Dark Mirror

by Dark Mirror (epub)

  sixteen

  Brock stood at the window on the sixth floor of the headquarters building and stared impatiently out across the roofs to his own office, two hundred yards away. The door opened behind him and his boss, Commander Sharpe, strode in.

  ‘Sorry to keep you, Brock. Lot to catch up on. So where were we?’

  ‘Personnel.’ Brock resumed his seat. ‘I think we’ve just about finished.’

  ‘One other matter.’ Sharpe drew a document from his file and handed it over. The letterhead was Metropolitan Police Service: Directorate of Professional Standards, and the subject title, ‘Complaint against Detective Inspector Katherine Kolla, Homicide and Serious Crime Command’. The complainant was Keith Rafferty, represented by Julian Fenwick.

  Brock skimmed the document, then handed it back.

  ‘That’s your copy, Brock. You’re familiar with the circumstances?’

  ‘Oh yes. The man’s a thug, both him and his friend Crouch. They were in the army together. Apart from the matters on his police record, it’s highly likely that they raped a woman in Belfast. DI Kolla had grounds for suspecting Rafferty’s involvement in the death of his stepdaughter, Marion Summers.’

  ‘Yes, but Fenwick makes a strong case that she mishandled the investigation. You see there, where he charges her with provocation, intimidation, entrapment and fabricating evidence.’

  Brock was tired of this. He’d spent the past three weeks covering Sharpe’s back. ‘Look, Dominic’—Sharpe looked startled, as if unaware that Brock even knew his first name—‘Kolla is a first-rate officer and we’ve been working under extremely difficult circumstances while you were away, with an acute shortage of manpower. She used her initiative under intense pressure. This . . .’ he waved the document, ‘is crap.’

  ‘Nevertheless, David . . .’ Sharpe gritted his teeth, ‘Fenwick has a habit of making such cases stick, as we know to our cost. He says he will seek an injunction if we don’t immediately prevent Kolla from making further contact with Rafferty or Crouch, pending a full investigation of their complaint. I believe we should comply.’

  ‘That would be tantamount to an admission of fault.’

  ‘I don’t agree. I think it would be a prudent precaution, and I want you to see to it.’

  Brock sighed. ‘Very well.’

  ‘There’s no question of her being suspended from duty at this stage,’ Sharpe went on. ‘Just a transfer to other inquiries.’

  •

  ‘A cat’s head in your bed?’ Bren raised his eyebrows. ‘Who’s this, the kitty Godfather?’

  ‘It’s Keith Rafferty, that’s who it is.’ Kathy glanced at Pip, who was listening with a look of disgust on her face. ‘His style, wouldn’t you say, Pip?’

  ‘Yeah, absolutely. What a creep. But how did he get into your flat?’

  ‘Yes, how did he manage that?’ Bren looked concerned.

  ‘That’s what I’d like to know. I’ve changed all the locks, and tried again to get our manager to install CCTV, but he says he’s too heartbroken to deal with things like that at the moment. You should be careful, Pip. He might have a go at you too.’

  ‘Are you sure it’s Rafferty?’ Bren said.

  Kathy shrugged. ‘Maybe it was just the tooth fairy having a bad day.’ She sighed and ran a hand over her face. ‘Look, I’ve been through it in my mind and I just don’t see who else would want to have a shot at me like this.’

  ‘Maybe I should pay him a visit,’ Bren offered.

  ‘No thanks, Bren,’ Kathy said. ‘That’s probably exactly what he wants. Anyway, I’d better go. I’ve got a university laboratory to audit.’

  All the same, as she walked away the image of the tiny bloody head on her pillow came back to her, and she suppressed a shudder.

  •

  The laboratory staff were gathered in the front lobby of the building, whispering together in small clusters, watching the officers in protective clothing going in. Through the glass panels of the doors Kathy caught a glimpse of Sundeep Mehta with a clipboard, issuing instructions.

  ‘So just how long is this going to take?’ Colin Ringland’s voice had become indignant. ‘It’s extremely disruptive, and potentially dangerous and costly. We have experiments set up, work in progress.’

  ‘Have you spoken to Dr Mehta, Dr Ringland?’

