‘I know.’ Achebe bowed his head, knowing she was right. Somerville was loyal, and he trusted her. He met her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Jen. I really am.’
She nodded, lips pressed into a thin line. ‘As DC Gill said, we’ve no reason to believe there’s a link between the owner of the house Bryce was dumped in and our victims.’
‘All right.’ Achebe ran a hand over his mouth, frowning hard. ‘Then we focus on finding Liv.’
‘Good.’ She turned away. Achebe watched her move through the incident room, offering a smile here, a word there, and mentally kicked himself again. He needed all his officers onside, now more than ever. They liked Jen, and respected her. If he alienated her, he ran the risk of doing the same to the entire team. He had been stupid, allowing his frustration and feeling of helplessness to take over. Unforgivable.
Furious with himself, he sat at the nearest desk to check his messages. When Caelan answered his call, it was clear she was out in the street.
‘You wanted to speak to me?’ He was never sure how to talk to any of Penrith’s team when they were in the field. He knew Caelan was using the name Kay, but it always felt contrived, almost ridiculous, to call her by anything other than her real name.
‘I did,’ Caelan said. ‘Give me a few minutes.’
Achebe waited, hearing the traffic noise and hum of voices recede. A door closed, and then she spoke again. ‘Okay. I’ve been discussing what’s happened with a colleague, and he made a suggestion.’
She meant Ewan Davies, Achebe realised, knowing Penrith had sent him to Edmonton. ‘Go on,’ he said.
‘What if our mysterious new dealer in Edmonton is supplying the drugs for the girls in the Hackney brothel?’
He paused, wondering where this was going. ‘I don’t follow.’
‘We’re struggling to understand why Ben Rainey was there. Maybe Anthony Bryce told him about it.’
Achebe blinked, thinking it over. ‘Which could link to Rainey taking an interest in the place. He wanted to know where the drugs were coming from.’
‘Worth considering, do you think?’
He heard a rush of water, and realised Caelan must be hiding in a public toilet somewhere. He smiled to himself. The glamorous side of policing. ‘Yeah, I reckon so,’ he said. ‘Thank you. We’ll bear it in mind.’
‘What about the interview with Frankie?’
He filled her in on the details.
‘Wait a second. Frankie said Ryan Glennister had been a rent boy?’ said Caelan.
‘Yeah, why?’ Achebe frowned, failing to see the relevance.
‘Because we’ve been talking about a brothel. If Glennister worked there, even if he knew someone who did, he could be the link between the brothel and our major dealer, couldn’t he?’
Achebe considered it, conceded it was possible. ‘We have no idea where Glennister is, though. His last known address is a squat, but no one there could help us. They weren’t willing to, anyway.’
‘We’re on our way to the snooker hall,’ Caelan said. ‘Maybe we can ask around.’
‘Why are you going there?’
‘Where else do you suggest?’ Caelan sounded tired, and irritable. Achebe could sympathise. ‘No one has given us any instructions,’ she continued. ‘If you’ve nothing new to tell us…’
‘We’re looking at the CCTV from the area where you saw Liv. Nothing leaps out so far.’
‘We’re dealing with people who know what they’re doing.’ There was a pause, and then Caelan spoke quietly. ‘I wish I’d followed her. I considered it.’
‘You couldn’t have known, any more than her husband could have.’
‘Is he still at the station?’
‘No, thankfully. We got someone to take him home and stay with him. He was threatening to go out and search himself.’ Achebe checked his watch. Liv Hobbs hadn’t been seen for almost six hours. The chill he had felt since hearing the news deepened. Why hadn’t she told them she was pregnant? ‘Listen, I need to go and brief the team on your theory. I’ll call if there’s any update.’
As he slid the phone into his trouser pocket, Jen Somerville approached him. He tried a smile, but it wasn’t returned.
‘You need to see this.’ She spoke urgently, and Achebe felt his pulse quicken. Somerville led him to one of the computers. On the screen was a frozen image. Achebe glanced at her.
‘What are we looking at?’
‘This is the footage from inside the bus Liv boarded.’
Achebe bent closer to the screen. ‘You’re certain?’
