Denial (Sam Keddie Thriller Book 2)

by Paddy Magrane

  ‘I tell you, I saw her.’

  ‘But how can you be sure?’

  ‘It was the way she looked at me. It was her, damn it.’

  Silence.

  ‘She had that scar,’ added Tapper.

  ‘She can’t be the only African woman with a scar like that, Harry.’ The man’s voice had risen a notch. ‘It might be some tribal thing.’

  ‘A raised scar above one eye?’

  ‘Really, what are the chances of this?’

  ‘I don’t give a shit about odds,’ snapped Tapper, his voice louder. He closed his eyes. He had to stay calm. ‘It was her, I tell you. If you’d been there, you’d have recognised her too.’

  The other man’s voice was quieter when he next spoke. ‘So what are you going to do now?’

  ‘Don’t you mean “we”?’

  ‘Sorry. We.’

  ‘I’m looking for her.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She escaped,’ said Tapper.

  ‘Oh fuck.’ The man’s voice sounded choked. ‘Do you think she intends to hurt us?’

  Tapper thought of the look she gave him. That narrowing of the eyes, what he could only describe as hatred. ‘If she could, I think she would.’

  There was a deep intake of breath from the other man, as if he were summoning strength. ‘Let’s be rational about this. What could she really have on us?’

  ‘I’m not prepared to sit on my arse and wait to find out.’

  ‘But who would believe her – an illegal immigrant with a far-fetched story? And even if anyone did, would they have the motivation, let alone energy or resources, to investigate it?’

  Tapper took a swig of Armagnac, the liquid tracing a warming passage to his stomach. ‘That’s what I think when I’m being rational. When I’m not, I think about what she saw.’

  ‘I take it you destroyed the film.’

  ‘Christ. Need you ask?’

  The other man paused, weighing up his next words. ‘We can’t have any more PR disasters, Harry.’

  ‘I notice you’re not telling me to stop looking for her.’

  ‘You know I can’t get involved.’

  ‘But you’d sleep a lot more comfortably if you were sure she was out of the picture.’

  There was silent assent.

  ‘This can go one of two ways,’ continued Tapper. ‘Either the whole thing dies and we pursue our shared agenda. Or a scandal that would make WikiLeaks sound like office gossip is going to crush us both. I am going to do everything in my power to prevent that from happening. You need to understand that.’

  Chapter 14

  The Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel

  Sam woke. A dull light was leaking through a small gap in the curtains. He was momentarily lost, the grey room around him alien. But then he turned to his left, saw Eleanor, and knew, with a sickening lurch in his stomach, exactly where he was.

  He rose from the chair, turning his head from side to side to ease the stiffness in his neck. He went to the window and drew the curtains. It was snowing outside, heavy flakes forming a small wall against the window sill. The hospital rooftops below were covered with up to three inches, save where ventilation shafts puffed steam into the air, leaving a damp patch around their bases. It was as if the capital had been given a benign white cloak, beneath which all manner of dark activities might hide.

  ‘It’s snowing,’ he said. ‘Just as they said it would. This’ll slow everyone down.’

  He turned to look at Eleanor. She lay still, her eyes closed. She could have been sleeping, just like the night before last when he’d turned off her bedside light. He could feel his eyes prick with tears, and walked out of the room.

  In the seating area where he and Khan had spoken, Sam bought a coffee from the machine. A cup dropped into a small compartment and a steaming, grey-brown liquid spat into it. Sam took the cup and sat. A large man snored in a seat nearby, his shirt loose and bunched up, revealing an expanse of hairy belly.

  The breakfast news was on, the sound turned down low. Sam moved nearer the television so that he could hear it, desperate for something else in his head. The anchor was talking about the snow. There was an image of Westminster Bridge and a cab skidding on its surface.

  Then the anchor was back, saying something about a body found in the Regent’s Canal in Islington. There was footage of the scene, police tape stretched around an area of snow on a towpath. Behind, high walls and the backs of Georgian townhouses. Sam knew the spot well. He and Eleanor had shared a bottle of wine there one summer evening. They’d chatted to an old man who’d been sitting in a deck chair, the line of his fishing rod dangling in the canal’s murky depths.

