No Place to Die

by Donoghue, Clare

  And why hadn’t Mort come forward after Maggie’s body was found in the tomb in Elmstead? His answer had been simple in its selfishness. He couldn’t risk his work being tainted by the incident. Those had been his exact words. Whether the ‘incident’ referred to Maggie’s murder or the ‘borrowing’ of Lebowski’s research he hadn’t clarified, but given his narcissistic nature, Jane could make a guess. When she asked him if he thought Lebowski could have killed Maggie, Mort claimed not to have given it much thought. He supposed – given the research, and the manner and execution of Maggie’s murder – that it was possible, but he was not qualified to give an opinion on the matter, he said. Jane thought she was going to have to physically restrain Lockyer, who looked as if he wanted to knock the guy out there and then. She was still trying to decide if she could charge Mort with obstruction of justice. She rubbed her eyes, remembering too late that she was no doubt wiping mascara all over her face.

  Roger had given her the go-ahead on Saturday to prepare a warrant for Lebowski’s arrest, on the strength of Mort’s statement and Franks’s notes on the package received. However, he had made it clear she could not go to the judge for sign-off until she had examined the documents herself. She had never seen her SIO look so on edge. He had approved her own and Lockyer’s visit to Gary Reynolds’s flat on Saturday, but then what choice did he have, after Comms confirmed that the phoney call naming Lebowski in the Hungerford case came from Gary’s phone? The possible backlash from Lebowski’s lawyer had been written all over Roger’s face.

  ‘Have you got it yet?’

  She looked up as Lockyer approached her desk, resting his arms on the partition. ‘Not yet,’ she said. ‘I called the lab an hour ago and they said I should have it this morning. Although when this morning, who knows.’

  ‘What did Mort say?’

  ‘Says it wasn’t him,’ Jane said. ‘I’m inclined to believe him. Why bother leading us on a merry dance if he had already posted the original research to me? The last thing he wants is more copies being made . . . endangering his research,’ she said, raising her eyebrows.

  Lockyer smiled. ‘Good point. What about the CCTV?’

  ‘Still waiting. The owner of the post office said her cameras are old and unreliable, but I’ve sent Chris down to pick up what she has for Friday. I also spoke to the Comms team and they said there is a CCTV camera on the street, but it only covers one side. It’ll only capture an image of whoever posted the package if he or she left that way.’

  ‘You thinking it could be Gary?’ he asked, scratching his cheeks.

  ‘Could be,’ she said, looking around her desk for the paracetamol she had bought on her way into the office. ‘Obviously whoever sent it wanted to implicate Lebowski. He’s a fit for that.’ She pictured Gary Reynolds sitting in his flat with Cindy. ‘But . . . how would he get hold of it in the first place?’

  Lockyer’s mouth turned down at the edges. ‘Good question. Who knows. Are you going to charge Mort with obstruction of justice?’

  ‘I’m considering it,’ she said, ‘but I don’t want to waste any more time on the arrogant prick right now. When Lebowski is locked up and the case is airtight, then I’ll worry about Mort. He’s a parasite, but Maggie’s more important. I need to focus on her.’ All the evidence surrounding Maggie’s case felt like blood diluted in too much water. The patterns, the connecting tracts, were not visible to the naked eye. For every answer she found, a dozen questions crushed it. She ran her fingers through her hair and sighed.

  ‘What about the boy downstairs?’ Lockyer asked, putting his arms above his head and stretching. He looked as tired as Jane felt. She wondered what he had done with his Sunday, as he had been off too. She wanted to ask, to maintain the level of ‘friendship’ they had developed in the past week or so, but now wasn’t the right time. There never seemed to be a right time to really talk to anyone. Her father was recovering well. She had popped over with Peter yesterday after the cinema. Her mother’s house had been on emotional lockdown. As soon as Jane opened her mouth to ask a question, Celia Bennett had scowled at her. ‘Jane,’ Lockyer said, looking at her. ‘The body?’

