Liz giggled again. “Barefoot Woman and the cars? Sounds like a rock band!”
Bull made a point of looking around the pub, then smiled at her gently. “Let’s keep it down, sweetheart. You never know who’s listening.”
Liz pulled a face at him, then took a quieter tone. “This may not have anything to do with the Sreckos, but we still need to tell Elaine.”
“I know Elaine’s your mentor, and she’s been a friend to both of us, but we need to protect ourselves and her. We don’t want her barging in and confronting Novak unless she’s fully armed. Right?”
Bull waited for her to nod in agreement before he continued. “Let’s stow this talk for now. We have a plan. We’ll get together at our flat tomorrow night.”
Costello nodded his assent.
Thursday night, Bermondsey
Bull kept his eyes on the road as they crept through evening traffic. Taillights flared and blinked, scattered by the rain pounding the windscreen. Headlights reflected from the wet streets into his eyes, distorting his depth perception, making each oncoming vehicle seem closer than it really was. Liz stared out the passenger window.
They had been silent for fifteen minutes when Liz finally spoke. “No wonder you’ve been so quiet the last couple of days. How long did you think you could keep this to yourself?”
Bull shook his head. “Not long. But that’s not the question, is it? What you mean is why didn’t I tell you right away. I was between a rock and a hard place, luv. First, Novak says for Simon and me to keep mum about it. And then he went and made sure the team didn’t know about the tattoos. We wondered what the hell was going on. And Simon didn’t tell me he was going to bring it up tonight. Took me by surprise.”
“Oh. Right,” Liz replied. “So you were just going to let it go and say sod all to me? If there’s a connection, Elaine and I need to know. We’re the ones who paid the biggest price. Especially her. You owe it to us, Bull!”
Bull stopped the car and reversed into a parking space next to the kerb. “No, that’s not it. But you know the rules. What your guv says is what goes.”
“All I want is to talk about our days. It seems like we don’t have as much to share.”
Bull didn’t respond. There was so much he wanted to share, but how to bring it all up? He didn’t know how to talk about the moody silences that pocked those months while Liz was recovering from the assault. How often had he suggested going out to the cinema or a dance club, only to be told she didn’t feel like it? How many times had he been rebuffed when he had only wanted to hold her? How many times had he reached out to her in the night, only to become the object of her startled rage?
He realized she was still recovering and that it could take a long time for her to overcome her PTSD. But he was confused, and his confidence had been shaken. He wanted to talk. Liz said she wanted to talk. But it was never at the same time. And he had been afraid that talking to Liz about this murder, with its apparent connections back to the Srecko case, might revive her old terrors.
They walked to the front door of their small apartment block in silence. After they were inside, he went to the kitchen and poured two glasses of fizzy water. He handed one to her and gestured to the sofa.
“Simon and I got a shout to Kensington, south of Queen’s Gate. Turned out to be a posh house off the Fulham Road. By the time we got there, coppers were all over the place. Messiest crime scene I’ve ever seen, next to Elaine’s, I mean. And Afghanistan.”
“Who’s the victim?”
“Dunno his name, but from tattoos, Novak said the guy was Serbian militia, from the war in Bosnia. That guy who assaulted you fought like he was military trained.”
Liz’s hands shook, spilling the water. Bull wrapped his huge arms around her. “I was afraid it would bring it all up again. I’m sorry, lover. I was caught in the middle.”
Liz blew her nose. “I’ll be okay. I need to come to terms with it.” She blew her nose. “I have to tell Elaine. I can’t deceive her.”
“It needs to be you. When you call her, try not to tell her much, only that you need to talk. If she finds out anything and talks to Novak before we do, our careers are in the bin.”
Liz snickered. “Not the bin. Remember what Elaine says. We’ll be standing security in a sausage factory.”
“We’d never have to worry where our next breakfast was coming from, would we?”
“Maybe lunch and dinner too. I’ve been wondering how soon I’ll have my next banger.” She looked Bull in the eyes and kissed him. Hard.
