‘Yeah, well, it wasn’t that anyway. That debt was dealt with.’
‘How?’ asked Flint.
‘I did him a favour,’ said Coulthard.
‘Jesus Christ! At work?’
Coulthard barely nodded.
‘You stupid prick! How did he find out where you worked?’
Coulthard shrugged.
‘You told him, didn’t you?’
Coulthard looked away.
‘You and your big mouth,’ said Flint. ‘What happened?’ he asked, wondering if he really wanted to know.
‘He thinks I killed her. The informant. His daughter.’
Flint didn’t miss a beat. ‘And did you?’
‘Leave it out. That’s not even funny.’
‘Doyle must have his reasons. You better tell me what they are,’ said Flint, and picked up their empty glasses. ‘I’ll get them in.’
Flint didn’t want another drink, but he needed an excuse to get away from Coulthard for a minute to think about how he was going to handle this. Evidence about what Coulthard was going to tell him would be inadmissible unless he was cautioned. Coulthard knew that. But if Flint cautioned him, Coulthard would just tell him to fuck off and leave.
They’d stayed in touch since the uniform days, but Coulthard had left the force under a cloud. He was too free with his fists and his tackle. Flint was doing okay in the Met, taking a degree they were paying for to improve his prospects. He needed to stay sweet with Coulthard: he knew a lot of people and his way around other law enforcement agencies, which was always handy. There were also one or two things Flint had done when he was in uniform that were best left buried. And Coulthard was a grave robber. It was tricky. He was caught between a rock and a first-class prick.
Flint put the fresh pints on the table.
‘Took your time,’ said Coulthard, and gave him a look that said he understood exactly what process Flint had been going through at the bar.
Flint almost blushed. ‘You’ve put me in a difficult position, mate.’
‘That’s nothing compared to how difficult it will be if you don’t help me out of this mess,’ Coulthard replied with his first smile. Flint noticed it was crooked.
‘What can I do? I’ve got my own problems. I’m going to be off the Murder Investigation Team and back to volume crime if the old bastard has his way,’ moaned Flint.
‘Happy days, mate,’ Coulthard said as he raised his glass.
They sat and drank in morose silence for a few minutes.
‘I blame that meddling fucker,’ said Coulthard suddenly.
‘Who?’ asked Flint. The list of Coulthard’s enemies was long, and growing all the time.
‘Berlin. Who else?’ replied Coulthard.
Flint was surprised.
‘It was her that started this whole mess,’ said Coulthard bitterly.
‘Like she twisted your arm to borrow five grand from Oily Doyley.’
‘That was a straightforward business transaction and would have stayed that way if she hadn’t decided to play Lone Ranger after the investigation was shut down.’
‘Business transaction? That’s rich, coming from the man whose job it is to protect the financially excluded from these vicious predators.’
‘Look,’ said Coulthard, ‘do you want this intel or not, and what are you going to do for me if I give it to you?’
‘How do I know until you tell me what it is? You sound like a fucking snout.’
Coulthard sighed. ‘Okay. We’re mates, aren’t we?’
Flint raised his hand and they executed a weak high-five.
‘I tell you what,’ said Flint. ‘If it helps me get one over Thompson, you can name it. Whatever you want.’
Coulthard raised his glass and drank to that proposition. ‘She’s got the voicemail that Nestor left on her phone the night he died,’ he announced.
‘What? Impossible. The telecommunications company said it had been deleted by her and them.’
‘The smart bitch had downloaded it onto her computer.’
Flint hadn’t even known such a thing was possible. He felt like an idiot. But if he hadn’t known, he was fucking sure that Thompson wouldn’t either.
‘How did you come by this information?’ he quizzed Coulthard.
‘She played it to me. Well, edited highlights. She doesn’t know who the other geezer is and wanted to know if I could identify him.’
Flint was suddenly sceptical. ‘What other geezer? And what do you mean by edited highlights? Did she tell you it was Nestor’s voicemail?’
‘Mate, I would stake my life on it. It was him and someone else going gangbusters.’
