‘Detective Inspector Bertram Ayala,’ he said loudly, ‘you’re under arrest on suspicion of the murders of Angela King, Hudson Brown, Edward Teigan, and Donald Bickerstaff. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’
The cameras had begun to flash almost as soon as he started to speak. By the time he slapped a pair of handcuffs on a panicked Ayala, bystanders were filming with their mobile phones. He frogmarched Ayala to the car, pushed Ayala’s head gently down to prevent him hitting it as he forced Ayala into the back seat, and fumbled with the engine long enough to let several journalists get their money shot of the perp being whisked away in a police car.
‘Bloody hell, boss man, you didn’t have to cuff me so tight. That hurt!’
‘It’s an arrest, Bertram, not a social call. Now, shut up until we get back to New Scotland Yard. You’ll be processed with the rest of the criminals at intake, and then I’ll have your laptop brought down to an interview suite so you don’t get too bored.’
Ayala paled. ‘Processed?’
‘You didn’t think we were just going to play-act the arrest, did you? You’re getting strip searched like a common criminal.’ Morton looked into the mirror again and saw Ayala looking distinctly unimpressed.
It was an exceptional sacrifice to make.
***
Kallum Fielder became the go-to guy for sensational news coverage once more that Friday lunchtime. After the news of Ayala’s arrest broke at eight o’clock in the morning, his agent was offered a dozen talk shows. Kal picked the one with the highest ratings, rather than the most money, and was whisked into make-up by eleven.
Less than hour later, he felt the glare of the studio lights as he appeared on Unscrupulous Gentlemen.
Host Frederick Vernon announced him to a round of applause from the live studio audience.
‘Today, I’m with Kallum Fielder. He’s come in to talk to us about Detective Inspector Bertram Ayala, the man arrested this morning in connection with no fewer than four seemingly unconnected murders. You’ve met the man himself, haven’t you, Kal?’
The camera panned to a close-up of Kal. He could feel the heat of the studio lights above him and willed himself not to sweat.
‘Yes, I’ve met Bertram Ayala. I always thought there was something sinister about him.’
‘Why was that? What gave you the impression he was evil? He seems to have fooled everyone else around him, including the legendary DCI Morton.’
Kal wanted to laugh. He had that impression because they were paying him to. The truth was, he could barely remember Detective Inspector Ayala. They had barely exchanged a word.
‘He just seemed so distant, so cold.’
‘This was when your girlfriend – model Ellis DeLange – was murdered? Did he show any sympathy?’
‘No,’ Kal said, parroting the script he’d been asked to memorise an hour ago. ‘It was weird, the way he looked at me. I thought at the time that he believed me to be a viable suspect. Reflecting back on it now, it’s obvious what was going through his head.’
‘What was that?’
‘He wanted to know if I was a kindred spirit, a killer. When he realised I wasn’t capable of that, that I couldn’t have murdered Ellis, he looked at me with derision. He still had to investigate, of course, if only to satisfy the boss.’
Frederick Vernon leant farther and farther forward as Kal spoke, as if he was enthralled by the story that he had concocted off-screen. ‘Do you think that’s what made him a good detective, that ability to see himself in the killers he hunted?’
‘Undoubtedly. Detective Bertram Ayala is evil, through and through. Like is attracted to like. It’s only now that we’re seeing the truth brought to light.’
Chapter 49: Viva Voce
Mayberry needed to know how Sully had done it. He’d faked a doctorate without anyone becoming any the wiser. To get his PhD, he would not only have had to hand in a book-length tome, but he would have had to defend his research conclusion in a live viva voce exam.
It could be faked. Sufficient studying might let someone get through the interview element. But Sully seemed too dim to have managed that. Could he have bribed someone to do that as well?
The real question was: who had really written his thesis? Somebody had written eighty thousand words of articulate, nuanced, original research.
It was time for the old standby: ask Brodie for help. He had become something of a crutch for Mayberry. The big Scot didn’t mind doing all the talking, and he seemed almost magic with a computer.
