Close to the Bone: An addictive crime thriller with edge-of-your-seat suspense (Detective Megan Thomas)

by Susan Wilkins

  Megan raises her hand. ‘I did discover yesterday, boss, some evidence that three Spanish guys, matching the men in the video from the marina, delivered furniture to Greg Porter for his show flat and appeared to be his friends. If they are the smugglers, then he knew them. It even raises the possibility of some kind of business connection with the flats he was building, which would explain why they were bringing him furniture.’

  ‘Right, that needs to be followed up. Let’s see if there’s any CCTV footage of them. DI Collins will be issuing actions.’ She turns to Barker. ‘That’s all for the moment.’

  ‘Thanks,’ says Barker. ‘Unfortunately, I have to end on a very sad note. A number of you will know Ted Jennings. He was a DS and a longstanding member of this team. Many of you will have worked with him. I just heard this morning that he’s died. Apparently, he took his own life.’

  Surprise and dismay ripple round the room.

  Megan’s gaze shoots across to where Collins is standing. He’s turned away and is pouring himself a coffee.

  Megan can’t quite take this in. As she watches, Collins picks up his coffee and walks out of the room.

  ‘Funeral details will be posted in due course for anyone who wishes to attend,’ Barker adds.

  ‘Can I ask, sir,’ says Megan. ‘Took his own life how?’

  ‘I believe his body was recovered from rocks below Berry Head early this morning,’ says Barker. ‘He jumped. It looks like suicide.’

  Fifty

  Tuesday, 10.15 a.m.

  As the incident room empties out after the briefing, Megan stands rooted to the spot. I don’t know who else I can trust. Those words were in the text Ted Jennings sent her after she’d ignored two of his calls. She pulls out her phone and scrolls but she’s deleted the thread.

  Sasha Garcia comes bouncing up to her. ‘So,’ she says. ‘I’ve dug up some pretty interesting background on Ms Reynolds and—’

  Megan swallows hard. ‘Sasha,’ she says. ‘Can you just bear with me a minute? There’s something I need to sort out.’

  ‘No problem,’ Garcia replies.

  ‘Vish’ll show you where the interview room is.’

  Garcia beams. ‘Okay. Take your time.’

  Megan heads out into the corridor. Danny Ingram is outside the door talking to Barker; she slips past them, deliberately avoiding Ingram’s eye. She catches up with Jim Collins in the main office, where he’s sitting at his desk staring into space and sipping his coffee.

  As she approaches, he gives her a baleful look.

  ‘Last night,’ she says. ‘I covered your shout. Aren’t you even going to thank me?’

  He stares at her; there’s a blankness in his eyes. ‘Yeah, thank you,’ he says coldly. ‘Took some sleeping pills. I was out for the count. Didn’t hear the phone.’

  She nods. ‘Okay. Did you know Ted Jennings was dead?’

  He sighs. ‘Yeah, I heard from Barker when he arrived this morning. Very sad.’

  Megan studies him. Something about him is off kilter. He’s deathly pale, more than usual. He tends to be wired, even when he’s knackered. But this morning he’s calm and detached.

  ‘Sad?’ she says. ‘Why do you think he did it?’

  Collins huffs. ‘What do you care? You’re rapidly becoming the squad’s blue-eyed girl. Right about Yvonne Porter. Right about everything really. Don’t know why the rest of us bother,’ he adds sourly.

  This is closer to his usual style.

  Megan shakes her head, ‘Do I really piss you off that much, Jim?’

  He sips his coffee. ‘I don’t think about you that much.’

  ‘Well think about this,’ she says. ‘On Sunday, when we were leaving the office to go and question Yvonne Porter, Ted came up to you as we were getting in the car.’

  ‘Did he? I don’t recall.’

  ‘Yeah you do. What did he want?’

  ‘Oh for Chrissake, Megan. Some nonsense. The bloke was upset. He’d been chucked off the team. And quite right too. He’d been bloody stupid.’

  ‘I heard what he said to you. He was going after Dennis Bridger.’

  ‘I think you have to take that with a pinch of salt.’

