The Dead Sea Deception

by Adam Blake

  ‘Swiss rolls in the kitchen, Dad,’ she said. He liked the little mini-rolls, the ones that came individually packed in foil, and his response to the phrase was Pavlovian. He shuffled off to look for them, leaving Kennedy to immerse herself in the file.

  The working assumption on all three of the original deaths – Barlow’s, Hurt’s and Devani’s – was now murder. The car that had run Catherine Hurt down had been found by chance, abandoned a hundred miles away in Burnley, having (as it transpired) been stolen only a few streets from where Hurt was killed. It stank of disinfectant and proved to be clinically devoid of fingerprints or fibres. CCTV footage showed the journey north, but wouldn’t resolve far enough to show anything of the driver.

  The clothes fibres she and Harper had found at Prince Regent’s had correlated exactly with what Barlow was wearing at the time of his death, so the hypothesis of him having been dragged up the staircase unconscious looked robust.

  From ballistics reports, the gun that had killed Sarah Opie was a Sig-Sauer P226, a popular gun with armies and police forces around the world. The ammunition had been bought in Germany as part of a large shipment originally intended for the Israeli Defence Force. As far as could be determined, the container in which it had been shipped from Lübeck to Haifa had gone astray somewhere and was never unloaded.

  Emil Gassan had now been placed in protective custody. When he’d heard about the events at Park Square, he hadn’t even protested much – although he seemed to be in shock at the thought that Stuart Barlow’s work had inspired something beyond mild contempt.

  Some gesture had been made towards mounting a search for Michael Brand, but he hadn’t been found. He’d paid by cash at the Pride Court Hotel, had shown a fake photo ID identifying him as a lecturer at the University of Asturias in Gijon, where – of course – nobody had ever heard of him. Combes now had an alert out on him, but so far he hadn’t surfaced. Descriptions of the two men who killed Dr Opie and Chris Harper, and of the third man who appeared from nowhere in the Park Square car park to tackle them, had likewise been circulated: no takers.

  Footprints. Number plates. Roadblocks. Searches. No fingerprints or clear sightings. Like trying to clutch at ghosts, but she couldn’t fault Summerhill’s methods. He seemed to be doing everything he could do, everything she’d be doing in his place.

  The phone rang, breaking a train of thought that was going round in a tight, unavailing circle. She picked up, hooked the receiver absently under her jaw: it was probably going to be someone from Division, with some bullshit coming out of the incident committee.

  ‘Kennedy,’ she said, shortly.

  ‘Good name,’ said a male voice. ‘Any Irish in the family?’

  It was a voice she knew, without being able to place it immediately. It was also a voice that made her come upright, sending some of the papers from the case file sliding from her lap on to the sofa and the floor.

  ‘Who is this?’ she asked. The answer came into her head even as the man told her.

  ‘We met at the Park Square campus. A week ago. I was the one who wasn’t trying to kill you.’

  A pause, while she thought about how the hell to answer that. Go for the obvious. ‘What do you want?’

  No pause at his end. ‘To talk.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘The case.’

  ‘What case?’

  The man breathed out loudly, sounding annoyed or impatient, she couldn’t tell. ‘I was a good Catholic boy,’ he said. ‘But nobody’s asked me to recite the catechism in a long time. I’m pretty much up to speed on what you’ve been doing, Detective. That’s why I was at Park Square in the first place, watching you try to make an unarmed arrest on two stone killers. I know about Barlow’s murder, and I know it’s part of a pattern – although you haven’t managed to sort out a motive yet or a link between the victims besides the obvious one that they all knew each other. I know that you’ve been in a firestorm because your partner died, and I know you’re not running the show any more. But I’m guessing you know more about what’s been happening than any of these other guys who jumped on board last week. Plus I like to think we’ve broken the ice already, so it seemed to make sense to call you first.’

  It was Kennedy’s turn to breathe hard. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘I’m grateful for what you did. It got me out of a tight spot. But with respect, all I know about you is that you can handle a gun and you don’t bother with a warning shot or a challenge. That could make you a lot of things, and cop isn’t one of them.’

