Shed No Tears

by Caz Frear

  “Maybe this was different, maybe she was threatening to out him?” offers Emily, breaking into a yawn.

  “Yeah . . .” Parnell considers it. “But how would Holly know that? Dyer said only a select few know. So even if Holly had targeted Fellows, it’s unlikely he’d say, ‘Sorry, love, not interested, I’m gay’ to a complete stranger.”

  I go out on a limb. “Look, he’s got to be the big fish. He’s a crook with lots of cash, which I know doesn’t exactly narrow down the crook pool, but Holly actually said his name to Dale Peters. Although, there is another angle . . .” I brace myself, ready to set the cat among the pigeons. “What if she wasn’t blackmailing him? What if she was working for him, or with him, and that’s what she meant when she said she’d landed a big fish?”

  Steele bounds over to my desk. “OK, this is interesting. Keep talking.”

  I look to Parnell for reinforcements. “Remember Fellows mentioned Steve Butterfield?”

  Flowers’ face darkens. “He did what? He’s got some nerve, that bastard! Steve Butterfield was my DCI at Redbridge, and a top bloke. It was sickening what happened to him. Everyone knows Fellows’ crew was behind that.”

  “OK, and so now we know what we know about Holly, doesn’t the similarity seem curious to you? Forget about Butterfield being one of us, he was a man who got caught in a compromising position in a career-ending photo. And he always insisted he’d been drugged.”

  “But that was about removing an obstacle, not blackmail,” says Parnell. “Steve was too good at his job. He was taking too many of them out of the game, so they took him out.”

  “It’s in the same ballpark, though,” I insist. Steele nods along. “And using Fellows’ name to persuade Dale Peters to hand over £10,000—how do we know Holly didn’t pull that same scam on other men? Maybe they had some sort of deal? Holly does the legwork but she gets to use Fellows’ name as leverage. They split the cash.”

  “Five thousand pounds each,” scoffs Flowers. “That’d be a pair of cufflinks to someone like Fellows. Hardly worth the effort.”

  “Yeah, he’s not been in the four-figure game for a long time,” admits Parnell.

  “Or the five-figure.” Steele pivots on her heel and sweeps back to her seat. “Although it’s not a bad sum just for letting someone use your name. And he didn’t get where he is by turning his nose up at easy money.”

  “Why kill her, if she’s his business partner, not his blackmailer?” asks Renée. “She’s taking all the risk—surely that’s the best kind of business partner.”

  “Business partnerships go sour,” I say. “And when things go sour with Simon Fellows, people wind up dead.”

  A chorus of “Allegedly.”

  “You’ve got to hand it to her. Whoever she was working for or against, the girl had balls.” Flowers sounds genuinely in awe.

  “She was scared, though,” I remind him. “Nervous about staying in her own flat. And she was right to be. Her flat was broken into just after she disappeared, and I’m not buying all that ‘I knew a lot of shady people, it could have been anyone’ bullshit from Shaw. Her laptop was stolen, not dumped by Masters—another misstep by Dyer’s team.” It comes out harsh and I mean it to. Dyer’s crown is definitely slipping. “And what do people often store on laptops? Photos. My bet is someone wanted that computer. Could have been Fellows if he knew there was something on it that connected him to Holly.”

  “Could have been any one of the men she was blackmailing,” says Seth. “Fifteen hundred pounds a month? Not many people could keep that up for too long.”

  Flowers smile-snarls. “Wouldn’t put a dent in your piggy-bank, I bet.”

  “There were no signs of forced entry,” I say, coming to Seth’s rescue. It’s not his fault he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and a turret over his head. “That suggests someone who knows what they’re doing.”

  “It wasn’t just Holly’s laptop,” Parnell says, in the interest of clarity. “They took a PlayStation, an iPod, jewelry. Shaw’s laptop, as well.”

  I flap it away. “Par for the course, Sarge. Make it look like your average burglary to mask what you were really after.”

  Steele’s hands are in the air, shushing us. “OK, OK, enough chat, people. We need actions. Do we have a list of the bars that Holly targeted? These beautiful-people haunts that I never get invited to?”

  I nod. Spencer Shaw gave us as many as he could remember. Some of them will have closed down by now—six years is a lifetime on the ever-evolving London bar scene—but we can only work with what we have.

