‘And why would they want Mr Moszynski dead?’
‘To get hold of his fortune, to intimidate other Russian expats in the UK, and to damage relations between the Russian and British governments.’
‘Did Mikhail Moszynski pay for your prostitutes, Sir Nigel?’
‘Certainly not.’ He gave a grim smile. ‘I have the receipts, VAT included.’
‘Thank you, Sir Nigel and Lady Hadden-Vane.’
Kathy was conscious of phones ringing. One of them was her mobile. She checked the caller ID—it was Bren—and put it to her ear.
‘Kathy! Have you heard?’
‘About Hadden-Vane? I’ve just been watching it.’
‘What do you think?’
The truth was that she wasn’t thinking very clearly at all.
‘The bastard,’ Bren was saying.
‘He was tipped off,’ Kathy said.
‘Must have been. Where are you?’
‘Queen Anne’s Gate . . . Listen, Bren, I spoke to Brock.’
‘What?’
‘Yes, he’s conscious. He’s very weak, but he sounded okay.’
‘That’s great news.’ Bren sounded hesitant, as if he wasn’t quite following her train of thought. ‘Maybe I should come in.’
‘Well, I imagine shit and fan are coming together as we speak. I’d better ring off.’
What she wanted to do was watch the film clip again, but the phone on her desk was ringing insistently.
‘Ah, Kolla, at last.’ Sharpe sounded breathless. ‘You’re at Queen Anne’s Gate?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Are the press there?’
‘Hang on a minute, sir . . .’ She went over to the window and looked down into the street. It was deserted. ‘No, sir.’
‘Good. They’re besieging New Scotland Yard. I’m on my way in. We’ll come to you.’
She didn’t have a chance to ask who ‘we’ were.
She checked her phone messages. Her friend Nicole was asking her to ring, and the caretaker of her block of flats in Finchley was letting her know that there were reporters outside, wanting to interview her.
Kathy opened up the BBC website again.
After half an hour there was a tap on her door and Superintendent Dick Chivers walked in. Another member of the Homicide and Serious Crime Command under Sharpe, ‘Cheery’ Chivers was looking even more gloomy than usual. ‘Kathy,’ he said, offering his hand. ‘Bad business.’
‘Hello, sir.’
In answer to the unspoken question on Kathy’s face, Chivers said, ‘Commander Sharpe told me to meet him here.’ He unfastened his raincoat and gave it a shake. ‘Still pissing down.’ He took a seat at one of the consoles and looked around. ‘You’ve had a technical upgrade. Any word on Brock?’
Kathy told him and a smile passed briefly across his face. ‘Excellent, excellent.’
She stood there for a moment, then said, ‘Would you like a coffee?’
‘Good idea,’ he said dolefully. ‘We’ll need plenty before the night’s out, I dare say.’
After an awkward interval in which Kathy completed typing her observations on Hadden-Vane’s performance, a call came from the front desk to say that Commander Sharpe had arrived and would meet them in the main conference room. Bren had also arrived, and was waiting in the front lobby when they went down. Together they made their way to the meeting room.
Sharpe was in his uniform, his hat and gloves on the table in front of him, looking as if he were ready to confront a riot or a press ambush. Marilyn from the Press Bureau was sitting at his side, typing furiously into a laptop.
‘I’ve had words with the Assistant Commissioner on the way in,’ Sharpe said. ‘He agrees that we have little option. There will be a change of personnel. Superintendent Chivers will assume command of the investigations into the deaths of Haynes and Moszynski and all related inquiries. You’ll make this your number-one priority, Dick. We need rapid progress.
‘DI Gurney, you and your people will brief the new team and then be allocated to other commands.’
Bren looked stunned. ‘Other commands, sir?’
‘Yes. We’ll work out where later. There’s no shortage of opportunities.’
‘As a short-term measure?’ Bren asked.
