Two miles out of the city centre, they hit traffic and Simms slowed the car to a crawl, muttering a curse under her breath.
‘What’s got you rattled?’ Fennimore said.
‘Who said I was rattled?’
‘Come on, Kate. You go to the trouble of tracking me down, you gatecrash my lecture—’
‘I mean why would I be rattled?’ she interrupted. ‘The case is solved; we got our man.’
Josh Brown had emailed the results from Aberdeen: StayC’s drugs and the other deals all contained penicillin. The hospital pathologists had confirmed anaphylaxis in case after case – the supposed overdose victims had been killed by penicillin in the heroin they injected. But that only gave them a cause of death – it didn’t solve the case.
Fennimore stared at Simms, wanting an explanation.
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘How about that? A street-level dealer coughed to the lot.’
‘He just gave himself up?’
She barked a laugh. ‘He didn’t actually grow a conscience. It was a Drugs Squad arrest. Anthony Newton – that’s the dealer – ran a red light right in front of a patrol car. They pulled him over. He had fifteen wraps of heroin on him. Drugs Squad got a search warrant and found another twenty in his flat.’ She turned to look at him full on. ‘Newton caved in straight away – said he was just trying to make some easy money on the side, slipped a few milligrams of penicillin into the mix. He said he feels terrible, he didn’t know it’d do any harm. He thought it might even do some good.’
‘Touching,’ Fennimore said. ‘Drugs dealers aren’t usually so public-spirited.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘They’re not.’ She shifted gear, accelerating past a slow-moving line of cars into a gap in the traffic.
Fennimore couldn’t understand why she was so angry. He swivelled in his seat to get a better look and she glanced at him sharply.
‘What?’
‘Your case is solved, Kate,’ he said. ‘What’s the problem?’
She faced the front again. ‘Back at the Faculty, you always said that for every observation, every result, we need to think, how does this help in this particular case?’
‘That still holds true – so?’
‘We know how the victims died, we’ve got the culprit, the press are happy, the CPS is happy, the review criteria are satisfied, the families have justice. But it doesn’t help the case, Nick. It stops it dead.’
‘Because?’
‘The anaphylaxis victims go back months, yet the constituents are exactly the same.’
‘O-kaay?’ He had no idea where she was going with this.
‘You’re always saying context is everything.’
‘I am. And it is.’
‘So a street-level bozo, maybe with a habit of his own, gets hold of some stolen penicillin. Which he carefully rations, cutting his deals with it for over eight months?’ She shook her head. ‘No, it doesn’t make sense, Nick. Street-level dealers aren’t that organized. They don’t hold on to drugs for months – they blow the lot within days, hours even.’
‘Hm.’
She glanced at him. ‘Is that “Hm, you’re right” or “Hm, that’s pure speculation”?’
‘It’s “Hm, you could be right.” You need to talk to the dealer.’
She sighed. ‘Yes, I do. But Newton is already banged up in Strangeways on remand.’
‘That was quick.’
‘Well, they did have a confession. But Newton was in police custody for two days and nobody told me. Tanford called after they’d charged him and taken him to prison.’
‘Now, why would he do that?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe he’s pissed off with me because I turned down his offer of help. Maybe he’s teaching me a lesson.’ She turned to him and her eyes sparked like static in amber. ‘You’re missing the point, Nick.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘I’m not. I know that now he’s been charged, Newton doesn’t have to talk to anyone he doesn’t want to. My guess is he isn’t talking to you.’
‘He isn’t even talking to his own legal counsel.’
He shrugged. ‘Maybe he did grow a conscience after all.’
‘Come on – the moment I started re-interviewing witnesses, local intel reported a drop-off of arrests for heroin possession and an increase in addicts signing up for methadone treatment. We release info that the excess deaths were caused by penicillin and there’s another drop in drugs arrests – bad merchandise is bad for business. Then Newton shows up, just dying to confess.’
‘Put it that way, it does sound convenient,’ Fennimore agreed.
