Deadly Reprisal (Detective Zoe Finch Book 5)

by Rachel McLean

  Kayla looked at the other woman. Her vision was blurred by tears. “Why are you hanging around me? I’m so much younger than you.”

  “You looked like you’d benefit from some support. You’ve met our group. We can help.”

  “I’m fine.”

  Gina looked at Kayla, her eyes dark. After a moment, she pulled a hand through her short brown hair and shook her head. “You’re not though, are you? You really aren’t.”

  Kayla leaned towards the other woman, her body hot with anger. “You don’t know how I feel. Yes, I’m pissed off he’s dead. Of course I am. But I don’t need support. I’ll be fine.”

  Gina stood up. “You’re better off without him, you know.”

  Kayla thumped the bed. She wanted to physically kick Gina out, but she didn’t have the strength. “Fuck off.”

  “You know where I am. Call me, if you want to talk.”

  “I won’t.”

  Gina put a hand on the doorknob. “I’m sorry you had to go through this, Kayla. But one day you’ll realise it was for the best.”

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Zoe parked her car outside Harborne police station, her mind full of contradictions. If Laurence had assaulted Kayla, and she’d been in a relationship with Jenson, then she was the person with the most obvious motive. Was it enough to formally question her, though?

  She needed to talk to Lesley. The DCI had a way of looking things that cut through all the crap and helped her see straight.

  She got out of her car and walked to the front entrance of the police station, giving Sergeant Jenner a curt nod as she passed the reception desk.

  She would go back to the team office, talk to Mo about her concerns. Hopefully someone would be able to tell her how Lesley was.

  Rhodri was at his desk, looking uneasy.

  “Everything OK?” asked Zoe. “How did the post-mortem go?”

  Rhodri opened his mouth, then closed it again. He looked towards Zoe’s office. Mo was inside, with DI Dawson.

  “Shit. What’s he want?”

  Rhodri shrugged. “Dunno, boss. He came charging in about twenty minutes ago and all but dragged the sarge into your office.”

  “OK. I’ll be right back, I want to know if there’s anything useful from the PM.”

  “Dr Adebayo said she sent the full report to you.”

  “I’m sure she did. But I want to hear it from you.”

  “No problem, boss.”

  Zoe pushed open the door to her office. Dawson was in her chair, leaning over the desk and taking to Mo in a low voice. Mo’s body language was tight and uncomfortable.

  “What’s going on?” Zoe asked. “I’d like my office back, please.”

  Dawson leaned back, a smile flickering on his lips. “It’s not as simple as that.”

  “No? Fill me in, then.” She took a step forward and placed a hand next to his on the desk. Mo shifted in his chair.

  Dawson stood up. Zoe was as tall as him, although not as broad. Their eyes locked.

  “You’re reporting to me until further notice,” he said.

  “What? No, I’m not. I’m a DI too, in case you hadn’t noticed—”

  He shook his head. “The DCI’s not going to be back for a while. I’m acting up until… well, until we know what’s happening.”

  Zoe’s chest hollowed out. “She’s that bad?”

  Dawson shrugged. “Randle told me she’ll be off for a few weeks at least. Maybe longer.”

  “D’you know what it is?”

  “Sorry, Zoe. You’ll have to find out for yourself. I know how you like getting distracted from your real work.”

  “Give it a rest, Frank. I’m just concerned about the boss, is all.”

  “You can call me Sir.”

  “You’re acting DCI? For real?”

  “I’m your line manager for the time being, and that’s what counts.”

  That wasn’t an answer. Zoe exchanged glances with Mo. He looked pissed off, too.

  She sighed. “Well, I guess you’d better sit in with me and my team while we go over the latest in the Laurence Thomms case.”

  “Rhodri got something at the PM,” Mo said.

  “Why didn’t he say?” Zoe looked out of the glass separating her office from the team room. Rhodri quickly looked away.

  “I think he was a bit preoccupied, boss,” Mo muttered.

  She grunted. “OK. Come on then.” She looked at Dawson, expecting him to follow. Acting up or not, there was no way she was letting him boss her around.

