Insidious Intent

by Val McDermid

  ‘Until recently he was living in one of the high-rise executive blocks down by the canal basin.’ She glanced at Tony. ‘He could probably have seen your boat from his balcony. When Tricia left the company, he had to move out because the lease was in her name and she cancelled it.’

  ‘Why was it in her name?’ Carol wondered.

  ‘Probably a tax dodge,’ Alvin grumbled. ‘Maybe the company sub-let it off her or something.’

  ‘So, now he’s moved to a rather less cool address. Still a nice modern flat though, only it’s at the back of Central Station, not overlooking the canal basin. The downside is that he has underground car parking, which makes it hard to stake out. If we were to need that option?’

  Carol shrugged. ‘We’ll take it as it comes. What else?’

  ‘The company leases four vehicles. As far as I can tell, he uses the BMW. They’ve also got two VW Passats and a small Peugeot van, which are all insured for Elton and five of his staff. He’s got a clean driving licence, no criminal record and a credit score of 775, which is close to excellent. But he gave Tricia Stone thirty per cent of the company three years ago. He’ll want to buy back those shares or get her to sell them to a third-party buyer otherwise he’ll be handing over a chunk of his profit to her for nothing in return.’

  ‘More fuel to the fire,’ Tony muttered. ‘In his head, he’s got all the reasons in the world to hate her. Who gets the shares if she dies?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Stacey said. ‘Not everything is available, you know.’

  ‘Which really pisses you off,’ Kevin teased.

  ‘Right now, his debt levels are not worrying but if his profits keep falling, they could become troublesome. According to a couple of brief trade press articles about the company, his hobbies are watching football and listening to jazz.’

  ‘Not cycling?’ Tony asked.

  ‘People who are into cycling don’t tootle around on a Brompton bike,’ Kevin said.

  ‘Maybe not, but you’d have to be reasonably comfortable on a bike, not to mention reasonably fit, to make your getaway back to where your car is parked. I thought he might be a proper cyclist.’

  ‘More likely he’s got a stationary bike in his bedroom,’ Carol said. ‘Anything more, Stacey? No property in the Dales?’

  ‘Not that I’ve found. I’ll keep looking, though.’

  ‘OK.’ Carol leaned back in her chair. ‘We need to talk to Tricia Stone. She might be able to shed some light.’ She looked around again with a sharp sigh. ‘Where the hell is Paula? Stacey, can you trace Tricia Stone? I want Paula to talk to her. So, we’re a lot further forward than we were. We’ve still no confirmed ID on Eileen Walsh but the pathologist thinks he might be able to extract some usable DNA. We have an ID for our mystery man, but it’s all circumstantial. We need a lot more than we have now.’ She stood up and walked over to the incident board where all the tenuous elements of their investigation were laid out. ‘I think we should sleep on it. See what Paula can extract from Tricia Stone. And if we can’t come up with anything else, tomorrow we bring him in. Shake the tree and see what falls out.’ She gave a little snort of derision. ‘Knowing my luck, it’ll be a poisonous tree frog.’

  61

  P

  aula was waiting at the kitchen table for Torin when he got home from school. ‘Grab a drink and sit down.’ It wasn’t a request. She cradled her coffee mug in her hands, running over what she would say as he fixed himself a tumbler of fruit squash. He was so nervous the ice cubes clinked and tinkled like a percussion section against the glass.

  ‘Good day?’ Paula asked.

  He shrugged. His eyes met hers then slid away. He stared out of the kitchen window at the garden beyond.

  ‘Only, I haven’t had a very good day, as it happens. Thanks to Stacey, however, we now know who conned you and blackmailed you. At first we thought it was the usual gang of cyber-scum because Stacey tracked the messages back to a blank-wall IP address in the Philippines. But she doesn’t give up easily. So she took a look at the payment card you paid the money on to. She thought that would be another dead end. Some private bank in a tax haven with secrecy laws that make Switzerland look expansive. But it turns out, the bank card was issued right here in Bradfield.’

  Torin’s face crumpled in bewilderment. ‘I don’t understand. You mean, this is somebody local?’

  ‘Exactly. Somebody very local. Somebody three streets away from here.’