  ‘Sorry. Another wait and see. MISPER have all the details, and the dental records are being checked.’ As she spoke an email came up on her screen from Dave. ‘Oh, hang on,’ she said, clicking on it. ‘An email from Dave.’ She read aloud. ‘We’ve got an ID. Kieran Affiku. Twenty-five years old. Reported missing in 2009.’ She double-clicked one of the attached documents. As she scan-read the contents, her heart started to beat faster in her chest. ‘He was listed as a runaway. He was . . . a student at Greenwich University . . . studying for a Masters in psychology.’ She continued to scan. ‘One of his tutors, would you believe it, was . . . ’

  ‘Lebowski,’ Lockyer said, his hands gripping the partition.

  ‘None other,’ she said, feeling the adrenaline quickening her pulse.

  ‘Was he questioned?’ Lockyer asked.

  Jane clicked and opened another document and ran her eyes down the page. ‘Doesn’t look like MISPER did that much at all,’ she said, clicking and opening another document. ‘Kieran had a history of running away – the head of psychology made a statement, but that was it. It’s been an open case ever since, no progress, no movement whatsoever . . . No reason to believe it was anything other than another runaway.’ She blew out a breath. ‘His poor parents.’

  ‘Come on,’ Lockyer said, standing. ‘This is enough for the warrant. You don’t need the documents. Let’s go and see Roger,’ he said, already walking away. Jane pushed back her chair and followed him.

  As they passed Franks’s and Whitemore’s desks, Whitemore’s hand shot up as if he was in school. ‘Boss,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ she and Lockyer said in unison. Whitemore looked from one to the other until Lockyer stepped back and gestured to Jane.

  ‘I’ve got some more information on the Amelia Reynolds case. The allotment in Deptford.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. She was itching to get into Roger’s office, to call the judge, to finally arrest Lebowski with information that even his fancy lawyer would struggle to explain.

  ‘At the time of the murder the land was owned by a Barry Endecott. He died recently, but he sold the plot two years back.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Jane said, rolling her hands over each other.

  ‘DCI Leech bought it,’ Whitemore said, his expression confused.

  She stopped and looked at Lockyer.

  Another answer, another question.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  5th May – Monday

  She knew she was holding her sister’s hand, but she couldn’t see. Her eyes felt itchy and it was very dark. ‘Daddy?’ she called out. He didn’t answer. She bit her bottom lip to stop herself from crying. She was a big girl now. Daddy had said so. ‘Pet,’ she said, squeezing her big sister’s hand. ‘Petra. Wake up.’ It was very quiet, like when they stayed at Grandma’s house. It was dark at Grandma’s house, but she had a night-light that stayed on all the time. ‘Petra, wake up.’ She tugged on her sister’s arm. ‘Mummy said you’re not allowed to play tricks on me. You’re not allowed,’ she said, her voice cracking.

  Poppy sat up, still holding her sister’s hand. She banged her head, just like at Grandma’s house on the bunk beds. Daddy had given her a drink in the car when he had picked them up from Susie’s mummy’s house. They had been playing on Susie’s trampoline. She was very tired because she had jumped up and down so much. That’s why she was so thirsty, Daddy said. You had to drink a lot when you were jumping around. It stopped you getting too hot. She wasn’t hot now. She was cold. So was Petra’s hand. It felt wet.

  ‘Pets,’ she said again, trying to pull her sister up. ‘The night-light is broken, Petra. It’s broken. I need the toilet.’ She could feel the tears coming. Sometimes she could stop them and at other times she couldn’t. Grown-ups didn’t cry, that’s what Daddy always said. Petra never cried. She was a good girl. Without letting go of her
sister’s hand she wiped her face. She felt silly. She went to the bathroom on her own at home, but she didn’t like to at Grandma’s. The floors were creaky and the string for the light was too high for her. Mummy said next time they went to stay she would make it longer, so that Poppy could go on her own.

  She started to jiggle her legs. She really needed to go. ‘Petra,’ she said, crying now because she couldn’t help it. ‘Petra, please come with me. I’ll let you have some of my stickers.’ She pinched Petra’s arm hard – harder than she should – but Petra didn’t wake up. ‘I’ll tell Daddy,’ she cried. ‘I’ll tell on you.’ She wailed and called out to her grandma, to her mother, to her father, but no one came. She could only hear her own voice, her own breaths. She lay back down and snuggled into her sister’s back, wrapping her other arm around Petra’s tummy. She would be in trouble if she wet the bed. Only babies wet the bed. She felt her wee then. It was warm under her bottom. She cried and pressed her face into Petra’s back. She cried and cried, but no one came. She cried and cried, but Petra didn’t wake up.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  5th May – Monday

  ‘There has to be something here that can help,’ Jane said, looking over at Lockyer. ‘Have you got anything?’

