Sofia stiffened. “I do not know.”
“If he’s not at home, and he’s not at the hotel, surely there must be somewhere he would go.”
“He not tell me much.”
“Do you have his mobile number?”
“Only his men. I call Kyle if I need lift anywhere. Trevor call me from phone that does not leave number.”
Damn. Zoe had been hoping a little kindness might encourage Sofia to give her boyfriend up.
“I am sorry. I want to help.”
“That’s OK.” Zoe pulled in at the hospital, not envying Sofia for what she was about to do.
Chapter Ninety-Five
Friday
Zoe sat in the modern interview room on the fifth floor of Lloyd House. She’d put on her best shirt and jacket for this, and brushed her hair.
Detective Superintendent Rogers and DS Kaur sat opposite her. They had a file open in front of them. Next to Zoe was Inspector Jane Keele, her Federation rep.
“We’ve spoken to the other professionals who were at the airport when the bodies were being brought off the plane,” said Rogers. “We have a statement from Dr Adebayo saying she saw DS Osman tampering with one of the bodies.”
“Tampering?” Zoe asked. “How, exactly?”
“You told us in your earlier statement that you didn’t see him doing anything untoward.”
“No,” she replied. “I saw him near the bodies, and I assumed he was examining them. But I didn’t see him touch any of them.”
“You’re sure about that?”
“Positive.”
Rogers folded his arms across his chest. “Sergeant Osman is a member of your team, DI Finch. We have the pathologist saying she witnessed him touching one of the bodies, yet you say you saw nothing. You also say you weren’t aware of him making a phone call to the address at Jarman Road when your unit was on its way to raid that address.”
“We drove there separately. I think he made the call on the way.”
Rogers cocked his head. “That’s very convenient.”
Zoe felt her pulse race. “Not for me it isn’t, sir. With respect, do you think I enjoy calling Uniform in to arrest one of my own team? And DS Osman would have taken steps to ensure I didn’t see him doing anything untoward. He knows that I know about his previous illegal activity.”
“He claims he was working undercover the whole time, that he did the bidding of the organised crime group in order to gain their trust. Did you see any evidence of that?”
“I was aware of DS Osman’s work, and the fact that he was working with officers from Professional Standards. I didn’t get involved in that, and I didn’t consider it my business to interfere.”
“So you turned a blind eye to your own team member working with the organisation you were investigating?”
“With respect, sir.” Zoe licked her lips. “At the airport we believed it was a terror attack. We had no idea that organised crime were involved in this, and so it didn’t occur to me that Ian might be involved. And far from turning a blind eye, I was the one who called him in.”
DS Kaur passed a document to Rogers. He eyed it.
“This is the phone record from DS Osman’s police issue mobile phone on Wednesday. Do you recognise this number here?” He pointed to a line and turned it towards Zoe.
“I assume that’s the hotel.”
“No. This one is the hotel.” Rogers pointed to the line immediately below it.
Zoe shook her head. “Then I have no idea what that number is.”
“It’s an unregistered mobile phone. We were able to identify the mast that number was using at the time of this call, and it was in Harborne. Near to the Force CID offices.” He blinked at her.
“I’m not sure what you’re implying.” Zoe glanced at her rep.
“Could DS Osman have called you before he called the hotel?”
“DS Osman and I were both in Harborne station at that time. But we spoke face to face. If he wanted to tell me anything, he could have done it there, or at the hotel when we met. I can’t see any reason he would have tried to call me, and that isn’t my phone number.”
“You don’t use an unregistered mobile number for personal activity?”
“No, sir.”
“Very well.” Rogers pulled the file back across the table. “You’re free to go.”
Zoe felt her stomach relax. “I’m not under suspicion?”
“We don’t have any evidence to suggest you were working with DS Osman.”
“That’s because there isn’t any.”
“But you’ve been close to a lot of this kind of thing, DI Finch. You’ve worked closely with DS Osman, and we believe you might be hiding information about another colleague.”
“Which colleague?”
“I’m not in a position to say. But you seem to attract this kind of thing. Is that a coincidence, or should we be worried?”
“It’s a coincidence, sir.”
“Very well. Keep your nose clean from now on, will you?”
“Of course, sir.”
Zoe stood and waited to be dismissed, then hurried down to the basement car park, her heart pounding against her ribcage. She couldn’t believe that by investigating her suspicions about colleagues, she’d brought herself into the line of fire.
She approached her car and pressed the button on her remote. The indicator lights blipped and a figure appeared from behind a pillar.
“Bloody hell, Carl, you startled me.”
“Sorry. Didn’t want Rogers thinking I was chasing after you.”
“Do they think I’m involved, Carl? Do you think I’m involved?”
He shook his head. “You know I don’t think that, Zoe.”
“But what about your boss? Does he think I’m bent? Am I going to have to keep looking behind me, in case I’ve got PS on my tail?”