  “Good. So we need to find out if Simon Fellows is, or was, a regular—or even an irregular—in any of these bars. And then we canvass more widely, show Holly’s photo to every single barfly, looking out for reactions that ring alarm bells. Volunteers for tonight, please? Benny-boy? Emily?”

  A spot of perfect casting. Their exquisite faces will fit right in.

  “Although it’s a hell of a long shot after six years,” says Swaines, not moaning, just making the point.

  “And it’s Monday night,” Emily points out. “It’s not exactly going to be party central. Even I like a Monday night slobbing on the sofa.”

  “And every other night dancing on the tables, eh, Ems? No wonder you’re always yawning.”

  Slightly unfair, but Flowers never passes up a chance to make someone else look bad.

  Steele ignores him. “Then we go back tomorrow night and the next night and the next night and the next. It’s called meticulous police work, and it’ll do Benny-boy good not to be cooped up in here.” She stands up. “And talking of meticulous police work, I’ve got a stack of appraisal forms to get back to. Work hard like me, folks; you get all the best jobs.”

  “Can’t you just say we’re all bloody brilliant and be done with it?” pleads Flowers, only half-joking.

  I shout over to Swaines. “So no joy with the CCTV? You lost your game of Spot Serena?”

  “Not a whisker, I’m afraid. It rained on and off most of that day, which means the quality is shite. And there’re so many people under umbrellas; she could be any one of them.”

  “She said she didn’t have an umbrella,” says Parnell, well-remembered. “Nor did Holly.”

  Flowers joins in. “That one’s said a lot of things, Lu. I mean, ‘buying Lady Gaga tickets’—hell of a euphemism for screwing a punter.”

  An email arrives in the corner of my screen, so I leave Flowers to his guffaws and Parnell to his polite chuckle. It’s an email I’d forgotten I’d requested a few days ago.

  SUBJECT: Status—Actioned: Christopher Dean Masters BANK RECORDS {RO:1182499}

  I look up to tell Steele, but she’s already crossing the threshold of her office. To my right, Parnell’s cleaning his glasses with the sleeve of his suit jacket. To my left, Renée’s opening a packet of biscuits, Emily, Swaines, and Seth not-so-subtly hovering close by.

  And then with one click of my mouse, everything changes.

  This case.

  My career options.

  My self-flagellating belief that I’m the only police officer to have ever made a grave mistake.

  Everything.

  “Sarge, can you come and look at this,” I say, my voice shaking. “Things are about to get ugly.”

  23

  Detective Constable Catrina Kinsella: Force Identification Number 293CN

  I spot my name at the top of an appraisal form. The boxes are still blank so it looks like Steele hasn’t tackled me yet. I’d joke, “Saving the best till last,” if she looked in any way in the mood for it. Maybe she would have been two minutes ago, before Parnell and I carried a loaded bomb into her office.

  “Again, Kinsella,” she says, signaling to Parnell to close the door. “Once more with less feeling. And slower, for God’s sake.”

  I can try speaking slower. I can try speaking Sanskrit if it makes what I’m about to repeat sound less catastrophic.

  Ultimately though, it doesn’t matter how I dr
ess it up, we land back at the same carnage.

  “Masters was nowhere near London on the day Holly disappeared. Serena Bailey is lying.”

  Steele stares straight ahead. Trying to find a happy place, maybe? Or a better place, at least. A place where the Metropolitan Police Force aren’t about to be dragged through the mud, then thrown in the sea.

  “He was in Newcastle, nearly three hundred miles away. Three purchases prove it. A Shell garage in Jesmond, just north of the city center, where his ex-wife lives. A fishing tackle shop called Bait’s Motel, which, you know, in happier circumstances I think we’d all award a medal. And £8 in a Burger King.”

  Parnell scatters the printouts across her desk. “It looks like he traveled up there regularly. There are numerous purchases going back to April 2011.”

  “Visiting his daughters, I suppose,” Steele says quietly, before fury revives her. “Then why the frigging hell didn’t his ex-wife tell us he was there that day?”

