by Conrad Jones
“No.” He smiled wider than before.
“You said you were Patrick.” She put her warrant card away and closed her bag. Her face looked like thunder. The guy was a letch, and he was mucking her around. One wrong move and she would be officially annoyed.
“I am Patrick.” He shrugged. “But I am not Patrick Floyd.”
Kisha looked at her list again. “What is your full name please, Sir?” She looked at him sternly. “You are wasting police time.”
“Patrick Lloyd, Officer,” he saluted and bowed dramatically.
“Lloyd?”
“Lloyd,” he smiled.
“Not Floyd?” She blushed again.
“Nope, Lloyd, not Floyd.” Patrick felt adrenalin rushing through his veins as she blushed. She looked vulnerable and weak. She looked easy to hurt. Hurting her would be fun. It was years since he had sliced black skin. Maybe it was about time he experienced it again. He had been to Africa many times in his life. He loved their skin, and he loved the way people could be taken without anybody noticing.
“Okay, Patrick Lloyd,” she tried to recover her composure. Her partner’s handwriting was dreadful. So bad he couldn’t read it himself sometimes. He had entered Floyd into the computer instead of Lloyd, the wrong name but the correct address. “Have you ever worked for a company called Ashfords?”
He frowned and shook his head. “No, sorry. Who are they?”
“Estate agents in town,” she answered. She saw a flicker of recognition in his eyes. “They have you down as a registered key holder.”
“Me or Patrick Floyd?” He forced a laugh but it wasn’t convincing. The bitch could tell he was lying. He had to hold himself together. It had never occurred to him that the police might connect him to that unit from a key holders list, which was years old. She was here looking for a key holder to a unit where a murder had been committed, but she was alone. They didn’t have him down as a suspect yet, or there would be a dozen uniforms behind her.
Kisha raised her eyebrows in warning. “Have you ever been a key holder, Mr Lloyd?”
“Yes,” he nodded and smiled convincingly. “It was the Ashfords thing that confused me.”
“Explain it to me, please,” she asked sarcastically. Patrick Lloyd was behaving like a man with something to hide.
“Look, I worked for a security company called First Security. I was a key holder a few times for them. Maybe one of the sites was for this Ashfords firm?”
“When was this?” She asked.
“Years ago,” he shrugged. He didn’t maintain eye contact. This was all circumstantial for now, but he knew he had left too much evidence behind. He had been greedy. Stealing the money and drugs from the Gecko had been a mistake, and keeping Louise in the unit for so long had been, too. They had found her, and now they would find her killer. Nate Bradley was pissed off with him, big time. He still had the lump on the back of his skull where he had knocked him out. It could have been worse. He could have slit his throat and left him there to bleed out. It was time to move on. His life as Patrick Lloyd was almost over. “I was sacked after two weeks, sticky fingers back in those days. I did a bit of time for it. Sorry, I was a little embarrassed,” Patrick lied. He had done time, but not for stealing. Well, not stealing exactly.
“Can you remember which properties you held the keys for?” Kisha asked. He was on the key holder list, but if they were subcontracting the security out, then anyone could have used the keys. Patrick Lloyd was nervous, but his admitting to being sacked for theft could explain that. Ex-cons were always nervous around police officers. She decided to explore the issue without revealing anything about the crime she was investigating.
“Not really,” he smiled. “They were in town mostly. Like I said, I was only with them for a few weeks.”
“Did you inspect any industrial sites?” Kisha watched his eyes closely. He seemed to be thinking about the answer, but she didn’t think he was lying.
“It was all industrial stuff we watched.” He turned and walked toward the front door. “I’m a bit of a hoarder. I know I have the job description and all my contracts in a file along with the schedules I worked. Do you want me to get them?”
“Yes, please.” Kisha was on red alert. Either Patrick Lloyd was genuine, or he was going to run out of the backdoor of the house. She had to decide which. His house was clean and well kept. The type of man that mopped his floors with bleach could easily be the type of man that kept paperwork organised in files for years. He seemed harmless enough.
