Deadly Terror (Detective Zoe Finch Book 4)

by Rachel McLean

  “Just trying to do the best job I can, sir.”

  “You were like this on Canary. On the Jackson case. Just do as you’re told.” He turned back to the room. “Now, Detective Superintendent Silton is going to brief you all on the kind of behaviour you’re looking for from a terrorist group.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Sofia stretched, basking in the winter sunlight that slanted across the bed. This bed was broad and soft, as big as her entire bedroom back in Romania, and she loved waking in it.

  She turned towards Titi’s side: empty as usual. She was getting used to this. He liked to rise early. He said he preferred not to disturb her, that it was an act of kindness. No matter how many times she told him she’d rather see him before he left for work.

  She swung her legs out of bed and slipped on her fluffy slippers. The floor was warm, underfloor heating toasting her toes. From downstairs she could smell toast and bacon. She hated bacon, but didn’t have the heart to tell Titi.

  She slid down the wide stairs and padded into the kitchen. Mrs Brooking, the housekeeper, was at the stove. Sofia didn’t like having a housekeeper, especially one who cooked for them. She was perfectly capable of cooking. She wanted to make her boyfriend the meals she’d grown up with, as well as the ones she’d enjoyed after leaving home and discovering that Romanian cooking wasn’t all meat and potatoes.

  She missed the kind of food she was used to eating back in Romania. Mrs Brooking cooked decent food, good food, even, but sometimes Sofia just wasn’t in the mood for it. She was losing weight. Titi had complimented her on it, so at least there was an upside to sometimes feeling hungry.

  “Good morning, Miss Pichler,” Mrs Brooking said. “I’ve made your breakfast.”

  Sofia sniffed. “I will have muesli. If you do not mind.”

  A shadow crossed the housekeeper’s face. “Of course, miss. Let me get it for you.”

  “I will do it.” Sofia opened the door to the fridge and pulled out a carton of milk. She tried four cupboard doors before finding the muesli, then tipped it into a bowl. At first it had reminded her of rabbit food, but she was getting used to it. It beat the greasy bacon and eggs Mrs Brooking liked to make.

  “Are the children awake?” she asked as she sat in one of the high stools at the kitchen island.

  “Children?”

  “Romanian children. Seven. We brought them last night. They were in plane crash.” That wasn’t strictly true, she thought. Today she would call the airline, find out who these children were and where they were supposed to be.

  “I’m sorry, miss, but I don’t know anything about any children.”

  Sofia pushed her bowl away. “Must be sleeping.” Not surprising: it had been almost midnight when they’d settled. And they’d been through enough to make any child sleep for a week.

  She hurried upstairs and stopped outside the first bedroom door. She’d put two of the boys in here, sharing a vast double bed.

  She knocked. When there was no response, she knocked louder. Waking them might be difficult. When she’d been that age, the only way her mother could rouse her was to send their two dogs into her room. Danut and Bogdi, her best friends.

  She pushed the door open a crack. It was dark inside, the curtains drawn as she’d left them last night.

  “Marius? Florin?” She pushed the door a little more. “Time for breakfast.” These boys would appreciate eggs and bacon. She’d ask Mrs Brooking to cook more.

  No answer. No movement in the bed. Sofia pushed the door all the way, sending a shaft of light across the room from the hallway.

  The bed was empty. It was neat and tidy, as if it had never been slept in.

  She stepped into the room and looked around. The children hadn’t carried any luggage, but they had brought a few belongings with them. She’d gathered up their clothes and draped them over a chair after they were in bed.

  The chair was empty. The clothes were gone.

  She ran to the room next door. She stopped herself, pausing to knock. “Hello? Time to get up.”

  “Are you alright, Miss Pichler?” The housekeeper was behind her. Sofia wanted to shake answers out of her, demand that she tell her what had happened to the children. But she’d said she didn’t know about any children.

  She opened the door. This room held three single beds. All empty. There were no discarded clothes, nothing to show that she’d left three girls in this room the previous night.

