The Assassin's Dog

by David George Clarke

  Aware that the bikes might well be sent for a full forensic examination if Gus Brooke became a suspect, she moved away, not wanting to contaminate them.

  Returning to the garden, Jennifer noticed a small, old-looking shed next to a large plum tree a dozen metres from the house. She walked along the stone path to the shed and on trying the door, she was surprised to find it unlocked.

  “For a cop, you have little idea about security, Gus,” she muttered under her breath as she pulled open the door.

  Inside, the space was almost entirely full of garden tools: spades, a rake, a fork, an axe and a sledgehammer, all leaning against an electric lawnmower. Empty plastic and clay flower pots were stacked on shelves along with an assortment of plastic bags, ties, string, seed packets and seedling containers.

  “Just your average garden stuff,” said Jennifer, closing the door and taking a last look around the garden.

  She returned to the corner of the house, listened for any traffic noise and jogged back to her car.

  Once seated back behind the wheel, she called Derek.

  “Didn’t expect you to reply,” she said, when her call was answered immediately.

  “Still waiting for my turn. You know what it’s like; I could wait all day just to be told I’m not wanted.”

  “Well, at least I can talk to you now. The cottage was frustrating; I want to get in for a snoop around.”

  “You mean you resisted the temptation?”

  “All locked up. But I could see the kitchen through a window. It was pristine, ridiculously so. Like a showroom; absolutely nothing out of place. Weird for someone whose wife’s been away for a while.”

  “Being OCD isn’t a crime, you know.”

  “Except he isn’t.”

  “Perhaps his wife has him well trained.”

  “Perhaps I need to talk to her, find out what her secret is.”

  “Think how boring your life would be.”

  “My vote is with boring. Do you know when his wife is coming back? Perhaps it’s all in her honour.”

  “Another week, according to Gus. Seems a bit early to start turning the straw.”

  “OK,” said Jennifer, “I’m off to the factory site to have a look at the fence.”

  There was a grunt of disapproval from Derek. “Stay alert and if there’s anything odd or suspicious, call for back-up. Don’t go in there alone, OK.”

  “Message received et cetera.”

  Ten minutes later, Jennifer pulled to a halt by the factory gates and got out.

  She stared through the chain-link fence at the decaying buildings. Their stillness in the slight breeze was in stark contrast to the urgency of the day the SCF team had descended en masse to locate Trisha’s car and begin searching the site for any sign of the detective herself.

  She felt drawn to the building, as if it were calling her in to search again, telling her that thoughts of it being the perfect hiding place for a body or there being a cell in which to imprison someone were highly relevant. It was several minutes before she realised she was standing right next to the fence, her hands raised above her head, grasping the links. She had no idea how long she had stood there, but finally she tore her eyes away from the building and focussed on the chain and padlock securing the gates.

  “Not exactly high-tech,” she said, lifting the padlock in her gloved hand and looking closely at the keyway. “But better than nothing, and given there’s nothing inside worth the effort of breaking in, it’s probably good enough. But hey, maybe there’s another way in.”

  She started to walk, slowly following the fence in an anticlockwise direction as she meticulously searched for any breaks in the links. After fifteen minutes, she was on the far side of the site where the fence ran alongside the narrow pathway bordering the irrigation channel. Halfway along she saw that the chain-link wasn’t as clear, as if some of the mesh was overlapping. She bent forward to examine it more closely. On pulling gently at the diamond-shaped mesh, she found she could easily and quickly create an opening large enough to pass through. The break in the fence was well disguised, but a few scuff marks on the ground beneath the fence convinced her that someone had been through here recently. Had Gus missed it, in his distracted mental state, or had he deliberately not mentioned it?

  Remembering her conversation with Derek, she stood and looked around, her eyes following the path in both directions. She was relieved to see it was deserted. The local dogs must have already had their morning walks.

  Would a break in the fence be enough to convince Crawford and Hawkins that a second search of the factory was justified? She didn’t know. She decided to continue her examination of the entire fence perimeter; if there were other places where it was broken, they would strengthen her case.

  She continued along the footpath in the direction of Rappington village as far as a small stand of silver birch that marked the limit of the site. Here she turned left and since there was no path, she picked her way along through roots and undergrowth as she followed the fence back towards the lane that led to the main gates.

  Halfway along this section of the fence, she found a second break, this one smaller and even better disguised than the first. From the look of the links, it hadn’t been disturbed for some time. Hidden by the stand of silver birch, its existence had probably been long forgotten by whoever made it.

  Fifteen minutes after finding the second break, she was back at her car. She had found no more damage to the fence.

  She leaned against the driver’s door, staring at the factory, her mind in conflict. On one hand, she should follow procedure, inform her bosses and if they agreed, wait for back-up. If they agreed.

