by Alex Scarrow
‘Murder, in point of fact,’ added Boyd conversationally. ‘He was tied down, tortured and then burned alive.’
‘Good God!’ To Boyd’s ear, the alarm in his voice sounded genuine. ‘Are you…? Jesus! Are you sure?’
‘Oh yes, we’re sure. And, from Sir Arthur’s phone data, we know that he spoke to you a few days before his death. Can you tell us what that call was about?’
There was another telling pause. ‘He… well, the chap was trying to pull in a favour.’
‘What favour?’ asked Boyd.
‘To publish a book. I should hasten to add that we’re not his regular publisher. Hardline normally put out his stuff.’
‘But he chose you for this one. Why?’
Boyd could hear the tension in Berringer’s voice. ‘I… I don’t know. But I said it wasn’t for us.’
‘I’m presuming he came to you because this was a different kind of book. Did he explain any of its contents to you?’ Boyd asked.
‘What? No. Absolutely not!’
‘Then how would you have known it’s not for you?’
‘Look. Lloyd, is it?’
‘Boyd.’
‘Boyd, Sutton was not a close friend of mine. I didn’t particularly like the man, nor his books for that matter. And I really didn’t appreciate him sidestepping our normal manuscript submission process to speak directly with me. That’s not how publishing is done.’
Boyd suspected that that was probably exactly how it was done for those with connections. ‘His literary agent, Maria Webster, spoke to him a day before you,’ Boyd continued. ‘She said his book was controversial and potentially libellous against some senior political figures.’
‘Well, I don’t know,’ Berringer said firmly. ‘Like I said he didn’t get as far as telling me anything about its contents.’
‘She said she wouldn’t touch it for fear of legal action,’ Boyd said.
‘As I said… I wouldn’t know.’
‘Or worse…’
Boyd could hear a flutter in the man’s breath. The rustle of air caught and amplified.
He’s scared. Genuinely scared.
‘Mr Berringer, is there something in Sutton’s book that we need to know?’ Boyd wondered if the man was spooked enough to roll over for him. ‘He told you what his book was all about, didn’t he? And I’m guessing you decided you wanted nothing to do with it? Isn’t that what happened?’
‘No. That isn’t what happened. And I’m done talking with you. Please don’t call this number again.’ Matthew Berringer hung up.
Boyd looked at Lane. ‘What do you think?’ he asked.
‘I think he knows what’s in the book. And I think he sounds fucking terrified.’
Boyd nodded. That was exactly what he thought too. He looked at the other number. The one for Elaine Lewis, the wife of Chris Lewis, ex-Green Party MP for Norwich South.
Lane watched as a couple of uniformed PCs walked past the interview-room window. ‘Sutton talking to the wife of an opposition MP… That wasn’t like him,’ said Lane.
‘You knew him well?’
‘No… but he was a career boy, wasn’t he? Keep the party whip happy, say all the correct party soundbites on Question Time or Marr. I didn’t think he was a troublemaker.’
Boyd dialled the number and the phone range half a dozen times before going to voicemail. He left his number and hung up. ‘Well, I guess we’ll have to wait and see what that was all about.’
‘So what the hell do you think happened with Sutton?’ asked Lane. ‘What’s your gut instinct?’
Boyd crossed his arms and sat back. He sighed deeply. ‘I think it’s probably quite simple. He had something he wanted to spill before he died. He tried and now he’s dead.’
‘It must be one helluva secret,’ said Lane. ‘Which really begs another question.’
‘What?’ Boyd asked.
‘If you find out what it is… is your life going to be in danger too?’
Boyd looked at his phone, dark-screened on the table. ‘Look, I’m just after the bloke who killed Sutton and very nearly killed Bajek. I’m more than happy not to get involved in some shady conspiracy.’
46
Boyd got his return call twenty minutes later on his way back from the toilet. He stopped in the hallway to answer it.
‘Hello, I’m returning your call?’ It was a woman’s voice. She had a flat, lifeless tone.
‘Mrs Lewis?’
‘Yes, Elaine Lewis,’ she confirmed.
‘Thanks for returning my call,’ Boyd said.
