Deadly Terror (Detective Zoe Finch Book 4)

by Rachel McLean

  “I was driven to the airport by Detective Superintendent Randle. We arrived at four twenty-one pm.”

  DS Kaur raised an eyebrow and wrote in her pad. Zoe wondered whether Randle would be questioned. He’d not gone near the tarmac, not once.

  “We went straight to the ops room, where we were briefed by DCI Donnelly, who was Silver Command. Then I—”

  DS Kaur raised a finger. “Wait. Tell me who else you spoke to at the ops room. Who was there.”

  “I don’t know all the names. But there will be a log. We had to sign in and out. The people I spoke with were DCI Donnelly, as I’ve mentioned, and there was a woman from airport security, I’d need to refer to my notes to recall her name. At the aeroplane I spoke to Dr Adebayo, and officers from West Midlands Fire Service.”

  “We’ll need names.”

  “Like I say, everyone will have been logged – but yes, if you let me go to my desk and fetch my notes—”

  “You can do that afterwards. Tell us what happened after you were briefed,” said Detective Superintendent Rogers.

  Zoe looked at him. “Detective Superintendent Randle told me to go to the plane. He wanted me to work with the fire service to preserve evidence. Then DS Osman arrived.”

  “He came after you?” Kaur asked. “He wasn’t driven there by Detective Superintendent Randle?”

  “He told me he’d had a call. That he’d been on a shopping trip with his family and come straight to the airport. He said that explained why he got there so quickly.”

  “DS Osman is part of your team, is that right?”

  “He was assigned to my team in November last year.”

  “So why didn’t you contact him and give him the order to come to the airport?”

  “To be honest, at that stage I didn’t know what the situation was. I didn’t even know there’d been an explosion when Randle told me to get in his car and come with him to the airport.”

  “So he knew but you didn’t?”

  “I’d been at the Force CID office in Harborne police station with my supervising officer, DCI Clarke. She was called away to the New Street bomb. At that point all I knew was that a bomb had exploded at the station. I knew nothing about the airport.”

  “OK. So you arrived at the airport, you were briefed, and you left the ops room to go to the site. Did DS Osman accompany you?”

  “He did. I asked him to help me secure the crime scene.”

  “It was still an active rescue operation at that point, is that right?” asked Rogers.

  “It was. I was hoping – well, I’d been told – to do what I could to prevent that rescue operation destroying evidence.”

  “Did you have access to the bodies that were being brought off the plane?” he said.

  Zoe closed her eyes, running through the events of Saturday afternoon in her head. It had all happened so fast.

  “I spoke to Dr Adebayo, the pathologist. She was already at the scene. I saw her again the next day when she performed the post-mortem on the New Street bomber and on Inspector Jameson.”

  “That’s not pertinent right now.” DS Kaur flipped over a sheet of paper and continued to write.

  “Will Dr Adebayo be interviewed as well? She isn’t a police officer.”

  “DI Finch,” said Rogers. “Did you see Dr Adebayo or anyone else placing anything on one of the bodies?”

  “I saw Dr Adebayo working on the bodies. She was instructing her team to match personal belongings to the bodies, as part of the identification effort.”

  “Did you see any of the pathology team leave anything on the body of” – DS Kaur flipped her pad back a few pages – “Nadeem Sharif?”

  “At that point I didn’t know who Mr Sharif was. We hadn’t identified him as a suspect. So I’m afraid I can’t tell you if I saw anyone with that body.”

  “You know what he looked like,” Kaur replied. “Did you see anybody tampering with a body that fitted his description?”

  “The man had been killed by debris from the crash. He sustained disfiguring injuries. I don’t remember seeing him, but I’m not sure I would have remembered. Especially as I wasn’t looking for his face in particular.”

  “Did you see DS Osman doing anything unusual?” Rogers asked.

  “Sorry, what do you mean by unusual?”

  “Touching any of the bodies, placing anything at the scene.”

