Conspiracy

by Adrian Wills

  Parkes shrugged. ‘Beats me.’

  ‘You must have formed an opinion.’

  ‘Not my job to form opinions. Apparently I’m just the chauffeur. You’ll have to ask the boss.’

  ‘Right,’ said Blake.

  Parkes swerved to avoid a pothole but saw it too late. A jarring crack reverberated through the vehicle. ‘Shit,’ she hissed, grimacing in pain as they were jolted in their seats. ‘There’s a bottle of pills in my bag. Can you pass them to me?’ she said, gesturing with her hand.

  Blake found her handbag by his feet. The pills were right at the bottom in a pink plastic bottle. ‘Tramadol?’ he said, reading the label. ‘How long have you been taking these?’

  ‘None of your business.’ She snatched the bottle from him, unscrewed the lid with her teeth and tipped two white pills into the palm of her hand, swallowing them with a sip of water from a bottle.

  ‘They’re pretty powerful pain killers.’

  ‘For my back.’ Parkes tossed the pills back in her bag. ‘So why are the Home Office so interested in this case?’

  ‘Home Office?’ said Blake.

  She glanced at him and frowned. ‘They said you’d been sent by the Home Office to oversee the investigation. Checking up on us?’

  ‘No, nothing like that,’ said Blake. ‘It’s standard procedure in military AWOL cases.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Don’t worry about me. I’m just here to observe.’ God knows what line Patterson had spun.

  ‘Come on. Who are you really? I don’t buy that bullshit.’

  ‘It’s true.’

  ‘You’re military, aren’t you?’ said Parkes, sneaking another glance at Blake as the road opened up onto moorland. Clumps of spiky gorse bushes among verdant patches of bracken peppered the landscape, and in the distance dark, menacing hills skirted the horizon.

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘You’ve got the look. You’re certainly not what I was expecting.’

  ‘Which was what?’ asked Blake.

  ‘I don’t know, a guy in a suit and tie, I suppose.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘I thought you civil servants were all the same, straight out of Eton and Cambridge with a stick up your arses and an aversion to sunlight.’

  Blake smirked. ‘That’s a bit of a sweeping generalisation.’

  ‘But you don’t look like a desk jockey.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’

  Parkes shrugged. ‘Whatever. So what’s the story?’

  Blake ignored the question. ‘What do you make of Hopkins’ wife?’

  ‘Claire?’ Parkes screwed up her face. ‘She’s another one with something to hide, but I don’t think she’s involved in her husband’s disappearance.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. Women’s intuition, I suppose. But you can make your own mind up soon enough. She’s due to give a press conference at lunchtime.’

  ‘What about Hopkins’ car? I was wondering if it’s possible he drove onto the moor to meet someone?’

  ‘Look,’ said the detective with a sigh, ‘I don’t know any more than you. Speak with the guv. He’ll bring you up to speed with all our lines of inquiry.’

  ‘What’s your hunch?’ Blake pressed. He was keen on hearing from an officer in the trenches before he was fed the official line.

  ‘I don’t know what’s happened to Kyle Hopkins. I expect he’ll turn up in his own time with a sob story for his wife about how he needed some time alone. Men are all the same.’

  They dropped off the moor and into the outskirts of Tavistock, a bustling market town built on the banks of a fast-flowing river. Parkes pulled up alongside two marked police cars outside a grand, granite building in the market square.

  ‘This is the police station?’

  Parkes yanked on the handbrake and killed the engine. ‘Apparently the second oldest in Britain,’ she said. She took Blake through a reception area and swiped open a heavy wooden door that led to a back staircase. They climbed to the first floor and followed a narrow corridor, but never made it to the incident room. A broad-shouldered middle-aged man in shirt sleeves chatting with a younger woman stepped out from one of the side offices and almost bumped into them.

  ‘Guv,’ said Parkes, ‘this is Tom Blake.’ The man, whose full head of hair and neatly trimmed beard were almost completely grey, raised an eyebrow. ‘Down from London?’

  ‘Right, welcome,’ he said, shaking Blake’s hand with a sweaty palm. ‘DI Steve Hubbard. Good to have you with us, although I’m not quite sure why the interest.’