  He was clearly baffled. ‘How? I mean, why? Who’d do something like that? Is it somebody I know?’

  ‘It’s somebody you upset, Torin. See, here’s one of the things I know about being a teenager. You don’t always have a sense of proportionality. That idea of the punishment fitting the crime? It doesn’t always happen like that in the adolescent brain,’ Paula said bitterly. ‘So when you hurt somebody’s feelings, sometimes they go completely overboard in response.’

  He shook his head. ‘I’ve not upset anybody enough to justify this,’ he protested. ‘I’m one of the good guys. I don’t pick on anybody. Honest, Paula. I’m not just saying it. I’m not like that.’

  Paula sipped her coffee, studying him over the rim. He really didn’t get it. He’d drifted right past the embarrassment and humiliation he’d inflicted on Elsa Jackson without even noticing. She put her mug down. ‘Elsa Jackson.’

  His eyes widened and his mouth opened in shock. ‘Elsa? What am I supposed to have done to Elsa?’

  ‘You humiliated her in front of her mates.’

  ‘I did?’ He frowned. She let him hang in the silence. At length, he cocked his head and said slowly, ‘Is this about when she asked if I’d go to the prom with her?’

  Paula nodded. ‘And you said “No way”, Torin. In front of everybody. Not very nice, was it?’

  He shook his head, not in sorrow but in denial. ‘That’s not how it went. She didn’t let me finish what I was saying. I was going to say, “No way, I wouldn’t be seen dead at a lame gig like that.” But she took off after the “No way” bit. She was off like a hurricane. I like Elsa,’ he said plaintively. ‘If I was going to go to a crap night out like the school prom, she’s probably the one I’d have asked. And she did this to me? She fucked me over till I wanted to die? I sold my mum’s necklace because some stupid self-obsessed girl thought I’d treated her like shit? Bloody hell, Paula, I hope you’re going to throw the book at her. That’s totally irrational. Jeez. How could she be so vile to me?’

  ‘Because she was hurt and she lashed out. I agree, her reaction was totally out of proportion to the perceived offence, but she genuinely thought you started it.’ Now she could see the misery in his face and she reached out for his hand and squeezed it.

  ‘But she’s not getting away with it, right? You arrested her?’

  ‘Actually, it was her dad I arrested, because it was him that bought the card.’ She grinned. ‘It was all a bit of a cock-up. But I’m not throwing the book at her.’

  ‘Paula!’ he protested.

  ‘Hear me out. If we’d arrested and charged her, there’s no doubt it would have ended up in court. The CPS would have definitely prosecuted. You’d have had to go to court and testify. And even though the news media couldn’t report your names because you’re minors, do you imagine there’s any way that it’d not be round the school like wildfire? It’d be worse than Elsa originally threatened. Which, by the way, she’s adamant she wasn’t going to do. She wanted you to sweat and to suffer and then she was going to back off. But you paid up too quickly. Ironic, isn’t it?’

  He sighed. ‘It’s not fair.’

  ‘There’s another thing. OK, she blackmailed you, but you had actually sent her the pics and the videos. And technically that makes you guilty of distributing indecent images of a minor.’

  ‘What?’ He pushed back in his chair, astonished. ‘But it was my own pictures.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Under the letter of the law, you committed an offence. Which is something that Elsa’s dad spotted right
away and jumped all over. If we’d arrested her, the defence would have argued that the original offence behind all of this was yours, and it’s possible you’d have ended up in court. And me and Stacey weren’t willing to take that chance.’

  He slammed the palms of his hands down on the table. ‘So she gets away with it? She tortures me, she blackmails me, and nothing happens?’

  ‘Calm down. Don’t you know me better than that? It’s not, “nothing happens, business as usual”. We did a deal with the Jacksons. Bev’s necklace is still up for sale on the website. They’ve agreed to buy it back, even though it’s a lot more than you sold it for. You’ll get it back. That’s the first thing.’

  His eyes filmed over with tears. He struggled not to shed them. ‘Thanks,’ he managed.

  ‘And there’s more. Stacey was surprised that a fourteen-year-old girl could navigate the web and its systems the way Elsa did. She talked to her about her interest in the digital world, and it turns out Elsa is pretty precocious in the whole IT sphere. Stacey kind of sees herself in Elsa. So in future, Elsa’s going to be spending three hours a week with Stacey, developing her programming skills.’

