‘Yes, but not to Long Hill. He did – Harrison did, the next Sunday. While he was away, she packed her stuff and left. She stayed at her brother’s place until she was sure it was safe. By the time she’d finished telling me this story, DC, she looked like she was going to throw up. She said something weird. She said suddenly it all started to make sense. I quizzed her about that and she said she couldn’t explain it but… Anyway, now you know.’
Waters rarely showed impatience but there was a note of it when he said, ‘Know what?’
Smith said to Serena, ‘Go on. Put him out of his misery.’
Mike Dunn, the nearest of Wilson’s team, was watching and listening, so this was going to break now. Good. Cry havoc and let them loose. No more softly, softly from the senior management – one way or another this will force their hand.
Serena said, ‘The man in Long Hill is Marco Andretti. Paul Harrison is his cousin.’
Chapter Twenty-two
It was a lively meeting. Superintendent Allen had to raise his voice several times early on to make himself heard, even though the only officers present were detective sergeants and the ranks above. Cara Freeman watched him with her professional eye and thought about what she had been told before coming to Kings Lake – he’s a bit of an old woman, a job’s worth. Maybe he is, she reflected, but he’s properly annoyed this afternoon. Is it with Smith?
She didn’t think so, though she could imagine that the two of them would have had their moments over the years – chalk and cheese wouldn’t cover it. No, Allen wasn’t directing anything at Smith as far as she could see. DCI Reeve? That would be awkward as the two of them, herself and Reeve, were supposed to be managing this inquiry together. Perhaps the new DI, Terek, who was Smith’s line manager and as such a potential target.
Smith was sitting alone, a couple of chairs away from the other detective sergeant, Wilson. Those two hadn’t spoken since the beginning of the meeting, which was odd – officers of equal rank usually have something to complain about to each other. It looked as if there was no love lost there either. Maybe Smith is a divisive character, after all; she’d heard it said when she was asking about him for Regional Serious Crimes. Still, with a clear-up rate like his, she’d have taken divisive. And wasn’t Wilson one of the men who had gone into the cottage with Smith and arrested the Albanians, when one of Smith’s team was shot last year? Sometimes it seems the police are more complicated than the people they’re out to catch.
Allen had said, ‘Right, take a break. I’m going to review some of this morning’s interview footage for myself. Twenty minutes. Nobody leaves the room until I’m back. Then I want an answer – is this Harrison a witness, a person of interest or a suspect?’
She went over and took the seat next to Smith. Terry Christopher didn’t follow – he didn’t tend to do so now, when Smith was involved. Smith nodded to her but didn’t make any comment.
Freeman said to him, ‘So, how are you enjoying your final few days?’
‘This is how I always imagined it – going out in a blaze of confusion.’
‘I don’t think it’s confusion. Controversy, maybe. That’s more your style, I think.’
She saw him weighing up the two words but he made no comment.
‘Could you have kept a lid on it? Would Serena Butler have kept it to herself if you’d asked her to?’
Smith would realise that there was more than one reason why she was asking that question.
‘Yes, and yes. But I didn’t think it was the right thing to do, not for the case and not for my team. There are times when you have to keep things from them, but in my judgement this isn’t one of them. Quite the reverse.’
‘And you always follow your own judgement? You always act upon that?’
He turned his head to look at her.
‘What else is there to do with it?’
‘You can reserve it – judgement. You can park it somewhere and follow someone else’s judgement. When there’s a chain of command, that’s what we do. You know this, you’ve been a DCI, for God’s sake!’
He smiled at her, a genuine smile, and she thought again that they would have had some fun if she’d been able to persuade him a couple of years ago – but he wasn’t going to get into it now.
She said, ‘But I guess in those days you just caused controversy higher up the food-chain. Were you offended when I asked you about Andretti? About the accusations that somebody set him up or at least added something to the evidence?’
It’s a simple enough technique, the unexpected jink to the left, wrong-footing the opposing backs, slipping past them with the ball, but Smith would be adept at it himself, of course.
He said, ‘No. It’ll happen to you eventually, if it hasn’t already. Psychopaths can be bad losers just like anyone else.’
‘And Serena – is she lucky? I’m just thinking about what happened today.’
Cara Freeman looked directly at him then, and saw that he understood. Two detectives can be equally talented, resourceful and hard-working, but one of them will have the luck as well, the indefinable something that nine times out of ten puts them in the right place at the right time. Smith didn’t seem to be hurrying his answer to that, but eventually he said, ‘Yes, I’d say she is. How did your chat go with her last Thursday?’
‘Well. I think she’d fit in.’
‘You could do a lot worse. You probably already have, to be honest.’
He was looking in Terry Christopher’s direction, and Freeman said to herself, make a note; people nearing retirement need careful handling – having nothing left to lose makes them dangerous.
Smith said, ‘In fact, you should take all three of my lot. Every one of them would be an asset.’
‘I can see that. But I only get to make recommendations. And I don’t think your DI Terek would be too pleased. It would make the Smith-shaped hole even bigger, wouldn’t it?’
He didn’t answer, and then Superintendent Allen was back in the room, talking to Terry Christopher. She said, ‘Paul Harrison, then – witness, POI or suspect?’