  Megan sighs. ‘Listen, I worked with Ted for long enough to know him a bit. I don’t think he’d go and chuck himself off Berry Head because he’d got a rap over the knuckles and a demotion to CID.’

  Collins frowns. Now it feels like he’d love to shove her away. ‘You are so arrogant, y’know,’ he snaps. ‘What the hell do you know about Ted’s state of mind? Or anyone’s? You don’t know what was going on with him. Maybe his wife left him.’

  ‘Did she?’

  Collins reins himself in. He shakes his hand dismissively. But it feels to Megan that something inside him is close to snapping.

  ‘Who knows?’ he says. ‘Anyway, haven’t you got an interview to prepare? You and that dyke from the NCA that’s so full of herself.’

  Garcia is currently chasing Vish; Megan wonders what Collins would make of that.

  But she says, ‘Ted tried to phone me twice. Sent me a text. What if he did go after Bridger? At the very least, I think the DCI should be made aware of what he was up to, don’t you?’

  Collins stares at her; his forehead is damp, his jaw clenched. Megan has the sudden impression that he might burst into tears.

  ‘Actually,’ he says, ‘it’s my wife who’s left me. She saw me through all the cancer treatment. Said she wanted to get me back on my feet and back to work. Now, out of the blue, she says she wants a divorce. She feels trapped. She wants to be free to find out what she wants from life before she’s too old. What do you make of that?’

  Megan stares at him. She doesn’t know what to make of it or what to say. Collins’s behaviour seems bizarre on a number of levels and a sudden personal confidence from him is the last thing she’d have expected. He looks broken and forlorn. She notices that his shirt has not been pristinely ironed and a button is missing halfway down. He’s coming apart – literally.

  She sighs. ‘I’m sorry, Jim, truly I am. I know you’ve had a tough time.’

  ‘Maybe it’s what I deserve,’ he says. ‘Maybe I’m a selfish shit and I took her for granted.’

  ‘I suppose if you were struggling to get well… I dunno.’

  They lapse into silence.

  He exhales, glances up at her awkwardly. Now the embarrassment is kicking in. After all his manipulative games and what he did to her sister, Megan didn’t think she had any sympathy left for Collins. But she does.

  ‘Are you married?’ he asks.

  ‘Divorced.’

  ‘Did you want to be free of your husband so you could find out what you wanted?’

  ‘No, he dumped me for a younger woman.’ She could’ve added, and now they have a baby, which he couldn’t have with me. But she doesn’t.

  Collins nods. ‘That’s tough too.’

  Megan says nothing. She has no intention of making Collins her new best friend.

  He sighs again. ‘You’re probably right. Slater should know what Ted was up to. Then it’s up to the bosses to decide whether to investigate, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ says Megan.

  ‘Okay. Is it all right with you if I tell her?’

  ‘Fine. I’ve got no problem with that. Just so long as she knows.’

  He wipes his nose with the back of his hand. ‘Thanks.’

  Megan is about to walk away. But a conversation with Vish suddenly springs to mind.

  ‘Oh and you should probably have a word with Vish,’ she says. ‘He reckons Ted told him some story about a murder charge against Bridger being dropped because of lost forensics. Maybe that’s why Ted was on a mission?’

  Collins nods. ‘Okay, I’ll look into it. Thanks, Megan.’

  Megan smiles and walks away. She’s not sure she understands what that was about. Perhaps his wife leaving is the straw that broke the camel’s back? All she knows is she has other more pressing problems.

  Fifty
-One

  Tuesday, 11 a.m.

  Penny Reynolds turns up for her interview with a new lawyer in tow. He’s corporate and expensive, a totally different proposition to Tim Wardell, the local guy who represented Yvonne and Aidan. Slater, Garcia and Megan watch them arrive on the monitor in the incident room.

  ‘She whistled him up pretty quickly,’ says Slater.

  ‘Helicopter,’ says Garcia.

  Megan and Slater turn to look at her. She’s not kidding. And she’s beaming from ear to ear.

  ‘What are you looking so pleased about?’ asks Megan.