  ‘I’m only here to observe. Don’t let me get in the way,’ said Blake, with a smile.

  ‘Well, make yourself comfortable. You’ve arrived at an opportune moment.’ Hubbard puffed up his chest like a young army officer passing out on the parade ground at Sandhurst. ‘We’ve made a bit of a breakthrough. Come through to my office and I’ll bring you up to speed.’

  Chapter Ten

  Hubbard sat behind a desk swathed in paperwork. He loosened his tie and folded his hands in his lap while Blake pulled up a chair and Parkes hovered by the door.

  ‘I’m curious. Why do MI5 have an interest in this case?’ Hubbard asked with a glint of intrigue in his eye.

  ‘We believe there’s a chance Kyle Hopkins’ disappearance is terror related,’ Blake said, sensing Parkes bristle behind him. He shouldn’t have lied to her.

  Hubbard pulled a face and sucked in his cheeks. ‘I think that’s highly unlikely.’

  ‘Based on what?’

  ‘My experience of these types of cases. I know human behaviour and I think it’s more likely we’ll be looking at either a major fraud or a murder by the end of the week.’ Hubbard rocked back in his chair with a smug air of self-satisfaction.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘As I said, years of experience.’

  ‘You suspect his wife?’ asked Blake.

  ‘It’s an active line of enquiry. Elodie, could you make some coffee? How do you take it?’ he asked Blake.

  ‘Black, no sugar. Thanks.’

  Hubbard shot the junior detective an expectant smile. ‘Go on, then. Hurry along.’

  Parkes sighed, pushed herself off the wall and disappeared out of the office, slamming the door behind her. Hubbard rolled his eyes.

  ‘You were going to tell me why you suspect Claire Hopkins.’

  Hubbard dived into the paperwork on his desk and pulled out a wad of bank statements from a cardboard file. ‘The Hopkins’ are up to their eyes in debt.’

  Blake glanced over the numbers. He didn’t need to be an accountant to see that Claire and Kyle Hopkins were struggling financially. Their overdraft had been steadily rising for months and together with their credit card bills, they owed well over fifteen thousand pounds.

  ‘And yet Claire Hopkins never mentioned it when we spoke to her,’ said Hubbard. ‘In fact she denied outright they had any money worries, and yet it appears the bank was so concerned it began legal proceedings against them a year or so ago. Somehow Hopkins managed to pay off a big chunk of it before they lost the house but look at the numbers. They’re living way beyond their means and the debts are mounting again.’

  ‘How much did he pay off?’

  ‘About twenty-five grand.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘God knows. A family loan? A timely inheritance? The point is, they’re as good as insolvent, and in danger of losing the house for a second time.’

  ‘So what are you suggesting?’

  ‘Either Claire Hopkins has murdered her husband, or more likely they’ve colluded to fake his death. If Kyle Hopkins is dead, or believed to be dead, she stands to inherit a hefty army pension, plus there’s the life insurance which wipes out those debts and the mortgage.’

  Blake shook his head. ‘Is that seriously what you think’s going on here?’ He laid the statements on the desk, unconvinced it proved anything. ‘Tell me about the last time Hopkins was seen a
live.’

  Hubbard shrugged. ‘He left work at about six-thirty. A couple of hours later he was seen drinking in the Tavistock Inn, one of his regular haunts. Staff at the pub remember he took a call at around nine o’clock and left soon after. No one saw him after that.’

  ‘What about CCTV?’ asked Blake.

  ‘This is Tavistock, not New York.’

  ‘There must have been a camera somewhere in the town that picked him up after the pub?’

  ‘Sure, he was seen on a couple of cameras in the high street walking to his car he’d left parked by the river. And we have him driving out of the car park just after nine. That’s it.’ Parkes crashed into the office carrying three steaming mugs of coffee. She banged two of them down hard on the desk. Hubbard shot her a disparaging stare. ‘His mobile phone records show he drove straight onto the moor, and as you know, his car was found abandoned the next morning after his wife reported he hadn’t returned home. Strangely, he’d left the vehicle unlocked and his phone was on the passenger seat.’