Sharpe gave him a barbed look of impatience. ‘Permanently, Inspector. The unit is no longer viable.’ He hurried on, ‘DI Kolla, you have twenty-three days of accrued leave entitlement. You will take this beginning noon tomorrow, after you’ve finished briefing Dick’s team. I would strongly recommend, for your own convenience and ours, that you spend that time outside of London. In particular—and this is an order—I don’t want you within a mile of Cunningham Place.’
Marilyn was eyeing Kathy over the top of her large glasses, watching her reaction.
Kathy felt detached, as if seeing all this from a distance.
‘Sir,’ she said, ‘I have prepared a detailed rebuttal of Sir Nigel’s statements. I don’t believe we need to overreact to—’
‘Overreact!’ Sharpe exploded, then thrust out his jaw and said, ‘Give your paper to Superintendent Chivers, Inspector. What I said stands.’ He took a breath, then continued, ‘We will announce a press conference at nine tomorrow morning, at which I shall make a statement. Marilyn?’
She handed out sheets, and they read.
The MPS views with grave concern the claims made by Sir Nigel Hadden-Vane on BBC television last night. We deny absolutely any attempt to embarrass or incriminate him. As in any murder inquiry, those people closely associated with the victim or present at the scene have been investigated in a vigorous but scrupulous manner by our officers, who have acted throughout with diligence and fairness. Our investigation has been hampered by elements of secrecy surrounding some of Mr Moszynski’s affairs, but the investigating team has made significant progress, including establishing the identity of the murderer. The team has also been hampered by the sudden critical illness of its leader, DCI Brock. As a result we have decided to appoint Superintendent Richard Chivers to overall command of the inquiry.
‘That’s all I propose to say to the press,’ Sharpe said.
‘They’ll ask about Kathy,’ Marilyn objected.
‘That’s all I shall say,’ Sharpe repeated, and got to his feet. ‘Now you and I should go to New Scotland Yard.’
With a rueful look at Kathy, Marilyn stood up and followed him.
‘Well,’ Chivers said finally, ‘sorry about that. Didn’t know he was going to kick you lot out.’ His eye roved around the room as if working out where to hang his framed commendation certificates. ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m going home to get some shut-eye. See you both here tomorrow, eh? Eight o’clock sharp.’
When he’d gone Bren said softly, ‘Bastard.’
Kathy blinked and sat up. ‘I feel sorry for him, stuck in the middle.’
‘No, Sharpe. He looked like he felt defiled just being here, like what he really wanted to do was raze the place to the ground and spread salt over the rubble. You were dead right, Kathy, they’re overreacting, badly.’
Kathy couldn’t frame a response to that.
Bren looked at her with concern and said, ‘Come back and stay at our place tonight, Kathy. After a good kip and one of Deanne’s hot breakfasts things will look brighter.’
‘Thanks, Bren, I appreciate it, but I’ll head off home to lick my wounds. See you tomorrow.’
She didn’t go home to face the press mob. There was a change of shirt and underwear in her locker and a bed in the staffroom, and she just wanted to be alone to confront the reality of it all, to come face to face at last with something that had haunted her from the beginning: the possibility of stuffing things up so badly that her career would be over. No longer viable. Only it was worse than that, because along with her, Brock’s whole outfit was going down. She had destroyed it, all of Brock’s patiently nurtured team broken up, scattered across London. And she had to go and tell him what she’d done. A sudden wave of n
ausea rose up in her gullet and she got quickly to her feet, went out to the women’s toilets down the corridor, and was sick.
She rose at five the following morning from the unfamiliar bunk, moist from a couple of hours of sweaty dream-filled sleep, had a shower and got dressed. Then she went to her computer and downloaded all the case files she could access onto a flash drive, and typed out the letter of resignation that she had been composing during the night.
She could hardly bring herself to look at them during Chivers’ team meeting—Dot, Pip, Mickey, Zack, Phil and the others—as they gasped with disbelief at the news that they were to be moved on. When Chivers called upon her to speak she did force herself to meet their eyes as she accepted full responsibility for the way things had turned out, and commended them on their dedication. She told them the hopeful news of Brock’s recovery and said she would be seeing him later that day to tell him what had happened, if he was well enough. Then she asked them to give Superintendent Chivers and his team every assistance to complete their work.
