by Alex Caan
‘Her father possibly?’
‘No, we hold his for him. He relies on us to keep them secure and use them when required.’
‘That’s odd. She may have brought it with her, possibly?’
‘Yes, I’m pretty certain she did. I had none go missing while I was there.’
‘What was in the pouch, do you know?’
‘No. It wasn’t documents, that much I can say. It felt like a box of some sort when I handled it.’
‘Why did you?’
‘She was worried security might confiscate it as she collected the rest of her bags after they had been scanned.’
‘They let you just walk through?’
‘I have diplomatic immunity; they don’t really question my whereabouts.’
‘Can you describe the box? How heavy was it? Could you tell what it was made from?’
Mike moved his eyes to the side, attempting to recall it. ‘It didn’t weigh more than a few grams, I don’t think. It was sealed so I couldn’t tell what it was made from, something solid though. It didn’t feel like metal, so I can’t say for sure.’
‘How do you know it wasn’t metal?’
‘There was no metallic ring when I tapped it. Like I said, I really can’t be sure, and the pouches are sealed securely.’
So, Anya had smuggled something back into the country then. Professor Gerard had said how lead boxes were the preferred way to transport toxic materials. Was Zain assuming too much? After all, Mike didn’t actually see the contents.
He was thinking not only of what might have killed Julian, but also about the wealth that Anya and Julian seemed to possess. Was Anya doing this regularly? Is this where their income was coming from? Abusing her father’s diplomatic privileges?
‘Sorry, it doesn’t seem like much does it? Only I thought it was important. It really bothered me that she had behaved that way. It’s not something I can condone, and I thought it might help.’
‘Could she have been bringing something back for her father?’
‘Possibly. Only I can’t say what. Unless it was so confidential, or so urgent, that he used her instead of waiting until we returned.’
‘How are secure communications normally sent?’
‘This isn’t the Cold War anymore, DS Harris. We have emails now, encrypted methods of communicating via phone.’
‘Is anything done over a network really secure? How was Anya’s behaviour? Did she spend a lot of time alone while she was there?’
‘Yes, of course. We were working during the days, and she would be left to her own wiles. In the evening she would join her father for dinner, or accompany us to a function or event. They are interminable really. I find them tedious. But they have to be done.’
Not only did Anya have the means to import something into the mainland UK without it being questioned, she also had the time to procure it. Zain thought this was enough. He called Kate, and let her know what had happened. She told him to bring Anya in for questioning.
‘What about PCC Hope?’
‘He can’t know, not yet anyway.’
Was there warning, mistrust, accusation even in that sentence? Zain bit back the second guessing.
‘He won’t hear it from me.’
Chapter Forty-Two
Kate was trying to fit the pieces into place. She was in the conference room, the screen filled with images she was moving using her tablet.
Rob had told her about the Raxoman labs, about Natalie Davies stealing from them. Dr Kapoor thought it would be unlikely Raxoman would produce something so caustic and devastating, but she’d asked for their labs to be searched and for samples to be sent to her. She was still at the Royal Free with Professor Gerard, working on testing samples taken from Julian Leakey.
Kate had rushed through a warrant to take what they needed from Raxoman, and she asked for a patrol to tighten surveillance on Natalie Davies’ flat. She hadn’t left the bedsit she occupied in Southgate since they had put it in place. Kate had just been given a warrant to search her flat, which Stevie was on the way to enact.
Eric was sending her jokes on WhatsApp, but she ignored them. She felt as though she was neglecting him, but he would be there at the weekend. He understood how busy her life could become, and she in turn accepted his lifestyle. He had a small flat in Pimlico he had inherited, something he used when he was in London. It was on one of these trips that he had bumped into Kate. She had just moved in to Dolphin Square, and they ended up in the same deli. Coffee turned into dinner, as they reminisced about a case they had worked on together. Dinner turned into drinks, and then he told her his place was only a few minutes’ walk away.