  Zoe shuffled her feet beneath the table. “DS Osman and I weren’t together all of the time. I went to the plane. I tried to get access, but it was impossible. Then I returned to the location where the bodies were being placed. He was…”

  She felt ice run down her back.

  “Go on,” said Rogers.

  “He… I need to make sure I’m remembering this correctly. He was crouched over, near the bodies. I didn’t see him touch any of them. I didn’t see him place anything at the scene.”

  “So you saw him crouched next to the bodies. Did he spot you watching him?”

  “I wasn’t watching him. But yes, he saw me approach. He walked to where I was standing and I brought him up to speed with my progress on the plane, or lack of it.”

  “Did he behave suspiciously?”

  Zoe tried to cast her mind back to Ian’s face when she’d approached him on the tarmac. “No,” she said. “He was just looking at the bodies, talking to Dr Adebayo. It was a crime scene, he was part of the investigating team.”

  “Except it wasn’t an investigation at that stage,” Rogers said.

  “We knew it would be. The sooner you can start collecting evidence, the better.”

  “I don’t need you to tell me how to manage a crime scene, DI Finch.”

  “That wasn’t my intention.”

  Zoe sat back in her chair. She wondered what Carl was asking Ian.

  She knew Ian was bent. She knew he had connections with organised crime, and that he’d had work done on his house as payment. She knew Carl had given him a deal that let him keep his job in return for spying on Randle.

  But this was a terror attack. Why would Ian be involved in this?

  “Are you sure you didn’t see anything else untoward?” DS Kaur asked. She’d closed her notepad and was looking into Zoe’s eyes, her gaze steady.

  Zoe nodded. “I’m sure.”

  Chapter Sixty

  Sofia crept along the rear corridor of the hotel, her footsteps quiet and her movements small. She’d found an unlocked basement window at ground level and slithered in through it, terrified there would be someone inside waiting for her.

  She’d landed in a laundry room, washing machines humming and steam rising at the windows. She’d taken a few minutes to catch her breath and calm her racing mind, then headed out into the corridors.

  The hotel was quiet. She could hear faint voices on the floor above but there was no one down here.

  Still, she had to be careful. The basement could be the busiest part of the building, where staff offices were, maybe kitchens.

  She came to a flight of stairs. They were covered in a dark red carpet worn by many years’ worth of footsteps. She could smell cooking, but nothing that made her want to eat.

  She placed a foot on the bottom step. The surface beneath the carpet was concrete: silent. She walked up to the half landing, her movements steady. She hardly dared to breathe.

  She stopped to look up and round the bend in the stairs, towards the ground floor. She was facing the main door to the hotel, where her boyfriend had presumably gone in.

  If he found her here, what would he do? Could she pretend Andreea had invited her?

  No. He’d been with them all night. And she never went out without one of his men driving her. She couldn’t be here.

  She had to be quick. She tiptoed up the rest of the stairs and pulled herself round to the next flight. It would be safer on the upper floors, less likely that Titi had an office up here.

  At the first floor she stopped. She could hear women’s voices approaching.

  She froze as sh
e heard a mobile phone ring along the corridor. She pushed herself into the wall, her chest rising and falling. She stared in the direction the sound had come from.

  A woman came out of a door, a phone clamped to her ear. She shoved it into her pocket as she saw Sofia. “What is it?”

  Sofia’s throat was dry. “I’m looking for Andreea,” she said in Romanian.

  The woman smiled. “She’s out. Working.”

  “Oh.” Sofia felt the anticipation drain from her body.

  “She’ll be back later tonight. You want me to give her a message?”

  “Tell her Sofia was here. Tell her I need to speak to her.”

  “You won’t get much chance to speak to her, iubită. They work her hard. They do that with the new ones.”

  “What work does she do?” Sofia looked along the corridor behind her, scared Titi might hear her.

