by Val McDermid
Paula looked up and met Carol’s eyes, defiance in the line of her jaw. ‘I owe him. So when he asked me to go and see him yesterday, I didn’t hesitate. He told me about another case he believed to be connected to Robbie Bishop. He told me you had already dismissed the idea, and I have to say I wasn’t surprised when he explained how thin it was.’
Carol managed to keep her face still, but inside her composure had evaporated. What the hell was he playing at? At the very least, this felt like lack of faith. At the worst, it felt like betrayal. How could he pluck out one of her own team and use that detective to try to show her how the job should be done? ‘Are you about to tell me you’ve been making inquiries into the death of Daniel Wade?’ she said, her voice dangerously precise.
Paula tensed in her chair but didn’t flinch. ‘Yes, chief.’
Carol tilted her head to one side, considering Paula with the same disdain she gave prisoners in the interview room. ‘And remind me, Detective Constable McIntyre, when exactly you resigned from MIT and commenced your employment with Dr Hill?’
‘It’s not like that,’ Paula began. ‘I owe him.’
‘You had a task assigned to you in a murder inquiry, and you chose to abandon that because a civilian who occasionally works with this unit told you to go and do something else?’ Carol’s voice would have stilled storm. She could see her words cut into Paula and she was petty enough at that moment to be glad.
To her surprise, Chris took up the cudgels. ‘I think what’s important here is what Paula found out, guv. You can see she’s not proud of what she’s done, but there’s no question that she has got a result. She’s a good copper and she doesn’t deserve a caning for going out on a limb. We all do that from time to time.’ Her eyes challenged Carol. They’d had overlapping service in the Met. Carol knew that Chris Devine was bound to know more about her than anybody else on her squad.
‘There’ll be time to deal with the disciplinary side of this after the investigation’s over and done with,’ she said coldly, not wanting to admit the fear Chris’s words had provoked in her. Paula had got a result. Which meant Carol had been wrong to disregard Tony’s opinion. Was she losing it? Was she cutting her nose off to spite her face because he’d seen things she should have but hadn’t? Was the drink taking its toll on her judgement? God only knew she’d seen that happen with plenty of others. ‘What did Dr Hill have you do?’
Looking shaken, Paula told Carol about her trip to the pub and her interview with Jana Jankowicz. She placed the photo of Jack Anderson on the desk. ‘This is the man Carlos identified. Jana thinks he came to the house when Danny was out, but she can’t remember why or when.’
‘We didn’t get any positive IDs on Anderson at Amatis, but one of the barmen thinks he could have been the bloke with Robbie that Thursday night,’ Chris added. ‘All a bit vague, but we thought it might be worth getting Carlos in to work with Stacey to see if we can turn that pic into a better likeness. Different hair, a bit of computer enhancement, that sort of thing.’
Carol felt the rip of conflicting emotions. Part of her wanted to nurse her anger and let them feel the rough edge of her tongue. And the other part of her wanted to congratulate them and set the wheels in motion to find Jack Anderson and bring him in. Even as she recognized the split, the cop in her was battering the angry child into submission. At the same moment, she saw Paula recognize her shift and relax a fraction. ‘Fuck it,’ Carol said, a wry smile creeping out in spite of herself. ‘You have no idea how much I hate being wrong. But next time, Paula-if there is a next time-bring it to me before you go off on one of Tony’s hunches. He’s not always right, you know. And I will always listen.’ As she spoke, she saw Paula’s shoulders drop. There was still a hot coal of anger in Carol’s heart, but she was reserving that for the person who really deserved it. ‘So. Who is Jack Anderson and where do we find him?’
‘That,’ said Chris with a sigh, ‘is where we run into a bit of a problem. According to Stacey, he doesn’t exist.’
‘Meaning what?’ Carol was still prickly, in no mood for guessing games. ‘We have his photo. That must have come from somewhere.’
