Lance took a deep breath and let it out slowly, as if controlling some severe pain. ‘I hope so,’ he said. ‘I want to know everything you know. I want to understand as much as I can.’
Grace looked at him, trying to decide how much of the truth he could handle. Although he appeared subdued enough, she sensed that his outward calmness had only been achieved with effort. Nevertheless, she couldn’t deliberately withhold information from him again. However volatile he might be, she would have to give him every scrap she had.
‘All Colin told me was that Peter worked for the security services, and that Buckingham Gate Associates is a cover.’
‘Do you know what he was doing in Vale do Lobo?’
‘Not for certain, no. But I found out the rest for myself.’ Some instinct of self-preservation told her not to name Ivo. ‘I have an informant,’ she told Lance. ‘And I’m sticking to the rules on that. You can’t know who it is. Fair enough?’
‘I guess,’ said Lance, not meeting her eye.
‘But I can tell you a bit more about the photograph you showed me.’ Grace got up to fetch her copy of it from the file she’d left on the kitchen table and brought it back, sitting down beside Lance to point out the figure in a white polo shirt and green baseball cap. ‘That’s a local property developer called Jerry Coghlan,’ she told him. ‘He’s ex-Flying Squad. One of those who dodged disciplinary proceedings – and probably worse – by taking early retirement just before Operation Countryman reported back.’
‘I remember my dad talking about all that,’ said Lance. ‘Plenty of mud thrown, but none of it stuck.’
‘No, the top brass managed to get it all shut down before the Met tore itself apart. Millions were spent looking at corruption, but hardly a single collar was ever felt as a result. Anyway, Coghlan took off for the Algarve at the perfect time to get in on the boom in golf and holiday resorts. A lot of the money he invests comes through a holding company registered in Panama. Apparently under that umbrella are smaller shell companies that own individual properties in order to shield them from British and EU tax authorities. The villa you stayed in is owned by one of them.’
Lance frowned. ‘But it was the Federation who sorted that out. They wouldn’t be involved with money-laundering.’
‘They might not own it,’ she said. ‘It may have been lent to them.’
‘I assumed it was one of the Federation’s welfare properties. I didn’t have to pay a penny.’
‘No, I know,’ she said. ‘There’s been a steady stream of police officers, present and retired, who have enjoyed holidays there either for free or at reduced rates.’
‘So who does own it?’
‘I’m trying to find out.’
‘Surely Duncan would know?’
‘Maybe. We can ask him, but I meant what I said about shielding my informant.’
‘It was very comfortable,’ said Lance. ‘Three bedrooms, air-conditioned, pool, roof terrace, all mod cons.’
‘I bet it was.’ She pointed to the man in cargo pants and a red shirt beside Peter in the photograph, ‘This is Adam Kirkby. Mark Kirkby’s brother. He was staying in that villa when the photograph was taken.’
‘So the Kirkby family know this Jerry Coghlan?’
As Lance looked keenly at her, Grace tried to bury the sudden fear that she was making a tremendous mistake.
‘So what are they doing accepting freebies from a bent copper?’ he asked. ‘Let alone getting the Federation to hand them out them to serving officers like me?’
‘It is pretty strange,’ she admitted. ‘Although John Kirkby spent a couple of years in the Met. He and Coghlan may go way back.’
‘So is that why Peter went out there, to nose around about dodgy property deals? That’s hardly enough to get him killed.’
‘We don’t know that his death had anything to do with his work,’ said Grace carefully. ‘Although Jerry Coghlan was interested in Buckingham Gate Associates. That suggests he had doubts of some kind about Peter.’
‘But why would any of the security services give a shit about this kind of stuff?’ asked Lance. ‘Who cares? And anyway the Federation have plenty of muscle to front up to the Inland Revenue. I should know. My dad was a Fed rep in his time. They have the best tax and employment lawyers in the country on speed dial.’
‘True.’ Grace got up. ‘I think I fancy a cup of tea. What about you?’
‘Yeah, all right. Thanks.’
