Face Value: A Wright & Tran Novel

by Ian Andrew

  “From here. Right, I’ll go and get started.” Kara pushed herself up from the chair and turned to the door, but Tien stretched out her left arm and stopped her. Kara felt the firmness of her friend’s prosthetic hand against her leg.

  “So, you had no dramas last night?” Tien asked with a slight tremor in her voice.

  Kara breathed deeply but unobtrusively before turning to face her friend, “No, none. Why, what’s up?”

  Tien swung back round to the multiple consoles arrayed on her desk and opened up a browser window. She spoke whilst looking at the screen, “Have you seen any news this morning?”

  “Only the BBC website, why, what’s happened?” Kara asked as she leaned over to look.

  “Did you just look at the headlines?”

  “Yeah. Nothing much caught my interest other than the next round of defence cuts. I expect more of our old friends will be looking for work soon. What is it Tien? What’d I miss?”

  Tien opened up the BBC’s regional news page for Cambridgeshire. The short story was filed under a single stock image of an out of focus Police car and some Police Do Not Cross tape.

  ‘Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire – (Reuters). A man was killed in a stabbing in Huntingdon overnight, authorities said.

  The victim, thought to be in his late 30’s and whose identity is not immediately available, was found dead in an alley in the Light Industrial Estate bounded by Brampton Road and Edison Bell Way about 6am when Police Officers attended a call from a member of the public, said a Cambridgeshire Police spokesman.

  No one is in custody and detectives from the Bedfordshire/Cambridgeshire/Hertfordshire combined Major Crimes Unit are investigating. Police have asked anyone with information about the incident to contact the unit on 101.’

  Kara straightened back up and spoke to the back of Tien’s head, “That’s terrible. Poor fella.”

  Tien spun round slowly and looked up at her, “So you never saw or heard anything?”

  “No Tien, not a thing. Sorry. I’d let you know if I did and I’d let the cops know too. But no. Nothing. I just ended the surveillance and went back to my car. Drove home, slept and here I am now. Anyway, let me know when you get the photos and the ID done. I’ll go and start on the report.”

  Kara turned away but Tien called her back, “Hey, you’ll need this.” Tien opened a drawer, took a new smartphone from it and threw it over to Kara.

  “Thanks pet.” Kara turned away from the monitors and Tien’s watchful gaze. Breathing gently she walked unhurriedly from the room. She knew that whatever happened she would protect her best friend from her actions. If it ever came to it, she would not bring Tien down with her.

  As the door closed behind Kara, Tien turned back to her consoles and pulled up a screen she had minimised just as Kara had first come in. It showed the master log from the ‘1984’ app. Tien not only wrote each of the specialist apps that Kara needed for her field work but she maintained all the user data and app history. The screen showed the GPS read out for when and where the app was accessed and the CCTV locations it identified. Tien used it for correlation and enhancement purposes but because Kara would have called the development work, ‘just all ones and noughts’ Tien had never really told her about the level of monitoring that was possible. There was no need to. Kara did what she did and Tien did this.

  The data revealed that the app had been accessed at 03:20 in the light industrial unit bounded by Brampton Road and Edison Bell Way in Huntingdon. The GPS track showed the movement of Kara’s burner phone and Tien knew that Kara had been at the scene of the killing.

  She shut the display down and unlocked the hard drive rack that was mounted on the wall to her right. Each separate drive stored the user data and history of each individual app she had ever developed. Each drive was, in turn, rotated for each operation she supported Kara on. That, coupled with the new burner smartphone she would furnish for each operation, made Tien’s data records completely compartmentalised. The phones, preloaded with Kara’s contacts and cloned down to the layout of the icons meant Kara always had her ‘own’ phone yet never carried a traceable mobile for more than a week at a time. Tien transferred the photos and the map location of the target address from the previous night’s surveillance onto her PC. She would work on them later as Kara requested. Getting up from her desk she took the phone and the drive with the ‘1984’ location trace into the small workshop set behind her kitchen. She placed both into the compact industrial kiln that sat against the rear wall and turned it on. Theoretically she knew there might be some algorithms that could erase data completely but she didn’t trust that forensic computer squads couldn’t get something back. She relied on more kinetically proven methods. A few hours inside the kiln and all that would be left would be a molten mound of plastic and metal. Once cooled it would make a great doorstop or large paperweight. It made equally good landfill.