  “Before you drag me into your cosy little briefing, we need to have a word,” he said.

  “Go on.”

  “The Magpie case. You’ve been taken off it, but I hear you’re still poking around.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You’re too close to it, Zoe. What with Ian Osman being one of your team. Not to mention your involvement with DI Whaley.”

  She wondered what would happen if she punched Dawson right now. “Are you saying I’m not professional enough to handle this?”

  “I’m saying you’re off the case. Mo, too. Leave it with my team and focus on this one. You’ve got two murders to deal with now, that should keep you busy.”

  She glared at him. Randle would have spoken to him, and Randle had his own reasons for wanting Zoe off Magpie.

  “Fair enough,” she said. “Let’s get this over with, then.”

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Zoe walked to the board, aware of Rhodri’s gaze flitting between her and Dawson. She perched on the edge of his desk and waited for Mo to sit at his own desk. The sight of Dawson, hunched in Connie’s chair, was enough to make Zoe want to push him out of it.

  “Right,” she said. “We’ve got the post-mortem report, and I’ve been speaking to witnesses. Let’s start with the PM.”

  Dawson cleared his throat. “I think you’re forgetting something.”

  She dug her thumbnail into her thigh. It would bruise later. “Frank.”

  He gave her a look of annoyance. She wasn’t going to start calling him Sir.

  Dawson walked to the board. He looked at Rhodri.

  “Shouldn’t we do this when Connie gets back?” asked Mo.

  “You’re right,” said Zoe. “Frank, if you want to make a speech, why don’t you save it for when the whole team’s here? Maybe bring your team in, too?”

  “I’m sure Fran would welcome the opportunity,” said Mo, referring to DC Fran Kowalczyk, his former colleague in DI Dawson’s team.

  Zoe suppressed a smirk and stopped herself from meeting Mo’s eye. She turned to Dawson, adopting a look of innocence. “What do you say?”

  He blew out a heavy breath. “Very well. Where is DC Williams?”

  Zoe checked the clock. Five-thirty pm. “She’ll be finishing up at the university, she’s been supervising the DNA sampling.”

  “Good. We can go over that when she returns.”

  “I doubt we’ll have any results tonight.”

  Dawson nodded. “No. Well, why don’t you get on with briefing us on where we’re at, then?”

  Zoe allowed herself a subtle smile in Mo’s direction. “No problem.” She turned to Rhodri. “Rhod?”

  “Yeah. Er, thanks, boss.” Rhodri looked at Dawson, his shoulders hunched. “What d’you want me to cover?”

  “Anything important from the post-mortem, Rhod,” Zoe said. “I know there’s a report sitting in my inbox but I want the summary.”

  Rhodri grabbed a couple of photos from his desk and joined her at the board. He pinned them both up. The first was of Jenson’s head, his eyes closed, his skin pallid. The second was a close-up of internal organs. Zoe couldn’t work out what they were.

  Rhodri pointed to the second photo. “This is his epiglottis. It’s the flap that stops stuff going down when you breathe.”

  “You learn that today?” asked Mo.

  Rhodri blushed. “Well yes, actually. But…”

  “Carry on
.” Mo smiled at him, shifting in his chair.

  “Well, see here?” Rhodri grabbed a pen and touched a point in the centre of the photo. Zoe leaned in but couldn’t make out what he was indicating.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Damage, boss. At the scene, Dr Adebayo didn’t think there was any internal damage to his mouth. But in the post-mortem she found this. There’s scratching on his… epiglottis.”

  “You can’t get that naturally?” asked Mo. “Choking, eating something spiky?”

  Rhodri shook his head. “Not according to the report.”

  “You’ve read it,” Zoe said.

  “I thought it’d help me make sure what I told you was as thorough as possible.”

  “Good. So the pathologist says the scratching got there how?”

  “Foreign body. And the epiglottis is a long way down so there’s no way you’d be able to do it to someone while they were alive, or at least not with them able to resist. Not without the gag reflex forcing the object back up.”