Somerville pointed. ‘Watch.’
The clarity wasn’t great, but it was good enough for Achebe to be sure that the next person to take a seat was DI Liv Hobbs. They watched her fold her hands in her lap and turn to gaze out of the window. ‘What happens?’
‘She’s on the bus for eight minutes. She gets off at the stop closest to her parents’ home.’
‘This narrows down the area and time she disappeared, then.’ Achebe was back on his feet. Jen had watched the rest, so he didn’t need to. ‘Have the team seen this?’
Somerville shook her head. ‘No, but they know what I’ve just told you. The bus stop is about half a mile from the street where Mr and Mrs Hobbs live. Liv still had a way to walk when she got off the bus. It’s an area with lots of housing, traffic. Plenty of opportunity for her to be taken.’
‘Does anyone speak to her while she’s on the bus? Does she receive a phone call or message?’
Folding her arms, Somerville shifted her feet. ‘No. She just sits there staring out of the window. A few more people get on, but Liv doesn’t even look at them. If someone snatched her, they didn’t approach her on the bus.’
‘We need to redirect the officers who are talking to people in the area,’ Achebe said. ‘I assume you’ve put the message out?’
‘Yeah, for what it’s worth.’ Somerville sounded frustrated. ‘No one so far saw anything. As usual, people seem to have been walking around with their eyes closed.’
‘What about CCTV cameras in the area where Liv left the bus?’ Achebe held up his hands. ‘I know what you’re going to say, it takes time to search through the footage. I get that. I just want to know if we’re on it.’
‘We are.’
‘Never doubted it.’ Achebe tried to smile, but his face didn’t seem to want to play ball. ‘I’ll be honest, I’m not sure what else we can do. Liv’s an adult. We can hardly start a full-scale search, however much noise her husband makes.’ He glanced at her. ‘Even though we might want to.’
‘You said you wanted to concentrate on finding her.’ Somerville looked wounded. ‘Her disappearance has to be linked to her brother’s death.’
‘Why? How do we know she doesn’t just need some time?’ Achebe knew the words sounded hollow as he said them. ‘Okay, the phone. I know. But it could have been snatched, then dumped. If someone did grab her, why not switch the phone off, remove the SIM? Leaving it behind just suggests something sinister happened to her.’
‘Maybe DI Hobbs threw it into the skip deliberately?’ Somerville spoke slowly, as though she was still figuring it out. ‘She might have wanted to leave it for us to find?’
Achebe rubbed his jaw. ‘She would know we could trace it. You could be right.’
‘All the more reason for us to focus on finding her,’ said Somerville.
‘But she could be miles away by now. In another country even,’ Achebe pointed out.
‘Her passport’s not been used.’ Somerville was frowning, hands on hips, increasingly impatient. ‘We’ve no leads, no idea what happened when she left the bus. Going through the CCTV could take hours, even days, which we don’t have.’
‘What do you suggest?’ Achebe knew Somerville was right, but where were they supposed to go from here?
‘Think of Ben Rainey, of Anthony Bryce. Imagine what they suffered happening again, but this time to Liv. There must be something we can do.’ Somerville turned and marched away, throwing herself into
the chair behind the nearest empty desk and hunching over the keyboard.
Achebe ground his teeth together. Jen was right, they were wasting time. When he had updated the Chief Superintendent, he would send Caelan a text, explain that Liv had been spotted close to her parents’ house. Nicky Sturgess should be informed too. Maybe one of them could help, turn up a lead the rest of them had missed.
Somehow, though, he doubted it.
25
Ewan Davies looked up at the sign over the door of the snooker club as they approached it.
‘The One Four Seven?’ He shook his head. ‘Original name.’
Caelan smiled. ‘What would you have preferred? Pot Black? No Cues?’
He looked at her, eyebrows raised. ‘That’s actually pretty good.’
She waved the comment away. ‘Let’s go.’
Inside, only one table was being used. Two men circled it, ignoring Caelan and Ewan. Behind the bar, the same woman was polishing glasses. Caelan asked for two beers. Silently the woman handed them over, took the twenty-pound note Caelan held out to her. As she turned back from the till and deposited the change, all in coins, into Caelan’s hand, she managed a surly ‘Cheers.’
