The Maggie Bainbridge Box Set

by Rob Wyllie

  Justice for Greenway

  Chapter 26

  'It's all kicking off ma'am,' Frank said. 'Big time. The desk sergeant's just been in to say he's got two women screaming at one another, and both of them demanding to see Hugo Morgan. One says she's his ex-wife and one says she's his fiancé. And it looks as if there's no love lost between them, if the language they're using is anything to go by.'

  It was four o'clock, just three hours after the incident at Kings Cross and they were gathered in Incident Room Four at Paddington Green, which Frank had been able to commandeer for his Aphrodite Murders case, granted official status the previous day by his boss Detective Superintendent Jill Smart. In the room were Frank, Pete Burnside, Jimmy, Maggie, Jill herself and a gaggle of detective constables, tapping away on their laptops. As a DI from back-of-beyond Department 12B, he wouldn't be running the case personally, but he was pleased that it had been put in the hands of his old mate Pete, recently promoted to Chief Inspector. And in any case, it was odds on that Pete would leave most of the grunt work to him, which suited him fine. All the job satisfaction without any of the responsibility.

  'You don't need to tell me it's kicking off,' Jill said, grimacing. 'I've already had an AC calling me and asking why the hell we've got Morgan in for questioning when one daughter has just been murdered and his other one's been kidnapped.'

  'Aye, he's obviously got his lawyers right onto it, which is no more than I expected,' Frank said, shrugging. 'The truth is, they just overlapped ma'am. I had reasonable suspicions that he was involved in two murders himself, so it was right and proper that we brought him in. But yeah, it's bloody bad timing right enough.'

  'And how are you Maggie?' Jill asked. 'Nice black eye, if you don't mind me saying so.'

  'Yes, it hurts, but I'm absolutely fine,' she said, giving a rueful smile. 'I'm just so sorry I couldn't stop it happening. The abduction I mean.'

  'Who's going to run that case ma'am?' Frank asked. 'I guess it can't be Pete, given that Morgan's a suspect in the Aphrodite ones. Conflict of interest I suppose.'

  'No, I've given it to DCI Ahmed. In fact, Rashid's already up at Kings Cross looking at the CCTV, and I think he's going to organise a TV appeal for witnesses on the local TV news tonight.'

  'Aye, he's a good bloke,' Frank said. 'And I guess one of his guys will want to speak to you Maggie in the next half hour or so. You saw it all I suppose?'

  'I didn't see the push, but I saw the aftermath. It was too ghastly for words. And her little sister saw it too. God knows what's going on in her mind. I can't bear to think about it.'

  'Are you sure you're ok?' Frank said in a worried tone. 'I heard you passed out. I can easily get a WPC to take you home if you like. I'm sure the interview can wait.'

  She shook her head and smiled. 'No way. This is all far too important for that. And I told you, I'm absolutely fine.' Although she didn't exactly feel it. She had a crashing headache and great difficulty in seeing through her rapidly-closing eye. But despite all of that, she wasn't going anywhere.

  'So Frank,' Jill said, wearing a puzzled look, 'you said you had reasonable suspicions that Morgan was involved in the murder of these two kids. Has something changed?'

  'Aye, it has ma'am, don't you see? The murder of his daughter kind of makes me think I might need to look a bit deeper at the whole thing.'

  'Because the MO was the same?' Jill said. 'Identical to your two other ones I mean.'

  'Not just three,' Jimmy said. 'Four of them. Chardonnay, Luke, Rosie and Liz Donahue. Don't forget Liz.'

  'And all the same MO?'

  'Aye ma'am,' Frank said. 'Pretty much identical. So we've got means and opportunity, sure, But the problem is, where's the common motive? The two kids, I can see a link. Liz Donahue, we know there's a connection there, definitely. But Rosie Morgan? No way, not as far as I can see.'

  They were interrupted by the desk sergeant sticking his head round the door.

  'Sorry to disturb ma'am. Guv, what do you want me to do with these two woman I've got? I'm worried the older one's going to have a stroke or a heart attack or something.'

  'Well, it's not exactly surprising given the news she's had, is it?' Burnside said, his irritation obvious. 'She's lost her bloody daughter for God's sake. Find a family liaison officer and put her somewhere comfortable. And get her a cup of tea.'

  'Yes sir. And what should I do with the other one?'

