‘I’ll put you through to the incident room.’
The phone rang and rang. Kelly was about to give up when a woman picked up, slightly out of breath, as though she’d run up the stairs.
‘North West MIT.’
‘Can I speak to DI Rampello please?’
‘I’ll see if he’s in the office. Who shall I say is calling?’ The woman spoke like a BBC newsreader, and Kelly tried to guess what her role was. She had had little experience with Murder Investigation Teams: although BTP had its own, it was far less busy than the Met’s, and Kelly had never worked there. She gave her name and shoulder number and waited on hold for the second time.
‘Rampello speaking.’
No BBC accent there. Nick Rampello’s voice was pure London, and he spoke fast; businesslike to the point of abruptness. Kelly found herself stumbling over words in an effort to match his rapid delivery, aware she sounded at best unprofessional; at worst, incompetent.
‘Where did you say you worked?’ DI Rampello said, cutting in to Kelly’s explanation.
‘BTP, sir. I’m currently based on Central line. I picked up a bag dip the week before last that I believe is linked to Tania Beckett’s murder, and I hoped I could come and talk to you about it.’
‘With respect, PC …’ an upward inflection turned her rank into a question.
‘Swift. Kelly Swift.’
‘With respect, PC Swift, this is a murder investigation, not a bag snatch. Tania Beckett was nowhere near the Central line on the night she died, and everything points to this being an isolated incident.’
‘I believe they’re connected, sir,’ Kelly said, far more confidently than she felt. She braced herself for Rampello’s response, and was relieved when he didn’t pull her up for challenging him.
‘Have you got a copy of the file there?’
‘Yes, I—’
‘Send it through to the incident room and we’ll take a look.’ He was humouring her.
‘Sir, I believe your victim appeared in an advert in the classifieds of the London Gazette. Is that correct?’
There was a pause.
‘That information hasn’t been released to the public. Where did you hear that?’
‘From a witness who contacted me. The same witness who saw a photograph of my bag-dip victim in a different edition of the Gazette. The same witness who believes her own photo also appeared in the paper.’
This time the silence was even longer.
‘You’d better come in.’
North West Murder Investigation Team was in Balfour Street, discreetly located between a recruitment agency and a block of apartments with a For Sale sign fixed to the third floor. Kelly pressed the buzzer, which simply said ‘MIT’, and turned slightly to her left so she could look directly at the camera. She lifted her chin a fraction, hoping she didn’t look as nervous as she felt. DI Rampello had said he would see Kelly at six, which had just given her time to go home and get changed. What was it they said? Dress for the job you want. Kelly wanted DI Rampello to see her as a serious officer, someone with important information to give about his murder investigation, not as a uniformed beat bobby. She pressed the buzzer again, regretting it when a voice instantly replied, an impatient tone suggesting they hadn’t needed the prompt.
‘Yes?’
‘It’s PC Kelly Swift, from British Transport Police. I’m here to see DI Rampello.’
A loud click released the catch on the heavy door in front of her, and Kelly pushed her way inside, throwing a quick smile of thanks towards the camera, in case they were still watching. Lift doors lay immediately in front of her, but she took the stairs, unsure which floor MIT were on. The double doors at the top of the first flight gave no hint of what lay behind them, and Kelly hovered for a moment, debating whether to knock or simply to go on in.
‘Are you looking for the incident room?’
Kelly recognised the BBC tones of whoever she had spoken to on the phone earlier that day, and she turned round to see a woman with long, straight blonde hair, pushed out of her eyes with a black velvet hairband. She wore tapered trousers and ballet pumps, and she thrust her hand towards Kelly. ‘Lucinda. I’m one of the analysts. You’re Kelly, right?’
Kelly nodded gratefully. ‘I’m here to see the DI.’
Lucinda pushed the door open. ‘The meeting’s through here. Come on, I’ll show you.’
‘Meeting?’ Kelly followed Lucinda through the double doors, into a large open-plan office filled with around a dozen desks. On one side of the space was a separate office.
‘That’s the DCI’s office. Not that he ever uses it. He’s only six months off retirement and he’s got so many rest days in lieu to use up he’s practically part-time nowadays. He’s all right though, Diggers – when he’s here.’
Kelly’s ears pricked up at the familiar nickname. ‘That’s not Alan Digby, by any chance?’
