Making A Killing (The Romney and Marsh Files Book 2)

by Oliver Tidy

  She made her way to her desk aware of the thumping in her chest, a mixture of reaction to her recent exertions and anticipation of the game to come. She looked down to see that all was as she had left it, except that the Spain, 2011, CD was missing. Instinctively, she looked towards Wilkie’s desk, but he now had his back to her. She could imagine him hiding his self-satisfied grin.

  She sat down, tapped the mouse and the monitor came to life. She double clicked a recently installed programme – something that she had had one of the geeks from technical download and set up for her during lunch along with the tiny surveillance webcam that sat unobtrusively on top of the monitor. And there she was. So far so good. She rewound the digital recording. For a long time there was nothing other than the odd individual pass by her desk. And then Wilkie appeared. She pressed play. He was standing at the water cooler behind her desk, sipping from a plastic disposable cup and having a good look around. He downed the water, dumped the beaker into the bin and approached her desk. Marsh watched him pick up the CD marked Spain, 2011, and slip it into his inside pocket. Oh, she did so love being a detective.

  She had deliberated over how to play it from here in the eventuality that Wilkie lived down to her expectations. If she were to go and confront him with only this, he could easily pass it off as a joke, a bit of office horseplay. It wouldn’t be the damning evidence she needed it to be that he had likely taken Emerson’s phone. She still needed more of a contribution from him. He had a greater part to play.

  She began the charade of searching for something on her desk, maintaining appearances, playing her game. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Wilkie approaching, unable to resist his gloat. It might be a detective-novel cliché, but they always returned to the scene of the crime.

  ‘Lost something?’ he said.

  She didn’t look up at him, or stop her rummaging. ‘The CD we got from Emerson’s flat.’

  ‘Careless. Didn’t you lose his phone, too? The DI isn’t going to be very pleased with you when he hears about this, is he?’ He exposed his crooked yellow teeth in a grin.

  She stood and faced him and asked him straight. ‘Have you taken it?’

  Wilkie fixed his intense unsettling stare on her. ‘Careful. Are you accusing me of tampering with police evidence? That would be a very serious matter. A disciplinary matter.’

  She said nothing and went back to searching through the paperwork.

  ‘Look out,’ said Wilkie. ‘Here he comes.’

  Romney had entered the office and was making his way towards them. Clearly surprised, if not a little suspicious, at finding the two officers together, he said, ‘Everything all right?’

  ‘Sergeant Marsh seems to have mislaid the CD that was recovered from the Emerson flat, sir,’ said Wilkie. ‘I was just helping her look for it.’

  ‘What?’ Romney turned his full attention on Marsh. ‘Tell me that’s not the case.’

  ‘No, sir,’ said Marsh, giving Wilkie a strange look. ‘I don’t know where Sergeant Wilkie got that idea from. Maybe he misheard me. It’s locked safely away in my desk.’ She smiled up at the DI. ‘I’ll make that appointment with the solicitor, shall I?’

  Romney frowned at Wilkie and disappeared into his office.

  ‘You’re lying,’ said Wilkie, when they were alone. ‘And he isn’t going to like that either when he finds out.’

  ‘How do you know I’m lying? It’s here somewhere. I know it is.’

  Wilkie left, as Marsh hoped he would. He went back to his desk. She took out the yellow pages and searched for the number of Bridgewater, Burke and Lane, the company of solicitors in Maison Dieu Road. She unlocked her desk drawer and she waited.

  Before two minutes had elapsed she heard Wilkie shout and get to his feet. With his open palm he slapped the casing of the computer hard drive that sat on his desk. Several looked around at his outburst. But he only had eyes for one person. He swivelled round to face Marsh. His face was flushed with anger and he had a demonic look about him. With one hand she gently waved a CD marked Spain, 2011, at him, with the other she made a pistol of her thumb and index finger, sighted down the barrel with one eye and fired. He turned away from her, sat down and began punching the keys.