The big man was in his office that Friday lunchtime. He was facing away from the door, holding a half-eaten bacon sarnie on a paper plate.
‘You seen this, laddie?’ He gestured at the television in the corner of his office, which was showing Unscrupulous Gentlemen with the subtitles on. ‘Bertram Ayala. I never thought he had it in him. How’re you holding up?’
‘He’s n-not the k-killer,’ Mayberry said.
‘That’s the spirit!’ Brodie said. ‘Of course he isn’t.’
Mayberry wanted to punch him. ‘It’s a t-trick to l-lure the r-real killer.’
Brodie stared, unsure what to make of the information. ‘What do you mean, it’s a trick? Are you saying he got himself arrested, paraded on national TV, and humiliated online, all to bait the real killer?’
Mayberry nodded.
‘Wow. I didn’t think he had the cojones. Bertram Ayala, badass.’
The pronouncement that Ayala was a badass elicited a wan smile from Mayberry.
Brodie turned the television off, set his sandwich down, and turned his chair to face Mayberry. ‘So, what can I do for you?’
Mayberry handed him a USB stick. He waited while Brodie loaded up a PDF of Sully’s doctoral thesis. ‘S-Sully d-didn’t write th-this. He c-cheated–’
‘And you want to work out who did write it? Okay. He could have paid someone, which would be hard to prove. He could simply have copied most of it from someone else’s work. That’s the most obvious solution. Let’s run this through an anti-plagiarism checker and find out.’
Brodie uploaded the document, and then, while the search was in progress, noisily wolfed down the rest of his bacon sandwich. ‘It’s so good,’ he said when he had finished. ‘Irish bacon, Heinz ketchup, and some part-bakes thrown in the oven just before eating.’
That explained why Brodie had insisted on a mini oven in the IT department’s staff room as well as a hot plate. Fresh bacon sandwiches were the order of the day.
‘Don’t tell the missus, laddie. I’m supposed to be on a diet. How anyone can expect a man to live without bacon, I’ll never know. I love that woman to bits, but dear God, she eats like a rabbit.’
Mayberry smiled. She wasn’t wrong. Brodie could stand to lose a few pounds.
‘I know that look, laddie. You think she’s right. Well, she is. But I’ll take seventy years and bacon over four score and ten without, any day of the week.’
The search finished. Nothing.
‘Hmm,’ Brodie mused. ‘What if he’s a bit smarter than simply copy-pasting? This Sully, where’s he from?’
‘L-Libya.’
‘Does he speak Modern Standard Arabic?’
Mayberry didn’t know.
‘Don’t stress, laddie. I’ll check the personnel files.’
It turned out that Sulaiman Haadi al-Djani did speak Arabic.
‘W-what are you th-thinking?’
‘When I did my degree, a couple of the foreign students there cheated too. They took essays written in their own language and translated them. It was in the wrong source language to get spotted, and even if there were suspicions, nobody called them on it because they were paying higher fees than everyone else, and then they all headed home after graduation. No harm, no foul, eh?’
‘Y-you think S-Sully did that?’
‘Let’s find out.
There can’t be very many theses on the protein markers in serial killers written in Modern Standard Arabic, can there? Let me ping a translator and get us some proper search terms. Want a coffee while we wait?’
‘H-hot ch-chocolate?’
Brodie grinned. ‘I swear I’ve adopted a child sometimes. I assume you want my alcoholic marshmallows and a bit of whipped cream on top of that? If you’re paying for it, I’ll have my intern nip to Tesco for the cream now.’
Ten minutes later, Mayberry had his hot chocolate. He sipped it as Brodie typed away, furiously looking for Arabic language dissertations, and then sending the academic summary over to his contact. Mayberry had almost finished his drink when Brodie finally found a hit.
‘Here we go. A nearly exact match. This,’ Brodie said, gesturing at a PDF on-screen, ‘is a thesis from eight years before Sully wrote his. It was written in an Algerian dialect of Modern Standard Arabic by a doctoral candidate at the Université Kasdi Merbah de Ouargla. That’s where he got his research. Sully is a fraud.’