Lucinda looked surprised. ‘The very same! How do you know him?’
‘He was my DI in BTP. He transferred to the Met not long after, and I heard he’d been promoted. He was a good guvnor.’ Lucinda led the way through the open-plan office, and Kelly looked around, taking everything in. Even empty, the atmosphere had the buzzy feeling she knew so well from her own time working on serious crime investigations. Each desk had two computer screens, and at least three phones were ringing; the sound moving around the room as the calls transferred automatically, in search of a response. Somehow, even the phones here rang more insistently, as though they held the key to unlocking whatever mystery MIT was working on that week. This was what Kelly had joined the job to do, and a familiar surge of energy ran through her.
‘They’ll go to the answer service,’ Lucinda said, catching Kelly looking at the flashing phone nearest to them, ‘and someone will call them back.’
‘Where is everyone?’
‘In briefing. The DI likes everyone to attend. He calls it the NASA theory.’
Kelly looked blankly at her, and Lucinda grinned.
‘So President Kennedy visits NASA and gets chatting to one of the cleaners. He asks him what his job is, and without missing a beat, the cleaner tells him, “I’m helping to put a man on the moon, Mr President.” Nick’s theory is that if the whole Murder Investigation Team comes to briefings, including the cleaners, we can’t miss anything.’
‘That’s such a great approach; is he nice to work for?’ She followed Lucinda across the room, towards an open doorway.
‘He’s a good detective,’ Lucinda said. Kelly got the distinct impression the analyst had chosen her words carefully, but there was no time to push her for more information. They had reached the briefing room and Lucinda ushered her through the open door. ‘Boss, this is Kelly Swift, from BTP.’
‘Come on in, we’re about to make a start.’
Kelly felt her stomach rumble and wasn’t sure if it was nerves or hunger. She stood at the back of the room with Lucinda and glanced around her, trying not to make it obvious she was doing so. DI Rampello hadn’t said anything about a briefing; she had expected to speak to him in his office, perhaps with one of the enquiry team.
‘Welcome, everyone. This is a briefing for Operation FURNISS. I know you’ve all had a long day, and some of you are far from finished, so I’ll keep this as short as I can.’ The DI spoke as fast as he had done on the phone. It was a large room, and he wasn’t making any discernible effort to raise his voice; Kelly had to listen intently to catch every word. She wondered why he didn’t speak up, then she looked at the rest of the team, concentrating hard so as not to miss anything, and realised it was a deliberate – and clever – strategy.
‘For the benefit of those of you new to the team, Tania Beckett’s body was found in Cranley Gardens, Muswell Hill, four days ago; at eleven p.m. on Monday 16 November by Geoffrey Skinner, a dog walker.’ Kelly wondered how old DI Rampello was. He looked in his early thirties; young to be an inspector. He was square and stocky, with a Mediterranean colouring to match his name, i
f not his estuary vowels. Five o’clock shadow covered the lower half of his face, and Kelly could make out the shadow of a tattoo on his forearm, just visible through the fabric of his shirtsleeve.
As the DI spoke he paced from one side of the room to the other, one hand waving the notes to which he hadn’t yet needed to refer. ‘Tania was a teaching assistant at St Christopher’s primary school, in Holloway. She was due home at four thirty p.m., and when she wasn’t home by ten, her fiancé David Parker reported her missing. Uniform took a MISPER report and graded her as low risk.’ Kelly wasn’t sure if she was imagining the trace of reproach in his voice, and hoped the shift officers who attended the original call weren’t blaming themselves for what happened to Tania. From the little Kelly knew about the case it was unlikely her murder could have been prevented.
‘Tania’s body was found in a wooded section of the park, in an area known to be frequented for casual sex. Crime Scene Investigators found a number of used condoms with deterioration that suggests they pre-date the murder by several weeks. Tania was fully clothed except for her knickers, which weren’t found at the scene and haven’t yet been recovered. The strap of her bag had been used to strangle her, and the post-mortem confirmed the cause of death as asphyxiation.’
He looked around the room, his gaze resting on an older man who was leaning back in his chair, his hands interlocked behind his head. ‘Bob, can you fill everyone in on the fiancé?’
