by Alison James
‘Except that he hasn’t paid the lawyer,’ Rachel reminded him. ‘Hence my theory about taking the law into his own hands.’
‘Another little chat with young Andy next, then.’ Brickall started the engine and drove back to JBH Distribution, parking at the side of the building. As he cut the ignition, Rachel made to open the passenger door, but he put a hand on her arm and restrained her.
‘Hold on, Tonto. Let’s try and use the element of surprise this time. We should see where he heads after he’s finished at work.’
‘Yes, probably.’ Rachel sat back. ‘The trouble is, we don’t know how long it’ll be before he leaves. He could be working a late shift.’ The prospect of being unable to bend her knee for several more hours did not appeal.
‘Come on, Prince, you know you love a good stakeout! Ninety-five per cent utter tedium; five per cent cardiac-arrest-causing stress. I’ll get supplies.’
‘No, I will,’ said Rachel firmly. ‘I need to stretch my leg.’
She trudged up to the parade of local shops and came back with Brickall’s five a day: crisps, biscuits, chocolate bars, sweets and cans of fizzy drinks. He was busy on his phone when she returned.
‘Just texting Amber.’
Rachel looked blank.
‘Amber Crowley, the hot barrister.’
‘How did you get her number?’
He tapped the side of his nose.
‘Please don’t tell me that was another abuse of your access to personal information… Anyway, didn’t she blow you out?’
‘I lifted her number from the Bogdhani case file. And no, she didn’t, not entirely. She said maybe coffee, remember? So I thought I’d give her a second crack at the goods. It would be a shame for her to miss out on this.’ He indicated his conventionally good-looking features. ‘Who wouldn’t want to experience a law-enforcing love god?’
Rachel was about to name some people for whom this might not be an enticing prospect when she was distracted by her phone bleeping. It was a text from Stuart.
Hi, Rae, I’m in London for a couple more days, and I’d still like the chance to talk properly before I leave. It would help us both to close this chapter, I think. I wondered if you’d like to meet up again. I have a couple of tickets for Covent Garden tonight. La Traviata. I have a box.
Rachel sighed. As if mentioning the cost of the seats would swing it.
Sorry, I’m on ops at the moment.
Well, it was true. But even if it hadn’t been, she would have come up with some excuse. She had blanked out the strange and abrupt ending of their marriage for so long that it seemed impossible to make things right by discussing it further. Especially in an opera box. She just wanted to sign the divorce papers and be done.
By the time Andy Whittier appeared with the rest of the early shift, Brickall had munched his way through the crisps, the chocolate and half the biscuits, and they were both starting to get restless. Andy walked out of the warehouse waving cheerily to a couple of colleagues who were leaving at the same time, and climbed into his car. But he didn’t drive off. He sat and waited.
An hour later, it was almost dark. Andy was still sitting motionless in his car.
‘What the fuck’s he doing?’ grumbled Brickall. ‘Why hasn’t he left?’
‘That’s kind of the point of surveillance: to find out.’
‘Sod this, I need a slash.’ He disappeared for ten minutes, and came back with a kebab and chips, which filled the car with the smell of fried onions.
By 7.45, the last of the late-shift workers were leaving, but Andy was still in his car. Gradually the car park emptied, and the lights in the building were extinguished one by one. A uniformed security guard arrived and positioned himself in a booth at the front of the building. At the exact moment Andy Whittier left the car, walked round to the back of the building and disappeared from view.
‘He’s gone back in again,’ observed Brickall, through a mouthful of Maltesers.
‘No shit, Sherlock… Oh, hold on.’ Rachel pointed as discreetly as possible. ‘Who’s this?’
A battered estate car drove up, and a familiar figure got out.
‘Bingo!’ she said with satisfaction. ‘It’s brother Gavin.’
Gavin also disappeared around the back of the building, out of sight of the security guard. Brickall hastily tossed the bag of chocolates onto the back seat with the congealed remains of the kebab, now fully alert. A few minutes later, the men came out together, with Gavin carrying something wrapped in a bright blue plastic tarpaulin. It was several feet in length, not heavy enough to need both men but bulky enough to slow his movements.