  She ran to the other two rooms and did the same, flinging the doors open and running inside to search. If the children had been scared in the night, she thought, they might have gathered together for comfort.

  But the clothes. Where were their clothes?

  She turned to Mrs Brooking. “Where are they?”

  Mrs Brooking held her hands out, her eyes wide. “Miss Pichler, I think you should sit down. There’s been nobody in these rooms. Not since you moved in.”

  Sofia spotted something sticking out from under the bed. She ran to it and held it up, triumphant.

  “Then how you explain this?”

  The housekeeper peered at the doll in Sofia’s hand. Her brow furrowed. “Maybe it was left by the previous owners.”

  Sofia shook her head. “House was empty. Titi and I picked furniture. Nothing was left behind.”

  “I’m sure there’s a sensible explanation. Why don’t you come downstairs and I’ll make you a nice cup of tea?”

  Sofia shook the doll in the housekeeper’s face. It was a representation of an adult woman, the kind of doll that girls liked to dress up. A cheap imitation of a Barbie.

  “This is explanation,” she said. “There were seven children in house last night. I know, because I brought them here. I gave them all bedrooms, put them to bed.”

  She turned back to the room. She flung a duvet aside, hoping to find evidence of the bed being slept in. The sheets were undisturbed.

  Her shoulders slumped. She felt Mrs Brooking’s hands on her shoulders, and tensed. Was she going mad?

  “They were here,” she whispered. “I know they were here.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “Where were you?”

  Zoe had waited until they’d got to the team room before putting Connie on the spot. The DC had followed her along the corridors, struggling to keep up with her boss’s long strides. Zoe didn’t have to look behind her to know that the two constables were sharing worried looks. Combined with puzzled looks, in Rhodri’s case.

  Connie placed her bag on her desk and remained standing, her hands clasped together.

  “Well?” said Zoe as Ian closed the door behind them.

  “I went to see the DCI, boss.”

  “You did what?”

  “In hospital. I— I wanted to know how she was.”

  Rhodri breathed out. Ian snorted.

  “She’s the DCI, Connie,” Zoe said. “You’re a detective constable. Why would you decide to go visiting?”

  “Sorry, boss.”

  Zoe tapped her foot on the floor. “So?”

  “Sorry?” Connie stared back at her.

  “So how is she?” Zoe perched on the edge of Rhodri’s desk. “I imagine we all want to know.”

  Rhodri nodded, a stray hair bobbing. Ian cocked his head.

  “She’s stable,” Connie replied.

  “Did you get to see her?”

  Connie lowered her eyes. “No.”

  “So you went gallivanting off to the hospital when you should have been here doing your job, and you didn’t even get to see her?”

  “I spoke to her husband.”

  “I didn’t know she had a husband,” said Ian.

  “Probably cos it’s none of your business,” said Zoe. She turned back to Connie. “What did he say?”

  “He was appreciative. Of me being there. Said it was above and beyond.”

  “I should say so,” said Zoe. She reached up to the back of her neck and massaged the knots that had been forming. “Constable. It’s laudable that
you care how the DCI is. Even better that you’ve ingratiated yourself with her husband.”

  “I didn’t mean to—”

  “But next time, you come into work first, alright? If you want to go visiting fellow officers in hospital, you check with me. Or with DS Osman.”

  “Yes, boss.”

  Zoe leaned back. “What d’you expect the DCI would say about this? D’you think she’d prioritise the touchy feely stuff, or buckling down and finding the bastard who did this to her?”

  “Finding the bastard,” Connie muttered.

  “Exactly. Now.” Zoe bit her upper lip. “Sit down and forget this happened, alright? We’ve got a job to do.”

  “Yes, boss.”

  “OK.” Zoe turned to the wipe board that filled the wall at the back of the team office. She grabbed a cloth and started cleaning it.

  “Er, boss?” Connie said.

  Zoe paused. “Yes, Connie?”