‘Is this about Chris? About what happened to Chris?’ she asked.
‘I believe he died in an accident,’ said Boyd. ‘A hit-and-run?’
‘It wasn’t an accident,’ she spat. ‘He was assassinated. Murdered. Some of the papers implied that; the rest said he’d been drunk and just stepped in front of a car. I’m sure you can guess which papers were which.’
‘Murdered.’ He said the word evenly. Not in a questioning tone, but not a statement either. ‘What makes you so sure?’
‘Because he wasn’t afraid to be a proper journalist. To tell the truth.’
‘He was an MP, wasn’t he?’ Boyd said, momentarily confused.
‘Yes. He was,’ she said. ‘But he also followed and wrote up stories.’
‘For who?’
‘He was freelance. Some of his articles ended up in the Independent or the Guardian. But mostly he blogged. Most of his stuff was too… much, even for the papers.’
‘What kinds of things did he write about?’ Boyd asked.
‘Corruption. Cronyism.’ She laughed gently. ‘He’d have had a field day if he’d been alive to write about all those Covid PPE contracts.’
‘Was he working on one of these corruption-type stories when he died?’
‘No. I don’t think so, anyway,’ she said.
‘Can you remember what he was up to?’
He heard her sigh. ‘He was at Westminster all day. Then he rang me to say he was meeting someone at the pub on his way home.’
‘Who? Another MP?’ Boyd asked.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Did he give you a name?’ he pressed.
‘Oh, yeah. I always wrote down in our diary who he was seeing. As a habit.’ She sneezed. ‘Excuse me. Yes, it was a Darren something. I didn’t write down a surname,’ she replied.
‘Do you think it was social?’ asked Boyd. ‘Or did this Darren have something?’
‘I don’t know. I never got to speak to Chris again.’ She sniffed. ‘What’s this about? Has something new come up?’
‘Were you contacted by Sir Arthur Sutton recently?’
‘The MP who died in a house fire? Yes. He wanted to know if he could have access to the archive for Chris’s old blog. I told him he couldn’t, obviously.’
‘Did he say anything else?’
‘No. It was brief.’ He heard her take a sharp intake of breath. ‘And now he’s dead too.’
‘We’re investigating the fire,’ Boyd said.
‘Do you think his death could be related to Chris’s?’ she asked.
‘That’s something we’re trying to work out, Mrs Lewis,’ Boyd replied.
Boyd had just started reading up on Chris Lewis, MP, when the tail end of his hangover hit and the page of Wikipedia text started to make him feel queasy. He stepped out of the Incident Room, went down the hallway and took the stairs to the entrance lobby, hurrying out into the sunshine to catch some fresh air.
‘Finally hitting you, is it, guv?’ Okeke was leaning against her car and enjoying the heat from the bonnet and the rays as she smoked.
He wandered over, careful not to get too close; the last thing he wanted to inhale right now was cigarette smoke.
‘Oh, guv,’ she said. ‘We’ve found something that might be worth flagging.’
‘What?’ he asked.
‘Sully and I started picking through Sutton’s activity log and, apart from clicking on the usua
l clickbait articles and liking the usual memes, he accepted a friend request. He doesn’t seem to have accepted many, but he did accept this person. The day before his death.’
Boyd raised his eyebrows. ‘Was there any communication?’
‘Facebook don’t share message exchanges. But, yes, there’s a marker indicating that communication was established.’
‘You got a name for me?’ he asked.
‘Darren Jacobs.’
‘Riiight,’ he said slowly, pulling out his phone.
‘Guv?’
Boyd hit redial.
‘Hello?’ It was Elaine Lewis.
‘Hello, Mrs Lewis. It’s DCI Boyd again. That person your husband saw for a pint the night he was killed? Does the name Darren Jacobs ring a bell?’
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘Yes, that was it.’
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I’ll be in touch again if there are any further developments.’ He hung up and looked at Okeke. ‘Finish your fag. We’ve got some googling to do.’
47
Boyd made the coffee while Okeke logged into LEDS and pulled up a Google search on her phone.
His personal phone buzzed with a text. It was from Charlotte.
