The First Stella Cole Boxset

by Andy Maslen

  “Right, you bastard. Now, let’s see what you’ve been hiding.”

  She leaned over and pulled on the handle of the deep file drawer to her right. It didn’t move. Another five seconds work with the lock picks and it did.

  She looked down onto thirty or more hanging dividers, each meticulously labelled in neat blue capitals in Collier’s distinctive handwriting.

  “Oh, Jesus, senior management,” she said. “When did you last do any real police work?”

  The labels almost made her laugh as she read them out.

  “Quarterly budget forecasts. Staffing and resource allocation. Risk assessment. Project management protocols. Inter-departmental management meetings. Fuck me, Collier, I knew you were corrupt but I had no idea you were so fucking boring.”

  “What were you expecting?” Other Stella said, from her perch on the corner of the desk. “Death squad rotas? Target lists? Body disposal sites? Get real, babe. And get them all out.”

  Stella lifted the entire contents out of the drawer and spread the pale blue cardboard folders out on the floor. Was she worried about Collier’s coming in? No. In fact, she was half-hoping he’d put in a late-night appearance. She still took her little helper everywhere and had decided if he put his nose round the door she’d first break it and then beat him to death. Perhaps allowing Other Stella to provide some additional rage-fuelled force.

  Surveying the morass of paper in front of her, she blew out her cheeks in frustration.

  “Shit! This is going to take all night. I’ll still be here when everyone rocks up for work.”

  “Then be a detective. What did they always say. Think.”

  “Think of what?”

  “Broaden it out. You know he’s fucked off to Chicago, but what did he leave behind in his hurry? He must have a list of members or supporters or whatever he calls them.”

  “Right. That’s good. So. I’m head of Pro Patria Mori. I want to keep it secret. I’m cunning. So I don’t keep anything on my phone. Not like Ramage. Bloody idiot. What if some kid had stolen it out of his car or picked his pocket? I zig when everyone else zags. I hide all my top secret shit in plain sight.”

  “Exactly. Homes get burgled. Safes get cracked. Where’s the best place on Earth to hide something valuable?”

  “A police station,” they chorused, the sound an odd, echoing double-track in Stella’s head.

  Stella snatched up the first folder and riffled through its contents. It did, indeed, contain quarterly budget forecasts, to judge from the multiple pages of gridded spreadsheet printouts with red, green and yellow highlighted cells. The second folder, marked “Case Management Reports” yielded nothing unexpected. She shook her head. Impatient. There were still too many documents to work through.

  “I’m going to run out of time.”

  Other Stella pushed a few of the folders to one side. Tapped a blood-red fingernail on one that looked older than the rest.

  “Why doesn’t this one have a label?”

  Stella looked. All the other folders had sticky labels that matched the labels clipped onto the hanging dividers from the file drawer. This one was blank. Her heart rate accelerated. She pulled the folder towards her and opened it on her lap. Then her face fell and she felt her pulse slowing.

  “Seriously?”

  The top sheet of paper bore the legend:

  Human Resources Operational Protocol Embedding Team Meeting Update 19

  Below it the entire page was taken up with just two dense paragraphs of text that Stella didn’t even bother reading. She put it to one side. Then groaned.

  Resource Management Best Practice Overview, Recommendations for Next Steps

  “Who’d be a Chief Super, eh?” Other Stella said. “No wonder he went into the death squad business. Mind you, committee work would have been safer, as it turns out.”

  Stella placed the second stapled document face down on the first and started riffling through the rest. Halfway down, she came to a document bearing a title of such mind-numbing tedium that she held it up for Other Stella to see.

  “Check it out. Third Quarter Operating Budget Initial Projections. And they say the Met has lost its focus on crime.”

  This document’s author had managed to separate the front page of their report into just three, slab-like paragraphs. Only a fool or a madman would venture further. Or a madwoman, Stel.

  “I thought the quarterly budget projections were in the other folder,” Other Stella said.