  A minute later a shadow fell over Wilkie and he looked up to see Marsh staring down at him. When she spoke through gritted teeth it was with a quiet, clear and barely restrained fury. She’d learned from Romney’s treatment of Masters earlier how capitalising on a person’s guilt could pay off. She knew she had to grab his attention, get on the offensive and press her advantage before he had a chance to think up some sort of story of innocence. She had to pressure him, frighten him, send him scuttling back to his reptilian brain for his thinking. Necessity and psychology aside, she had no difficulty in summoning up her venomous attack.

  ‘You totally unprofessional, thieving piece of shit. I suggest you listen very carefully to what I’m going to say to you. If you have half the brain you were born with you’ll realise that your job and your future depends on what you do next. You have just opened a CD with a particularly nasty virus on it. I know because I left it on my desk from where you took it. I know that you took it from my desk because, you dumb malicious fuckwit, I’ve got a digital video recording made with my webcam of you taking it. I’ve also got video recording detailing the trap I set for you and the expected outcome, which is this. And I recorded everything you just said to me before the DI came in and while he was at my desk.’

  Wilkie was glaring up at her with undisguised hatred, but Marsh could see in his eyes that he knew that she knew that she had him by the balls. She had his career, his life, in her hands. He loathed her for it. Marsh didn’t care.

  ‘I can see you understand your position,’ she went on. ‘That’s good. A good start. Now, think how the DI is going to react when I walk in there and share it all with him. And when I tell him that I suspect you of taking Emerson’s phone, what do you think he’ll say?’ Marsh could almost hear the wheels of chance and probability rotating in Wilkie’s head. He remained silent. ‘There is only one way you can stop me taking everything I have to him,’ she said. ‘Give me back Emerson’s phone.’

  Wilkie swallowed hard. ‘I can’t.’ His voice had dried up in his throat. He swallowed again. ‘I don’t have it. I threw it in the River Dour. I thought it was your phone. I didn’t know it was evidence.’

  ‘You’re lying,’ said Marsh, although she didn’t believe he was.

  ‘I swear to you on my kid’s life, I’m not. I just meant to inconvenience you. I wouldn’t have taken evidence deliberately.’

  ‘Why? Why would you want to do that to me?’

  Wilkie’s eyes flitted around, an indication that Marsh had raised her voice and was attracting attention. ‘Why do you think?’

  ‘And the CD? What did you think that was my fucking holiday photos?’

  He had no answer for her, but they both knew what it was.

  ‘Please,’ he said. ‘Don’t go to him. I’ve got a family. They’ll demote me, kick me out.’

  ‘Do you know how you’ve made me look? You’re pathetic.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Please, nothing like it will ever happen again. I swear.’

  Marsh was reminded of something else Romney had said earlier. Like Masters, Wilkie’s regret was probably nothing to do with what he’d done but with getting caught. She knew she couldn’t trust him. But she also knew that she couldn’t be responsible for his demotion or dismissal. Marsh didn’t want to be carrying around that kind of guilt, as it would inevitably end up becoming, no matter how she felt about him now or how much he deserved it.

  She wagged a finger in his face and they both knew he had to suffer it. ‘Stay out of my way. If I ever catch you near my stuff again; if I ever have reason to think that you’re making trouble for me; if I ever even see you looking at me sideways, I’ll ruin you. You understand?’

  He nodded, thought about saying thank you and thought again.

  Marsh straigh
tened, a disgusted look distorting her features. She put her hand in the top outside pocket of her jacket and brought out her mini digital voice recorder. She rewound it a little and pressed play, locking eyes with Wilkie as her voice came through loud and clear. ‘Stay out of my way. If I ever catch you near my stuff again; if I ever have reason to think that you’re making trouble for me; if I ever even see you looking at me sideways, I’ll ruin you. You understand?’

  She walked away on legs that shook with a fusion of anger, nervous tension but most of all elation. How she loved her work.

  *

  The surge of adrenalin and endorphins that her confrontation with Wilkie had produced fertilised Marsh’s creative thinking further. At five o’clock she disappeared promptly and enjoyed a good paced walk back to the flat she rented overlooking the harbour. She changed, packed a carrier bag with enough food and drink to see her through a few hours of surveillance and drove her car the short journey to Waterloo Crescent. The policeman on duty had been dismissed that afternoon.