  Tien didn’t reflect on what her best friend had done in the early hours of the morning. She knew Kara had lied to protect her. What she could do in return was remove any evidence of Kara at a crime scene. She knew that whatever happened she would protect her best friend from her actions. If it ever came to it, she would not bring Kara down with her.

  Chapter 3

  Monday Morning. Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire & Hertfordshire Major Crimes Unit, Huntingdon

  He picked up the receiver of his Cisco desk phone on the third ring. “Tri-County Major Crimes Unit, DCI Tony Reynolds speaking.”

  “Tony, it’s Jeremy.”

  Reynolds checked the clock display on the phone console, “Jesus Jem, you’re up early. I thought you pathologist types didn’t get up before midday.”

  “Yeah, very droll, but you’re right, a quarter to seven isn’t my usual start time. That’s why this is me actually knocking off.”

  “You’ve been working all night? What on?”

  “Your post-mortem.”

  “Mine?” Reynolds sounded confused. He couldn’t think what would cause the doctor to work through the night on such an obvious case. “You mean the one from Huntingdon on Saturday?”

  “Yes. How many dead bodies do you think you have?”

  “Well, no,” Reynolds hesitated. “That’s my only recent one. Just to be sure, we’re talking about the druggie with the posh name and the great big knife wound to the head?”

  “Yes. That’s the chap. Manfield Bartholomew Hastings.”

  “But that shouldn’t have taken you more than a couple of hours. Why did you pull an all-nighter on that?” Reynolds asked.

  “Well, I got the call on Saturday morning but Shona was helping Professor Kennedy down in Uxbridge and I was over at a Norfolk road traffic incident. Given the on-scene assessment I thought it would be safe enough to put your chap on ice until I could get in on Sunday afternoon. Figured I’d get the PM done and have the report waiting for you when you came in this morning and all still within the time.”

  Reynolds knew the pathologist was referring to the normal 48-hour timeframe for a suspected murder post-mortem to be completed. “So what changed?” he asked. “I thought it was obvious.”

  “Yes, I’d normally agree and I did initially think that a large sharp force injury was quite persuasive as the cause of death. Especially given Mr Hasting’s circle of influence.”

  Tony Reynolds couldn’t help but smile. He had worked with Doctor Jeremy Rowlands as the main pathologist for the area for nearly ten years. Jeremy, or Jem to those he liked and Doctor Rowlands to those he didn’t, had once been the pathologist for just Cambridgeshire. But now, with ever shrinking budgets, he was one of ten Home Office Pathologists assigned to cover the Greater London, South East and West Midlands area. He normally worked out of Cambridge and with Doctor Shona Johnston based in Chelmsford the two of them looked after the vast majority of the post-mortems needed within the counties of Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire. It sounded like a lot but the violent death rate for those counties was one of the
lowest in the UK. The other eight pathologists in the group spent most of their time working inside the M25 and were substantially busier than Jeremy and Shona. It was his relatively light post-mortem workload that allowed him to continue to hold a number of teaching and research posts. Given his expertise and ability his peculiarity of never referring to any deceased’s criminal activities by name was fully acceptable.

  But Reynolds couldn’t resist teasing the pathologist a little, “His circle of influence, Jem? You make it sound like he was a member of the Huntingdon Drug Dealer’s Rotarian and Lions Club.”

  “Now, now. What the poor fellow got up to in life is not for me to judge in death. You know I just try to find out what brought him into my care.”

  “A large knife to the head was my guess,” Reynolds said.