  ‘The Indian chap? He just breezed in and kicked everybody out. I tried to explain that we’d already sealed off the critical area, but he wouldn’t listen.’

  Kathy got out her phone and rang Sundeep. Through the glass she saw him reach into his pocket. ‘Sundeep, it’s Kathy. I’m outside with Dr Ringland, the lab director. Can you spare a moment for a quick word?’

  ‘Very well, Kathy. Give me a minute.’

  When Sundeep came out they went together to a small meeting room where Kathy recorded Ringland’s litany of concerns and complaints, coaxing Sundeep to respond patiently. When they were finished, she remained with Ringland.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, mollified. ‘I suppose you’ve got a job to do. But I can’t imagine how the Summers woman could have got her hands on any arsenic from our lab, I really can’t.’

  Funny thing about language, Kathy thought, how it gives people away—the Summers woman. You’d never say, the Ringland man.

  ‘I asked you before if someone else could have got it for her.’

  ‘Tony da Silva, that’s what you mean, isn’t it? Have you thought that she might have wanted you to think that?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Tony told me that you were thinking she took the stuff deliberately. Maybe she wanted to implicate Tony while she was at it.’

  ‘Why would she want to do that?’

  ‘Hah!’ He gave a bitter laugh. ‘Because she was a manipulative bitch who was prepared to do anything to get her own way.’

  ‘Even kill herself?’

  ‘Maybe she got the dose wrong. I told you before that she wasn’t very good with figures.’

  ‘Yes you did, didn’t you? But why implicate her supervisor?’

  Ringland shrugged—rather evasively, Kathy thought. ‘I don’t know. Out of spite, I suppose. They didn’t always see eye to eye.’

  ‘I don’t always see eye to eye with my boss, but I don’t try to implicate him in my suicide.’

  ‘That’s what I mean—she was unstable.’

  ‘You said manipulative, wanting to get her own way. So how was Dr da Silva stopping her?’

  He shook his head dismissively. ‘I’m just saying she gave him a lot of grief. She was a difficult student, okay? She demanded a lot of attention. We all get them from time to time. She was a particularly bad case.’

  ‘Did he sleep with her, Colin?’

  ‘Christ!’ Ringland rocked back in his seat. ‘Who told you that?’

  Kathy smiled. ‘That’s not really an answer, is it?’

  ‘Look . . .’ He was flustered now. ‘You’d have to ask Tony. I certainly don’t believe so, and you’d be advised to take student gossip with a grain of salt.’

  ‘Or a grain of arsenic.’ Kathy got to her feet. ‘Thanks for your help, and for your patience with our audit. We’ll get out of your hair as soon as we can.’

  She was stepping out the front door when her phone rang, and once again she heard the excited, slightly breathless voice of the librarian, Gael Rayner.

  ‘Kathy! Sorry, but we’ve had another incident.’

  ‘Another one?’

  ‘Yes, an assault, right here in the library stacks.’

  ‘What kind of assault? Not another poisoning?’

  ‘No, much more physical. Someone just attacked Nigel Ogilvie. One of the other readers heard the commotion and found him, unconscious. I rang triple nine for an ambulance, and now you. I thought you’d want to know.’

  ‘Yes, of course. I’m on my way.’

  The ambulance was parked outside the library’s front door on St James’s Square when Kathy arrived, the stretcher being loaded into the back.
<
br />   She showed her ID. ‘How is he?’

  ‘Heavy bruising, cuts, probable concussion and fractured ribs and radius. He was conscious when we arrived, said he’d fallen down the stairs, but that’s not how it looks.’

  ‘Okay.’ Kathy checked the motionless figure in the neck brace, eyes closed. ‘Where are you taking him?’

  ‘UCH.’

  Gael Rayner opened the front door of the library and waved Kathy in. ‘We locked all the doors after I phoned you, just in case the assailant was still here. I wasn’t sure if that was the right thing to do.’ Her eyes were bright with excitement.

  ‘That’s fine. Tell me what happened.’

