The DCI Isaac Cook Thriller Series: Books 1 -3

by Phillip Strang

  Neither was anxious to leave, mainly because where they were heading was less agreeable than where they were now. Farhan had a dreary house in a dreary street with a dreary wife and a dreary television blasting out all day and virtually all night. The children gave him comfort, but they would be in bed, fast asleep by the time he arrived home. His wife, heavily pregnant, would not be receptive to his amorous advances, and after spending time with two not young but very attractive women, he was in need of an outlet. There was no outlet, he knew that. The best he could do was to keep working until exhausted and then go home to sleep.

  ‘I believe Marjorie Frobisher to be dead,’ Isaac said.

  ‘Why do you come up with that conclusion?’ Farhan could see them remaining in the office for a few more hours. He recognised he had the traits of a workaholic, but he could never be sure if his diagnosis was correct, or whether it was a result of an unsatisfactory home life. It caused him great conflict. He had attempted a discussion with the Imam at the local Mosque that he tried to visit every Friday for Jummah, the most significant prayer time in the Muslim calendar. He rarely made it, and would on most occasions make his prayers in a quiet part of the office, or out at a crime scene.

  The Imam, although excessively conservative, could offer no tangible advice other than ‘Allah will guide you. It is for you to trust in his wisdom.’

  ‘Let’s look at the facts,’ Isaac said. He was on his third cup of coffee, and hunger had set in. A potential world-class runner in his day, sub-ten seconds for the one hundred metre dash, but he was not as dedicated as he should have been, and academia had been where his parents wanted him to focus. He reflected on that fact as he ordered the pizza, the third that week, and noticed his slight paunch, a clear indication of too much fast food and lack of exercise.

  ‘I realise we don’t have a corpse,’ Isaac said as he consumed the last slice of pizza.’

  ‘You may well be right. Detail your analysis,’ Farhan said.

  ‘One, she’s disappeared before, but never for so long, two, she’s never missed her work obligations, and three, there’s the interest of the so-called influential persons.’

  ‘There are a lot of uncertainties in there. It wouldn’t hold up in a court of law.’

  ‘Farhan, we’re not a court of law. We are just speculating.’

  ‘Okay, then let’s analyse what we know.’

  Isaac stood up, moved over to the whiteboard and started to write. The whiteboard marker was dry. He chose another. It worked. ‘Firstly, it is now over four weeks,’ he said, ‘almost five since she was last sighted. The most she has disappeared before has been a week to ten days.’

  ‘What about the SMSs?’

  ‘If it’s not her, then someone else is sending them.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘What if someone doesn’t want us to know she’s dead?’

  ‘Is that possible?’ Farhan asked.

  ‘What else can it be?’

  ‘Can we prove this?’

  ‘I don’t see how we can. We know the general location of the SMSs, but they are only triangulated off the nearest communication towers. They will be accurate to within ten, twenty yards at most, maybe more if it’s a remote area.’

  Farhan moved to the whiteboard. ‘If one of the SMSs came from a remote location in the countryside it might be possible to pinpoint it. If the area is sparsely populated, then maybe it’s possible.’

  ‘And then one of us goes there and starts sniffing around.’

  ‘It’s a long shot, but what have we got to lose?’

  ‘Okay, let’s do that.’ Isaac continued his analysis; Farhan resumed his seat after idly drawing a circle on the whiteboard and then rubbing it off.

  ‘Secondly, she has never missed a work commitment before. That validates my opinion that she is dead. From what we know of the woman, she would not have missed her opportunity to play the grieving sister when her on-screen brother died. It would have been irresistible for her.’

  Farhan could only agree. He didn’t mention that his wife had put forward that conclusion. A housewife and she comes up with a better result, Farhan thought.

  ‘These so-called influential persons, any luck there?’ Isaac asked. He had resumed his seat. A cursory glance at the clock revealed that it was after ten. Outside, it was dark, and the rain had started. He sent a text message. He did not want to conclude the day with a hot drink and a cold bed.