  “Yes, well that was my initial assessment too. The rest of the PM was quite as one would expect. You know, collapsed veins, multiple needle tracks, a liver that was displaying late stage Cirrhosis, lungs that had put in quite a shift and were now the worse for wear. All quite normal given the lifestyle. However, there’s something not right Tony. The fatal wound is the head wound obviously but I don’t think it was caused by the knife you found. The bruising caused by the trauma to the temporal muscle is not consistent with a hand-delivered injury and the internal tissue shows a crater penetration. So I carried out a very thorough detailed sectioning and I’ve-”

  “Back up a bit Jem, you’ve lost me.”

  “Sorry, right. Look, I’ll get the report to you in full today but I think you should come over so I can show you. The gist of it is this Tony; the knife was used as a concealer. The fatal injury was not done by the butterfly blade but rather was a short stiletto shaped puncture surrounded by a much flatter and broader backing surface.”

  Reynolds considered what he’d been told, “So we’re looking for a short stiletto bladed, broad hilted,” he hesitated knowing how silly the idea sounded, “A sword? Are we looking for a short sword Jem?” he asked it with a trace of incredulity in his voice.

  “Well, no not a sword. Like I said, I’ve looked a lot closer and I found some paint in the deeper sections of brain tissue.”

  Reynolds wondered what the pathologist was leading up to, but asked the obvious question, “What type of paint Jem?”

  “That’s what kept me up all night. It took quite a while to cross match the sample but I think we’re looking for an actual stiletto.”

  “You mean a shoe, a stiletto shoe?” Reynolds asked it slowly.

  “Yes Tony. I do believe Mr Hastings was killed by a very accurate and forceful kick to the head from someone wearing a red stiletto high heel.”

  Chapter 4

  Monday Morning. Camden, London

  Kara met Tien on the pavement just outside Grafton Yard at 07:00.

  “Which way?” Kara asked.

  “Hampstead.”

  Both women turned north and set off on their morning run. They tried to stick to it as a weekday routine as much as life and other commitments allowed. Each picked the route on alternate days. Normally it was north to Parliament Hill Fields and the wide openness of the rest of Hampstead Heath where, by running a convoluted circuit around the various walking paths, they could knock out a reasonable five miles before arriving back at Kara’s apartment. Depending on how either felt they could push the distance up in increments of two miles by adding in extra circuits and loops that took them up past the Highgate Ponds. To vary it they sometimes turned south instead and headed to Regents Park. Very occasionally, when Kara really wanted to blow out the cobwebs, she would take Tien all the way into the city for a circuit of Green Park and then back home.

  Tien was a couple of inches shorter than Kara at five foot five, a couple of stone lighter, much more slender and would easily match her mile for mile, but she would never have chosen the southern route. Kara knew it was nothing to do with the distance. They had been running partners off and on since back in 2009 when they first pounded round Kandahar Airfield together, but Kara knew Tien didn’t get a buzz from the exercise like she did. There was no deep seated, almost addictive need to exercise. Then again there also seemed to be no physical need either. Kara knew her friend could eat anything and everything, including a regular diet of Yorkie and Wispa bars and seemingly not put a pound on. Kara on the other hand needed the buzz that came from the exertion and she also needed it to keep her weight in check, especially since she had quit smoking.

  “Was Saturday afternoon okay?” Tien asked as they turned into Grafton Road.

  “Yep, she wasn’t that shocked to be honest. Seems that the partner had been ‘bi’ before they’d got together. I think all we did was confirm what she knew.”

  “Any follow up needed?”

  “No. She said she’d send through the final payments by direct deposit. I gave her the report, the receipts and the final invoice. We’ll probably have the money by tomorrow and you can close down all the history.” Kara glanced over and saw Tien nodding before she added, “She was hurt though. I know she was.”

  “Yeah, how come?” Tien asked as she checked over her shoulder before crossing Athlone Street.

  “She asked me if I wanted to stay.”

  Tien pulled up quickly, “What?”

  Kara turned and jogged backwards, “C’mon slacker keep up.”

  “Kara! What did you say to her?”

  “I said I was very flattered but that I was straight. Now c’mon, keep up.”

  Tien ran to catch up and looked sideways at Kara, “Did she really ask you, just like that?”

  Kara nodded, “Shocking isn’t it. Tisk, Tisk, what is the world coming to?”