  On the other hand, her mind and body were urging her to ignore protocols. With every passing minute, she was increasingly convinced that Trisha’s body was hidden in the derelict factory buildings. It made so much sense. And if by some miracle Trisha were still alive and being detained there, immediate action was even more urgent. She could be injured, tied up and abandoned, dying. Finding her today, right now, could save her life. Leaving it until the bosses could be convinced might be a death sentence.

  She pulled her phone from her pocket. She should at least tell Derek. But after staring at the screen for several seconds, she put the phone away. He would only start arguing with her, trying to persuade her not to act.

  Decision made, she hurried back along the outside of the fence, returning to the second break, the one hidden by the stand of trees. She could access the site from there with little risk of being observed.

  However, once she arrived, she hesitated, the same conflicts nagging at her mind as before. What she was considering flew totally in the face of procedure. If she screwed up, she could face disciplinary action or worse. It had taken long enough for her promotion to come through; she didn’t want to find herself demoted back to detective constable, or worse, back in uniform.

  She pursed her lips, annoyed at herself for conforming, and once again pulled out her phone.

  “I’ll take that, detective sergeant,” said a voice from close behind her.

  She spun around, almost dropping the phone in surprise. A man who looked vaguely familiar was standing six feet away pointing a silenced gun at her chest. Then she realised it wasn’t so much the man who was familiar, it was the pug dog sitting next to him, her lead lying on the ground alongside her.

  “I know you!” she said, as the pieces fell into place. “You were in the pub. What the hell do you want?”

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Earlier, after taking his breakfast in his hotel room, Cosimo Graziano Rosselli had sat waiting patiently, as he had done for the past three days.

  He had decided to let Detective Constable Brooke sweat for a while. According to the latest update on her website, Mo would be away now for at least another week so there was no urgency to keep his promise to the detective. Not that he had any intention of doing anything with Trisha McVie’s body; it would be found as part of a natural conse
quence of events once he had set his final plans in motion.

  Three days. Brooke would be getting more than twitchy. He would have done little except think over and over about what kind of mess he’d got himself into, how the enigmatic stranger, whose name he didn’t even know, had taken control of his life, and how he was now a pawn at the beck and call of people he knew nothing about, anonymous people with the power to destroy him.

  Rosselli’s plan for luring Jennifer Cotton to the factory without squads of police officers being involved was simple. He would give the job to Brooke as a test, with a few tips on how to go about it. He intended to call Brooke the following day, with the news that his bosses had an interest in the detective sergeant in the SCF from her time in the Art Fraud Squad, which wasn’t far from the truth. Given who his bosses were, he would say that discretion was optimal and it was of paramount importance that only Brooke should accompany Cotton, and even he would be kept in the background. Rosselli would explain a complete fiction that Jennifer’s work in the squad had been ‘fluid, shall we say, Gus, far more than you might imagine. There were lines you could cross and those you couldn’t, to everyone’s mutual benefit.’

  He knew Brooke would swallow it, especially once he also explained that the people to whom Rosselli was answerable regarded this instruction as an important test of Brooke’s skills. Succeed and his life would improve; fail and, well, ‘let’s not think about failure, shall we, Gus?’ He smiled to himself as he thought of the idiot detective squirming in anguish at the difficulties facing him, fearing failure, fearing alerting his fellow officers.

  Removing his right hand from where he was idly rubbing the folds of skin on Goccia’s head to reach out and pour himself another coffee, he was surprised by a distinctive ping from his phone. The coffee temporarily forgotten, he picked up the phone to see what had triggered the alert.

  The screen he called up showed a grid of the displays from the CCTV cameras at the factory, and one of them, now highlighted, immediately caught his attention.

  “Goccia, my sweet,” he said, sitting up as his mind clicked into full alert, “I think our waiting might be over. It looks as if Detective Sergeant Cotton might have solved our problem for us.”

  The pug eyed her master’s hand, more interested in being stroked than in whatever her master was looking at on his phone.

  Rosselli clicked on the screen to isolate and enlarge the display. Thanks to the high resolution camera, he could see Jennifer’s face clearly as she stood in front of the factory gates, her arms reaching up and grasping the links while she stared at the factory buildings. Rosselli thought she was about to climb the gates, but a few moments later she stood back slightly to examine the padlock before slowly walking off to the left of the camera’s view as she paid careful attention to the condition of the fence.

  Rosselli knew that if her examination remained thorough, it would take her well over ten minutes to reach the concealed break in the fence on the far side of the site, more than enough time to be ready to spring, should he need to. He grabbed the two bags he always kept ready, one with his weapons, the other his clothes.

  “Come, little one,” he said to Goccia as he clipped her lead onto he collar, “we must leave this place and take all our belongings with us. If all goes well, our goal will be achieved today and by this evening we’ll be well on our way home.”

  Exactly twelve minutes after first seeing Jennifer on the feed from the camera pointing at the factory gates, Rosselli had parked his car near Rappington church and was again scrutinising the camera feeds.

  Jennifer had just arrived at the point where the fence was broken and Rosselli could see she was examining it carefully. He watched as she started to pull the two sides of the break from each other. But, to his surprise, she paused and pulled the mesh back together. Once the fence was closed again, she continued along the perimeter.