Grace was relieved that Lance remained where he was. She wanted time to think. How far did she go? Did she share her every suspicion, however speculative? She rubbed her face with her hands as the kettle came to the boil, trying to squeeze a decision out of her exhausted brain. If she told him this last thing, there would be no going back. Why was she so hesitant? This was DS Lance Cooper, an experienced MIT detective, cool in a crisis and always supportive. What was she so afraid of?
‘You OK?’ asked Lance. She hadn’t noticed that he had twisted around to watch her.
‘Yes,’ she said, pouring water and waiting for the teabags to infuse. ‘Tired. Been a long day.’
‘Grace?’
‘Yes?’
‘Peter is dead, isn’t he?’
Grace spun to face him. His look of misery was unbearable.
‘I know I’m being crazy,’ he said, ‘but this whole thing has been so insane. Please tell me it’s not just another bizarre cover story, and that he’s not really still alive.’
‘I saw him, Lance, at the post-mortem.’
‘And you’re not lying?’
‘No, I promise. I’m not lying. I wish I were. I wish we could wind back to Christmas Day and have Peter here with us right now.’
Lance nodded, bereft of his last crazy glimmer of hope. Grace felt like shit. She should have remembered how her own distressed mind had filled in the blanks with unreasonable and obsessive ideas and possibilities after her ex-husband had been arrested for assaulting her. It was her fault that Lance had had to go on suffering like this: she should never have listened to Colin of all people.
‘I’m so sorry.’ She carried the steaming mugs over to the coffee table and sat back down beside him, giving his arm a comforting squeeze.
She was aware of how carefully he was watching her. If she tried to bluff, he’d know it and never forgive her. She took a deep breath. ‘That night you and Peter went for a drink at the Blue Bar.’
Lance made the connection immediately. He went pale, lifting his chin as if preparing for a confrontation. ‘Curtis Mullins.’
‘Curtis told me he was there with Mark and Adam Kirkby.’
‘He was the first officer on the scene when Peter was killed,’ said Lance with bitter anger.
‘He was on duty,’ said Grace. ‘He was with his partner the whole time.’
‘You checked?’
‘Yes, of course. I can’t join the dots, Lance. I don’t know what any of this means in terms of Peter’s murder.’
‘But you think Curtis or Adam Kirkby were somehow involved?’
‘I’ve no idea.’ The tang of Adam Kirkby’s meaty breath on the steps of County Hall came back to her. ‘I honestly don’t see how they could be,’ she told Lance. ‘I’ve gone over and over what we had. I’ve not missed anything. There’s been no cover-up as far as my investigation is concerned.’
Lance jabbed at the photograph. ‘But here are Peter and Adam Kirkby together in Vale do Lobo.’
‘But Coghlan’s interest in Buckingham Gate doesn’t necessarily point to anything more than him being cautious about who he does business with.’
‘It’s a hell of a coincidence!’ said Lance.
‘I know,’ said Grace.
‘Anything else?’ Lance demanded. ‘Have you told me everything now? There’s nothing else?’
‘Yes. That’s everything.’ She wasn’t going to mention the hoodie or the note on her windscreen this morning, partly because she felt it would sound as if she were looking for sympathy when, if anyone was the vi
ctim here, it was Lance, and partly because, having more or less successfully boxed away her fear and vulnerability, she wasn’t ready to start scratching it open again.
‘So what now?’ he asked, relaxing enough to sip at his mug of tea.
‘My informant’s digging into these shell companies,’ she said. ‘I’ll let you know the minute anything gets flagged up.’
‘And what about Mark Kirkby having a weapon? Do you think that’s connected with any of this?’
‘I’ve no idea. It’s all so tenuous. Especially when we’ve no idea what Peter was investigating. Still, I’m pretty certain I’ve managed to identify our armourer.’
‘And?’
‘Leonard Ingold.’
Lance frowned. ‘Isn’t he the guy who’s been helping us, who put Duncan onto the stuff about the military shell casings?’
