by Bo Brennan
“I had you down as a cosmopolitan Cappuccino man,” Ryan said as Colt stirred sugar into his bog standard coffee.
“Sorry to disappoint you.” Colt grimaced as he watched Ryan add milk to his own iced tea.
Ryan shrugged. “Occupational hazard I'm afraid. So many cups go cold you end up preferring it in the end. So, what have you charged him with?”
Colt frowned. “Who?”
Ryan lowered his voice and leaned across the table. “Dwight Sanders. That's why we're here, right? You're giving me the heads up because I broke the story.”
“Am I?” Colt stared at him and sipped his coffee.
“I've got it on good authority that he wants Felicity Firman to defend him.”
“You know a lot more than me then.” Colt raised his brows and set his coffee down. “Is that why you've got it in for her?”
Ryan narrowed his eyes and leaned back in his seat. “If you're here to warn me off you're in good company. An MP's already gone into bat for her; I was wondering who'd be next.”
“I'm not batting for anyone,” Colt said. “You brought her up; I just asked a simple question.”
Ryan studied him so intently Colt could almost hear the cogs in his brain working. After a prolonged silence, he said, “It's not her I'm after; she's just a scratch on the surface. It's the scumbags making money out of the corrupt system she works for that I really want.”
Colt smiled. “Doesn't seem that way judging by your articles lately.”
Ryan straightened up in his seat. “You read my articles?”
“Every day,” Colt lied.
“I'm honoured.” Ryan grinned. “You must've seen the front page last week.”
“It was a great article,” Colt said. “Where did you get the image?”
Ryan raised a shoulder. “A source.”
Colt picked up his coffee and began to drink. He'd hoped lulling him into a chummy chat and a bit of ego stroking might've made him blurt out a name. The guy was too guarded, too good at his job for that. He decided to change tack. “The same source who gave you confidential legal files from Miss Firman's chambers?”
Ryan laughed. “For a minute there you had me. I genuinely believed this little chat had nothing to do with her. Why are you really here, Colt? Are you wondering how I know you're gonna charge Sanders, and how I know he wants her to defend him? Do you think you've got a leak in your department?”
Colt raised his brows at the unexpected possibility of a turncoat in his team. “Do I?”
Ryan sobered. “No. No you don't.”
Colt blew out a sigh of relief. “Thank god for that.”
“Is that what you wanted to know?”
Colt nodded. “It means the image you used on the front page didn't come from a tip off.”
“You've no worries there,” Ryan said. “People have been unsuccessfully trying to infiltrate your unit for years. Your team respect you too much, or, you're paying them too much, but either way, they’re as tight as a racing dog's knackers.”
Colt frowned. “I'm not sure if that's a compliment or not.”
“Take it from me - it is. Newspapers, obviously not mine,” he added with a grin, “have had placemen inside most parts of the Met for years, but never yours.”
Colt drummed his fingers on the table. “Ryan, I'll level with you.” Raising his brows, he added, “Off the record?”
Ryan nodded and rested his hand on his heart. “You have my word.”
“I need to know where the camera is that shot those images from the Sanders raid. Without it, we might not be able to build a case. My team have been searching the Walton Street, Pont Street Mews area for days and have come up with nothing.”
Ryan crossed his arms and set his jaw.
“I know you can't divulge your source, but, at least tell me if it's a fixed camera and we're in the right area, or if we're wasting our time.”
Ryan drew a deep breath, raised his eyes to the heavens and said, “You're in the right area, you just need to set your sights higher.”
“Thank you.” Colt downed the remainder of his coffee, stood up, and said, “With regards to our other issue, if it's the money men you're really after - stop scratching the surface and start digging.”
Colt took the tube straight to Knightsbridge. He anticipated Maggie would fill him in on the Sasha Grant interview when he got back to the office, so it came as quite a surprise to see her directing the search team on Walton Street.
“You were quick,” he said glancing at his watch on approach. Interviews with children usually took most of the day.
“Me?” Maggie said jerking her head with disdain. “I'm not the slap dash one. You want to have a word with your worse half.”
Colt sighed. “What happened?”
“She prodded the kid, offended the foster mother, rolled her eyes - a lot, and then pissed off without saying so much as thank you, or goodbye. Oh, and she basically called me a cow by continually referring to me as Maggie bloody Moo.”
Colt chuckled.
“It wasn't fun,” Maggie snapped. “The woman has no social skills whatsoever.”
“She has no airs or graces either,” Colt said raising his brows. “Was it productive? Did she get what she needed?”
Maggie shrugged. “Suppose so. As soon as I gave her the baby photo she did one.”
Colt stared at her in disbelief. “The girl had a photo of the baby?”
Maggie smiled. “Yeah, he’s a right little cutie. It's a bit dog-eared; she'd been using it as a book mark, bless her.”
Colt raised his brows. She'd been right all along. She must've been over the moon. “What did India say?”
Maggie sighed. Her head wobbled as she pursed her lips and crossed her arms. “She said he looked like a cross between Winston Churchill and a sultana, the same as all other new-borns apparently.”
He covered his mouth, stifling a laugh by turning it into a yawn. “Anything else?”