  “There’s important information on there.”

  “She’s right, boss,” said Rhodri.

  “Shit.” Zoe stood back and surveyed the board. “Did anyone take a photo of it, by any chance?”

  “I take a snap on my phone every night before I leave,” said Connie. “I took one on Friday. Unless…” She looked between her colleagues.

  Ian shrugged. Rhodri shook his head.

  “Anyone else put anything on this board over the weekend?” Zoe asked.

  “Don’t think so,” replied Ian.

  “Good. Connie, email me that photo. Upload it to the shared drive. Whatever, just make sure we’ve got it.”

  “It’s the workings from the Chelmsley Wood robberies,” said Ian.

  “I know,” Zoe replied. The case was still live. But no one had been hurt, just threatened. It would have to take a back seat to this one, for now.

  “Right,” she said. She continued to clean the board then wrote New Street Station and Birmingham Airport at the top. Below the first, she wrote bomber?

  She turned to her team, the marker pen pointing to the last word. “We need to get any and all video footage of the bomber from before the attack. CCTV, social media. See if we can trace her movements, find out where she came from. Was she on a train, and if so which? Or did she walk into the station? I want to know that woman’s movements prior to the attack, right back to what she had for breakfast.”

  “I don’t think we’ll be able to find that out,” said Rhodri.

  “It was a figure of speech, Rhod.”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  “I’m putting you on that. Talk to any businesses or individuals with cameras in the area. Search Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. Get footage from the hour before the bomb went off. And talk to New Street Station, get all camera angles.”

  “I’ll talk to the station,” said Connie. “And I can help Rhodri with the social media.”

  “OK. The two of you work together, that’ll speed things up.”

  Connie and Rhodri sank behind their computer screens. Connie’s stiffness had faded but she looked relieved to be getting on with work.

  Zoe went into the inner office. Ian followed and closed the door.

  “What’s up? Don’t say you’ve got plans to head off to the hospital with a bag of grapes,” she said.

  “She’s turning into a liability, boss.”

  “Connie’s a good copper. She acted from concern. Bloody stupid of her, but her heart was in the right place.”

  “We don’t need her heart to be in the right place. We need her arse in that chair.”

  Zoe allowed herself a smirk. “I don’t think she’ll be pulling a stunt like that again.”

  “No? Not after what she did on the Digbeth Ripper case?”

  “You kicked her out of the office when I expressly said she should stay. Are you surprised she wanted to do her job regardless?”

  “She accessed the suspect’s social media accounts, illegally, using public wifi.”

  “She helped us track down a monster who’d have killed her brother next.”

  “She wasn’t thinking straight.”

  Zoe folded her arms across her chest. “Ian, you made your feelings about Connie crystal clear at the time. I don’t need you to do it again.”

  “Just saying it as I see it.”

  “I know.”

  The sergeant’s job was to question her, she knew that. Mostly it was to work with her, obey orders when they were given. But she knew that having an experienced DS as a sounding board made her a better DI.

  She just wished it wasn’t Ian Osman.

  “Anyway Ian, you’ve got a job to do.” Zoe grabbed her coat. She’d bought a new one after her sheepskin coat had been ruined by torrential rain on her last case.

  “And you?”

  “I’m going to the post-mortem, Sergeant Osman.” She noticed his grimace. “Wish me luck.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Dr Adana Adebayo had two post-mortems to do this morning. She’d already begun the first when Zoe arrived at the morgue.

  Zoe hurried to put on the white wellies and apron, then steeled herself as she entered the mortuary.

  “Zoe,” said the pathologist. “Glad I’ve got you, and not one of your minions. There’s no way that Welsh boy would keep his breakfast down today.”

  “Good to see you too, Adana.” Zoe held out her hand. On spotting that the pathologist’s glove was covered in substances she’d rather not identify, she withdrew it.

  Adana gave her a curt nod. “So. This is your bomber, or what remains of her.”