  ‘I’m not a cop. Got some good friends who are, though, and a lot more who used to be.’

  ‘So you’re what? Somebody’s hired security?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Military?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Corporate muscle of some kind?’

  ‘We’re getting into that catechism territory again. If we’re going to talk, the phone’s not the best way to do it.’

  ‘No? Where, then?’

  ‘There’s a café up by the Tube station. Costella’s. I’ll be there in five minutes. Gone in about seven.’

  ‘That doesn’t give me much time, does it?’

  ‘No, it doesn’t. Specifically, it doesn’t give you the time to set up any surprises for me. Seriously, Detective, we could do each other some sizeable favours, but I’m not asking you to trust me and I’m not stupid enough to trust you. Wait for me outside the café, be alone, and bring your cellphone. We’ll take it from there.’

  She heard a click and the line went dead.

  Kennedy considered her options, but she was hauling on jeans and a sweater, street shoes, as she did it. Nothing she could do about her hair, which was only half-dry and as wild as a haystack. She corralled it into a baseball cap and ran upstairs to Izzy’s.

  Izzy was on the phone, unsurprisingly. ‘Well, I like them big,’ she said, looking at Kennedy but talking to whoever was on the other end of the line. ‘I like them very big. Tell me you’re touching it now, lover.’ Kennedy held up both hands, fingers spread. Ten minutes. Izzy shook her head violently but Kennedy already had a twenty-pound note in her hand. Izzy changed her mind mid-shake, snatched the note and waved to Kennedy to go, go go.

  Kennedy went.

  25

  Kennedy got to the Costella Café around about the end of the seventh minute. The place was empty – it was small enough so that there wasn’t anywhere someone could sit without being visible from the street – and nobody was waiting outside to meet her. She turned a slow circle on the pavement, scanning everyone in sight, but none of them looked remotely like the brick shithouse of a man who she’d met so briefly the week before.

  Her mobile rang just as she was completing the circuit.

  ‘Kennedy.’

  ‘I know. I can see you. Walk to the end of the street. There’s a church. Go inside. Buy a candle and light it.’

  ‘You being a nice Catholic boy.’

  ‘Oh, I was lying about that. The candle’s just to give me time to walk around the building a couple of times – see if anyone’s following you.’

  ‘I’m not trying to set you up. If I were, I’d do it with a wire, not with a tail.’

  ‘Assuming you had a wire lying around the house, sure. Actually, I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt on that one, Detective. The people I’m worried about right now aren’t the people on your team.’

  Kennedy walked to the church – a nondescript modern building in yellow brick – and did as she’d been told to do. Lighting the votive candle and putting it into the wire rack in the side aisle felt like a meaningless act – she’d never believed in any god, or any other kind of free-floating power – but she found herself, to her own surprise, slightly queasy about going through the motions. Harper’s death was too recent, too fresh in her mind. This pantomime of devotion felt in bad taste, somehow – like a joke at his expense, or her own.

  With the candle in place, she turned around, half-expecting to find that the big man h
ad appeared soundlessly behind her, but she stood alone in the church.

  Kennedy waited, feeling a little ridiculous. Her phone didn’t ring again and nobody showed. After five minutes, she went outside by the same door she’d entered. The big man was leaning against the wall just beside the door, hands thrust deep into the pockets of a black donkey jacket. Right then he looked less like an avenging angel than a brickie or a navvy, innocuous for all his bulk. His weathered face revealed nothing. ‘All right,’ he said to her. ‘We seem to be alone.’

  ‘Great,’ Kennedy said. ‘What now?’

  ‘A drink,’ the big man said. ‘In a very noisy pub.’

  The Crown and Anchor on Surrey Street was heaving, so it fitted the bill just fine. The drink turned out to be whisky and water, which the big man – who’d introduced himself as Tillman – bought for her without asking. She didn’t touch it, but then he didn’t touch his, either. It seemed to be just a bit of protective camouflage. So was the noise, Tillman explained.