Was it love or convenience? Kate didn’t know, and she didn’t care. For the first time in a long while, she was feeling some semblance of normality. She was in a relationship, and it was working for her. It didn’t get in the way of her mother or her job. And as much as she hated to admit it, his daily messages were becoming a habit and a need.
She turned back to the web page that Michelle had created for her, linking the people and places on her screen. It all seemed so plausible, and yet totally unreal. She could understand Natalie Davies and Anya Fox-Leakey. These were victims in a way, of Julian’s selfishness and arrogance. Zain had showed Kate the adultery websites Julian had been on, the women he had met on there. Websites promoting themselves for married people looking for a hook-up. She couldn’t really judge, she had done her own fair share, and the shame burned through her when confronted by it like this. She hadn’t considered the other woman, not really. Ryan had been convenient; she had taken advantage of the situation. Chloe rarely encroached on her conscience. But here it was, her team calling out Julian Leakey for something she herself had done. Maybe not as much, or as blatantly, but it was about degrees on the same scale.
Anya had an obvious motive now, so did Natalie. It was the method, that’s what didn’t fit. Neurotoxins were poisons, the historical weapon of choice for women, but that was in the past; these days nothing was off limits. Still, she just couldn’t make the leap from these wronged women, to what she saw on Julian’s body. He had not only been poisoned, but it was done on the night of the Anonymous protests. It was pre-planned, carefully put together. Natalie seemed like too much of a mess to do that, and Anya, would she put her husband through that? Would she put her family through that? It was so public.
The thought hit Kate then. Unless they were working together? Anya the planner, Natalie the one that would get her hands dirty. No, she was being fanciful. She couldn’t link the two women like that. And yet, they both had motive and possibly even means.
Natalie was stealing what they needed from Raxoman, or Anya was bringing it into the country from abroad. Either was a distinct possibility. Kate stared at the images as they blurred in front of her.
Michelle came in, interrupting her thoughts.
‘Anya Fox-Leakey is here.’
‘Thank you, I’ll be down in a minute. And Michelle, can you have a look at Anya and Natalie’s phone records. See if they’ve been in contact, or if their cell locations match at anytime?’
Too late she realised she’d slipped in her American ‘cell’ instead of using ‘mobile’. Michelle didn’t seem to notice. Kate’s phone buzzed.
‘Stevie. Are you with Natalie?’
‘No,’ said Stevie, sounding out of breath and anxious. ‘She’s gone, boss. I think she’s done a runner.’
Chapter Forty-Three
Kate was trying not to think about the missing Natalie Davies as Anya Fox-Leakey sat calmly before her. She was an attractive woman, dressed smartly, and her lawyer was just as polished. Priya Shah was leaning forward, poised almost, deflecting Kate’s questions as she put them to a non-committal Anya.
‘Anya, we know a number of women have contacted you, including Natalie Davies, to inform you of your husband’s infidelity. What did you make of the allegations when you heard them?’
She said nothing.
‘Are a
llegations all you have, DCI Riley?’ said Priya.
‘I am asking your client these questions, Ms Shah.’
‘She doesn’t wish to answer your baseless accusations.’
Kate looked at Anya, who was trying to look bored but couldn’t quite manage to keep her anxiety hidden. Her eyes kept darting to the floor.
‘Did you begin to resent your husband? All the affairs, the humiliation? While you were keeping his home, raising his children?’
Again nothing, just the passive expressions she had kept throughout.
‘Is that what drove you to decide to end his life?’
‘Have you any evidence at all that my client was involved in the tragic and very sad death of her beloved husband?’
‘Beloved husband. An extremely loaded word, beloved. It suggests some form of attachment, don’t you think? And yet your reaction on hearing of the death of your husband was anything but full of emotion.’
‘You’re basing your assumptions on how my client reacted to such devastating news? Is there a guide to how people should react?’