  “Thorough or resisting the temptation to go inside?” said Rosselli. “What do you think, tesoro?”

  Goccia growled softly from her basket.

  “I agree with your sentiments, little one. You know, I think it’s time to watch her in the flesh, now we can’t watch her on the screen.”

  He picked up his backpack, lifted Goccia out of the car and locked it.

  “We’ll move as far as the footpath, shall we? If she’s still studying the fence bordering the stream, we’ll be able to see her; if she’s already turned by the birch trees and is looking along that side of the site, we’ll hurry along to the trees. That way we’ll be closer but hidden for when she decides to take her next step.”

  On reaching the path, Rosselli moved to a spot where he could see the factory site a few hundred metres away. There was no sign of Jennifer, who had already started working her way along the part of the fence that would take her back to the gates.

  “OK, little lady,” he said, as he tightened the straps on the backpack, “we’re going for a run.”

  He checked Goccia’s lead was properly attached to her collar and the pair of them headed off along the footpaths behind the village, Rosselli jogging as fast as the struggling dog would allow. On reaching the stand of silver birch trees, Rosselli picked up the panting Goccia and positioned himself in an area of dense vegetation. “Sorry, little one,” he said, “I forgot you are not much of an athlete.”

  While Goccia regained her breath, Rosselli consulted the CCTV feed on his phone and froze as he saw that Jennifer was not only back at the main gates, but she was also taking her phone from her pocket. This was a problem. If she called in reinforcements, the superintendent’s body would surely be found along with all the careful modifications he’d made to the equipment in the upper cargo area. Connections may or may not be made to Brooke as trace evidence was found and analysed, but Rosselli’s target, Jennifer Cotton, would escape the scenario he had so carefully put in place for her.

  A coldness entered Rosselli’s eyes. He would resort to a simple kill if he had to, but the thought didn’t please him. The way he’d planned was so much more elegant: although the detective sergeant might at some stage fear for her life, when she died it would be without pain and Brooke would be blamed for her death as well as the superintendent’s.

  Goccia kept quiet, sensing something was wrong. She watched her master out of the corner of one eye, her head down. But then his face relaxed and he smiled.

  “She didn’t make the call, Goccia! She looked at the screen for a few seconds, but she didn’t connect. And look, she’s walked off again; she’s coming in this direction, only this time her step is far more determined. I wonder what she has in mind; the other way round to the break in the fence would make more sense. Perhaps she’s discovered another we don’t know about. Let’s move closer so we can see what she’s up to, shall we?”

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  “You have a good memory, detective sergeant, or perhaps it was my little friend who reminded you.”

  Rosselli was standing at the edge of the trees, his eyes registering every nuance of Jennifer’s movements. He glanced towards Goccia before nodding at the phone in Jennifer’s hand.

  “Don’t even think of throwing that at me; you would be dead before you even released your grip. Please, just toss it lightly so that it lands in front of me.”

  Jennifer glared at him, but she knew that for the present at least, he had the advantage. She did as instructed and the phone landed at Rosselli’s feet.

  Without taking his eyes or the gun off her, Rosselli stooped to pick up the phone and turned it off.

  “Good,” he said, throwing it into the trees. “Now we can move on. From the expression on your face as I watched you from the bushes, I should say you were hesitating over an important decision. Let me guess. Should you break the rules and go into the factory again or should you call in and seek permission or backup?”

  Jennifer said nothing, her mind working hard. Who was this man, his smile apparently benign but his eyes glacially cold? Was he responsible for Trisha’s disapp
earance? Had she been completely wrong about Gus Brooke?

  “Well, let me make that decision for you, detective sergeant,” continued Rosselli as he pointed with his gun. “If you would like to turn around and pull that damaged fence apart — well spotted, by the way — we can take a look inside. But please remember that if you attempt anything stupid, anything at all, you will die in an instant.”

  Jennifer shrugged. “You leave me no choice, but will you answer one question first?”

  Rosselli raised his eyebrows.

  “Is Trisha McVie in there?”

  Rosselli nodded, “She is, detective sergeant, she is indeed.”

  “And is she still alive?” said Jennifer, angry with herself for the desperation she could hear in her voice. She was sure this man would hear it too.

  “Let’s wait and see, shall we, detective sergeant?”

  Jennifer sighed in frustration as she turned to work on separating the fence. As she did, Rosselli quickly gathered up Goccia’s lead, slipping the loop over his left wrist to keep his hand free, his right hand controlling the gun.

  “Make your way through the fence,” he ordered, once the hole was large enough, “and walk ahead until I tell you to stop.”

  Jennifer walked slowly forward, acutely aware of the Glock pointing directly at her back.

  “That’s enough,” called Rosselli when she was about twenty feet away. “Now, lie face down on the ground with your legs wide apart and your hands clasped behind your head. And remember, my gun will be pointing at you.”