“It won’t take me a minute, if you want to wait there.” He looked at her for permission to go into the house. “Or you can wait inside, if you think I’m going to do a runner.” He smiled again. Patrick decided that if she stayed outside, he would be gone out of the backdoor. He always parked his van in the alleyway behind his house. He could be half a mile away before she would realise he wasn’t coming back. If she followed him inside, he was going to hurt her so badly she would wish she had never been born. She would beg for her own death. He could hear her sobbing in the dark part of his mind, and her sobbing turned him on. Patrick hoped she was going to come inside.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Salim Oguzhan
Alec watched a huge oil tanker drifting past on its way to the Irish Sea and the Atlantic beyond. The vessel dwarfed the other ships and ferries that were on the Mersey, going about their business. The smell of the sea was drifting in on the breeze, and seagulls called to each other as they soared above the water. There was the roar of an engine and a loud splashing sound as a winch began to pull a vehicle from the murky green waters. He waved to the driver to stop the engine while they got ready to inspect the submerged Porsche. The recovery team had parked a breakdown truck at the top of a slipway, ten miles upstream from the unit where they had found Louise Parker. The slipway was on an isolated part of the river used by a local rowing club to launch their skulls. Unfortunately, its isolated position had done nothing to keep the press away. A number of uniformed officers were holding back a crowd of reporters.
“That lot are going to wet their pants over this,” Will said.
“How long have they been following the divers?” Alec asked.
“The first reporter turned up at the second dive site and a pack of photographers and news hounds soon joined her.” Will shook his head. “You know what they’re like. They live in each other’s pockets. You never get just one. They followed the divers from one slipway to the next and waited for them to find something. I bet their twitter accounts are buzzing!”
“Bloody hell,” Alec muttered. “There must be ten cameras up there.”
“The arrival of the head of Liverpool’s Major Investigation Team will have fuelled speculation that we have found something juicy to write about,” Will laughed. “When you turned up the Blackberries went into meltdown.”
Alec was furious. Despite his strict instructions, someone had tipped off the press. “I can’t fucking believe it!” He hissed beneath his breath. “Enquiries from the press and television news desks have swamped the telephones this morning.”
“It was bound to come out, Guv,” Will said with a smirk.
“I didn’t think it would come from one of our own, Will.” Alec knew it had come from the team.
“Are you sure it has come from us?”
“I wasn’t sure at first,” Alec admitted, “but after a few quick calls to our press contacts, I found out that the Echo is about to reveal the details of the investigation in tonight’s edition.”
“How much have they got?” Will asked.
“My contact tells me they have the victim’s name and they’re in possession of the knowledge that there could be other victims linked to the case. The nationals will be all over it tomorrow.”
“What about the Oguzhan family?”
“Not yet, but it won’t take long.”
“That information could only have come from within the team.” Will spat into the water. He suddenly had a bad taste in
his mouth. “I’ll put a month’s wages on who it is.”
“That doesn’t help, Will,” Alec warned. “We’ve been wrong about leaks before.”
“There’s no way of dragging the Porsche out without that lot getting an eyeful.” Will nodded toward the cameras.
It was the fifth access ramp the police divers had searched, and this time they had found a white Porsche lurking in the muddy river.
“Pull it out!” Alec waved to the recovery truck. The motor roared; the cable took the weight and began to pull. The rear of the vehicle came into view first, and Alec clocked the number plate, “Sal 1.”
“That is the Porsche driven by Salim Oguzhan,” Will said as the truck dragged the vehicle up the ramp.
Alec, Will and a SOCO approached it in silence, each one of them thinking their own thoughts about the fate of the vehicle’s owner. Water poured through the door seals from inside the vehicle. It became obvious that there was nobody sitting inside the two-seater. It was possible Salim had dumped the vehicle himself, but unlikely. The likelihood was he was rotting in the boot of the Porsche.