Surveying the club, Caelan drank from the bottle.
‘Marcus not in?’
The woman lifted a shoulder. ‘Not unless he’s hiding under one of the tables.’
Caelan let it go. ‘No Frankie either?’
‘Not since he was in here with you earlier. Isn’t he company enough?’ She looked at Ewan from under her eyelashes with a smirk. ‘Better-looking than Frankie, too.’
Ewan flashed her a grin. ‘Not difficult, is it?’
Shifting her foot to the side, Caelan gave his shoe a gentle kick. He didn’t know Frankie Hamilton, and pretending he did could be risky.
‘Doesn’t have much luck, does he, Frankie?’ The woman shook back her hair. ‘I heard he’s been arrested.’
Caelan kept drinking, hoping Ewan kept his mouth closed too. Acting surprised or concerned would be the wrong decision. The woman clearly wasn’t worried.
‘Yeah?’ Caelan said eventually, wiping the back of her hands over her lips. ‘Shame.’
‘It’s about Jackson Hobbs,’ the woman went on. ‘You know he’s dead?’
Caelan found her assumption that they would know who Hobbs was interesting. She couldn’t have overheard the conversation Caelan had had with Frankie Hamilton earlier. The only reason Caelan could think of was Hobbs’s reputation. The woman must have assumed that if they lived in or even frequented Edmonton, they would have heard of him. She nodded, making eye contact.
‘Doesn’t everyone?’ she said.
‘Yeah, well now the police want to talk to people who knew him. So, if that includes you, you might want to keep your head down.’
‘I’ve never met him,’ Caelan said truthfully.
‘He used to come in here, flashing his cash around.’ The bartender sniffed. ‘I went out with him for a few months, years ago, not long after we left school.’
‘Brave woman.’ Ewan moved his foot away from Caelan’s as he spoke.
She laughed. ‘Jackson was always a gentleman with me. Even introduced me to his mum and dad.’
Caelan took another mouthful of beer, not wanting to push. If this woman had known Jackson Hobbs at school, maybe she remembered his sister too. She was aware of Ewan moving closer to the bar, resting his forearms on it.
‘Any chance of a couple more drinks?’ he asked with another grin.
The woman smirked as she bent to retrieve them from the fridge beneath the bar. Caelan took the opportunity to shoot Ewan a glare. The woman pushed the bottles towards them and held out her hand. Ewan dropped a folded note into it.
‘Cheers.’ He took a long drink, and Caelan seized the opportunity to speak.
‘Isn’t Jackson’s sister in the police?’ It was a risk, and if Liv Hobbs hadn’t been missing, Caelan would never have shown her hand so soon. But they needed answers, and quickly. The woman frowned, took her time opening the till and rummaging for Ewan’s change.
‘Yeah, the silly cow. She could have made a fortune if she’d gone into the family business, but no, it wasn’t good enough for her. She wanted to save the world.’ A sneer. ‘Wonder how that’s worked out for her.’
‘What did Jackson think?’ asked Ewan.
‘Of his sister betraying the family? What do you think? He hated it. Not as much as his brother, though.’
Caelan paused. The other brother. She’d forgotten about him, though she assumed Achebe and his team hadn’t. The bartender was watching them, waiting for a response. Caelan searched her memory, trying to remember if she had ever heard the other Hobbs brother’s name. She didn’t think so. Could she talk her way around it? If she knew of Jackson and his sister, shouldn’t she know about their brother too? She was on dangerous ground, and knew she had to think quickly.
‘I don’t think I’ve met him,’ she said.
The bartender tossed back her hair. ‘Keep it that way.’ She turned her back on them, pulling her phone from her pocket and tapping at the screen. It was clear the conversation was over.
As they moved to one of the tables, far enough from the bar to be able to talk relatively freely, Caelan wondered if the bartender was sending a text. She was confident they had both been convincing enough not to set any alarm bells ringing, but it was hard to be sure. Bar staff heard things, saw everything that went on, especially in a place like this. The woman had made no secret of her link to Jackson Hobbs. They should have asked her name, though it wouldn’t be too difficult to find her.
