As he was putting down the receiver, “Ten pints. I’m still annoyed you know” came down the line.
****
The C.C.U. 9 a.m.
While Andy was on his way to Tyrone a huffy Mary was taking out her annoyance at missing her road trip by thumping items around on her desk and banging its drawers deliberately hard, and was being studiously ignored by everyone in the office except Alice, who could hear the racket even with her earphones on and was punctuating each sound that the constable made with a loud, “TSK”. It was odd how put-out Mary seemed considering how much she’d moaned about the cold when going to see Luisa Kincaid, but it seemed that the appeal of visiting a hotel and a diving expedition had overcome that.
Whatever its cause Davy had had enough of the sound combo very quickly and was tempted to take the D.C. to task, but with Mary not being his direct subordinate and no cops being present to do it for him escape seemed his only option, so he jerked his head towards the squad’s new staff-room as a signal for himself and his junior to decant there and discuss their outstanding work in peace.
The space wasn’t ideal, workplace kitchen-diners never exactly being cosy, with their regulation vinyl floors and Formica surfaces for ease of cleaning, but the room’s warm apricot walls and personal touches of colourful mugs, a high-end coffee percolator and arty posters that were arranged far more prominently than the obligatory fire notices and safety hints, all unmistakable signs of Annette’s hand in its design before Christmas, made it somewhere that both analysts could at least tolerate.
The major plus of the room was that it was quiet and far away from Mary’s sulky clattering, so Davy closed the door behind them, hopeful of peace; in the gap between early morning coffees and elevenses they should be undisturbed.
He sat down at the table, smart-pad at the ready, and began to run through his list.
“OK, passports. Where are you with those, Ash?”
“Eight checked now, and I’m chasing three kids with flowers listed as DMs.”
Davy crinkled his forehead quizzically. “Three? Three people tattooed their children?”
His junior smiled. “That’s exactly what I said, but the chief said they might have just been those transfer things, so I’ve contacted the airports and asked them to dig for photos or archive footage so that I can take a closer look.”
He paused for a second and took a sip of the energy drink that he’d brought with him, its pale blue colour always making Davy think of the cleaning stuff that his Mum put down the loo.
“Also, I’ve a call out to the photo agencies that the chief listed. I sent all the images of the girl through and said I’d give them twelve hours. They insisted it shouldn’t even take that long with their face recognition tech so I’ll give them a bell when I get back from checking on any progress with Vice.”
Davy glanced at the wall clock. “What time are you heading down there?”
“Ten. Then with Vice and the photo-journos checks out of the way that just leaves me with social services in the different countries to chase up, plus the chief’s asked me to do some checks on Pete McElroy’s media as well.”
He sighed at how long the work was likely to take and to his surprise his boss smiled.
“You seriously sent the pics to each countries socials separately? What time w…were you here till last night?”
Ash gave a wry smile. “Eleven and back in at five. Me and the chief had a chat here this morning around six. He didn’t sleep much either.”
Davy raised an eyebrow at the information and turned back to his smart-pad, tapping it several times and then turning it so his junior could view the screen.
“What am I looking at?”
“Interpol, Europol and the FBI.”
“Yeh, I know that much. But why am I looking at them?”
“Because they and the other in-country agencies can run your pics through their social services databases in a tenth of the time.”
Ash’s brown eyes widened. “I’m thick! GCHQ might be able to help as well. On the intelligence side.”
“And you’ve still got contacts there from the Miskimmon case.”
He was referring to a murder by hacking case they’d worked on in twenty-fifteen; where two siblings had almost destroyed a satellite network not to mention tried to kill Katy, Craig’s now wife.
“Or, you could ask D.C.I. Barrett to do some of this for you. I’m pretty s…sure it’s part of his job. If you send the requests before you go down to Vice we could have answers by the end of today.”
Ash was about to say thanks, but a second thought of, ‘why don’t you send them and help me out?’ stopped him.
Hi boss read his mind and smiled.
“I’ll be busy chasing the CCTV in France, following those numbers that Grace sent through from Norris’ phone, and I’ve just had an email to say Derek Morrow’s wife’s given permission to examine all his computers, phones and money accounts.”
Satisfied that they were both going to be glued to their computers all day and not just him, Ash felt more magnanimous, and demonstrated it by asking something that he knew he should have asked before.
“How’d that meeting go at Queen’s?”
Davy shrugged in the universal shorthand for ‘not bad’.
“They made me do the presentation to a panel and then asked me questions on it. I think they wanted to be sure I w…wouldn’t disgrace them at the conference, seeing as I’ll be flying the university flag.”
“Sounds brutal.”
The senior analyst locked his hands together behind his neck and rolled his eyes. “A bunch of dusties asking tough questions, so pretty much as expected. Then my tutor followed me out afterwards to pick things up, told me it had counted as my midway assessment for my PhD and I’d passed. They might have bloody w…warned me beforehand.”
Ash’s small tinge of regret and jealousy that he hadn’t pursued the doctorate path himself when he’d been offered it, preferring a life of holidays, women and wine, was pushed aside quickly in favour of, “Congrats, mate. I’ll be calling you Doctor Walsh soon.”
