by James Carol
There was a clock on the wall opposite the desk so Stephens could keep track of all those billable hours, a Picasso print on another wall. The blinds were halfway closed, set to let in the daylight but reduce the sun’s glare to a minimum. Not that there had been any sun today. It was full dark now, so Stephens was either out and would be back soon, or he’d already clocked off for the day.
There was a hatstand in the corner and this told me more about Stephens than anything else in the office. Either he was a white male in his late fifties who’d watched too many crappy black-and-white detective shows as a kid, or he was a thirty-something fantasist who thought he was living in a crappy black-and-white detective show. Looking around the office, the latter was more likely.
I took the filing cabinet while Templeton took the computer. The cabinet was grey and made from steel, four feet high with three deep drawers. The top drawer was filled with crisp green folders, all of them neatly alphabetised, the clients’ names printed in Stephens’s tidy handwriting. The same black pen had been used each time, and I added anal retentive to his profile.
The first drawer covered A through G. I pulled a couple of files at random. Both were infidelity cases. The first was a cheating husband, the second a cheating wife. There were grainy pictures taken through long-distance lenses, typed transcripts of conversations. The transcripts of online conversations in the cheating husband’s file got me wondering. I put the files back and went straight to the middle drawer and tried J for Jamie and M for Morris. Nothing and nothing. There was nothing under R for Rachel in the bottom drawer, either.
‘How are you getting on?’ I called over to Templeton. She was sat on the fake leather chair with her cellphone wedged between her shoulder and cheek so she could use both hands on the keyboard. Sumati Chatterjee was giving her a crash course on how to break into a computer without wiping the hard drive.
‘Almost there,’ she called back. ‘Okay, I’m in.’
She said a quick thanks and bye to Sumati then hung up. I walked over to the desk and perched on the edge.
‘Find anything?’ she asked.
‘Nope.’
Templeton fixed me with those fantastic blue eyes. ‘You don’t seem too depressed about that,’ she said.
‘I was kind of expecting it.’ I nodded to the screen. ‘Less talk, more work.’
‘You’re not expecting to find anything on here either, are you?’
‘Let’s just take a look.’
We checked all the obvious places for any references to the Morrises, and when we came up empty there, we tried the unobvious places. To make sure we hadn’t missed anything, Templeton called Sumati, but the computer wizard drew a blank as well.
The downstairs door opened and slammed shut and Templeton jumped to her feet like someone had shot a couple of thousand volts through her. While she was busy banging the mouse violently in all directions, desperate to shut the computer down, I slid into the still-warm chair and listened to Stephens’s heavy footsteps on the stairs. He was either big, or tired out after a long day sleuthing.
‘Relax,’ I said.
‘Relax!’ Templeton’s head darted from the window to the door then back to the window again. ‘That’s Stephens. We’ve got to get out of here.’
‘I’d forget the window. We’re one floor up. Jump out of there and you’ll break your neck.’
‘How can you be so calm?’
‘Because I need to talk to Stephens and this saves me the trouble of finding him.’
‘You really don’t get it, Winter, I’m going to lose my job.’
‘If you do you can always go into the PI business.’
‘This is no time for jokes,’ said Templeton. ‘This is serious. Prison serious.’
‘You’re not going to lose your job. And you’re not going to prison.’
I rocked back in the chair, put my feet on the desk, smiled at Templeton. She glared at me then glanced over at the window again like she still considered it her best chance of escape. Stephens had reached the top of the stairs. He stopped outside the door and a few seconds later a key rattled in the lock. There was a moment’s hesitation. He was probably wondering why the door was unlocked, wondering if he’d forgotten to lock it when he went out.
The door opened slowly.
49
Stephens was a white male in his early thirties. He was taller than me, six-three. Bulky, too, all gym muscle. His hair was buzzed military-short and he reminded me of one of those Texan gun nuts who patrol the Mexican border. He wasn’t stupid, though. There was a quick brain ticking away behind those hazel-coloured eyes. He looked at me, looked at Templeton, looked at me again.