  ‘I think we’ve hit pay-dirt,’ says Garcia. ‘I’ve just looked him up. The firm he’s from specialises in money-laundering cases. They call it financial regulation. But that’s what it means.’

  Slater sighs. ‘Do you think she’s just going to go “no comment”?’

  Garcia shrugs. ‘She must’ve been talking to her bosses at the bank. I doubt they’d fly in a heavy hitter like him just to do that. It’s obviously important to them to seem innocent and to make Penny seem innocent. I think they’re going to try and be super helpful and charming and feed us a line in the hope we’re stupid country plods who don’t know which way is up.’

  Slater gives Garcia an acerbic look. ‘And is that what you think we are?’

  ‘No, of course not, ma’am,’ says Garcia. She’s lying.

  Megan suppresses a smile. ‘Let’s not keep them waiting.’

  Megan and Garcia enter the interview room. The lawyer jumps to his feet and offers his hand to shake.

  ‘Craig Henderson,’ he says. He can’t be more than thirty, his suit fits like a glove and he sounds like a preppy American.

  Megan introduces herself and then adds, ‘And my colleague Sasha Garcia is from the National Crime Agency.’

  His eyes barely flicker. But it’s enough to reveal it’s not what he was expecting.

  ‘This is a murder inquiry,’ says Garcia. ‘I went on your firm’s website. Surely you’re a commercial lawyer, Mr Henderson?’

  ‘Penny is a dear friend and the untimely death of her brother-in-law has upset her deeply, as you can imagine,’ he says. ‘She wants to help you and I want to give her as much support as I can.’

  Megan watches Penny as this little charade is played out. The nervousness she displayed yesterday when she showed them Greg’s home office has disappeared or been suppressed. She appears composed, ready with a polite smile but completely professional in her manner. It occurs to Megan that, as a senior investment banker, she’s used to taking difficult meetings with a lawyer at her elbow. The fact this one is with the police in a dingy interview room doesn’t seem to faze her.

  Yesterday Megan had the element of surprise. But not now. Reynolds is prepared.

  Megan recites the caution and adds, ‘Your brother-in-law had a number of business interests and that’s what we want to ask you about. In particular he had a boat rental business. Yesterday I asked you about this and you denied any knowledge of it. Is this true?’

  Penny smiles and tilts her head. ‘The truth is you caught me off guard, sergeant.’

  ‘You were lying then?’

  ‘I think if I’m going to be entirely honest, and Craig has advised me I should be, then I’d say I was playing for time. I knew we’d be having this conversation and I needed time to think.’

  ‘Think about what?’ says Megan.

  ‘How best to protect my sister, of course. When we spoke before she was still under investigation for her husband’s murder. But I understand that all charges against her have been dropped, so I feel I can be candid.’

  ‘She was arrested but not charged. She was helping with our inquiries.’

  ‘And that’s what I want to do,’ says Penny.

  ‘So you do know about your late brother-in-law’s boat business?’ says Megan.

  ‘He came to me for a loan. Greg was basically a builder but sailing was his hobby. Barry, his father, taught him. They had various dinghies they mucked about in. The rental idea was really just a way of paying for a much bigger boat. Barry is quite a character. He always fancied himself on a luxury yacht. I looked at their business plan and there was no way the bank would back it. They had some vague idea of who their clients would be; rich tourists wanting to cruise the south-west coast. The problem for me was, if I said no and refused to help, then I suspected Greg might take it out on my sister.’

  ‘You thought he’d be violent towards her?’ says Megan.

  ‘Frankly, yes. He had a nasty temper. That’s why I didn’t want to talk about this before. You thought she was an abused wife who finally snapped, didn’t you?’

  She fixes Megan with a steely look. Megan doesn’t reply. She suspects Penny thought that too, which is why she encouraged Aidan to confess.

  ‘Anyway,’ says Penny. ‘The bank has certain clients, mainly from abroad, who wish to invest in the UK and, shall we say, have a more tolerant attitude to risk.’

  Garcia grins. ‘Clients you launder money for, you mean?’

