On Eden Street

by Peter Grainger

  ‘Of course. How exactly did your PA follow it up, Mr Davies?’

  ‘She rang him on his mobile – which, before you ask, we have done since a number of times, but there is no answer. Paula-’

  ‘Mr Davies? Please hand the phone to Paula. I’d like to speak to her myself. If you don’t mind.’

  They heard more whispered words of support – she had only been doing her job, no one at ADS was to blame for any of this – before a small, nervous voice said, ‘Hello?’

  When Detective Sergeant Denise Sterling finally got her phone back, she pressed end call. The incident room was silent. The detective chief inspector then did something that one rarely sees detective chief inspectors doing. She had been on her feet throughout the entire phone call. Now she turned her back on the assembled team, walked slowly to the door, rested her forehead on the wooden frame and banged it gently three or four times, taking one of the Lord’s names in vain as she did so and adding in a couple of Anglo-Saxon expletives for good measure. Waters saw that Greene was still writing notes. Had he recorded the DCI’s reactions for posterity?

  While they waited for it, whatever it was, Waters glanced around. On Serena’s face was an unmistakable look of sympathy which, as a sergeant, is not what you want to see from a subordinate, and on John Murray’s, an expression conveying mild surprise that things had turned out like this.

  Freeman parted from the doorframe that must have, in its own way, brought her a little comfort. She came back to the table, sat down in the nearest available chair, and then said, in a fair imitation of Mr Davies, ‘And do you know something, inspector? When we checked, that second address he gave us isn’t right either?’

  If anyone wanted to laugh, they concealed it well. Then Freeman said, ‘Tom, I’m thinking. Say something.’

  Greene did, as if the two of them had rehearsed this scene many times.

  ‘Right, everyone. The PA calls Wortley on Tuesday afternoon, on the same new mobile number that we have for him. I’ve called it just now, by the way, and I’d say it’s turned off. Anyway, she tells him his address on the system is wrong, he says, oh is it, and asks how they found out. And she tells him, because although she wasn’t in the office when Denise and John interviewed Davies, she saw you arrive and he’s told her afterwards it was the police. When she’s sorting out her boss’s desk on Tuesday, she puts two and two together, makes four-’

  Freeman said drily and to no one in particular, ‘We could offer her a job…’

  ‘-and decides to be very efficient and get the records straight. The thing that’s puzzling me is why he didn’t take off there and then. Why go into work? Maybe he wasn’t sure it wasn’t just a routine traffic thing? Doesn’t seem likely but… Anyway, he does go into work but now he’s alert, he’s looking about for anything that doesn’t feel right.’

  Greene paused and wrote something down. Waters thought, however this ends, and it might not be well for me, DI Thomas Greene is a phenomenon, and I worked with him.

  And as if he heard that thought, Greene turned to him.

  ‘Remember what I said to you on Tuesday evening? A man who was good at getting into forward positions and gathering vital intelligence. Someone with initiative and quick-thinking. You weren’t to know it, but you had that man in full operational mode. He’d had two or three hours since the phone call from the office. It’s my guess he was ready to go there and then as soon as anything – just one more thing – made him suspicious. I’ve no idea how he spotted you two parked sixty yards up the road, but he did. When he checked out the camera, he was taking a closer look at you. I’m betting the tracker on the van will show he parked it back at the yard not long after he saw you leave.’

  Freeman sometimes had a way of not looking at you which was more unnerving than if she’d done so. When Greene finished speaking, she said briskly, ‘Moving on, then. Does everyone have a pen or a pencil? Make a note of the following. Public transport. It’s what he used last time, so let’s see if he’s a creature of habit. Start looking for CCTV from Lake’s bus and train stations from the middle of the Tuesday night. Guess who’ll be wading through that… Ping the mobile. I know Tom thinks it’s off but let’s do it anyway, as we don’t have much else to go on. Bank account. Wherever he goes, he’ll need access to his pension and whatever ADS owe him. Alert the bank, John, because we want to know if he asks to close that account and transfer his business elsewhere. He might do that now. His brother. Somebody call him and check there isn’t actually a family crisis. I know it’s a billion to one, but check it. The DVLA. I don’t believe this man relies on bus services. Check again for a vehicle. If he’s getting around the system, how? We’re supposed to know these things.’