“There’s a good few years till then, but yeh, thanks, it’s good. You should do one too. The chief will help fund you and you’ll get time off to study. You could do it on s…something like police and intelligence agency IT liaison maybe?”
It was a mouthful but definitely worth a thought.
Davy sprang to his feet in a fluid motion as he continued speaking.
“The best thing is Maggie’s coming to Geneva with me for the conference, so it’ll be like a mini-break. Right, w…we need to get on with things. It sounds a bit quieter out there now so hopefully Mary’s stopped chucking stuff about.”
The sight of the constable with her iPod buds in her ears, a bag of sherbet lemons in her hand, and her feet up on her desk watching footage of the quarry protests, said that peace would probably reign for as long as her movies did.
****
High Street Station. Friday, 9.20 a.m.
Jack Harris was normally a sociable man. He liked having his mates round on a Saturday to watch footie on the box, with a few beers and whatever grub his wife, a gentle creature and a brilliant cook that he thanked God at least once a week he’d married, had taken it into her head to prepare. He didn’t mind his kids bringing friends home either, or even taking part in the occasional dinner party his dearly beloved inflicted on him, just as long as he had some say in choosing the guests, her amateur dramatics group too airy fairy and painful to talk to in his book; there was only so often he could listen to debates on Shakespeare’s Women or what Nietzsche had said about evil before he wanted to tape up their pretentious mouths.
But, although socialising had its place, in Jack-World that place definitely wasn’t his police station, and having it invaded, nay colonised by the Murder Squad was giving the custody sergeant the definite hump.
Bad enough that he’d arrived for work an hour before to have Angus Thompson tell him there was a bunch
of metal detecting beardies in his cells waiting for discharge, which of course as daytime officer he’d had to process and arrange, but no sooner had he pointed the last of the satisfyingly exhausted hobbyists towards the street than, first Aidan Hughes and his dark-eyed D.S., and then Craig and his big galloot of a deputy had appeared, presenting themselves at his reception desk with dumb looks and demands to see their prisoners tout suite, or “Nye” as Hughes had said in his thick Belfast way.
Jack had been irked by the hobbyists and annoyed by the first pair of detectives, but when Craig and Liam appeared as well he decided it was time to work to rule.
“Sit over there. Sirs.”
The order was accompanied by a jabbed finger directing the pair to the reception bench.
Craig followed the instruction absent-mindedly, his head full of a million different things, but Liam spotted that there was fun to be had with the irritable desk sergeant and decided to give him a prod.
“Who rattled your cage then?”
Harris rose straight to the bait.
“Who rattled my cage? Who rattled my cage? I’ll tell you who! Your sodding teammates, flouncing in here and demanding to see people ‘Nye’, that’s who!”
Liam turned to his boss knowingly. “Hughesy.”
“Had to be. No-one else on the squad can mangle a vowel like that.” Craig looked past his deputy to the sergeant. “Sorry, Jack. I’ll have a word with him.”
Not planning to be mollified quite so quickly but having the wind taken out of his sails by such a ready apology, the uniformed sergeant came back with a half-hearted, “Aye well, just be sure that you do. Sir.”
The post-script addition of respect made Craig laugh. “I bet if you were telling me to fuck off you’d add sir at the end as well.”
“I could try it if you’d like.”
Liam reared in mock offence. “Here now, I’m not having that.”
Craig waved him down, knowing, which Liam didn’t, that Jack had arrived that morning to find his station full of metal detectorists and their muddy equipment, and giving him a pass.
It paid off. The sergeant having walked to the cliff edge felt much better for it, and as thanks to Craig for not tipping him over he motioned the pair through to the cell corridor.
“Your friends are in interview room one with Sandi observing, so I’ll have to put you in number two. Go on down and I’ll bring Mister Frampton through.”
As Jack left reception in search of his prisoner Craig shook his head at his deputy who was already hot on his heels.
“I need you to do something before you join us, Liam.”
Explaining quickly what Des had been up to and how he’d left him to languish in jail overnight, to increasingly astonished and chastising looks from his deputy, Craig finished up with, “There are no criminal charges to be answered but I’d like you to call Lord Cranross.”
The D.C.I.’s eyes almost popped out. “Me? You’re trusting me to talk to a Lord?”
“He’s only a man, Liam, and you can be charming when you want to, you know that. Just see what he plans on doing about things, and if he says he’s bringing a civil case for damages then ask for the lowest figure that he’ll settle for without involving solicitors.”
Liam’s astonishment changed to a knowing smile. “You’re going to pay it, aren’t you?”
“It depends how much it is, but probably. I feel bad for leaving Des locked up all night. Even though I couldn’t have intervened personally I should have called you to handle it, I just didn’t think of it at the time.”
The D.C.I. shook his head. “There were other people digging too, and I know you feel guilty about Des but you can’t pay for them all.”
“We don’t know what it’ll cost yet.”
“No, I mean you can’t, at least not without speaking to Katy first. You’re married now and you can’t go around spending money anymore like you’re not.”
