by M. G. Cole
A few paces into the woods, and the snow came up to his knees, ruining yet another pair of shoes in the process. He used the torch on his phone to light the way, but concealed twigs and branches clawed at his trousers as he pushed between the trees. Twice he fell, swore, and picked himself up. Then he unexpectedly stepped out onto a quiet country road.
The snow hadn’t been cleared from Cheeseman’s Green Lane, and the tracks of a couple of vehicles indicated few people had been in a rush to use it even on the weekend. In the middle of the night, it would be deserted.
It would be the perfect way to slip in and out of the lorry park unnoticed.
18
Garrick was surprised to discover Fanta and Wilkes were in the incident room late on a Saturday night. In their civvies and sharing takeout as they ran through their case notes. Yesterday had been damaging to morale. Just as they felt on the verge of making a breakthrough, they had in fact got nowhere, and it grated the young team member’s pride. He also had the nagging feeling that he had walked in on a moment between them. PC Fanta Liu certainly was unusually reserved.
He glanced at her screen as he passed. She was focusing on Galina.
“I felt sorry for her. As if we’ve overlooked her a bit too much,” she explained.
They had, of course, Jamal was the immediate focus of the investigation and so far, the cases were related only by a few similarities, and if it wasn’t for the lead that had been offered by the refugees, then they wouldn’t even have her name.
“Anything popped?” he asked, logging into his computer and hanging his coat on the back of his chair.
“Sean and I went to Napier and asked a few more questions.”
Garrick cast a look at Sean. “Did you now, Wilkes? That was mighty enterprising of you.”
Wilkes didn’t look around, but his cheeks flushed with embarrassment.
PC Liu coughed to get Garrick’s attention back to topic. “She was undocumented, like Jamal. It made me think somebody was deliberately picking on them.”
“What do you mean?”
“The people on the fringe. The ones who won’t cause a stir if they go missing.” She shivered at the thought. “Think about how horrible it must be for your death to go completely unnoticed. I hope if I go, you lot will be in deep mourning for months. Maybe years.”
“I will be,” Wilkes called over from the board, where he was studying the faces of Thorpe, Mircea and Leon. “Who’ll make my coffee then?”
Fanta crumpled up a printout and threw it at his head. The perfect strike bounced off. She turned back to her boss as if that had been all perfectly normal.
“Something jumped out for me. Apparently she was a Christian.”
Garrick frowned. “I thought she was from Iraq?”
“They have Christians there. But yes, I thought it was surprising. So I was going to suggest we get some uniforms asking around churches. See if anybody recognises her.”
Garrick started hunting through the folders of digital evidence on his computer. Fanta tensed, fearing she was going to be reprimanded for something…
“You better watch your step, Pepsi–”
“Fanta.”
“Because if you keep this up, you might get headhunted off my team.”
“Maybe they’ll remember my name,” she muttered quietly. She didn’t notice the sly smile tugging Garrick’s lips as he played a video.
Silence filled the room as everybody settled into their own avenues of investigation. After thirty minutes, it was broken by Wilkes offering to make a drink for them all. Garrick declined but didn’t take his eyes off the screen.
“Ah-ha! Both of you come here and take a look at this.” Fanta rolled her chair over to his desk. Wilkes stood behind her, his hand gently on her shoulder – before he remembered himself and quickly removed it. They watched the video of Jamal exiting Mircea’s lorry and walking to the restaurant. “Did you see it?”
Wilkes and Fanta exchanged a puzzled look.
Garrick replayed the video full screen and tapped the truck’s windshield. “There, as she exits, the cab light comes on.” He played it again to prove his point.
“That’s what happens when you have a vehicle that works properly.” Fanta had seen the state of Garrick’s Land Rover.
“Now watch this.”
He selected another video clip and played it. It was the same camera, and Mircea’s truck hadn’t moved. Nothing happened. Then another truck appeared at the side of the screen as it reversed into a space. At the same time, a pair of drivers exited the restaurant and stood outside in the drizzle, smoking.
“Did you see it?”
“See what, exactly, sir?” Wilkes asked.
Garrick tutted and replayed that section of footage. “Eyes on Mircea’s truck.”
They saw the cab light come on, then go off seconds later.
“Somebody left the cab,” Garrick declared. He played it again. Wilkes pointed to the parking truck.
“I suppose it could be glare from this lorry’s headlights on the window.” But as he watched, it was obvious it couldn’t be that.
“Mircea could have been asleep inside and turned the light on for a moment,” Fanta offered.
Garrick stopped the footage as the light came on. It was too far, and the camera quality too poor, to make out details. He wished there was a way to enhance to footage like they did on TV, but the plain fact was, if the resolution wasn’t there to begin with, there was nothing to enhance.
“Yes, it’s possible he turned the light on briefly. But I think he left the cab from the passenger’s side. She climbed in on the driver’s side, it’s a continental cab don’t forget. And he hasn’t pulled any curtains across the windows, so the car park floodlights would be shining right in there, so he wouldn’t need a light.”
He described the broken fence and how it connected to the quiet back road.