‘Who the hell are you?’
‘A couple of potential clients who want to hire you,’ I said.
‘Yeah, right.’
‘Okay, you’ve got me there. I need to see everything you’ve got on Rachel Morris.’
‘Who?’
The lie was delivered smoothly. I kept Stephens’s gaze, waited until the PI broke off first.
‘I should call the police,’ he said.
‘Did I forget to mention that we are the police?’ I nodded to Templeton. She pulled out her ID and held it up. ‘I need to see everything you’ve got on Rachel Morris.’
‘Where’s your warrant?’
I shrugged. ‘I must have left it in my other coat.’
Stephens grinned. ‘I want you out from behind my desk. And I want you to get the hell out of my office.’
‘And here was I hoping we could do this the civilised way.’
Stephens’s grin turned into a laugh. ‘Was that supposed to be a threat? You’re a cop. What the hell are you going to do? Come back with a warrant and then we’ll talk.’
‘I need to see everything you’ve got on Rachel Morris,’ I said. ‘I’ve asked three times now, and I’ve asked nicely. I won’t ask again.’
‘Get a warrant.’
Stephens looked me up and down, and grinned. I could see where he was coming from. The PI had six inches and a hundred pounds on me. He’d run through all the likely scenarios in his head and come out a winner each and every time. He had the upper hand both physically and legally. Stephens opened his mouth to speak and I held up a hand for him to be quiet. Whatever he had to say, it wasn’t anything I wanted to hear.
‘Okay, if you want to do this the hard way that’s fine by me,’ I said. ‘Let’s discuss this whole blackmail thing.’
‘What blackmail thing?’ Stephens’s eyes narrowed. A touch of uncertainty had crept into his voice.
‘You’ve hidden your files on Rachel Morris so you can blackmail her husband.’
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘See, that’s where you’re wrong,’ I said. ‘I know exactly what I’m talking about. Jamie Morris has asked you to keep quiet, and you’ve no doubt agreed a price. But since then you’ve heard that Rachel Morris has been kidnapped by a very bad man who has already kidnapped and lobotomised four women. Now let’s add the fact that Rachel Morris’s father is Donald Cole to the mix, and Jamie suddenly turns into your own personal ATM.’
‘Prove it.’
‘I don’t have to. And I’ll tell you why. I’ve met Donald Cole’s minders. One of them has three inches and sixty pounds on you and could take you down without breaking a sweat. The other looks like he’d take great pleasure in pulling out your fingernails with pliers. How do you think Donald Cole’s going to react when he finds out you’ve been withholding information that might help to get his daughter back? Do you think he’s going to demand proof?’
Stephens’s face turned white.
I shook my head, tutted, took a sharp intake of breath. ‘You really didn’t think this through, did you?’ I turned to Templeton. ‘He really didn’t think this through.’
‘No, he didn’t,’ she agreed.
Stephens swallowed hard. It was like watching a rattlesnake swallow a mouse. ‘If I give you what you want, you won’t
say anything to Cole.’
‘My lips are sealed.’
‘How can I trust you?’
Another shake of the head, another tut, another sharp intake of breath. ‘That’s the thing, you can’t. The only thing you can be certain of is that I will go to Cole if you don’t give me what I want.’
Stephens walked over to the Picasso and lifted it off the wall to reveal a small safe that was set flush with the plasterwork. It had a steel door and a rotary dial. Fireproof but not bombproof. Stephens spun the tumbler left then right, left then right, slowing down each time he closed in on the correct number. He pulled the door open, took out a green folder and a small black USB flash drive, and reluctantly handed them over.
The folder had Rachel Morris’s name written on the tag in Stephens’s neat handwriting. The only real difference between this one and the other two I’d looked at was that this one was thinner, presumably because this was a newer case. Inside were some pictures of Rachel Morris and a couple of pages of background information. All in all, nothing to get excited about.