  “Same as all of us. Hospitality.” The woman’s face was hard. She was young, in her twenties. She’d be pretty, if she didn’t look so angry.

  “She works in the hotel?”

  The woman laughed. “You’re not from around here, are you?” She cocked her head. “Come to think of it, who are you?”

  “Sofia. I’m Andreea’s sister.”

  The woman’s eyes widened. “You need to get out of here. Now.”

  “Why?”

  “Just go. I can’t have them finding me with you.”

  “I don’t understand…”

  The woman put a palm on Sofia’s chest and pushed her backwards. “Cristina!” She called. “Daria! Help me get rid of this bitch.”

  Sofia stared back at the woman. “You don’t know me. What did I do to you?”

  “You damn well know what you did. You ruined your sister’s life, and all of ours, is what you did. Now get out, before I scream the place down.”

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Zoe walked back into the team room, her body full of tension.

  “Boss,” said Connie. She exchanged glances with Rhodri. “It’s good to see you.”

  “Thanks.” Zoe blew out a short breath. “How are you getting on with our mystery man and woman?”

  “Are you alright, boss? They don’t think you…?” said Rhodri.

  She waved a hand. “Let’s not talk about it. I’m here, and we’ve got an investigation to focus on. How are you getting on?”

  Connie grinned. “Good news. I’ve found the woman this account is registered to.”

  “Go on.”

  “She’s Romanian. Name of Ana-Maria Albescu. She came to this country three months ago.”

  “And she’s a friend of the bomber?”

  “They were sharing photos. I guess they must have been.”

  “Excellent work, Connie. We need to track her down.”

  “She was fined two weeks ago for soliciting.”

  “She’s a sex worker?”

  “She was picked up on Macauley Street.”

  “That’s the street Mo’s been watching.”

  “You think it was the sarge who picked her up?”

  “Can you check the records?”

  “Yes.” Connie stuck her tongue out as she checked the system.

  “No, boss. She was arrested by PC Battar. Not DS Uddin.”

  “OK. But if she was working Macauley Street…”

  “You got an idea, boss?” said Rhodri.

  “I might have. But I need to talk to Mo.”

  Zoe turned on her heel and all but ran out of the door.

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Zoe crashed into Mo coming out of his office.

  “Zo. Everything OK?” He looked worried.

  “We’ve got a lead on the New Street bomber that I think’s connected to your prostitution investigation.”

  “Slow down. What?”

  “Were you aware that one of the woman working Macauley Street was fined two weeks ago?”

  “Local uniform stopped a few of them. We had to speak to their station, tell them to leave it alone.”

  “An Ana-Maria Albescu. She was a friend of the woman who set off the New Street bomb.”

  “What? How?”

  Zoe shrugged. “It might be irrelevant. But it’s the best chance we’ve got of identifying our bomber.”

  “OK. You want me to look into it?”

  She hesitated. She’d been given the job of identifying the suspect. But if PS thought she’d been involved in planting evidence…

  “Let’s go together,” she said.

  He sighed. “I can’t. Not now. I’m off to the airport with Fran.”

  “Of course. Sorry.”

  “We’re looking into the gate that was cut though. Dawson reckons whoever did it might been involved int he attack.”

  “But the bomb was already on the plane.”

  “I need to talk to Adi and the Fire Service people, check there isn’t a chance it was planted later.”

  “That would change everything.”

  “It might mean that whoever placed the bomb also planted the evidence on Sharif,” Mo said.

  Zoe felt her spirits lift. “You’re right.” It was a long shot, but it was a possibility.

  He nodded. “I’ve got to go. Let me know how you get on with Ana-Maria, yeah?”

  “Yeah. And you with the airport.”

  “Let’s hope so.”

  She watched him leave then headed back to the team room.

  “Connie, what address did Ms Albescu give when she was fined?”

  “27 Curton Road, boss.”

  “Shit.”

  “What?”

  “That’s Mo’s brothel. The one that was emptied.” Zoe threw herself into Ian’s chair. He still wasn’t back from his interview with Carl.

