Bold Lies

by Bold Lies (retail) (epub)

  ‘How long did you work down here?’

  ‘Ten years.’

  ‘Wow.’

  They joined the long breakfast queue in Starbucks. Kelly picked up three packs of egg sandwiches.

  ‘I used to work with DCI Carter,’ she said.

  ‘Without speaking out of turn, guv, I think I prefer working for you.’

  ‘I appreciate your honesty. He’s good, but everybody has their own style. I’m a bit more casual. Today, listen to how officers communicate, and think about what we do at home. The bedrock of any investigation is people talking. I’d rather be in a noisy office than a quiet one.’

  ‘Yes, guv.’

  Kelly’s stomach tightened as she thought ahead to seeing Matt again. She wished she’d spent her evening with a takeaway and a bottle of wine, watching crap TV. It would certainly have made things easier this morning. The alcohol from last night mingled with her anxiety and teased her consciousness into a sense of doom: a classic hangover. She’d made a great start to the visit, and had Matt firmly under control, but she’d been weak and he knew it; now he’d be sniffing around even more, and she could do without the added pressure.

  The coffee hit her bloodstream and she felt instantly stimulated and less tired. They got back into the car and she opened one of the sandwiches and devoured the calories. If Emma thought her choice of breakfast unusual, she didn’t show it. When she’d stopped chomping, she screwed up the rubbish, wiped her mouth and flipped open her iPad, scanning the investigative notes and opening emails.

  When they arrived, Matt was already in the incident room and greeted his visitors warmly. He acted professional and busy, and to Kelly’s relief showed no indication of being frustrated or embarrassed by her rejection last night. People filed into the room, and she took a seat and listened to the game plan for the day. The investigation was becoming complex and everyone knew this was standard. Cases usually began like a spider’s web: small and contained, eventually spiralling out to different points, all needing hard work, eventually spanning a whole empire.

  Matt barked out a whirlwind of instructions, and dozens of people took notes and input information on laptops. The entire floor was run with precision, and Kelly felt dizzy already, and desperate to reach for her second sandwich. Her style at home was more relaxed and deliberate. Matt, by contrast, was a man possessed, and he sniffed a few good leads from yesterday and gave out jobs as if his life depended on it. He was far removed from the man who’d eaten sushi with her last night. She pushed the thought away.

  The office cleared, and they were left alone again. Kelly opened her can of Coke and guzzled it.

  ‘Hangover?’

  ‘Yup. I never learn.’

  ‘Have you had an egg sandwich yet?’

  ‘This is my second,’ she said, taking another out of her bag and opening it.

  ‘Not in here! God, that stinks!’

  ‘Oh stop whining. It’s only eggs.’ She chewed and closed her eyes. Her headache was fading. She’d read somewhere years ago that the best thing for a hangover was eggs, and she’d stuck by it ever since. Matt’s memory of the fact only served to threaten intimacy once more, so she changed the subject.

  ‘Plan for today? Is it really necessary for the two of us to spend so much time together? Alone?’

  ‘Technically you’re my deputy SIO, and we’re on the same investigation, so long periods of time spent assessing progress is professionally necessary. We need to cooperate.’

  He’d perched on the edge of a desk. Kelly could tell that he enjoyed getting under her skin, and she toyed with going home early. She’d learned so much already about George Murphy, about Ravensword and his colleagues. She could liaise with Matt over the net, hourly if need be. His constant angling was becoming tiresome, and she knew he wouldn’t give up.

  ‘I thought I’d go back to Ravensword today and see if I can get to see Philip Tooting. His secretary kindly let me know that he’s due in around midday,’ he said.

  Work mode awarded her relief. ‘What are you going to ask him?’

  ‘I want to gauge the man. I’ll be looking for signs of infighting between the departments, and I want to know if his affair with Professor Cooper is ethical.’

  ‘I think the white van lead is more important,’ she said.