  Torin pulled a face. ‘That doesn’t seem fair. Why should she benefit from this? I’m the one who’s the victim here.’

  Paula laughed. ‘You think it’ll be fun? Do you have any idea what a slave-driver Stacey is? This is going to last till Elsa leaves school. Think of it as a three-year detention, Torin. She made your life a misery for a few weeks. Stacey is going to inflict pain on her for years. And yeah, she’ll come out of it at the end in a better place than she is now. But I think you’ve learned something too.’

  ‘Don’t trust the internet,’ he grunted.

  ‘That too. But I hope you’ve learned to think about the effect of your words before you blurt them out.’

  ‘I never —’

  ‘I know you didn’t. But people don’t always take things the way we mean them. So avoid ambiguity and think before you speak.’ Whatever else Paula was going to say was cut off by a text buzzing on her phone. ‘Oh, bloody hell, the boss has noticed I’m on the missing list.’ She sighed and got to her feet, grabbing her bag. ‘Elinor should be back around seven, there’s a tub of Bolognese sauce from the deli in the fridge. Be kind and grate the parmesan for her, there’s a love.’ She rounded the table to wrap him in a hug, kissing the top of his hair. ‘It’ll be all right,’ she said. ‘We made it out alive, kiddo.’

  ‘Not everybody gets to say that,’ he mumbled. ‘Thanks.’

  62

  P

  aula made it back to the office in time to hear Carol’s words at the end of the briefing. ‘Sorry, boss,’ she said. ‘I had to take a couple of hours’ personal time.’

  ‘In the middle of a murder inquiry?’ Carol said, her face cold and her voice icy to match.

  ‘Yes.’ Paula stood her ground. She’d always been a bit sniffy about women officers who used their children as a tool of privilege. But since she’d taken responsibility for Torin, she’d learned the uncomfortable truth that sometimes crises wouldn’t wait till you could get home. ‘It was time-sensitive. Nothing was moving here and I was on the end of a phone at all times.’

  ‘Well, something is moving here, now.’ A slight thaw, but Carol’s tone was still clipped. ‘We’ve got a name to go with the face. Recognised by some of the guests at the wedding where he acquired Kathryn McCormick. And he’d met Claire Garrity through her job. All the details are in the updated case file that Kevin has put together. I want you to talk to his ex. Stacey’s tracking her down.’ Carol turned away and headed for her office.

  ‘Consider me bollocked,’ Paula muttered at Kevin out of the side of her mouth.

  ‘Bad timing. You should know better than go awol when we’re in the thick of it.’

  ‘It was my work at Freshco that caught us the break.’

  ‘And she knows that. But this isn’t the time to piss around, especially not if you’re serious about going for promotion. You know she’s not been at her easiest since she got ReMIT up and running.’

  Paula looked penitent. ‘I think I preferred it when she was still on the sauce.’

  Kevin’s eyebrows shot up. ‘She’s on the wagon?’

  ‘Yup. Tony told me he gave her the hard word after she got nicked and she’s been sticking to it ever since.’

  Kevin gave a low whistle. ‘No wonder she’s driving this case so hard. Talk about having something to prove to herself.’

  Paula nodded. ‘I was such a bitch when I quit smoking for vaping, so I do get some of what she’s going through. Anyway, I’d better see what Stacey’s got for me.’

  Thanks to the miracles of modern technology, the fact that Tricia Stone had relocated to the hills above Marbella didn’t mean she was beyond the reach of ReMIT. Stacey had tracked her to the editorial department of an English-language magazine for ex-pats. Within the hour, Paula had managed to set up a Skype call, which Stacey had set up to record.

  The webcam of a laptop never did favours to anyone, but even with that distortion, Paula could see Tricia Stone was a woman who made the best of herself. She wasn’t drop-dead gorgeous, but her make-up and hairstyle emphasised the elfin shape of her face and gave her a witchy look about the eyes. ‘Thanks for talking to me,’ Paula began. ‘Do you mind if I tape this call? To keep the record straight?’