‘Yes. Smart move to hide in plain sight. He offers us intelligence that checks out, which makes him the last person on our suspect list. Meanwhile he gets the chance to explain away any inconvenient connections that lead back to him. Plus we’ve kept him informed of precisely where we’re up to.’
‘What does Duncan say?’
‘I haven’t spoken to him.’
‘What about Colin?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m not telling anyone. I shouldn’t be telling you.’
‘Why not?’
‘Well, for a start, I have no evidence.’ Grace couldn’t quite explain her reluctance to share her thinking – whether it was to avoid overloading Lance or to shield Robyn Ingold from scrutiny before she herself was entirely certain of her suspicions.
‘Is it the same informant who told you about Coghlan?’ Lance’s question was sharp, his voice almost shrill, as if he were still in the throes of obsession.
Her heart went out to him, and she took a deep breath. ‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘Not at all. I got a tip through a post-sentencing interview that the go-to guy for ammunition and snide guns is known as the Lion King. That gave me a hunch it could be Leo, but I only knew for sure this morning.’
‘Why?’
‘His daughter called me. Robyn Ingold. She didn’t give her name, but it was definitely her.’
‘What did she want?’
‘She’s put two and two together. If she hadn’t realized before what her father’s up to, she has now. Plus she was at school with Angie Turner, the youngest of the Dunholt victims.’
‘How old is she?’
‘Seventeen, I think. She’s not on the electoral roll yet.’
‘So how do you feel about using her to get at her dad?’
‘She called me,’ she said. ‘I didn’t go looking for her.’
‘I guess there are plenty of disillusioned teenagers out there who have to grow up faster than they want.’
‘I’m not wild about exploiting her,’ said Grace, ‘but nor do I want to see another Dunholt shooting. Or any more fifteen-year-old gang members playing with live ammo.’
‘So you’re happy to let her entrap her own father?’
‘If she offers me information that takes a criminal armourer off the streets, then yes, I am. We’re not social workers.’
Lance shook his head. ‘Sometimes I wonder if I’m in the right job.’
‘If she gives us enough to justify a search warrant,’ Grace argued, ‘then we may be able to tie Leonard Ingold to the forensics we got from the ballistics. I don’t have any other strategy for moving forward on this. Do you?’
Lance remained stubbornly silent.
‘And don’t you think we owe it to Davey Fewell?’ she asked. ‘If we can tell him that Leonard Ingold supplied the rifle Mark Kirkby bragged about to him, maybe he’ll start to see that his father was the final link in a chain of criminal behaviour. Fewell pulled the trigger and slaughtered five innocent victims, I’m not excusing that, but there were other people responsible for placing that rifle in his hands.’
‘So what?’
‘So we’re not doing our job properly if we let them go.’
Searching for some measure of acceptance in his expression, Grace realized how important it was to her to gain his approval for what she intended to do. ‘So you tell me how I’m supposed to balance Robyn Ingold against Davey Fewell?’ she asked. ‘You can’t, can you? All there is, is the job, and that means my duty is to seek out evidence that will convict Leonard Ingold, wherever it comes from.’
Lance finally gave a surrendering shrug, and with a sigh of relief Grace reached out to touch his arm. ‘I don’t like it any more than you do,’ she said. ‘But Leonard Ingold is responsible for his daughter’s happiness, not us.’
Lance got to his feet. ‘It’s late. I’d better go.’
‘OK.’
Grace rose to see him to the front door, but before opening it he turned to face her. ‘I’m sorry for everything I said,’ he told her. ‘I’ve been out of my mind and—’
‘Forget it,’ she said. ‘I handled it badly, and I’m sorry too.’
He nodded, his brown eyes no longer bright and angry, but back to their former softness. ‘I’m not coming in to work this week,’ he said. ‘But keep in touch.’
‘Of course. And Lance . . .’ As he turned back, she abandoned what she’d intended to say. ‘Look after yourself,’ she said lamely. What she’d stopped herself asking was that he keep her confidence and not confront Colin with what she’d told him about Peter. But she had no right to ask that. She couldn’t have it both ways: she couldn’t expect Lance to protect her from the consequences – serious though they’d be – of having done the right thing.