  'How should I bloody know?' he said, raising his eyes to the ceiling. 'Go and see Morgan and ask if he wants to see either of them. Or none of them. You're ok with that Frank?'

  'Aye sure Pete, given the circs. And we should get a family liaison for him too I suppose. Don't want to appear heartless, do we?'

  ◆◆◆

  As Jill Smart had predicted, DCI Rashid Ahmed had rounded up the local early-evening news programmes to broadcast an appeal for the return, unharmed, of eleven-year-old Jasmine Morgan, abducted four hours earlier from Kings Cross St Pancras tube station. Given the prominence of her father, the media room at Paddington Green was packed out, attracting a full house of the dailies and national broadcast media. Maggie, Jimmy and Frank were lucky to find a spot, squeezed tight up against the back wall. Scanning the room, she noted Lotti Brückner was nowhere to be seen.

  Hugo and Felicity Morgan were seated behind a desk on the low podium and holding hands, their grief evidently effecting a temporary halt in hostilities. Their eyes were blood-shot from crying and Mrs Morgan had made no attempt to re-apply her make-up, dark eyeliner tracing the path where the tears had run down her cheeks. She looked completely broken.

  DCI Ahmed stared directly at the TV news camera, and although his manner was calm and commanding, he was reading from a small ring-bound notebook. 'Good evening, ladies and gentlemen and thanks for coming. As you know, there was a very serious incident earlier today at Kings Cross St Pancras tube station. Tragically Miss Rosalind Morgan lost her life and I can confirm we are treating her death as murder. At the same time, her younger sister Jasmine was abducted by a man who at this moment we have failed to identify. I appeal for eye witnesses to either incident to contact us by calling the number displayed across the bottom of your screen. Your call will of course be treated in confidence.' He paused for a moment and then flipped over a page. 'And now, I'd like to ask the Morgans to say a few words, and please, no flash photography until they've finished.'

  It was Hugo Morgan who addressed the camera, his voice subdued and wavering, his message brief but poignant. 'We don't know who did this and we have no idea why. All we ask is that please, please, you return our lovely daughter to us unharmed.'

  'Yes, please, please, bring her back to us. Please.' Felicity spoke almost inaudibly, then buried her head in her hands, motionless and numbed with pain. Immediately her ex-husband put an arm around her and gently drew a strand of hair back from her face.

  'No questions please folks,' Ahmed said briskly, as the room was illuminated with the flashes from a dozen cameras now let off the leash. 'Suffice to say that we are pursuing a number of promising lines of enquiry and we will update you as and when. Finally, I should mention that the family are offering a reward for any information leading to the safe return of their daughter. Thank you for your attendance.'

  The assembled press hacks waited until the Morgans had left the platform before asking the obvious question, leaving it to ITN's distinguished Home Affairs correspondent to put it into words. How much?

  ◆◆◆

  'Half a million?' Maggie said. 'It's a lot of money isn't it? But do you think it will have any effect?'

  DCI Ahmed shrugged. 'You would think so, but this Justice for Greenway business would appear to be about exacting revenge on Hugo Morgan rather than money. So I don't know. I have my doubts, quite honestly.'

  They were in a small airless interview room, the DCI accompanied by a colleague, a detective sergeant whose name Maggie hadn't quite caught and who thus far had not uttered a word. He seemed somewhat in awe of his boss, wh
o was emanating the same aura of effortless authority that she had witnessed during the press conference. 'So tell us all about today please, if you don't mind. Take your time. And then maybe we can talk about Justice for Greenway too. Because I think you and your colleague were looking into that, am I correct?'

  So she told him, about her lunch with Rosie and Yazz, how she had pursued them to the tube station. And how she had witnessed Rosie Morgan's terrible killing, and about her failed effort to prevent the abduction.

  'Do you think you could identify the man if you saw him again?' Ahmed asked.

  She gave him a doubtful look. 'His face was covered. His physique, maybe, but that wouldn't be good enough, would it?'

  'No, probably not, but we've now got some CCTV from the scene. DS Johnston, can you show Miss Bainbridge the images please.' Johnston removed some large prints from a folder and laid them on the table facing Maggie. Dark and grainy, nonetheless they had picked out the abductor leading Yazz along the platform.

  'Yes, that's him,' she said. And then she remembered. 'I thought there might be someone else.'

  'What, you mean an accomplice?'