Caelan sat back in her chair, drinking her beer as slowly as possible and watching the bartender over Ewan’s shoulder. She was wiping glasses again without much effort, the white cloth barely moving inside the glass before she bent to put it away. She had left her phone on the top of the bar, and Caelan guessed she was waiting for a text or call. Maybe it was innocent – perhaps she had children, was checking up on them, or… There were hundreds of possible reasons. Caelan knew one of them could be her and Ewan’s presence and their comments.
Over at the furthest snooker table, the two men who had been playing when she and Ewan had arrived shook hands and moved away from the table. Caelan watched one of them leave the club while the other stopped to speak to the bartender. She couldn’t hear their conversation, but almost immediately, the man cast a glance over his shoulder, making no secret of staring at Caelan and Ewan. Caelan saw the movement, though her eyes were fixed on Ewan’s face.
‘Talk to me,’ she said quietly.
‘What about?’
‘Anything. We need to look as though we’re having a conversation. Tell me about the army.’
He flinched. ‘Do I have to? Are they watching us?’ Ewan had his back to the room, but had realised that only one man had left the building.
‘Yep.’ Caelan raised her bottle and drank, the beer tasting sour.
‘What do you want to do?’
‘Nothing. We’ll wait and see what happens.’
Ewan smiled. ‘Sounds like a plan.’
The snooker player was still at the bar, one hand in his jeans pocket. They heard a phone ring, and Caelan watched the bartender snatch her handset up. She had a short conversation, then came around the side of the bar and disappeared through the door leading to the toilets. The man was still at the bar, as though guarding it. Perhaps he was.
When the bartender emerged, Caelan saw she had applied fresh lipstick. She didn’t look at them as she resumed her position behind the bar, but went back to wiping the glasses. The man spoke to her, their heads close together, then he walked away towards the stairs.
‘Someone’s on their way,’ Caelan said softly.
Ewan leaned forward. ‘How do you know?’
‘She’s polishing the glasses properly, she’s done her make-up. It’s someone she wants to impress.’
‘Could be the other Hobbs brother – whatever his name is.�
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Caelan pulled out her phone. ‘I’ll ask.’
‘More likely to be the bloke who owns the place, do you think?’
‘Maybe.’
Caelan remembered Marcus Crowley – his confidence and the way he had stood too close to her. Making the point that she was on his turf, and he could do what he wanted. He was in charge. Would he have had time to ask his contacts about her, the mysterious Kay Summers who had a conviction for drug possession and was hinting she was on the lookout for someone to offload her boyfriend’s unsold stock to?
Caelan shuddered, feeling Crowley’s hand on her wrist again. The insistent press of his fingers, the smell of aftershave and, underneath, of his skin. She hoped she was wrong, and she wouldn’t have to meet him again. Beneath the grin and the friendly tone, she had glimpsed a coldness in his eyes, one she had seen many times in her career. Crowley was intelligent, unsentimental and brutal. If he discovered she had lied to him, she knew he would react. During their short conversation, she had sensed the man behind the mask, and though he didn’t frighten her, she knew he would have to be treated as extremely dangerous. Could he have ordered the torture of Ben Rainey and Anthony Bryce? Even wielded the kettle of boiling water and the iron himself? She doubted he would think twice, but why? Was Crowley the new dealer in Edmonton Bryce had warned them about? Something else she needed to check with Achebe. She looked at Ewan.
‘You’ve stopped talking. How’s your nephew?’
He grinned. ‘If I ever mention wanting kids, remind me of this morning, when he puked and simultaneously filled his nappy. Never seen anything like it – or smelled it.’
‘I’ll bear it in mind.’ Caelan finished her beer, set the bottle on the table as her phone vibrated. ‘The other brother is called Taylor Hobbs.’ She deleted the text. It wouldn’t disappear completely, of course, but if anyone managed to get hold of her phone, there would be nothing incriminating unless they had the contacts to dig deeper.
‘Never heard of him,’ said Ewan.
Tell No Lies Page 23