  ‘It’s as important. We’ll do both. I need you. You saw what happened yesterday; it’s better if we’re together. We get twice the number of decisions pushed out, in real time, to officers on the ground.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ Kelly said under her breath. Matt grinned. ‘Matt, you’ve been SIO on how many cases? Fifty? How many times did you share that role with a junior rank? I’m guessing never. Why now? Last night—’

  ‘We covered a lot of ground.’

  ‘I’m not here to rekindle our relationship; it’s not going to happen.’

  ‘Don’t you remember how much of a flirt you were last night?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t want to rekindle anything, Kell. You’re safe. I just thought, after your friendly advances yesterday, that a congenial, for-old-times’-sake shag might be up for grabs. Obviously I was wrong. It won’t happen again.’

  ‘Do you really have to talk like that? Look, I can’t work with you if you keep smudging the edges. I’ll be better off going home and letting you take over fully. I can just liaise and carry on the investigation into George’s death.’

  ‘No, you can’t!’ There was panic in his voice. ‘I’m sorry. I’m toying with you, I admit that. I don’t want you to go. You’re just as capable as you always were and the buzz I get working with you is making me feel alive. Come with me to Ravensword. We can interview the CEO and the Primate Professor together. Let the troops investigate the white van; our business is analysis, not nuts and bolts.’

  ‘Only if you promise to stop playing games. Otherwise I really am going home.’

  ‘All right, you have a deal.’

  ‘Done. Did all that come in overnight?’ Kelly nodded to the screen behind Matt, which was constantly updating itself with names, addresses, sightings, statements, number plates and photo composites.

  Matt nodded. ‘I thought you might have read it this morning before work. That’s what I usually do.’

  ‘Absolutely, me too. But I… Well, to be honest, I needed caffeine. I caught up on emails on the way here.’

  ‘Come on, let’s go.’

  They talked about the case as they walked to the car.

  ‘Nothing from the journalist?’ she asked.

  ‘We have an address, and officers are visiting there today. We’ve got a previous employment record, but she’s freelance now. There’s been no answer on her mobile phone so far. The response from the artist’s impression of white van man has been incredible. It was on the evening news last night. These things usually get lost amongst all the other public appeals and can have low productivity, but this one has given us loads to go on.’

  ‘Do you have endless resources?’

  ‘No, believe it or not, I get officers burning out every week because they can’t keep their eyes open. I’ve got two men working the artist’s impression. I wish I could call every single lead back myself, but I can only work with what I’ve got. It might look smooth, but it certainly isn’t. I reckon from what you’ve told me that up there in the sticks you have every advantage: good old-fashioned police work in a limited geographical area, thinly populated, with a loyal, dedicated small team.’

  ‘Bloody hell, can you please stop calling it “up there in the sticks”?’

  ‘What do I call it then?’

  ‘The Lake District. You should see it. It’s stunning.’ As the words slid out of her mouth, she regretted them.

  ‘Maybe I will one day.’

  Chapter 24

  Philip Tooting welcomed his esteemed lunch guest. The times she’d visited the club, she always used the back entrance. It was common for members and their guests to be discreet. The tabloids had photographers everywhe
re, and not only that, every person with an iPhone thought it their God-given right to poke it in people’s faces and press ‘play’.

  Dame Charlotte was a hefty woman, as the most senior female civil servants were wont to be. His theory was that to get to the top of the slippery pole as a woman, you had to be either a lesbian, infertile or both. Either way, femininity had to be absent, and that included giving birth, cooking and taking care of one’s figure. Robyn Hastings was the same: lovely shoes and handbags, but bulging arse and wobbly neck.

  Charlotte had been awarded her damehood for services to charitable organisations abroad, when she’d been a thrusting young dynamo in the Foreign Office back in the day. She’d chased FCO postings from China to Peru, and made her mark as a person to back. She’d never married.

  ‘It’s always a pleasure, Philip. I hope the marvellous chef here has worked his magic once again.’

  He went to pour her wine. She put her hand over the top of the glass.

  ‘Never mix business with pleasure, Philip.’

  He poured himself a large glass of expensive red. She watched him sip it, and he was reminded of a programme he’d watched with his son years ago, about two pythons squaring up to one another over a rat in the desert.