How are you doing? I think I might die
He was about to ping back a reply when Lane came into the kitchenette looking to make himself a fresh coffee. ‘Aye, Okeke said you’d be in here. Something come up?’
‘Yeah. I think we may have something.’
‘What?’
Boyd spooned granules into his and Okeke’s mugs. ‘A name that links Sutton to the murdered MP Chris Lewis.’
Lane’s brows lifted.
‘Don’t get too excited yet,’ Boyd replied. ‘But he could be a person of interest.’ He poured the water into the two mugs, then waved the kettle Lane’s way. ‘Want some?’
Lane nodded. ‘Boyd, mind if I huddle in with you and Okeke?’
‘There’s no point until we know if it’s something or nothing,’ said Boyd. ‘The CCTV trail is still our best shot at getting a close-up or even a transaction. I want you to keep on it with Warren and O’Neal; hopefully we’ll meet in the middle with enough evidence to make an arrest and talk to him at leisure.’
Lane looked unhappy. ‘But if there’s anything –’
‘If there’s something that looks anything like an official secret, I’ll call you over so you can tell us to forget all about it, okay?’
Lane’s face flexed with irritation. Then he managed a smile. ‘Sure. Whatever you say.’
Boyd returned to Okeke with two mugs of steaming coffee. He placed them on her desk, pulled up an orphaned office chair and sat down beside her. ‘Right, what have you got for me so far?’
‘You’ve only been gone five minutes,’ she said, laughing. ‘You’re obviously feeling better.’ She pointed to her phone. ‘Darren Jacobs – he’s a bit of an East End wide boy, an ex-freelance journo, mostly for the News of the World. One of the low-scoring scalps taken during Operation Weeting, the phone-hacking inquiry. He got fifteen months inside for his part in it.’ She gestured to the monitor. ‘Since then, he set up as a PI, but that seems to be a very murky shop window.’
‘What do you mean?’
She shrugged. ‘A man-for-hire who knows how to find out things. Break into phones, accounts, computers… A general shithead for hire.’
‘A hack in more ways than one,’ muttered Boyd. ‘Elaine Lewis thought it might be “business” over a pint.’
‘Elaine Lewis?’
He explained… and as he did he realised they’d gone from a random Facebook friend request to a potential suspect within the space of an hour.
‘Any recent form?’ he asked.
‘Nothing since he was busted during Weeting. He’s obviously been a lot more careful since. Or got a lot better at doing what he does.’
‘Okay,’ Boyd said. ‘Find an address for him. We’re going to pay the slippery bugger a visit.’
48
‘Here you go, Boyd.’ Lane handed him a bacon roll and a large paper cup. ‘It’s the best cure for a hangover: a bacon butty and builder’s tea. Learned that in the army.’
Boyd had asked for black coffee.
‘It’s tea, mate.’ Lane saw him looking sceptically down at it. ‘Honestly. You don’t want black coffee. Tea rehydrates you.’
‘Thanks,’ said Boyd. ‘In full disclosure mode, I’m going to have to admit this is also a weed hangover.’
Lane wide-eyed him.
‘It was a case of accidental second-hand smoking.’ He explained what had happened.
Lane shook his head and laughed. ‘The whole ruddy team?’
Boyd nodded as he took a bite from the bacon roll. ‘Let’s just hope Her Madge doesn’t choose today to drop an RRT on us.’
‘Or a bleep test,’ said Lane. ‘By the state of him, I don’t think even Minter would pass it.’
Boyd took a slurp of tea. It had been sugared generously and was surprisingly refreshing. ‘Thanks for dragging me outside,’ he said to Lane.
‘It was that or a mercy killing,’ Lane replied, laughing.
‘So, how was your weekend?’ Boyd asked.
Lane sucked in the fresh salty air and gazed out at the sea. ‘It could’ve been better,’ he said. ‘Joshua took a bad turn.’
‘What happened?’
‘He’s… well, he’s basically very sick.’
Boyd brushed away the last trace of his hangover self-pity. ‘Jesus. What’s wrong?’
‘He has infantile Batten disease. It’s not that common. It’s um… it’s not too dissimilar to what the late Mr Sutton had. It’s a progressive neurodegenerative thing,’ Lane said.