  ‘Nothing yet,’ he said. He could feel her frustration. Her face was flushed. ‘There’s a lot about phobias and those safety coffins Mort was telling us about.’ He shrugged. They had been reading through the notes contained in the anonymous package that had been sent into the office on Saturday. As soon as Kieran Affiku’s identity had been confirmed, Roger had given Jane permission to go to the judge and a warrant had been issued for Lebowski’s rearrest. Whether he had always planned to run, Lockyer didn’t know, but within an hour of the warrant Victor Lebowski was gone and so were his two children.

  ‘Any news?’ Lockyer turned as Roger walked into the briefing room.

  ‘Eric Williams confirmed that Lebowski picked up the girls from his house at four-thirty,’ Jane said, lifting her notepad out of the mess of papers on the glass briefing-room table. ‘They were attending a birthday party for Susie Williams, Mr Williams’s daughter. He said Lebowski was driving a Volvo V40. Emily Loxton arrived ten minutes later, but didn’t raise the alarm as she figured she’d just forgotten her ex-husband was picking the kids up. She called Lebowski on his mobile, but it went to voicemail. We’ve checked and the Volvo is registered to him. I’ve already alerted Traffic. Sasha called ten minutes ago to say that Lebowski’s passport might be missing. It’s not with the rest of his documentation in his house. I’ve put out an All-Ports Warning, just in case. His closest international airport would be City or maybe Stansted, but his ex-wife says she has the children’s passports with her, so he wouldn’t be able to take the kids with him if he is intending to run.’

  ‘How is she doing?’ Roger asked.

  ‘Not good,’ Jane said. ‘She’s threatening to go to the press, call her MP – everything and anything really.’

  Roger shook his head and looked at Lockyer. ‘We’re in serious trouble here,’ he said.

  ‘You don’t have to tell me,’ he replied.

  ‘We’ll find Lebowski,’ Jane said. She put her face in her hands. Lockyer shifted in his chair. He couldn’t let her falter now. She had to stay in charge. He opened his mouth to say something, to give her the time she needed to recover. She dropped her hands and looked at him and then at Roger. ‘I let that bastard go. I knew he was guilty and I let him go.’

  ‘You had no choice, Jane,’ he said. ‘Whitaker was all over you the second Lebowski was arrested.’

  ‘If anyone’s to blame for this mess, it’s Mark,’ Roger said, looking down at the floor. ‘If he hadn’t gone off the reservation on the Amelia Reynolds case, this wouldn’t be happening. Our hands were tied from the second Lebowski’s name was mentioned.’

  ‘You’re blaming Mark?’ Lockyer tried to control his anger. ‘He knew Lebowski was guilty back then, and he didn’t have the support or the evidence he needed to do his job. Yes, he went too far; and yes, he hasn’t helped Jane’s case. But you can’t blame him. The man was a cop for over thirty years. He was your friend, Roger.’

  ‘“Was” being the operative word,’ Roger said, not making eye contact with him.

  ‘So, because you think Mark’s dead, you’re happy for him to take the blame – to besmirch his entire career to save your own arse?’ It took every fibre of Lockyer’s being not to shout. He wasn’t sure how he was still sitting in his chair. He felt like throwing it across the office. Or at Roger’s head.

  Roger held up a finger, turned and closed the door to the briefing room. ‘Watch your tongue, Mike,’ he said. ‘I have known Mark and Sue Leech a lot longer than you, but it is my job to protect this department. Mark’s behaviour has jeopardized that.’ Roger shook his head. ‘Look, Mike, I am not trying to pass blame, or even assign blame at this stage. But I can’t ignore the possible impact on the department, even if you can.’ Lockyer didn’t trust himself to speak. He stared down at the floor. ‘Jane, what else do we know?’

