‘I don’t know,’ he said, helplessly, ‘but I’m sure she’s okay.’
She shoved his guiding hand away. ‘It’s about that bloody case, isn’t it? Why couldn’t you just leave us alone?’
He opened the cab door, but she stood glaring at him. ‘I’m sick of being pushed about. Tell me what’s going on,’ she shouted.
‘All right,’ he said, ‘I’ll explain, but we need to get away from here – please?’
She scowled at him for a few more seconds, but finally she stomped past him and clambered into the far side of the cab.
He gave the driver Kate’s address, desperately trying to think how much he dared to tell her. The jangle of his mobile rescued him.
‘Is Becky all right?’
Kate. Relief flooded through his veins.
‘She’s fine. Are you—?’
‘Let me speak to her.’
He handed over the phone.
‘Mum?’ she said. ‘There was a man – he had a gun.’
The cab driver looked in his rear-view mirror.
‘Mum are you okay? Uncle Fenn’s bleeding. Mum? Mummy, I was so scared.’
Fennimore heard the echo of his own daughter’s voice in her words. He looked out of the window, trying not to listen, trying not to think about anything at all.
After a few minutes, Becky fell silent, listening to her mother. ‘Mm,’ she said. ‘Yes … yes …’ She handed the phone back to Fennimore without looking at him. ‘She wants to speak to you.’
‘It’s all gone, Nick,’ Simms said. ‘He handed me a lighter and made me burn everything, even the textbooks.’
Fennimore wiped his eyes. ‘You’re okay. Becky’s okay. That’s all that matters, Kate.’
They arrived at the Simms’s home just as she was pulling into the driveway.
Becky flew into her mother’s arms and clung to her.
Fennimore paid the cabbie and turned to face her. She looked at him, over Becky’s shoulder, her eyes desolate.
‘Come on, darling,’ she said, kissing her daughter’s forehead and face. ‘Let’s get you out of the cold.’
Becky helped Fennimore make tea, while Simms called the Drugs Squad DC to let him know where they were. She frowned and Fennimore raised his eyebrows and she said, ‘It’s going to voicemail.’ She spoke into the phone. ‘Gary? DCI Simms. Call me as soon as you get this.’
Becky handed him a pint of milk. ‘It was me, wasn’t it?’ she said.
Fennimore frowned, not understanding. ‘That man was using me to get at Mum.’
He broke eye contact, using the bottle top as an excuse, giving himself time to think. ‘The man’s boss, anyway,’ he said, picking at the edges of the foil cap, getting nowhere. ‘They want your mother to stop investigating a case.’
She snorted. ‘Fat chance.’
Fennimore smiled, and she took the bottle back from him and opened it with a practised movement. Simms was talking to Ella Moran.
‘Where are you?’ she asked. A pause, then, ‘Are you all right?’ She listened to the answer. ‘Well, clear any computer searches and your desk, and get out of the office. Do you have any friends you can stay with?’
Fennimore watched Becky place a clean mug carefully on the worktop, as if it might explode, her eyes wide with fear.
‘Good,’ Simms said. ‘Go there – stay put – call in sick. I’ll get a message to you when I know it’s safe.’ She became aware of Becky’s scrutiny and turned her back.
Fennimore tried to distract Becky with a question, but she shrugged impatiently, her gaze fixed on her mother.
Kate lowered her voice, but they both heard her say, ‘Talk to nobody about the case. I’ll be in touch.’
She bowed her head for a second, and Fennimore got the sense she was bracing herself. She turned to Becky. ‘Just one more call.’
She fast-dialled a number, left another message for Parrish.
Moments later, her mobile rang and her face flooded with relief. ‘Parrish?’ she said. ‘I’ve been trying to reach you—’
She broke off, a frown creasing her brow. She had a lump on her forehead that was beginning to bruise and her fingers strayed to it. Suddenly, her eyes widened and a tremor seemed to run through her, then she went very still. ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I’ll … Thanks.’
She hung up. ‘Becky, I need to speak to Uncle Fenn in private.’ Becky began to object but Kate shook her head. ‘It’s police business.’ She sounded implacable, but her face was lined with pain. ‘I’m sorry, darling. Just give us a few minutes, okay?’