‘Oh Christ,’ breathed Brickall. ‘Surely not…’
Andy opened the hatchback on the estate and Gavin carefully laid the bundle down inside before climbing into the driver’s seat. Andy headed back to his own car.
‘My favourite,’ said Brickall, starting the engine and sliding skilfully and silently forwards. ‘Car chase.’
* * *
They followed the two cars at a discreet distance to a small, modern housing development not far from where Terry Harper lived. Both cars came to a stop outside a brick townhouse: Gavin’s car parked on the drive in front of the integral garage, Andy’s stopped at the kerb.
Rachel and Brickall watched as the package, which must have weighed fifty pounds or so from the way it was carried, was taken carefully in through the garage door. It was then closed, and both men remained inside.
‘Shit,’ said Brickall. ‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’
Rachel nodded. ‘Are there vests in the car? Or tasers?’
He shook his head. ‘No. Didn’t think we’d need them.’
‘Well you should have thought about that,’ said Rachel tersely. ‘That’s your job.’
‘It’s going to be a call for backup, then,’ said Brickall, taking out his airwave handset. ‘We need an ARV. Look on the bright side: at least Gavin and Andy have no idea we’re here. That buys us some time.’
Twenty minutes later, a police support unit arrived in a van. Armed officers hammered on the front door, while others stood ready with their tubular steel Enforcer battering rams: ‘red keys’, the uniformed officers called them. A confused-looking young woman in an old T-shirt and pyjama bottoms opened the door, and members of the tactical unit swarmed past her, making their way to the garage.
Rachel held up her warrant card. ‘Are Andy Whittier and Gavin Harper here?’
‘They’re watching the football, but—’
Rachel and Brickall pushed past her into the living room. Both men were already on their feet, startled by the noise, and both recognised Rachel. ‘What’s going on?’ Gavin asked, the colour draining from his face. ‘Have you found her?’
‘We need to conduct a search of the premises,’ Brickall said, as two heavy-booted officers thundered upstairs to prove his point.
‘Hold on,’ said Andy. ‘My kids are asleep up there. They’ll be terrified.’
Rachel held up her hand, indicating to the officers upstairs that they should wait on the landing. ‘We need to have a look in your garage.’
Andy paled and exchanged a stricken look with Gavin.
Brickall had already gone through the connecting door in the utility room. Rachel followed, with the two brothers hovering in the doorway.
‘Here it is.’ Brickall pointed to a blue bundle against the far wall. He ripped the synthetic tarpaulin away, revealing a thick polythene bag containing what looked like small metal bricks.
‘What the fuck?’
Rachel knelt down and ripped at the polythene bag with the Swiss army knife she always carried, taking out one of the metal ingots and examining it.
‘It’s rhodium,’ said Andy, who was now standing behind her. ‘Corrosion-resistant, used in catalytic converters and spark plugs.’
‘And worth nearly a thousand quid an ounce,’ observed Rachel. ‘Mind telling us what you were doing removing this from your work premises and hidin
g it here?’
‘It’s my fault,’ said Gavin. ‘Andy knew I was up to my eyeballs in debt and needed to make some decent money in a hurry, so he thought we could sell it on, on the black market.’
‘You do remember you’re already on bail for a fraud offence? And being investigated over your daughter’s disappearance?’ Rachel’s tone was flat, the adrenaline leaching from her body.
Andy turned on her. ‘How the hell did you know about this?’ he demanded.
‘Followed you,’ Brickall said bluntly, taking a set of handcuffs from a member of the armed unit. ‘We thought you might be hiding Lola Jade.’ He cuffed Gavin’s wrists behind his back. ‘Gavin Harper, I am arresting you on suspicion of burglary, contrary to Section 25 of the Theft Act. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’
‘I didn’t take Lola!’ Gavin shouted angrily. ‘I didn’t take her, and I don’t know who did! I thought you got that.’