Flint saw a world of possibilities open up. ‘My round. Fancy something a bit stronger?’
*
Flint and Coulthard walked out of the pub into the bone-jarring chill. Suddenly they were very pissed. Flint noticed Coulthard peering about.
‘What’s up, mate?’
‘That bastard Doyle could still be on my case. I dunno where he is or what he’s doing. Could be round any fucking corner.’
‘Tell you what, mate,’ said Flint. ‘Let’s go and find my snout. He’s well in touch with all forms of pond life around here and he might have something on Doyle we could use.’
50
THOMPSON WATCHED BERLIN at the bar. They were in what would once have been called the snug. Most pubs served tea and coffee now, so you could meet someone in a boozer at any time of the day or night without appearing to be an alcoholic.
Berlin put their drinks on the table. Thompson squinted up at the malts on display over the bar.
‘A decent enough selection,’ he said, taking a sip of his Ardbeg and savouring the pungent aftertaste. He’d heard someone say it was like drinking surgical spirit, but that was an immature palate speaking. Berlin’s palate was obviously very mature. ‘This drop is certainly more than acceptable.’
‘You’re a committed Scotch man then,’ she said.
‘Wife took me up there for my birthday,’ he explained.
They drank in silence while he waited for her to say her piece.
‘I’m sure you understand why I feel a sense of obligation to Gina Doyle,’ she said.
‘And I’m sure you understand why I don’t like civilians poking around in my investigations,’ he responded.
‘You’re swimming against the tide there, Thompson. Of all the experts you use, how many are warranted officers? There are tens of thousands of civil enforcement jobs encroaching on what was once police turf, from benefit fraud to child protection. Even prisons have been privatised. Law and order has been outsourced.’
Thompson knew it was all too true. When they’d introduced Police and Community Support Officers, then Volunteers, it was like watching the Metropolitan Police go into reverse gear.
‘It was ever thus,’ he sighed. ‘It will be back to the tithing-man and the Shire-Reeve next,’ he mused. He sensed that Berlin’s attitude towards him was softening. The Scotch wouldn’t hurt in that respect.
‘I want to help, not hinder,’ she said. She got out her laptop and fired it up, then double-clicked a file and unfurled a diagram of symbols and coloured lines.
Thompson peered at it. ‘A powerful bit of kit that,’ he said, impressed.
‘I borrowed the software from work,’ she explained.
In other words an illegal copy, thought Thompson. ‘I’ve never been able to get a handle on it,’ he said.
‘A visual representation throws up options that may not otherwise have been considered,’ she said, bringing up more charts on the screen. They were populated with icons for telephones, cars, premises, locations and people, the data listed beneath each graphic linked by different coloured lines. ‘Especially where there are gaps.’
She pointed to an empty box beneath the icon labelled ‘Victim’. ‘It struck me that no one has reported her missing.’
He didn’t respond, reluctant to give too much away.
‘Have they?’
she pressed.
‘No,’ he admitted. ‘The national bureau’s got the photo. In the event someone walks into a nick and reports a missing woman fitting her description, we should get the alert straightaway. Or when someone gets around to it.’
Thompson reflected ruefully that if he had officers half as efficient as Berlin he would be happy. ‘Doyle lost contact with Gina when she left home,’ he said. ‘He tried to find her, using his own resources, but with his aversion to the law he didn’t report it, of course.’
‘So I heard,’ said Berlin.
It occurred to Thompson that he was sitting here discussing the case with a witness. The whisky was talking.
‘When we checked the records her mother had registered her birth but entered “Father unknown” on the form,’ he said. ‘There’s no doubt she was his daughter: we’ve run the DNA.’
‘Doyle doesn’t like a paper trail,’ said Berlin.
‘That’s an understatement,’ responded Thompson. ‘It doesn’t look like she used her mother’s surname, Baker; at any rate we haven’t found any trace of it. Nothing from her clothes. And as you know, her phone, wallet, bag – whatever she was carrying had gone. The divers didn’t find anything in the lock.’
‘Have you seen the old file on the Doyles?’ asked Berlin.