  ‘Not really. The most I’ve found out is that there have been a few previous lovers of significance, but they’re not recent.’

  ‘Her agent, what did she have to say?’

  ‘She had plenty to say, but then she started clamming up.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘She was very agreeable, as was her PA, but once I started to dig deeper, she hurried me out of the room. She knows the dirt, or at least some of it.’

  ‘And she was not going to dish it out to you?’ Isaac said, aware that Farhan’s easy and pleasant manner of drawing out information, especially from women, was exceptional.

  ‘If we have a body, she will give names.’

  ‘That doesn’t help us much, does it?’

  ‘We’re at a dead end,’ Farhan said.

  Isaac, before he could respond, was momentarily distracted by an SMS on his phone, ‘see you in one hour’. At least his bed would be warm tonight. ‘Farhan, let’s wrap it for this evening, meet tomorrow early and discuss our strategy. Interviewing people will not get us anywhere. We need to go and find this woman, or what remains of her.’

  Farhan agreed. He had heard the beep on Isaac’s phone, seen his smirking smile. He wished that it had been him going home to a willing and liberated woman. He had little to look forward to except the sullen expression on his wife’s face, and a complaint about the late hour.

  Chapter 8

  Sophie White was a decent person. Isaac knew that well enough. They had met three years earlier, during an investigation he had conducted into the murder of a hooligan in an alley in Brixton. It had appeared to be a case of rival gangs indulging in a tit-for-tat: ‘you kill one of ours, we’ll kill one of yours’.

  That was how they wanted to record it down at the police station. It was just too much paperwork, and one less hooligan only served society well. The police realised that catching the guilty gang members was the ideal, but invariably there were extenuating circumstances: still a minor, self-defence, deprived childhood, mentally unstable. There were just too many opportunities for the guilty party to get off: slap on the back of the hand, community service, or time in an air-conditioned reform home.

  That was how Isaac’s boss saw it. A gnarled, old-school policeman, he remembered a time when a kick up the arse and a good beating were perfectly acceptable forms of crime deterrent. He didn’t hold with the modern style of policing: too politically correct, too cosmetic, too soft on the criminals. He believed that a villain respects authority and strength and that the police handbook did little to help.

  Isaac, then a detective sergeant, fresh out of uniform, understood his plight, but he had been university educated, his boss had not. Thirty years previously, a different style of policing was suitable. Those were the days before heavy drugs, Islamic terrorism, and a population explosion. Isaac had studied the period. His boss had been prepared to write off the hooligan’s death as death by misadventure, person or persons unknown.

  Sophie White had changed all that. She lived in Twickenham, worked in Brixton as a social worker. As Isaac was wrapping up the case at his boss’s insistence, she had come forward with new information. She had seen a person running away from the alley, his arm covered in blood.

  The inevitable questions had come up when she walked into the police station: Why had she waited so long to come forward? Why did she believe it was not gang-related? Did she recognise the person?

  She had answered them all with aplomb. One, she had just finished work and was heading to the airport. Her sister in Canada was getting married, she was t
he maid of honour – it was checked out, found to be true. Two, the person she saw did not dress like a gang member. There was no hooded jacket, no trainers, no surly look about the individual – in fact, he was dressed well in a suit. Three, no, she did not recognise the person, although it was not an area where you saw men wearing suits too often.

  With the case reopened and his boss none too happy, it was left to Isaac to do the legwork, to further interview Sophie White and to wrap up the case, tout de suite. His boss had just bought a renovator’s delight in France as a retirement project and was continually trying out his basic French. Isaac, who had studied French at school and spoke with a reasonable fluency, ended up the recipient of some very crude French with a pronounced cockney undertone. It grated on Isaac’s nerves, but he said little, only offered encouragement.