“Not if you’ve got nothing to hide.”
She clenched her fists. “You know I’ve got nothing to hide.”
“Exactly.” He took a sharp breath. “So are we going to get that curry sometime then?”
She put a hand on her car. “Not just yet, Carl. Some other time.”
She yanked the door open, gunned the gas and drove off before she had the time to change her mind.
Chapter Ninety-Six
Zoe walked straight through the team room and into her office, her feet heavy. Connie and Rhodri looked up from their desks and exchanged worried looks.
Zoe sat in her chair and spun it round so they couldn’t see her face. She wanted to punch the wall, or scream.
Not if you don’t have anything to hide.
How could Carl talk to her like that? How could he go from I love you to I think you might be bent in the space of weeks?
She would prove him wrong. But she knew that the harder she tried to do that, the less likely he would be to drop his suspicions.
The door opened and she span round. “Sorry, folks, but can you give me a—”
Lesley stood in the doorway, hands on hips. “You sending me away?”
“Sorry, ma’am.” Zoe rearranged her face. “What can I do for you?”
“You get on OK at Lloyd House?”
“I’m off the hook, if that’s what you mean. For now.”
Lesley raised an eyebrow.
“It’s OK,” said Zoe. “I’m being paranoid.”
“So, we’ve charged Gatiss and Fulmer. The woman too, Sheena McDonald. She still insists the place belongs to her, I want you going through the legal documents to find any evidence that it doesn’t.”
“Happy to.”
“Still can’t find bloody Trevor Hamm though.”
“The others won’t tell you?”
Lesley barked out a laugh. “Even in prison they know he can get to them.”
“Maybe Ian will know.”
“Ian has told PS he has no idea where the man is. And for once, I believe the little runt.”
Zoe nodded. “I sent Connie to the school the kids we
re supposed to be on exchange with. They’re organising for them to go home, or for their parents to come for them.”
“Poor buggers.”
“Yeah.” Zoe dropped her head. Five of the children had escaped without being abused, but the virginity of the two oldest girls had been sold for a high price. Fulmer, Gatiss and McDonald would pay dearly for that. Especially McDonald, she imagined. Juries didn’t look kindly on women who did this kind of thing. Fulmer and Gatiss wouldn’t get off easily, though, especially if they found themselves on the wrong end of a murder charge for their involvement in the two bombings. Which was, she knew, far from certain. For all the work they’d done, there were still a lot of unanswered questions, and from the sound of it, Fulmer and Gatiss weren’t going to be helping answer them.
“We need to find Hamm,” Zoe said. “Or he’ll be back in a few months starting the whole thing all over again.”
“I want you liaising with Sheila Griffin. Share any intelligence you have with her. Someone will be hiding him. We have to find out who that someone is. We have to find out who blew up that plane and what the connection with Hamm was.”
“You still don’t think Hamm did it?”
“Get a bomb on a plane? In Karachi? No, Zoe, I don’t. That sounds like the work of the kind of people who might have wanted Umar Abidi dead back home. Not that Hamm wasn’t involved.”
“Ma’am,” replied Zoe. It did make sense. The Trevor Hamm she knew wouldn’t be likely to pull off something like that, but he wouldn’t hesitate to take advantage of it if he could.
Lesley pulled out a chair and sat down. She yawned. “Did Rogers tell you Ian’s been charged with perverting the course of justice?”
“No surprise there.” Zoe was relieved she wasn’t being investigated along with him.
“Means you’ve got a vacancy in your team.”
Zoe looked through the glass partition at the two constables. “You plan to promote one of them?”
Lesley followed her gaze. Connie and Rhodri sat at their desks, eyes on their computer screens but hands not moving on their keyboards or mice.
“Good God no,” said Lesley. “I’ve got a much better idea.” She pushed the door to the inner office door open and placed two fingers between her teeth. She whistled, making Connie almost fall out of her chair.
The door to the outer office opened and Mo walked in.
Lesley turned back towards Zoe. “Your new DS. Will he do?”
Zoe stood up, smiling at Mo. He spoke to each of the constables in turn then came into the office.
“He’ll do just fine,” Zoe said.
Chapter Ninety-Seven
Sunday
Sofia closed her eyes as the plane took off. Three rows behind were two women she recognised. She’d seen them at the hotel, when she’d been looking for Andreea.
The plane shuddered as the landing gear was retracted. She gripped the armrests, forcing herself to breathe in and out. Images of the Wizz Air plane invaded her mind. The children who’d followed her. The one who’d run off to join her friends. The two she’d picked out at random. What they’d been through, because of her.
She still didn’t know why she’d been told to find those particular children. There had been plenty of them on the plane, thirty maybe. But Trevor’s men, and by extension Trevor, knew which ones they wanted.
She shivered and pulled her coat tighter around herself. She still wore the white cashmere coat, the one Trevor had given her. She’d been given the opportunity to go back to the house and collect her things. But none of it had been hers: it was all Trevor’s. No matter how expensive it all was, she wanted none of it. She’d give this coat away as soon as she arrived in Bucharest.
