‘If he was visiting Louise,’ Rae added, ‘we’ve not managed to find anything to link them, and that’s why we thought it would be useful to have a chat.’
Gwen frowned, causing Tommy’s heart to flip. ‘It’s not been easy, finding out Louise’s background. Our only link is Zelinski, and he’s clearly worried. But he’s a Home Office employee, not a criminal, so we have to tread carefully. What we have found is that Louise also had a connection with the Home Office. It’s possible she worked there as some kind of temp. If that’s right, then there was probably no direct link between her and Bunting. Maybe they’d both come to the attention of the thugs responsible, but for different reasons.’
Tommy was puzzled. ‘But we think he was on his way home from Southampton that Friday evening. We haven’t found any other reason for him being there.’
Gwen shrugged. ‘We might never know. Someone from the Met has already been in touch with our chief constable. We’ve been told to pool our knowledge, which has got my boss annoyed. In reality, “pooling” means the information flows in one direction only, from us to them. He’s getting frustrated about it. Have you had the same problem?’
Rae shook her head. ‘Not that I’ve heard. I expect they’ll be onto us next, so we’d better make some quick moves. But we’ll keep you posted.’ She checked the time. ‘We’d better be off. Thanks, Gwen.’
The two detectives made their way back to the car park.
‘What were you thinking back there when we first sat down? You were gawping at Gwen all the time we were talking,’ Rae said. ‘On second thoughts, don’t answer that. I can guess.’
Tommy looked mortified. ‘Was it that obvious?’
‘To me, yes. For Christ’s sake, Tommy, she’s the boss’s fiancé. Have you got a death wish or something?’
Chapter 24: Coffee, Beer and Secrets
Wednesday morning
It was eight in the morning and Sophie had just arrived in the incident room when her mobile phone rang. She looked at the caller display and scratched her head.
‘Hello, Alice. This is a pleasant surprise.’
‘Hi. Sophie, listen. I think I’ve stumbled across something quite extraordinary. I need to run it by you to check that I’m not going doolally. Have you got time to listen?’
Sophie was intrigued. Alice Linklater had always struck her as a very controlled, unemotional person, just what you’d expect in a high-profile human rights expert and law professor. Yet she sounded almost breathless.
‘Of course,’ Sophie replied. ‘Our daily briefing doesn’t start for another half hour. Is that long enough for you?’
She had begun the call perched on the edge of her desk but when she heard what Alice had to say, she went round to her chair and sank into it. Even when the call was over, she remained sitting, elbow on her desk and her cheek resting on her hand. This was staggering.
Barry knew something was up the moment Sophie appeared for the early morning meeting. Frowning, she made her way to the top of the table without speaking to anyone. He glanced across at Rae. From the way she looked at him, she’d picked up on it too.
‘I’ve just had Alice Linklater on the phone. She’s Professor of Jurisprudence at Oxford specialising in refugee and asylum laws. She knew Louise Bennett.’
‘I met her on Friday night,’ George Warrander said. ‘Jade and I were at a college social and she introduced me.’
‘Yes. Alice told me at the weekend. She was down here, George, because of those migrants. She’s heavily involved in a charity that assists asylum seekers. Apparently, Louise Bennett was an occasional helper with that charity. Alice told me that Louise sometimes did freelance consultancy work for the Home Office in Whitehall and that, as far as she knew, her most recent job had been that of advisor to a special security unit.’
‘So, why was she deemed at enough risk for her to be put in a safe house?’ Barry asked.
‘Alice didn’t know. She hadn’t seen Louise for several weeks. What she did say about that unit, though, was interesting. Apparently, at their last meeting, Louise told Alice that the unit was dysfunctional, and its aims were muddled. The politicians who swung the cash to set it up kept meddling. Alice wonders if Louise was thinking of quitting, or had possibly already left.’
‘Why would that have put her at risk, though?’ Rae asked. ‘Wouldn’t she just be reminded of the Official Secrets Act and allowed to go on her way?’