“Hold her there for a minute,” Alec shouted to the recovery team, which consisted of a group of divers and a breakdown truck. “I’ll check the boot,” the SOCO said. She walked towards the back of the vehicle and used a gloved hand to pop the boot.
“You’re wasting your time there,” Will laughed. “You couldn’t fit your weekly shopping in the back. All the room is under the bonnet.”
Will pulled rubber gloves on. They made a snapping noise as they hit his wrists. He opened the driver’s door and peered inside. Water gushed out of the foot-wells. The bonnet popped up as he clicked the release. Alec reached the front bonnet and lifted it up in one smooth movement.
“Salim Oguzhan, I presume.” Alec tried to hold his breath as the stench of putrid flesh reached his nose. He looked toward the snapping cameras and shook his head. “There is no sign of the boy. I think the spotlight is about to stop on us. How long before that lot connect this registration plate to Salim?”
“Tomorrow at a rough guess,” Will grunted. He was no fan of the press. They had crucified him when news of his affair had broken. “Linking Louise Parker to Salim won’t take them long either. What do you think?” Will asked the SOCO as she looked into the vehicle.
“Estimating how long he has been in the water is the post mortem interval, and it is difficult to judge.” She shook her head. The body was badly decomposed. “The temperature of the water is the most important factor governing the decomposition changes that you can see.” She took a pair of white plastic tweezers and pulled at the body.
“There are advanced signs of immersion and wrinkling of skin on the palms and soles. Loosening of the skin, hair and nails and the maceration of the hands and feet is equally well advanced and there is some complete detachment of the skin here, which indicates the decomposition is well into the second week. That’s the best I can do for now.”
“Thanks, Doc.” Alec stood up; happy the body was indeed Salim Oguzhan’s. He wanted to get away from the stench. “Who’s breaking the story at the Echo?” Will asked.
“Get this onto the truck please. I want it in the forensic lab as soon as,” Alec instructed the SOCO. “Make sure the body gets to Dr Libby, please.”
“Yes, Guv.” She barked orders to the uniformed men in the recovery truck. They worked at dragging the Porsche onto the back of the truck where they would hide it from view with tarpaulin. It was too late to hide the registration plate from the cameras, despite screens at the top of the ramp. Zoom lenses had captured it before it had come out of the water.
“She’s a Rottweiler called Lara Bridge, one of the youngest editors to work there,” Alec told Will. “Apparently she’s destined for one of the redtops, an ambitious type.”
“The worst journalists are ambitious!” Will laughed.
“Nothing wrong with being ambitious, but one of my team is talking to her, and I have a problem with that,” Alec frowned. “I have tried to fathom out why anyone would disclose details of the murder investigation. I can’t see why.”
“The only answers I can come up with are money or sex,” Will said. “Of course sex is always a motive to blab, but I wouldn’t believe one of our officers would be so stupid as to trust a reporter in bed.”
“Whatever their motives are, we need to silence the leak.”
“I think we should speak to Lara Bridge and get it straight from the horse’s mouth,” Will said.
“I’ll leave that to you,” Alec said. “Tell her we want to go public with the disappearance of Amir Oguzhan. If she is going to blow the case open, then let’s use the publicity to help us find him.”
“Okay, Guv. I’ll call her to meet up when we get back to the station.”
“One more thing, Will,” Alec added as an afterthought.
“What?” Will took his phone out of his pocket and was ready to dial the reporter to arrange a meeting.
“I want Salim Oguzhan’s grandfather informed of his death, and I want to speak to him as soon as possible. No one else from the family, Will, I want to speak to his grandfather, okay?”
“No problem, Guv.”
Thirty-Eight
Dean
“Denise, I’ll be an hour, tops,” Dean held his sobbing wife tightly. Her tears were making his t-shirt wet at the shoulder. “I have to open the safe and drop off some money, Babe. Jackson has gone walkabout and Leon is in London. No one else can open that safe.”
