutinized her from head to toe. “I saw you just now looking at the body. What’s an FBI agent doing here anyway? I expected some administrative clerk to arrive and make me fill out a dozen forms.”
“We should really get going,” the first EMT said.
“I’m sorry, Mr Wennstein. Would you mind if I spoke to these gentlemen before they leave?”
Wennstein shrugged again. “Be my guest.”
One of the EMTs glanced at his watch.
“I promise I won’t keep you,” Ingrid told them. “Why did you call in the police?”
“Standard procedure,” one of them said.
Ingrid nodded at him. “It is?”
“If someone dies unexpectedly we always inform the police. It’s up to them to decide how to proceed.”
“What are the options?”
“There are basically two: call the coroner’s office to request an autopsy and let them come and collect the body. Or, if foul play is suspected, call in the detectives. Full forensics examination of the victim and the scene.”
“You think this could be foul play?”
“I couldn’t tell you one way or the other.”
“Any idea what he might have died of?”
“It’s down to the pathologist to determine the cause of death,” the other EMT chimed in and glanced toward Wennstein, who was hovering a few feet away, well within earshot.
“How about an educated guess? Help me out here, fellas.”
The first EMT leaned toward her, almost conspiratorially. “If I was a betting man, I’d put fifty quid on it being a massive coronary.”
“Based on what?”
“The sudden onset, the way he was clutching his chest when he keeled over.”
“He’s a little young for a heart attack,” Ingrid said.
“Which is why we called the police.”
Ingrid glanced down the corridor. The two uniformed cops still hadn’t returned to the body. Where the hell were they? “Thanks for your time, guys,” she said.
They looked at one another, said goodbye to Wennstein, then shoved the gurney toward the elevator. The first EMT punched the down button and let out a long sigh.
Ingrid turned to Wennstein. “You manage the trading floor?” she asked him.
He nodded.
“So that’s maybe seventy, eighty people?”
“Ninety-two.”
“How well did you know Matthew Fuller?”
Wennstein glanced over her shoulder down the corridor and toward Fuller’s stiffening body. He sniffed. “No better than anyone else here. He worked hard, always made good numbers every month. He was a stand up guy. What do you want me to say?”
“Was he healthy?”
“I guess—he worked out.”
“The bank must have something on file about his medical history.”
“Sure. Look—he was a fit, young guy. Not heart attack material if that’s what you’re asking.” He took a step backward. “Exactly what are you asking? I mean, why is a federal agent getting involved with something like this?” He stuck a finger between his collar and his neck.
In Ingrid’s experience, the presence of a Bureau agent often had this effect on people. Especially those working in financial institutions. It was as if they were all hiding some guilty secret they were worried was about to be exposed.
“Unexplained death of a US citizen in a foreign country? An FBI agent from the Criminal Investigation Unit always gets involved.”
“Criminal? You think somebody killed Fuller?”
“I’m not saying that at all.” Not at this stage, Ingrid thought. “Whatever this is, I’m here to represent the embassy and the Bureau. If there’s a criminal investigation into Mr Fuller’s death, I’ll be assisting the police any way I can. I’ll also write a report on the way the investigation is handled.”
“Is that something we get to see?”
“It’s more for the family of the deceased.”
Wennstein closed his eyes for a moment.
“What is it?”
“Fuller’s girlfriend. She works here at the bank. She’s in New York, working at HQ for a couple days. How am I going to tell her about this?”
“Would you like someone from the embassy to contact her?”
“Could they?”
“Sure—I’ll take her details before I leave. What about his parents?”
“I… I don’t know anything about them. Maybe you should talk to Kristin.”
“His girlfriend?”
He nodded.
“Would it be possible to see Mr Fuller’s medical records? Would he have had a medical exam before he started at the bank, for insurance purposes?”
“Every employee does.”
“So, can you g
et me the records?”
“I should really be getting back to the floor, see what’s going on.”
“Maybe you could make a couple of calls? Get the personnel department to do the legwork?”
Wennstein stared forlornly through the glass wall of the corridor toward his busy team of traders, like an anxious father peering into a room full of newborns at the hospital. He reluctantly pulled his phone from his pocket.
Ingrid was about to return to Matthew Fuller’s body and continue the examination she’d started before the uniformed cop told her to stop, when she heard a loud crash sound from further down the corridor. She looked up to see a man wearing dark blue coveralls stagger out of a door. For a moment she was transfixed by the six feet tall man’s strange lurching gate. She glanced at Wennstein, who was speaking in hushed tones into his cell phone. He shrugged back at her.
The man in the coveralls leaned a hand against the corridor wall to steady himself. Ingrid ran toward him. As she approached she could see he was blinking rapidly and sweating like he’d just stepped out of a sauna.
“Hey, are you OK?” Ingrid asked him, just a few feet away now.
The man dropped heavily onto his knees, remained in a kneeling position for a few moments, then pitched forward onto his face.
2
Immediately, Ingrid hollered back to Wennstein, “Call reception downstairs. See if those EMTs are still in the building. We need them back up here fast.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
“Make the call, goddammit!”
Wennstein tapped a number into his phone.
Ingrid turned her attention back to the guy on the floor. She pushed two fingers into the soft flesh of his neck, trying to feel for a pulse. It was fast, but faint. His eyes flickered open. “Hang in there, buddy,” she said.