17 - Death's Door

by Quintin Jardine

  Stevie chuckled. ‘He came in handy,’ he said to Skinner. ‘The media are going crazy trying to find out why he’s been lifted.’

  ‘Why has he been?’ asked the DCC.

  ‘For bribing a guy in the Home Office.’

  ‘Christ! That’ll keep him out of circulation for a while. Have the Met tied it to his boss?’

  ‘Not as far as I know.’

  ‘See if you can help them. I took a big dislike to that man when I saw him on telly; it was plain as the scar on my forehead that when he sat in on your briefing he was looking right through the cameras at the stock market. Now,’ he continued, ‘about your inquiry; there’s something I need to tell you. I’ve put you in an embarrassing position, and I apologise.

  ‘I know what happened with young Griff; I got feedback from Five as well, and from Amanda Dennis herself, not from the duty officer. He called Shannon without reference to her, and he’s still aching because of it.’ He smiled, his eyes distant for a second.

  ‘You guys are bound to be wondering why I didn’t react when I saw the photo of Zrinka Boras. The answer is that I’ve never met her, as such. When Alex bought me that picture from her stall at the market, I was busy elsewhere.

  In fact, I was trying to free my younger daughter from a faceful of candy floss, a job and a half, if you’ve never had to do it. When I opened the parcel at home, I found that Zrinka had put one of her business cards in with it. That’s how I came to have her e-mail address.’

  ‘I’d worked that out, sir,’ said Steele. ‘I took a couple of those cards from her flat.’

  ‘Maybe so, Stevie, but you should have bloody asked me about it, for the book.’

  ‘Sorry, boss.’

  ‘Forgiven. Now, what else should you have asked me?’

  ‘Whether you knew Stacey Gavin as well, since you and Alex each have one of her paintings.’

  ‘Exactly. For the moment, we’ll leave the question of how Montell came to recognise a picture hanging in my daughter’s bedroom, then shoot his mouth off about it in the office. That’s for me to raise with him on another occasion,’ his eyes gleamed, ‘although you can feel free to tell him that I plan to do just that.

  ‘The fact is, I didn’t know Stacey, nor did I make the connection until Alex told me about the good detective constable spotting it. I bought both of those works from a gallery; the signature she used was “Gavin”; that was all. The day that she was murdered, I flew out of Edinburgh for the start of a ten-day trip to Barcelona so I missed the press coverage. I saw references to the investigation in the papers after I got back, but by that time all the detail about her had been worked through.

  ‘That’s it; that’s all I know. Now, what you must do is get that into the record and make fucking sure that the fiscal is aware of it. You’re doing a first-class professional job, Inspector, but there must be nothing swept under the carpet in this investigation, or laughed off as ridiculous. Be absolutely clear about that.’

  ‘Don’t be hard on Stevie, boss,’ said McGuire. ‘He knew damn fine that if you had anything to add to the pool of knowledge you’d have got in touch with us. He’s running this show in the absence of Mackenzie and Neil.’

  ‘True,’ Skinner conceded. ‘I didn’t take that into account. Plus he’s got his pregnant wife to worry about, who is, let’s not forget, the reason why we’re all here. Okay, Inspector, I’ll stop blaming you for my own sins of omission. Speaking of the centre of attraction, Brian Mackie’s throwing us meaningful looks. I think he wants to get on with the formalities.’

  They joined the crowd of officers of all ranks gathered in the centre of the room, where Maggie, looking a little nervous, stood beside Sir James Proud. The chief constable made a short speech, one of good luck, rather than goodbye. There was no presentation, since Maggie had expressly forbidden a collection within the office.

  When Sir James yielded the floor, she gazed around her audience slowly. ‘Chief, ladies and gentlemen, thank you,’ she began, ‘for coming along to wave me off on the road to maternity. If some of you are surprised by this development, I promise you that you ain’t half as bloody astonished as Stevie and I were when we found out what we had done.’ She paused until the laughter quietened.

  ‘God willing, next time I see many of you, I’ll be bringing our baby daughter into the office for inspection and approval, and for the pleasure of seeing hard-bitten . . . and in some extreme cases, like Charlie Johnston over there, thoroughly chewed . . . police officers acting like big soft nellies. But when I do, it’ll be for old times’ sake.’ She paused again, taking in the puzzled expressions on several faces, particularly those of Stevie, Mario and Bob Skinner.