  A reporter on the scene, bunched up in a puffa jacket, was talking about the person who’d been dragged from the canal. ‘The man, Tom Fitzgerald, is a forty-eight-year-old solicitor. Police are still unsure how Mr Fitzgerald ended up in the freezing water but according to sources close to the investigation, officers are following up a number of leads, including the solicitor’s most recent phone contacts. Fitzgerald was an immigration specialist, who worked with refugees and asylum seekers.’

  Sam’s stomach twisted. He and Fitzgerald both worked with the same client group. He might even have crossed paths with the man at Creech Hill. Was Eleanor’s attacker also behind the solicitor’s death?

  Sam rubbed his eyes. He was exhausted, not thinking straight. He began arguing with himself. Bar that one connection, the two events were very different. Fitzgerald had drowned in a canal, who knew how or why. Eleanor had disturbed a burglar. And yet when he factored in Zahra’s fears, the riot and her escape, he couldn’t shake a feeling of deep foreboding in his gut. That the man who’d thrown Eleanor against a radiator was really after him.

  He glanced at his mobile, desperate to distract himself from the dark thoughts in his head. It was 8am. He cursed. His first client arrived in an hour and a half. He needed to cancel – he couldn’t work while Eleanor lay in a coma. Sam noticed he had three missed calls from the previous evening, all from the same 0208 number. He’d call back later. Right now, he couldn’t face talking to anyone. He needed air.

  He stepped back into Eleanor’s room – barely able to look at the woman he loved, once so animated, now lying so still – and grabbed his coat. He would walk round the block and use the time to call his clients.

  He exited the warm hospital reception area. On the pavement, a narrow footpath had been carved out of the snow and he joined a shuffling file of people battling against a similar line moving in the opposite direction. A bus passed by. The snow had already been churned up by vehicles and the double-decker sent a thick wave of grey sludge on to the pavement and over Sam’s shoes.

  ‘Shit,’ he said, feeling icy liquid penetrate the leather to his feet. He thought again of Fitzgerald in the canal, and how the same sensation had spread, fatally, through his body.

  His mobile began vibrating in his coat pocket. Sam fumbled with a numb hand to pull it out, saw a number he did not recognise, and answered.

  ‘Sam Keddie.’

  ‘Sam.’

  At the sound of the softly spoken voice, Sam’s skin tingled. It was Zahra.

  He halted on the spot, prompting groans of protest from those who’d been walking directly behind him. He dodged to the side into a pile of ankle-deep snow.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘I can’t tell you.’

  ‘Are you OK?’

  There was a pause. ‘I didn’t kill him.’

  ‘Kill who?’

  ‘Tom Fitzgerald.’

  Sam ran a hand through his hair. ‘I’m sorry, Zahra, but I don’t understand.’

  He could hear that she was crying. ‘I asked Tom to meet me.’

  Sam felt as if the temperature had dropped another degree.

  ‘I was there when he was murdered.’

  Chapter 15

  Whitechapel, London

  The line went dead.

  Sam tried the num
ber again. It rang for over a minute, but no voicemail kicked in. He left it a minute, then tried once more, with the same result.

  He stood in the snow, the lines of pedestrians moving slowly past him in both directions.

  With frozen, lifeless fingers, he began rooting in his pockets, trying to find the card the DI had given him at the police station. Finally he located it. Realising that he didn’t want to conduct the conversation within earshot of dozens of people, he edged further into the snow that had been piled up against the side of the makeshift footpath.

  The number he called went straight to voicemail. ‘This is Detective Inspector Carl Emery. I can’t take your call at the moment. If you have an urgent matter that needs attention, please call the incident room on –’

  Sam left a message. ‘It’s Sam Keddie. I’ve just heard from someone called Zahra Idris. She was a client of mine at Creech Hill Immigration Detention Centre. Until yesterday, when she escaped. She said she was with Tom Fitzgerald when he was murdered. She got cut off and I can’t get hold of her now.’