‘My God, I’m… Jesus… I’m so sorry, mate.’
Lane shook his head. ‘It’s very early stages, and I’ll get another ten years with him. That’s something. But it’s one long, downward slope.’ He sipped his tea. ‘The worst part is that it was a gift from me.’ He turned to Boyd. ‘It’s congenital. I’ve got it and handed it down to my son. That’s where my epilepsy comes from,’ he added.
‘Ah, shit.’
‘It’s mild in adults. Occasional seizures, a higher risk of dementia in later years, but… yeah, not terminal. Not like the infantile variant.’
Boyd experienced a strong wave of an emotion he couldn’t put a label on. Guilt? Pity? Remorse? Maybe it was all three. He’d been dragging around his own burden of grief for three years, lost in his own self-pity, from which he was only now emerging – while the man leaning on the rail next to him was staring down the barrel of ten years of heartache… before the grief even started.
Christ. Life’s crap didn’t come down as a fine rain that dampened everyone evenly; for some it came down like a fucking meteorite. Boyd couldn’t begin to imagine what it must be like for Lane, stuck alone in that shitty B&B room every night and yearning to spend that limited invaluable time with his son.
‘Lane… why the bloody hell did they send you down here?’ he asked.
‘Like I said, I’m not match-fit for close protection work any more. I didn’t really have a choice.’
‘Look, stay at my house,’ Boyd said. ‘Until this is done. You’ll get to carpool with me, you lucky bastard, and there’s a free dog thrown in.’
Lane laughed. ‘No. That’s really kind, mate… but I’m good. I get to Skype him to sleep every night. And, to be honest, after that I’m done in. Bed and a book is the most interaction I can manage.’
‘Well, the offer’s there. Any night. Okay?’
Lane nodded. ‘Thanks, Boyd.’
The pier was busier today than it usually was. A week’s worth of warm, sunny days seemed to have convinced everyone that summer was finally going to stick around for a while.
‘Boyd, you’re a good man. Can I give you a word of advice?’ Lane said.
Boyd looked at him. ‘I’m listening.’
‘Just be careful.’
Lane had said that before. And Hatche
r had too for that matter. ‘What is it that I don’t know?’ Boyd asked. ‘Why is everyone telling me to be careful?’
‘I’m just saying you could be pulled into the orbit of some very influential people. Sutton was very well connected.’
‘Yes, I know that.’ He could see Lane was picking his words carefully.
‘He ate at the top table, you know… if you get what I’m saying?’
Boyd shook his head ‘Not exactly, no.’
‘I’m saying… if Sutton had some compromising material on someone and that’s how he ended up …’ Lane left the end of his sentence hanging in the air.
Something about Lane’s words felt deliberately nuanced to Boyd. ‘Is that advice… or a warning?’
‘It’s advice, mate. I’ve done enough close protection in my time to overhear some hair-raising one-sided conversations.’
‘Such as?’
Lane shook his head. ‘You know I can’t.’ He sipped his tea. ‘All I’m saying is, let’s find Sutton’s killer. But let’s not go twanging the threads of some large spider’s web.’
49
‘So, guv, this Darren Jacobs is a bit of a hard one to get hold of,’ said Okeke. ‘I’ve tried his mobile number and it keeps going to voicemail. I’ve tried the website that advertises his PI services. No luck. I’ve had Met uniforms knocking on the address he lists. No answer.’
‘His home address?’ Boyd asked.
She shrugged. ‘They’ve gone there too and there was no answer either.’
‘Christ.’ Lane’s caution was still ringing in his ears.
This Jacobs, as far as Boyd was concerned, was now part of Sutton’s case and potentially also that of Chris Lewis. Perhaps he was their killer, or – more worryingly… since they couldn’t get hold of him – maybe another victim.
‘All right. Well, he’s now earned himself my full attention,’ Boyd said. ‘He’s who I want to speak to ASAP. Jacob’s number appeared on Sutton’s call logs. So can we get Jacobs’ call log? Find out who his provider is.’
‘Will do,’ said Okeke, jogging back to her desk.