  “Okay, you can stop teasing me now. It’s not my fault. I just think people should be a little more…” Tien searched for the proper word.

  “Prudish?” Kara offered.

  “No! I am not prudish. Reserved. I just think we should be a little more reserved.”

  “So, you’ve no issue with her being a lesbian, or even asking me out. You just think she should have bided her time a bit more?” Kara asked, trying to keep her voice serious.

  “Well, yes.”

  Kara couldn’t stop from laughing, “You crack me up. And I’m only messing. Of course she didn’t ask me out. I just wanted to see your face.”

  “Oh, you’re incorrigible!” Tien said as she accelerated and Kara pushed to keep up.

  They ran in silence until the three-way junction on the rail overpass at Barrington Close forced them to wait for the traffic to pass. As they jogged in place Tien said, “Just to let you know there’s been no word on that murder in Huntingdon yet.”

  “Oh, okay,” Kara said it flatly and hardly had to mask her voice. She had spent Saturday night and all day Sunday visiting her parents down at their home in Somerset and hadn’t given the events in the alleyway another thought. As far as she was concerned it was over. She couldn’t waste time thinking about it. Either she had cleaned up the evidence and disposed of the shoes and the drugs completely or she hadn’t. If the Police were able to find any trace of them or her then she’d deal with it. If they didn’t come looking for her, then as far as she was concerned a street predator had tried it on and come up short. He lost, she won. Move on. She waited for the gap in the traffic and pushed off again. Tien kept alongside and Kara got the weird feeling that she was going to say something else about the murder. Instead, at their next enforced traffic stop, Tien merely switched the conversation to ask Kara about her trip to Somerset. In turn Kara asked about Tien’s traditional Sunday ritual of chapel and lunch with her parents, her six older siblings, their wives and husbands and what seemed to be an exponentially increasing amount of nephews and nieces.

  *

  By ten Kara was back in her office and working on a surveillance plan for the horrendously named Lizard and Pickle Pub a few doors up on the Kentish Town Road, the owner of which was convinced her bar manager was stealing from her. The normal cameras and till checks hadn’t show
n anything and so she came to see Kara and Tien. The work was easy, boring if anything and the fee was minimal but it would help pay the bills and that was always a consideration. Money was tight and every little helped. Kara pushed back from the desk and stretched her arms to work out the kinks in her shoulders. As she relaxed again into her seat the doorbell of the outer street door rang. Not expecting any callers she swivelled round and checked the intercom camera. A man and women were framed in the fisheye lens that seemed to warp them and the interior of the small front porch like an old-fashioned carnival hall of mirrors.

  Despite the comedic distortion they both looked to be in their late twenties and it was clear that although the man was much broader and taller there was a definite family resemblance between the two. Kara pushed the microphone button, “Hi, this is Wright and Tran Investigations, can I help you?”

  The man bent forward so that his mouth filled the screen, “Hello, I’m Michael Sterling. This is my sister Zoe. Our parents have gone missing and we were told that you might be able to help.”

  Chapter 5

  Camden, London

  Michael Sterling’s muscular frame just managed to crunch into one of the occasional chairs set to the side of Kara’s office. His sister in comparison seemed to glide to the chair next to him and settled into it like a soft sigh. Kara sat in a third chair that faced them both at a slight angle. She watched closely as the siblings composed themselves.

  Zoe wore a knee length, multi-coloured, Bohemian Gypsy skirt, a casual black T-shirt and a light canvas jacket. Her shoulder bag looked to have been made from the same canvas material. She sat like a graduate of a charm school, knees together and feet placed side by side, with the toes turned slightly out. Her back was almost ramrod straight, her neck long and slender. Kara saw the woman’s calves were exquisitely toned and her ankles looked almost muscular above her flat black pumps. Zoe’s hands, clasped gently in her lap, wore no rings and her nails, although delicately manicured, had no visible polish applied. Her shoulder length hair framed a natural complexion that also looked devoid of any makeup or adornment. Next to her grace and delicacy Michael Sterling looked like a battleship stuffed into a business suit.