  Zoe turned away from the table and took a breath before looking at the body. She’d attended plenty of post-mortems in her career in CID, but never one where most of the body was missing.

  “So I think we can hazard a guess at what killed her,” she said.

  “It’s not as straightforward as that. I need to ascertain the precise cause of death.”

  “There are enough candidates.”

  Adana looked down at the body. Her face was mostly obscured by a surgical mask but her eyes looked sad. Zoe felt her sadness, but not for this woman, who had wrought such devastation.

  “It was quick, that’s for sure,” the pathologist said.

  Zoe dragged her eyes to the body. It wasn’t a body in the conventional sense. Instead, laid out on the post-mortem table were fragments of something that had once been human. At the top, the remains of a head, the skull intact but the flesh missing on the right side and half the brain scooped out.

  Zoe swallowed. She struggled to breathe.

  The rest of the remains were in three parts. The torso, which stretched from the collarbone to the pelvis and, remarkably, was intact expect for a gaping wound to the left side. The upper right arm was still attached, everything below the elbow gone. A segment of the left arm sat beside the torso: just the section around the elbow. The left leg was missing and of the right, there was only the section from just above the knee to the ankle bone. The skin was torn open and splintered bone protruded.

  “She was hit by multiple objects, mostly sharp, at high velocity,” Adana said.

  “Nails.”

  “Not just nails.” The pathologist pointed at the torso. “This gash here was caused by something jagged. See the edges?”

  Zoe nodded.

  “Parts of the unit that housed the bomb. There are fragments of fabric seared into the wounds, too.”

  “Have you found any of the bomb itself embedded in the body?”

  “Yes.” Adana took a jar down from a shelf. It held fragments of black plastic and sheared-off metal. “Give this to Adi Hanson.”

  “Adi’s working the airport. They’ve brought in another team for the station forensics. From East Midlands.”

  “That much to do, eh? Poor Adi.”

  “What about the other body? The negotiator?”

  “Inspector Ashanti Jameson. Good Ghanaian name. Come.”

  Adana led Zoe through a set of swing doors into a room where a second body lay on a
table. This one was more easily recognisable as human. The body was whole, pitted with scorch marks and incisions.

  “Most of the damage was caused by ignition of an explosive substance. It’s all on her back, but easier to see on this body,” the pathologist said.

  “Can you tell me what kind of explosive substance?”

  “Not a powder. We’d see a blast pattern if that was the case, kind of like magnified snowflakes. I think this was a plastic explosive.”

  “No traces of the explosive on either body?”

  “We’re running tissue tests. I’ll be able to tell you later if they find anything.’

  “Thanks.”

  Zoe gazed at the woman. Ashanti Jameson. Killed doing her job. The video footage would hopefully help them understand what had led up to that moment.

  “What’s happening with the bodies from the airport?” she asked.

  “We’ve set up a special facility there,” Adana told her. “There’s no way they’d fit here.” She sighed. “It never gets easier.”

  “No.”

  “First priority is to identify them all. They’re using dental records to help, although about a quarter of the victims had passports on them, which makes it easier. We’ll try DNA where necessary. But the chances of people being in the database are slim. Next priority is to look for evidence of one of them being responsible for the explosion. A detonator, explosives residue.”

  “I’m hoping Adi will be able to run DNA tests.”

  “What for?”

  “The area around the explosion. You never know, there might be traces.”

  “Good luck with that.”

  “Yeah.”

  Identifying the perpetrators wasn’t going to be easy. Zoe had to start with the woman whose body was laid out in pieces on Adana’s table. Who was she, and why had she sacrificed her life to terrorise the city?

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  DI Dawson slammed the door to the office. Mo flinched, along with DC Fran Kowalczyk at his side.

  “You heard the man,” Dawson said. “We’re on the airport. Fran, I want you to talk to the incident team. Get a full record of what happened yesterday, everything from start to finish. I’ll head over there, talk to the forensics people and the pathologist.”