  “She didn’t know,” I say, leaping to her defense. If anyone deserves a stiff lunchtime gin it’s the former Mrs. Masters, and frankly I’d been jealous when she said she was going to make one right after our call. “She told me they hadn’t seen him since they left London in 2010. It’s looking like he was stalking them, boss. Brandon Keefe did say he was always going on about his ex-wife’s fancy new house, her new car. I think spying on his old family had become a bit of an obsession.”

  “We’ve worked through all the timings,” Parnell adds gently. “He couldn’t have got to Newcastle early and then back in time to meet Holly at four p.m. because Brandon Keefe saw him in the shop at eight fifteen a.m. and it’s a ten-hour round trip, and that’s if you’re putting your foot down.” A sharp look from Steele. “Yeah, don’t worry, we’re not just taking Keefe’s word for it. There is an old statement from another witness who saw Masters dropping off tools at Valentine Street, just like Keefe said.”

  I take over. “But there’s also no way he headed to Newcastle after his supposed encounter with Holly, because the fishing tackle shop shuts at five thirty p.m.”

  “He wasn’t in London, Kate.” Parnell sounds almost apologetic. “There’s no two ways about it, Bailey was either lying or mistaken.”

  “Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.” Steele pretends to headbutt her desk, then lays her head down, looking up at us. “Seriously, guys, there have to be easier jobs than this. Am I too old to join the circus? I could be one of those glamorous women strapped to a big target—the ones they throw knives at. It’d be a breeze compared with broaching this shitshow with Dyer.”

  Dyer.

  I look at Parnell, hoping he’s going to say it. The words feel stuck in my throat, thickened like glue that’s sat in the bottle for too long.

  “Dyer knew, Kate.”

  “Knew?” She lifts her head slowly, dread rising in her voice. “Knew what?”

  “That Masters wasn’t in London. She requested his bank records back in 2012.”

  “They always flag two requests for the same information,” I remind her. “And Dyer requested everything on 1st March—two days after Bailey came forward. They sent them to her the following day.”

  “But none of it’s on the system?” A question. A statement. A death knell for Dyer’s career.

  I shake my head. “We triple-checked the physical files too, just in case. Nothing.”

  After another torrent of fucks, Steele stands up and walks over to the blinds, peering out at the team. “Does anyone else know about this?”

  “Renée knows something’s up,” I say. “But you know Ren—she doesn’t make it her business unless you make it her business. I don’t think anyone else noticed me having an aneurysm.”

  “OK, good, keep it that way—for now.” She points a finger. “I mean it, this is confidential. In fact, it’s more than confidential. It’s bloody classified. Think JFK, think Watergate. Think bloody weapons of mass destruction.”

  We nod our understanding, respectful of the shitty privilege bestowed on us.

  “So . . .” Parnell takes a deep, loaded breath. “Why would Dyer withhold information that proves Masters wasn’t in London?”

  “And why would Serena Bailey insist he was?”

  The answer to Parnell’s question borders on sacrilege. The answer to mine is plain baffling.

  Steele sits down again, leaning forward onto the desk. “OK, so I’m Dyer. I’ve got Holly on CCTV in Clapham, I’ve got Bailey’s doorstep ID—a rock-solid ID.” She holds a hand up to stop me. “Everything’s looking neat and rosy and tied up with a nice silky bow, even if Masters is playing mind games and won’t admit what he did with her, and then, boom, suddenly an email from HSBC is pissing on my chips. Everything I believe to be true is called into question because of a Double Whopper and some fish bait.”

  “So?” says Parnell, a little tetchy. “That sort of thing has happened to me a hundred times. I didn’t ignore it just ’cos it messed up the narrative.”

  “But you’re not under the pressure I’m under,” says Steele, still channeling Dyer. “Pressure from the powers that be to get the case wrapped up. Pressure to be at my sick husband’s bedside. Pressure to reassure my kids it’s all OK, Mummy’s home. And then on top of that, pressure to keep all this personal stuff from the top brass in case they take me off the case.”

  I pick up the next verse. “And it makes it a lot tidier—I’ll get back to my ailing husband and my devastated kids a lot quicker—if Holly is one of Masters’. If those bank records don’t exist.”

  Parnell stares at us, open-mouthed. “Can you pair hear yourselves? She should have stepped down if she couldn’t handle it—if she was that bloody stressed she was tempted to withhold information just to get a quick conclusion.”