  ‘Until this very moment,’ she continued, ‘and this is the truth, I had no intention of saying what I’m about to say today, in this room, but standing among my friends and colleagues I can see very clearly that, knowing what I do, it would be unfair and probably just a bit immoral if I didn’t. I’m not going to do a Bilbo Baggins, put on a magic ring and vanish in a puff of smoke but, friends, this is the last day of my police career.

  ‘Chief, Bob, Brian, but most of all Stevie, I’m not going to hang around on cushy leave for a year before giving you the news; I’m telling you now what I’ve decided already. My firm intention from now on is to pursue a career as a full-time wife and mother.’

  Fifty-five

  ‘I hope that my wife is getting on all right with your cousin’s wife,’ said Stevie Steele, as he and Ray Wilding stepped off the Heathrow Express at Paddington Station and headed for the taxi rank.

  ‘I’ve told you, it isn’t possible not to get on with Margot: she doesn’t allow it.’ The sergeant shook his head. ‘I still can’t get over Maggie’s bombshell.’ He laughed. ‘The faces in that room must have been a picture.’

  ‘They were, and I suspect that my jaw dropped furthest of all when she came out with it.’

  ‘You had no idea?’

  ‘Not that she was going to announce it there and then, I hadn’t. I knew that she had it in mind, but I thought she was still thinking it over, and that she was going to wait till the baby was safely delivered to make a decision.’

  ‘How long will it take you to stop thinking of her as a chief superintendent?’

  ‘God,’ Steele exclaimed, in disbelief. ‘You’re some machine. Do you see me as a common man version of Prince Philip, walking three paces behind his wife? Maggie stopped being a senior officer as soon as she walked in the front door. I haven’t thought of her that way from the day we started living together . . . and since before that, if you really want to know.’ He flagged down a taxi. ‘Charing Cross police station,’ he told the driver.

  ‘It’ll take me a while,’ Wilding continued. ‘I’ve known her for a while too, and I’ve never been able to imagine her as anything other than a police officer. It’s one thing talking idly about giving up; I can imagine her doing that, in her condition. But for her actually to go through with it, to me that’s incredible.’

  Steele sat silent for a while, as the black cab pulled out into the Saturday-morning traffic. ‘When I think about it, Ray, I have to confess that I find it remarkable too. Not that long ago we were talking about when the time would be right for her to move up to assistant chief, and whether she should move force to achieve it. Then all of a sudden there’s this sea change in her, leading up to her announcement last night.

  ‘I thought I knew her, better than I’ve ever known anyone in my whole life. I thought she’d never be able to surprise me again, and then she went and proved me wrong. I told her as much last night. She was sorry, you know, guilty that she hadn’t told me what she’d decided in advance, but when she said that she did what she did on the spur of the moment, she wasn’t kidding.’

  ‘Did anybody try to talk her out of it afterwards?’

  ‘Brian Mackie did. He pleaded with her to take longer to think about it, and not hand in her resignation straight away. He told her that replacing her permanently
would be a big problem for him, one that he’d rather put off for the moment. He even said he’d been thinking about letting Neil McIlhenney gain a year’s seniority, but the DCC told him to forget that, pronto. He said that he wasn’t pulling Neil out of CID.’

  ‘The DCC,’ Wilding exclaimed. ‘Was he there?’

  ‘Of course. Mags used to be his exec, remember.’

  ‘How did he take it?’

  ‘He was great. He was the only one of us that didn’t bat an eyelid. He told her that she hadn’t made a wrong move in all the time he’d known her, and that if that was what she’d decided, she’d leave with his blessing. They’ve always been close, those two.’

  ‘You don’t mean . . .’

  ‘Don’t be stupid; of course I don’t. They’ve seen a lot of action together. It’s the same with her and Mario, and big Neil too. There’s some serious history there, and I’m not just talking about her first marriage. I don’t think I know all of it, but if she doesn’t choose to tell me, that’s fine.’

  ‘So who is going to take her place?’

