Tooth and Claw

by Nigel McCrery

  Lapslie laughed. ‘And I’d testify on your behalf at the subsequent complaints tribunal. Okay, where are we with the case?’

  Emma looked down and to her left for a moment, frowning. Lapslie had read somewhere that the direction a person looked when they were thinking was an indication of which part of their brain they were using. Looking down and to the left suggested they were recalling memories.

  ‘We’ve collated all the witness statements from the station,’ she said after a few seconds, ‘and we’re combing through them now looking for anything out of the ordinary: people on rooftops, strange behaviours and so on. Separately, we’re checking back through Alec Wildish’s life. He lived alone, but there’s an ex-wife who’s based near Maldon. She has an alibi, which we’re checking out at the moment.’

  ‘Okay, sounds like we’re covering all the bases. Have the next of kin been informed, by the way?’

  ‘DI Morritt did that. I think it was a way of clawing back some measure of control over the case.’

  ‘And I’m happy for him. Anything in the victim’s background – family life, work, social – that might indicate a motive?’

  ‘Nothing yet. He lived a quiet life: no big passions, no strong emotions as far as we can tell. He wasn’t on the horizon of the local police for any reason.’

  ‘And the locality? Tell me there was a crack-house down the street that he was petitioning against so hard that they decided to do something about him.’

  ‘There’s a tea shop. Does that count?’

  ‘The way this country’s going, it might do in the future. But not now.’ He sighed. ‘We’re heading for a dead end.’

  ‘Anything come out of the post mortem?’

  ‘Nothing. I don’t suppose either the ex-wife or her new boyfriend is in the army? That would explain the bomb.’

  ‘She works at Kwik-Fit. They get a uniform.’

  ‘Not the same.’ Lapslie thought for a moment. ‘Forensics?’

  Emma brightened. ‘Sean Burrows sent an email through wondering if we wanted an update on his tests. You want me to head over?’

  Lapslie thought for a moment. ‘As I recall, the forensics lab is a haven of peace and quiet compared with a police incident room. I think I can stand it for a while. If not, I’ll leave and let you get on with it. See you there in an hour?’

  She glanced at the corner of her computer screen. It looked for a moment as if she was staring at Lapslie’s left knee, but he realised that she was checking the system time on the Windows status bar. ‘No problem; I’ll be there. Oh, I meant to say: the chief wants you to arrange a press conference. There’s a lot of interest in this case – man gets blown up while waiting for a train, no apparent motive. You can imagine what the papers’ll make of it.’

  ‘I imagine the Daily Mail is already putting together a headline worrying about the state of the country.’

  ‘And they’ll probably try and blame it on illegal immigrants.’

  The thought of holding a press conference appalled him. Sweat prickled his palms, his scalp and between his shoulder blades at the very thought. The noise, the sheer uncontrolled noise would be enough to send him over the edge as flavour after flavour, some of which had no real counterpart in the world, jostled for attention on his tongue.

  He shook his head convulsively. ‘Not my cup of tea. Too many people; too much noise. Let DI Morritt deal with it.’

  ‘I asked him. He said it was the responsibility of the person leading the investigation to conduct the press conference.’

  Lapslie felt the corners of his mouth turning down, the muscles twitching. He felt like a petulant child. ‘Great. When it comes to desks he wants to be in charge; when it comes to dealing with the press then he’s happy to step back and leave me in the firing line. He’ll go far. Look, Emma, I just can’t do this. I really can’t.’

  She nodded sympathetically. ‘I’ll get in touch with the chief. See if I can get it put off, or get someone from Public Relations to cover it.’

  ‘Thanks. I appreciate it. Oh, and arrange a higher police profile within the Braintree area, centred on Parkway, if you can. More uniforms on the ground; more patrols. Tell them to look out for any suspicious activity on rooftops. At least it’ll be something we can announce at the press conference.’

  ‘No problem.’ She left the chair, revealing the incident room behind her in all its glory. One or two of the officers manning the phones glanced warily across at the camera, aware that the boss was watching them, but they soon got swept back into the rhythm of the investigation and forgot all about him.

  Lapslie leant back in his chair in the spare mortuary office and let his mind wander across the details of the case, such as they were. He was beginning to suspect that there was no motive at all, that Alec Wildish had been singled out at random by a bomber who might just as easily have killed the person beside him, the person behind him or the Station Manager. An Act of God, albeit a particularly capricious and dark God. And presumably, if the killing was just a random act, they could expect more. But where?

  He still couldn’t get the image of Alec Wildish out of his mind; opened up on Dr Catherall’s post-mortem table. Who could possibly get out of bed in the morning knowing that there was a chance, even a faint chance, they could end up like that? People blinded themselves to all kinds of possibilities in their normal lives.

  His mobile began to ring: Bruch’s 1st violin concerto. At the same time, he tasted coffee. He picked it up and accepted the call quickly, before the taste became too overriding.

  ‘Lapslie.’

  ‘DCI Lapslie? I have Chief Superintendent Rouse for you.’

  Unconsciously, Lapslie straightened up in his chair.

  ‘Mark?’

  ‘Sir. I presume you want an update on the Braintree bomb. Or is it the Catherine Charnaud murder?’ He left the obvious implication – that he was handling two high-profile cases at the same time – hanging.

  There was a tinge of something tropical about Rouse’s voice when he answered that indicated not that he was lying but that he was being careful with his words. ‘There’s increasing pressure in HQ over both cases. Apparently BBC2 are going to be running an extended Newsnight piece on the Charnaud killing tonight, and the Home Office have already been on the phone about the bombing. Can you come over at 0900 tomorrow to brief me?’