‘We’ve spoken to the person who sent it to us. And to the third person in the original photo. They both say the same thing. They were at school with Jack Anderson and he used to turn up at the same pub quiz as them. Tuesday nights at the Red Lion in Downton. He was in a team that called themselves The Funhouse. About three years ago, he stopped coming. Our lads asked The Funhouse why Anderson had dropped out and they said he’d moved to Stockport. And that’s where that bit of the trail goes cold,’ Paula said.
‘Because, according to Stacey, he didn’t go to Stockport,’ Chris continued. ‘Or if he did, he’s not registered to vote. He doesn’t pay council tax, he’s not in the phone book, he’s not registered for VAT and he hasn’t filed a tax return for four years. He hasn’t filed for bankruptcy and he doesn’t have a current credit card. Doesn’t it scare you what that girl can find out on a Saturday morning?’
Carol shivered theatrically. ‘I try not to think about it. What about family? Old school friends?’
‘We’re working on it,’ Paula said. ‘According to the bloke who gave us the photo in the first place, Anderson’s dad was in the army. Apparently he was killed in the first Gulf War, not long after Anderson started at Harriestown High. Our source isn’t sure he’s remembering it right, but he thinks it was a friendly-fire incident.’
‘That’s gotta hurt,’ Carol said. ‘What about his mum?’
Chris looked at her notebook. ‘I’m still trying to get detail on this, but we’re being told she committed suicide the summer after Anderson’s first year at university. Sounds like she waited till he was sort of settled then did what she had to do. We’re not sure which university. One guy thought Leeds, the other Manchester. And we’re not sure what he studied either. Might have been biology, might have been zoology. Might have been fucking needlework, frankly. I think the pair of them were making it up as they went along by that point.’ She shook her head in disgust. ‘Why do they try so hard to please us?’
‘Probably because we have the power to throw their arses in jail, Chris,’ Paula said pointedly.
‘All right, all right, enough of the stand-up routine. Piss off, the pair of you. And don’t come back till you’ve got everything there is to know about Jack Anderson. Including his current address.’ She got up and grabbed her jacket from the coat stand. ‘I’m going to swing by Robbie’s mum and dad’s house. Maybe they remember Jack Anderson. You never know. And then I’m going to talk to a man about officer deployment. Just as well he’s already in hospital, he won’t have far to go to get fixed.’
Ex-Detective Superintendent Tom Cross owned one of the most expensive houses in Bradfield, thanks to a spectacular win on the football pools some years before his enforced retirement. His pension was adequate to support him and his wife comfortably. But nothing could have convinced him he was lucky. There are some people who are incapable of contentment, and Tom Cross was one of them.
He stared moodily out of the bathroom window at a perfectly groomed lawn sloping gently down to the River Brade, where a neat day boat was moored to a concrete jetty. Miserable bloody day for the game, he thought. No matter how well wrapped up he was, his nose would be a bulb of ice by half-time.
Cross turned back to the mirror, switching on his electric shaver and applying it to his heavy jowls. His pale green eyes were prominent, responsible for his old nickname of Popeye. Like his cartoon namesake, Cross still had the massive muscular shoulders and upper arms of the rugby prop forward he’d once been. The mirror didn’t reveal the massive gut that years of fast food and beer had created; Cross had always tended to avoid the truth whenever it made him uncomfortable. Some would say that had been the source of his professional downfall. Cross himself would have laid it at the door of that sanctimonious bitch Carol Jordan.
He shaved swiftly, then ran a deep basin of warm water. He immersed
his whole head, running his fingers over the grey bristle that surrounded his bald crown. He rose gasping from the water, his little cupid’s bow mouth spraying droplets over the marble sink surround. Bloody Jordan and bloody John Brandon. Pair of prigs. Jordan had stepped into his shoes and Brandon had put the word out that Tom Cross was a cheat and a liar. It had made it bloody hard to get his mitts on the sort of security work he deserved. At least today, before he froze his arse off watching the struggle to make headway without Robbie Bishop, he’d be working with somebody who recognized his worth.
The letter from Harriestown High had come out of the blue. He’d not been back there since his sixteenth birthday, when he’d buggered off and got himself a job on a building site till he could get taken on as a police cadet. But according to the letter from the head, the school now had a policy of employing former pupils wherever possible. When it came to planning security for a major fundraising event, Tom Cross’s name had been the first to come up.