‘Not yet,’ said Thompson, giving her a meaningful look. She had the decency to look embarrassed and quickly took their glasses and went to the bar. He had to make a decision about all this, and fast.
‘I want you to try this,’ she said, returning with two single malts.
In for a penny, in for a pound, he decided. ‘Look, Berlin, you probably know more about her than anyone at the moment. There must be something you picked up on that would help us.’
He was making it clear that information sharing would be a two-way street. He would probably live to regret it.
‘I’ve given you everything,’ she said. ‘She was in her mid-thirties. Smart suits and shirts. London accent. Worked as something in the City. Her mum loved the Juliet Bravo television show. Very good-looking. I once saw a sleazy tourist hit on her. I would say she was disdainful of men.’
‘That’s the first time you’ve mentioned that,’ said Thompson.
‘Is it? I don’t see how it would have helped identify her though. She’s hardly alone there.’
‘So what did you talk about when you met with her?’
‘The meaning of life.’
He could see she was serious.
‘There is something else,’ she said, and sipped her whisky.
Thompson had been a copper a long time. He knew patience was always rewarded in the end. He sat back and waited, watching as she weighed up the pros and cons of this new sharing relationship.
‘Nestor’s voicemail. Someone else was there. But I don’t know who it is and I haven’t got the tools to enhance it.’
She fished some headphones out of her pocket, plugged them into the computer and offered him an earpiece. He took it, leaning forward, concentrating intensely on the disembodied voices in his ear.
‘Play it again,’ he said.
Berlin clicked replay. ‘Who is it? Do you recognise the voice?’
He drained his glass and stood up.
To his dismay, Berlin did likewise.
51
FERNLEY-PRICE HOBBLED OUT of the Abbey – a very discreet private hospital – and onto Great Portland Street. Thank God he had managed to avoid the NHS. He didn’t know much about these things, but he felt sure that in the public sector they would have dragged the police into it.
A taxi drew up alongside him, but he waved it away and looked around for a bus stop. Actually, he didn’t know which number bus would take him home. Christ, he was like a helpless infant. His jaw was wired up, so he could only suck protein shakes through a straw. The dope they had him on was pretty good, but they had dried him out and as the alcohol had left his body an awful clarity hit home. He had sunk about as low as a man could go.
He should go to the police and shop Doyle, good and proper, but it was a high-risk strategy with a huge downside, particularly without a bloody good lawyer. He could make a clean breast of the whole sordid business, but who was going to represent an insolvent hedge-fund manager on the strength of an IOU? The word of a gentleman banker was worthless these days. They would probably hang him high.
Bugger the buses; he would take the Tube. He was heading up Great Portland Street towards the station when a sign caught his eye. The Green Man. Just keep going, old man, he told himself. The door opened as he passed and that unmistakable aroma, eau de pub, drifted out. Fernley-Price took a deep breath.
A patron who was leaving the establishment kindly held the door open. Fernley-Price limped across the threshold and fronted up to the bar. The barmaid stood, impassive, as he hung his cane on a stool and fished in his pockets. He found a crumpled tenner.
‘Otch. Arge,’ he said, without moving his teeth or lips. Just as well I don’t have to ask for a gottle of geer, he thought.
The barmaid dispensed a double Scotch from the optic, plonked it on the bar, then plucked a straw from a dispenser and dropped it into the glass.
‘That’s the short straw,’ she said. ‘Eers.’
Soon after he’d stumbled into The Green Man, Fernley-Price stumbled out again.
He had a better drinks cabinet at home.
52
THOMPSON PRESSED THE intercom button. He still wasn’t sure how Berlin had persuaded him to bring her along. He’d had a distinct feeling that if he refused she would have followed him, and he hadn’t wanted to spend his time looking for a tail. He also had to admit she had some smarts and, unlike Flint, she didn’t seem to be motivated purely by self-interest and ego.
He pressed the button again. The luxury warehouse conversion was right on the river. The seagulls and pigeons jostled for roosting space with CCTV cameras, which actually swivelled when you approached. This time there was a muffled response from the intercom.
