Samir stopped it, freezing Tyrell as he opened his mouth to launch in again.
Robin exhaled. ‘Jesus.’
‘There’s more.’ He scrolled a couple of posts further down then hit ‘Play’ again on a wobbly bit of video taken on someone’s phone. The angle was awkward – it had been shot from overhead, she guessed a first-floor window – but they were looking at the street where they’d arrested Gupta, Peterson’s Ford Transit at the kerb with its rear doors open, Gupta in handcuffs being lifted back to his feet by the arrest team, who in all their gear looked dressed for a riot rather than a single frightened man. She watched herself and Varan appear from the left-hand side and then the camera zoomed right in, lingering on every face it could, one after another, filling the screen: her, Varan, Too Posh to Pick, a couple of the arrest team and then, for a long time, Gupta himself.
The video ended and they looked at each other. ‘He needs to take that down,’ Robin said. ‘Now. All of it.’
‘I’ve called Cyber.’ Samir stepped away from the desk to pace in front of his window, moving in and out of silhouette. ‘They’re on it.’
‘Showing his picture like that – bloody hell. How many people have seen it?’ She scrolled back to Tyrell’s own video, which had a hundred and forty-two views, and nine shares. As she watched, another two views were added. She skimmed the twenty-seven comments, all of them some variant of ‘immigrant scum’ or ‘string him up, the murdering bastard’.
The video from Sparkbrook, which had been posted last night, had been viewed three hundred and twenty times.
Suddenly it occurred to her: ‘How does he know already – Tyrell? We let Gupta go at five thirty this morning and this was posted at’ – she looked – ‘eight twenty-two.’
They looked at each other.
‘Is he watching us?’ Robin said. ‘Has he got some tame creep lurking outside?’ She thought of the feeling of eyes on her. Of Martin Engel.
‘Or did someone just tell him?’ said Samir.
‘Who?’
‘Is there anyone who could know,’ he said, ‘apart from the team here? Did you tell anyone?’
‘Lennie,’ she said. ‘She asked if we’d caught the guy. She knew about the arrest yesterday morning, I had to tell her I’d be gone when she woke up, and she asked last night if it was him. She knows the drill, though – she’d never talk to anyone about an active case.’ Then Robin had another thought. ‘Her friend Austin was there last night when we talked about it – he’d walked her home.’
‘What’s his story?’
‘Seventeen, big brother of one of her new best friends, they’ve got a mutual crush, I think. He’s bright, cool – interested in politics.’ She remembered what he’d said about bent coppers, racists.
‘Interested how?’ said Samir. ‘And how interested?’
She shook her head. ‘Not like that. And there’s no way he’d be in with Tyrell’s mob – he’s black.’
‘We don’t know yet where Tyrell got the video – it wouldn’t need to be one of his mob, necessarily, or even a sympathizer. He could have found it online, on someone else’s Facebook page. Maybe the zooming in,’ he gestured towards his computer, ‘was about police accountability. Either that or it was just something interesting going on outside, something to post and get a few likes.’
Robin felt her face redden. ‘I told Kev it wasn’t him, too.’
‘Kev? Why?’
‘He got in touch last night to see how Luke was. Then he asked how the case was going.’
‘Did you tell him Gupta was being released this morning?’
‘No, of course not, only that we hadn’t got a solve.’ Oh yeah, she was tempted to say, the precise details of murder cases are pillow talk round my way.
Samir looked out of his window for a moment then turned back. ‘I’ve asked Cyber to find out where he got the video.’
She sat down heavily in one of the bucket chairs. ‘God, man, this case.’
He looked at her sharply. ‘Are you still all right with it?’
‘What?’ She was immediately on guard. ‘Yes, of course I bloody am. Why would you even ask that?’ Had Kilmartin said something?
‘Earlier, when we passed each other in the car, you looked very stressed. I stopped to say hello but you didn’t register.’