She told him about Operation Snowstorm, and the haulier who claimed responsibility for the entire drugs shipment. ‘The suppliers are still out there, Nick. I think the penicillin went into the deals higher up the supply chain. The suppliers can’t afford to take more losses, so they hand me a rogue dealer to save me the trouble of actually investigating the case.’
Fennimore nodded. ‘And at the same time reassure their customers that their heroin is safe.’
‘Got it in one,’ she said. ‘Anthony Newton is just some lowlife they paid or intimidated into taking the fall.’
‘What does your boss say?’
‘That a major drugs inquiry is way out of my league, and well beyond my brief. He warned me not to mess up the chance to start rebuilding my career.’
‘Ah.’
‘What is it with the monosyllabic answers?’ Simms demanded.
‘I don’t want to distract you from your driving.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with my driving.’
He nodded towards the queue of stationary traffic straight ahead.
Her head snapped front. She braked inches from a rear-end smash. ‘Shit, Fennimore, why didn’t you warn me?’
‘I did.’
‘I meant sooner.’
He didn’t answer. He didn’t know why he took risks, and he didn’t care to speculate.
The traffic was backed up by two coaches dropping passengers outside the Palace Theatre for the evening performance of Mamma Mia!
Simms kneaded the wheel, breathing hard through her nose as they waited for the pensioners and families to disembark. For a while neither said a word, but when the last coach in the queue started to edge out in the traffic, Fennimore nudged Simms’s elbow. With one last resentful scowl, she turned her attention to the road, squeezing past the second coach.
When they were back in the stream of traffic, Fennimore asked, ‘Has the preliminary tox screen been done on the wraps they found on Newton?’
She nodded. ‘Tanford sent me a copy. They’re waiting on the quantitative analysis, but the basic constituents are a good match to the drugs found in our penicillin vics.’ Her phone rang. ‘Oh, hell,’ she said. ‘What time is it?’
‘Seven-thirty.’
She groaned, slipped her mobile phone from her coat pocket. ‘Kieran, I’m sorry, I—’ She broke off.
Kieran. Her husband. Fennimore looked out of the passenger window, trying not to listen. A second later, the phone was thrust into his hand. ‘What are you—?’
‘Put it on speaker,’ she said softly. She jerked her head right, as a police car cruised slowly past. The driver wagged his finger at her and she mouthed ‘Sorry.’
‘You promised, Kate,’ Kieran said.
‘Look, love, this is a big inquiry.’
‘What inquiry? North West Tonight says it’s solved – a man has been charged.’
‘It’s not that simple.’
‘Tell that to your son.’
Son? Fennimore glanced at her, but she kept her eyes on the road, her hands gripping the wheel so tight he could see the rim distort.
‘Mummy?’ A small, tearful voice.
Simms took a breath, pressed her thumb to her top lip. Then she cleared her throat and said brightly: ‘Hi, Tim!’
‘Are you coming home?’
‘Not yet, sweetie. Mummy has to work.’
‘But you promised.’ E
choing his daddy’s words.
Oh, boy …
‘I know.’ She bit her lip, frowning, and Fennimore turned his head, wishing he was a thousand miles away.
‘I’m really, really sorry. But you go to sleep like a good boy and I’ll come and kiss you goodnight just as soon as I come in.’
‘I don’t want to go to bed. You promised you’d read me a story.’
‘Oh, God … Kieran, are you there?’
‘Yes. I’m here, Kate. Just remember while you’re working on your “big case” that you have a son who needs to see his mother from time to time, and a daughter who’s trying to adapt to a change of school as well as a move – because of your job, mark you – which has dragged her two hundred miles away from home and friends and everything she knows.’
‘Has Becky said something? Is she all right?’
‘If you were here occasionally, you’d know.’
‘Kier—’
‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I’ll deal with it. Like I always do.’
A few tumbling notes told them the line had been disconnected. ‘Shit.’ She slammed the wheel with the heel of her hand. ‘I’m sorry you had to listen to that, Nick.’