  The detectives were indeed making notes, like students in a history lesson. And the part of Waters’ mind which was always observing and considering, detached entirely from his present predicament, was listening and thinking, leadership: it’s self-belief, some strange conviction that yours is the only way, never mind the right way, that you know better than the rest, and that you cannot keep quiet about this.

  John Murray was already reaching for a phone. Back in the moment, Waters found he was waiting, and when Freeman finally looked at him, she was saying, ‘Chris? A word in my office.’

  The de-briefing wasn’t two minutes old before Detective Chief Superintendent Allen arrived. Waters didn’t think for a moment Freeman had called him but she could hardly refuse to tell him what was happening when he asked. And didn’t Smith always say the man had an unerring instinct for the opportunities offered by the misfortunes of others?

  Allen said, ‘And now you’ve lost him? Just how important is this person to Regional Serious Crimes, DCI Freeman?’

  ‘I cannot say exactly, sir. They’ve been looking for him on the quiet for a while – a few months.’

  Allen said it again, more slowly as if he was savouring each word – ‘And now you’ve lost him…’ Then, looking at Waters, he said, ‘I don’t see this as a disciplinary matter, of course, but operationally? It’s a poor show. You were the senior officer present, Waters?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Have you written your report?’

  Freeman said, ‘That’s in hand, sir. It’s what we were about to discuss when you came in.’

  Allen read this correctly as when you interrupted us, but he was undeterred.

  ‘If you think it might assist, I’ll review the matter for you, Detective Chief Inspector. If you need any sort of support?’

  She said, ‘Thank you, sir. At the moment it’s all in hand. I’ll be letting Commander Alexander know what’s happened in a very few minutes.’

  Freeman and Allen locked eyes briefly. Waters didn’t know who had invented the first office but this must have occurred on around day two or three of its existence – the politics, the defence of territory, the struggle for power. He understood the resentment Allen would feel, that there was a squad in his station not reporting directly to him, and he understood too the loyalty Freeman would have to the commander who had allowed her a free hand in creating this new unit. In the end, it was Allen who looked away, but only at Waters. There was a little shake of the head – he couldn’t resist that – before Allen said, ‘My door is always open, DCI Freeman,’ and left the room.

  It was a small irony but an irony nonetheless that the chief superintendent’s appearance had taken some of the sting out of the moment as far as the remaining two detectives were concerned. Freeman told him to sit down and then took her own seat behind her desk. There were no preliminary remarks.

  ‘It was a difficult call but you were the senior officer present. Losing Michael Wortley isn’t a small deal, as I’m about to discover, and you have to take some ownership of the fact that we did.’

  ‘I have, ma’am. We, DC Betts and…’

  No, that would be a mistake. Keep Clive Betts out of this entirely. As he re-phrased what he had to say, he knew Freeman understood what he was doing.

&nb
sp; He said, ‘I considered the possibility that Wortley had seen us, but security guards do check cameras. He disguised what he was doing successfully, and I decided he hadn’t. It was entirely my error, and I apologise for it.’

  She was watching him closely, and he thought, she’s observing how I deal with this, more interested than annoyed.

  ‘Did your partner suggest you should approach the subject before you left the area?’

  ‘No, ma’am.’

  Thank goodness – if Betts had said, I think we should give him a tug, boss, this would have been worse. Betts was an experienced field detective and that had to count for something in Freeman’s view of this; it was why she had recruited him in the first place.

  Freeman said, ‘All right, then. You have two excellent people in John and Serena. Put them to work looking for Wortley. Write up your own account of Tuesday evening, and… What?’

