by Penny Grubb
‘He didn’t stick with it, though. He broke ties two years after Tina died.’
‘I’ve had that conversation with him,’ Suzie said. ‘It was interesting. You’ve been right through the paperwork, haven’t you? Give me an overview and then I’ll tell you what I think.’
‘The way it seemed to me – and Mrs Bell said the same – for a couple of years he was the rock the family clung to after Tina died. Not Brad of course. Michael did everything he could to keep things going but Brad never stopped trying to unseat him from his place in the firm … his place in the family by then. It’s a puzzle to me that Brad succeeded. Michael could have stayed on and had the lot. Tippet senior was ready to disown Brad. If there’d been a child, if Tina hadn’t miscarried, there’d have been no perhaps about it. Then a year after Tina died, Tippet senior got ill. He changed his will. He didn’t disinherit Brad but he put the firm in Michael’s hands. God knows how that would have worked. Michael had started fighting back a bit by then.’
‘Fighting back? How do you mean?’
‘This is what I got from Mrs Bell. Nothing much, just like he’d had enough of the constant bad-mouthing from Brad. You know the thing about Tina having keys to Brad’s car and borrowing it when she wanted … Michael never gave the keys back and he took Brad’s car a time or two without asking. Just to wind him up. And if you remember, Brad always claimed he thought it was Michael Drake when it disappeared that final time. Mrs Bell said that’s what they all thought.’
‘Well, it couldn’t have been,’ said Suzie. ‘That car was new. Michael wouldn’t have had keys to the Ford Tempo.’
‘I know. I said that to Mrs Bell. She’d obviously never thought it through, said maybe Brad had given him a set for Tina. Only Tina had been dead eight years before he bought that car. Clearly Brad Tippet was paranoid enough to overlook an inconvenience like lack of keys. Thing is that if Mrs Bell swallowed it as possible it means that Michael Drake was poking a stick through the bars at Brad Tippet for longer than we realised.’
‘Hang on …’ Again the line went quiet, then Ahmed heard Suzie’s voice, muffled. ‘Sorry, Michael. I got a call.’ He heard her footsteps echo. ‘Here you are,’ she said. ‘How are you getting on?’
‘Aren’t you having one?’ Michael Drake’s voice. ‘Yes, I’ll have it for you any minute.’
‘Lovely, yes I can see you’re almost down that first pile … uh … if …’
‘No, please, Sergeant Harmer, please don’t disturb anything. Tiffany mustn’t know.’
‘OK, well if you don’t mind I’ll pop down and get my tea and I’ll just make a call.’
‘Do you want to use the phone?’
‘No, no, that’s fine, thanks. I have my own.’
From the muffled thuds that came from the speaker, Ahmed surmised she’d patted the pocket where she’d slipped the phone. More footsteps … the echo of a staircase … a grunt of exasperation and her voice was back. ‘Ack, he’s barely down a single heap of stuff. He’s clearly started in the wrong place. He’ll be all bloody week. I’ll give him a few more minutes then I’m off. But go on, this feud, Tippet and Drake, what were you saying?’
‘That it went on longer than we thought …’
‘Oh yes, that’s what I was going to say. That fits with the conversation I had earlier. He could have had that firm, couldn’t he, the whole caboodle even after his first wife died. The father liked him, they all liked him bar Brad. But he kind of bowed out. Now he didn’t tell me a coherent story. I got the impression he doesn’t know why he did what he did, but here’s what I think. He carried on after Tina died. He tried to work with Brad, tried to make it work, but he couldn’t. He was heading for taking control of the firm and I don’t think he could square it ethically. Brad was the son who should inherit, not him. Different if Tina had lived. She was the eldest. I don’t think he liked the idea of taking it all off Brad, not with Tina gone. And I wonder if he tried to talk any of this through with the quintets, the ones he was still in contact with. Can you imagine how those conversations might have gone? China Kowalski … Gary Yeatman … trample over Brad and take the lot, that’s what they’d have said. Maybe Pamela Morgan and Edith Stevenson said different, maybe that’s why he kept up with them and not the other two.’