“Nope. She didn't bother staying for the rest of the interview. And with Miss Manners out of my face, I came straight down here after. Still nothing I'm afraid.”
Colt rocked back on his heels and stroked his jaw. “We're in the right area,” he mused. “We just need to set our sights higher.”
“Guv, we're doing the best we can.”
Colt's eyes roamed the buildings as he thought about Ryan Reynolds’ carefully placed words. Higher. Most of the properties were villas and mansions, several stories tall. “Concentrate the searches on the high points,” he said. “I want these rooftops checked.”
“It’ll take days to arrange a harness team.”
“We don’t need a bloody harness team,” Colt said. “Get me a long ladder and I’ll do it myself.”
Chapter 28
Royal South Hants Hospital, Winchester.
India abandoned her car in the emergency vehicles bay, and headed straight for the snooty woman on the main reception desk. This time, she definitively had a missing child, and she also had a warrant. Firman had been surprisingly accommodating in Sangrin’s absence.
Bypassing the queue, India placed the warrant and her ID on the counter and said, “All records for Lisa Lewis, Billy Lewis and Sasha Grant, please.”
The receptionist reeled and stood up. Gave a nervous little smile to the waiting queue as she tried to usher her to the side. “Now,” India said loudly, standing her ground.
“Lower your voice, please,” the receptionist murmured. “You'll need to contact the hospital administrators.”
“You contact the administrators,” India said. “And make it snappy. There's a baby missing from this hospital and if my investigation to find him is delayed one second longer, I'm gonna start arresting people. Starting with you.”
“Take a seat, please,” the receptionist said gesturing to a waiting area filled with people wearing plaster casts, and sickly folk dragging drips. “I'll call them now.”
“Tell them I also want the work roster and personnel files
for every member of staff working in any child and baby department, at this hospital, on Monday 11th July.”
The receptionist cleared her throat, and rubbed her brow as the phone on the end of the line continually rang out. “They might've already left for the day.”
India looked at her watch. “It's only half past four. If they've all pissed off home early - I'll be wanting their addresses too.”
Knightsbridge, London.
Colt sat on the apex of the final roof in the street and looked across at Dwight Sanders’ house. He had a clear unobstructed view of the front door from here. They were definitely on the right track. Set your sights higher, he murmured to himself glancing up at the chimney above him, where a cooing pigeon was positioning its arse in his direction. “And you can fuck right off,” he said shooing it into flight.
He shielded his eyes from the sun, watching it flap across the roof tops in pursuit of a new landing place, and frowned hard when it came to rest on the bell tower of the church. He looked from the church to Sanders’ house, and then back again.
Manoeuvring himself to the edge of the roof, he gripped the cast iron guttering and swung his feet onto the window ledge. He narrowed his eyes at the down pipe fixing and gave it a tug. He had a good twenty feet to shimmy before his toes met the ladder, and didn’t fancy his chances of hitting the concrete courtyard unscathed if the cast iron came down with him.
When his feet finally found the ladder, he hurried down to meet Mags, and a chuckling, red faced Bob at ground level. “The church,” he said and ran his hand across his backside, wondering if he'd ripped the arse out of his pants on the descent. “What’s up?”
Bob pointed at Maggie, and Colt grimaced. “It's supposed to be lucky,” he offered.
“Lucky my arse,” she mumbled wiping the bird shit from her shoulder.
“Well, we're about to find out,” Colt said. “That little fucker’s at the church.”
Bob traced the electrical cable across the dusty bell tower floor only to find nothing on the end. “For Christ’s sake,” he muttered and winced when Maggie’s elbow connected with his ribs.
Father Carey smiled. “The bells are automated. I haven’t been up here for years.”
“Well someone has,” Colt said pointing at the small canvas camping chair positioned by the window directly overlooking Sanders’ house. And the bastard took their camera with them, he thought. “Who else has access to this space?”
“Officially, no one. But people come and go all hours of the day and night.”
Colt raised a brow. “You open at night?”
The priest nodded. “We give shelter to the homeless and those in crisis.”
“Bloody hell,” Bob said. “I’m surprised you’ve got anything left.”
Maggie shook her head and Father Carey turned his attention directly to Bob. “God’s door is always open,” he said. “Even for those who have fallen by the wayside.”
“I noticed your roof is new,” Colt said interrupting his impromptu sermon. “When was it done?”
Father Carey frowned. “Last year. But nobody came up here to do it. The scaffolding was erected outside.”
“Expensive,” Colt said.
“St Saviour’s is fortunate to have some very wealthy, and incredibly generous, parishioners.”
“Is Dwight Sanders one of them, Father?”
Father Carey cleared his throat and Colt saw the first signs of unease. “Yes. Yes he is.”
“Did he fund it?” Colt asked.
“He contributed, along with many others in the parish.”
Colt locked eyes with him. When his paedo alert failed to twitch, he swallowed hard and looked away. He’d investigated so many men of the cloth over the years it had left his faith fragile, but his guilt complex stronger than ever. “If anything springs to mind, Father,” he said handing him his card. “Be sure to let us know.”