  ‘It’s already done, ma’am – yesterday.’

  ‘Well, now you need to add a paragraph or two. Run all your paperwork, not that there’s much paper, past DI Greene. In case you haven’t realised it yet, he knows what he’s doing.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  Waters waited, and she understood there was something else. She asked him what it was, and he said, ‘If you don’t mind me asking, ma’am, what would you have done in that situation on Tuesday?’

  The detective chief inspector took her time because it was a fair question, and because this is one of the ways in which you learn the job. After perhaps five or six seconds, she said, ‘If I thought he might have seen me, and knowing he’s potentially a key witness in a major investigation, I would not have let him out of my sight until I’d spoken to a senior officer.’

  Waters said, ‘We did contact DI Greene as we were leaving Hunston.’

  ‘And what did he say?’

  Waters nodded and said, ‘He asked us a lot of questions. He wanted us back in the office as soon as possible, ma’am. He was quite concerned.’

  ‘And by that time, Wortley was quite possibly on his way to ADS with the van. If he’d seen you, he’d also seen you go. Hence not letting him out of your sight until…?’

  ‘I’d spoken to a senior officer.’

  It was Freeman’s turn to nod.

  She said, ‘And then it would have been DI Greene sitting here now, not you. Time is wasting, and I can’t put off this phone call any longer. I don’t want Harry Alexander hearing about it from…’ She looked up at him and didn’t need to explain. All she said was, ‘Go and find Michael Wortley. Again.’

  More easily said than done, ma’am, but you already know that. When he got back to the office, everyone was busy already. Serena gave him another sympathetic look and he had to find a way of putting an end to those – they were not fellow pupils, one of whom had just been sent to the headmistress. He could try being simply unpleasant to her but the consequences of that might be unpredictable. Subtlety would be required.

  In contrast, Murray showed little interest in Waters’ predicament and simply updated him on what had already been put in place with Wortley’s bank. Trip-wires had been laid and if someone walked into them, they should hear about it quite swiftly.

  Waters said to him, ‘Has the DI said anything else while I was out of the room, John?’

  ‘No. We’ve just been getting on with it. Why?’

  ‘I was thinking on the way back. Wortley has a thirty-six hour start on us. We can now assume he was ready to go at a moment’s notice. He could have gone anywhere. So – as a soldier he had a passport. Does he still have one?’

  This was a new angle, and Murray sat back from his keyboard in recognition of it. Then he said, ‘Not something I’ve ever done, but HM Passport Office share data with law enforcement – it’s in the application form when you sign up for one. I don’t know what records they keep, whether recent use will show. It might. Check with the DI?’

  Waters said, ‘I’ll see what I can find out myself before I do. I’ve got a bit of ground to make up there…’ and Murray nodded as he said, ‘It happens. You weren’t to know that the lady in the office had pressed the red button as far as Wortley was concerned. It was bad luck. But as the man used to say, stick at it long enough and the good luck cancels out the bad – what happens then is the difference you make.’

  Yes – Waters had heard that from Smith more than once. And the harder I work, the luckier I seem to get, as well. He pressed the space bar and the laptop came back to life. PNC – Police National Computer, a marvellously functional initialism – and then he typed in his password. To be able to do such a thing still gave him a thrill.

  Tomorrow morning, he had been told, someone will get back to you with the results of the search. The system is undergoing essential maintenance and… Outside Lake Central, it was raining again, and dark. Waters had stayed at his desk until after eight o’clock. One by one the others had left, until he was there on his own. Or so he thought, and then at 20.06 Freeman had entered the room and seen him. She came across and told him to go home. He responded by asking what had happened in her phone call to Regional, and she said she expected to be dismissed tomorrow morning.