  “They are. Hang on.”

  She flipped over the page. And gasped.

  “Shit! Look.”

  She held up the document so its second page was facing outward. At the top of the page Vicky Riley’s face stared out. She was frowning and not looking straight at the camera. The image was grainy. Taken with a long lens.

  Beneath the stealthily captured portrait, a list of bullet points enumerated Vicky’s personal details, address and contact numbers, her email addresses, social media accounts. The dossier, for that’s what Stella realised it was, went into her upbringing, her political views, her career and, finally, her investigation into PPM with Richard Drinkwater. The final two words were chilling: Termination recommended.

  “Yeah, well you fucked that one up, Collier, didn’t you? I terminated your hitman instead. And his brother. And I’m going to terminate you.”

  “You should keep that,” Other Stella said. “Now, keep looking. There might be some other stuff we can use against him.”

  Stella spent the next twenty minutes looking through the rest of the folders, flipping past each top sheet of any stapled documents in the hopes of finding more evidence of PPM. But she came up empty-handed. She gathered up the folders and replaced them, laboriously, back between the hanging dividers. She pulled the dividers at the rear of the drawer forwards so she could slide the folders home. The final divider caught on something and wouldn’t move.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake, come on,” Stella hissed.

  She reached into the drawer and felt around under the final hanging file to see what was obstructing it. Her fingertips brushed against a notebook. Its cover was partly open and had caught against the bottom of the file. Up went her pulse again as she withdrew the book.

  “Look,” she said, holding the A5 notebook out towards Other Stella. “This could be it.”

  “Well open it, then, dummy, and let’s find out.”

  Stella opened the notebook. Smiled grimly. And nodded.

  “Got you,” she murmured.

  Only someone feeling one hundred percent certain of never being discovered would use the label Collier had. But there it was in black and white.

  PPM supporters.

  No flim-flam about management meeting minutes or communication strategy. Straight to the point. A list of everyone the conspirators had brought into their vicious little club. Better yet, as Stella flipped over the pages, she saw that Collier had even organised the foot soldiers by role. Pages bore headings of OPERATIONS, TECHNICAL, COVER and RECRUITMENT.

  Stella counted ten pages of names, mobile numbers, email addresses and notes. Under operations she noticed the name of the shooter she’d disabled up at Ramage’s house in Scotland: Lucy Van Houten.

  She snapped the book shut and slid it into an inside pocket in her jacket. Thought for a moment. Other Stella interrupted her thoughts.

  “Anything else you need before we go? A blood-soaked shirt? The first draft of My Death Squad Diary by Adam Collier? A smoking gun?”

  “This’ll do. Not that I need it but I’ve got evidence of a plan to murder Vicky and a list of all remaining active members or supporters. No. This is enough. I’ll give it to Vicky. When I’m gone she can have a field day with it.”

  “Yeah, and like I told you, the whole, ‘when I’m gone’ business? Not a massive fan, tbh. I think it would be better to hang on to that little black book of Collier’s. There are enough names in there to keep me busy for years.”

  Stella patted the book subconsciousl
y.

  “Yes. And like I told you, that’s not going to happen. And if you dare slap me again, I swear I will rip you out of me by your hair and kill you right now.”

  Other Stella put her hands on her hips.

  “Well, well. Been watching female empowerment videos on YouTube have we? Fine. We’ll discuss this another time. Laters.”

  Stella nodded with satisfaction. A small triumph. But a triumph all the same. She closed and locked the desk drawer then got up from the chair, straightened it and crossed the expanse of carpet to the door. She switched off the torch and waited a minute or so for her eyes to adjust. Then she slipped through into a mercifully empty and still dark CID office, locking the door behind her.

  A shadow moved towards her from the gloom.

  Stella jumped and dropped her torch. Every nerve ending in her body jangled. She tensed, digging her right hand into her pocket to close reflexively on her little helper. The person moving towards her looked relaxed, but she couldn’t make out the features. They were dressed all in black and walking on soft-soled shoes that didn’t make a sound. But that voice. She recognised it. A soft Scottish accent.