  Information. He used that word before. Of course, he’s dancing around using the word “evidence” because that word packs a far more devastating punch. That word will finish a career, ruin a reputation, show you up for who—what—you really are.

  “Look, I’m not condoning it, Lu. No way! I’m just trying to step into her shoes for a bit before all hell rains down.” She hesitates, tapping her foot against her chair leg. “And as for ‘she should have stepped down’—well, yeah, she should have done, obviously. But it wouldn’t do you any harm to put yourself in the shoes of a female colleague for one minute. And I know it’s not the seventies. We’re not still getting felt up in the lift or being told to put the kettle on. But if you think a female officer can step down due to ‘personal reasons’ and not have a massive blot on her copybook, you’re living in a lovely male dreamworld. Because I promise you, Lu, I might be senior in rank, but if it came to it, they’d make more allowances for you than for me.”

  “I know, boss. I know. It’s just all this . . . it’s a lot to get your head around.”

  “What I can’t get my head around is why Dyer was even requesting bank records in the first place?” Confusion coats Steele’s face. “I mean, sitting on the phone to HSBC is a hundred miles below her pay grade. I couldn’t tell you the last time I did something like that. I’m talking fifteen, twenty years ago. That type of task is spadework; it’s DC fodder—no offense, Cat.”

  “’S’OK, I know my place. Although, this lowly spadeworker was right about something. I knew there was something off about Serena Bailey, although, I admit, I didn’t think she was outright lying.”

  “So you’re not with your bosom buddy here.” A thumb to Parnell. “Mistaken.”

  I hesitate before answering, conscious I should follow Steele’s lead and plonk myself in Bailey’s size fives.

  And I try. I really try. However, I keep arriving back at the same conclusion.

  “I can’t buy that, no. Maybe if she’d shown a flicker of doubt at any point, I might feel different, but she’s been unshakable, boss. And both times I’ve met her, particularly the first time, I all but invited her to admit that she might have been wrong—no repercussions, we all make mistakes, la-di-la-di-la—and t
he lady was not for turning. And there’s something else . . .”

  The pebble in my shoe.

  Steele manages a weary smile. “There always is with you.”

  “OK, so it was Serena’s daughter’s birthday last week, and she’s just finishing Year One, so that would make her six. We’re mid-July now, so assuming a normal pregnancy, Serena would have been four months pregnant in February 2012. And if you’re four months pregnant, you know it, right?”

  “You’d be better off asking Renée,” says Steele. “Or even the super stud over there.” Parnell, proud father of four, grins at the moniker. “But more likely than not, I suppose. Then again, you hear the stories—women who didn’t realize until they were five, six months gone, sometimes more. And most symptoms can be passed off as something else. Can’t do your jeans up—one too many pizzas. Feeling a bit tired—well, frankly, aren’t we all?”

  “Your period, though?”

  “You can still get light bleeding,” explains Parnell. “Maggie did with the twins.”

  “OK, but if you’re working as a prostitute, you’re in tune with your body. You’ve got a vested interest in keeping it looking a certain way, especially if you’re a £500-an-hour kind of prostitute, and at four months, she’d have had a bump, even just a small one. So would you really sell your body if you were fairly sure you were pregnant?”

  I’m looking at Steele, but Parnell’s always up for testing out a theory.

  “I might if I was desperate,” he says. “Serena’s fella—he’s not the daughter’s dad, is he?”

  “No, she met him a few years later.”

  “Was there any dad on the scene?”

  “I’ve no idea, although if I were to hazard a guess, I’d say no. She said her life was a bit of a mess back then.”

  Parnell nods, conclusion reached. “Then, yeah, I might sell my body if I was facing single motherhood and already struggling on a low wage. Especially if I’d done it before.”

  “But she’s got ‘Special People,’” I say, earning me a strange look from Steele. “Oh, it’s just this thing she had up in her classroom: MISS BAILEY’S SPECIAL PEOPLE TREE. All the kids had them. My point is, she seems to have a decent support network, so surely someone would have helped her? Selling your pregnant body smacks of some drug-addled street girl needing to pay for her next fix, not a woman with a job, friends, family.” I pause, letting them digest what I’ve said before going for the bull’s-eye. “And I suppose with what we now know about Masters, it just makes me wonder if she was ever in Clapham at all?”