  ‘Who called him at the pub?’

  Hubbard shook his head. ‘The call was made from a pre-paid phone, so no trace of the caller.’

  Blake sat up a little straighter in his chair, intrigued. ‘So it’s possible someone contacted him and arranged to meet him on the moor, someone who wanted to cover their tracks?’

  ‘Possibly, but I think it’s unlikely,’ said Hubbard.

  ‘Of course it might have been his wife. Did you ask her?’

  ‘She denies knowing anything.’

  Blake scratched his chin. If Hubbard’s thinking was right, and this was nothing but a domestic fraud, he could be on his way to Patterson’s holiday home for a decent couple of week’s R&R by the weekend. And yet, something wasn’t quite adding up in his head. ‘Hopkins is an instructor at a military school nearby, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yeah, they run short survival courses for the military; camping under the stars and skinning rabbits. That sort of thing.’

  ‘Did his wife mention whether he had any problems at work? Stress? Anxiety?’

  ‘No, and before you ask, the CO of the school is as surprised as anyone that Kyle’s vanished.’

  ‘How was his mood the day he disappeared?’

  ‘By all accounts he was in good spirits.’

  ‘And he’s never gone AWOL before?’

  ‘No.’

  Blake sat back in his chair and winced at the poor excuse for coffee Parkes had brought. Sweet but stewed, like it had been sitting in a pot on a hotplate for most of the morning. ‘Right, well I want your team to start scouring all the CCTV footage they can lay their hands on for anything or anyone unusual in the town, starting a week ago. I want to know any faces out of place, or anything that looks out of the ordinary. Let’s cross check vehicle number plates, looking particularly for cars or vans from outside the area.’

  Hubbard stiffened, looking horrified. He was clearly a man who didn’t like his authority being challenged. ‘What the hell for?’

  ‘Based on what you’ve told me, we can’t rule out that Hopkins has been abducted by terrorists. So while that remains a possibility let’s double down and make certain.’

  ‘I don’t have the resources for what you’re asking,’ Hubbard spluttered.

  ‘Let me ask you something,’ said Blake, leaning forward and fixing Hubbard with his most determined stare. ‘Have you seen those videos online of men forced into orange jumpsuits and paraded in the desert to be executed? And do you remember how horrified, how outraged you were when you saw how they hacked at their necks with a knife, and how their blood stained the sand scarlet?’

  ‘This has nothing to do with —’

  ‘Now imagine the next video is of Kyle Hopkins, beheaded somewhere here in Britain. How would you feel knowing his wife had watched it? His kids? And that you might have been able to do something to stop it, but didn’t?’

  Hubbard shook his head slowly. ‘I want to help you, I really do, but —’

  ‘Then make it happen,’ said Blake.

  ‘You’re barking up the wrong tree. Look, Claire Hopkins is coming here to face the press in the next hour. I want to see how she reacts under pressure.’

  ‘You could be wasting valuable time,’ said Blake.

  ‘See what you think of her, then make up your mind.’

  ‘The guv’s right,’ said Parkes. ‘She’s a cold fish, and there’s something really odd about her behaviour.’

  Blake swivelled in his chair, turning to Parkes. ‘But you’ve already told me you don’t think she’s involved.’

  ‘But she is hiding something. I’m convinced of it.’

  Hubbard checked his watch. ‘She should be here shortly. You can make your own judgement, and if you still think she’s innocent, I’ll see what resources I can free up to help you. It’s the best I can do.’

  Chapter Eleven

  A dazzling flare of camera flashes blinded Claire Hopkins as she emerged into a room packed with reporters staring at her like she was an exhibition at a freak show. She’d not anticipated such a large crowd nor how close they’d be sitting. She had to be careful. At that distance they’d be able to read her like a book.

  She pulled out a chair and sat at a long table next to the grey-bearded detective whose name she’d only half taken in. Hibbard or Hutchins or something. Ryan Fletcher took a seat on her right. He sought out her hand and gave it an encouraging squeeze, but she pulled it back. It wouldn’t look right. Not with so many people watching. Not with her husband missing. As a hush descended on the room, the detective on her left began to speak and the clack-clack-clack of camera shutters echoed off the walls.