  ‘It’s not all business, is it, Charlotte?’

  She threw him a wry smile and perused the menu. They were in a private room, as always, and the lighting was low, with gentle classics playing through the hidden speakers in the ceiling.

  They’d met six years ago, introduced by the late Lord Allerdale, who’d brought Charlotte as his guest to a dinner here at the club. Philip had been Sebastian’s guest. He’d known from the offset that old Allerdale didn’t like him; probably something to do with his line of work. The old man was a philanthropist, and he saw big pharmaceuticals as parasites, feeding off the poor and afflicted. Charlotte was more of a pragmatist, and they’d got talking about the terrible plight of street kids in India. She was still in the Foreign Office at the time, and in a unique position, as ambassador to the UN in New York, to raise awareness and beg the pharmaceuticals to develop and donate drugs to vaccinate children. There was no money in it, of course, but, politically it was worth a stab, and Philip promised to look into it. His board of directors dismissed it outright in the end – they were tied up in a huge investment at the time – but he sought out the ear of the civil servant from then on when he needed to, and they’d formed a bond of sorts.

  Tonight, they were here to discuss the progress of a project that was still in its infancy.

  ‘I liked Lord Allerdale,’ Charlotte said.

  Tooting laughed.

  ‘No, I really did. He always gave me a good scrap. One night we argued about the Tories until the small hours over a bottle of 1800 tequila.’

  ‘I never had you down as a tequila girl.’

  ‘The colour of gold, that stuff, and smoother than cognac, trust me. No headache the next day either. He sank bottles of it.’

  ‘It’s amazing that he lasted so long.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘I’ll never get my head around philanthropy. I mean, it’s all right caring for the poor, but handing them a way out on a plate, as if they somehow deserve a free ticket when the rest of us have to fend for ourselves, is a puzzle to me.’

  ‘Now wait a moment, Philip, that’s my livelihood you’re talking about.’

  ‘I know, Charlotte, and I love it when you get cross.’

  ‘I suppose I do live up to my name. I believe in what I do, though, unlike you snakes over there at Ravensword, who market the cheapest product for the highest profit margins.’

  ‘Oh, I’m truly offended! We Pharmas get a bad press. Our business is to save lives.’

  ‘Only if it makes a profit.’

  ‘Malaria?’

  ‘You’re forced to do that because it looks good and you can sell on the back of your good deeds; it’s a win-win.’

  ‘Shall we order?’ Philip asked. Charlotte smiled and nodded.

  ‘I was chatting to my opposite number in Afghanistan yesterday,’ she said when the waiter had gone.

  ‘How’s it all going? Department of Health still in Kabul?’

  ‘Just about. A car bomb exploded outside three weeks ago, killing thirty-five people, two of those were government officials, but it wasn’t reported here, of course.’

  ‘And you think a shift in economic dominance would tip the balance of power?’

  ‘Of course. Look at 2002, when the Taliban was almost decimated, farming destroyed, ISIS not even a table of men in a dark room, and Afghanistan on its knees begging for help. Fast-forward fifteen years, and the thriving opium yield, together with a desperate and hungry population, means we can’t get a lever in any more. It’s pure mathematics.’

  ‘Can you bring maths into government?’

  ‘The only maths you care about.’

  ‘Money?’ He smiled and raised his glass.

  ‘Quite. I’ll have a glass of that wine now, please.’

  ‘I think I’ll order another bottle. Before you get plastered, Under-Secretary, I have a few printouts for you. Things have moved faster than we thought, and I’ve got some projections of cost.’

  ‘We’ve already discussed that, Philip. My role here isn’t – and never will be – about funding. There’s no way I could possibly get away with it and you damn well know that. I’m your legitimacy.’

  ‘Well, that’s where we have a problem, Charlotte. Because George was our fund-raiser. And Alan was more generous than his grandson.’

  ‘Sebastian? He could fund a small failing African nation!’

  ‘I’m not sure he can. You see, the inheritance is tied up in some trust: his lawyers have been fighting on his behalf for months.’