Grace locked the door, suddenly overcome with a desperate longing to talk everything through with her dad. He had died a little over ten years ago, but had been a wise and good listener. As she took the mugs through to the kitchen to wash them up, she heard his voice in her head, and smiled wanly to herself. He’d always encouraged her and her sister to work out the thornier moral questions for themselves. Some people do, he’d say, holding up his hands with an enigmatic smile. Some don’t. You have to choose.
41
Grace faced the barest minimum of questions when she was called to give evidence at the coroner’s court the following morning. Despite knowing there was nothing she could weave into her answers about how Mark Kirkby and Curtis Mullins had contrived to torment Russell Fewell that she would be able to back up if challenged, she left the building feeling spineless. The inquest had been her best chance to put the record straight, and she had failed even to begin to do so.
She spent the drive from Chelmsford back to police HQ thinking instead about the best way to approach Robyn Ingold. Whatever the ethical rights or wrongs of the situation, Grace was now even more determined that it had to be done. However, any official contact was likely to be counterproductive, and she knew nothing about the girl’s movements and routines that could point to any alternative way in. Grace racked her brains for some means to waylay her casually enough to create an illusion of coincidence, and in the end, lost for any better idea, decided she’d just have to barge into her life by whatever means she could. Her only lead was the black uniform Robyn had been wearing when Grace had gone to speak to Leonard the previous week. This suggested that Robyn attended one of the town’s few private schools, and also made it easy enough for Grace to identify which one.
Grace waited for the end of the school day and, judging that it wouldn’t be a good idea to invite a pupil to get into a strange car outside the school gates, covered the half-mile from the office on foot. Despite the murky January afternoon, Grace could see that the entrance, marked by brick piers, led to tree-lined grounds and buildings of mellow old red brick flanked by modern additions. Dozens of almost identically dressed girls, most of them well bundled up against the cold, were already streaming out to where waiting cars lined the wide residential street. Grace cursed her stupidity: how on earth in such a crowd could she hope to spot someone she’d met only once before? She looked around and noticed three school
buses parked on the far side of the road. If she stood opposite the zebra crossing, she’d have a clear view of all the girls waiting to cross.
For all Grace knew, Robyn was occupied with sports or some other activity and might not even be heading home at this time, but she had no alternative strategy and was in a hurry – not always the cleverest combination.
But suddenly there she was, emerging out of the sea of dark uniforms, with the same watchful, thoughtful expression she’d had as she’d stood leaning against the wall in her father’s workshop. She didn’t appear to be part of a group, and as soon as she reached the pavement Grace was able to step forward and fall in beside her. ‘Hello, Robyn. You remember me, don’t you?’
The girl looked terrified and very young, making Grace feel dreadful. She had little enough appetite for what she was about to do, but she was unlikely to get a second chance and would just have to go in hard and hope for the best. ‘I’m glad you called me yesterday,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry if I didn’t seem to be listening, but I’d just found a threatening note on my car windscreen.’
Robyn looked as shocked as Grace had intended. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Robyn said rudely. ‘Why would I want to call you?’
Grace kept her gaze fixed on the girl’s face, which was attractive, with clear skin, delicate features and dark greeny-brown eyes. She wasn’t very tall but seemed lithe and strong; the slightly too-short sleeves of her uniform blazer demonstrated that she hadn’t yet finished growing. The fear in her eyes showed that her insolence was a bluff, encouraging Grace to believe that she didn’t possess the ability to lie convincingly.
‘This isn’t a pretty business,’ Grace said, guiding her around a corner, away from the buses and into a residential side street. It was nearly four o’clock, and, with the winter afternoon drawing in and all the kids milling around the buses, no one noticed them walk away together. Grace stopped under a tree within sight of the hubbub but far enough away not to be disturbed by any of Robyn’s classmates. ‘I’m here because you were obviously distressed yesterday,’ she said. ‘I’m assuming you wouldn’t have called me otherwise. I came to offer you my help.’
Shot Through the Heart: DI Grace Fisher 2 Page 22