She thought quickly: should she tell him? If Kilmartin wanted her off the case, she might be playing right into his hands, giving Samir the perfect excuse to hand it over to someone else without embarrassing her. On the other hand, as a matter of pride, she couldn’t let him think it was work that was stressing her out. ‘My dad had called a couple of minutes before that,’ she said. ‘He’s in the QE with Mum; they think she’s had a stroke.’
His reaction was instant, eyebrows pulling into a deep V of concern. ‘Oh, God, Rob. I’m so sorry. When? How is she?’
She told him what her father had said. ‘That’s all they know at the moment, as far as I know. They’re waiting to see the doctor again, and I’m waiting to hear from them.’
‘Will you keep me posted?’
She nodded.
‘You’re going to need time to visit, to be there – do you want me to …?’
‘I want to work,’ she said. ‘I need to. It won’t do any good, will it, my hanging around there, winding everyone up?’ She saw his puzzlement and remembered that he came from a functional family. ‘Luke’s with her at the moment and Dad’s worried we’ll have a fight and the stress of it will finish her off.’
The frown deepened. ‘Are you serious?’
‘As a heart attack. Or maybe a stroke.’ She stood up quickly, embarrassed. He knew better than anyone what Luke was like but even with him – especially with him, said a quiet voice – it was embarrassing to admit that her parents still didn’t think she could be trusted to behave in a time of crisis. ‘Well, I’d best get on. Time and tide wait for no woman.’ She gave him a bright smile and legged it.
Back in her office, she found an email from Frazer MacDonald in Newcastle.
DCI Lyons, good to talk yesterday. As you asked, I’ve checked here whether DNA for Miriam was collected during the initial enquiry and I’m sorry to say that while it was – a sample of hair from her brush – it was apparently destroyed by accident during a departmental clear-out in 2014. Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings.
Great. She checked her phone yet again; still nothing from her dad. Why not? Could they still be waiting or had something happened? Had her mother deteriorated? What if she’d had another stroke and was dying and … Stop, she told herself; just stop. Even if she did have another stroke, she’d have care immediately, and her dad would send news when there was any. She knew what hospitals were like, how overworked they were – talk about budget cuts. They were waiting, that’s all. Could they be, though, another voice asked. It had been an hour and a half now since her dad rang.
For God’s sake, Robin, stop it.
Quickly, she reached for the file of the Gisborne Girl’s scene photographs and fanned them out on the desk. There she was in her blood-soaked T-shirt, her eyelids violet, rich brown hair fanned out behind her. In Samir’s office, she’d felt a stab of something like panic at the idea of losing the case and not being able to help her, the same weird protective feeling she’d had when Varan had suggested putting Lara Meikle on the whiteboard instead. No, no, no, don’t worry, she’d wanted to say to her, I’ve got you. I’m not going to leave you.
They still don’t even know who she is. She imagined Tyrell mocking her – Oh yeah? You’ve got her? God help her!
‘I don’t know who you are yet,’ she said to the girl under her breath, ‘but I will. I promise you I will.’
Going back to her email, she sent DI MacDonald a reply, thanking him and asking if he knew what had become of Miriam’s sister, Judith.
His response arrived in seconds: ‘I’m sorry, I don’t.’
A whoop came from the incident room. Looking through her door, she saw that the commotio
n was coming from the CCTV crew. ‘Tark?’
‘We’ve got it, guv.’
She stood and went out there. ‘Got what?’
The CCTV team were grouped behind Phil Howell. Over his shoulder she could see his screen, a dark image moving at its centre. They moved aside for her and he played it again. ‘Vaughton Street,’ he said. ‘Further along than yesterday, nearer the turn to Angelina Street.’ They were looking at the same figure – tall, white, dark trousers, dark top, cap. He moved with the same hurried walk, eyes never leaving the pavement.
Suddenly another figure appeared at the right of the screen, a woman in a dark skirt and a lighter blouse, her bag pressed tight to her side. ‘Lara Meikle,’ said Robin, and as if the man onscreen had said the words, Lara looked up. She stopped in her tracks – it was instantaneous. A second, maybe two, then she turned and started running back the way she’d come just as he started running, too, hand outstretched, snatching at the bag-strap as it flew out behind her. Then they were gone, and the film showed the empty street.
