Motive

by Alan McDermott

  Of course it wasn’t Kelly. She was probably already in bed, asleep, preparing for another day in Melbourne.

  Feeling foolish, Ryan crossed to the westbound platform and caught the next train back to Piccadilly Circus. He was still thirty minutes early, which was plenty of time to get a window seat at a nearby café to keep an eye on the pub. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Brigshaw, but once the old man’s superiors got wind of the problem, they might decide to cut ties and hand him over to the police.

  He needn’t have worried. Brigshaw arrived alone five minutes early and went straight inside the Red Lion. Ryan didn’t see any suspicious vans pull up, or road sweepers mysteriously appear and concentrate on the same patch of pavement. Still, he gave it another ten minutes, and when he was convinced that Brigshaw was alone, he jogged over to the pub and walked in. The place was almost empty, it being a little early for the lunchtime crowd.

  Brigshaw was sitting at a table in the corner, with a glass of neat brandy and a pint of lager. Ryan sat opposite him.

  “Enjoy your coffee?” Brigshaw asked as he pushed the beer Ryan’s way.

  “You saw me in the café across the road,” Ryan said. “I didn’t even see you glance my way.”

  “Skills you could learn if you ever decide to come back.” Brigshaw smiled.

  Ryan was tempted to openly dismiss the idea on the spot, but he needed the old man’s help. Better to let him think there’d be something in it for him if he co-operated.

  “Once this mess is cleared up, I’ll think about it. I still have a few trust issues, as you can imagine.”

  Brigshaw nodded once. “Understandable.” He took a sip of his drink. “What did you learn from Latimer?”

  “I got the impression he just wants to pin this on me. I told him about the Marsh operation and that he’s probably the one behind it, but after I left him he was straight on the phone sharing my description.”

  “It’s possible that he’ll still follow up on what you told him,” Brigshaw said. “Naturally, he’ll want to sit you down and get your story on tape. It’s his job, after all.”

  “That may be, but I can’t sit around hoping he believes me. I need you to cross reference all of Marsh’s known associates and see if any of them travelled to France in the last couple of months.”

  “Should be simple enough. Anything else?”

  “Yeah. I need you to look into Kelly.”

  “You do realise you could come in and do this all yourself?” Brigshaw pointed out.

  “I could, but Latimer knows I work for you. He’ll probably have people stationed near the office in case I show.”

  Another nod from Brigshaw. “What in particular am I looking for as regards Kelly?”

  “Printouts of her movements, her work history, family, everything you can find. Oh, and she booked the hotel when we came here a couple of weeks ago. Get a copy of the registration, too. If I can hand Latimer a file with all her information and proof that we travelled together, he might believe she exists. As it is, he seems sceptical.”

  “I’ll have something for you by the end of the day. Do you have a home address, date of birth, anything like that?”

  “No, we never got round to discussing any of that,” Ryan said. “Just get details of the passport she used on the fourteenth and fifteenth and work from there.”

  That information would also prove that it hadn’t been Kelly that he’d seen that morning. It would show that she’d travelled to Australia, where she was waiting for him to join her.

  Ryan sipped his beer, though he didn’t really want it. He needed a cool, clear head for the next few days. “I’m also going to need a new legend.”

  Brigshaw reached into his inside pocket and pulled out a small envelope. “I assumed you would. Passport, pre-paid credit card and some cash.”

  Ryan opened the package and looked at the passport. It was two years old and had a couple of stamps in it, one for the Philippines and one for the US. The name in it was Richard Altman, and he suspected the photo they’d used had been through Photoshop a few times. The hair was over his ears and the beard thick and black, just as they were now.

  “I haven’t really had the chance to say this properly, but I’m sorry for everything you went through.”

  Ryan looked up at him and stuffed the envelope in his pocket. Brigshaw looked sincere, but that didn’t change what had happened. The hardest part was knowing his dream of ever joining the SAS was well and truly over. After a year of light movement, it would take a phenomenal amount of work to get his muscles back to their best, and even then they would not be as effective as he would like. He could certainly make it back into 2 Para, but could he take the next step?

  “The pain was one thing,” Ryan said, “but having my future torn from my grasp…”

  “You could always have a future with us,” Brigshaw reminded him.

  Ryan shook his head. “You said it yourself. One job, then I become a liability.”

  “As an undercover operative here in the UK, perhaps, but there are other options to consider.”

  “If you’re going to offer me a desk job, forget it.”

  “On the contrary, it would be a field role, but you’d be based out of the country.”

  “You want me to work for Six?” Ryan asked.

  “Not directly. When we started this project two years ago, it was one of several initiatives that had been put forward. Another was a joint project between Five and Six. As you know, the sharing of intelligence between the two agencies hasn’t always been at its best. We trip across someone who is planning an attack on British soil, only to find that they’ve been on Six’s radar for some time. In another instance, Six tracked an arms shipment to our shores, only for us to lose them because the information didn’t reach us in time. While we’re handling local threats, Six are dealing with the foreign aspect of the same investigation, and we’re just not meshing. It was decided that a joint task force would be created that would widen our jurisdiction and allow us to function both here and abroad, with one central command overlooking the entire operation.”