  ‘You can’t do much about phase grid microphones,’ he said. ‘Or lip readers, for that matter. But neither of them is going to have an easy time of it in a place like this. You need clear air to aim through or a clear line of sight.’

  ‘So you still think I’m being followed?’ Kennedy asked him, half impressed and half bemused. Whatever else he might be, it was clear that this man serious about watching his back.

  Tillman shook his head. ‘No. I’m pretty certain you’re not. They weren’t after you in Luton, were they? They wanted the computer woman – the last one on the list. I was the only one following you – because I thought you were following someone else. Someone I’ve been after for a long time.’

  Kennedy gave Tillman a narrow look. ‘You said Sarah Opie was the last one on the list. Whose list? And how would you know?’

  ‘Just an inference,’ Tillman said. ‘You haven’t gone chasing after anyone else, so you don’t think anyone else is in danger. I’m not saying you’re right. I’m just saying you seem to think it’s over for now. That there won’t be any more killing.’

  Tillman watched her expectantly, waiting for her to confirm or deny. She did neither, just met the stare and left the ball in his court.

  ‘So what’s it about?’ he asked her at last. ‘Barlow was the first – or the first you found. They were working together on something. And it got them killed. That’s the working hypothesis.’

  ‘That sound you hear,’ Kennedy told him, coldly, ‘is me not talking. You’ve got the advantage, Tillman. You’re telling me things you shouldn’t know about my own case – things we haven’t told the public or anyone outside the division. I’m not saying a word until you tell me how you know those things. I’m certainly not going to assume that since you’re already halfway down the slipway I should tow you the rest of the distance.’

  Tillman nodded tersely, conceding the point. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘That’s fair. Michael Brand.’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘You’re looking for him. So am I. The difference is that you’ve been looking for him for about ten days. I’ve been looking for him for thirteen years. Did you ever do that thing people do in movies, of stretching a hair across your door or wedging a matchstick in the jamb so you can tell if anyone’s been in your room while you were out?’

  ‘Not so far,’ Kennedy said. ‘I might try and get into the habit.’

  ‘I’ve been doing it for years, Detective. All sorts of hairs, and matchsticks, wedges of cardboard, tin cans and bits of string. My own little network, stretching backwards and forwards and all over the place, just to let me know when Michael Brand pops up. I’ve got friends, and friends of friends, in odd little oases around the world, watching the information as it flashes by on the superhighway. Bits of viral code in online databases. Old-fashioned cuttings services in a couple of dozen countries where computers are still a bit of an oddity or where I just want that extra bit of assurance. Michael Brand is an obsession with me, you see. He doesn’t get out much, but when he does I want to know about it. So when he turned up in your investigation, I turned up too. That’s the short answer.’

  Kennedy was nonplussed. Not very much about the speech had sounded sane, even though Tillman delivered it in a calm and reasonable tone of voice. She didn’t reply. After a moment or two, by way of a distraction, she picked up her whisky and took a sip. It wasn’t nice at all, but it beat staring at Tillman in the way you stare at the nutter on the bus.

  He laughed, a little ruefully, as if he’d read her expression in any case. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Maybe that needs a little context. You see, I lost my wife and kids, a few years back.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Kennedy said – the automatic, meaningless response. ‘How did they …’

  ‘How did they die? They didn’t. I just lost them. I came home one night and they weren’t there. The house had been cleaned out, from top to bottom. Thirteen years ago. I’m still looking.’

  He sketched it out for her. The official stonewalling; the police’s refusal to mount an investigation; his grief and fear and confusion; his fruitless searching and skirmishing; and his realisation at last that he needed a different approach entirely if he was ever going to get beyond square one.