‘The good stuff’s on the flash drive,’ Stephens said, like he’d read my mind. ‘Pictures, transcripts, everything.’
‘And there isn’t anything else?’ said Templeton.
Stephens shook his head. ‘That’s everything.’
We headed for the door.
‘Remember we’ve got a deal,’ Stephens called after us.
‘If I were you I’d consider skipping the country,’ I called back. ‘It might be an idea to change your name, too. Maybe get some plastic surgery.’
We went outside and the cold went straight to my bones, freezing me right through. The streetlamps gave my skin a sickly orange tinge. My sheepskin jacket was pulled in as tight as it would go and the hood of my top was up, but it didn’t help. The next time I took a case in England I’d do it in the summertime. London in June I could cope with, but London in December was killing me.
‘This was why you got kicked out of the FBI, wasn’t it?’ said Templeton. ‘For pulling stunts like this. You know, I’ve lost count of how many crimes we’ve committed this afternoon.’
‘You’ve committed two,’ I said. ‘I’m up to three. If you count the fact we were illegally parked in Camden, then that’s another one for you, which makes us even at three apiece. And for the record, I quit the FBI, I wasn’t fired.’
Templeton shook her head, but she was smiling. ‘You’re impossible, Winter.’
‘And that’s a good thing, right?’
‘The jury’s still out on that one. Jamie Morris is in big trouble,’ she added. ‘I can’t believe he’d withhold information like that. What the hell was he thinking?’
‘He was thinking that since his wife was cheating on him she should get what’s coming to her.’
‘But she’s going to be tortured and cut up, and if we don’t get to her in time, she’ll be lobotomised. Jesus, Winter, that’s really messed up.’ Templeton pulled out her cell. ‘I’m going to have him brought in.’
I thought about Sarah Flight wasting away in that mental institution. Then I thought about her staring out of the same window every day for the next fifty years, and I thought about Rachel Morris being butchered for kicks. I thought about Donald Cole’s business card in my wallet.
‘Hold off on that call,’ I said.
‘Morris needs to be held accountable for what he did.’
‘Agreed. But think about it. Bring him in now and all that happens is he gets charged with perverting the course of justice. If he gets himself a halfway decent lawyer, which he will, all he’ll end up with is a slapped wrist. He’s never going to see the inside of a prison cell. That’s not right.’
Templeton’s eyes narrowed. ‘You’re serious about going to Cole, aren’t you? You weren’t bluffing.’
‘Sometimes the justice system doesn’t work. We catch the bad guys, but they manage to sneak out through some legal loophole. That’s as true here as it is in the States.’
‘You didn’t answer my question.’
‘I’ll do what I think is necessary.’ I nodded to Templeton’s cell. ‘Just like you’ll do what you think is necessary.’
Templeton looked at the phone, then slipped it back into her pocket. ‘This doesn’t mean I agree with what you’re doing. I just need time to think about what I’m going to do.’
‘Understood.’
My cellphone buzzed in my pocket and I fished it out. Hatcher’s name was on the screen.
‘Where the hell are you, Winter?’
‘Probably best you don’t know.’
‘Well, wherever you are, get out to Maidenhead pronto. We’ve found ourselves a disgraced medical student who fits your profile.’
50
The surveillance van was parked a couple of streets from William Trent’s large riverfront house, far enough away so we wouldn’t spook him when he returned, but close enough so we could be there in less than thirty seconds. I was sitting squashed into the van with Hatcher and Templeton. The detective looked years younger. The stress was still there, the tension, that greyness, but it had all been dialled down a couple of notches.
All three of us were wearing Kevlar jackets with POLICE in large letters across the chest. It was a dumb place to put a logo, like painting on a target. Kevlar stopped most bullets. Most, not all. The van smelled of old sweat, old coffee, old fast food and stale cigarette smoke.
Only one monitor had a picture and all eyes were fixed on it. Nothing much was happening. The picture was being beamed in from the discreet camera set up opposite the main gate, the only way in and out. We had a good view of the drive and the front of the house and the empty gravel courtyard.