Silence – respect for what they’d just witnessed, likely some of the terrified last moments of Lara Meikle’s life, the moment her evening out with a friend became the night she died.
Robin spoke first. ‘Is that it?’
‘I think so,’ Howell said. ‘I’ve fast-forwarded through the next twenty minutes and there’s no sign of either of them. I’ll watch it at normal speed to make sure, obviously.’
‘What time is this?’ said Malia, who’d joined the group on the other side.
He pointed to the numbers at the bottom right of the screen. ‘Twelve twenty-one. Spot on.’
‘Do they speak?’ Robin said. ‘That moment just after she sees him – does she say something?’
Howell went back. The graininess of the tape made it hard to be sure but it did look like Lara’s mouth moved. ‘Is it a shriek, a cry of alarm, or is it a word? Can you zoom in, Phil?’
He homed right in on Lara’s face until the pixels gave her a cubed Lego outline. It was hard to be sure – they’d have to have it technically enhanced to say with any degree of certainty– but it looked as if her lips had moved twice, made two sounds, not a scream, then, but a word.
‘His name?’ said Malia.
‘You think she recognizes him?’ Tark said.
‘I don’t know,’ Robin looked at the screen. ‘Let’s see it again.’
‘I think she does,’ Malia said. ‘She’s scared straight away, isn’t she? Straight away.’
‘It’s after midnight on an empty street, though, she’s a woman on her own,’ said Robin. ‘Does he say anything?’
They watched the man’s face in close-up three times. His lips parted, they definitely did, but whether enough to say something, it was impossible to tell.
‘Right. Well, I think this answers one question at least: in the first bit of tape, from the tool-hire shop, he was hurrying, wasn’t he? He knew she was coming. So now we have to figure out how. Tark, we’ll need to trace him backwards and forwards. Varan, let’s get back on social and make absolutely sure there’s no way he could have worked it out from there; we need tape from the pub and the bar if we don’t already have it.
‘We also need those phone records. Right now. Call your guy at the phone company, Malia, and tell him that unless they’re here within the hour, they’ll be looking at an obstruction charge.’
‘With pleasure.’
‘Good work, Phil – guys – this is major. Let’s get the best still we can from the tape and also a clip – not the bit where he tries to grab her, that’s too distressing. Let’s see if any of Lara’s people recognize him first – even if we can’t see much of his face, his walk’s distinctive. Failing that, social media.’ Good, she thought, this would stop Tyrell going on about Gupta, brandishing his picture.
‘Any sign of this guy around Gisborne’s, Tark?’
‘No.’ He looked at his team, who shook their heads, too.
‘How are we doing with footage from Warwick Street now?’
‘Not brilliant.’ He indicated two tapes in his wire tray. ‘That’s all we’ve got left to look at fresh.’
‘We’re struggling to get any more,’ Malia said. ‘Apart from the broken cameras, there’s nothing like the office building on that side, it’s all still industrial. One place had fake cameras for the deterrent value, and the place diagonally opposite tried to tell us that their MD was on his honeymoon and he was the only one who could access it. I’ve told them that, happily, we have people who can access it, too, and we’ll be sending them over pronto.’
‘Good. Varan, could you call Too Posh Peterson and see if he’s heard from Gupta?’
‘You think he’s gone to work? After spending the night in the nick?’
‘It’s possible, just about, time-wise. I want to keep an eye on him,’ she told them. ‘We’ve got a right-wing bigot flashing his picture round, talking about how we’ve screwed up by letting him go, so I don’t want to take any chances. Let’s ask the city centre team to look out for him as well. My feeling is, he’ll be back at work tomorrow if he wasn’t today. The crooked father-in-law may have paid his dad back the thirty-five thousand but, in the meantime, he’s not going to get far on the fourteen pounds he left here with.’
Also, she thought, after what he’d been through, he might need to be with people who spoke his own language. Alone in a foreign country, defrauded, arrested on suspicion of murder by armed police – who wouldn’t want the comfort of someone they could talk to?