  Sophie White proved to be a good witness with a remarkable skill. She had a photographic memory and was able to give an accurate description of what she had seen. She was able to remember the detail in the clothes of the assailant, the scuff mark on his shoes, his hair, which side it was parted, what colour and so on. It had been half-light, dusk when the attack had taken place. She had not seen the attack although she had seen the blood. As she explained, it happened all too often in the neighbourhood. Normally, she would not have stopped at the shop across the road from the alley, but she was feeling at ease, and her sister had asked for some favourite chocolates, not the sort they sold out at the airport.

  The hooligan’s name was Michael O’Leary. He had been born in the area, ran with a gang of ne’er-do-wells down by the water’s edge. Nineteen and barely literate, apart from a few run-ins with the police he had not been in much trouble. He was of a lost generation with no hope of redemption. He had been cocky in his early teenage years, bragging about why he didn’t need an education and how he had wagged school. ‘What do those cock-sucking teachers know? It’s out on the street that matters,’ he would say.

  Those he bragged to had ended up on the street as he had, indulging in gang-related warfare, partaking in petty theft when they could, and major theft if they had the brain power for such an activity, which most did not.

  It transpired that he had got a casual job as a runner for an illegal gambling syndicate. They would organise the dogs for fighting in an old warehouse close to the docks. He would collect the money, transport it as required, and receive a commission for his efforts. He thought he was smart in creaming off another one per cent. It was an easy scam, virtually undetectable. An intelligent person could have made an easy one hundred pounds every few days, but O’Leary was not smart; he had got the percentages wrong. He had taken ten percent, due to his inability to listen to the ‘cock-sucking teachers’ that he had been so critical of.

  The syndicate knew immediately. They sent in one of their people to teach him a lesson: a severe beating, a few broken bones and don’t do it again. The story once they had picked up the killer – a standover merchant from up north – was that he had been brought down by the syndicate. And that O’Leary was not willing to take his punishment and had drawn a knife. The killer stated it was self-defence; he received ten years for manslaughter.

  Sophie and Isaac became an item, and she had moved in with him for a while. A brutal childhood, a violent marriage in the past – domesticity did not suit her. She felt love for Isaac, he felt a fondness for her, but she could not commit and had decided that she needed a man and sex, but on her terms.

  She and Isaac had formed a deep bond, and a phone call from either would often result in a coupling of bodies, no commitment. It suited Isaac, although he found sex without love intimidating. For Sophie, it proved an ideal arrangement.

  She had sent the ‘see you in one hour’ SMS.

  ***

  The next day Farhan met Robert Avers, the now apparently long-suffering husband of the missing woman. This time, Avers had agreed to meet at his house in Belgravia. The detective inspector was more relaxed than in his previous encounters with the husband, and certainly more sober than their time at the Churchill Arms in Kensington. He did not want to repeat that experience.

  Avers, accommodating as usual, welcomed him into the house. ‘Detective Inspector Ahmed. Pleased to see you.’ Still polite, still friendly, but the previous bon vivant was missing. The man, dressed in a suit, had a dejected appearance.

  ‘Detective Inspector,’ he confided, ‘I’m worried. It’s just been too long.’

  ‘But you said she has done this in the past.’

  ‘Not for this length of time,’ Avers replied. Farhan could see the man was visibly distressed.

  ‘There have been more than a few men over the years,’ Farhan said.

  ‘That’s right…’

  ‘And ideally, you would have preferred none?’

  ‘It’s how she’s wired. She needed the men, the thrill, the sexual encounters.’

  ‘You didn’t approve?’

  ‘I always assumed the need would pass eventually and then all would be fine.’

  ‘Has that time arrived?’

  ‘I believe so, but why this disappearance? I just don’t understand it.’

  ‘Sorry, I need to ask.’

  ‘There had been some lovers in the past; some before we met who are now influential men in this country.’ Avers wanted to talk; Farhan willing to let him continue. Avers was tense, sitting upright on a hard chair in the sitting room; Farhan sat back on the comfortable sofa. His posture looked relaxed; he was not. He switched off his phone. The worst distraction was it ringing at the moment of confession or revelation.