‘That’s the great unknown. Clearly, she must have been in some danger. My guess is that the person who knew the situation best is this Corinne Lanston, and she’s still missing. I doubt whether she’s still alive at this point. After all, why would someone who’s already killed two relative juniors have any qualms about doing the same to the top person? It would make sense to silence her permanently. It ensures their tracks are covered and makes it next to impossible for the Met team to piece together what’s been going on.’
‘Has Zelinski been moved to somewhere safe?’ Barry asked.
‘Yes, him and the Cathcarts. The problem is, we haven’t been told where they are. I have to go through Paul Baker and Steve Lamb from the Met if we need to see him for anything. Apparently Zelinski’s undergoing a “deep debrief,” whatever that is.’ Sophie rolled her eyes.
‘You’ll be passing this information about Louise Bennett on, ma’am, won’t you?’
Sophie looked at him shrewdly. ‘Of course, Barry. I’ll tell Jack Dunning and Gwen right now.’ She paused. ‘But I might wait until tomorrow to inform the Met. That gives us the rest of today to follow this up ourselves. You know what the Met will do once they learn of it — they’ll demand total control and start to block off our access to anything. If we all spend the rest of the day working on this, maybe we’ll have something concrete by the time I have to tell them. But not a word of this to anyone outside these walls, apart from Gwen, Barry. You can yack all you like, as long as it's only between the two of you.’ She looked at Rose and George. ‘I’ve included you because of your links to the migrant group, particularly those children, and to Alice. You’ve both met her. I’m just wondering if she might be in any danger, having talked to all those people from the boat, and because she knew Louise.’
‘Is that likely?’ Barry asked.
‘That’s the problem. We just don’t know who’s under threat, to be honest. I told Alice to be careful, but I may have to contact the local police.’
Barry allocated tasks to everyone and they dispersed.
‘I don’t get it, ma’am. It just doesn’t add up. If she was a volunteer at that charity, why was she also advising the Home Office? Those are two opposing positions, surely, given recent government heavy-handedness in the immigration stakes.’
Sophie grimaced. ‘I know. Maybe the politicians are more even-handed than we think and want to know the views of people who support immigrants. But I can’t see it. This is mad Ken Burke and Yauvani Anand we’re talking about here. When did even-handedness ever play a part where those two are concerned? No, you’re right. There was something weird going on, and it’s up to me to find out about it. You act as filter for the team here. The best place for Rose and George is across at the hospital and with those two children. I want to know if Louise ever came into contact with the group, maybe while they were waiting in Normandy.’ She looked at her watch. ‘I’m heading up to Oxford. I need to see Alice Linklater face-to-face. I want to get information from her about Louise that she might not even realise she has. Keep me posted if anything important crops up. Let’s aim for a late afternoon meeting to pool what we’ve got.’
* * *
For once the main roads east and north were fairly clear, so Sophie was in Oxford by eleven. She made her way to the café on the High where Alice was waiting, looking puzzled.
‘I still don’t fully understand why we need to meet, Sophie. Why drive all the way up from Dorset? What’s the rush?’
Sophie ordered coffee and then turned to Alice.
‘It’s simple r
eally. You seem to have known Louise Bennett better than anyone else we’ve spoken to so far. And you’re shrewd and observant. I know that from the days we were students. And that’s what I need. Some insight into Louise and what her problems were.’
‘Surely the people she worked with would be a better bet?’
‘They’re in London, Alice. The Met will have seen them. That’s not a problem in itself because it’s in the hands of Paul Baker, the assistant commissioner. He’s an old colleague of mine and I know he’s one of the good guys. But I also know that the Home Office has a habit of meddling in this type of investigation and directing who can be told what. Those types of people think cops from Dorset are a bunch of country yokels, and they’ll do their damnedest to restrict what Paul can tell us. Don’t worry, I’ll tell Paul whatever I find out. I’m not some maverick go-it-alone type.’
‘So, what do you want to know?’