  “We have no way of finding her,” she sighed. “Damn.” She punched the desk.

  “It’s OK,” said Connie. “I’ve got her phone number.”

  “You’ve got what?” Zoe stood up. She went to Connie’s desk. Rhodri was next to her, grinning.

  “She’s a bloody genius, boss, isn’t she?”

  “Sometimes she is Rhod, yes. How long have you had this for, Connie?”

  “I got it while you were with the sarge just now.”

  “Good. Give it to me.”

  Connie read out a number and Zoe punched it into her phone.

  “Stop,” said Connie.

  Zoe hung up. “What?”

  “She’s a sex worker. She won’t talk to you.”

  “So how am I supposed to get hold of her?”

  “I’ll track down the phone provider. See if we can get an address.”

  “That’ll be Curton Street.”

  “It might be registered to her pimp.”

  “Or it might be unregistered.”

  Connie shrugged. “It’s worth a go.”

  “How long will it take?”

  Connie glanced at her watch. “It won’t be today.”

  Zoe gritted her teeth. So close…

  “Right,” she said. “Rhodri, you come with me.”

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  “Where we going?” Rhodri asked as he buckled his seatbelt.

  “Curton Street.”

  “But the sarge said it was empty.”

  “It’s the only lead we’ve got. I want to check it out. Call Sheila Griffin, find out if we can get access.”

  “Boss.” He pulled his phone from his pocket.

  It was almost dark and the streets were busy: rush hour. Nicholas would be home already. Zoe hoped he planned to go out, spend time with Zaf instead of his alcoholic grandmother.

  Rhodri sniffed. “No answer, boss.”

  “Probably for the best,” Zoe said. “Leave it.”

  “Er, OK. Watch out!” Rhodri threw a hand up as Zoe almost hit a car that had pulled out of a side road. She gritted her teeth as it braked and she wove around it. She glared at the driver. “People need to look where they’re going.”

  “You are driving pretty fast, if you don’t mind me saying.”r />
  “We’re in the middle of a terror investigation, Rhodri. I need to drive fast.”

  “Maybe put the lights on?”

  She shook her head. “It isn’t an emergency.”

  He turned to look out of the windscreen, saying nothing. She slowed a little.

  The brothel was quiet, curtains open and no movement in the windows. Zoe pulled up across the street and sat low in the driver’s seat.

  “What now?” asked Rhodri.

  Zoe looked up and down the street. An elderly couple shuffled along the opposite side carrying shopping bags. They paused while the woman put one of her bags down, rested then picked it up again. Other than that, there was no one around.

  “Let’s take a look,” Zoe said.

  “We haven’t been given access.”

  “I’m not going inside.”

  She opened her door and hurried across the street, stopping behind a hedge. Rhodri was still in the car. She waved to beckon him over.

  “Come on,” she muttered. “We’re only taking a look.”

  After a few moments of looking up and down the street, he left the car and joined her. He looked nervous, his eyes darting between the houses.

  “What next?” he asked.

  “Follow me.”

  She rounded the hedge and walked to the house’s front corner, stopping next to the wall where no one inside would be able to see her.

  “It’s empty, boss. No one’s going to see us.”

  “They might have come back. No one’s been here since Sunday night.”

  “OK.”

  “Now shush.”

  She rounded the side of the building. There was an alleyway between this and the next house, with a gate blocking their way. Quietly, Zoe tried the latch. It opened.

  “People really should be more security conscious,” she muttered. Rhodri nodded, his eyes wide.

  They crept along the alleyway. It was dark with litter piled up at the sides: beer cans, crumpled newspaper, cigarette butts. At the end were two more gates. One to the brothel’s back yard, and the other to the neighbour’s.

  Zoe pushed at the gate to the brothel’s side. It opened. She shook her head.

  “Maybe uniform bust it open when they searched the place,” Rhodri said.