  'I suppose so. I didn't really see clearly, it was just more of a feeling. Someone who I thought shouldn't be there. But I'm sorry, I can't put a face or a name to it.'

  He shrugged. 'Well, these pictures will be in all the newspapers tomorrow, so maybe somebody out there might recognise him. Or your stranger. But what struck us was that she didn't seem to be struggling. Because of the shock we expect. Pity. It made it all too easy for him.'

  'Yes, I'm sorry,' Maggie said. 'I could have done better too.'

  'Not at all,' Ahmed said. 'You were very brave.'

  He nodded at Johnson, who took out another photograph from the folder.

  'Do you know who this woman is? We found this in Rosie's handbag.'

  She took it from him and examined it.

  'No idea, I've never seen her before.'

  'And so you have no idea why Rosie would be carrying this picture?'

  'No, I said I didn't know her.'

  'Well if it's any help, there's a name scribbled on the back.'

  'What?'

  'A name. I can't quite make it out. Take a look yourself.'

  She turned the photograph over and looked. The handwriting was poor, but she had no trouble in reading what it said.

  Lotti Brückner.

  'Miss Bainbridge?'

  'Oh...yes, sorry. It's says Lotti Brückner. That's the name of Hugo Morgan's fiancé. Although he hasn't actually proposed to her yet. But Rosie told me that Felicity had found out about Lotti and her ex-husband. She was worried she might do something crazy.'

  'What did she mean by that?' Ahmed asked.

  'I don't know. But that was what she said. But this isn't Lotti. As I said, I've no idea who this woman is.'

  'Ok,' Johnson said. 'And there was this too.' He rummaged in his folder for a moment then extracted what looked like a glossy sales brochure.

  'The Oxbridge Agency Scholarship Scheme. And the same question as before. Would you have any idea why she would be carrying this around with her?'

  ◆◆◆

  'Give you a tough time did he?' Frank said, laughing. 'Hard man, is our DCI Ahmed.'

  Maggie had just got back to the Incident Room following her interview, and her brow was furrowed as she tried to make sense of what had just been revealed to her.

  'What? No, he's nice,' she said distractedly. 'On the ball too.'

  'Folks, listen up, we've got some progress on the Cumbrian connection at least,' Burnside said. 'So yesterday when I saw what Frank had turned up on the Belinda Milner suicide, I got straight onto the local force, spoke to a DCI Bragg.'

  'Not Melvyn?' Frank said. 'He's a Cumbrian, isn't he?'

  'Melissa actually. Smart lady by the sound of things. So anyroads, they've now decided that there's grounds for suspicion around Liz Donahue's death and they've opened up a murder enquiry with Bragg in charge. Thing is, they're only a small force and a case like this can overwhelm them but I've agreed to second a couple of DCs for a fortnight or so, just to help them out, try to accelerate things a bit.'

  'Hallelujah,' Jimmy said, 'and a nice gig by the way.'

  'Yeah it is,' Burnside agreed. 'And as I said, there's already some news. It seems someone remembers seeing Donahue's car being parked up outside the station on the evening in question. And it turns out she wasn't alone.'

  'Got a description?' Frank asked.

  He nodded. 'The guy with her was hooded and wearing shades so nothing too definite. But he was described as fairly short but powerfully-built. Like a body-builder, the witness said.'

  'What, just like the guy who punched me?' Maggie said, involuntarily tracing the outline of her shiner.

  'Seems that way, yeah.'

  'And what, she was just strolling into the station with him, nice as you like?' Jimmy said.

  'Not heard of guns bruv?' Frank said, shaking his head. 'It's odds-on he was armed. And exactly the same today up at Kings Cross, that's what I'm guessing. A pistol in your ribs and you're going to do exactly what you're told.'

  And then Jimmy remembered. Those Tompkins brothers. Specifically Karl, the ex-squaddie who was built like the proverbial brick shithouse. He fitted the description perfectly.

  'Karl Tompkins. He's the guy that Liz and I went to see, him and his brother. He runs a business customising cars and knocks around in a blinged-up Fiesta, and this guy looks as if he pushes some weights, believe me. They didn't exactly admit being behind Justice for Greenway, but they didn't exactly deny it either.'

  'Yes, but why would they want to kill Liz?' Maggie said. 'If anything, she was on their side, wasn't she? After what she had found out about Milner?'