‘If Paolo Harris isn’t the prime suspect in this investigation, I’ll join the Lake Amateur Dramatic Society the day after I retire and play only female parts for the rest of my life.’
When she didn’t answer, Smith looked around at her. She had her eyes closed, frowning.
‘Hold on, I’m trying to picture it… Yes, the pantomime dame! Widow Twankey! Mother Goose!’
Allen was about to begin. Freeman leaned closer to Smith and said in a half-whisper, ‘You know what was said on Saturday about you having to keep clear of this now there’s a connection to Andretti? Now it’s out in the open, you’ll have to do more than keep clear of it. If you’re not careful, they’ll have you doing point duty for your final fortnight. That won’t be much fun, will it, in December? Out in the cold?’
Smith looked at her. She had that smile again, the one that made her look about fourteen. She was smiling but she wasn’t joking.
When he got back to the office, all three of them were looking at him differently and avoiding being the first to mention the subject. This would not do, something would have to be said, but before he could work out what that was, John Murray told him there had been a phone call for him – Penny Johnson, about twenty minutes ago. The number was written on the pad on his desk.
Being officially off the case presumably meant he should not now return this phone call; he should hand it over to Murray, Waters or Serena, or even to Terek, and they could say that Detective Sergeant Smith is indisposed, for the rest of his career, which is – he looked at his watch – now due to last nine days and one hour precisely. But he could still picture Penny Johnson standing in the rain outside the Railway playpark. He could still see the bedraggled notice they had put up asking if anyone had seen their Zoe. And only this morning he had interviewed Roy Green. It might be to do with that, and who else could handle it if it was? He’d spoken to Green alone, so…
Smith dia
lled the number into his mobile but didn’t press call. There was no point in making them witnesses to something else he wasn’t supposed to be doing. He told them not to go anywhere until he’d spoken to them, and then said he was going outside for a smoke, which was comical because when he was he always told them it was to make a phone call.
He stood in the sheltered space between the back of the station and the police mortuary. The air was colder, high pressure developing before Christmas, clear skies, maybe a frost tonight. Snow? He hadn’t checked the forecast for a few days but the air had that sharp tang that made it a possibility. There was a light in the mortuary. Olive Markham would be there but as far as he knew she had no company; there were no clients in the controlled environment drawers awaiting her ministrations. Then he looked at the number on his phone and prayed to God that there would not be, but it was a week now since Zoe had gone. They don’t often come back alive after a week unless they ran away, and he was certain she hadn’t done so. What he had said to Roy Green that morning – too optimistic? Offering false hope? Maybe it would have been kinder to be cruel.
‘Mrs Johnson? It’s Detective Sergeant Smith from Kings Lake Central police station.’
‘Oh, right, I rang because… Thanks for calling back. I…’
‘How can I help, Mrs Johnson?’
She was on a mobile and the signal wasn’t strong. The Dockmills was in some sort of shadow just like up on the coast, and coverage was poor, even though it was only ten minutes from the city centre. And today, for Smith, everything seemed to have taken on metaphorical significance, glints of meaning unexpectedly revealed, as if there was some sort of plan after all, as if the phone masts themselves had conspired to keep in the dark the unfortunates who lived in that place, cut off from anything that worked as it should.
‘… just spoke to Roy. He called me, said you’d interviewed him. It was you, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, Mrs Johnson. I spoke to Roy this morning.’
‘– can’t think he had anything to do with it, can you? S’ridiculous. He’s a good man, and…’
Dear Lord, is this a complaint? Now? Under normal circumstances he would say contact Detective Superintendent Allen, he’ll be expecting your call, and write to your MP, madam, but these were not normal circumstances. Penny Johnson was probably so far round the bend by now she was about to meet herself coming back the other way.
‘Mrs Johnson, I wholeheartedly agree with you about Roy. We speak to everyone in these situations. We try to get as rounded a picture as possible of the person who is missing. Roy is not under suspicion.’
Going too far there, but what did it matter? When you’re off the case, you can say these things, and it felt strangely liberating, just for a few seconds.
‘Oh, that’s good then. I didn’t think… Is there any news? We haven’t seen no one since this morning.’
You cannot keep a presence there forever, obviously, and it has to be about the effective deployment of resources – yes, even Smith can talk the talk – but think about the message it sends on that first day when the police have gone, when no one gets in touch. Hope has been abandoned, other matters need to be dealt with now and your daughter just became a statistic. Naturally the case remains a high priority but…
Platitudes seemed to have deserted him, and after a short while Penny Johnson said, ‘Roy said that you said – that she, Zoe, was probably still, you know, not alright but not…’
How can you expect a mother to say the word? Her pain somehow came through what she could not say, transmitted itself along the waves of agitated molecules in the cold, late afternoon air, and rematerialized inside him, and it was hardly bearable. He had said to Roy Green that they had no evidence that Zoe is dead but that’s not the same thing as saying that she is alive. It’s a clever linguistic, philosophical, legal distinction, and utterly worthless when confronted with a grieving mother.
Smith cursed his silence and searched for something meaningful to say but it was Penny Johnson who went on, amidst the breaks in the signal.