‘Take me through the first time you met. Where, when, why and what you thought of her.’
Alice was silent for a few moments while she gathered her thoughts. ‘It was about two and a half years ago. We always like to keep abreast of current thinking in the government, so we employed someone part-time to do exactly that — analysing speeches, checking documents and government papers, looking at manifestos, that kind of thing. They’d then feed that into our policy meetings. But we lost the person who’d been doing it for the previous decade. He retired because of ill-health so we had a vacancy. We were about to advertise, but Louise contacted us and offered to fill the gap.’
‘So, she knew about the vacancy? Even before you’d got around to publicising it? Didn’t that strike you as odd?’
‘Not really. Remember, I’m only a volunteer, although I’m also a trustee. I sit on the advisory board, but we leave the day-to-day procedures to the full-time staff.’
‘Where’s your office?’ Sophie asked.
‘Here in Oxford. The whole thing was set up a decade ago by me and a couple of colleagues. It seemed sensible to keep it local.’
‘She must have been interviewed. How did that go?’
‘Fine, as far as I recall. We’ll still have the paperwork on file somewhere. If I remember rightly, she told us that she started out as a journalist, then worked for a consultancy specialising in analysing demographics. Her area was the mass movement of people across different regions of the world. I think that’s why she was picked by the Home Office and did some work for them. That continued while she was with us. We employed her for two days a week.’
‘Here in Oxford?’
‘Only one day. The other day she worked from home. It suited us because in London she had better access to the people that mattered.’
‘Weren’t you worried about a conflict of interest?’
‘Not when you consider the advantages. We gained information from an insider. And she assured us that she would maintain confidentiality.’
‘But how could she guarantee that?’ said Sophie, troubled.
‘Our chief exec made sure she didn’t have access to individual case files. It worked really well, Sophie. We always knew what government policy would be before it was made public. This gave us time to prepare our statements and press releases. We could scrutinise their proposals for any weak points, and really hit hard when the time came. We became much more effective. We were all pleased.’
Sophie was silent. What Alice said might well be true, but what if information was also being transmitted in the opposite direction? What if certain individuals within the special security unit were leaning on Louise to obtain material in return? And leaning hard?
‘Listen, Alice, would you agree to a couple of members of my team coming up for a day or two and poking around in your files, looking for any indication that Louise was trying to access information on the sly?’
Alice frowned. ‘I’m not sure. Wouldn’t that be a breach in itself? Who would they be?’
‘I can set your mind at rest there. I’m thinking of Ameera Khan, our police IT networking whizz, and Rae Gregson, my unit’s DS. They’re both personally committed to supporting minorities and they do voluntary work in the community, Ameera with ethnic groups and Rae with LGBT people.’
‘I’ll have to consult the others. I should be able to let you know by this afternoon.’
Sophie finished her coffee. ‘You haven’t yet mentioned what you thought of Louise as a person. Could you describe her to me?’
‘To be honest,’ Alice said, ‘she was hard to get to know. From the way she looked — curvy, always dressed well, almost sexy — you’d expect her to have a lively personality, but she was quite guarded. She was very self-contained.’
‘Was she married?’ Sophie asked.
‘I don’t think so. She didn’t wear a wedding ring, although I occasionally noticed a thin silver ring on that finger.’
‘You never saw her socially?’
‘No. The one day she was with us, she travelled up on an early morning train and went directly back to London in the evening.’
‘When did you last see her?’
‘Let me see. More than a month ago. I popped into the office to collect something, and we had the conversation about her role in this special unit at the Home Office and she made the comment about meddling politicians. But she clammed up quickly. Alan, our chief exec, saw her every week but she never said anything to him about it. She was last in a fortnight ago, on the Monday, her usual day. But the next day she phoned late to say that she wouldn’t be in the following week because she’d fallen and hurt herself quite badly. Alan wasn’t particularly surprised.’
Sophie looked up sharply. ‘Oh? Why not?’
‘She was a heavy drinker, apparently. Well, just in recent months.’