‘A TIA – Transient Ischaemic Attack.’ The relief in her dad’s voice as it reached her down the line, like a boulder had been lifted off his ribcage. ‘A mini-stroke.’
‘Is that good? What’s the difference?’
‘With a stroke-stroke, the blood vessel in the brain’s either burst or blocked permanently, the doctor said, but with a mini, it’s temporary – the blockage moves on, and the damage isn’t permanent.’
‘Thank God, Dad.’
‘I know. She can move her arm again – not all the way yet, but it’s been getting better and better for an hour now, and her speech is much, much clearer. And her lovely face is getting back to normal, too.’
Relief, quickly followed by frustration. An hour? She’d been over here biting her nails for an hour and they hadn’t thought she might like to know? For Christ’s sake – what would it have taken Luke to text her?
‘That’s really good news,’ she said. ‘But what now? What are they saying?’
‘Well, they don’t want us to think we’re out of the woods yet, they want us to know it’s serious, but now it’s about making sure it doesn’t happen again.’
‘So, what? Blood thinners?’
‘Blood thinners, yes, aspirin, warfarin, and after that, diet and exercise, life on the straight and narrow.’ The slightly manic laugh of a man newly delivered from the jaws of doom.
‘Dad, I know what Mum’s like, she’d say she was fine if she’d been hanged, drawn and quartered, but was this really out of the blue? Wasn’t there any warning?’
‘No, no warning.’ He paused. ‘Or not really. Her cholesterol, though – her GP’s been on at her about that for a while.’
Sticky high-cholesterol blood and sixty-two-year old arteries – decades of roasts and cooked breakfasts and cream sauces exacting their price. Blood money. ‘So how long will she be there? Are they keeping her in?’
‘Oh no,’ said her father breezily. ‘Not overnight. They’re going to monitor her for a little bit, her blood pressure’s a bit high – probably the shock of it all – but then she’ll come home and be spoiled rotten there.’
Chapter Twenty-two
Back in the game, Robin thought, mentally rubbing her hands together as she rolled her chair up to her desk. Twenty minutes ago, having drawn a blank among Lara’s family and close friends, they’d posted the CCTV clip and they already had a new witness, a taxi driver who said he’d seen him on Upper Highgate Street, shortly after
one a.m. on Tuesday. The air in the incident room was static with keyboards and phone conversations, voices full of new determination: We’re going to get you, you cretin, oh yes we are.
Her mobile rang – Kev. She rejected the call; she’d ring him back in a bit, she needed to capitalize on this energy, her brain was snapping away like a game of Hungry Hippos. Reaching for her notebook, she turned to a blank page and started writing as fast as she could, pen skimming across the paper. From the corner of her eye, she saw her mobile screen light up again. Kevin Y, said the screen. She rejected the call again but ten seconds later the screen lit up a third time. She put down her pen.
‘Kev, what’s up?’
‘Have you seen it?’
‘What?’
‘Mum’s just called me – we’re all over the Daily Herald website.’
‘We? Who?’
‘You and me. But obviously it’s you they’re …’ He sounded pained. ‘Ugh, you’re not going to like it, Rob.’
OUT TO LUNCH: LEAD DETECTIVE RELAXES AS DOUBLE MURDER ROCKS BIRMINGHAM
… DOWN-TIME ALSO FEATURED TRYST WITH SECRET LOVER
The brutal murders of two young women within 48 hours have shocked the city of Birmingham to its core but at least one person doesn’t seem worried: Detective Chief Inspector Robin Lyons – the Senior Investigating Officer on the case.
Tasked with finding the killer responsible for stabbings so vicious a witness described one of the scenes as ‘like a horror movie’, DCI Lyons responded by taking a lengthy lunchbreak at a chi-chi café in the upscale Harborne area of the city. Later, under cover of darkness, she got hot and heavy in the front seat of her lover’s brand-new C-Class Mercedes.
Risk of Harm Page 18