  Jimmy frowned. 'Maybe they thought Liz was going to run a story accusing them of being behind the campaign.'

  'But her story had nothing to do with that,' Maggie said.

  'We know that, but they didn't. So maybe they killed her to shut her up.'

  A young detective constable looked up from her laptop. 'Jimmy, that customised Fiesta. Was it anything like this?'

  She swung her screen round to face them. 'This was from the CCTV on the next street to Morgan's. On the night he reported the graffiti on his wall. I remembered the car because it was so unusual.'

  Jimmy peered at it over her shoulder. 'That's it, I'm pretty sure of it. I recognise the alloys and the spoiler. But wait a minute...no, this is on a 59 plate and his was definitely a 57. I remember stuff like that.'

  'False plates probably,' Burnside said, turning to the young detective. 'Emma, get on to the DVLA site and do a search, see what you can dig up. He'll have cloned it, I'm pretty sure. And then check with the Northamptonshire and West Midlands boys, see if these plates have been caught on ANPR cameras on the M6 or the M1 anytime over the last month. And today or yesterday, obviously.'

  'Yes sir,' she said, scribbling furiously on her pad.

  'And I'll nip back to my desk and get on to Melvyn, see if she can bring this Tompkins guy in for questioning.'

  'Melvyn?' Maggie said, smiling.

  'DCI Bragg,' Burnside said, a hint of embarrassment in his tone. 'The guys are already calling her Melvyn, I just hope it doesn't slip out anytime she's in earshot.'

  ◆◆◆

  'So come on Frank,' Jill said after Burnside had departed, 'let's hear all about the Morgan angle and your Aphrodite case.'

  Maggie watched him shuffle uncomfortably in his seat. She knew how he hated being in this situation, where to him the critical facts of a case were as clear as the light of day, but where the evidence was non-existent.

  'I'm not sure you're going to like this ma'am,' he said.

  'Try me.'

  'Ok. Well this is a conspiracy so unbelievable and implausible that I'm afraid we're never going to get a conviction unless we get confessions by the principle actors. And I don't see how that's ever going to happen. So unless Burnside's investigation come
s up with some miracle, we're stuffed. There's barely enough to question anyone, never mind getting the CPS to sanction a prosecution. It's bloody depressing, I don't mind telling you.'

  'And that's the same for both of your murders,' Jill said. 'No evidence?'

  'None. To be honest, I'm kind of clinging to the hope that DCI Bragg's investigation might uncover something,' he said nodding in Jimmy's direction, 'because we now believe the motive for the murder of Liz Donahue was a cover-up. To cover up the motive behind the killings of Chardonnay Clarke and Luke Brown. To stop her publishing her story.'

  'Come on then,' she said for the second time, 'tell me all.'

  'I suppose it was talking to Chardonnay's boyfriend or lover, whatever you want to call him, that sort of crystallized the whole thing in my mind. Hugo Morgan's always spouting this activist investor shtick to anyone who'll listen, as if he's got some magic way of predicting the future just by scrutinising accounts and trading statements and stuff like that. But this Jeremy guy, he said that was all bollocks, and that the real reason was that Morgan was actually heavily engaged in industrial espionage.'

  'Which was what that journalist McGinley was saying too,' Maggie said.

  'Aye, exactly. So I'm sure Morgan was involved in all sorts of subterfuge besides, but this particular one was an old classic, known since the dawn of time. Namely, a honey-trap.'

  'Yeah, I get it,' Maggie said. 'The interns. That's why they were being paid these enormous sums. To do his bidding.'

  'Correct,' Frank said. 'Sophie Fitzwilliam was an old university pal of his, at Brasenose college. He obviously knew that she ran this top-end agency and saw the opportunity for a bit of collaboration.'

  'So she was roped in to do the recruitment I guess,' Maggie said. 'And the brief was pretty precise.'

  'Aye,' Jimmy said. 'Get them beautiful and poor.'

  'But it couldn't have been that easy to fill though,' Jill said. 'Are there lots of poor students at Oxford and Cambridge? I wouldn't have thought so.'

  'More than you would think ma'am,' Frank said. 'Remember they've been making a big push in the last few years to get away from their privileged public school reputation. And this Oxbridge Agency is very well regarded amongst the students so they've got no shortage of applicants. You see, these days there's so many kids with degrees now that it's not easy to get a start. But they get you a foot in the door, even if it costs the parents a packet.'