SEVENTEEN
Friday morning, Kensington
“Close the door.” Novak indicated a chair. “What’s the news?”
Costello pushed the door shut, took a seat, and referred to the overnight reports. “Forensics says there aren’t enough epithelial cells in the urine to get a DNA result. They say she might have been wearing expensive silk knickers, and they may have filtered it. The only cells they found were the victim’s blood and assorted other tissues. They might get something from the two strands of blonde hair.”
“What about fast-tracking it?” Novak seemed to be studying a spot on the wall over Costello’s right shoulder.
“They denied the fast-track request. They’re swamped. It could take two weeks.”
Novak scoffed. “The buckshot?”
“Same, sir—the metallurgy lab is backed up.”
Novak stared at the wall without further comment. Costello shuffled the papers to the next item and continued. “A resident, La Veuve Berenice Claudette Dubuisson-D’Anjou, according to the desk sergeant’s report, found a woman’s black shoe behind one of the potted plants on her front stoop. Blahnik. Spiked heel. Forensics has it.”
Novak smirked. “D’Anjou. The first sign the investigation’s going pear-shaped. Does she drive a Peugeot?”
Costello detested puns, but he chuckled anyway. “I’ve assigned an action to check that today. La Veuve Dubuisson-D’Anjou turned up at the desk downstairs yesterday evening and handed a paper bag to the sergeant on duty. The bag contained the shoe, a handwritten and signed affidavit stating that she had found the shoe, and photos of the potted plant that concealed it, with inscribed arrows pointing to the exact location where she found it in front of her house.”
“Damn. Really? How old is Verve-or-whatever-something-or-other-D’Anjou?”
Costello looked at the fine print on the report. “La Veuve means ‘the widow.’ It’s a French family honorific, and she’s seventy-five. The sergeant said her attitude reminded him of Aunt Violet on Downton, but her accent was all Isabelle Huppert. Trés formidable.”
“Ah. Was the affidavit attested?”
“No, sir, but it says here she would do so if required.”
“Why was she not interviewed during the house-to-house? Why didn’t she come forward earlier?”
Costello again consulted his notes. “The affidavit states she and her companion were at the family pile outside Reims. They returned to London on the EuroStar yesterday about two PM. She found the shoe when she went out to water her plants. Then she heard about the murder, so she contacted her English solicitor. It seems she was unsure what the protocol should be in England.”
Novak rolled his eyes. “She should call the bloody police, same as France. The name rings a bell, though.”
“I thought so too, so I looked it up. It’s a super-expensive brand of champagne. Around a thousand pounds a bottle.” Costello hoped he could interview La Veuve. She sounded awesome. Perhaps he’d give the action to himself and Bull.
“Not fruit brandy?”
“No, sir. Pear brandy is made with a different kind of pear.”
“Ah. You’re a wellspring of useful information. Perhaps she’ll provide refreshments when we interview her. Anything else, Sergeant?”
“Two things. I assigned a DC to review the CCTV cameras around the neighbourhood in the hope of finding where, or if, the dark Jag exited the area. No luck so far. And uniforms searched those private
back gardens along Onslow Square that DC Bull mentioned, and interviewed the residents. They found nothing—no coat or shoe—and no one saw Barefoot Woman, or anyone else, enter or throw anything into the garden that night. L’investigation fait en poire.”
Novak stood and looked out his office window. “I’m not sensing much joy. And I’m not convinced the Barefoot Woman has anything to do with the murder. If she was a witness, why would the killer let her go? If she was an accomplice, it wouldn’t make sense to abandon her, because doing so removes control over her. I have similar questions about the Jag driver. Peugeot driver too. Either or neither could be our killer. It all smacks of carelessness. No word on the Peugeot?”
“No, sir. We may hear from the French police today. I’m not sure what the delay’s about. What if the Jag driver is the killer? If he was, and if the woman is his accomplice, it would explain the remark the witness heard about Jack being a coward.”
