Time and Tide: A DC Smith Investigation
Page 18
Was Terek insensitive or was this intentional? Waters saw the look that passed between Wilson and O’Leary – just a mere glance but it was enough – and then he caught the look from Chief Inspector Alison Reeve, a look that went around the table before it rested with Smith, who at that moment appeared to be staring out of the only window in room 17. Not for the first time, it occurred to Waters that he had only ever seen how things were managed at Kings Lake Central; perhaps in other stations, perhaps in all of them bar this one, it was usual for inspectors to direct the work of detectives in person rather than through their sergeants, as Reeve had always done.
Detective Chief Superintendent Allen was in buoyant mood, however, and he took over the briefing for the London end of the operation so far. It was a model example of inter-force cooperation, and things had moved forward significantly through yesterday. As he listened, Waters checked on his iPad, and sure enough there was already more information about this than there had been at 08.30. He saw, too, that the summary he had written last night of what he and Smith had done yesterday, and which he had posted half an hour ago, had now appeared on the central file for the case. But Smith was right – that had taken an hour and a half, written at home; the more time you spend writing about what you’ve done, the less time you have to actually do anything else.
Increasingly, the superintendent said, Sokoloff’s criminal connections were looking to be important in the investigation. Although he could not be tied to recent offences, he was still in touch with players who could be and had been. Two informants in Sokoloff’s part of the capital had independently mentioned serious ill-feeling between him and a Brian Elliott from Ilford. Elliott had moved on from a drugs and protection business to money-laundering, and was well-known to the detectives that they were working with at Dagenham. ‘In their view,’ Superintendent Allen concluded, ‘this Elliott character is a dangerous enemy to have. This is an active line of inquiry which they are pursuing on our behalf. It is possible that Sokoloff was lured up to the coast in some way and killed in an act of gangland violence.’
Chief Inspector Reeve said, ‘What about Anneliese Nowicki, sir, Sokoloff’s partner? Has she given them anything else?’
Allen said, ‘Apparently, she now has a lawyer with her at every interview.’
When Waters checked, he saw that Smith’s attention was now back in the room.
Reeve asked, ‘What about her own mobile? Has that been examined?’
‘Yes, with her full cooperation. It confirms what we’ve already been told about the contacts between them. Miss Nowicki hasn’t lied, as far as we can tell. Of course, that it isn’t the same as telling us the whole truth.’
After a pause, Detective Inspector Terek invited Smith to report back on what had been found up on the coast yesterday afternoon. He did so factually and concisely, after an opening reference to the notes that Detective Constable Waters had spent the previous evening writing up. Wilson made a point of looking astonished as he tapped enthusiastically on his iPad’s screen.
When the summary was done, Allen said, ‘Good. We have a pretty clear picture of Sokoloff’s movements on the Friday and Saturday. But there’s nothing solid that ties him to The Queens Arms, is there? We have the say-so of a waitress, but no evidence that he was there at that pub?’
‘No, sir.’
‘You suggest that others might have been making inquiries about his whereabouts but again, nothing concrete…’
With a glance at his two senior officers, Allen said, ‘In view of the evidence that we already have accumulated, and in view of the work we now need to do with phone records, bank records and CCTV from the hotel, we have more than enough to keep us busy for the next few days. We don’t need to spend any more time following up on the speculations of waitresses! Simon, let’s make sure that all new intelligence gathered today is shared by four o’clock this afternoon. As you can all see, the new protocols are highly effective. Teamwork is the key, and-’
The sound of the whistle of an old steam train interrupted Superintendent Allen’s paean to new protocols. Waters cringed inwardly when he realised that Smith’s mobile had lit up and begun to vibrate on the table in front of him – Smith must have been fiddling with it again, though Waters had expressly forbidden it. Every eye in the room was upon the guilty party.
Apparently unconcerned, Smith picked up the phone, pressed the home button and read the message. The look of surprise that he then sent in Waters’ direction was genuine.
Allen said, ‘If I might be allowed to continue, Smith.’
‘Of course, sir. Sorry for the interruption. It’s just Sergeant Hills sharing some new intelligence that he thought might have a bearing on the case.’
‘Uniform Sergeant Hills?’
‘Yes, sir. But do carry on, it’s nothing concrete. You were saying about teamwork, sir.’
John Murray was smiling and Waters had to look away, but not at all in Serena’s direction.
Allen said, ‘Never mind that now. What has Sergeant Hills to contribute? Has someone come into the station with information?’
‘No, sir, it’s nothing like that. He suggests that I take a look at the internal news bulletin for this morning. That pub, sir, The Queens Arms? Someone tried to burn it down last night.’
Chapter Twenty
Uniformed police officer Mark Warren from Hunston was a sound man, and by the time Detective Inspector Terek had contacted him on the radio he had made a thorough assessment of the situation at The Queens Arms in Overy. The damage wasn’t severe, and the pub could open this lunchtime as the landlord was requesting, as long as the police gave their consent – but they would need to give their consent, Warren told Terek, because there was no doubt about whether or not this was an attempt at arson. Someone had poured an accelerant through the letterbox in the side-door and set light to it.