“If you’re right, then why did she go there in the first place?” asked Fanta. “The door’s unlocked. Was he expecting her?”
“It’s a secure car park,” Garrick said thoughtfully. “So leaving it unlocked… especially if he was expecting her… I can believe that.” He scrubbed the footage to the moment Jamal arrived, eighty-seven minutes later, from the trucker’s theorised exit . “Except when she gets there, intending to tell him she’s going to turn herself into the authorities and ask for asylum, he’s not there. That robs her of power she was feeling at that moment. So now she waits inside, alone. But he doesn’t come back.”
Again he scrubbed the forwarded to the footage to Jamal exiting the cab and froze the image.
“So she didn’t have the argument she expected, and she feels cheated. Upset. She goes to see Thorpe and tells him. Then she’s off, maybe doing one last run for Thorpe. Meanwhile, Mircea is already out and about, and has the time to get to Castle Hill and kill her.”
Fanta held up her hand. Garrick sighed.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I just wanted to point out that if Mircea had slipped out onto the back road, it’s still a hell of a walk to get anywhere.”
“Unless he was meeting somebody who had wheels,” Wilkes said.
“Bloody hell,” Garrick murmured.
That meant they had either an accomplice missing from the picture, or an essential link was missing from their chain.
He left Fanta reviewing the rest of the footage, waiting for the cab light to come back on to signal Mircea’s return. In the meantime, he took the Romanian into the interview room and had to wait a good ninety minutes for his solicitor and translator to arrive so he could begin. The solicitor made noises about such a late interrogation. Perhaps it was the stress or fatigue, maybe it was the pressure of the case, but Garrick suspected it was because of his lousy date, his amiable facade was cast aside and he went straight in on the attack.
“I’m a little confused, Mircea. You told me Jamal was a prostitute. I find that difficult to believe for two reasons. One, what would a g
ay man want a girl for–”
“You can’t speculate on my client’s sexuality!” interjected the solicitor.
“I’m sorry, I was merely going from witnesses’ statements and the Grindr app he has on his phone.”
Mircea’s eyes narrowed as he stared at Garrick. “I am both. Bi.”
Garrick held up his hands apologetically. “Best of both worlds, nothing wrong with that. But what’s the term for when you’re not in your cab at all when your prostitute turns up? Is that tele-sex, or something?” Mircea checked with his translator that he’d heard correctly. It was a handy method to stall for time. Garrick deliberately interrupted and talked quickly.
“You understand me just fine, Mircea, so we can dispense with the theatrics. You knew Jamal was coming to talk to you. You had threatened time-and-time again to notify the authorities that she was here illegally, and when she finally–”
“Please!” cried the translator, “slow down. I can’t keep up.”
Garrick was relentless. “He understands just fine, don’t you, Mircea? You understand that Jamal was going to seek asylum and your hold on her was snatched away. So you decided to do something about it, didn’t you? You left before she arrived.” He searched Mircea’s eyes for any sign of acknowledgement. “Your cab light. It turns on when you open and shut the door. Even when you sneak out the passenger side, away from the cameras and through the hole in the fence.”
There! The cocky bastard’s flickered for a moment before he composed himself. For the sake of his solicitor and the audio recording, he gave a disparaging snort and leaned back in his chair, folding his arms. He was playing hardball now, but it confirmed everything Garrick needed to know.
Inadmissible as evidence, of course, but enough to put the investigation back on track. Garrick glanced at his phone as a text message popped up from PC Lui. The cab light had flashed again at five in the morning. Enough time for him to murder Jamal and make it back in time for breakfast.
“You must have been so tired that morning. Getting back at what time? Five? And then you were driving all day…”
Mircea’s jaw muscles were working overtime as he ground his teeth. Garrick was getting to him and couldn’t resist smugly smiling back, despite the fact he still didn’t have a confession.
Or real evidence.
19
The ringing phone woke him so suddenly that the jolt made him feel sick. He often found himself having to explain why he still had a landline when most people used their mobiles these days. He was tired of explaining that it came with the broadband package, and his mobile reception at home was almost non-existent.
“Yes?” Garrick croaked into the handset. His throat was dry and sore and he suspected that he was coming down with a cold after all his romping through the snow.
“Mister David Garrick, please.”
The American accent woke him up instantly. He groped for his mobile and saw it was one in the morning, 7pm Chicago time.
“Yes. This is me.” He rubbed his groggy eyes.
“I hope I’m not disturbing you. This is Sergeant Al Howard from Flora PD in Illinois. USA,” he added helpfully.
Now he recognised the voice. It was the same man who had called him up to report the tragic news. Since then, the good Sergeant had formed a kinship with his transatlantic partner and made sure that Garrick was updated as often as possible. Which hadn’t been much over the last month or so.
“No, not at all. I can talk.”
“We have a new development.” He paused, expecting a reaction, but Garrick knew better than to interrupt. “We discovered an abandoned automobile in Black Oak, Indiana. That’s about ninety miles east of us. It had rolled into a ditch, and the snow had pretty much covered it. We’re having a real bad winter over here.”