Fennimore stared stupidly at the phone in his hand. ‘How old is he?’
‘Kieran? Thirty-five, going on fifteen.’
They had arrived at the baroque frontage of the Midland Hotel, a Victorian mansion of red brick and brown-glazed terracotta. Opposite, the circular dome of Manchester Central Library glowed greenish-white under spotlights.
Kate pulled in to the kerb and closed her eyes briefly, pinching the bridge of her nose. ‘Tim is four.’
For a moment he was stunned. ‘When were you going to tell me?’
‘You haven’t exactly been around to tell. Please, Nick, don’t you start.’
He was ready to argue, but seeing the weariness, the misery in her face, he realized that he had no claim to righteous indignation.
She put the car in gear. ‘Look, I’d better go.’
‘Come and have dinner with me – we’ll talk.’
She took the phone off him. ‘I need to try and sort this out with Kieran.’
‘Go home the way you’re feeling right now, you’ll only argue.’ She hesitated and he said, ‘Come on, it’ll do you good to talk.’
She gave him a hard stare.
‘About the case,’ he said. ‘Just about the case, all right?’
‘One drink,’ she said, suspicion written all over her face. ‘Then I’ve really got to go.’
She stayed for dinner. They agreed that she would forward full analyses of the seized wraps as soon as she had them from the drugs squad. Fennimore would make a comparison with her excess overdose cases. It was the best they could do, since Newton was refusing to speak to her – or anyone else.
She stood, clipping her phone onto her belt, and reached for her purse.
‘On me,’ he said. ‘I insist.’
She seemed to struggle with herself for a moment, then smiled her thanks. ‘I probably couldn’t afford it, anyway.’ She dropped her purse into her handbag.
‘Kate, sit down a minute?’
A frown crossed her face. ‘Nick, I don’t want to talk about Tim.’
‘I know,’ he said. ‘This isn’t about your son – I want to explain why I left without telling you.’
‘Not necessary,’ she said.
‘I know,’ he said again. ‘But it’s long overdue, and I need to say this. Please?’
She sat down again and worried the corner of her napkin.
‘After they found Rachel, I was a wreck.’
She nodded, not making eye contact.
‘When Rachel and Suzie—’ His throat closed up and he had to stop for a moment. ‘When they first disappeared, I tried to convince myself she’d found someone else, that she was punishing me – I don’t need to tell you how things were between us, back then. But no matter how mad she was at me, Rachel wouldn’t prevent Suzie getting in touch, so I knew – after twenty-four hours – I knew something terrible really had happened.’
His wife had been found, strangled, five months after she and Suzie had vanished. The pathologist estimated that Rachel had been alive until a few days before her body was discovered.
‘When they found Rachel …’ He took the napkin from Kate’s hands and folded it in half with meticulous care. ‘I kept thinking if I’d known for sure from the start that someone had them, maybe I would have worked harder – we both know the first twenty-four hours are crucial—’
‘You did everything you could, before and after they found Rachel,’ Kate broke in.
He shook his head. ‘Thinking about Suzie – still out there, all alone – it felt like I’d abandoned her. I felt so guilty that I went way beyond my powers. I misused police resources.’ He made a second fold. ‘I interfered in a police investigation.’ He folded the napkin corner to corner, making a triangle. ‘I involved you.’
‘Jeez, Nick, how many times do I have to tell you?’
Right through the internal investigation and disciplinary hearing Kate had bitterly resented any suggestion of victimhood, any hint that she had been manipulated.
‘I know,’ he said. ‘You made a choice, and you don’t regret it. And I want you to know that I appreciated that – I never said it, and I should have. But I was a scientist – independent of police regulations – I knew they couldn’t touch me. And I knew what the consequences might be for you. I was nine-tenths out of my mind just then.’ In truth, he was so mad with grief that there were whole chunks of time he couldn’t remember.