Bob unlaced his fingers and sat up. ‘Tania Beckett was engaged to a twenty-seven-year-old tyre-fitter called David Parker, who was obviously our first port of call. Mr Parker has a rock-solid alibi: he spent the evening in the Mason’s Arms on the corner of his road, as confirmed by the pub’s CCTV and at least a dozen regulars.’
‘His girlfriend goes missing, and he goes to the pub?’ someone said.
‘Parker claims he wasn’t worried until later that night, when he reported her missing. He assumed she’d gone to a friend’s house and had forgotten to tell him.’
‘We’re in the process of retracing the victim’s route home from work,’ DI Rampello said. ‘BTP have been surprisingly helpful with the CCTV footage’ – he glanced at Kelly and she felt herself blush. She thought he might have forgotten she was there – ‘so we have her taking the Northern line to Highgate. There’s a bit of a gap in the footage, then we have her again, waiting for the bus. Unfortunately the bus driver can’t confirm whether she got off at Cranley Gardens, or whether she was alone. We’re in the process of tracing other passengers on the bus.’
Nick Rampello’s eyes rested momentarily on Kelly again. ‘On Tuesday 17 November we received a call from a Mrs Zoe Walker, reporting a close similarity between Tania Beckett and a photograph that appeared in a classifieds advert in the London Gazette.’ He picked up an A3 sheet of paper that had been lying face down on the table in front of him, and held it up. Kelly saw the familiar advert; the image made fuzzy by the enlargement. ‘The boxed listing appears among several other adverts for a mixture of,’ the DI paused, ‘personal services,’ he allowed the ripple of laughter to subside before continuing, ‘including chatlines and escorting. This advert is ostensibly for similar services, although nothing is actually specified; the phone number listed is invalid, and the website apparently blank.’ He put the A3 sheet on the whiteboard behind him, plastic magnets at each corner to hold it up. ‘The enquiry team has begun looking into Tania Beckett’s past for any involvement in the sex industry, even though her parents and fiancé insist it would be wildly out of character for her. We’re also analysing her computer for any indication she was registered on dating sites or was communicating with men she’d met online. So far, they’ve drawn a blank. This afternoon we received a further development.’ He looked at Kelly again. ‘Perhaps you’d like to introduce yourself?’
Kelly nodded and hoped she looked more confident than she felt. ‘Hello, everyone. Thanks for letting me join your briefing. My name is Kelly Swift and I’m a BTP officer on the Central Line Neighbourhood Policing Team.’ Too late, she remembered she had given Nick Rampello the impression she was a detective on the Dip Squad. She caught the surprise on his face and looked away, focusing on the whiteboard on the other side of the room. ‘I spoke this morning to Zoe Walker, the witness DI Rampello has just mentioned, who first called me on Monday. She’d seen one of these adverts and recognised the woman; a victim from an ongoing BTP investigation.’
‘Another murder?’ The question came from a slightly built, grey-haired man sitting by the window. Kelly shook her head.
‘A theft. Cathy Tanning fell asleep on the Central line and had her house keys stolen from her handbag, which was on her lap.’
‘Just her keys?’
‘It was thought at the time the offender might have been going for something else – a phone, or a wallet. The victim had to get a locksmith to break in to her house, which meant she had to change the lock on the front door, but she didn’t change the back-door lock. Her address wasn’t on the keys and there was no reason to suppose the offender knew where she lived.’ Kelly paused, her heart racing. Even DI Rampello didn’t know this latest piece of intelligence. ‘I spoke to Cathy Tanning on Monday and she’s convinced someone has been in her house.’
There was a shift in atmosphere in the room.
‘A burglary?’ asked the grey-haired man.
‘Nothing of value has been taken, but Cathy’s adamant the keys have been used, and that her dirty laundry’s been disturbed. She’s changed the locks and I’ve passed the job to SOCO in case they can get some forensics. Zoe Walker also believes her own photo appeared in a similar advert, exactly a week ago today.’
‘And is Zoe Walker a victim of crime?’ Lucinda asked.
‘Not yet.’
‘Thank you.’ The DI showed no sign that Kelly’s additional news was of interest, and he moved swiftly on, taking back the focus of the room. Kelly felt suddenly flat. ‘We’ll meet again at eight tomorrow morning, but let’s go round the room. Anything to raise?’ He looked to his left, moving swiftly round the room collecting updates and questions. As Lucinda had suggested, not a single person was left out. When everyone had been given the opportunity to speak, he gave a curt nod and picked up his notes. The briefing was over.