‘…anyway, we know you’re doing everything possible. Roy said you’re the sort of bloke who’d find her if anyone could. We both think that. You was down at the playpark that night, on your own looking for her an’ that means a lot. It’s just – if there’s anything – someone will call me? Someone would call me, wouldn’t they? It’s just…’
Her voice was beginning to break into sobs.
Smith said, ‘Mrs Johnson, I can assure you that…’ but then the signal had finally failed.
When he got back into the office, Terek was there, talking to his team already. The detective inspector paused when he saw Smith but a wave indicated he should just carry on, and he did so. Paul Harrison was for now a person of interest but nothing had been found to indicate that he was a suspect. His movements on the night of Monday the 11th had been confirmed by CCTV footage around the town, and already people had been spoken to from the clubs and bars around the marketplace, people who confirmed that the van was there after the time it left The Crescent. When asked, these witnesses all said that the man selling fast food had been alone in the vehicle.
Harrison had been cooperative and nothing of interest had been found at his home. He had agreed that they could forensically examine his van and that would be done tomorrow morning. During the second interview, Harrison had complained that he was being targeted because of his connection to Marco Andretti, a charge to which the interviewing officers had responded by saying that he was not, but Superintendent Allen had made it clear to all senior officers that this part of the investigation must be whiter than white, as a result. Detective Inspector Terek was passing that on to them now.
‘And as you all know,’ he said, ‘In ninety per cent of such cases, there is a connection to a family member. We’re going to re-examine all of that. There are also other lines of enquiry to see through, including the owner of the kebab shop, the taxi drivers and the young men who were driving schoolgirls around the town that evening. Mr Harrison is just one of a number of lines, and in my view, if we forget for a moment who he happens to be related to, he isn’t the most promising.’
Smith had to look away. We’re going to re-examine all of that? After what he had just said to Penny Johnson, Roy Green would be looked at again, perhaps interviewed by Wilson and O’Leary? Dear God… And if we forget for a moment who he happens to be related to? Never mind the fact that Terek should have said “to whom”, why would you forget it? Had they, Reeve and Freeman, already forgotten about the anonymous letter he had received, constructed from the very headlines of the local paper that reported the search for the girl? Didn’t they see the possible significance of that – that it might be a grisly example of the medium being the message? Did no-one else think it odd that Charlie Hills was sure Harrison had wanted to know the name of the officer who would be interviewing him when he first came into the station? We have two women plainly frightened of Harrison, even his next-door neighbour, and the fact that not long ago he increased the frequency of his visits to one of the country’s most notorious serial killers, a monster who had abducted four young women, held them captive for several days each time before murdering them, freezing their bodies and then systematically placing them in the most remote and beautiful sand dunes on the Norfolk coast?
Smith displaced his anger into tidying his desk, and realised that to Waters and co it might look as if he was leaving there and then as a result of something that had been said in the senior officers’ meeting. Talking of which, if it was down to him, someone should go and see if Andretti was prepared to discuss those visits. It wasn’t a job he’d want to inflict on anyone, even Terek, but someone ought to follow it up on the off-chance that it might tell them something more about the last person to see Zoe Johnson before she disappeared.
Terek had come to the end of what he had to say but Smith was still too annoyed to make eye contact, and annoyed not only with the detective inspector but with the DCIs and the detec
tive superintendent above them. What’s happened to hunches? To just following your nose? To gut instincts? Proper investigation is more than a logic puzzle, more than a science even – it’s a craft, sometimes even an art. It requires imagination and-
‘Right, then. You’ll have new orders for tomorrow morning by the end of the day. DC, you’re OK with what we talked about upstairs?’
Was he OK with removing all trace of himself from the investigation into the disappearance of Zoe Johnson? Making sure that even his initials didn’t show up at the end of a statement – ah, that’s why Roy Green has to go through it again with someone else! That was Cara Freeman’s doing unless he was much mistaken. That’s why she asked him about the allegations made by Andretti – if ever a case was to be brought against Harrison, she knew there could be no hint that someone like Smith, someone with a possible motive to convict him other than that he was actually guilty, no hint that any such person had ever been involved. And that might mean that she, after all, was following her own nose.
He said to Terek, ‘Yes, I’m good, as they like to say these days!’
The smile was bright and cheerful, and Terek went away. Then he turned to his team and said, ‘For sound operational reasons, I’m not going to be involved with the present case from now on. I can see why and I’m not objecting. You can all work it out for yourselves if you’re as bright as some people think you are. I’ll be doing a bit of to-ing and fro-ing with someone at the CPS on the Sokoloff evidence. That will take a few days if I don’t hurry it, and then I’ll be done.’
There wasn’t much of a reaction but he hadn’t expected a round of applause. John Murray shrugged and put his hands into his pockets. Serena said, ‘Is this because of what I found out?’ and he answered her with, ‘Yes, and well done. It was a nice piece of work.’
She said, ‘You told me to go…’
Waters looked as if he couldn’t quite believe what had happened – Smith was off the case, the last case ever, and in a few days he really would be gone. A bit of paperwork and then gone.
A Private Investigation Page 23