‘Knowing that I might have saved them, if I’d been faster or smarter or tried that little bit harder, was more punishing than all those months of not knowing if they were alive or dead. I begrudged every coffee break I’d taken, every meal, every hour of sleep—’ He took a breath and it stuck in his throat. ‘But no matter how crazy I was, no matter how driven and obsessed, I knew that I had no right to involve you, and I didn’t give a damn. I didn’t think about how it would affect you, and I didn’t care.’ He placed his hand on the folded napkin, unable to look her in the eye.
‘You’ve got it all wrong, Nick.’ She dipped her head to look into his eyes. ‘You told me a thousand times to walk away. When Gifford found out what we’d been doing, you put yourself between me and him like some oldtime warrior.’ Her mouth twitched a little at the corners. ‘Which I did not need. Because, Nick, I’m a big girl. I make my own decisions, and I fight my own battles.’
‘You can’t fight the system, Kate.’
‘Screw the system,’ she said. ‘I made Chief Inspector. I moved on.’ She peered into his face. ‘Did you?’
‘Rachel is dead, Kate. Suzie is gone.’ He exhaled, realizing only then that he had been holding his breath. ‘I’ve accepted that.’
‘And yet you run your age-progressions and carry a picture of Suzie as she might look at fifteen, and you search every face of every teenage girl you see in the street.’
He stared into her eyes. ‘How did you know that?’
She smiled softly. ‘I know you. Does even a day go by when you don’t wonder where she is?’
‘Not a minute,’ he said. ‘Not a second.’
In truth, it took an act of will not to break those five years down and count every tick of the clock since he last saw his little girl; it took a conscious effort not to calculate all the instances of fear and pain and hopelessness she had experienced.
‘I’ve seen things,’ he said, starting cautiously, testing his voice. When he was sure it would hold out, he said: ‘I know things – terrible things – that make me wish …’ It was too awful to say, but he said it anyway: ‘… that Suzie is dead.’
She rested her hand on his and the warmth of her skin on his made him weak.
16
‘Most so-called anomalies don’t seem anomalous to me at all. They seem like nuggets from a gold mine.’
FISCHER BLACK
&nb
sp; Fennimore stood beneath the giant screen on the concourse of Piccadilly railway station, his laptop and tote bags at his feet, watching StayC singing her heart out in mime on-screen. The news ticker below trailed her post-mortem findings:
‘Penicillin allergy killed StayC … Drugs peddler, Anthony Newton, confesses he “cut” heroin with antibiotic …’ The video cut to StayC’s weeping mother, hugging a framed photograph of her daughter. The tickertape read: ‘ … Police not looking for anyone else in connection with the inquiry.’
He waited, but the text-stream rolled round to the beginning again; there was no mention of the other twelve dead addicts. Fennimore gave a mental shrug. That’s showbiz.
His mobile rang and he fished it out of his overcoat pocket.
‘Nick, are you still in Manchester?’ Kate Simms. Her voice was tight with contained excitement.
‘Just barely.’
The Tannoy bing-bonged and platform ten was announced for his train. He glanced up at the departure board. ‘I can give you five minutes.’
‘This will take much longer. D’you have to leave today?’
Today was Saturday, and in the three days since Kate had gate-crashed his lecture, Fennimore had addressed a seminar for senior officers and presented a paper at a Forensic Science conference in Manchester. ‘Depends on what you’ve got. I was planning to take the rest of the weekend off, head up to my place in the Lakes.’
‘Stay right where you are – I’ll pick you up.’
‘Uh, d’you want to tell me why?’
‘Look, I can be there in ten minutes.’
‘Kate, my train leaves in ten minutes.’ He watched passengers stream past him, heading for his train. ‘You might at least give me a good reason why I should miss it.’
She took a breath and he heard it catch. ‘We’ve got another body.’
He scratched his forehead and looked up into the arched glass roof of the building. ‘It’s tragic, and I’m sorry for the victim and their family, but Kate, you’re bound to have a few more while the tainted deals work their way out of the supply chain.’
‘This isn’t a drug death, Nick. This one is murder.’
Everyone Lies Page 12