‘Anya, were you relieved that your husband was dead?’
Anya’s mouth twitched, opened slightly. The slur was driving her past the instructions Priya had obviously given her. Still she maintained control, and repeated the only thing she had said throughout.
‘No comment.’
‘An aggrieved wife, taunted by the adulterous allegations of a husband who has neglected her, and more than that, humiliated her. How did you feel when Natalie and Bianca contacted you? Was there absolute rage inside you?’
Priya sighed, and rolled her eyes at Kate.
‘When did you decide you were going to kill your husband?’
‘No comment.’
‘Was it after Natalie, or was there someone else? Is there another of his affairs that we are going to uncover, something worse? Did he threaten to leave you for one of these women? Is that what finally broke you?’
Kate was needling her, trying to break through the defence Anya had put up around herself.
Priya was looking at Kate as though she had just stepped on something, wrinkling her nose. There was real loathing there, and Kate wondered if it was directed towards her profession or if it was personal.
‘DCI Riley, I don’t think you have much to go on. You are simply obfuscating theories and trying to convert them into facts. What evidence do you have linking my client to the means of how her husband died? What exactly killed him? We are still unclear of the details.’
‘That raises another issue. You see Anya, we think Julian was murdered using a highly toxic substance. Lethal, poisonous. Difficult to manufacture, difficult to procure. Unless you know the right people, and have the ability to move such things. Internationally move them, I mean.’
A flicker. There it was in the very corner of the eye. Everyone had these ticks, they betrayed people all the time. Kate just had to find the right buttons to push.
‘We believe these substances are available in some parts of the world. After the fall of the Soviet Bloc, a lot of weapons programs passed into regional control. Some were lost entirely, the extremely sensitive and secret programs for example. There are a number of places where these things might surface on the illegal markets of the world, like Russia for instance.’
Anya looked away, her face giving away her emotions, as the colour crept into her cheeks.
‘We know, Mrs Fox-Leakey, that you recently visited your father on his posting to Russia. And we know that, on your return, you brought back something using one of his diplomatic pouches. Is this true?’
Anya had lost her composure now, she was staring at Kate with steel in her eyes, rubbing her upper arms, self-comforting gestures, feeling the pressure of Kate’s words.
‘No comment,’ she said, her voice devoid of its previous affected boredom.
‘What was in that diplomatic pouch you brought with you?’
‘No comment.’
‘We are currently searching your apartment, Mrs Fox-Leakey.’
‘Do you have a warrant for that?’ said Priya.
‘No, I just sent my team hoping that you wouldn’t notice I was flouting the law so blatantly. Do I strike you as being so unprofessional?’
‘I wouldn’t like to say.’
‘What will they find, Anya? Will they find something that might link you to Julian’s death? Have you heard of Locard’s principle? It’s the theory that everything leaves its mark, anything that comes into contact with something will leave a trace of itself. We will find what you had hidden, and we will test that pouch. Do you still have nothing to say?’
Anya’s eyes were ruinous as she bore into Kate, her words trembling.
‘I did not do this,’ she said. ‘You are trying to frame me for something I had no part in.’
Paranoia? Kate hadn’t expected that. She looked closely at Anya, and began to see something she hadn’t noticed before. A defeated woman. Julian Leakey had not only treated his wife unkindly, he had chipped away at her sense of self. It was a form of abuse.
Before Kate could continue, the door to the interview room was banged open. Justin Hope was standing there, his eyes full of thunder.
‘Interview terminated,’ he said for the benefit of the recording equipment. ‘I apologise, Mrs Fox-Leakey, you are free to go.’
Kate looked on as Anya and Priya left the interview room accompanied by the Police Crime Commissioner for Westminster. Her very core trembled with the anger she felt.
*
Kate drove home, too fast, and too angry. She beeped her horn for the smallest misdemeanour, and cursed under her breath anyone she perceived to have violated her space.