The words made Craig frown. He really didn’t like the idea of his freedom being curtailed, and anyway he wasn’t sure that he agreed with his deputy, after all he never asked Katy what she spent money on. But it was a debate for another time because Jack was beckoning him through.
“Look, just make the call and get a settlement figure, Liam, and then join me in the interview. We can argue whether marriage means the complete loss of an individual’s autonomy some other time.”
As a perturbed looking Craig advanced down the cell corridor he did so having completely missed his deputy’s smirk. Liam rubbed his hands gleefully in self-congratulation; having failed to wind Jack up properly that morning he’d just managed it with the boss.
****
High Street Station. Interview Room One.
Aidan Hughes was getting bored, which granted happened pretty quickly, especially without nicotine to take off his edge, but the fact that Ryan, someone whose lifelong deafness in one ear had meant that he’d often had to ask patience of others in repeating their words and also possessed more than a smidgeon of the virtue himself, was bored too, said that the stalemate they were in with Arthur Norris needed to break.
The D.C.I. leaned forward heavily on the table between them and the pensioner, whose habitual grey-facedness was now tinged with red blotches from a combination of poor sleep and an allergy to the woollen blanket he’d been given to cover himself with the night before, giving a heavy sigh as he did so.
“Mister Norris. We can sit here all day if you like while you say ‘no comment’-”
He was surprised by the first sign of life from the man in an hour.
“I didn’t say ‘no comment’. I didn’t say anything.”
The insistence and speed with which the land agent uttered the words made Ryan sure of something. Norris was frightened of something or someone, and by the shouting of the woman he’d been arguing with in Hector McDonagh’s office and her S.W.M.B.O. nickname on his phone it was almost certainly her.
He signalled Aidan that he wanted to try something and got the nod; Norris’ silence finally having been broken they now needed to open things up.
“Mister Norris. Would you like a solicitor to be present? I know you refused earlier, but we could get you one now.”
“No.”
“Because you feel that you’ve done nothing wrong?”
When the question produced a definite wince the sergeant followed up quickly.
“Or you feel you have done something, if not exactly wrong then something that you’re not proud of, but you feel you can’t tell us in case someone else finds out?”
To his surprise the man stared straight at him for a moment and then gave a small nod.
“The set-up with Rio Reynolds? Is that what you’re not proud of?”
This time he was answered by a shake of the head and Norris added a stumbling, “Well, yes, I am… I mean I’m not happy that we did that….”
We.
“… but that isn’t what I’m most not proud of. If that makes sense.”
Ryan gave a small smile of understanding and sat back in his chair to ease the tension, hoping that Aidan would follow suit. He did, and folded his arms in a signal for the D.S. to keep going.
“This other thing that you’re not proud of, Mister Norris, are you afraid that you’ll land someone else in trouble if you tell us about it?”
This time the response was an unambiguous, “Yes.”
“And you care about that person, so you don’t want to do that, do you?”
When the elderly man shook his head quickly, Ryan knew that they were on the right track.
“Would I be right if I said this person might be a woman, a woman that you’re fond of?”
Norris’ instant astonishment made him feel like a mind reader, when really it was simply far easier to read people than was often thought. Plus he had already heard that female voice yelling down the phone.
Arthur Norris leaned forward on the table as if he thought he’d just found a friend, and as he did so the neon light overhead h
ighlighted every crevice and mark of aging on his face, making Ryan feel more kindly towards the man.
“She’s young, you see. Well, not young young, not a girl, but much younger than me. And I don’t want to get her in trouble.”
Young, and yet… also someone to be feared?
Ryan nodded comfortingly. “I understand. You feel protective of her. But perhaps you’re worrying for no reason? Perhaps no-one will be in trouble. But we’ll only find that out when you tell us everything. You could be worrying unnecessarily, you know.”
The first sign of doubt appeared on the older man’s face, and it was followed by a genuinely questioning look.
“You think so?”
Before the sergeant could reply Norris’ eyes fell to the table and he started muttering to himself. Aidan doubted that the tape would pick up his words so after a moment Ryan prompted gently with, “I didn’t quite catch that, Mister Norris.”
The pensioner shook his head. “I’m sorry. I was just thinking out loud. Wondering whether you were right and I am worrying unnecessarily. Perhaps the insurance might cover things after all.”
Insurance? Against what?
Some judicious questioning followed, and five minutes later the detectives knew that the reason Arthur Norris had been so reticent was because he’d been worried that, as well as the dead body that had been found at the quarry, something that had had nothing to do with him, the police had been in Rownton investigating possible environmental pollution there; pollution that he as land agent for the purchase worried that he and the owners might be found liable for.
As Derek Morrow had also worked on the quarry and was still managing it, Norris had been worried that his suicide could have increased police attention to the place, and that the suggestion of an affair asa motive for Morrow killing himself might have diverted that.
As the words came tumbling out in a torrent that said the elderly businessman was relieved to finally be able to explain his actions, the two detectives were fighting hard not to look shocked. They’d had no idea that there might be environmental concerns at the quarry, but what was ever more interesting to them was how frequently Norris’ explanation was peppered with, “we”, “they”, and “she”.
The Depths Page 26