  She placed it just as its owner emerged from the shadows to confront her.

  41

  An Old Friend

  “Hello, Stella. Or am I still supposed to call you Jennifer?”

  “You!” she said.

  Standing in front of Stella, and offering what appeared to be a smile of genuine good humour, was a woman. A woman Stella had last seen on a ferry taking her from Portsmouth to Santander, just after she’d killed Leonard Ramage.

  “Callie McDonald at your service, ma’am.”

  The speaker was in her midforties. Short auburn hair and a penetrating gaze that seemed to Stella to be capable of X-raying the person on which it was focused. Stella bent to retrieve the torch and switched it back on, though she resisted the urge to shine it right in Callie’s eyes.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I could ask you the same thing. And in fact, I’m going to. But not here. I think we should find somewhere a little more comfortable. A little less, well, policey, don’t you?”

  “Where do you suggest?”

  “I’m staying at the Mercure Hotel. It’s only ten minutes’ walk from here. We can walk and talk.”

  Like New York, Tokyo, Berlin and Singapore, London is a 24-hour city. But in this particular part of the capital, criss-crossed by flyovers, railway lines and long, curving terraces of Georgian townhouses, the ratio of party people to urban foxes scavenging in bins was heavily in the foxes’ favour. The two women, one a newly promoted detective superintendent, the other not sure of her own professional or legal status, talked as they walked back to Callie’s hotel.

  Stella’s initial suspicions evaporated within seconds of their leaving the station building and turning away and onto the public road.

  “Before you say anything,” Callie said, “we’re on your side.”

  “We?” relaxing her grip on the little helper but leaving her hand in her pocket where its smooth leather sides bumped reassuringly against her knuckles.

  “Me, Gordon Wade and one or two other people outside the Met. You met Gordon at a charity ball didn’t you? I heard you were, what shall we say, squired by Barney Riordan?”

  “Yes we did, and yes I was. He’s a decent bloke. You know, for an overgrown kid who gets paid millions to kick a football around.”

  Callie laughed. “Not a fan, then?”

  “Of football? Not really. Of Barney, yes. Totally. He helped me help a friend of mine.”

  “Vicky Riley.”

  Stella stopped dead, so that Callie walked ahead a few paces before stopping and turning back to face her.

  “My God!” Stella said. “Have I been under surveillance this whole time?”

  “Let’s get a drink in our hands and then I’ll tell you what’s going on.”

  The hotel bar was empty, but open. A bored-looking bartender poured them both a generous measure of brandy and Callie signed for the drinks then led Stella to the lifts. As soon as the steel doors closed Stella turned to Callie.

  “Cheers!”

  She held out her brandy snifter and clinked rims with Callie before taking a gulp of the fierce spirit. Every moment in the lift felt like an hour as it made its tortoise-like progress to the fifth floor. She was bursting with questions, but she felt that Callie wanted to attain the privacy of her room before opening up.

  Once inside, Callie seemed to relax. Stella saw tension, which she had only subliminally noticed, leave Callie’s shoulders. Her face, which had looked pale in the street lighting, regained a measure of the colour she remembered from their one and only previous meeting on the ferry.

  “Have a seat and ask your questions,” Callie said with a smile, before taking a sip of her own brandy.

  Stella plonked herself down in an armchair. Callie sat on one of the two beds.

  “This ‘we’ you talked about. What are you doing in London? Why are you tailing me?” Another sip of brandy. “Basically, what the fuck is going on?”

  “OK, look. Keep calm, but we know all about Pro Patria Mori. We didn’t know how you were involved at first, but we have been tracking you ever since you asked Gordon where Leonard Ramage’s Scottish house was.”

  Stella didn’t feel calm. Her pulse was bumping uncomfortably in her throat and she could hear a rushing noise in her ears. Amidst her confusion, and swirling emotions, the only relief was that so far Other Stella was keeping herself to herself.