  ‘I reckon that Mary Chambers will carry on, for a while at least; they might bring Alastair Grant up from CID in the Borders, or they might even look outside our force. Time will tell. The only thing that’s certain is that it won’t be you or me.’

  ‘Maybe it’ll be Griff Montell,’ Wilding muttered.

  Steele smiled. ‘Somehow, I don’t think so.’

  ‘Why do you say that? Is he in bother over that run-in with Special Branch?’

  ‘Not at all. Forget it, Ray, I didn’t mean anything by that. Griff’s okay; he just needs a crash course in tact and diplomacy, and I think he has one coming.’

  The two officers sat back in the spacious cab, enjoying the view as the driver took them on a tourist route that led round Marble Arch and down Park Lane, past Buckingham Palace, then up the Mall towards Trafalgar Square. Their destination was Agar Street, just off the Strand. When they arrived they were both taken by surprise: Charing Cross police station was a fine white building with a pillared entrance.

  ‘Holy shit!’ Wilding exclaimed, as Steele paid the driver. ‘This isn’t like any nick I’ve ever seen. It looks more like a fucking bank.’

  However, inside it was very much a working police office. They stepped through the high double doors into a public reception hall. The inspector walked up to a divider behind which a sergeant and a constable were on duty. ‘Morning, sir,’ the senior officer, a black woman, greeted him. ‘How can I help you?’

  ‘DI Steele and DS Wilding, from Edinburgh,’ he glanced at the name-tag on her tunic, ‘Sergeant Baptiste. We’re here to interview a prisoner.’

  ‘Yessir,’ she replied smartly. ‘I was told to expect you. Hold on and I’ll buzz DI Stallings.’ She walked back to her desk, picked up an intercom and spoke into it. ‘She’ll be right down,’ she called out.

  Steele thanked her. They glanced around the entrance space as they waited. ‘Probably goes all the way back to Sherlock Holmes,’ Wilding murmured. ‘Maybe even before him.’

  ‘I don’t recall Sherlock being a serving officer,’ the inspector commented quietly.

  As he spoke a door opened: a dark-suited, dark-haired woman appeared and headed in their direction. She looked at the visitors appraisingly, until her eye settled on Steele. ‘Inspector,’ she guessed correctly, offering a handshake. ‘Becky Stallings; good to meet you.’ She nodded to Wilding. ‘You too, Sergeant. Welcome to Charing Cross. Come on, our guest will soon be ready for you.’

  There was a stairway behind the door; Wilding took in his surroundings as they climbed. ‘This beats Queen Charlotte Street,’ he said, as they reached the top. ‘Must be a cushy number being posted here.’

  ‘Come and join us,’ said Stallings, ‘when there’s a big demo in Trafalgar Square, and the place is full of anarchists, or even when there’s a celebration there and we get more pickpockets than we can process.’

  ‘I’ll do that,’ the sergeant replied, ‘if you come and join us when Rangers play at Easter Road.’

  She smiled at his comeback as she opened a door and showed them into her office. ‘We’re going to have to wait for a bit,’ she told them. ‘Barker wants his lawyer present when you see him, and he’s not here yet. Saturday morning, too: he’ll be pissed off.’

  ‘We’ll be sure to apologise,’ said Wilding, cheerfully. As he spoke, he glanced casually at Stallings’s hands and saw no jewellery. ‘You must be pissed off too, Becky,’ he continued. ‘It’s Saturday for you as well.’

  She shot him a severe look. ‘Yes, it’s ruined my whole weekend,’ she said drily.

  ‘Maybe we could all go and grab some lunch when we’re done here.’

  ‘Yes, Sergeant,’ she said, ‘and then we could go shopping in the West End. You could buy a present for your wife.’

  His expression turned mournful. ‘I don’t have one. I used to, but she left me for some bastard of a car salesman. She said she couldn’t stand my working hours, but he works every bloody Saturday.’

  ‘Ah, that’s too bad,’ said the Londoner; she seemed to loosen up slightly. ‘It’s not just the lawyer,’ she said. ‘Home Office security division want to sit in too.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Steele.

  ‘Because of the civil-service involvement, or so they say. So far, Barker hasn’t named anyone else he might have corrupted, but they want to be around if he does.’