‘Detective Chief Inspector Thompson here, sir. May we have a word?’ he shouted into the tiny grille, holding his warrant card up to the camera. Berlin stayed out of shot.
The outer door clicked open and they proceeded into the vestibule.
Berlin would have sworn the scent of rum, sugar and spices was still seeping from the massive oak timbers that hung low over their heads. Trade. It was why the Romans used this port in Britannia. A deep tidal river, good for berthing ships, but narrow enough just here to be bridged. Trade still provided a reason for the city’s existence, but now it was in something called ‘invisibles’. She reflected that the term was prescient. The invisibles had disappeared.
Thompson pressed the lift button and turned to her. ‘I don’t want to hear a word out of you, okay?’ he said. ‘Okay?’
She nodded and put her finger to her sealed lips.
They rode up in the lift in silence. He couldn’t be less like Dempster, she thought; he was a man of few words, and a placid, methodical, old-style copper through and through.
When they reached the fourth floor the doors opened onto a carpeted hallway with just the one door leading off. A camera swivelled to monitor their progress. Thompson knocked and a few seconds later the door opened.
Jeremy Fernley-Price swayed before them. The smell of alcohol oozed from every pore. His head was encased in a wire frame, which pinned his jaw. He grunted and stepped aside to let them enter, gesturing with his cane. The flat was about the same size as Berlin’s local supermarket.
Fernley-Price followed them into a capacious sitting room with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the river. Berlin walked across and looked down on what had once been Execution Dock. The pirates they hanged there were kept in a metal cage, a gibbet, until the tide had washed over their bodies three times. Punishment was poetic then, she thought. Now it was humane, but prosaic. Pity.
‘This is Catherine Berlin, sir. A colleague,’ she heard Thompson say. She turned back into the room and no
dded at Fernley-Price, who couldn’t nod back. He raised his cane a couple of inches in greeting then gingerly lowered himself into a leather recliner.
‘Been in an accident, have we, sir?’ inquired Thompson. She could see he was nonplussed. The whole point of the exercise was to hear the man’s voice again, but here he was, speechless.
‘We just wanted to clarify a couple of points about your relationship with Ludovic Nestor. But I see you are indisposed. You told us last time we spoke that he was a client of yours. Sir?’
Tap the cane once for yes, twice for no, thought Berlin. This was bloody hopeless.
‘Perhaps you could write down the date of the last time you saw him, sir?’
Fernley-Price groaned. Berlin gazed about at the empty pizza boxes, dirty glasses and discarded shirts. He should get a new cleaner, she thought. No doubt he would have a woman who came in ‘to do’.
Fernley-Price had levered himself out of the recliner and was hunting among the sea of paper on a massive desk for his diary. Berlin thought it was a ploy. Surely he would have an electronic calendar, probably a Blackberry, as well as a cleaner. He might be unable to speak, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t try to treat them like plonkers.
‘May I use the facilities?’ she asked.
Fernley-Price waved a hand in the direction of a door leading off the sitting room. She avoided looking at Thompson, but could feel him beaming a warning her way. She stepped out of the room into a long hallway and gently closed the door behind her.
Thick carpet ran the length of the hall and the heavy timber doors were beautifully hung on silent hinges. Perfect. She decided to start at the far end, so that she would be back near the sitting-room door by the time Thompson or Fernley-Price came looking for her.
Her movements were swift and precise. The first door opened onto what was apparently a guest room. The single bed was made up, and there was nothing in the wardrobe or on the bureau.
The next room was a library. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, with mobile ladder attached. Soft lights that came on as you entered. Deep chairs.
This wasn’t how the other half lived in London; this was how the top ten per cent lived. They owned two hundred and seventy-three times more than the poorest, according to Newsnight. Berlin doubted that Fernley-Price had needed a one hundred and ten per cent low-doc mortgage. Unlike hers, which she’d only finally managed to get through a broker who advertised: ‘No deposit? No credit history? No problem!’
In Her Blood Page 16