  He was beginning to understand her sense of humour but couldn’t be sure she had moved on as easily as this. When he didn’t look entirely convinced, Freeman said, ‘Harry Alexander once led a raid on a house and left behind two million quids’ worth of heroin. Literally left it behind. They’d found it but forgot to put it into the van. It was three days before someone realised, and they had to go back and collect it. I was in school at the time, I should think, but there are still people on the force who’ll tell you the story of Heroin Harry.’

  That had to be true, and Waters had to smile.

  Freeman went on, ‘We all screw up. It’s what you do afterwards that matters. You’ve done enough for today. Go home, sergeant.’

  But as he drove through the streets of the town on that dreary Thursday evening, he had to face facts. This was one of his worst days since joining the force, perhaps the worst of all. Nothing had come up during the afternoon to suggest they would find Michael Wortley again soon. Why would it? He was a man with good reason to move quickly and to hide well, and he had training that meant he would deal with pressure and make fewer mistakes than the average villain making a run for it. A week that had begun well and which held the promise of ending even better when he called for Miriam tomorrow night, was concluding with this wet and dismal drive home. He might not be able to leave on time tomorrow, after all. He had the pleasures of the dentist to look forward to if he did so, and he would hardly be in the mood to make the best of impressions on Miss Josephs.

  As he parked the car in his allocated space, the thought came that he might even do better to cancel rather than be a disappointment to her. It’s the job. You don’t do it for a living – that’s how it begins but in the end, you discover you’ve rearranged your life around the job. It decides where you live, what you can do with the little spare time you get, when you take a holiday, if you do, and who you can see. Or should that be whom?

  He was smiling at that as the sensor switched on the light in the porch. The key went into the lock of the outer security door, and a voice behind him said, ‘Don’t turn around. Walk on into the building. No one needs to get hurt.’

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  It’s worth noting that Christopher Waters was no longer quite the feeble weakling he had been all that time ago when Captain Hamilton’s thug knocked him down and broke his nose. For one thing, there was a set of free weights in his lounge which he had been using regularly for a couple of years. Going to a gym was out of the question, but he had seen the value of stronger arms when making certain sorts of arrest, and had committed, for purely professional reasons, to acquiring them. And for another, he had participated in a number of those arrests now. Working with experienced officers meant you learned quickly – if you didn’t, you remained behind in the office while others went out to do what Smith had al
ways termed the heavy lifting. John Murray was a source of useful information in this respect – ‘If you give him a dig just here or here, Chris, you’ll find it’s easier to get the cuffs on, without doing any permanent damage.’

  And so perhaps he could have turned around and lashed out immediately. He might have taken the man who had come up so silently behind him by surprise – but it’s all about the odds. Was this character alone? Was he armed? In that instant, Waters made deductions; this wasn’t a mugging, it wasn’t a kid after his phone, or they wouldn’t be going the other side of that door, where an assailant could be trapped. The voice was that of an older man, quiet and controlled, as if he did this sort of thing on a regular basis, someone used to giving orders in threatening situations. Whoever it was had stayed back, hadn’t touched him and was far enough away to see and counter any move on Waters’ part, but not so far that he would be able to slam the door behind himself.

  The flat was on the first floor. Waters walked across the shared hallway and turned around at the foot of the stairs. Michael Wortley was more heavily built than he had imagined – three or four inches shorter than Waters but broad-chested and short-legged, a rugby player rather than a footballer. The hair was longer than in the Army photograph, with touches of grey at the temples, and the square face hadn’t seen a razor for a couple of days. He was wearing a camouflage jacket, the real thing, not a fashion accessory, jeans and heavy, workman’s boots. Waters concluded that not getting into a scrap with Michael Wortley had been one of his better decisions this week.

  He said, ‘I live on the first floor. You’re welcome to come up and talk. Or you can say what you have to say here.’

  Wortley took a couple of steps into the hallway, keeping his distance but now he could see up the stairway. His hands were loose and empty at his sides, still anticipating trouble.

  ‘You know who I am.’

  It wasn’t a question but Waters answered him.