  ‘Not much,’ she said. ‘We’ve got units at Lebowski’s house, the university, the grandmother’s, the ex-wife’s and Elmstead. I’ve got additional units checking local restaurants, parks and anywhere else that Lebowski might have taken them. His ex-wife said it’s not unusual for him to pick the children up, and the message she left him wasn’t panicked. She just asked him to call her and let her know whether he was planning on feeding the girls before dropping them home. I’ve asked her not to call him again for the time being. I don’t want Lebowski to know we’re looking for him. If he’s preparing to run, then he may well be close by.’

  ‘That’s what you’re hoping,’ Roger said. ‘That’s what we’re all hoping.’ He sat down next to Jane. ‘Have you spoken to Phil?’

  ‘He’s on his way in,’ Lockyer said, not quite able to look at Roger.

  ‘We need to get a better idea of Lebowski’s state of mind, of what he might do,’ Roger said. Neither Lockyer nor Jane said anything. ‘Are you still going over the documentation sent in on Saturday?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Jane said. ‘I’m hoping there will be something in here that could tell us where Lebowski might be headed.’

  Roger stood and put his hand on the door to the briefing room. ‘Fine. Keep me up to date. If he isn’t found in the next hour I want you to speak to Air Support.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Jane said, nodding.

  Roger turned to leave. ‘And, Mike,’ he said, looking over his shoulder at Lockyer, ‘I will not expose individuals in this team, past or present, to scrutiny unless I have to.’

  Lockyer waved away the comment. ‘I know, boss,’ he said. ‘I know.’

  Jane reread the two pages again. ‘I think I know what happened to Kieran.’ She looked over at Lockyer, who was leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed. Phil had done the same when she had met him. Maybe it was a guy-thing?

  He tipped forward. ‘Go for it,’ he said, rubbing his eyes. They had been reading for several hours. For everything Jane could say about Lebowski, she couldn’t criticize his initial research. It was thorough in every sense of the word. No wonder Mort had pinched it.

  ‘There’s a description for a proposed experiment on taphophobia,’ she said. ‘He wanted to excavate a site on the university grounds. He intended to refit a coffin with the appropriate safety measures and lower it, with an occupant inside, into the site, before covering the area with a rectangle of contained soil that could be lifted in and out of the site easily.’

  ‘Contained?’ Lockyer asked.

  ‘He doesn’t go into specifics on that. I assume he means that the excavated soil would be stored in a bag or container of some kind, to prevent the need to dig and refill the hole at each stage of the experiment.’

  ‘He would have needed a crane to transport that much earth,’ Lockyer said. ‘I like this guy less and less.’

  ‘I know. He talks about the “occupants”
as if they were lab rats, nothing more,’ she said, pointing at the papers. ‘Anyway, from what I can tell, he couldn’t get permission from the university for the dig, let alone the experiment, so he looked for other sites that would meet his requirements.’

  ‘Did he tell the university what he was planning to do?’

  ‘No. He gave them a basic overview of his requirements, but didn’t tell them about the taphophobia angle. If Lebowski is anything like Mort, he was probably paranoid about people poaching his work.’

  ‘Nutters,’ Lockyer said, holding up his hands.

  ‘He did some research into suitable sites and stumbled on Elmstead because of Chislehurst Caves. There were details of aborted entrance sites, et cetera. He must have used ground-radar equipment to locate them.’

  ‘And no one noticed?’

  ‘He was studying for his Masters back then, full time, so this research was not only off-campus, but out of hours. He was going down to Elmstead at night.’

  ‘And he’s documented all of this?’ Lockyer’s mouth stayed open.

  ‘Yes, down to every last detail, pretty much.’ She turned to the next page. ‘He then spent two months adapting the site: digging down to create the access tunnels, installing the hatch, camera, air-hose, and ensuring the internal walls were fit for purpose.’

  ‘And he did all of this at night?’

  ‘Looks like it,’ she said, just as astonished as Lockyer seemed, that Lebowski had managed to accomplish such a feat of engineering without anyone noticing.

  ‘Hang on, there wasn’t a camera or air-hose in Kieran’s tomb,’ Lockyer said.