“You’re stringing ifs together, Sergeant. Forensics states there were four people present: the victim, the killer, another man, and a woman. Perhaps the woman in the room was the Barefoot Woman on the pavement. Perhaps not. Is the victim’s blood on the shoe our French widow provided?”
“Forensics has it. And the presence of a shoeless woman—”
Novak held up his hand. “The crime scene report suggests that the woman stood in the wrong place to be the killer. The footprints and blowback pattern indicate that one of the other two men was the trigger man. Was the killer named Jack? What if they didn’t all leave at the same time?”
“That’s a good point, sir.” Costello noted the question.
“Did they all come in the same car? Separate cars? Ask yourself if it makes sense for the killer to let the woman and the second man go. Perhaps he didn’t, and we’ll find them floating in Camden Canal tomorrow. Or maybe they’re smoke up a chimney and we’ll never find them. My point is that we may have the wrong end of this stick. Have you checked when the Peugeot and the Jag arrived on the scene? When and where they parked? Parking is devilishly difficult in South Kensington, what with permits and all. Did the woman walk to the house? Have you considered all that? What else are you missing?”
“I don’t know, sir, but I’ll assign actions.” Costello wanted to ask what Novak was doing as senior investigating officer, if he was steering the investigation towards this kind of rabbit warren. SIOs were supposed to decide on clear lines of enquiry, and Costello thought they had one, even if they weren’t making a lot of progress yet. But Novak had already criticized him once, and Costello had been around long enough to know better than to raise more objections. He kept his eyes on his notebook and jotted down Novak’s questions.
“Thank you, DS Costello.” Novak’s mouth turned up in a half-smile. “You sound like you speak French. Or try to. Assign yourself to interview our French grand dame. You deserve her.”
EIGHTEEN
Friday morning, Hendon
Elaine stared out her window, watching a train rumble eastward. Liz’s early morning call had taken her by surprise, but Elaine had agreed to meet after hearing Liz wanted some advice on a case. Liz had implied, but not stated outright, that her topic might interest Elaine as well. Simon and Bull would be there too. Interesting.
She turned back to her desk, which faced a glass door and wall. Unlike her previous office, this door didn’t open onto a bustling major incident room. She couldn’t hear the murmurs of a dozen white-shirted homicide detectives, holding their telephones between shoulder and ear. She couldn’t watch them studying computer screens and tapping at keyboards, researching leads, entering the results of enquiries. She had no DC Evan Cromarty to work magic with his computers, no DS Paula Ford to organize the team’s activities and keep things moving.
And no gut-driven purpose to turn her passion into a solid result. Those days were gone, at least for now. Her recent past was like a fragment of song that kept recurring in her mind. What had Peter called it? An earworm—that was it. He said he got them frequently, sometimes for days at a time, and that the only way he had found to get rid of it was to listen to the entire song, maybe even sing it aloud. Once he had finished the verses, it would fade.
I don’t know the verses to my song.
Yesterday morning she had felt alive, active, effective. Technically, she hadn’t kidnapped Mehta, of course. He had gotten in her car of his own accord, and up until the moment she walked out of the café, he had never asked to be let go, so she hadn’t held him against his will.
But what was it he had said? She’d felt a warning flare go up in her brain, and then she’d let herself get pissed off at him, and it had passed. She had to think.
“DCI Hope? Elaine?”
Startled out of her reverie, she had to look twice to make sure who was standing in the door. “DCS Cranwell, what a surprise.”
Detective Chief Superintendent Cranwell had been her superior for the twelve years she had worked in Murder Investigation. He had trusted her to take over her last murder investigation when DCI Benford, her immediate boss at the time, had suffered a heart attack while they were interviewing Peter.
As usual, Cranwell’s tailored uniform was immaculate and fit his slender frame perfectly. His close-trimmed gray hair tapered to a neat, clipped line a half-inch above his collar. He reminded her of one of her professors at Durham, who Elaine had been sure was gay. She always thought Cranwell spoke as if he were afraid he might reveal something embarrassing. Why was he here?