Ryan Reynolds squinted at the picture on his computer screen and rubbed at his eyes. He'd been digging for hours. And now his straining eyes were seeing things that couldn't possibly be there.
He pointed his cursor at the kid standing to the right of Professor Barrington, and hit 'zoom.' Leaning into the screen he stared as the boy's face gradually filled it.
He was tiny, couldn't have been any older than ten tops, but the shape of the jaw, and the piercing blue eyes were unmistakable, even back then. It was definitely him.
Ryan zoomed out to read the caption and his stomach rose into his throat. National Adoption & Fostering Week 1995. He didn't know he'd grown up in care. But then why would he, he wasn't a fan. He shook his head; he was getting side tracked by tiredness.
The issue here wasn't the sob story of Dwight Sanders’ rise from humble beginnings to meteoric mega stardom. The issue was what the fuck a court appointed expert - responsible for the removal of hundreds of children from their families - was doing at an adoption and fostering event.
Ryan couldn’t think straight. He needed to sleep on it.
Chapter 29
Friday 22nd July.
He couldn't sleep on it. Every time he closed his eyes the picture buzzed his brain. Not Professor Barrington, oh no – but Sanders and Barrington, together.
Maybe it was his tussle with Felicity Firman, and the ensuing visit from AJ Colt. Maybe it was his morbid fascination with what went on behind those closed courtroom doors and his guilt about the Crossleys. Maybe it was all of the above, getting all tangled up in his little worn out brain. But, whatever is was, it had him dragging his sorry arse out of bed and halfway across London for answers.
The last thing Ryan expected when he pulled up outside her apartment complex, a tad before 1 am, was to find her dressed down in jeans and a sweatshirt packing suitcases into her boot. He slouched down in his car as she looked cautiously up and down the quiet road before slipping behind the wheel. She looked like a woman who was running, and he intended to find out what from.
He gave a sigh of relief as he tailed her out of the city and onto the M4. Where ever she was heading, it wasn't by air. That could only be a good sign. His relief didn’t last long.
The first fifty miles or so, he yawned all the way. Even cranked the radio up and sang along at the top of his lungs to stay awake. Occasionally he questioned himself and thought of turning back, but one look at the photograph on his passenger seat soon obliterated that. It worried at his gut like a dodgy curry that needed flushing away. He'd had feelings like this before and they always led somewhere.
As he followed her across the suspension bridge and into Wales he got his second wind. His mind whirred with exciting possibilities as to where this early hour’s dart was leading. If he was a gambling man, he'd bet MP Charmers was scheduled for a long weekend break too. Ryan couldn't shake the growing feeling he was about to intrude on a dirty weekend in the Welsh Valleys.
He could kick himself.
All he had with him was his satchel. When the opportunity presented he'd have to snap them on his phone. The leverage could come in handy if he needed further favours. Catching the MP on camera with his pants round his ankles might even get him access to government documents.
His pulse raced. The possibilities were endless.
Ryan frowned as the silver Mercedes turned right into Pembroke Dock and pulled into lane 5 for boarding. He drove onwards to the terminal, flipped his cap onto his head and stepped from his car.
“A one way ticket for the next ferry please,” he said handing his company credit card to the woman in the booth.
“Dublin, or Rosslare, Sir?” she enquired in husky Welsh tones.
Ryan glanced over his shoulder. “Whichever one boards from lane 5.”
The woman tapped some buttons, Ryan entered his pin number, and within minutes he was sitting three cars behind Felicity Firman's silver Mercedes, queuing to board the ferry to Rosslare, Ireland.
Felicity Firman yawned as she relaxed in the empty bar with a glass of bourbon. She loved the peace of the night crossing
- no screaming children running amok or stressed out parents giving chase, just a few other weary travellers bedding down for the journey.
These visits had provided her with precious moments of tranquillity over the years, and time to reflect on the choices she'd made and the reasons why. But now the consequences were looming large. It twisted her heart that this visit would be her last.
She sipped her drink, closed her eyes, and tipped her head back relishing the comforting burn.
“Stephen not joining you?”
Flick froze when she heard the voice. Kept her eyes closed, hoping it would go away. Hoping it was directed at someone behind her who had quietly crept into the bar without her knowledge.
“I'll still be here when you open your eyes, Felicity.”
Oh god. Not here. Not now, she thought. Please just let me have this one last moment. She downed her drink in one fluid gulp and slumped forwards in her seat, resting her head on her knees as her stomach churned. She wondered if they were at Stephen's house too, dragging him from his bed in front of his screaming children. She shook the image away, there was nothing she could do now except compose herself for the inevitable.
Taking a deep breath she slowly rose from her seat, preparing for the confrontation. Swallowing down the lump in her throat she raised her head for the flashbulbs, and her hands for the cuffs.
Ryan Reynolds’ green eyes greeted her. “Want another one of those?” he said.
Flick spun on her heels, twisting her head from side to side, looking for the others. No one else was there, just him - pen behind ear, leather satchel slung across his chest. He signalled the barman, pointed at her drink and held two fingers in the air before dumping his satchel at his feet and dropping wearily into a seat.