by Cleanskin
She frowned again. 'You think that was where he put the things he wanted to keep secure?'
'It's possible. I'm going to need a note from you saying it's OK for me to look in the locker, though.' I hoped she was so dazed she'd agree. I knew I didn't have enough for a search warrant.
I was in luck. 'Anything I can do to help.' Karen got to her feet and cast around for something to write on. In the end, I knocked something out on Ben's computer and got her to sign it.
Just over an hour later, I was in the manager's office at Smithson's. It was better furnished than the living rooms of most of the cops I know. Lavish was clearly what they were aiming for, and they'd hit the target. The manager was a hawk-faced man in his thirties. I'd seen him before, in photos we'd snatched of Jack Farrell enjoying the high life at the health club. But he wasn't smiling at me the way he smiled at Farrell. 'This all seems a bit -'
'Out of the usual run of things? I couldn't agree more,' I said. 'But you know how it is when a cop is killed. We're desperate to cover all the bases.' I gave him the quick snake smile that doesn't get as far as my eyes. 'I hope you're not going to create a problem here? I do have his widow's go-ahead, and a copy of the will where he mentions the locker by number.'
He rolled his eyes. 'Can we at least be discreet about this?'
I looked innocent. 'That's why I'm here alone. I could have come mob-handed, you know.'
'You've got the combination?' he said with ill grace.
I pointed to the will. 'Right there.'
He took me down to the locker room, an annex off the changing rooms with a bench running between two banks of locked doors. He pointed out Ben's locker, then hung around behind me. 'Thank you,' I said. 'I'll manage by myself now.' He wasn't happy about it, but he took the hint.
The locker was on the floor level. It was about thirty inches by twelve and when I opened it, most of the space was taken up by a sports holdall. I pulled it out, grunting at the unexpected weight of it. I laid it on the bench and unzipped it.
If I'd had any doubts about where Stella's logic had taken us, they died then. Ben hadn't sold himself cheaply, that was for sure. The bag was rammed with bundles of fifty-pound notes. I had no idea how much was there, but it must have run well into six figures. 'You bastard,' I said.
The betrayal didn't end there. The locker also held a couple of envelopes. One was labelled Insurance. It contained one of those life insurance policies with a big single premium and a huge payout. This one had been taken out a couple of years before and it would pay half a million pounds, all to Karen. I couldn't believe how long this had been going on. A couple of years ago, he'd had fifty grand to blow on insurance. All the while complaining to me that he could barely afford to insure his bloody car.
I thought that was bad enough. But there was worse to come. The second envelope was addressed to Karen. I didn't think twice. I ripped it open.
My darling Karen,
If you're reading this, it's because I'm dead. I'm sorry for leaving you and the kids behind. All I ever wanted was to spend the rest of our lives together. But at least I can make sure that, even if you don't have me, you will have enough money never to need to worry about making ends meet.
I know you must be wondering where all this cash has come from. I'm not proud of this, but a while back, Andy and I turned over a big villain up in the Midlands. The guy got blown away by one of his own sidekicks. He always kept huge amounts of cash on the premises. I suppose we should have handed it in, but only the two of us knew about it, and it seemed too good to miss. It was Andy's idea, but I didn't try very hard to talk him out of it. So we decided to keep our mouths shut and split it between us. I bought the insurance policy with some of the money and the rest of it is in the bag.
I know you will be tempted to do what feels like the right thing and dob me in. I beg you not to do that if Andy's still alive. For his sake, and for the sake of the kids, keep quiet and make the most of what I've been able to provide. I don't want my kids to grow up thinking I was a bad man. I'm not a bad man, Karen. I just gave in to the chance to get my hands on some real dosh. I wasn't hurting anybody and I don't want you to hurt Andy or the kids by coming clean now about what I did.
Karen, I've loved you from the day I met you. I will be looking over your shoulder every day for the rest of your life, watching over you and keeping you safe. You were the only woman for me.
All my love, your Ben
'You bastard,' I said again. With his fake account of where the money had come from, he'd slid out from under any link to Jack Farrell or any other criminal stuff.. And he'd pointed the finger straight at me. I couldn't hand this in, not without spending the rest of my career as the subject of whispers and gossip about my honesty.
And I'd thought he was my friend. I felt an ache inside me, the kind you get when you've held back your tears for too long.
It wasn't Ben's death that was making me feel so bad.
It was what he'd done with his life.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
THERE WAS GOOD NEWS and bad news waiting for me when I got back to the office. Kirsty Blythe had returned with the news that John 'Pirate' Hawkins, the tattoo artist who had done Jack Farrell's tattoos, had been reported missing by his girlfriend the day before the fake suicide. He was still on the missing list.
The good news was that Manuela the Spanish nanny wasn't as clever about covering her tracks as Farrell. I'd had an alert put out on her credit card after she'd skipped the country. It had paid off. According to the report on my desk, she had used the card to buy a load of groceries, toiletries and clothes in a hypermarket on the outskirts of Calais.