As invited, he’d called the number on the letterhead. To his surprise, it was an answering machine which simply said, ‘You have reached Harriestown High School. Please leave your name and number and we will call you back as soon as possible.’ The call back came within five minutes, from the head himself. ‘Sorry about the answering machine,’ he’d said. ‘You wouldn’t believe how many threatening and abusive phone calls we get from parents.’
Cross snorted. ‘I’d believe you all right. In my day, if the school or the police got in touch with your parents, you were in for the high jump. Now, the parents take the kids’ part and we’re the ones getting the kicking.’
‘Quite so. Thank you for getting back to me. If you’re interested in this project, I think the best thing is for you and Jake Andrews to have a meeting. Jake’s organizing the whole thing. He has all the details at his fingertips. It’s going to be quite the do. Robbie Bishop’s already pledged to support it with his presence, and he’s persuaded his former fiancée to DJ a session. She works for Radio One, you know,’ he added conspiratorially. ‘I’ll have Jake call you.’
And later that day, Jake had indeed called. They’d had a preliminary meeting over lunch in a very fine French restaurant in town. The sort of place Cross wouldn’t normally have chosen, but he would admit they knew how to cook steak and chips. Now, they were going to look at the detailed plans, including the layout of the venue, the stately home of Lord and Lady Pannal. Though God alone knew who they were going to get to headline the event now that Robbie Bishop had popped his clogs.
Cross slapped aftershave on his cheeks, never flinching at the sting. He glanced at his watch, hanging up by the mirror. He’d better get a move on. He was meeting Jake at a pub on the far side of Temple Fields. They’d have a swift half, then go to Jake’s flat for lunch. The lad had been apologetic. ‘Sorry about having to meet in the pub. It’s just that my place is a nightmare to find. Everybody gets lost. I’ve learned it’s just easier to meet in the pub first. All the stuff we need is back at the flat, so I’ll do us some lunch and we can work while we eat. I’m a vegetarian, but don’t worry, I do cook meat for my visitors,’ he’d added with a smile.
Cross walked through to his dressing room and pulled a pair of thermal long johns from his underwear drawer. Thermals on the outside, a good lunch on the inside. He’d survive an afternoon at the football no trouble.
Yousef slammed the door of the bedsit and leaned against it, eyelids pressed tight together, the lump in his throat set to choke him. He’d worked so hard to keep his aim true. He’d silently recited his motivation like a mantra, morning noon and night. He’d held fast to his conviction that his heart and mind were as one. That what he was doing was not only for the best, but also the only possible way forward.
It wasn’t as if he’d tried to kid himself that there would be no consequences. He’d allowed himself to think of how it would be for his family. Intellectually, he’d known they would be shocked and distraught, unable to believe him capable of this. But they’d get over it, he’d told himself. They would get past it, write him out of their lives. The community would sustain them. They’d be all right. Not everyone would agree with what he’d done, but they wouldn’t cast out the whole Aziz family as a result.
But this morning, the enormity of it all had hit him like a train. Not that anything special had happened. They’d all done their usual Saturday-morning stuff. His mother to the local Asian mini-market to buy halal meat, vegetables and fruit for the weekend. His father to the mosque for prayers and conversation with his friends. Raj to the madrassa for an hour of Koranic studies. Sanjar in bed, sleeping off the week. And Yousef to the warehouse to make sure everything was running as it should. It had been strange, knowing he was doing it for the last time. Strange, but not emotional. It was hard to be emotional about an old factory and a bunch of workers who could never become his friends.
The killer had been Saturday lunch. Traditionally, they ate together. His mother always prepared some slow-cooked miracle of spicy lamb and vegetables, with a pile of chapattis to soak it up. It was a brief interlude of family time in a life where everyone was busy with their own concerns. The knowledge that he was never going to experience it again had made it almost impossible for Yousef to eat. And that in turn had provoked his mother to wonder what was wrong with him. She’d only let up when Raj had started whingeing because Sanjar had to make an emergency delivery in Wakefield so he wouldn’t be able to drop Raj off to meet his friends for the football.