  Gael led her in through a crowd of chattering readers in the entrance hall. ‘One of our members, Mr Vujkovic, was in the stacks and heard an argument on the floor below. Then there was a cry and a crash. He went down to investigate, although he’s not a very agile man, so it took him a little time. He found Nigel lying among a pile of books that had fallen out of the shelves.’

  They hurried back through the library to the book stacks, to where several elderly men were standing in a cluster at the foot of a flight of stairs, beside a tumbled heap of books scattered across the floor. Kathy recognised Mr Vujkovic, and he shuffled forward and repeated the story in broken English.

  ‘The ambulance officer told me that Nigel said he’d fallen down the stairs,’ Kathy said.

  ‘No, no,’ Mr Vujkovic said. ‘There was much struggle, much argument. Maybe push down stair, yes, okay, but not fall.’

  ‘Was he arguing with a man, or a woman?’

  ‘I think man. I couldn’t see. Nigel scream like pig in slaughterhouse.’

  Two uniformed officers had arrived, and Kathy sent them off to search the building, guided by one of the librarians. She looked around at the scene. There was blood on the steel grille floor, and also traces of sand on the bottom step of the staircase.

  ‘Do the builders come up here, Gael?’

  ‘No, they shouldn’t.’

  ‘But if we go down a level we’d come to the door out to the area where they’re working, is that right? Show me.’

  They went down the next flight and emerged into a corridor. Along the floor Kathy found other traces of sand and cement dust. They came to the door that Gael had let Kathy in by the previous week when she’d come to interview Nigel Ogilvie. It was unlocked. Kathy pushed it open and walked out into the passageway beside the building site, following it to the open entrance gates. The site hut was nearby, and fixed to its parapet was a security camera covering the site entry and street outside. She knocked on the door, and explained to the site manager what had happened.

  ‘This was about forty minutes ago,’ she said.

  ‘No problem.’

  He fiddled with the machine in the corner of his office, and then replayed it backwards.

  ‘There!’ They watched as a white van materialised across the courtyard, and a man ran backwards out of it and into the library’s compound. Running the recording further back they established that the white van had arrived fifteen minutes earlier. The image of the driver, wearing overalls and a peaked cap, was indistinct, but Kathy was able to make out the van’s number. It took one phone call to establish that it belonged to Brentford Pyrotechnics.

  •

  The tyres squealed as Kathy turned into the car park of the fireworks factory, the blue light pulsing. She pulled up at the office entrance and marched into the reception area. A girl at the front desk jumped as she demanded to see Mr Pigeon, and hurried to the door of the adjoining office. The manager appeared, greeting her with a cautious smile, and led her into his room.

  ‘Another query, Inspector?’

  She handed him the number of the van taken from the CCTV. ‘Is this your van, Mr Pigeon?’

  He studied the slip of paper. ‘I think that may be one of ours. Why?’

  ‘I’d like to know who the driver is and where it is now.’

  ‘Is this a traffic matter? Has it been in an accident?’

  ‘If you could just answer my questions, please.’

  Pigeon frowned, then seeing the look on Kathy’s face lifted the phone and dialled an internal number. After a short conversation he said, ‘The driver is Keith Rafferty. He left about an hour and a half ago to take a consignment out to a job in Epping, due back after lunch, around two. Now, may I ask what this is all about?’

  ‘Your van was recorded just over an hour ago at an address in Central London at the time of a serious assault. The driver was filmed going into the building where the assault took place.’

  ‘My goodness. You suspect Keith?’

  ‘You know he has a criminal record, do you?’

  Pigeon’s eyebrows rose. ‘I can’t say I was aware of that, no. One moment.’

  He went over to a filing cabinet and withdrew a file. There were a couple of pages inside. ‘No, there’s no mention of a record. Was it serious, what he did?’

  ‘Assault, living off immoral earnings. He did gaol time. There was also a rape case that was dropped for lack of evidence.’

  ‘Oh dear. I had no idea. He had a very glowing reference from a security consultant . . .’ he scanned one of the pages, ‘by the name of Crouch.’

  ‘Yes, they were in the army together. Crouch was also implicated in the alleged rape.’

  ‘Oh. Well, that is most disturbing. So you want to interview Keith?’