Things were starting to fall into place. We knew Farrell had been using his boat as a base for making the deals when he'd been selling up, and that Fancy Riley had taken him off on a speedboat at the end of every day. That would make sense if Farrell had a second boat that we knew nothing about. It would also explain why there had been no sightings of him. If he was using his boat to move between England and France, he could come and go more or less as he pleased. He could come here to torture and kill, then slip back to France the same night.
It didn't narrow things down much, but it was a start. That evening, sitting at Stella's dining table and working my way through a Chinese banquet, I brought her up to speed. I could see she was shaken by the depth of the sleaze Ben had crawled into. 'What did you do with the money?' she said.
I gave her a quick look out of the corner of my eye. 'I gave Karen the insurance policy,' I said. 'I burned the letter. And the money's sitting in my car.'
'What are you going to do with it?' Stella put down her chopsticks and gave me a stern look.
'Give it away,' I said. 'Where it'll do some good.' I took a gulp of wine. 'Karen's got more than enough.'
Stella reached across and covered my hand with hers. 'Don't beat yourself up, Andy. What Ben did, it's not your fault.'
'I should have seen it. I should have known,' I said, a bitter taste in my mouth that had nothing to do with the food. 'He was my right hand, and I didn't know he was dirty. How can I call myself a cop when I let that happen?'
'He chose which way to go. He chose to turn his whole life into a lie,' Stella said. 'I won't sit back and let you blame yourself for that.'
'I'm not blaming myself for his choice, I'm blaming myself for trusting a man who didn't deserve it.'
Stella squeezed my hand. 'You're right about that, at least. But he must have worked very hard to make you trust him. He must have been scared shitless that you would find him out. And, frankly, he deserved every second of that fear. You're a good man, Andy. And a good cop.'
I snorted. 'I don't think so, Stella. Ben fooled me. Jack Farrell's still fooling me. He might be in France. He might be at sea.' I drank more wine. 'He might be sitting outside your flat laughing at us, for all I know.'
'Why France?'
I told her about Manuela and the credit card. Stella let go of my hand and stood up. 'I've got an
idea,' she said. It must have been a good one. She was walking away from one of the best Chinese takeaways in London.
I followed her through to the space under the stairs that she'd converted into a study. She sat down at the computer, which she left running twenty-four seven in spite of my warnings about ID theft and hackers. She made her way to a private site for forensic experts who specialize in figuring out ways to identify bodies. She glanced up at me. 'Could you get me my wine, please?'
By the time I got back, she was swapping instant messages with a colleague.
DrStel: That's right. Tattoo removal.
JPB: Laser or surgery?
DrStel: Doesn't matter. Any kind. What matters is where. Got to be Calais area.
JPB: Gimme 5.
'Who's JPB?' I asked, setting her drink down beside the keyboard.
She took a sip then said, 'A skin man in Paris. I worked with him in Kosovo. He's the one who taught me about tattoos.' Before she could say more, the computer beeped. JPB had come up with a couple of addresses of clinics in the right area.
JPB: The one in Calais is more of a general clinic. The other is more expert with tattoo work. I met the clinic director in Geneva, he was talking about a new cream they were using with the lasers to give a better result. This cream is their own formula. He thinks it will make them rich once they have proved how well it works. If I was having my tattoos removed in the north of France, I think this is where I would go.
DrStel: Thanks, Jean-Paul. I'll buy you a drink at EUBIC next month.
Stella looked up at me with a grin. 'I wondered why Manuela was in France. It didn't seem to make sense unless she was there for Farrell. Which begged the question, why Calais? There are so many little places along the French coast where there would be much less chance of Farrell being spotted. There had to be a good reason.'
I grinned. 'Like, getting rid of a unique set of tattoos. Stella, you're a better detective than me.' I leaned down and kissed her. 'But you're also your own worst enemy. I'm going to have to go now and talk to the team about what we do next.'
'Andy,' she howled. 'Surely it can wait till morning?'
I held my hands up, fending her off. 'I'm not taking any chances,' I said, backing towards the front door. 'Save me some dinner in case I make it back later.'
I should have taken Stella's idea straight to my boss and let him liaise with the French. But Jack Farrell was mine and I didn't want him slipping through the net because some French cop who didn't care enough was having a power nap at the wrong minute.
I hand-picked four officers, and we went off to France on the Eurostar. Once we were there, we hired three cars. We started staking out the clinic in four-hour shifts, holing up between times in a lorry drivers' motel off the nearby motorway.
I had plenty of time to think about Katie Farrell's murder. It had been more than a week since Ben had died, and there hadn't been any more bodies. Plus his was the only murder marked out with a fire. To me, it seemed clear. Jack Farrell had tortured and murdered his way to the answer. Then he had sent a message to the rest of us with the fire that linked Ben's death to Katie's. Only a dad who loved his kids like Ben would know how much damage Katie's murder would do. I didn't know why he'd done it, but all my instincts as a cop said that he had.