  Marsh found a parking space on the beach side of the road, locked up and went across to Phillip Emerson’s flat with the key she still had to phone William Emerson about collecting. She spent five minutes in the flat and then treated herself to an ice-cream from a van that had parked up looking to make the most of the hot summer-evening trade, as the workers of Dover emptied out of their nine-to-fives and maybe headed down to the beach for a stroll. She sat on a bench, breathed in the warm salty air and allowed herself ten minutes of sunshine on her face. She’d earned it.

  Back in her car, she wound up the windows to block out the sounds of the outside and made her phone call. Recognising the voice that answered she pinched her nose and said, ‘Hello, Mrs Emerson?’ The distorted bored operator’s accent that she assumed in order to cover her own identity made her blush with embarrassment, even though she was completely alone. She hurried on not wanting to give the woman an opportunity to correct her. ‘Detective Inspector Romney has asked us to give you a call just to let you know that the police have finished with your flat in Waterloo Crescent. You can go back anytime you like. Thank you.’ She terminated the call and like any good fisherman settled back to wait patiently and see if her bait would land her anything. She was prepared to wait all night if she had to.

  But she didn’t. The shiny Audi pulled up across from her less than half an hour later. Someone was in a hurry. Marsh wondered idly what lie Lillian West had fed her husband, if she’d been at home when she called her, in order to be able to get away so quickly. Marsh felt that the woman probably had a stack of them and that lying came easily to her. She’d have to be careful with her.

  Marsh watched her enter the late Regency-period building and left her car to go and wait outside for her, just as though they’d arranged it. If Marsh’s guess was right, LillianWest wouldn’t be in there long. If her guess was wrong then she reckoned she’d still be able to find out more than they knew already.

  Lillian West stepped back out on to the pavement four minutes later. Marsh watched her pull the door to with a thump, pull down her sunglasses and turn towards her. Whether she really didn’t recognise Marsh when she stood in front of her, Marsh couldn’t be sure. If she did, she gave an admirable impression to the contrary.

  ‘Hello, Mrs West. Remember me?’ Marsh would have liked to have seen her eyes, but the oversized designer sunglasses covered half her face.

  ‘Should I?’

  Marsh took out her warrant card and brandished it in front of the woman’s face. ‘Detective Sergeant Marsh. We met this morning.’

  West’s mouth set in a hard line. Marsh noticed the fine lines of a smoker crinkling the skin around her lips. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘A chat.’

  ‘I’m busy.’

  ‘No you’re not.’

  ‘I beg your pardon.’

  ‘Mrs West, I need to talk to you. You know what about.’

  ‘I haven’t got a clue.’ The woman’s confidence was returning. ‘Are you going to arrest me?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Then piss off.’ West made to push past her.

  The woman had not gone five paces before Marsh said, ‘Does your husband know you’re here, Mrs West?’

  West stopped, turned and strode quickly back to stand toe to toe with Marsh. ‘Are you threatening me, Sergeant?’

  ‘Let’s not talk like that. Tell you what, why don’t you and I go and sit on that bench over there, like old friends. I’ll ask you a few questions and you’ll give me some truthful answers. If I think that you’re lying to me, I’ll be calling on you at home tomorrow morning. I don’t care if you’re not going to be there. If you don’t want to talk to me here, guess what? I’ll be calling on you at home tomorrow morning.’

  Marsh realised she was pushing the woman hard. Was it that she was simply still buoyed from her adrenalin-rush of the confrontation with Wilkie, or had she learnt something about herself and people from it? Perhaps it was just that she didn’t like the woman in front of her. Whatever the reason she couldn’t see why the bullying tactic which had proved so effective with Wilkie wouldn’t work again. It all relied on the common denominator of their guilt.

  ‘All right, Sergeant. I’ll talk to you, but if I do, I don’t expect to ever see you at my home.’