  ‘I certainly do, but I’m also interested in another matter, possibly connected. You remember when I was here before that we talked about the security of your chemicals?’

  ‘Of course, and I showed you our clearance documents and our latest security vetting.’

  ‘We didn’t discuss the possibility of one of your own employees removing material.’

  ‘Yes, but I told you, deliveries are weighed and recorded as they arrive and the use of all chemicals carefully tracked and accounted for.’

  ‘What about a delivery driver, maybe helping himself to small quantities from shipments before they’re checked in? Would that be possible?’

  Pigeon’s mouth opened to protest, then a little cloud of doubt passed over his eyes. ‘Well, I’d say no, but I suppose I could check. You think Keith Rafferty . . .?’

  ‘I’d appreciate it if you would keep this to yourself for the moment, Mr Pigeon. He may have had a friend in the laboratory who would cover up for him. I think it would be a good idea if you carried out your own checks and got back to me, preferably within the next twenty-four hours.’

  ‘I see. Well, yes, I’ll see what I can do.’

  As she got back into her car, Kathy had a call from Brock.

  ‘Kathy? Where are you?’

  She explained about the assault at the London Library and her trip out to the fireworks factory. ‘I’m going to arrest Rafferty as soon as he gets back.’

  There was an ominous pause, then Brock said, ‘No. I want you back here, Kathy. Quick as you can.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Quick as you can, Kathy.’ The line went dead.

  seventeen

  ‘Bren told me about the cat,’ Brock said.

  ‘Yes, well you can understand how I feel then.’ Kathy sat rigid in the seat facing him across his desk, knowing he could see her anger blazing like a beacon, a part of her regretting this unfamiliar feeling of rebellion against him, another part relishing it.

  ‘All the more reason for you to drop it,’ Brock said. ‘He’s trying to goad you, make you step over the line. Don’t worry, he’s not going to get away with it. I’m going to put Bren onto the Ogilvie assault.’

  ‘No!’ Startled at the vehemence of her own reaction, Kathy felt the blood rush to her head. She bit her lip, then continued, more measured, ‘He doesn’t have the background.’

  ‘Then you’ll have to give it to him.’ Brock sat back in his chair, studying her. ‘How do you see it, then, Kathy? Do you think Rafferty killed Marion?’

  She hesitated. ‘I don’t know. Oh,
he’s capable of it, and we know he likes tampering with girls’ drinks. It’s also possible that he raped her and made her pregnant, but there’s the business of the unknown benefactor who stumped up three-quarters of a million for her house.’

  ‘You have a suspect?’

  ‘Her supervisor, Dr Anthony da Silva, a flirt with his students, married to a wealthy lawyer, living conveniently close to Marion’s new house. It’s even possible he had Rafferty working for him, doing his dirty work.’

  ‘That’d be a risky business relationship,’ Brock mused. ‘Why the attack on Ogilvie?’

  ‘I think he knows more than he told us—maybe something he picked up from snooping around Marion. Maybe da Silva got Rafferty to persuade him to keep quiet.’

  ‘That’s possible, I suppose.’ The atmosphere in the room had relaxed a little. ‘Brief Bren, Kathy. Get him to follow it up. As for Marion, if we really have got a murder on our hands, rather than a suicide, I’d like to get Alex Nicholson to take another look. Why don’t you draw up a profiler briefing for her. Keep it simple—victimology, scene, forensics—you know the form.’

  Kathy nodded.

  ‘Then concentrate on Interpol. Maybe you should go over to see them at Lyons. Have you ever been?’

  She shook her head, feeling sorry that he felt he had to offer her a little treat in compensation. ‘I’ll speak to Bren.’

  Bren was a solid, dependable detective, who’d got her out of trouble on more than one occasion, and she knew she could rely on him. He listened patiently to her briefing, asked a few pertinent clarifiers, and gave a brisk nod. ‘I’ll take him apart, Kathy, don’t worry.’

  ‘Well, watch your back, Bren. Remember there’s two of them, him and Crouch.’

  ‘They won’t even know it’s happening until it’s too late.’

  ‘How are you going to do that?’

  ‘Don’t know yet.’ He gave her a benign smile; one he’d picked up from Brock, she thought.