‘Money,’ said Ahmed as a memory sparked. He’d been listening to Suzie without thinking much of her theory, but maybe she was right. ‘I’d need to check the timings but according to Joyce Yeatman, Pamela Morgan lent him money. If she’s right it would have been round about the time he cut ties with the Tippets.’
‘Yes, that’s interesting. Think about it, he didn’t have anything else, only that job. Did Pamela Morgan give him the means to break free? Didn’t she lend money to Stevenson as well round about the same time? What was that about? Remind me, who gained from Tina Drake’s death?’
‘Michael, nothing. He lost his wife, and eventually his job. There was that insurance policy but it didn’t pay out. She died six months too soon.’
‘And she took the policy out on him, yes? At Tippet’s prompting. In a way, I suppose Tippet got something out of it. He got Michael Drake out of his life.’
‘He didn’t though, did he?’ said Ahmed. ‘Or not at once. And if Tippet cared enough about his sister not to want Drake to marry her, is he really going to kill her? But how about he’s still convinced that Drake did her in, so he’s going to pay him out by killing his second wife?’
‘After all this time, and anyway how? They don’t have anything to do with each other these days.’
‘I know, it doesn’t make much sense.’ He sighed. The car windows were misting over. He couldn’t see anything outside with any clarity. Bit like this case, he thought, looking back in time there were just too many gaps to be able to see a clear picture. ‘But still, Tippet’s held on to that grudge against the Chief Super all these years. Why not Drake too?’
‘Or how about Stevenson?’ said Suzie. ‘Maybe she wanted Drake to herself all those years ago and bumped off Tina Tippet. Now he’s gone and married again.’
He pulled a face and reached forward to rub his cuff over the windscreen opening a small window of visibility. ‘She’s had a lot of years to get together with him or come to terms with not. Do you really think there’s anything there?’
‘You’re the one trying to persuade us that Stevenson’s involved, remember?’
‘With Tom Jenkinson, not with some plot to kill Michael Drake’s wives. And where’s Robert Morgan in all this? We’re building on quicksand, Suzie.’
‘I know I know, but there’s something in here somewhere.’
‘What did you get on the first Mrs Drake? Did you find her medical records?’
‘Nothing explicitly untoward, though no definitive cause of death. Batteries of tests, months of ups and downs. Symptoms: blurred vision, dizziness, nausea, sensitivity to sunlight, and bone pain. Sound familiar? If there’s something going on with Michael Drake’s wives, the links are the Tippets and the quintets; three of the quintets anyway; Stevenson, Drake himself and Kowalski.’
‘Kowalski’s been at the other side of the world,’ objected Ahmed.
‘Has she? We’ve only her word for that.’
‘Well, it’s easily checked.’
‘Yeah, right. It’s so easily checked we haven’t bothered. Who was it raked all this up with John Farrar’s father in the first place? And who turned up in York yesterday supposedly jet-lagged so she didn’t have to appear too coherent?’
Ahmed paused. She was right. ‘Suzie, if someone’s targeting Tiffany Drake, we ought to take this higher.’
‘We don’t have enough.’ Suzie sounded troubled. ‘Hell, Ayaan, I don’t have enough to convince myself let alone anyone else, and I don’t want to have to come clean about how I found Tiffany Drake’s medical data until I have to. Hang on …’
Ahmed heard a voice in the background, then Suzie’s shout, ‘That’s great, Michael, thanks.’ Her voice lowered again. ‘Wonde
rs will never cease, he’s found it. I’d have put money on this being a waste of time.’
‘I told you, don’t underestimate him. This is the guy who got Suzie Harmer to make the tea.’
‘Ha ha. Right, I’m going to go through these emails. Hold off Stevenson until I get back to you, but have a go at those other two names, only don’t bounce them into trying to chase her if she isn’t there.’
‘OK.’ He closed the call and set the blower to maximum to clear the windows, sitting back while it did its work, disjointed thoughts floating at random.
Names … Tom … Edith Stevenson … major drugs cartel … Tom, why didn’t you tell me?
Webber’s voice: Did he tell you anything … anything at all?
He remembered the guilty flush on Tom’s face when he’d walked into the interview room in York. That had been about the kids and the traffic lights scam. As far as he knew no one had unravelled what that had been about but it had been somehow tied up in Tom’s death.