  ‘We do not launder money,’ says Penny Reynolds primly. ‘As Craig will confirm, we comply with all UK laws and regulations to the letter. But if you understand anything about these matters, Ms Garcia, you will know that the world is awash with cash, whose provenance cannot always be established. I put my brother-in-law in touch with an intermediary who could help him access a loan. The amount was relatively small. This agent, who is based in the Middle East, was doing me a favour.’

  ‘What’s his name?’ says Garcia.

  ‘He’s a confidential contact of the bank,’ says Craig Henderson, ‘and unless you can produce any evidence that he was involved in Greg Porter’s murder, which I don’t think you can, then we can’t help you.’

  Penny Reynolds smiles. ‘Believe me, if I thought this had any bearing on Greg’s death, I would tell you.’

  ‘You’re saying the boats were really just toys for Greg and his father?’ says Megan.

  ‘Yes,’ says Penny.

  ‘How much was the loan for?’ says Garcia.

  ‘I didn’t involve myself in the details. But less than half a million I think. Which is actually next to nothing,’ says Penny. ‘It was a small favour.’ Her expression borders on the smug.

  ‘To keep Greg happy and protect your sister?’ says Megan.

  ‘Exactly.’

  Megan smiles. ‘Okay, Ms Reynolds. Thank you for your co-operation. But you should know that we’ll be looking into this further because we now have two murders, which may be related.’

  ‘Two murders?’ says the lawyer.

  Megan fixes Penny with a penetrating stare. ‘Oh, I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news. You obviously haven’t heard. Barry Porter has been found dead.’

  Penny looks confused. This doesn’t compute for her.

  ‘Barry?’ she says, as if it’s some kind of story. ‘Dead?’

  ‘And both boats are missing,’ says Megan. ‘Perhaps they’ve been stolen. Barry was found in his car last night, shot through the head.’

  Megan has the satisfaction of seeing that she’s hit the mark as the colour drains from Penny Reynolds’s face.

  Fifty-Two

  Tuesday, 11.15 a.m.

  ‘That was a cool trick,’ says Garcia. She and Megan are walking down the corridor towards the incident room. ‘I don’t say the smug bitch didn’t deserve it.’

  Megan glances at her. To Garcia it’s all a game, an elaborate puzzle to be solved. And she’s a young woman having fun. Megan can recall a time when being a detective felt like that to her. An interesting challenge. An exciting job. She wonders what changed.

  Somewhere along the line other people’s pain started to get under her skin. Too many missing children, beaten wives, kids in gangs caught up in random violence. Then she went undercover and realised the everyday world she thought she knew was a fragile web. Things are always going wrong. Her job is picking up the pieces. It’s what drives her anxiety and gives her sleepless nights. />
  The panicked look on Penny Reynolds’s face is still rattling round in her head. Yes, freaking her out was justified. But it was also cruel. Fear is the one thing guaranteed to change people’s attitudes. And if Penny Reynolds didn’t know what Elena and co were capable of, she does now.

  ‘What they just told us in there is a load of hogwash, isn’t it?’ says Megan.

  ‘Oh yeah, absolutely,’ says Garcia. ‘But interesting hogwash.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Damage limitation. Henderson’s here to assess if it’s going to work and to report back to his bosses at the bank. From our point of view this confirms that dirty money is involved.’

  Dirty money. A second brutal murder. Suddenly the process of connecting them feels glacially slow to Megan. She thinks of Ranim on the beach, desperately looking for her son. And Hassan’s body, washed up like a sack of rubbish. Just collateral damage in a business deal?

  ‘What do we do now though?’ she says. ‘The boats are gone. Elena’s probably gone. How are we ever going to nail these people?’

  She’s feeling tetchy but maybe it’s lack of sleep.

  Garcia shrugs. ‘It’s a game of patience.’

  Megan sighs. She needs a cup of coffee. She can’t get Barry Porter’s shocked face out of her head either. This is what happens when serious criminals don’t get what they want. She wonders if Barry was simply naive. He didn’t understand who he was dealing with either.