  Chapter 9

  ‘What did you gain from Robert Avers?’ Isaac asked Farhan in the office, their end of day meeting. He was still in a good mood, a leftover from the night before and Sophie.

  Farhan had had no such romantic encounter, only a lecture from his wife on why he did not spend more time with the children, how he loved his work more than her, and what time of the night did he think that was to come home?

  ‘Robert Avers is a broken man, seriously worried,’ Farhan said, although he was distracted. He realised his welcome home of the previous night would only be repeated, once he left the office. He sighed to himself. It was true, he did love his work more than his wife, but then work was exciting, whereas she was not, and as for his children, he did have some regrets, although he tried to keep Sundays free for them. Not always successfully, though.

  ‘Let’s state that the woman is dead,’ Isaac said.

  ‘I thought we agreed on that yesterday.’

  ‘You’re right, but we still maintained a glimmer of hope. Let’s throw that out of the window and go for broke. No longer do we regard this as a missing person investigation. Now, we classify it as a murder enquiry.’

  ‘Can we do that?’

  ‘Officially, it may be difficult. Unofficially, I don’t see a problem.’

  ‘I still think we need to bring the Super in on this. Maybe grill him some more as to what he knows.’ Farhan made the suggestion, realising that Isaac and their boss had an easier relationship, and Isaac would be the better of the two to do it.

  ‘I’ll phone him now,’ Isaac said. Before he could call, his phone rang. He excused himself from the room. Farhan could hear a muffled conversation. Isaac returned sheepishly five minutes later.

  ‘Important?’ Farhan asked.

  ‘Jess O’Neill.’

  ‘Some new evidence?’

  ‘Maybe, maybe not. It’s more likely a ruse to meet up.’

  ‘She’s a good-looking woman.’ Farhan had seen a photo.

  ‘Good-looking she may be, but we’ve just upgraded this to a murder investigation. It wouldn’t look right if I were playing around with a potential suspect, would it?’

  ‘And if she wasn’t a potential suspect?’

  ‘You know the answer to that already.’ Isaac smiled.

  Isaac, no longer making excuses for a possible future romantic encounter, phoned their boss. It was nine in the evening, but
Isaac knew his phone call at such an hour would not cause any problems.

  ‘Sir, we want to upgrade this to a murder investigation.’

  ‘Okay, stay where you are. I’ll be in the office within the hour,’ Goddard said.

  It was closer to ninety minutes when he arrived, pizza box in hand. Isaac, who had promised to look after his diet better, could only thank him for the food.

  Farhan could see that it was going to be a later finish than the previous night. Maybe she’ll be asleep when I finally make it home, he thought, but realised it was just wishful thinking.

  Isaac was the first to speak after they had finished with the pizza. ‘These so-called influential persons, are they critical to the investigation?’ His question was levelled at the detective superintendent.

  ‘You’re asking questions I’m not able to answer.’

  ‘But why? If it’s a murder investigation, doesn’t that change the situation?’

  ‘I don’t see how.’ The detective superintendent appeared to be stalling. ‘There’s no deceased, so how can you call it a murder investigation?’

  ‘We’re just calling it a murder enquiry. Do you want to make it official?’

  Richard Goddard sat upright before he continued. ‘I don’t know the full story, not much more than you. Dead is okay by them. It’s if she is alive that worries them,’ Richard Goddard said.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Isaac could see them treading where they were not wanted, asking questions certain people did not want to be asked.

  ‘Isaac,’ his senior said, ‘drop the case. Just declare that she has gone missing.’

  ‘But why? I thought we were meant to find her. Are you suggesting we should walk away from a potential murder?’ Isaac sensed the trepidation in his senior officer. It was something he had not seen before.

  ‘We must. I’ll tell my contact that we’re pulling out. I’ll tell him that the leads have gone cold. She’s disappeared of her own free will, and will no doubt reappear when she feels inclined.’

  ‘Do you believe what you just said?’ Isaac looked the senior officer direct in the eyes.