  Ending the call, Sam’s head began to fill with thoughts, none of them pleasant. Events were beginning to connect and he didn’t like where they were leading one bit. His client had talked of feeling terrified of a man at Creech Hill. The next day she escaped during a riot. Hours later, his girlfriend was attacked and then, that same evening, another man linked to Zahra was killed. Sam felt sweat break out on his skin as his earlier theory solidified. Eleanor’s attacker was after him.

  He stood rooted to the spot, the idea taking hold, poisoning him with its implications. He had brought this on Eleanor. He had put her in that coma.

  But why would someone be after him and Fitzgerald? What possible danger did he and the solicitor present? The man who’d terrified Zahra was clearly the key, but without his identity, neither Sam nor Emery would be any nearer finding him. And only Zahra could help with that.

  Sam tried Zahra’s number again. It rang for about thirty seconds.

  ‘Hello?’ A man’s voice, slow and deliberate.

  ‘Can I speak to Zahra?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Zahra Idris. She just called me on this phone.’

  ‘You called me, buddy.’ He sounded drunk, his throat rattling like a heavy smoker’s.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Terry, mate.’

  ‘And where is this phone?’

  ‘What am I, the fucking operator? Fuck you.’

  Terry hung up.

  Sam tried again. Minutes passed. He gave up.

  As Sam felt frustration building, his mobile began ringing.

  ‘Sam Keddie.’

  ‘Mr Keddie, it’s DI Emery.’

  Sam repeated everything he could remember about Zahra’s phone call.

  ‘She was emphatic about it not being her,’ Sam said when he’d finished describing the brief conversation, suddenly aware that, in his haste to contact Emery, he might have implicated an innocent woman.

  ‘We need to discuss Ms Idris urgently, Mr Keddie. Where are you now?’

  ‘Whitechapel. Outside the hospital.’

  ‘Stay where you are. I’m sending a squad car now. Keep out of sight until it arrives.’

  Chapter 16

  Whitechapel, London

  The squad car arrived fifteen minutes later, pulling up outside the hospital entrance.

  In the back of the vehicle, the warm air spiked with an acidic note of vomit, Sam wiped a window free of condensation to look out. While traffic moved smoothly enough on treated streets, Londoners were struggling on the pavements. He saw an elderly woman being pulled by two teenage boys off the ground where she’d slipped. Long queues snaked away from bus stops, faces bluey-pink and beaten.

  In all likelihood, Zahra was already on Emery’s radar. If she’d contacted Fitzgerald, left a message, then they had a record of her asking to meet. She would only be eliminated if there were witnesses to the murder – and in the middle of the night that was unlikely – or she came forward.

  In the eastern edges of Stoke Newington the car picked up speed before turning left on to the high street. Five minutes later Sam was deposited outside the police station.

  Emery led him to an interview room, identical to the one he’d been in the night before.

  ‘Apologies about the room,’ he said. ‘No third degree, I promise.’ He smiled rather unconvincingly. ‘Can I get you a coffee?’

  Sam shook his head.

  ‘Right, first things first.’ Emery clasped his hands together. ‘We need to speak to Ms Idris. Do you have the number she called you from?’

  Sam found the number on his mobile and turned the screen to Emery. The DI scribbled it on a notepad then used his own phone. ‘Paul, it’s Carl. Need a location on this number.’ He repeated it twice.

  He laid his mobile on the table. ‘Can you tell me what you know about Zahra Idris?’

  ‘She’s my client.’

  ‘Well before you get tied up in issues of confidentiality, can I remind you how important she is to this enquiry? We have one man dead and your girlfriend –’

  Sam raised a hand. ‘I get it.’

  He gave Emery a pen portrait of Zahra, a brief description of the oppression she was escaping in Eritrea, her journey to the UK, the amnesia, the ups and downs of her asylum claim, and her encounter with the man in the suit. Sam felt grubby, like he’d betrayed her. But the image of Eleanor in that hospital bed soon brought him back to the importance of the task in hand.

  ‘Any previous issues with her mental health? Signs of paranoia?’

  ‘None.’