  ‘Be my guest, I’ve got nothing to hide. But what’s all this about? What’s Tom done? Your message was quite evasive.’ She was brisk and businesslike, her Yorkshire accent almost buffed clean.

  ‘We think Tom may be able to help our inquiries into a series of crimes. I’m sorry, I can’t say more at this stage.’

  ‘I don’t know whether I can help. I haven’t seen him or spoken to him for the best part of three months.’

  ‘You wanted a clean break?’

  She pulled down the corners of her mouth. ‘No point in dragging things out once you’ve made your mind up.’

  ‘So it was you who broke it off?’

  Tricia looked curious. ‘Why are you interested?’

  ‘I’m trying to paint a picture. What Tom’s like. What his state of mind might be.’

  She gave a sardonic laugh. ‘Pissed off. That would be his state of mind. I did break it off, which he was not happy about.’

  ‘Do you mind telling me why you left?’

  ‘I don’t see what this has to do with anything.’ Even on Skype, the challenging look was obvious.

  ‘I appreciate that. But it would be helpful if you could fill me in.’ Paula smiled. ‘I’m sorry, we often find ourselves asking what seem to be pointless and intrusive questions, but sometimes it’s really helpful when we’re trying to make sense of scattered bits of information.’

  ‘And you won’t tell me what he’s done?’

  ‘At this point, we don’t know that he’s done anything.’

  A sudden smile. ‘You’re not going to tell me, are you? So it’s a question of whether I trust you or I end this call?’

  Paula could see why Tricia had been successful in persuading journalists to write for their publications, and business to advertise. She had an air of friendly candour. Time to match that. Or at least the appearance of it. ‘That’s about the size of it. But I’m guessing from the lack of contact between you since you split up that you don’t actually feel you owe Tom Elton anything. So why not help me out?’ She counted the seconds while Tricia considered. Eight, nine, ten, eleven —

  ‘Why not? OK. I ended it because it dawned on me that I didn’t actually have to put up with his shit any more. Don’t get me wrong. He was never physically violent towards me. He threw things but never at me. There was one wall in the flat we had repainted three times because he lost his temper. Once it was a Thai takeaway, once it was a bottle of Baileys and the last time it was a jug of sangria.’

  ‘A man with a temper, then?’ A gentle push, to see where it took them.

  ‘Volatile, I would say. He lost his tem
per quickly but it was like a flash flood. Once the anger was gone, he’d get straight down to cold, hard planning to make sure whatever it was that had made him angry wouldn’t happen again. It was an amazing driver in business. He didn’t lose it with staff or clients in the room, but he’d let rip later, in private. And then he’d work out how to screw them over.’

  ‘Not the easiest thing to live with.’ Keeping the flow going, encouraging more revelation.

  ‘No, but I suppose I got used to it. The other side of Tom is that he can be very charming and considerate. Especially when it gets him what he wants.’

  ‘So what precipitated your departure?’

  Tricia smiled. ‘You’re persistent, aren’t you? You’d make a great journalist.’

  ‘Except I can’t write for toffee. What finally made you leave?’

  ‘It sounds stupid when I say it.’ She sighed. ‘I went to a friend’s wedding by myself because Tom couldn’t be bothered spending time with people he didn’t much like.’ Already, alarm bells were ringing in Paula’s head, but she kept quiet and let Tricia continue. ‘Anyway, I got chatted up by this lovely guy. Smart, funny, and only single because his girlfriend had refused to relocate to Spain with him when he bought a bar over here. He was only over for the wedding, but we kept in touch online. And it dawned on me that while Gary – that’s his name, Gary – might not be Mr Right, Tom was very definitely Mr Wrong. I realised I needed to get out, that being with Tom was turning me into someone I didn’t want to be. Always watching what I did, guarding my tongue, acting like a UN peacekeeper half my life. So I started looking for a job opportunity over in Spain. Not to be with Gary. I wasn’t about to jump from the frying pan into what might be the fire. But to give myself a second chance. When this job came up, I took a deep breath and got out.’

  ‘Wow. That takes real nerve,’ Paula said. Her admiration was genuine. She hadn’t always been so clear-eyed herself in the past. ‘When was this?’