Smith was in the inspector’s office as the call was made and the questions were asked. Could the area in question be sealed off so that forensic work could be carried out if necessary? Warren thought that it could. Did the occupants seem to think that they might be at risk of further attack? No, said Warren – they had given the impression that it was just an act of vandalism. So they had no idea who might have carried it out or why? More negatives from Mark Warren. Terek asked him to stand by while the matter was discussed at Kings Lake, and ended the call.
After that, Terek spent a minute or so making notes on the infernal iPad while Smith gazed on impassively, like a man who has seen the future and concluded that it does not work.
Terek said, eventually, ‘OK, DC. What do you think?’
‘I think that this might or might not be connected to the Sokoloff case, sir, but either way it cannot be handled by uniform. Arson is always a criminal investigation matter, at least in Norfolk, sir.’
‘And everywhere else, of course. I’m well aware of that. I’m asking whether you believe this is connected to our case. We have a full workload today, a mass of information to sort through… Is your time better spent working through the CCTV from the hotel where we know Sokoloff stayed, or talking to people at The Queens Arms where he might have done? Superintendent Allen thinks it likely that Sokoloff met someone at the hotel. If we can show that he did, and put names to faces… I can easily pass the arson thing over to someone in Norwich, can’t I?’
‘Yes, sir. Help is just a phone call away.’
‘And I can brief them about what we’re doing here, just in case.’
‘Absolutely. You could connect them to the central files and they could work out for themselves whether the attempted arson they’re investigating is connected to the murder we are investigating.’
It sounded completely convincing, as if Smith had at last got on board, and Terek went along with it for a few seconds. Then, because he was by no means a complete fool, the inspector looked up and said, ‘But you don’t agree.’
‘No, sir.’
‘You’re free to speak your mind, DC.’
Terek readjusted his spectacles and pursed his lips, as if the next words required thorough preparation.
‘I appreciate that my arrival has signalled a number of changes. If at any time you would like to reconsider what we discussed before – about your role during the time you have left – you should come to me. I promise you a sympathetic hearing.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘As you’ve pulled into the side, let me hazard a guess as to what you might have said in other circumstances. You would say that we should go out to Overy this morning.’
Smith nodded and said, ‘I think it’s what some call a no-brainer, sir.’
‘You and Chris Waters?’
‘Yes, sir, because he has already met and observed the man who runs the bar. Any alteration in the man’s demeanour would be significant, and Waters is a very observant officer.’
There was a long pause in the conversation, so long that Smith began to believe that the inspector might have changed his mind. Then there was someone knocking at the office door, and through the frosted glass panel, Smith could see that it was Wilson.
Terek said, ‘Maybe later, then. I’ll hold the arson thing for now. See what you can come up with in the hotel’s CCTV.’
Waters had already done the bulk of the work on the car-park camera, and within a few minutes he had joined Smith at his desk to help with going through the seven days of material from the CCTV that overlooks the front entrance to The Royal Victoria. This is laborious work. One can fast forward it, obviously, but if that option is taken then the risks are the same as if one fast forwards life itself – one is likely to miss things. The proper way is to watch it in real time, minute by minute, moment by moment, with a kind of patient hopefulness.
The temptation was to focus only on the days that they knew Sokoloff had been present but that too would be a mistake. Detective Superintendent Allen might be onto something – Smith had the copy of the hotel’s register handy, and at some point the names in it would need to be cross-referenced with those being thrown up by what Wilson’s team were doing, which was yet more painstaking work, ploughing through the details of Sokoloff’s own criminal records for the names of every known associate. If any dodgy faces showed up on the CCTV footage, that was another way in which connections might be made; those faces might have arrived at the hotel before Sokoloff did, and they might have checked out after him, and so all the footage had to be viewed at least once. It is impossible to guess what might be significant in the light of future developments, and computers can only do so much even now. The human mind has an infinite capacity for facial recognition, and Smith would usually back himself to spot a wrong’un, even while he was sitting in this sodding office.
It was half an hour before Waters felt able to broach the subject of the latest event in Overy.
‘I wonder what that arson attempt was about.’
Smith pressed pause, and managed to freeze the moment in front of The Royal Victoria at which a large dog on a lead managed to pull its diminutive lady owner into the passing traffic, in pursuit of a seagull – taken with a good camera, the image might have won a prize in a photographic competition.
Smith said, ‘Operationally, what would you have done this morning, if you were in charge of this?’
‘I’d have got someone out there. Too much of a coincidence.’
‘Good. Who would you have sent?’
‘You and I.’
‘For a number of fairly bloody obvious reasons, yes. I think it should be ‘me’, by the way.’
‘That’s what I said – you and I.’
Smith gave a small sigh, concluding that this was one tide race he could not paddle out of entirely just yet.’