The house could have been in the Mediterranean. Italy or Spain or the French Riviera. It had white walls and a terracotta-tiled roof and was surrounded by a forest of palm trees. The property was on the banks of the Thames and had its own private mooring. There was a speedboat tied up to the jetty, but Trent wouldn’t be using that to escape. If he did, he wouldn’t get far.
‘William Trent has a thing for dead bodies,’ said Hatcher. ‘When he was in medical school he liked to sneak into the hospital morgue at night and cut up the corpses. The hospital put in a CCTV camera and caught him in the act but they kept it all hush-hush because they were worried about the fallout. Leaving your body to medical science is one thing. Leaving it so some sicko can slice it up for kicks is another matter altogether. Apparently there’s a shortage of people wanting to leave their bodies to medical science. This sort of thing gets out and it’s not exactly going to have people lining up to offer their corpses.’
‘What else can you tell me about Trent?’ I asked.
‘He fits your profile to a T. He’s a white male, aged thirty-three and he comes from money. His father owned a chain of supermarkets that he sold to Tesco for ten million quid. That was fifteen years ago. Three years later Trent senior and his wife were killed in a car accident. Trent inherited everything.’
‘Any suspicious circumstances?’
Hatcher shook his head. ‘Nope. It was a drink-driving case. Open and shut. Trent senior was three times over the limit and was driving too fast and lost control of his Merc. He came off the road and hit a tree. No one else was involved. And before you ask: although there was obviously motive on Junior’s part, there were no cut brake cables or anything like that.’
‘Where did he go to med school?’
‘Ninewells Hospital in Dundee. He lasted two whole months before he was kicked out. When he was asked why he did it he said he liked the way it felt to cut into flesh. I mean, how twisted is that?’
‘Is he married?’ I asked.
‘Four years. The wife’s name is Marilyn. And get this. He beats her. She’s gone to the police a couple of times, but she always ended up dropping the charges before it even got close to going to court. You know how it is.’
‘When did she last go to the police?’
Hatcher picked up a sheaf of pap
ers and flipped through them. ‘Last July. She had a broken nose and a black eye, a couple of broken ribs, too. She started off saying Trent did it, then she said she tripped and fell down the stairs. There’s a woman in the house at the moment. We’ve had a visual on her and we’re pretty sure it’s Marilyn Trent.’
‘Any idea what’s happening in the basement?’
‘Afraid not.’
‘So Trent could be down there with Rachel Morris.’
‘No, he’s not,’ said Templeton. ‘He’s just got home.’
On the monitor a black Porsche hung a right and accelerated up the drive. Hatcher gave the order to go. Outside, engines burst to life and tyres squealed. I was up and out of the van in a heartbeat. We sprinted towards Templeton’s BMW and climbed inside. Templeton hit the gas. The tyres spun then bit, creating a loud screech that cut across the howl of the engine.
There were three squad cars up ahead, blue lights flashing, sirens wailing. We joined the rear of the procession and turned fast and tight into Trent’s drive and came skidding to a halt in the courtyard, gravel spitting up from the tyres. The three squad cars were fanned out so they blocked Trent’s Porsche in.
There were six cops on the ground, all wearing Kevlar and helmets. Three were armed, their guns aimed at William Trent. He stood frozen in front of the house’s large double front doors, keys in hand.
The cops were all shouting the same thing at different times, telling Trent to get down and put his hands behind his head. We’d reached the flashpoint. Either things would work out right, or everything was about to turn bad. The blood was up, and all it would take was one itchy trigger finger applying an ounce too much pressure and Trent would end up in the ICU or the morgue.
Trent stood rooted to the spot, a rabbit caught in the headlights. More shouts to get down and I was convinced he was going to do the stupid thing. Then he slid to his knees and put his hands behind his head. Two cops rushed in, cuffed him and dragged him off to the nearest squad car.