Sully couldn’t have killed the four victims. He was too thick to even write his own doctoral thesis.
Strike another one.
Chapter 50: The Taunt
By Friday evening, the suspect pool had begun to thin out. Ayala was, theoretically, in custody. In reality, he was downstairs working via a video link from the cells.
Morton watched bleary-eyed as Mayberry scribbled on the whiteboards. Every insane theory had been discussed. Planes, trains, buses, bombs, gas leaks, poisons, biological weapons... the possibilities seemed endless.
Babbage – 10
Sully – 9
Villiers – 6.5
Hulme-Whitmore – 6
Maisie – 5
(not) O’Shaughnessy – 4.5
Rudd – 3
El-Mirza – 2
Sully, Danny, and Almira had been discounted. Babbage and Villiers seemed unlikely, but couldn’t be definitively ruled out. Eric – or Taylor, as Morton now knew him – was patently insane but didn’t strike him as a killer. Rafferty didn’t like the look of Rudd or Pincent, either.
That left them at a dead end. There was no more information to go on, no more leads left to pursue.
‘Five suspects,’ Morton lamented. ‘Four victims.’
‘Could we be looking for multiple killers?’ Ayala asked by video link. ‘We’ve not alibied everyone for every Saturday.’
‘The “everybody did it” theory?’ Morton said, dubious of such a ridiculous proposal. ‘I can’t prove it isn’t.’
Rafferty knocked at the door. In her arms were several bags of takeaway food. ‘Who’s hungry?’
Morton’s stomach groaned. It was getting on for seven o’clock, and he hadn’t eaten since breakfast. The food was welcome relief from the stress.
They ate in near-silence. Paper plates were scattered all over.
Halfway through their impromptu dinner, Mayberry stammered his thanks to Rafferty. ‘T-t-thanks, Ashley. D-do you want some m-money towards this?’
She looked bewildered. ‘I didn’t order it. I just happened to be walking through the hallway when the delivery guy arrived and said he had a delivery for DCI Morton. He specifically said your name.’
‘Then, who the hell did?’ Morton looked around the room. ‘Nobody?’
Panic flooded the room. If they hadn’t ordered the meal, who had?
‘Shit.’
Morton lunged for the bin. He snatched it up, retched, and vomited. He heard the others run from the room, likely to do the same. Could the killer have sent the Thai meal to poison them?
A final retch convinced Morton that he had purged as much as he could without an emetic. He didn’t feel unwell beyond the usual nausea from throwing up. Could the killer be messing with them? Could it be wheels-within-wheels logic? Could the killer have sent an unpoisoned meal so Morton and the team would waste hours at the hospital?
Morton’s head hurt. This investigation was driving him insane. He was second-guessing everything: the evidence, his team, his gut. The killer seemed to be spreading misdirection everywhere. Could even the time be a red herring meant to send him careening down the wrong rabbit hole?
Rafferty and Mayberry reappeared after a few minutes, looking the worse for wear.
‘Who exactly brought in the food?’ Morton asked her.
‘One of those motorbike delivery drivers. I don’t know. He asked for you, and I assumed you’d ordered it.’
Fuck. It was targeted to him. Everything was personal.
‘Was there an invoice or a receipt?’
‘Hang on,’ Rafferty said. She began to dig through the remains of the meal and found a slip of paper in the bottom. It listed all of the items, their prices, and the contact details for Panang Cuisine just north of Camden.
‘Panang?’ Morton echoed. It was one of his favourites. Kieran had introduced him to their food a few months back. Whoever had sent the meal knew Morton’s preferred choice of takeaway.
A shiver ran down his spine. He was being watched by a serial killer.
‘Yeah, and there’s a name. Kieran O’Connor.’
Damn. Had the food been a gift after all? Morton was about to dial Kieran’s phone when Rafferty spoke again.
‘Uh, boss. You need to see this.’ She handed him the note. On the back, in all caps, someone had written the following message:
Well done. You added two and two and got four, but can you make it five? You trained me. Now, I’ll train you.