  “And how’s that working out, or did you plan on making me your Guinea pig again?”

  “It’s going very well, actually. They currently have people in five countries, and they’re looking to expand…once they’ve found the right people.”

  The right people being me, Ryan thought. It was certainly something to consider, though. His army career was in tatters, and his choices in Civvy Street were limited. Whatever he ended up doing, he was sure it wouldn’t be a patch on the SAS.

  “I’ll think about it,” Ryan said, taking another sip of beer.

  “You do that,” Brigshaw said. He polished off his brandy and stood. “I’ll get that information to you this evening. Where should I drop it off?”

  “The Savoy,” Ryan said, patting his jacket pocket. “I’ll be having dinner there, compliments of Her Majesty’s civil service.”

  Chapter 36

  John Latimer was just finishing the washing up when the doorbell rang. He wasn’t expecting visitors, especially at eight in the evening, so he assumed it was the Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses doing their late rounds. Fiona got up to answer it, but Latimer told her to stay where she was.

  The last person he expected to see when he opened the door was Jenny Knight. Her long, dark hair, usually flowing over her shoulders, was tied up in a bun, and she looked like she hadn’t slept in days.

  “Hello, John.”

  “Jenny. I…what can I do for you?”

  “I need to talk to you. Can I come in?”

  Latimer held the door open. “Of course.”

  Jenny offered a weak smile as she walked past him and into the hallway. He led her through to the living room, where Fiona was typing away on her laptop. She stopped when Jenny walked in.

  “Hi, Fiona. I’m sorry to come round so late, but I really need to speak to John. It’s about my husband.”

  “It’s no problem at all,
” Fiona assured her. “Can I get you a tea?”

  Jenny nodded, and Fiona went through to the kitchen.

  “Have a seat,” Latimer told her, and Jenny took a spot on the sofa.

  “As I said, it’s about James. He couldn’t have killed Sean Conte.”

  “I know how you feel,” Latimer sighed. “I just can’t believe it, either.”

  “No, I mean it’s impossible. He has an alibi.”

  “He hasn’t,” Latimer told her. “I’ve been through this with him. He was home alone that afternoon, and you were at work.”

  Jenny looked down at her hands and spoke softly. “That’s because he didn’t want anyone to know about the affair.”

  Latimer eased himself into his armchair. “What affair?”

  “Her name is Anabelle. He told me all about her when I last went to visit him in Brixton.”

  “I think we really need to speak about this at the station.”

  “No!” Jenny exclaimed, then composed herself. “No. James doesn’t want anyone to know. I can’t go on record with it. I promised James I wouldn’t.”

  “But it could mean his release.”

  “I told him that, but he insisted that I don’t tell anyone.”

  Latimer at back in his chair. “How long have you known about this other woman?”

  “I’ve had my suspicions for a few months, but James only confirmed it when I went to see him a couple of days ago. I asked if he’d been seeing someone, and he admitted he had. He believes you’re doing enough to clear his name without this coming out, but I told him, ‘If that’s the case, why are you still locked up?’ He couldn’t answer that.”

  Latimer had no answers, either. He’d been to see Knight two weeks earlier and told him that he hadn’t found anything to point the finger at anyone else. Knight’s mobile phone was shown to be at his house all afternoon, but he could have left it at home.

  The only positive he had about the case was the similarity to the Robert Waterstone murder. Again, a plethora of evidence had been found linking the body to the killer, who denied having anything to do with it. Ryan Anderson was sure he was being set up, just like James.

  He’d spoken to Anderson the previous day. In the meantime, he’d circulated his name, but hadn’t been able to come up with a photograph. His request to the passport office had drawn a blank, either because Anderson hadn’t applied for one, or because Brigshaw had blocked it. What he had been able to do was obtain a list of Franklin Marsh’s known associates, and once he knew which ones weren’t behind bars, he’d looked into their travel arrangements. Two of them had taken the ferry to France, but that had been early on the fifteenth, the day Waterstone was last seen, so they could be eliminated. Before leaving the office, he’d also had people look into Kelly Thorn. Hopefully, there’d be better news when he got to work the following morning.

  None of that helped James Knight, though. Even if Ryan Anderson had been set up, it didn’t automatically follow that James had been, too.

  “If I’m to use this to prove James didn’t kill Sean Conte, I’m going to need Anabelle’s full name and address. We’ll need to speak to her.”

  “James wouldn’t tell me,” Jenny said. “Perhaps he knew I’d come straight to you with it.”

  “Then I’ll have to go and see him first thing in the morning. He can’t sit on this, and he knows it. The phrase ‘it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court’ should be familiar to him.”

  Fiona returned with a tray of drinks and put them on the coffee table.

  “I was just telling John that James was having an affair,” Jenny said.

  Fiona sat down next to her. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I can’t blame him. Since I hit menopause seven years ago, I’ve had no interest in sex, but I could hardly expect James to go without. I asked him if he planned to leave me, but he swore that wasn’t his intention.”

  “Still, it must feel awful, what with everything else.”