Becky chewed her lip, making up her mind whether she wanted a fight. ‘All right,’ she said, sounding like a parent trusting their wayward teen against their better judgement. ‘But you owe me an explanation.’
Simms watched her daughter leave; she listened to the thud-thud-thud of Becky’s footsteps on the stairs; she waited a little longer until she heard the bedroom door close, and Fennimore thought it must be something truly horrible to make her want to put all that distance between her daughter and this fresh crop of bad news.
When she turned her eyes on him, she looked numb with shock.
‘That was a DCI from Traffic Division.’ Her voice lacked emotion, yet he knew that whatever she was about to say, it was tearing her up.
‘Gary Parrish has been killed. Hit and run. The DCI called Parrish’s line manager first, and was put onto me.’
‘Line manager? Does that mean—’
‘Tanford.’ She nodded, her eyes red-rimmed. ‘He told Traffic I needed to know.’
‘The bastard,’ Fennimore breathed. It was a threat – he could get to her family, and he could destroy anyone who tried to help her.
‘It’s over, Nick,’ she said. ‘We’re finished. I burned everything. The ash is probably scattered across three counties by now. Without DC Parrish’s testimony, I’ve got nothing.’
He took her hands in his. ‘We will get him,’ he insisted. ‘The evidence is there. We’ll keep after him until we have him. It might just take a bit longer.’
‘I’m out of time, Nick.’ She slid her hands from his grasp. ‘Even if we find his DNA on Marta, I have no sample to match to him and without Marta’s notebook I’ve no legal justification to demand a sample from him. Shit – you said it yourself – even if we did get a match, it wouldn’t really prove anything.’
‘We still have the Hull victim.’
‘They’d need to dig her up with Tanford’s business card clutched in her mummified hand to convince Spry.’
‘What about the drugs recycling? Tanford was SIO during Operation Snowstorm. There has to be a paper trail; it’ll lead back to him.’
‘Oh, yes, the drugs.’ She blew air through her nose as if she had a bad smell in it. ‘He was very cocky about that. I think he’s covered his tracks pretty damn well.’ She smoothed her fingers across her brows. ‘Gifford will fillet me for this. I’m going to lose my job, Nick. So who do you imagine will go after Tanford then? Not me – I’ll be working security at … I dunno … Aldi. We can’t do this without Marta’s evidence, and that’s gone for good.’
‘Come on, Kate, you can’t give up – not now.’
‘Why?’ she demanded, suddenly angry. ‘Because you need to satisfy your curiosity, solve your scientific puzzle? He got to my family, Nick.’
There was nothing he could say to that.
She saw him to the front door and he stepped over the threshold.
‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘If you hadn’t been there …’
He shook his head; he didn’t want to hear this.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Then, at least let me thank you for bringing her home safe.’ She took him by the overcoat lapels and kissed him on the cheek. Nothing in it, just a chaste kiss, a thank you kiss. Yet it set off a chain reaction in his blood and his muscles and brain. The effects of that kiss travelled through him, fizzing and popping under his skin, tingling in his fingertips and the roots of his hair. He wanted to reach out and pul
l her to him and kiss her lips. But she was already gone; retreated back inside the house, closing the front door softly after her.
The euphoria of that kiss lasted to the end of the driveway, where he realized that his injured leg was giving him hell and he’d sent the cab driver away. With a sigh, he turned up the collar of his overcoat, and began hobbling slowly towards the main road.
47
‘Context is the key – from that comes the understanding of everything.’
KENNETH NOLAND
Josh Brown took the news of DC Parrish’s death without much emotion.
‘It wasn’t Tanford who killed him then,’ he said, looking thoughtful, rather than troubled.
‘Tanford was too busy forcing Kate to burn the evidence at the time.’ Fennimore was sitting on the sofa in his hotel suite, his leg ached and his head boomed and he felt nauseous.
‘The Henry brothers must’ve organized it.’
Fennimore thought about the big no-necked thug, and nodded. ‘It’s a safe bet. What’re you thinking?’
‘Only that Marta must’ve got some bloody good stuff on those guys.’
‘And it’s literally gone up in smoke.’