  ‘Wait a minute. Are you expecting me to find the money?’ She pushed back her chair and glared at him. ‘Who do you think you’re talking to? A few fancy meals are not going to buy me, Philip.’

  ‘Well that’s the thing, Charlotte. I have it on good authority that your Damehood was… shall we say not entirely merited.’

  ‘I beg your…’ She stood up.

  ‘I’d sit down if I were you. Your food’s about to arrive. My source tells me that you – amongst others – were on the take from a certain children’s charity based out of Nairobi at the time.’

  ‘Slater,’ she hissed.

  ‘Oh don’t go throwing mud, Charlotte. Let’s just say that what I have in my possession could be as big as Haiti.’

  ‘You bastard. I absolutely never—’

  ‘Yes you did.’ He stared at her, and her face twitched. ‘Now, about the gap in funding for the project…’

  Chapter 25

  Johnny was showering after a particularly gruelling hike up to Broad Stand, between Scafell Pike and Scafell, just after dawn. It didn’t matter how many warnings they put out about the sheer rock face straddling the two peaks; people always thought they could do it without ropes. Every year, some dozen or so folk got stuck on the series of rocky steps that made up the Mickledore col, each the height of a man; hence the permanent stretcher box instalment up there. Johnny didn’t usually get drafted in by the Wasdale crew, but they’d been inundated with calls in the area and were short of volunteers.

  It was always a pleasure hiking up the Scafell range, but never when it was to bring down a body. It happened. Falls from Broad Stand were usually fatal. When he guided the Three Peaks later in the year, he’d stick to the corridor route.

  He’d had a call from Graeme Millar, who wanted to share a pint and a chat. It was a welcome diversion with Kelly away, and just what she had requested. He’d been taken by surprise at how much he missed her. He’d even slept at hers a few nights, and lit the fire, curling up on the sofa with a glass of red – though only one, in case he got a call for a rescue. Josie was becoming ever more the independent young woman, and she only came to him when she needed something – usually money. He’d suggested going out on the boat, but she alway
s had better things to do, like Instagram. In fact, he’d spent more time with Ted than with his own daughter.

  The old man was bloody good company, and they chatted about cricket, rugby and the army. Ted was fascinated by the operational tours Johnny had done, and he asked about his medals. Johnny didn’t wear his medals, not even on Armistice Day, and he didn’t talk about them much either, but an enthusiasm he hadn’t experienced in years had crept back when he answered Ted’s questions about his role in Iraq and Afghanistan. Old wounds that he’d fled from suddenly didn’t seem so threatening for some odd reason. Last night, they’d ended up sleeping on the boat after a full bottle of whisky and tales of Baghdad. They also talked about Kelly, and Ted’s other two daughters from his marriage to Mary.

  The weather had been sublime this week, and they both felt sorry for Kelly, holed up in some city hotel, choked with traffic fumes and angry commuters. Johnny had spent his fair share of time in London when he was a young subaltern, looking for a break from gruelling exercises in Wales. He’d grown up near Lincoln but hadn’t been back for years. Army postings had taken him all over the world, so he couldn’t say he belonged anywhere really. Until he came here. This was the first time he’d felt he could stay somewhere for ever, and now he had even more reason to. Kelly Porter had got under his skin and he didn’t want that to change. It wasn’t that he wanted to marry again, but he liked the idea of being with her for a long time to come. It felt right.

  He dressed and walked into town, where he’d arranged to meet Graeme. He’d offered to drive to Keswick, but Graeme said he was happy to come over to Pooley Bridge, which was less crowded with tourists, though they were getting to the time of year when that would all change. For two crazy months, the whole county was choked with millions of visitors, all trying to eat at the same time, buy ice cream at the same time, and board a steamer at the same time. It was manic and often led to episodes of what might be termed nowadays ‘holiday rage’. He and Kelly avoided the hot spots during peak season, and they weren’t short of hideaways. If you knew where to look, it was easy to find a deserted waterfall, a silent dale or a hidden tarn. But nothing beat winter, when the visitors were fewer and the skies clearer.