  At this, Emery frowned. ‘So, we have an escaped immigrant with amnesia, real or otherwise, who says she saw an evil man in a suit. But she doesn’t know why he seemed so threatening.’

  ‘Yup.’

  Emery blew out his cheeks. ‘Well, we know she contacted Fitzgerald. Left a message begging to meet. But beyond that, there’s nothing.’

  He leaned forward. ‘One thing I do know, Mr Keddie, and it’s this. You need to avoid your home for the time being. I don’t know how Fitzgerald ended up in that canal or what involvement Ms Idris may or may not have had, but we need to assume you’re in danger.’

  Sam’s heart, which had begun to calm, began hammering again.

  Emery’s phone rang.

  ‘Paul, what have you got?’

  A voice rattled off some details. Emery ended the call.

  ‘It’s a payphone on the Holloway Road apparently. So a dead-end.’ He scratched the stubble on his jaw.

  Sam remembered Terry. He was probably some pisshead stumbling out of a pub.

  ‘Have you got friends or family nearby, some place you can stay?’

  ‘No family,’ said Sam, with rather more emphasis than he’d intended. ‘And I can’t face friends right now.’

  ‘Then check into a hotel. There’s one in Stamford Hill which I’d recommend. Not because I’ve stayed there,’ he said, smiling weakly, ‘but because it’s close. Needless to say, if Idris calls, please tell her to get in touch. We need to speak to her. Now she will understandably think that if she comes forward, she’s going to be in shit whichever way it goes. That even if she’s cleared of Fitzgerald’s death, she’ll be going back to Eritrea.’ There was a pause. ‘So please tell her we will look favourably on any co-operation she can offer.’

  Sam nodded. ‘I need to go home. Get some clothes.’

  ‘Of course. But you’re going in a squad car.’

  *

  At the house, Sam noticed the torn ends of police tape still attached to the gate. He took his keys and opened the front door.

  The police officer who’d accompanied him went first. He peered into the consulting room, sitting room, then kitchen. Re-emerging in the hallway, he mounted the stairs. Moments later he came back down.

  ‘All good.’

  Sam went upstairs to his bedroom. He pulled a bag from inside the wardrobe and, numbly, began packing. As he was zipping the bag s
hut, his phone began to ring. It was another 0208 number. With his pulse gathering speed, Sam answered.

  At first there was silence at the other end. Then breathing.

  ‘Zahra?’

  ‘I’m ringing to say goodbye,’ came her hushed reply.

  Sam swallowed hard. Wherever she was planning to go, he had to stop her.

  ‘You must talk to the police, Zahra. Tell them what you saw.’

  ‘It’s not safe to do that.’

  Sam thought of Emery’s comment about Zahra fearing deportation. He’d been right. ‘They said they’d treat your co-operation favourably.’

  Sam immediately regretted his words. He thought of the way Emery had paused before making that offer, as if he’d just thought of it. Who was he to make such promises? Only the Home Office could do that. But Zahra’s reaction surprised him.

  He heard a short, lifeless laugh.

  ‘I’m not scared of being sent back to Eritrea,’ she said, some hint of strength in the words. ‘I’m scared of them.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The police.’

  ‘They’re not the same as they are in your country. There are laws in the UK. A justice system.’

  ‘Men in uniform are the worst.’

  ‘I promise, Zahra. The police are different here.’

  ‘I’m leaving,’ she said, her voice trembling.

  ‘Please.’

  ‘I can’t stay, Sam.’

  He paused, aware that his pleading was getting nowhere. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘The last place I felt safe,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t perfect. But it was better than this.’

  ‘Don’t do this, Zahra.’

  ‘Goodbye, Sam.’

  And with that, she hung up.

  Sam called back. Again, the phone rang endlessly. Sam pictured another payphone, Zahra walking rapidly away.

  Something about her phrasing triggered a memory. He ran downstairs, into the study. He pulled open a filing cabinet labelled A–J and began sifting through the files. When he got to clients with surnames beginning with ‘I’, he exhaled. Zahra’s file and case notes were still there.