“Your kids could be dead in an hour, Dean,” her body shook, racked with sobs. She thumped his chest with a clenched fist. A nurse came into the room and eyed them coolly. She was used to seeing families falling apart and squabbling while their children teetered on the edge of life and death. Some families cemented their differences and pulled together, but the pressure pulled others apart. Any rifts in their relationships became chasms, and blame and guilt became bitter weapons.
“Your children are hanging on,” the nurse said without looking at them. She was helping without appearing to interfere. “If there is something important you need to do, then do it now, and hurry.”
“I will be an hour, no more, I promise,” Dean lifted her chin with his hand and looked into her eyes.
“I cannot see what can be more important than your children.” She pushed his hands away and walked across the room. Her mother hugged her shoulders and glared at Dean. She communicated her opinion successfully without saying a word.
“Look, its work.” Dean sighed. “If anyone else could go, then I wouldn’t think about leaving the kids, but I have no choice.”
“What can possibly be that important, Dean?” Denise snapped. “Washing machines from China, mobile phones from Japan or pine scatter cushions from Timbuktu?” She put her head to one side and looked like a little girl. Mascara ran down her cheeks. “What can be so important that you would lie to me all the time, Dean?”
“What?” Dean raised his hands in despair. “What the hell are you talking about?” His guts clenched.
“Do you think I’m stupid, Dean?” She shook her head and wiped tears from her eyes. “Do you really think that I don’t know what that fat bastard Leon does?”
“Now is not the time,” Dean snapped. She was right. He had been a fool to believe that Denise would never find out what he did, a complete fool. She was not stupid. Her family and friends were from the areas Leon exploited. He was a name about town and everyone knew that Dean worked for him. “I’ll be an hour at the most. We can talk when I get back.”
Dean looked to his father-in-law for support, but Denise’s father couldn’t look him in the eye. He stared at the floor. It was obvious that the family thought it was outrageous to think of going to work when his children were in intensive care. Dean didn’t have a choice. If Leon’s men didn’t turn up at the docks with the cash, then there would be no deal, and all professional trust, built up over years would be lost. It wouldn’t take him long to open the safe
and drop off the money. He didn’t have to execute the deal. He shrugged and headed for the exit stairwell. There was no other option, and he would be as quick as possible. What could go wrong?
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Forensics
Alec had called the entire team together. Graham Libby had a batch of crucial results to communicate, and there was a buzz of anticipation around the MIT office. Everyone was present except Kisha, and Alec noticed her absence. The digital screen flickered into life and Alec clapped his hands to get the room’s attention.
“Okay, we need to get started. You all know DS Eales, head of the Armed Response Unit. I’ve asked him to listen in, as we will be working together on the case from this afternoon,” he began. “Stevie, where is Kisha?”
“She’s out talking to key holders, Guv.” Stevie looked at the screen where she had added a note beneath his data entry. “She has three people on her list. They’re all on one of Ashford’s’ key holder lists.” Stevie was annoyed that Kisha had gone out without him, but then again, he had done it first. She was a frosty bitch, no matter how hard he tried; she was not warming to his charms. She was probably a lesbian. He had heard the rumours, but he was convinced he could get inside her knickers. It was only a matter of time. He clocked the address she had gone to. It was a shithole near Anfield. Stevie was going to be nice to her and pretend to be interested in what she had to say when she came back. He decided to ask her out for a meal as a peace offering. A nice bottle of Chardonnay would go a long way towards getting her into bed.
“Why is she on her own?” Alec frowned. He was not one to reprimand officers in public, but the question was on everyone’s lips. It was common knowledge that Kisha and Stevie were not getting on, but there was protocol to follow and procedures to stick to. Interviewing witnesses alone was not encouraged.
“We decided to split the list of key holders between us and save time, Guv.” Stevie turned red as he lied. Smithy coughed behind a huge fist to communicate his disbelief. The big ginger detective was having none of it. Stevie had broken the rules by going out alone. Kisha had followed suit in protest at him leaving her to process data in the office. She was a good detective and deserved better than being chained to a desk. There were several sniggers around the room as Stevie wilted beneath their withering glances.