***
A quick call to Kieran confirmed he had had nothing to do with the order, though he knew Panang Cuisine well because it was his local. Mayberry was dispatched to talk to the restaurant owners. The drive took Mayberry almost half an hour in traffic for a three-mile journey, and it took almost as long to find somewhere to park. As was usual for Camden on a Friday night, the place was rammed. There were hipsters and students drinking up and down the canals, past the railway track, and along the entire stretch between Mornington Crescent and Camden Town tube stations.
Panang was right by the railway line. Trains whizzed overhead as Mayberry walked in. He made a beeline for the counter, shoved past the queue, and accosted the woman serving. He flashed his ID at her.
‘Hi, I’m D-d-detective Sergeant Mayberry. You d-delivered an order to N-new Scotland Yard.’
‘No refunds!’ the woman said, pointing a large red sign behind the counter.
‘I’m not here for a refund. I need to know who placed the order.’
The woman shrugged. ‘We busy.’
Maybery eyed the woman carefully. She seemed to be putting the accent on a bit thick, as if it were a deliberate tactic to get rid of him.
‘Do you have C-C-C-CTV?’ he arched his neck to look around.
‘No.’
‘Can you r-remember anything about this order? It was a v-very l-large order. It was in the name of K-K-Kieran O’Connor.’
‘No. We busy. I don’t see who order. I just serve next customer.’
Mayberry grew exasperated. ‘D-does anyone else work here?’
‘Chef. He in back. He no see customers. You buy food?’
‘N-no, I’m not buying food.’
‘Then move out way. We got customers.’
Chapter 51: Counter Terrorism
Morton didn’t go home that Friday night. Instead, he pulled out an old fold-up bed and a rather worn blanket and kipped in his office. The others did the same, taking shifts to stay awake in case any new information came in. Morton slept fitfully, knowing he was being taunted.
They rose at five for breakfast. This time, Morton personally went to the twenty-four-hour bakery around the corner.
They had seventeen hours left on the clock.
The Counter Terrorism Command had already made sounds that they were unhappy. Their contingency plans were ready to roll: over fifty thousand extra officers deployed to strategic sites around London.
‘We have to,’ Antonov said simply. ‘It’s protocol
.’
‘It won’t do any good,’ Morton said. ‘This killer is too smart to hit the obvious targets. They’ll hit somewhere soft.’
‘Where?’
‘I don’t know,’ Morton said simply. ‘If they follow the pattern, it’ll be an evolution on the murder suggested in class. That’s the game they’re playing. We know from last night’s taunt that they still want us to play.’
‘What was the exact murder they planned?’
‘Using a drone to deliver an explosive payload,’ Morton said.
Antonov slammed a chubby fist down on the conference table, causing the pastries to leap into the air. ‘Then, we need a no-fly zone in place. We need sniffer dogs. We need bomb disposal on standby.’
‘They won’t use a bomb or a drone. You’ve been investigating my students. Do any of them strike you as having the connections necessary for a bomb?’
‘No,’ said Antonov. ‘But I’ve got to do it. The home secretary must be briefed immediately. We need to raise the threat level to critical, keep people inside, and stop whatever is being planned by any means necessary.’
‘You do what you have to do,’ Morton said. ‘But if I shout, you’d better come running. It’s going to be our knowledge of the students that breaks this, not a blanket safety net. The killer will be trying to hit a soft target outside your perimeter. You can’t have people everywhere.’
‘What kind of attack do you think it’ll be?’
Morton hesitated. He had an idea, but it could be misdirection. He showed Antonov the note again.
Well done. You added two and two and got four, but can you make it five? You trained me. Now, I’ll train you.
‘And?’
‘Look at the language,’ Morton said as he pointed at the note. ‘You trained me. Now, I’ll train you. Is that just a reference to a student-teacher relationship, or have they used the word “train” twice on purpose?’
‘You think it’ll be a bomb on a train?’
‘It could be. It’d be a softer target. You can put men all over the major stations, but can you prevent someone leaving a bag behind on a busy train as it pulls into central London?’
The DCI Morton Box Set Page 69