Something wasn’t right. He closed his eyes. Tom facing him across the desk … sitting there in his battered jacket. ‘Oh, Tom.’ He spoke the words aloud, slapping his forehead in exasperation. Pulling out his phone he opened a new text message and began to type. Of course, he’d found nothing in the mentoring notes. It was that interview in York. Tom had been digging, wanting to know how much they’d found about his drugs contacts; and in doing so he might have passed on a key scrap of information.
Chapter 42
Webber strode through the crowded reception area, Davis at his heels. They clattered up the stairs. Webber felt good. Things were moving now. An identity had been unearthed for the man called Streetwise and with the identification had come the intel that they weren’t the only ones interested in him. A Europol operation had him flagged for drugs trafficking. They had been close to stepping on the toes of a long-running, highly resourced operation that was building to a climax. Information had been swapped and Webber had asked John Farrar to add his weight to a forthcoming teleconference.
They would run into a level of resentment, he knew. Streetwise had had a team after him for a long time. They’d worked meticulously and wouldn’t want Webber stepping in to pluck the prize at the last minute, but that’s just what he intended to do. He wanted Streetwise arrested by his team for killing Tom Jenkinson, not under another country’s warrant for drugs running; didn’t want the Jenkinson case left in official limbo because the perpetrator was behind bars for another crime.
Farrar had organised the teleconference in his own office. Just the three of them from this side of the enquiry.
As he arrived at Farrar’s door, his phone buzzed a text. Farrar signalled him inside. The space was awkward for three of them to sit the same side of the screen. Webber manoeuvred his chair to allow room for Davis. A glance at his phone showed Ahmed’s name on the screen. Ahmed could wait.
Farrar’s hard stare alerted him that Davis too had pulled out his phone. Webber glanced across to see Ahmed’s name on Davis’s screen. Whatever Ahmed had found, he’d sent it to both of them. Davis slipped the phone into his pocket.
‘We’ve sent them everything we have, yes?’ Farrar looked from one to the other of them as he spoke.
Webber nodded. ‘Everything. They couldn’t wait to get their hands on it. He’s killed before but not like this; they’ve never had enough to make charges stick. We seem to have come in from left field, picked up things we didn’t know we had, things their surveillance team missed.’
‘What’s the point of these fancy analysis systems,’ grumbled Davis, ‘if we don’t even get to know they’ve had a surveillance team in York?’
Farrar’s pursed lips told Webber that the question had been asked at a higher level. ‘We know now,’ Farrar rapped out. ‘Though strictly speaking it wasn’t York where they linked him to Jenkinson, it was Hull where he and his sidekick first went to recruit the boy. They said nothing because it didn’t come to anything.’
‘Streetwise came to York to kill him,’ Webber growled, ‘and he has to be brought back here to be charged.’
‘They’ll fight you, Martyn,’ Farrar said. ‘This is a trophy scalp. They’ll want it.’
‘They can’t get him for murder. We can.’
Farrar tipped his head. ‘Only if their surveillance gives us the missing pieces. OK, let’s see, shall we?’
Farrar leant forward to tweak the controls. The monitor flashed into life. After a moment, a face came into focus, filling the screen. Webber took in the florid complexion, the lined forehead, the hint of jowls. The face drew back as Farrar identified himself and introduced the two of them. Their Scandinavian counterparts sat around a table, three women and two men.
The florid-faced man took the lead, aiming his comments at Farrar. ‘Let me first give you a frank appraisal of our planned strategy,’ he said. ‘And then I should like to talk about the data we have from your Inspector Davis.’
Webber saw Farrar’s glance flick briefly to Davis who shuffled in his chair. The message was plain – any cock-up in the data provided would not go well. Webber hoped Davis hadn’t cut any corners.
The planned strategy unfolded. Webber fought to keep his breathing even. It was worse than he’d thought. They were open about wanting to use Jenkinson’s killing as a bargaining chip.
‘Make no mistake,’ said the man, ‘this man is a killer, but if he killed this Jenkinson boy we reason that it was a rush job, heat of the moment. If your data fits with ours, the case is strong. But a man like this, to be pulled down for the murder of someone so insignificant, he would hate that above all.’