‘Yeah, but you got a squint at the notebook.’
‘A couple of minutes, that’s all.’
‘Your powers of recall are a bit of a legend, aren’t they?’ Josh said, with a sly sideways glance.
‘Well …’ Fennimore said modestly.
Josh opened his laptop and propped it on the coffee table where they could both see what he was typing. Fennimore humoured him, reciting snippets of information – a few dates and delivery times; a van registration number; the address of the mixer named ‘Bug’ – while Josh typed them into a Word file.
‘None of this is any good without Marta or DC Parrish around to corroborate it, of course,’ Fennimore said.
‘What about the photograph?’ Josh countered. ‘Two of you saw that – Kate said it was Tanford, and Marta knew him as the fixer called “Rob”.’
‘A photograph of a cop in a knocking shop isn’t what you’d call damning evidence, Josh.’
‘All right, so we sit on this Bug’s place. Gather evidence of deliveries and that.’
‘Josh,’ Fennimore said. ‘We’re not police, and anyway, we haven’t the resources for twenty-four-hour surveillance – it could take months.’
‘Okay,’ Josh said, his brows drawing down in frustration. ‘Give me something I can investigate.’
‘I’ve given you everything I can recall.’
Josh’s head came up. He looked at Fennimore, his head on one side, as though straining to hear something. He had grey-blue eyes, which habitually wore a guarded expression, but right now, Fennimore saw a flash of elation.
‘You’re in Kate’s car,’ he said. ‘You’ve just picked up the stuff out of Marta’s locker. How d’you feel?’
‘How do I feel?’ Fennimore looked askance at him. ‘Is this a cognitive interview, Josh?’
He shrugged. ‘I did a bit on my undergrad course – it works.’
‘I know it does.’ Cognitive interviewing improved recall by up to 35 per cent on standard interviews, and many police forces now used the technique. Context and state of mind were both important in unlocking memories – hence Josh’s attempt to place him back in the car, and the question about how he felt.
Always up to try something new, Fennimore closed his eyes and tried to imagine himself back in Kate Simms’s car.
‘Kate’s driving. My hands are tingling – adrenaline – I’m excited. I’m flipping through the notebook, thinking, We’ve got the bastard. Oh—’ He opened his eyes.
‘Yes?’
‘There was a sketch – of Bug – looked mad as a badger … I can’t believe I forgot that. It startled me, and Kate leaned across to get a look.’ Jasmine, he thought. She smelled of jasmine.
Josh was looking at him. ‘And?’
‘Nothing … just, she … Nothing, it’s not important.’
‘Come on, Nick. You know everything’s important in a cognitive interview.’
‘It does not relate to the case,’ Fennimore said firmly.
‘Oo-kaay,’ Josh said. ‘Tell me about the notebook.’
‘Plain – black, A5.’ He made a circular motion with his finger. ‘With a red elasticated strap.’ He felt a sudden surge of excitement – he’d just remembered something else. ‘It held Tanford’s photo in place. Under it she’d written …’ He stared ahead and saw it as clearly as if it was in his hands: ‘Black ink, the numbers 1211, a “less than” symbol, number 4, dash, 19.’
Josh typed it in and swivelled the laptop for him to see. ‘Like this?’
1211<4-19
‘That’s it,’ Fennimore said.
‘What does it mean?’
Fennimore shook his head. ‘Haven’t a clue.’
‘Well, obviously 1211 isn’t less than 4,’ Josh said. ‘And it definitely isn’t less than 4 minus 19.’
They stared at it for a few more minutes.
‘Anything?’ Josh said.
Fennimore frowned. ‘I feel like the number nineteen should mean something, but I can’t quite recall …’ He strained to remember. ‘No,’ he said, defeated. ‘Nothing.’
Josh shrugged. ‘When in doubt, Google.’
There was a fire extinguisher numbered 1211-4; several military campaigns happened across medieval Europe in 1211, a US Senate Bill on telecoms fees was numbered 1211. None of these seemed relevant.
Josh clicked on the next search result: AD-1211, an opioid analgesic. ‘Did they cut the drugs with opioids?’ he asked.