Chivers introduced his team, looking subdued, and explained how the debriefing would be organised.
At lunchtime, when it was all over, Chivers gave Brock’s team the rest of the day off, saying they would receive text messages later as to where to report the following day. Bren suggested they adjourn to the Two Chairmen, and they all filed out, carrying bulging bags and backpacks. Kathy stood the first round, and waited until the moans became repetitive, then said she would have to leave them to go and see Brock.
When she got to the hospital and caught a first glimpse of him, sitting up against the pillows, sucking juice through a straw, her courage gave out. But he looked up suddenly as if he’d sensed her presence, and smiled and waved her in. That gaunt smile was the worst thing of all, she decided, but she choked back the sick feeling and fixed a smile on her own face and stepped forward.
‘You look better today,’ she said brightly. ‘There’s colour in your face.’
‘I am feeling a bit more myself. Sorry if I was dozy yesterday. Suzanne’s just popped out to do some shopping. How are you?’
‘Umm . . .’ She wasn’t sure whether she should say anything, but then his eyes probed her and she launched into it. ‘It’s been a bad twenty-four hours, actually.’
He nodded. ‘Panic stations, eh?’ He indicated the TV on the wall facing the bed. ‘I saw Hadden-Vane’s performance, and Sharpe’s press statement. But we’ve seen it all before.’
She heard his reassuring, steadying voice, and wondered how she could tell him that it was worse, much worse.
‘Sharpe has decided to put Chivers in charge,’ she said.
He frowned. ‘Well, can’t be helped. In terms of his own accountability, Sharpe probably should have done it a week ago. You’ll get on with old Cheery all right. Just play it by the book. That’s what he likes.’
‘I won’t get that chance, Brock. None of us will. He’s brought his own team in. We spent this morning briefing them. We’re being . . . dispersed.’
‘Dispersed?’
‘Assigned to other commands.’
A low growl rumbled in Brock’s throat.
‘And Chivers has taken over Queen Anne’s Gate.’
He looked startled, then slowly shook his head.
She waited, giving him a chance to say something before she broached the final thing. At last, when he said nothing, his expression unreadable, she took the envelope out of her pocket and said, ‘I’ve written my letter of resignation. I’ll post it downstairs when I leave.’
‘You’ll do no such thing,’ he said quietly. ‘A building’s just a building and the team could benefit from a change for a while, but you’re not going to sacrifice your career for that corrupt windbag. What on earth are you thinking of?’
‘The team’s being broken up permanently. Sharpe says it’s no longer viable, and it’s my fault entirely. I’m sorry, I was impatient. I showed my hand before I was ready. I deserved to be crushed. But you and the team don’t. I’ve ruined everything you’ve worked for.’ She took a breath and shook her head. ‘I just feel so bloody stupid and inept. It’s not as if I hadn’t seen it all before. I let him do to me what he did to Tom Reeves—I set him up and then had him pull the rug out from under me, in full public view.’
‘This is nothing like what Tom Reeves did. Tom set himself up, getting evidence by breaking the law. I take it you haven’t done that?’
‘No.’
‘Good.’ He gave a sigh of exasperation. ‘Come on, Kathy, this isn’t like you. You’re tired, aren’t you? But you’re a fighter, and your instincts are spot on. You know as well as I do that that man is bent. I’ll bet a pound to a penny that there’s a ton of stuff about him and Moszynski that he’s desperate to keep hidden.’
Kathy bowed her head. ‘Yes.’
Brock was scratching his beard. ‘That last bit about keeping the receipts, remember that? Bit odd, wasn’t it?’
Kathy nodded. ‘I thought he must have primed the interviewer to ask that question.’
‘Exactly! That was his hidden confession. He couldn’t help himself. The cock of the walk, preening himself in front of an audience of millions, he just had to say it. Moszynski paid for my tarts, but you’ll never be able to prove it.’
Kathy thought about it. ‘He’s probably right.’
‘You’d better tell me everything that’s been happening while I’ve been out of it.’