  ‘We’re becoming increasingly concerned about the welfare of Sergeant Kyle Hopkins, a 32-year-old army training instructor, who has been missing now for four days,’ he said. ‘We hope with your help we can reunite him with his wife, Claire and their two young children.’

  Claire hadn’t really understood what she was letting herself in for when the detective had asked if she would make a public appeal. Certainly, she hadn’t expected this. It was so intimate. So many reporters huddled around like vultures hungry for a sliver of her soul. If she’d known then what it would be like maybe she’d have said no. No one had warned her what to expect, so she coped the only way she knew how, holding her emotions in check.

  She twisted a tissue around her fingers under the table and noticed two TV cameras trained on her face. Pens scratched across notepads. Heads were cocked, ears were listening, and eyes were roving, constantly checking her out. What were they expecting? Tears?

  Three anonymous-looking men stood against a wall at the back with their hands in their pockets. Reporters? No. They looked more like police officers. Of course, they were studying her to see how she’d react. Did that mean they suspected she had some involvement in Kyle’s disappearance?

  ‘Kyle was last seen at the Tavistock Inn,’ the detective continued. ‘We know from CCTV images that he returned to his car in the Bedford car park, but he never made it home. His car, a light blue Ford Mondeo was found abandoned on the moor in the vicinity of Pork Hill the following morning.’

  The detective pointed to a photograph of the car displayed on a large flat screen television. After a second or two, the picture changed to grainy CCTV film of Kyle walking through the town. She recognised his loping gait. Head bowed, hands in pockets. Then another photograph of the car, now parked in a gravel lay-by in the shadow of Cox Tor.

  Claire focused on a spot on the back wall above everyone’s heads, swallowing back the tears and the lump welling in her throat. No doubt the images would be all over the evening news by tonight. Then there was the internet and the morning papers, full of speculation about the state of their marriage and wild ideas about what had happened to Kyle. She pushed away the thought and concentrated on maintaining her composure. Maybe it would be better if she gave them what they wanted and let them see her cry. Nobody would know they were tears of self-pity.
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  ‘Kyle’s disappearance is entirely out of character,’ the detective said, ‘and as I’m sure you can appreciate, his family are extremely concerned about his welfare. So we would urge anyone with information about his whereabouts to contact us. We’ve set up an incident room here in Tavistock and have a team working around the clock to find him.

  ‘We have also deployed specialist teams to conduct a search of the area where Kyle’s car was found abandoned. Tomorrow that search area will be widened with the assistance of the military.’ The detective paused to take a sip of water. When several hands shot up he waved them down. ‘We’ll have time for questions at the end,’ he said, ‘but first we’ve invited Kyle’s wife, Claire, and his commanding officer, Lieutenant Ryan Fletcher to say a few words.’

  The detective laid what Claire thought was supposed to be a comforting hand on her arm and urged her to begin when she was ready. She cleared her throat and took a deep breath. Maybe it had been a mistake not preparing something in advance. But the detective had said it would sound better without notes, like she was speaking from the heart. The hum of the air conditioning buzzed in her ears, unexpectedly noisy above the din of silence that filled the room.

  ‘Kyle had his faults,’ she began, her voice cracking. ‘Nobody knew that better than me. And yes, we’ve had our problems, like any couple, but he’s the father of my children. So if you’re listening, Kyle, come home. Please. We miss you.’

  There, she’d said it, with as much conviction as she could muster. She stared down the lenses of the two TV cameras, careful to keep her expression neutral. And definitely no tears. If she allowed them to come, she feared opening the floodgates.

  Ryan Fletcher picked up without a prompt as Claire finished speaking. ‘I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Kyle for the best part of thirteen years,’ he began, ‘and I can honestly say he’s one of the nicest guys you could hope to work with. Not only is he an excellent soldier, serving his regiment with pride and professionalism, but I can testify he’s a wonderful father and husband.’

  Claire’s fists balled in her lap, ripping her tissue into shreds. Why did he have to say that?