  “OK.” Zoe looked at the photo. She couldn’t make out any scratching but she was happy to trust Adana. “She have any idea what type of foreign body did it?”

  “She didn’t know, boss.”

  “I take it swabs have been send to Adi?”

  “They have.”

  “Good.” Zoe nibbled a fingernail. “So we’ve got two dead men, both with damage inside their throat, both with dog hairs found on them. Neither owning a dog. And both of them preying on Kayla Goode.”

  “She found Laurence, but that’s hardly—” said Mo.

  Dawson coughed. “Preying? Pretty emotive language isn’t it, DI Finch?”

  “That’s the word that Jenson’s housemate gave me. She said he” – she poked the photo of Laurence – “was a predator. He attempted to rape Kayla in early November. And she didn’t think Kayla’s relationship with Jenson was entirely consensual.”

  “That’s not what Kayla told us,” said Mo.

  Zoe sat on the edge of Rhodri’s desk. “He was in a position of authority, Mo. Yes, they were both adults. But what if he was taking advantage of her? What if the attack by Laurence and then the abuse by Jenson tipped her over the edge and she decided to kill them both?”

  “So you’ve got an overemotional teenager who another teenager says might have been assaulted or maybe abused. Doesn’t sound like much to me,” said Dawson.

  Zoe looked at him. She wished Lesley was here.

  “I want to know more about these allegations about Laurence and Kayla,” she said. “And I want to get to the bottom of her relationship with Jenson.”

  “If we ask her directly, she’ll just lie to us,” said Mo.

  “I know. That’s why we need to talk to Lin again.”

  “OK. You want me to…?”

  “I’ll send Connie. She’s talked to her before, she might be able to get more from her.”

  “What about the dog hairs and the damage to the throat?” said Dawson. “I’m sure DCI Clarke would tell you to stick to the facts of the case.”

  Zoe looked across at him. Rhodri and Mo’s eyes were on her. The way she behaved around him would be their cue.

  “I know full well what the DCI would say,” she told him. “But I’m SIO on this case and I say we pursue both angles. And besides, we won’t get anything concrete on the forensics till tomorrow at least. You want us to twiddle our thumbs until then?”

  “Of course not,” Dawson replied.

  “Good. I’ll talk to Connie.”

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Connie watched as the FSIs packed up their gear. She reached her hand behind the back of her neck and leaned back, stretching out her muscles. It had been a long day and she’d been on her feet for most of it, but it had been worth it.

  They’d taken samples from every male student on the list, including the postgrads once she’d got the extra list from Tom. The samples had already left, Yala Cook taking them away in an insulated case.

  They had ninety-seven samples. It would take days to go through them all, Yala had told her, but they’d asked the lab to work as fast as they could. They could run quick preliminary tests targeting one area of the DNA, to spot any samples that might be a match and then go back to analyse them in more detail. That would speed things up.

  Connie had left her bike outside, in the students’ bike shed. It was dark outside and she knew it would be cold, but she was used to that. The ride home from here wasn’t much different from her commute into work. She’d be fine.

  She went to the corner where she’d left her gear and grabbed her helmet. Her phone rang: DI Finch.

  “Hi, boss. We’re just finishing up here.”

  “Thanks for everything you’ve done today. I’m impressed with how smoothly it’s gone.”

  Connie waved at one of the FSIs who was leaving the room. “It was Yala and her crew that did most of the work, boss. And Uniform.”

  “You should take credit where it’s due, Constable. You heading home?”

  “I was just putting my cycle helmet on.” Connie held her helmet. She had a feeling she wasn’t going home anytime soon. “You need me to come back to the office?”

  “I need you to stay in Boulton Hall. Can you go and see Lin again? I’ve been talking to Jenson Begg’s housemate, and she says his relationship with Kayla might not have been consensual. That even if he didn’t actually assault her, he was abusing his position of authority. And that Laurence assaulted Kayla in November.”

  “What?” Connie dropped her helmet.

  “We have no way of knowing if it’s true or just a rumour, but I want you to dig around.”