Rachel cuffed Andy and cautioned him, and the two of them were loaded into the back of the armed response vehicle, along with the consignment of rhodium.
‘Take them to the nearest nick and have them booked and banged up. Make sure they know Harper’s already on bail,’ Brickall told the unit commander. ‘We’ll speak to the custody sergeant and their CID in the morning.
He thumped the back door of the van, giving the driver his cue to set off. ‘Well, that was fun,’ he said, with evident satisfaction. ‘Been a while since I’ve done a spot of smash-and-grab. Beats being stuck behind a desk all day.’
Rachel was shaking her head, reaching into her bag for a painkiller and washing it down with a can of Coke left over from the stakeout.
‘But Lola’s still missing. We’re back to the drawing board.’
Fourteen
‘Fancy a curry?’
Rachel stared at Brickall in disbelief.
‘A curry? You’ve just had a kebab and chips!’
He shrugged. ‘So? I’m a growing lad.’
Rachel considered for a minute. On the one hand, she was quite hungry, having only eaten a handful of Maltesers since breakfast. On the other, her widowed mother lived around fifteen minutes away, in Purley, not far off the main A road into London, and her conscience was pricking her. She hadn’t visited for several months.
‘I think I’m going to spend the night at my mum’s,’ she said firmly, programming the address into the car’s sat nav. ‘Drop me off there and I’ll get a train in tomorrow morning. I think we’re long overdue a chat with the original Surrey Police case team, so I might go there first. You never know: it could shed some light.’
Parked on the leafy street outside her mother’s bijou 1930s suburban house in Purley was a familiar silver people-carrier.
Rachel grimaced. ‘Oh shit. Lindsay. What perfect timing.’
‘Who’s Lindsay?’
‘My big sister. Who never misses the opportunity to point out what a crap daughter I am.’
‘Shall I come in with you? Give them something more interesting to talk about?’
Rachel smiled and patted Brickall’s thigh briefly, then swiftly retracted her hand. The two of them tended to avoid physical contact, sticking to sibling-type joshing instead. ‘Thanks, but I wouldn’t inflict that on anyone, not even you.’
‘Not too late to turn round and make a quick getaway.’ He slammed down to first gear and revved the engine to illustrate his point.
‘No, I’m going to do the decent thing.’
Rachel hobbled up the front pathway, with Brickall watching her. She was very stiff, and would have loved to head to the gym in Bermondsey instead. Not too late to run back to the car, jump in and order Brickall to floor it…
But the net curtains in the front room were already twitching at the sound of a car’s engine, and the front door opened.
‘Well, well, well, we are honoured.’ Lindsay stood there, her arms folded. The outline of her henpecked husband Gordon loomed behind her.
Rachel leaned in and kissed her sister on her cool, dry cheek.
‘I was working on a job nearby,’ she offered.
‘Some of us don’t need an excuse to drop in,’ Lindsay sniffed. ‘But then some of us aren’t high-flying detectives.’
‘Who’s that?’ called Eileen Prince.
‘It’s me, Mum.’
‘Don’t worry, we’re not going to stay and spoil the prodigal’s visit,’ Lindsay said waspishly. ‘Gordon’s been fixing a leak under the kitchen sink, but it’s done now, so we’ll be off in a minute.’
Lindsay was nine years Rachel’s senior. They had not really enjoyed a shared childhood, and now, in adulthood, the same absence of closeness prevailed. Lindsay had left home when Rachel was ten, and six years later married a dull quantity surveyor called Gordon Reynolds. They had two timid teenagers called Tom and Laura, whose birthdays Rachel was perpetually forgetting, a golden Labrador and membership of the National Trust. They went on camping holidays, sang in a madrigal group, and sent round-robin letters at Christmas, with Lindsay still finding time amidst all this wholesome activity to emit disdain for Rachel’s self-centred, unencumbered life.
Later, when they were alone, Rachel and her mother made beans on toast and ate them on their laps in front of a cookery show, washed down with mugs of Horlicks: a comfortable and familiar ritual. Eileen, who had noticed her daughter limping slightly in the kitchen, asked her about her leg.