  “Does that mean you know about Five Beeches.”

  Callie’s face fell. No copper liked seeing a colleague killed in the line of duty.

  “I’m afraid so. For now it’s being kept under wraps. At the right time, Frankie will get a proper funeral with full honours.”

  It wasn’t much, but it would have to do, Stella thought.

  “OK, next question. How? I mean, how do you know about PPM?”

  “Would you believe it was an intern? Well, not technically an intern. We had a lassie from the University of Glasgow over doing her PhD research. She was looking at miscarriages of justice south of the border. Bright wee thing. She got hold of a huge pile of court reports, probation records, all manner of bumf. Then she set about entering it into a computer program she’d designed. She came to me one day, a Friday, as it happens. I remember because I’d been planning to get away early and have a few drinks with the team. She was really shy. Wouldn’t make eye contact if she could avoid it. But she plucked up her courage and came to my office. I remember what she said, word for word. ‘Excuse me, ma’am. Could you take a look at this, because I think there’s something odd about these data.’ Well, as you can imagine, it didn’t exactly fill me with joy, but it was my job to play nursemaid so I got her to show me what she’d found.”

  Stella finished her brandy and clinked the glass down on the desk to her right.

  “Let me guess. A pattern of people who’d escaped justice because of mistrials, jury nobbling or legal technicalities and had turned up dead within weeks of their acquittals?”

  “In one. I told her to leave it with me. I took it to Gordon. He asked me to look into it. There were too many for it to be a coincidence and a surprising number killed by police firearms officers. Not all in London but all down south. A few different forces were involved. So I requested all the official bodycam video of the shootings. One in particular puzzled me.”

  “What happened? Which one?”

  “Do you remember that aristocrat who chopped up his girlfriend? Off his face on crystal meth or crack or both.”

  “Yeah. What was his name, Nigel something?”

  Callie nodded.

  “The Right Honourable Nigel Golding, Seventeenth Earl of Broome and Gresham, to give him his full title. I watched that video about twenty times before I saw it. I was focusing on the police officers. But when I looked at him. I mean really looked, I spotted something. You could see him pulli
ng the trigger on the pistol he’d taken from the armed escort, but there was no muzzle flash, no smoke, no recoil and no casings ejected as he pulled the trigger.”

  Stella nodded. Having become superbly well acquainted with the operation and maintenance of firearms in the past year or so, she knew what Callie was saying.

  “The gun was empty.”

  “Exactly. He pulled the trigger a few times, then they gunned him down. Which would have been perfectly legal and in fact mandated by their training. But where were the bullets?”

  “The escort had emptied the magazine before getting in with Golding.”

  “Uh-huh. And what clinched it was I went back and read the armoury report when the weapons were signed back in again. Each pistol and rifle was cleared and each magazine was dropped out and checked. The rifle magazines all had shots fired. Every pistol magazine was full.”

  Stella paused before speaking. Allowing her thoughts to assemble the blood-spattered jigsaw, not needing the dramatic picture on the box lid. An SCO19 officer gets into a prisoner transport van with an empty Glock. Lets himself get overpowered. Surrenders the weapon. Prisoner stops van and exits. SCO19 already in position. Prisoner attempts to shoot firearms officers. Gun’s empty. They return “fire.” Prisoner dead. Empty pistol reloaded off camera. Classic PPM tactic.

  Callie continued speaking.

  “After that, we realised something pretty bad was happening inside the Met and possibly further afield. While we were putting our investigative team together you went up to Ramage’s place and then he died in the apparent house fire. Gordon told me to follow you. He thought, correctly as it turned out, that you were the key.”

  Stella shook her head. Trying to make sense of what Callie was telling her. Because as far as she could see, they had let her kill the other PPM members.

  “Do you mean, you were on me when I—” She clamped her lips together. Steady on, Stel. You were about to confess to murdering three lawyers and more or less admit to doing Ramage as well.