  An awkward silence fell over the room. Latimer hadn’t for one moment considered the emotional impact of Jenny’s discovery, but it was the first thought in Fiona’s head.

  “You’re more than welcome to stay the night,” Fiona offered. “I can break out a bottle of wine and you can let it all out.”

  Jenny shook her head. “I’m okay. I just wanted John to know so that he can get James out of that hell hole. You can’t begin to imagine how they treat police officers inside.”

  Latimer could. He’d heard all the stories, and none of them were pleasant.

  He excused himself and went upstairs to the spare room he used as an office, where he logged onto his computer and made an online request to visit James Knight the following morning. He couldn’t promise his friend a way out, but the news that there had been a similar murder and the prime suspect was sure he was being framed might give the man hope.

  Chapter 37

  James Knight looked a broken man.

  John Latimer watched his friend being escorted to the table by a prison officer. As he was only on remand, he was allowed to wear his own clothes, but they seemed to be falling off him. He’d always been thin, but he appeared to have lost so much weight in the few weeks he’d been detained at Her Majesty’s prison Brixton.

  Latimer pushed a paperback across the table, but Knight barely looked at it.

  “Either you found the real killer, or Jenny went to see you,” Knight said, once the guard had walked away to take his position against the wall.

  “She did,” Latimer acknowledged. “Why didn’t you tell me about Anabelle from the beginning?”

  “Simple. I didn’t want Jenny to find out. When she came to see me yesterday, she asked if I’d been having an affair. It was a shock, I can tell you. I thought I’d covered my tracks pretty well, but there’s no accounting for women’s intuition, eh?”

  “Indeed. Fiona knows if I put half a sugar in my coffee at work.”

  Knight managed a half-laugh. “I was stupid to try to hide it from her.”

  “So, who is she?”

  Knight clearly didn’t want to share the details, but Latimer’s look said he wasn’t going anywhere until he had the truth.

  “I met her at the golf course. She’s a widow. Her husband died a few years ago and left an insurance policy that paid off the house, so she has a lot of spare time. Initially, it was just a smile in passing, then one day I was in the clubhouse and she sat next to me at the bar. It just went from there.”

  “And?”

  “And, we started arranging to meet at the course twice a week. At first, we played and had a drink afterwards, but soon we were skipping the golf and going straight to her place.”

  “Okay. Now that it’s out in the open, I need to speak to Anabelle. If she can verify that you were with her on the afternoon Conte disappeared, it’ll go a long way to proving your innocence.”

  “It won’t,” Knight said. “With all the evidence pointing to me, she’d be taking a huge risk. If they don’t believe her, they could charge her with perjury. Worse still, they might consider her an accomplice. No, she’s best left out of it.”

  Knight was right. With the mountain of evidence against him, introducing an alibi at this stage would appear an act of desperation.

  “If we can’t use Anabelle, there may be another glimmer of hope. We discovered the body of a builder a few days ago. He’d been buried out in the countryside for a couple of weeks, and the killer left plenty for the forensics team to work on.”

  “That sounds familiar,” Knight said.

  “It does. I spoke to the main suspect and he also swears blind he has an alibi.” Latimer didn’t mention that Ryan Anderson hadn’t been able to contact his, though. Saying so would put a dampener on things, and he needed Knight thinking at his critical best.

  “Has he been charged yet?” Knight asked.

  “No.”

  Latimer explained how Anderson had approached h
im on his way to work the previous day, and the names he’d asked Latimer to investigate.

  “If it is Franklin Marsh, it doesn’t help me,” Knight said. “I never had any dealings with him.”

  “I know, I checked the list of people you’ve arrested. None of Marsh’s men are on it.”

  “Then we’re back to square one,” Knight said.

  “Maybe not. The MO is the same in each case. I think we’re looking for the same man, someone who has been in contact with both you and the other suspect, Ryan Anderson. I need you to think back over the last few months. Is there anyone that could have had access to your shoes, or your hair?”

  Knight sat back in his chair and crossed his arms, something Latimer remembered him doing every time he was deep in thought. He didn’t need to remind him that every person, no matter how inconsequential they seemed, had to be considered.

  “Okay, the gas man came round and took a meter reading about five weeks ago, and I had a plumber take a look at the downstairs toilet. Some girl selling solar panels blocked it up.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s all I can remember,” Knight said. “If you ask Jenny, she’ll have the details of the plumber. He left his card. The other was British Gas.”

  “What about the woman?”

  Knight shook his head. “Too small. There’s no way she could take Conte down.”

  “Best to rule her out anyway.”

  “If you say so. She left a brochure. It’s in a drawer in my study.”

  It didn’t look good. Latimer knew the chances of Knight and Anderson both using the same plumber, solar or gas company were remote in the extreme, especially as Anderson had been living in France for the last few months. Still, he had to follow them up and rule the men out.

  “I’ll get back to the office and work them up. Do you want me to bring anything on my next visit?”

  “Another couple of books would be good. The library here isn’t that great.”

  “Will do,” Latimer said. “If you need anything else, call me.”

  Knight picked up the novel and walked to the officer, who checked the book for contraband, then led him through a door and back into the prison population.