She wiped away a tear, thinking of her parents. They wouldn’t be waiting at the airport, they couldn’t afford luxuries like travel to the city. She would have to take a bus. The UK authorities had arranged for Andreea’s body to be transported separately. She would be arriving a week after Sofia.
Andreea leaned on the cold window and wiped her face. She had spoken to her mother, told her she was coming home. She hadn’t told her about Andreea: she wanted to do that in person. The thought of it made her blood run cold.
The farm would be unchanged. Drab, dusty, and poor. The life she’d worked so hard to escape. But there were people there who loved her, and who needed her. She blinked back tears and thought of the dogs, her family’s three Alsatians. They would be delighted to see her. They would search for Andreea for a while, sniff her on Sofia’s clothes. But they would soon forget.
She, on the other hand, would never forget how stupid she had been.
Chapter Ninety-Eight
Zoe slammed the car door and went to open the boot. She pulled out three plastic bags containing her mum’s belongings, most of which had been acquired in the last week.
Nicholas opened the passenger door and helped his gran out. Zoe eyed the pair of them. Nicholas was too soft on her.
Annette shook off his hand. “I’m not an old codger yet. Perfectly capable of walking on my own.”
“Sorry, Gran.”
Zoe grimaced. Be nice to him, she thought. He was only being kind.
She dragged the carrier bags to the front door and waited for Annette to follow with her key. Annette turned it in the lock and pushed the door open. Junk mail and red bills had piled up behind it in the week she’d been gone.
A curtain moved in the house next door: a young Asian woman. The city was still reeling from the attacks. Randle had held a press conference informing the public that organised criminals and not terrorists were responsible. But racially motivated attacks had increased.
“Come on in, girl.” Annette fumbled in a chest of drawers in the hallway. Zoe froze: was she looking for booze? As far as Zoe knew, her mother hadn’t touched a drop while she’d been at her house.
Annette caught her daughter watching her. She glared at her and brought a purse out of a drawer, waving it in Zoe’s face.
“You don’t trust me, do you?”
“Can you blame me?”
Annette harrumphed and went into the kitchen. Zoe resisted pinching her nose at the smell of dirty crockery and the overflowing bin. Nicholas stepped in front of his grandmother and started to tidy up.
Zoe watched him, torn between an urge to stop him and pride in her son. When no hot water came out of the tap, he boiled a kettle.
“Fancy a cuppa, Mum?” he said. “Gran, you must have coffee somewhere.”
“No thanks,” said Zoe. Annette curled her lip.
“You stay for a bit, eh Nicholas?” Annette said. “Help your old gran get this place into shape?”
Nicholas looked at Zoe. “I won’t be too long. Stay and help.”
“I’ve got a meeting.”
“It’s Sunday.”
“People don’t stop committing crimes cos it’s the weekend, you know.”
She leaned towards Nicholas and gave his arm a squeeze. “Watch her, OK?”
He nodded.
“Bye, love.” Annette gave her a challenging look.
“Bye, Mum.” Zoe let her mum kiss her on the cheek, resisting an urge to wipe it.
She walked out of the house, kicking aside the unopened post. It went back for a month. She hurried to her car and opened the driver’s door, grabbing her phone as she did so.
“Zo. Everything alright?”
“Yeah. Look, I know it’s your day with your family and all that…”
“Catriona’s taken the girls shopping for dresses. I made an excuse.”
Zoe laughed. “That’s alright then.”
“You need me to come into work?”
“No, Mo. But I can’t stop thinking about the New Street bomb. The woman in the green headscarf. I want to find out who she is, and I want to find Hamm. I thought we could make a start together.”
“Cat bought some new coffee beans yesterday. Peruvian roast. She thought you’d like it.”
“Perfect. Give me ten minu
tes.”
Read Zoe’s prequel story, Deadly Origins
It’s 2003, and Zoe Finch is a new Detective Constable. When a body is found on her patch, she’s grudgingly allowed to take a role on the case.
But when more bodies are found, and Zoe realises the case has links to her own family, the investigation becomes deeply personal.
Can Zoe find the killer before it’s too late?
Find out by reading Deadly Origins for FREE at rachelmclean.com/origins.
Thanks,
Rachel McLean
Read the DI Zoe Finch Series
Deadly Wishes, DI Zoe Finch Book 1
Deadly Choices, DI Zoe Finch Book 2
Deadly Desires, DI Zoe Finch Book 3
Deadly Terror, DI Zoe Finch Book 4
Deadly Reprisal, DI Zoe Finch Book 5
Deadly Origins, the FREE Zoe Finch prequel
Copyright © 2020 by Rachel McLean
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Ackroyd Publishing
Deadly Terror (Detective Zoe Finch Book 4) Page 26