On the third day, we got lucky. Kirsty Blythe and her partner spotted Manuela dropping Farrell off at the side door of the clinic just before seven in the morning. She picked him up again two hours later. By then, all five of us were in place for a perfect tail.
First we followed them to a private marina where they loaded some hypermarket plastic bags on board a good-sized floating gin palace. We couldn't get inside without keys, but I got out the binoculars and made sure I knew which boat.
Then we followed them about twenty miles into the countryside. There was no chance of losing them on the long flat straight roads lined with poplars. They pulled in at a large modern villa on the far edge of a smart little village that looked like a movie set. After they'd taken the rest of the shopping inside, we carried on a few miles to the next village where we celebrated quietly with beers all round.
'That villa's a bitch to stake out,' Blythe said.
'We don't need to stake it out. There's only one road through the village. We just need to split ourselves up. Two cars to the north, one to the south. We'll pick them up when they leave.'
Nobody had a better idea. It meant we were more or less trapped with the vehicles, but it could have been worse. And luckily, it didn't go on very long.
Just before midnight that night, the first car on the road north called in to say Farrell had just driven past, alone and pedal to the metal. Blythe and I swung straight out into the road and kept a steady speed till we saw headlights behind us. We picked up our pace so he wouldn't overtake us too soon and to give the others a chance to catch up.
There were a couple of hairy moments, but we managed to keep on his tail all the way to the marina car park. As Farrell walked towards the gate, we made our move, screeching the cars to a halt around him, jumping out and taking him down. It took four of us to subdue him, but he never really stood a chance.
We cuffed him, took his keys off him and marched him to his boat while Kirsty parked the cars up neatly and left the keys under the drivers' seats. We'd call the rental company when we got home.
The main reason I'd chosen Kirsty came to the fore now. She could sail. She'd been messing around on boats since she was a kid and she'd been crisscrossing the Channel on her parents' little cabin cruiser for as long as she could remember.
We stuck Farrell below in the main bedroom, while those of us who weren't driving sat in the saloon and played cards. Farrell kept up a steady stream of swearing and shouting for a while, but he got tired of it before we did.
We were back on English soil in time for breakfast. The story was simple. We'd had a tip that Farrell was on his way back and we'd caught him as he stepped ashore. His word against five of ours. No contest.
At first, it looked like there wasn't much we could charge him with. Faking a suicide isn't that big a deal. But thanks to Stella, that soon changed. She got an ID for the body we'd mistaken for Farrell. The guy worked in Farrell's porn business and he'd last been seen leaving a bar with Fancy Riley and Farrell himself. That was good, but even better was the discovery of the knife that had killed Brian Cooper and Ben Wilson. It was in the cutlery drawer on Farrell's boat, his prints all over it. The final nail in the coffin was the experts matching traces of explosive in a locker on the boat to the stuff that had blown Joey Scardino to bits.
It's been almost a year since the night Katie Farrell died. Her father's due to stand trial in a few weeks. Funny how many rats came out of the woodwork to lay stuff at his door once they knew we had him bang to rights on something major.
It's been a long journey for all of us. Karen Wilson's still adrift in grief and her kids look like lost souls. We kept Ben's name clean and I think that'll survive the trial. But I feel like I've paid a high price for that. After Ben, I can't find it in me to trust anyone. Something I couldn't hide from Stella. She left for Knoxville, Tennessee and the Body Farm a couple of weeks ago. As far as I can see, the only winners have been a bunch of charities that help homeless kids, drug addicts and women sold into sexual slavery.
Like I said, when a child dies, everybody hurts. And some hurts can't ever be healed.
About the Author
Cleanskin
Val McDermid grew up in a Scottish mining community then read English at Oxford. She was a journalist for sixteen years, spending the last three years as Northern Bureau Chief of a national Sunday tabloid. She is now a full-time writer and divides her time between Cheshire and Northumberland.
Her novels have won international acclaim and a number of awards. A Place of Execution won both the Anthony Award for best novel and the Los Angeles Times 2001 Book of the Year Award Mystery/Thriller, while The Mermaids Singing took the 1995 Gold Dagger for best crime novel of the
year.
By the same author
The Grave Tattoo
The Distant Echo
Killing the Shadows
A Place of Execution
Tony Hill novels
Beneath the Bleeding
The Torment of Others
The Last Temptation
The Wire in the Blood
The Mermaids Singing
Kate Brannigan novels
Star Struck
Blue Genes
Clean Break
Crack Down
Kick Back
Dead Beat
Lindsay Gordon novels
Booked for Murder
Union Jack
Final Edition
Common Murder
Report for Murder
Non-fiction
A Suitable Job for a Woman
Copyright
While some of the characters and incidents portrayed herein
are based on historical events, this novel is entirely the work
of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual
persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely
coincidental.
HarperCollinsPublishers
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Hammersmith, London W6 8JB
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Copyright (c) Val McDermid 2006
Val McDermid asserts the moral right to
be identified as the author of this work
This novel is entirely a work of fiction.
The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are
the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is
entirely coincidental.
A catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library
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