So for the next couple of hours she did, taking him through the investigation step by step. He said little as she spoke, as if soaking it all in. At times his eyes closed and she thought he’d fallen asleep, but when she paused he’d murmur a question and she’d resume.
Finally Suzanne came back and put a stop to it.
‘Don’t worry, Kathy,’ Brock said as she got up to leave. ‘We’ll sort it out.’ He really sounded eager, as if, having returned from the dead, the prospect of a battle ahead was invigorating. But all Kathy could feel was defeat.
TWENTY-FIVE
Over the following days Kathy withdrew. She occupied herself with swimming, cleaning and repainting her flat, taking long walks and going to the movies. She wanted to avoid analysing what had happened, but the world outside kept intruding, forcing her to confront it. For a start there were the newspapers, and radio and TV coverage, which she could hardly avoid, especially the Sunday papers which were full of the story. There was general respect for the Hadden-Vanes’ confession, which was seen as brave and a welcome change from the hypocrisy that usually surrounded MP sex scandals in the UK. There was also much rehashing of the Russian question, and of the police investigation. There were even a few photographs of Kathy herself.
Then there was her friend Nicole Palmer, who worked in police records for the National Identification Service and whose partner was an MPS detective, and who told her of the rumours and opinions that were circulating within the force. There was general agreement that the higher echelons had failed to support Kathy as they should, and that breaking up the team was a disgrace. Kathy would have taken more comfort from this if she hadn’t felt that Sharpe and his bosses were justified in the way they’d reacted.
Kathy also had calls from several team members—Dot, Pip and Bren—all anxious to know how she was coping, and letting her know where they had been posted. Most surprising was a call from Zack, who told her that they’d decided to keep him on at Queen Anne’s Gate to manage the new computers. He offered to keep her informed of developments.
John Greenslade also called, several times, before she finally rang him back.
‘Kathy! I’m so glad you’ve rung. I’ve been worried about you. Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine, John, thanks. How are you?’
‘Terrible. I’m feeling very guilty.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘It was all my fault, wasn’t it? If I hadn’t cast doubt on the letter to The Times, you wouldn’t have turned your attention to the MP, and none of this would have happened.
’
‘There was a lot more to it than that, John.’
‘All the same . . . I’d feel happier if I could talk it through with you, face to face. Would you do that? For an ex- consultant?’
She laughed. ‘From an ex-detective.’
‘They haven’t kicked you out, have they?’
‘Not yet. The resignation letter’s in my bag.’
‘You mustn’t do that, Kathy! Please, let’s talk it through.’
So in the end she agreed to meet him one day for lunch. But not yet. She wasn’t ready for it yet.
She also met with Brock each day. Suzanne had now been away from her business for almost a month, and was having to spend time in Battle, commuting back up to London each evening to visit him in hospital. Kathy usually called in each morning, and after discussing whatever had come up of interest in the papers they might play a few hands of gin rummy, or a game of chess. But Kathy had brought him his laptop and copied her flash drive case records onto it, and inevitably his attention would stray back to the larger and more interesting puzzle of the murders in Chelsea.
One day he seemed particularly preoccupied, and finally said, ‘The whole investigation relies on one premise: that Peebles mistook Nancy Haynes for Marta Moszynski. But if that’s not true, nothing else makes sense, does it?’
‘No.’ Kathy felt a familiar reluctance to go over it all again, and picked up the pack of cards and began shuffling.
‘How did you feel about that idea, when it was first suggested?’
‘I didn’t like it. I’d seen photographs of Nancy and I’d met Marta, and I didn’t see much resemblance.’
‘Me neither.’
‘But we never met Nancy in the flesh. Maybe the photographs were flattering. Maybe she was more stooped in her everyday posture, when she wasn’t posing for the camera.’
‘There must be some way to pin that down. Computer simulations? A reconstruction?’
‘Well, it’s not our problem now, is it?’
Brock looked at the cards she’d dealt him and played out the hand, then scratched his chin. ‘I’ve been thinking about Harry Peebles.’
Chelsea Mansions Page 19