‘Don’t worry, Raj, Yousef will take you,’ his mother had said.
‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘I arranged to go over to Brighouse, to meet some guy about a new contract. I haven’t got time.’
‘What do you mean, you haven’t got time? It won’t take you far out of your way to take the boy to meet his friends,’ his mother insisted.
‘What new contract?’ his father demanded.
‘Nobody ever bothers about me,’ Raj wailed.
Sanjar looked at him and winked. He clearly didn’t believe in the new contract either, but whatever he thought Yousef was up to, there was no chance he’d be anywhere near the truth.
And that’s when he’d nearly lost it. His last meal with his family, and it was turning into a bickering match. When they all looked back, there would be no warm memory of a happy family meal, when they still held fast to their illusion of who he was. There would only be the bitter taste of bad feeling.
He’d had to get out then, before he broke down in front of them. Tears had blurred his vision on the drive over to the bedsit. He loved them, and he was never going to see them again.
Yousef shook his head as if to shake off his painful thoughts. There was no going back. He had to look forward. He had to think about a glorious future, when his dreams would come true. He pushed himself away from the door. The last phase still had to be carried out.
Carefully, he packed a catering-sized ghee tin with the TATP, placing the gunpowder engine from a model rocket kit in the middle. He fastened thin plastic-coated wires to the engine with little alligator clips then attached them to an electronic ignition device wired up to an electronic timer in a small bundle held together with packing tape. He hadn’t made this part of the bomb; he had no skills in this area. But it had been explained to him. He was to be ready with the bomb in place at 3.30, two-thirds of the way through the first half. He was to set the timer for forty minutes, so it would go off in the middle of the second half, leaving time enough for him to make his escape. It was simple. Kept simple to minimize what could possibly go wrong.
Concentrating on the assembly of the bomb calmed him down. By the time he’d finished and packed it in the bottom of Imran’s toolbox, he was steady again.
Yousef carried the toolbox down to Imran’s van with great care. He knew how volatile the TATP was, how easily the friction of movement could trigger the chain reaction that would blow him and the rest of the house sky high. He placed it gently on the ground while he opened the back of the van, t
hen laid it on the foam pad he’d already prepared. He closed the doors carefully then stepped away from the van. He wished he smoked.
He checked his watch. Almost time to set off. He wanted to arrive at the staff and players’ entrance about five minutes before kick-off, when the security crew were too busy to pay too much attention to him. Allowing for traffic, he should leave in about five minutes.
Yousef got into the van and fumbled the keys into the ignition. His hands were clammy with sweat. ‘Calm,’ he told himself. No reason to panic. No reason to be afraid. Nothing could go wrong.
He didn’t know about the third component, taped between the ignition and the timer. A component that would change all Yousef’s carefully laid plans.
Tony was feeling very pleased with himself. Today, he was the man who had climbed half a flight of stairs. OK, he’d had a certain amount of difficulty getting back down, but he had made it to the landing. Nine steps up and nine steps down. And not a single fall. He’d been so exhausted afterwards he’d wanted to lie down and weep, but he would leave that bit out when he told the tale.
Tony fired up the laptop and went to Bradfield Victoria’s site. Because he wasn’t good at remembering to keep office hours, he’d subscribed to their private TV channel at the start of the season. So wherever he was, as long as he had broadband access, he could watch the Vics’ games live. He logged on and turned the volume down low. He didn’t need to hear pre-match chat from a couple of second-rate retired footballers and a commentator who had fallen from grace with the networks. All they’d be talking about would be Robbie, and Tony didn’t imagine for a moment they would have any useful insights to offer.
Thinking of Robbie reminded him that he ought to be trying to come up with something that would get Carol past the embarrassment of refusing to follow up his suggestion now it had turned out he’d been right. She was going to be pissed off with herself and the chances were that she would get it out of her system by being pissed off with him. Best to have something ready to head her off at the pass. The only trouble was what.