‘No – methaqualone at source, penicillin here in the UK.’ Fennimore stared at the digits, trying to make sense of them. ‘If they were letters, you might think they meant something in Cyrillic, but numbers?’
‘If the numbers corresponded to letters of the alphabet,’ Josh said, thinking aloud, but they got ADAA
‘What about a car registration?’ Josh said.
Fennimore pondered. ‘Numbers are used to substitute for letters … But I don’t see how the “less than” symbol fits.’
‘Here.’ Josh maximized the document file he’d been working on, highlighted the figures, clicked on the font dialogue box and scrolled back and forth through the fonts.
Fennimore caught a tantalizing flash of something in the preview box. ‘Wait a minute. Scroll back.’
Josh obliged, peering at the screen, trying to see what Fennimore had seen.
‘Whoa,’ Fennimore said. ‘Go back one font type.’
The preview stopped at Edwardian Script ITC. The numbers read: 1211<4–19.
He squinted at it. ‘Does that mean anything to you?’
Josh shook his head slowly.
‘I think you’re right,’ he said, newly energized. ‘Run the number one and the two together, you get “R”.’
‘Oh,’ Josh said. ‘And the one and the “less than” symbol make a “k”.’ He opened the font dialogue box again and fiddled with the character spacing. ‘Here.’ He turned the laptop to show Fennimore. He had shuffled the first two digits closer, and the angle of the “less than” symbol now almost touched the digit before: 1211<4-19.
‘Rika-19,’ Josh said and laughed. ‘A password, maybe? But why 19?’
The inscription on Rika’s headstone flashed into Fennimore’s head – now the 19 made sense. ‘Rika was nineteen years old when she died,’ he said.
Josh grinned. ‘It is a password.’ He stared avidly at the screen. ‘But what for?’
Fennimore thought he already knew, but he enjoyed watching his student make the connection. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘Marta did hide her notebook and flash drive at the university …’
A slow smile spread across the younger man’s face. ‘F: drive.’
*
Fennimore rang Kate Simms from his mobile.
&nbs
p; ‘Nick, I can’t talk,’ she said.
A bolt of alarm shot through him. ‘Has something happened?’
Her laugh sounded a bit ragged. ‘Only that I missed my meeting by about two hours. I’ve just been summoned to the Chief Constable’s office. Spry told me to prepare for the worst.’
He exhaled in a rush, grateful at least that she wasn’t in physical danger. ‘Look, Kate,’ he said. ‘I think we’ve found something.’
‘No, Nick, don’t start this all over again.’
‘Students at universities are given their own small partition on the computer’s main server,’ he pushed on. ‘It’s called the F: Drive. Students have their own username and password – so it’s a secure, private little corner of the university computer system, just for them.’
‘Nick, I haven’t got time for this,’ she said. ‘I’m about to get in the car.’
‘Wait,’ he insisted, desperate to make her listen. ‘Marta was careful – she made back-ups – the flash drive she kept in her locker, the notebook. Kate, I think she might have backed up the evidence on her partition of the F: Drive at the university.’
‘Jesus, Fennimore, will you stop?’ She was shouting and, after a pause, she apologized. ‘Look, I know you’re trying to help, but you have to stop now. It’s over.’
The falling notes from his earphone told him she’d disconnected.
He stared at the screen of his mobile. ‘She’s not listening.’
Josh shrugged. ‘So we go around her.’
Fennimore shook his head. ‘I don’t see how. We’d need Marta’s username as well as the password to get onto her university account and, without a warrant, the university won’t give that away. But it’s only a matter of time before Tanford thinks of her university account and, when he does, it’s gone. We need to get to the evidence before he does. And even if we got her username from one of her friends and broke into her account, accessing the drive would compromise the evidence.’
‘Catch 22.’ Josh sounded distant, but the frown on his face said he was thinking hard.
Fennimore pushed his fingers through his hair and leaned back in his chair with his fingers interlaced at the crown. ‘If Kate is suspended, that’s it, she’s soiled goods. I don’t think her career will ever recover. She needs proof of Tanford’s guilt now, or at least something to present to the Chief Constable which proves she hasn’t totally lost the plot.’
Everyone Lies Page 36