  ‘I don’t actually give a damn about civil-service corruption,’ the Scot confessed. ‘We’re after a multiple murderer, and so, it seems, is Barker. Has he said anything so far?’

  ‘No. Hamilton, his lawyer, won’t let him. He’s waiting to see how much of a supporting case we can compile, to back up Dailey’s confession.’

  ‘How are you doing on that front?’

  ‘Not too bad. We found some photocopies of DTI documents in Barker’s office at Continental IT: they definitely should not have been there. We also found details at his home of a bank account in the name of Jack Frost. The balance is very healthy . . . it’s several grand in credit ... and there’s a record of cash withdrawals. Some of the dates match up roughly with the DTI papers that we found. There was three grand withdrawn on Thursday; we found that in an envelope in Barker’s desk. We’re sure that it was destined for Dailey, only he didn’t deliver the goods.

  ‘The account was set up by Barker, not long after he left ITN to work for Davor Boras. The initial deposit was made by a cheque for twenty thousand pounds drawn on Barker’s personal account. That received a cash injection for the same amount the day before. Since then it’s been topped up a couple of times, in the same way.’

  ‘Have you put this to Barker yet?’ asked Steele. ‘Have you pressed him about the money?’

  ‘No, but when we do, you know what he’ll say.’

  ‘Sure. He’ll tell us that he’s a gambler and that sometimes he wins big. At least, that’s what they all tell us at first.’

  ‘You think you can crack him?’

  ‘I’ve met the man; I think I can. I’ve been taught by experts . . . my wife among them.’

  Out of the blue, Wilding chuckled. ‘That’s pretty good.’

  Stallings stared at him. ‘What is?’

  ‘The bank account. Somebody’s got a sense of humour. Jack Frost . . . It’s a slush fund, isn’t it?’

  For the second time she smiled at him. ‘Ray, you might not be as dumb as you look. Maybe we will go for lunch after all.’ Before the sergeant could reply, her phone rang. She picked it up. ‘Thanks,’ she said, nodding across her desk. ‘We’re on.’

  She led the way along the corridor and round a corner to a room that Steele judged, even before he was ushered inside, had to be at the back of the building, but there was nothing to confirm this, since its two windows were shuttered.

  Barker was waiting for them, immaculate in a pale blue open-necked shirt and tan slacks. As before, his hair was perfectly groomed. He looked like a man who had spent the nig
ht in a five-star hotel room, rather than in a police holding cell. He was flanked by a fat man in a business suit.

  There were four seats on the other side of the long table at which they sat. One of them was occupied by a woman who rose as they entered. She was small and very slim, bespectacled, and with hair so red that at once Steele pictured Maggie standing in her place. ‘This is Rhonda Weiss,’ Stallings announced, ‘from the Home Office. Mr Barker, you know; the other gentleman is Lancelot Hamilton, his legal adviser.’ She introduced the two officers.

  ‘I’ll be sitting in,’ said Weiss. ‘I reserve the right to ask questions as I see fit.’

  The Scottish inspector looked at her; she returned his gaze, unsmiling. ‘Can I see your warrant card?’ he asked politely.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘You heard me.’

  ‘You mean do I have identification?’ she spluttered. ‘This is ridiculous.’

  ‘No. I asked if I might see your warrant card. In other words, I’m asking if you’re a police officer.’

  ‘Of course not. I’m a civil servant.’

  ‘Then you have no locus,’ Steele told her. ‘This is a serious interview, part of a murder investigation. You can stay, but you will not utter a word unless invited by me, and you’ll sit at the end of the table, so that you cannot make eye contact with the prisoner. Are you carrying any form of recording device?’

  ‘Yes, but . . .’

  Steele held out his hand. ‘Give it to me, please. I’ll return it when we’re finished here.’

  ‘I will not!’

  ‘Then leave.’

  ‘I’m here with the approval of the Metropolitan Police.’

  ‘Which can be withdrawn.’

  ‘Not by you.’

  ‘Trust me, it can.’ He turned to Stallings. ‘Becky, I don’t want to put you on the spot, but . . .’

  ‘No problem,’ she told him. ‘If you’ll come with me, Ms Weiss.’

  ‘Okay!’ The woman took a small personal-memo device from her bag and handed it to Steele.