‘No. I think you should have said “You and me”. You would have sent you and me.’
Waters seemed puzzled and surprised.
‘Really? My English teacher always said “You and I” was more correct.’
‘Well, not in every conceivable semantic situation! Think about it – you wouldn’t say “I would send I”, would you? You’d say “I would send me”. So the fact that someone else is present in the sentence as well doesn’t alter that…’
Waters considered the proposition at about the same speed he considered everything else in life. Then he said, ‘So, what did you say to DI Terek? “Why don’t you send Waters and me?”?’
Smith pressed the resume button and said, ‘Not in as many words, but the answer I got is plain enough as we’re still sitting here. Do you want to fetch some tea, or sit here while I do?’
Waters thought about that as well before he said, ‘So why don’t we say “While me do?”
Smith went for the tea.
Searching through bank records is even more mind-numbing than watching CCTV footage. We might imagine that everything comes with full details of who paid what to whom, but it is not so. We have all experienced that moment when a transaction appears on our statement, and we do not recognise it. We have been robbed and we are about to report it, and then we think more carefully, we look, and the code by the item begins to make a kind of sense. And that is with our own statement, our personal record – John Murray had been confronted for the past hour with a stranger’s, and every movement of money in and out must be viewed with suspicion. Yet at this stage he had no more to go on than those same anonymous transaction codes and the amounts themselves.
Patterns soon become clear, though, when you have done this kind of work before. Sokoloff had a domestic routine, and every Friday there was a payment of between one hundred and one hundred and twenty pounds to a well-known supermarket. No doubt Anneliese was with him, and they would drive home and put the shopping away like everyone else, then a quick, convenient tea, a glass of wine or maybe a beer, and watch the box sets. Too much of a leap there, we might say, but the bank record showed subscriptions to three TV streaming services. To Murray, this implied that Sokoloff was these days more inclined to watch gangsters on the screen with his feet up than impersonate one on the mean streets of Barking.
Sokoloff had a single, regular payment in each month, a bank transfer of thousands of pounds from the same account; this would be the health club, but if he needed to check, a phone call to the security services liaison office of the bank would confirm that. Murray already had a short list of items that they would need to clarify. No car purchase payments that he could see, so either Sokoloff had paid cash for the Mercedes or that was done through the company accounts as some sort of tax dodge. Sokoloff was a man of habit, though, and the amounts he put in to refuel were very similar every time. Perhaps he liked to keep an eye on his mpg.
Smith had suggested going back three months with the bank records. By the time he was halfway through the second one, Murray could see that Sokoloff led an existence about as predictable as his own these days – the financial footprints that we leave are much more revealing than we could ever imagine, and are accurate predictors of our future behaviours, too. That, thought Murray, is how Amazon has come to rule the world, as he picked up the phone and dialled the security liaison office at Sokoloff’s bank. There were just three amounts out that he could not account for, and none of them was large enough to cause any suspicion – three hundred and thirty, two hundred and twelve and a paltry fifty six. But Murray was by nature a completist, and the thought of not bothering to check every single item never entered his head. Apart, from anything else, that was what DC would expect from him.
Before he went back into room 17, Smith stood and watched from the corridor. It was busy, a blend of lowered voices, tapping keyboards, computer clicks and the chattering of an out-of-date ink-jet printer somewhere in a corner. A scene that he had witnessed and been a part of more times than h
e cared to mention but nothing was mundane any more – everything seemed to have taken on an air of significance, and of course he understood why. He understood, too, why some men and women change their minds at this moment, why they go back to their boss and say, have you handed it in, is it really too late, because it isn’t just a room one is leaving behind but the people in it. And in the end, nothing matters more than other people.
He could see Waters working his way through the CCTV footage, and he knew that he wouldn’t need to go back and check because the young detective’s eyes were as sharp as his own now; it would have been nice to get him married off to a sensible girl but you can’t win them all. Waters hadn’t told him the whole truth about Kathryn Diver when Smith had asked a couple of days ago, but, well, the course of true love and all that…
Serena was focused on her screen, examining the phone records. Again, there would be nothing for him to double-check, and she had already made a good impression on the new management. If Smith could be certain of anything in this world, it was that Detective Inspector Simon Terek was not her type, so there was no danger of that particular bit of history repeating itself.
And there was John Murray, on the telephone to someone, the original Mr Plod to some but relentless once he was coming after you, like the crocodile that swallowed the ticking clock, and the most loyal of men, one that would go through solid doors and take a bullet for you.
Carrying just the two mugs of tea, Smith crossed the room, annoyed with himself because he didn’t have four mugs on a tray; no-one had expressly forbidden it but the atmosphere and the expectations in the office had already altered. The shared tea-breaks were now just a little frowned upon. Smith could have told you of half a dozen cases that were cracked as detectives sat in the staff canteen or the saloon bar of The Bell, just talking it through, talking it over, but it was difficult to incorporate that sort of thing into a protocol.