Charlie the security guard was surprised to see her, and only exchanged the barest of pleasantries with her, as Kate drove away hastily. She needed to get home, and then what? She parked in the underground car park, and put her head on the steering wheel. What had she done? She had let her emotions take over, and she had reacted. This was what she always worried Zain might do, his volatile and unpredictable nature always just under the surface of his calm obedience. And here she was, having done exactly the same, storming out of the office.
As the realisation came to calm her, she started to feel the prickling of guilt and embarrassment. And then she recalled what had happened. PCC Hope had stepped in, no he had stepped on her investigation, and totally discredited her. She could tolerate his meddling, and she knew if he had called her out of the interview, and asked her to terminate it, explaining why, she would have behaved differently.
He had made the choice to do it this way, to humiliate her so blatantly.
Kate felt the anger and rage pick at her again, reaching the corners of her mind she didn’t control. The voices that were meant to soothe her were instead goading her, telling her how badly she had been treated, how she had done the right thing. How she needed to see him, tell him what she thought about him, and to leave Unit 3.
The same voices then started to echo from her past, until the past and her present were merged. She had fought powerful corrupt men like her father, men that had assumed she would behave a certain way, and she had won. Victory may have come at a price, and may have been hollow, but there wasn’t a price to be put on doing the right thing. Justice was worth the pain, she’d always believed that. It’s why she became a cop and why she still chose to be one, even when doing so was not the easy option. And when it meant moving her world so much.
Eric called. She told him what she had done. He started laughing.
‘I can imagine.’
‘I feel so unprofessional.’
‘I wish I had seen you storm out. Well done, my love.’
There they were. Words that tripped off his tongue so easily. Words that instantly undid years of bitterness and hatred in her. Words she couldn’t say back. Not yet at least.
‘I feel like a fool. I should have reacted better.’
‘You reacted the way you did. There is no wrong
or right now.’ That was his psychiatrist speak coming through. It irritated her. And was one of the reasons she knew he was right for her. If she couldn’t see his faults, that’s when she would know she was building him up to be something extraordinary. That’s when there was a sucker punch just waiting to land, when reality came calling.
‘I can’t wait to see you,’ she said.
‘I’ll come up tonight, start the weekend early. You sound like you need me.’
No, she didn’t. She wouldn’t allow herself to need anybody. Yet it felt good that he would do this for her.
‘Don’t stress yourself, whatever works for you.’
‘This works for me,’ he assured her.
Kate was oscillating between rage at PCC Hope, anger at herself and anxiety over Eric, when she got to her flat. She stood outside the door, looking for her keys, when she heard voices from inside. Raised, sharp, argumentative.
Kate felt her heart hammer inside her ribcage, and quickly opened the door, rushing in to defend her mother no matter who the intruder was.
‘Mom?’ she said, bursting into the lounge.
Her mother was standing in the middle of the room, phone to her ear, as she turned to look at Kate.
*
He had followed Kate Riley as she left her office, early, and from the look on her face, not under happy circumstances. His heart had picked up. Had her mother told her? Despite his threats? Was he now in a position to carry those out? He relished those moments.
Only, he was being held back. They wanted to know about her first, and they wanted to use her for their own purposes. He understood. But it was only a matter of time. When they had no more purpose for her, that’s when he would step in.
He called her mother. He wanted her to be hysterical when Kate got home. He wanted Jane to confess, so that he could carry out his threats.
When he’d finished dismantling Kate Riley’s life, she would pay in full for the sins of Winter Morgan.
Chapter Forty-Four
Stevie was at a loss. Natalie Davies lived in a bedsit, but on a residential street just off the main roundabout outside the Southgate Tube station. Areas like this didn’t have the same sort of CCTV coverage she was used to in Central London. The Tube station was covered, and she had managed to access that. Natalie was seen at the bus station next to the Tube, getting off the bus, but that was all they could manage. And that was thirty-six hours ago already.