* * *
‘I just can’t get away from you, can I, Mum? Here I am, only in my second week, and you’re visiting already.’
‘That’s right, Jade. Prying into what you’re up to, making sure you’re behaving yourself and have your nose to the grindstone. The other stuff, the investigation I’m running, meeting Alice Linklater about the role of her charity, is all just camouflage.’
They’d met for lunch in the King’s Arms, one of central Oxford’s most famous pubs. Each had a pint of beer in front of them, Sophie’s a light pale ale, and Jade’s an oyster stout. The waiter brought across a ham salad for Sophie and a small spaghetti Bolognese for Jade.
‘This place doesn’t change,’ Sophie said, ‘though the beers come from a wider range of breweries now.’
‘It claims to be the brainiest pub in the world, with the highest average IQ per square foot of any pub, anywhere.’ Jade laughed.
Sophie rolled her eyes. ‘So that urban myth is still going strong. I think the Cambridge Blue might dispute that claim, to be honest.’ She took a mouthful of food. ‘So how have things been going, Jade?’
‘Pretty good, though it’s still early days, I suppose. Hannah’s coming up to visit this weekend, so I’ll take her out on the town.’
‘Enjoy it all while you can. Other stuff takes over all too quickly.’
‘Why are you here, exactly? You said you came to see Professor Linklater. What about?’
‘It’s the case. That boatful of migrants that upended off the coast at the weekend. Alice is advising some of the people who were on it through the charity she’s involved with. I’ve already mentioned that.’
‘But why are you in charge? Surely it was just an accident?’
‘Because a deliberate decision was made to pack far too many people into the boat, and people died as a consequence. That means manslaughter at the very least.’
Jade chewed thoughtfully. ‘That’s detective sergeant level, not you. I saw in the paper that a body was found further west on Monday. Hadn’t he been shot? Is there a link?’
‘Okay, I’ll tell you one thing and that’s all. He was probably the boatman. Now, can we change the subject, please?’
‘Hmm, okay. Alice seems to think a
lot of you, Mum. Were you close when you were here at university together?’
Caught off guard, Sophie stared open-mouthed at her daughter, then realised that the question had been totally innocent. But it was too late. Jade’s eyes had already widened in realisation and utter shock. She lowered her eyes and reached for her beer, her hand shaking slightly. Sophie stood up and went to the door. She stood outside, taking deep breaths of cool autumn air and blinking, trying to prevent the tears from forming. She heard the door open and half-turned. Jade pushed herself forward and put her arms around her mother.
Chapter 25: Camouflage
Thursday morning
Rae and Ameera arrived at the charity premises just after nine the next morning. It was a small set of offices in a converted shop on Holywell Street, a low building almost opposite the historic entrance to New College. The old, perfectly maintained buildings in the street gave Rae the illusion that they’d stepped back a hundred years or more in time.
She rang the bell and they were welcomed by both Alice Linklater and the chief executive, Alan Marchand. Alan was middle-aged and nondescript looking, of average height and with mousy hair. This was offset by an eye-patch he wore over his left eye.
‘You look quite piratical,’ Ameera said as they shook hands. ‘I love it.’
He laughed. ‘It’s nice to meet someone who’s so direct about it. I lost that eye in a skiing accident a long time ago. They’ve often tried to fit me up with a false one, but I hate the bloody things. They irritated me like fury, so I gave up on them.’ He stood back and looked at the two arrivals. ‘So, what’s on the agenda?’ His voice was surprisingly deep and musical. Rae wondered if he sang baritone in a choir.
She explained. ‘Ameera is the network security expert. She needs access to your server to run all those checks that we mere mortals don’t understand. I do the boring stuff, like talking to staff and looking for discrepancies in documents. But that could change in the light of what we find, if anything. Let’s face it, that would be the ideal outcome, to find nothing amiss.’
RUTHLESS CRIMES a totally captivating crime mystery (Detective Sophie Allen Book 9) Page 15