‘I hope you haven’t got plans tonight, Lucinda,’ he said, as he strode past the analyst. She laughed and shot Kelly a conspiratorial look.
‘Good thing I’m married to the job, isn’t it?’ She followed the DI.
Kelly, not knowing whether she was expected to stay or go, went with Lucinda. She had assumed the DI would have his own office, but Nick Rampello’s desk space was open-plan, like the rest of the MIT. Only the DCI’s office appeared to be separate, the door closed and no lights showing through the slatted blinds.
Nick gestured to Kelly to take a seat. ‘I need links between these two jobs,’ he said to Lucinda, who was already scribbling in a notebook. ‘Do they know each other? Are they chatline operatives? Escorts? What does Walker do for a living? Check out where Tanning works – is she a teacher like Beckett? Do her children go to Beckett’s school?’ Kelly listened, sensing that, even though she had the answers to some of the questions the DI was firing out, an interruption from her wouldn’t be welcome. She would speak to Lucinda afterwards and give her as much information as she knew.
Nick continued. ‘See if any of them used dating sites. I had a call from Zoe Walker’s partner; it’s possible he found out she was using the site and now she’s claiming she knows nothing about it.’
‘Sir, she wasn’t using a dating site,’ Kelly said. ‘Zoe Walker was very agitated when she made contact with me.’
‘As she might be if, say, an aggressive partner discovered she was seeing other people,’ Nick countered. He turned to Lucinda. ‘Get Bob to pull the original file from BTP and go over it; make sure everything was done properly, and do it again if it wasn’t.’
Kelly narrowed her eyes. It was hardly a surprise to find a Met officer dis
missing work done by another force, but he could at least have the decency not to do it in front of her. ‘CCTV was secured immediately,’ she said, deliberately looking at Lucinda, and not the DI. ‘I can get you copies tomorrow, as well as stills of the offender. Given the original offence, I didn’t consider it proportionate to request DNA at the time, but I’m assuming budget won’t be a problem now: the bag has been correctly exhibited and retained by BTP, and I can arrange for your team to have access. Cathy Tanning has no children, she isn’t a teacher and she has never worked as an escort. Nor, just as pertinently, has Zoe Walker, whose photograph also appears in the London Gazette, and who is understandably rather concerned for her safety.’ Kelly took a breath.
‘Have you finished?’ Nick Rampello said. He didn’t wait for an answer, turning instead to Lucinda. ‘Come back to me in an hour and let me know how you’ve got on.’
Lucinda nodded, standing up and smiling to Kelly. ‘Nice to meet you.’
The DI waited until Lucinda had returned to her desk, before folding his arms and staring at Kelly. ‘Do you make a habit of undermining your senior officers?’
‘No, sir.’ Do you make a habit of rubbishing another officer’s work? she wanted to add.
The DI looked as though he were about to continue, but, perhaps remembering that Kelly wasn’t his officer to reprimand, unfolded his arms and stood up. ‘Thanks for letting us know about the link between the jobs. I’ll give my oppo a call later and take ownership of the bag dip. May as well bring it under one roof, even if it isn’t technically a series.’
‘Sir?’ Kelly steeled herself. She knew the answer even without asking the question, but she couldn’t leave MIT without trying.
‘Yes?’ Rampello was impatient, his mind already on the next thing on his list.
‘I’d like to carry on working the Cathy Tanning job.’
‘Sorry, but that doesn’t make sense.’ Perhaps seeing the disappointment in Kelly’s face, he sighed. ‘Look, you identified the link between the two jobs. You were quite right to get in touch, and I really appreciate you coming to the briefing. You’re off-duty, right?’ Kelly nodded. ‘But the job needs to come to us. Any series will always be dealt with by the team dealing with the lead crime; in this case, that’s Tania Beckett’s murder, which puts the series under MetPol’s jurisdiction, not British Transport Police’s. As I’ve already made clear, I’m reserving judgement on whether this is a series, but if it is, your bag-dip victim may have narrowly escaped being a murder victim. That’s a job for MIT, not your Dip Squad.’
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