Again he paused. Garrick thought he better give a little “Uh-huh” of acknowledgment so Howard didn’t think they’d been cut off.
“There were traces of blood inside. CSI confirms that it’s your sister’s and one of the other missing victims.”
“Where? Where was the blood exactly?”
Garrick heard the rustle of papers. “Droplets in the trunk, but a majority on the backseat. An indication of steady bleeding. Hair and saliva found on the seat too.”
Garrick pictured the scene. “So she was alive while in the car?”
“Yes. Alive, or well, dying.”
“She’d been laid out on the backseat by the sound of it.”
“Uh, yes sir, that is our assessment.”
“What about forensic evidence around the car itself? Any indication of how many people had been inside? Where the driver went?”
“David,” the Sergeant said patiently, “the automobile had been there for three months now. Between the weather and the way it had been put in the ditch, we were lucky we found it at all. Any forensic evidence around the site will have been destroyed long ago.”
“I understand.” Although Garrick had known that, he was still irritated that the CSI team hadn’t at least tried to search the area. It would have been a waste of time, but it would have at least helped soothe his conscience. “You said the car had been ‘put there’? What do you mean?”
“It had a flat tyre. Somebody had tried to fix it until they noticed the spare was flat too. Then they rolled the vehicle into a ditch and made sure it was pretty well covered. I just wanted to update you on the status, but I’m afraid we don’t have more news than that. We plan to search the area with dogs, but the weather is against us, and I don’t think we’ll be able to do that for a couple of weeks.”
A couple of weeks. Somewhere out there, Emilie’s killer was enjoying the extended luxury of freedom. The thought turned his stomach and with it, brought on a pounding headache straight behind his left eyeball. He thanked Sergeant Al Howard for the update and hung up, before hurrying to the bathroom for a couple of Ibuprofen and paracetamol to tackle the pain.
It did little to help, and now he was wide awake. A state that would mean his Sunday was going to be a complete washout.
He tried to take on the new morning by tackling the fossil, which was still lying on the wooden workboard, on the kitchen table. Like his case, yesterday’s progress had been quite slow, but what little had been revealed was impressive. He hoped to have time – and the alertness – to remove it from the matrix by the end of the day. Then he could get on revealing the finer detail, which promised to be a lot more fun.
But his mind wasn’t playing ball.
The case was becoming a hydra of leads, most of which would inevitably be false trails and dead ends. His frustration was further compounded by being a mere spectator in his sister’s case.
If that wasn’t bad enough, he noticed a text message he’d received late last night evening from Wendy. A simple: thanks for an interesting lunch. Sorry I was distracted! A smiley face was the final piece of punctuation.
What the hell did that mean? Should he respond? What could he say? And the fact it would appear as if he’d waiting until the next day to reply would look terrible… wouldn’t it? The only three women he felt he could ask were all inappropriate for different reasons. Drury was his superior, even though they’d known each other for years, and he had been to her house on several occasions for dinner parties. He was only just getting to know Chib, so that felt wholly inappropriate. And asking Fanta was wrong for different reasons. She clearly hated the formality of the workplace, so would probably give him a direct and accurate answer, and then use it against him in a passive-aggressive way when she wanted something from him.
He knew he should go to the incident room, but the complete lack of sleep and the unflinching headache wouldn’t enhance his esteem amongst his team. From the emails bouncing around, Chib was in and up to speed from the previous day’s breakthroughs. She was competent enough without him slowing everybody down.
That made him think about his old DS. He still hadn’t heard from Eric Wilson since last month and hadn’t reached out to him since Dru
ry had told him he’d been seconded up north somewhere. He typed a short email saying that they should catch up soon and sent it into the ether.
The day rolled on and his headache receded. He made swift progress on the fossil, falling into an almost Zen-like state as he chipped the remaining matrix away. Now he could begin fine cleaning, but sleep finally caught up with him.
He catnapped until the early afternoon and woke with a feeling of restlessness. It hadn’t snowed today, but the temperature was low, aided by a nasty windchill, and his garden was still lost under a white blanket. He fished out his gloves, a long black scarf that had been a present from a favourite girlfriend, and selected a pair of stout walking boots. Then he set off to the incident room, arriving without needing a single one of the winter items.
Chib had left, and there was only Harry and PC Sean Wilkes left.
“Can’t keep you away from this place,” Garrick said as he passed Wilkes.
“It’s overtime, isn’t it, sir.”
“I knew there had to be a reason other upholding justice.”
“Well, that doesn’t pay as well as the other side, does it?”
Garrick joined Wilkes at the murder wall and stared at Mircea and Thorpe’s pictures, as if they might start uttering confessions.
“Mircea walks the end of tomorrow if we don’t get something on him.”
“What about Thorpe’s confession that he was getting the drunks from him?”
“As much as I hate to say it, it’s all circumstantial, isn’t it? There hasn’t been a whiff of narcotics found on his lorry. He claims that insulated stowage compartment was there when the company gave him the cab. And it’s clean as a whistle. The only forensics they found were Jamal’s, and he still claims she was there for sex.”