‘I did it when I was out for a run. It’s nothing. Really.’
Eileen fussed about fetching her a footstool, cushion and ice pack.
‘You and your jogging,’ she sniffed.
* * *
Rachel slept like a hibernating bear in her childhood bed, under a faded candlewick bedspread, surrounded by posters of Chesney Hawkes and the Backstreet Boys. At 8.30 sharp – the orthodox time for breakfast according to Eileen Prince – she endured a fry-up so huge that she was left bloated and dyspeptic. When she arrived at Eastwell police station, she was sure they would be able to smell the lard and bacon fat seeping from her pores. It was a test of her affection for her mother – and filial guilt – that she had not pushed it away in disgust and demanded a grapefruit instead. She planned to avoid eating for the rest of the day to redress the balance.
The desk sergeant told her that the only on-duty member of CID who had covered the Harper case was currently interviewing a suspect in a burglary. Rachel elected to go off in search of coffee and on her return was met in reception by an attractive and visibly pregnant young woman with a curtain of shiny dark hair and a calm, intelligent aura.
She extended a hand. ‘We’ve already spoken on the phone – I’m Leila Rajavi.’
Rajavi confirmed that the suspect she had just interviewed – and remanded – was none other than Gavin Harper. ‘He’s admitted the theft of the rhodium from his brother’s workplace,’ she told Rachel. ‘And Andrew Whittier admitted to being an accessory. That much was straightforward. But the value of the rhodium was another matter. We’re trying to work it out now, but it looks like it could be as much as half a million.’
‘So a Category One offence then,’ said Rachel with a sigh. ‘Great.’ This development added another layer of complication to their investigation of Gavin’s involvement with Lola Jade’s disappearance.
Rajavi’s expression was half exasperated, half resigned. ‘And already being on bail for the identity document fraud charge won’t exactly help his case. He’s looking at between three and six years, in all probability. Whittier could get one to two.’
‘If the judge allows that Gavin’s behaviour is down to upset caused by the disappearance of his daughter, then he might also get away with one to two years.’
‘Let’s hope he’s got a good brief.’ Rajavi gave a brisk, professional smile. ‘Now, what can I do to help with Lola Jade Harper? Any solid leads?’
Rachel shook her
head at the machine tea in a polystyrene cup offered by a young plain-clothes officer with pale blonde hair and protruding ears, who was introduced to her as DC Matt Coles. ‘As you know, we tracked down Gavin Harper in Portugal. And of course we’ll go on looking into his possible involvement in Lola Jade’s abduction while he’s a guest of Her Majesty.’ She spoke with more confidence than she was feeling. ‘Our child protection unit are also making enquiries overseas: it’s still possible that she was snatched to order and taken out of the country. Obviously, in light of recent events, they’re going to be focusing on Portugal.’
Rajavi was shaking her head slowly.
‘You don’t agree?’
‘I was there at the mother’s house for the original search… It was obvious that the child had been taken from her bed, but there were no signs of forced entry downstairs. Michelle said that she must have gone to bed and left the patio door unlocked. It was a warm evening, so that’s possible, but…’ She hesitated.
‘Go on.’
‘If a child’s going to be abducted to order, it’s got to be planned. They’re not going to be able to rely on a downstairs door being conveniently left open. I don’t know… We searched the place from top to bottom the day she was reported missing, and a couple of weeks later they went in with cadaver dogs, but there was nothing. No sign of a struggle, no sign she was harmed in any way. And it would have been really difficult for a stranger to get her out of the property without waking Michelle. That was the major reason for going with the theory that the father had taken her. If she woke up and saw him in her bedroom, she wouldn’t have been scared. She’d have gone with him. And he could easily have had a key.’
‘He’d have needed a car. Was anything picked up on CCTV?’
Rajavi shook her head. ‘The council have a camera at the corner of Sycamore Drive, just where cars come in and out of the estate from the main road, but they’d been lax with their maintenance and it wasn’t working that night.’