  As she listened, Kennedy assumed, at first, that Tillman was like any man still in love with a partner who’s outgrown him. But his absolute conviction began to get to her. Thirteen years is a long time to spend in denial, and for that matter a long time to play hide and seek with three kids. A woman alone could hide easily enough. A woman with three children would have to register them with doctors, dentists, school boards, care services of all shapes and descriptions. They’d be a cluster, distinctive and easy to find. Unless they were dead, of course. She didn’t mention this possibility, but again Tillman seemed to anticipate her thoughts.

  ‘She left a note,’ he said. ‘Asking me not to follow. And there was a sort of logic … no, I mean a sort of signature, in the things that were taken. I said the house was cleaned out, but it wasn’t quite like that. A few things were left behind: a few little things, that didn’t matter. Books. Toys. Clothes. But that was the point. All the things that were left were things that didn’t matter. Things that the kids wouldn’t miss. The favourite books, the favourite toys, the clothes they liked to wear, and that still fitted them okay, all those things were taken. It was Rebecca’s choice, and she got it exactly right, except for …’ His voice tailed off.

  ‘Except for what?’

  ‘Nothing. Nothing important.’

  Kennedy shrugged. ‘Okay. But then, where does that leave you, Tillman? It means she went of her own free will, right?’

  ‘No,’ he said, bluntly. ‘It means she knew they were going to be alive and they were going to be together. She took all the things they’d need, for a life somewhere else. But I don’t believe – I can’t make myself believe – that a life without me was what she wanted. And even if it was possible to be wrong about that, Detective, I’d still want to find her and ask her why. And I’d still want to find my kids again. But I’m not wrong. Rebecca went because she didn’t have a choice. And she left me a note telling me not to look for her because she didn’t think I’d ever be able to find her or bring her back from where she was going. She was trying to spare me at least some of the pain.’

  He stopped, watching her closely. It seemed to be important to him that she should accept all this on his bare word. Kennedy ducked the issue.

  ‘Michael Brand,’ she reminded him.

  Tillman nodded reluctant approval. It was the right question, as far as it went, sticking to the business of why they were here. Why they were talking at all. ‘Rebecca saw him,’ he said. ‘She arranged to meet him – or the other way around, more likely. He called and asked her to come and see him. At a Holiday Inn about five minutes’ walk from the house, where he was registered as a guest. It was the same day they left.

  ‘And she went. She met him. The desk clerk knew Brand by sight – a gu
y in his thirties, he said, with a shaved head and a really hard look about him, like he might be police or ex-army. I showed the clerk a photo of Rebecca, and he remembered seeing her with Brand. I don’t know what happened between them; what he told her. But whatever it was, they left together. Went back home, I guess, where Rebecca started packing. That was the last time I saw her. Saw any of them.’

  Tillman’s tone stayed level through this recitation. Kennedy couldn’t guess what effort that cost him. If he was still searching thirteen years later, these events he was describing were, collectively, an open wound that had subsumed his whole life. She knew, too, as Tillman had to know, that even if he was right on every count, it didn’t mean that his family were still alive right now, or were still alive an hour after they left the house. It only meant that Rebecca had believed they would be. He could be chasing a ghost: four ghosts, or five if you counted Brand.

  And obviously, once you started thinking about it, Brand was the weakest point in the whole house of cards.

  ‘It can’t be the same man,’ she said. ‘Your Michael Brand, our Michael Brand …’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, why should they be? Your Michael Brand has hole-in-corner meetings with married women in cheap hotels. My Michael Brand lies his way on to academic message boards, pops up at history seminars like …’ she groped for a simile ‘… the comet before a plague. He presides over mass murder, then disappears. They don’t have a whole lot in common, Tillman. And it can’t be that unusual a name. Seriously, what are the odds that your man is our man?’

  Tillman was swirling the whisky in his glass, but still hadn’t tasted it. ‘Give or take?’ he asked her, calmly. ‘I’d say a hundred per cent. Even on the basis of what you just said, there’s the same MO working: he turns up, he signs into a hotel, he does what he’s come to do and then he disappears. Two very different mission statements, obviously, but that’s how he operates, in both cases.’