‘He killed Arthur Trent too.’ Webber struggled to keep his tone neutral. Two weeks ago Trent’s sister-in-law had sat across from him, cradling a hot cup of tea, telling him about good family man Arthur Trent.
‘An added irritant.’ The face on the screen acknowledged his comment with a smile and a nod.
Webber’s fists clenched. He listened to the silky tone glide past Trent and talk about Jenkinson’s death as leverage, a means to loosen tongues; there was even a side-swipe at Davis about potential anomalies in the data that would have to be straightened out. He thought of the text they’d received and was thankful Ahmed would never get to listen to this.
‘It’s a case of clearing up some details of timing and then deciding what is needed so we can be the best help possible to each other’s enquiries. We should get what we need from the final section of your data, which we have yet to look at.’
‘I’ve sent that across.’ It was Davis’s first intervention. He sounded worried.
‘Yes,’ the voice said smoothly, ‘but it has only just arrived. We haven’t had time to study it.’
Webber looked into the smiling face on the screen and couldn’t hold back. As he drew in breath to speak a movement from Farrar stopped him. Farrar’s hand, below the line of the camera was upraised in a clear signal to him to keep quiet. Briefly he met Farrar’s eye and clamped down on his anger.
Smiling into the camera, his voice as smooth as his Scandinavian counterpart, Farrar said, ‘A brief recess I think. Ten minutes? Will that be enough for you to analyse the data from Inspector Davis?’
‘Ten minutes will be ample.’
As soon as the screen blanked Webber burst out, ‘Trent was no rush job. They could have kept him quiet with money. He didn’t have to die. And Streetwise knocked out that boy and buried him in concrete before he was dead. We can’t do deals. This is murder.’
Farrar turned to face him. ‘I’m not happy about it either, but we have to think big picture. Which is not to say I’m going to agree, but I’m not ruling it out.’
‘The “Kids with Potential” initiative struggles for funding as it is,’ Webber said. ‘If we start labelling its participants as insignificant pawns in some bigger game, what message does that send to the next generation? What message does it send to our own officers?’ As he spoke, his phone buzzed a call. He looked down to see Melinda’s name on the
screen and red-buttoned her to voicemail.
‘Those last details you sent across,’ Farrar turned to Davis. ‘It’s all there, is it? All checked?’
‘Yes, dates and times, chapter and verse.’ Davis didn’t sound confident. ‘I don’t know why they’re making a song and dance. It’s nothing new.’
‘Then what is it?’
‘It’s a summary they asked for after they’d seen the rest of the file. They wanted the timeline in a different format, needed it spelling out apparently. It’s only a page.’
Webber looked at Farrar. Farrar had the contacts to make sure Jenkinson’s killer wasn’t allowed to dodge responsibility for his death. He tried to imagine the effect on Ahmed if the killer was never brought to book for the crime. Again he felt his phone buzz. His glance showed two new text messages, one signalling receipt of voicemail and the other from Melinda.
‘Do you have everything there for when we reconvene?’ Farrar barked the question at Davis.
‘Everything.’ Davis nodded and patted the fat files that he’d carried in and placed on the desk.
Farrar narrowed his eyes, then said, ‘I’ll be back in a few minutes.’
Webber watched him go. He left the door swinging open which seemed to say no discussion while he was away. Davis flicked through the case files. Webber thought he looked like a schoolboy doing last-minute cramming for an exam.
‘Let me see the chronology.’ Webber held out his hand. Davis passed across the single sheet of paper. Webber ran his gaze down the list, checking, looking for mistakes … Jenkinson ID’d on the footage by the traffic lights … the interview with Ahmed … the death of Arthur Trent … Jenkinson’s jacket pulled from the gravel pit … his body from the concrete foundation of the walkway tower. He couldn’t find any anomalies and handed the page back.
No sign of Farrar yet, so he pulled out his phone. The text from Ahmed said,
Tom did tell me something. Interview in York. Can’t recall exact words but he said traffic lights were nothing to do with the drugs Mr Big. If it had been he wouldn’t have touched it.