  She bent over to pick up her helmet. One of the FSIs, a guy called Rav, was watching her. “Shall I talk to Kayla?”

  “She’ll just lie to you,” the DI said. “She hasn’t exactly been forthcoming so far.”

  “You want me to quiz Lin instead.”

  “She’s over at the Medical School in the day, she’s more likely to be at Boulton Hall now. You’re not in a hurry to get home, are you?”

  Connie strapped her helmet to her rucksack. Her mum would be annoyed with her, she’d been expecting her home for dinner.

  “It’s fine. I’ll go and find her now.”

  “Thanks, Connie.”

  “They’ve just finished dinner here so she should be in her room. If she hasn’t gone out.”

  “I’ll let you go so you can grab her before she goes anywhere.”

  “You want me to call you when I’m done?”

  “If you get anything new, yes. If not, we’ll talk in the morning.”

  “No problem.”

  Kayla followed Rav, the last FSI, out of the room and walked towards the main entrance. Lin lived on the first floor. If she was going out, she’d be more likely to come down the stairs than use the lift. Connie made her way towards them.

  She turned as she reached the stairs. Rav was behind her, heading for the door. He nodded farewell to her.

  “Rav, can I ask you a favour?”

  “Sure.”

  “Can you stay here for five minutes, just keep an eye on the lift? If you see an East Asian woman come out, ask her name, and if it’s Lin, get her talking.”

  “What if I don’t?”

  “Give it five minutes, then you can go. Is that OK?”

  He wrinkled his nose.

  “Sorry, Rav. I know you’re about to leave…”

  He threw her a smile. “It’s OK, Connie. Seeing as it’s you.” He winked.

  She smiled, her cheeks warm. “Thanks, Rav.” She turned and took the stairs two at a time.

  She was halfway up the first flight when she heard a voice.

  “Constable?”

  Connie turned. Doctor Edwards was standing at the bottom of the stairs, Kayla next to her. Connie looked between the two women.

  “Can I help you, Constable?” the warden asked.

  “I need to speak to a witness,” she said. “I won’t be lo
ng.”

  The warden took a step towards her. “I can’t allow that.”

  “Sorry?”

  They’d already spoken to plenty of students. They’d been getting DNA samples from them.

  “You’ve finished the sampling. I think you’ve impinged on us enough for one day. Wandering the corridors and frightening my students isn’t going to help anyone.” Dr Edwards took a step up, towards Connie, lowering her voice. “Especially given this morning’s events, don’t you think?”

  Connie stared back at the woman, then looked past her at Kayla. The girl had been crying. Not surprising, really.

  “I would like to talk to one of your students,” she said. “It’s important.”

  “I’m sure it is.” The warden stepped back. “But so is the welfare of the student population. Now, I’m sure it can wait till the morning and be done properly, in my office.”

  Connie breathed in. She didn’t have a warrant, and this was private property. There was nothing she could do.

  “Very well.” She walked down the stairs past the warden. Rav was watching her. She avoided his gaze.

  At the main entrance, Connie turned to the warden. “We’ll be in touch. First thing tomorrow.”

  “I’m sure you will.” The warden turned away, a hand on Kayla’s back.

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Zoe sat in her office, her skin itching and her heart racing. Dawson lording it over them like this reminded her of the bad old days. He’d been her boss for three years, before he’d gone on his secondment to the Met and she’d been told to act up for him. Then when he’d come back she’d been kept on as a DI, replacing Carl when he’d moved away from his undercover job in Force CID.

  She’d hoped the stint away from Birmingham would do Dawson good. That maybe he’d smooth off some of his rough edges and learn how to treat people nicely. Especially her.

  Wishful thinking, she thought.

  Outside, Mo was on the phone and Rhodri peered at his computer screen. She’d told Mo about the match between the DNA on the passport and the New Street bomber, and asked him to call Sheila. Mo had a good working relationship with Sheila and was happy to work on the case. Zoe’s eyes flitted between his back and the door. She hoped Dawson wouldn’t come in.