  Marsh nodded. It seemed the right thing to do, even though, with her fingers crossed behind her back, the gesture meant nothing to her.

  By the time they had negotiated the light traffic to cross the road and settle on the bench overlooking the shingle beach, Lillian West had recovered something of her poise and superiority. She’d also done some quick thinking. ‘Did you set me up? Was that you on the telephone earlier?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mrs West. I just happened to be passing Waterloo Crescent and I saw you coming out of the building.’

  Lillian West gave Marsh a long look and said, ‘I think that perhaps I might have underestimated you, Sergeant.’

  Marsh said, ‘You wouldn’t be first. What were you just doing in there?’ Marsh was giving her some rope. She hoped she wasn’t about to hang herself.

  ‘I was removing a photograph.’

  ‘Really? What of?’ said Marsh, unable to hide her surprise at the woman’s inventiveness and bare-faced lie.

  Lillian West seemed only encouraged by the response to dig her hole a little deeper. ‘It was a photograph of Phillip and me. I’m sure you can understand how awkward that might be to explain when the place is cleared.’

  ‘I didn’t notice one when I was in there this morning.’

  ‘Obviously, you just didn’t look in the right place.’

  ‘It’s possible, I suppose,’ said Marsh, getting to her feet. ‘I’ll be seeing you in the morning, Mrs West. I hope you and your husband are early risers.’

  She began walking away. Lillian West called out to her, but Marsh felt that she’d given her her chance. She kept going and hoped she hadn’t just made a big mistake.

  ‘Sergeant Marsh?’ called West, quickly close behind her. ‘Don’t make me run in these bloody heels. Stop, will you?’

  Marsh stopped and turned. ‘Say, please.’

  Lillian West looked like she might object, but instead said, ‘Please. What makes you think that I’m not telling the truth?’

  ‘Because I know what’s in your bag.’ West stood rooted to the spot with her mouth open. ‘The CD from the wardrobe,’ Marsh reminded her.

  ‘If you know about the CD and you know I was there for it, why the bloody performance?’

  ‘Because I didn’t know for sure that was why you were there. But now that I do I want to know why? Open your bag.’

  ‘What? No. You have no right to demand such a thing.’

  ‘We’re past all that, Mrs West, don’t you think? Next time I walk away, I’m not stopping. I don’t care if you fall over and break your leg.’

  With a huge sigh of defeat Lillian West opened her handbag and took out
a CD that had Spain, 2011, written across it in marker pen.

  Marsh nodded, very satisfied.

  ‘Don’t you want it back?’ said West.

  ‘It’s a blank copy. I only put it in the flat five minutes before I called you. The original is down at the station helping us with our enquiries.’

  Lillian West’s shoulders slumped. ‘Oh, dear,’ she said. ‘I must be slipping. You gave me a glimpse of your hidden depths, didn’t you, when you picked up on my golf club comment this morning? I have seriously underestimated you, Sergeant Marsh. For that I apologise. That’s the only thing I do apologise for though. Just so long as we’re clear.’

  ‘Fine by me. All I’m interested in is the truth. You ready for that now?’

  ‘Yes. But I do better with a drink and a cigarette in my hand.’ She gestured towards one of the Waterloo Crescent hotels and a sign claiming to have a bar open and welcoming non-residents. ‘Let me buy you a drink. Call it a peace offering.’

  ***

  8

  ‘I bumped into Lillian West coming out of the Waterloo Crescent flat yesterday evening.’

  ‘Bumped into her? What were you doing there?’

  ‘Just enjoying a stroll along the seafront.’

  Romney looked sceptical. ‘And?’

  ‘And she was very cooperative. She even bought me a drink in one of the hotels. We had quite a chat.’

  ‘We are talking about the same Lillian West who basically told us to mind our own business yesterday morning, are we?’ Marsh indicated that they were. ‘How did you manage to get her to talk to you or don’t I want to know?’

  ‘I made her an offer she could’ve refused but chose not to.’

  Romney made a face that Marsh judged as tinged with a hint of amusement. ‘Did she tell you why she was there?’