“I was in the building and felt I must stop by to see how you’re getting along. It’s been almost four months since we spoke. How are you?”
“Settling in. The leg is stronger, but I’m not fighting fit yet.”
“That’s not what I heard. Word has it you got in a bit of a scrap earlier this week.” He raised his eyebrows. “In the street, no less.” He looked at Elaine askance and smiled as if he’d delivered the punchline to a sly joke.
“I’m sure the accounts of my scuffle are greatly exaggerated. I lost my balance and got tangled up with a bloke, is all. Bit of a misunderstanding.” So, news of her little ruckus had made it to upper management, and Cranwell wasn’t even in her chain of command anymore. Why had someone told him, and what else had he heard about?
Cranwell picked lint from his crisply pressed pants before he replied. “I’m sure the tale grew in the telling, then. Most tales…”
“Most tales,” she echoed.
Both chuckled. Cranwell smiled self-consciously. Elaine needed to be wary. The chief superintendent was here for a reason. She waited.
Cranwell broke the awkward silence. “The Met’s lawyers would tell me I shouldn’t say this, but I will. We should have listened to you. Things might have turned out differently.”
He shifted in the chair before continuing. “But that was then. What about now? Your work at the academy? It’s important work, you know. We need experienced officers to share their wisdom. Your insights have a huge impact; they help us succeed in our service objectives.”
Platitudes. Cranwell hadn’t changed. Had he only stopped by to give a pep talk? He knew full well it was her lack of “wisdom” that had taken her out of the Serious and Major Crimes division and into the College of Policing.
She might as well let her feelings be known. “I know what I’m doing is useful, sir. But you know me. I’ve always preferred action to sitting, and I’m doing far too much sitting these days. We need experienced officers leading investigation teams too.”
Cranwell nodded in agreement. “We certainly do.” Their eyes met. “With all this terror unrest, and Brexit hubbub, and anti-immigrant feeling”—he diverted his gaze over her shoulder, out the window—“we need calm heads and steady hands. Off-the-books investigations are highly frowned upon these days.”
And just like that, Cranwell had delivered the Met’s official position. Elaine sat stunned, staring at Cranwell, but not seeing him as her mind followed his message. She could almost quote what Cranwell’s superiors
had told him. That DCI Elaine Hope is strictly back shelf and will be kept off the street. That, after a while, she will resign, out of either frustration or boredom. If she drags it on too long, a new psychological report will result in her enforced retirement. Either way, she’ll have a suitable pension if she goes quietly.
With sudden clarity, she realized what it was Mehta had said that had bothered her. Cranwell had confirmed it. She was being watched. But followed? Surely not. Surely the Met wasn’t wasting a detective’s precious time following a half-mad malcontent. The emotional body blow took her breath for the second time this morning. She sat stunned, barely able to listen.
Am I really that much of a threat to them?
Cranwell half-rose from the chair. “Are you all right? Can I get you something?”
“No, sir. Thank you. I get a shooting pain from time to time. It passes.”
“I see. There was something else. I’ve been asked to tell you informally that you’ve been requested to attend a meeting Monday afternoon. At Assistant Commissioner Collins’s office at New Scotland Yard. They’ve requested that you wear your number-one dress uniform. I believe DCS Delaney and Commander Hughes will be there as well.”
What the hell is this about? Have they already decided to retire me?
Cranwell continued. “I don’t know more than that.”
Like hell you don’t. “Would it be about my leave? The shrink cleared me to come back. He said I was fit for this type of duty. What’s it really about, sir?”
“That’s all I was told, and I mustn’t speculate.” He leaned forward. “Please believe this, Elaine. I have always considered you to be a fine detective. One of the best I’ve had the good fortune to work with. So many detectives either don’t have the gift of intuition or lack the ability to elicit loyalty from their team. You have both. I always thought you were a natural fit for the job.”
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