  Driving into Chelmsford. The traffic. The noise. And then the walk up to Rouse’s office, and the sitting listening to the man talk. Lapslie felt the tremor in his hands increase, and balled them into fists. Jesus, what was happening to him? Was he going to be frightened of everything from now on?

  ‘Sir, could we do this by videoconference? Only—’

  ‘I do videoconferences with the Home Secretary and the Chief Constable,’ Rouse said firmly. ‘Not with subordinates. My office. Nine a.m.’

  ‘Just me, sir?’ Lapslie asked, suspecting what the answer would be.

  Rouse paused judiciously. ‘DI Morritt will be coming across as well.’

  ‘You’ve already talked to him?’

  ‘He’s already talked to me.’

  Lapslie nodded, although Rouse couldn’t see him. ‘I understand. His nose is out of joint.’

  ‘He feels … aggrieved that he has been sidelined, yes. We’ll discuss it later. He’s a good man, by the way.’

  ‘I’m sure he is.’ Lapslie wondered whether to raise the matter of the press conference with Rouse, but he felt like he’d been knocked back enough for one phone call. Let Emma handle it.

  Rouse hung up without any of the formalities of ending a phone conversation. Lapslie gazed at his mobile for a few moments, considering his options. Not turn up? Resign? Probably came to the same thing.

  If he wore earplugs and took some tranquillisers before setting off, maybe he could just about get through it. Maybe.

  On the screen, in the incident room, Morritt was where Emma had said he would be: squeezed in beside the coffee machine. He was talking on the phone while wri
ting notes: in the old days he would have had the handset jammed between his shoulder and his chin while he wrote, but nowadays the police telephone exchanges were computer controlled, and you could wear a headset with a built-in microphone arm to make your calls with while doing something else with your hands. Or just listen to music on your computer while you were working.

  On the way out of the mortuary to his car, Lapslie’s mobile rang again. He checked the display. Sonia, it said.

  He stopped dead. His mouth was suddenly dry. He ran his tongue over his teeth, feeling the grittiness of the normally moist enamel. His hand trembled slightly, holding the ringing phone, then pressed the accept button.

  ‘Sonia?’

  ‘Mark. I’m not calling at a bad time, am I?’ As always, her voice was a blend of Madagascan vanilla and orange blossom honey.

  He bit back the first five or six replies that came to mind. No matter the intention behind what he said, Sonia would find a way to misunderstand, just as he always read unintended meanings into whatever she said. That was the state of their relationship: each of them sensitive to sniping and reacting accordingly, whether or not the attack was actually real. They were both emotionally raw.

  ‘It’s good to hear your voice,’ he said, ducking the question entirely. I’m always busy would sound like he was trying to score points, and maybe to indicate that he hadn’t got anything else to do with his life now that she and the kids had gone. It doesn’t matter how busy I am, I can always make time to talk to you sounded too earnest, as if he was going to break down and beg her to come back.

  ‘It’s been a while,’ she said, and he could almost hear her biting the words back again, knowing that she’d given him an opening to make some kind of point about the fact that she only ever called when she wanted something, never just to chat.

  Instead, he ducked that one as well, holding fire until he knew why she had called. ‘How are the kids?’

  ‘Jamie’s got a commendation at school. I’ll scan it in and email it to you. Robbie’s got a cold, but he’s still insisting on going swimming whenever he can.’

  ‘Can you email some photos as well? I feel like I haven’t seen them for ages.’ Too begging, too needy. And it gave her an opening to say something about how little time he was spending with them.

  ‘I will,’ she said, avoiding the obvious response. A concession. ‘Mark, can we get together for a coffee some time? I need to ask you something.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’ he said, surprised. Sonia rarely suggested getting together without the kids being there.

  ‘Early?’

  ‘Apparently I’ve got a meeting with Alan Rouse in Chelmsford,’ he said with a trace of bitterness. ‘He’s a Chief Superintendent now. How about lunch?’

  She paused, reluctant. ‘Okay,’ she said eventually, ‘but it’ll have to be a light snack. I have some appointments in the afternoon.’

  ‘Shall I pick you up?’ He knew she would refuse, but he got some small pleasure in putting her on the defensive for a moment.

  ‘No,’ she said quickly. ‘I’ll meet you there. Café Rouge in Chelmsford town centre? Twelve thirty?’

  ‘Okay. Twelve thirty it is. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow. Bye.’ She rang off so quickly she must have had her finger on the button already. Usually, when people cancelled a call, there was a delay of a second or so while they took the phone away from their mouth, held it away from them and pressed the button. Or was he reading too much into every little thing?

  Reluctantly, he headed out of the mortuary and into the car park.

  The forensics laboratory was based out in the wilds of Essex; a fenced-off, guarded compound isolated from everywhere else. Only the cherry-flavoured birdsong could be heard. Emma was already waiting for him. They both had to book in at a reception area. Showing a warrant card was no longer enough: in the wake of terrorist attacks around the UK, security around any forensics area had been increased. One of Burrows’s people – a thin lad with ginger hair – came to fetch them. He led them through Formica-tiled corridors in which the only sound was the echoing click of their heels and the swish as fire doors closed behind them. The noises caused a background taste of aniseed in Lapslie’s mouth, but he swallowed it back and kept going. So far, he was okay. So far.

  Burrows’s laboratory was gleaming white and tiled: fume cupboards against the wall and benches lined up in the centre of the room; some with microscopes, some with high-tech equipment that Lapslie was hard-pressed to identify, and some with basics like light boxes and cameras on stands. Burrows came to meet them at the door. Lapslie had forgotten how small he was: barely taller than Jane Catherall, he estimated, although the quiff of white hair that sprung straight up from his scalp gave him another few inches.

  ‘DCI Lapslie, DS Bradbury.’ His voice made Lapslie think of blackberries, raspberries, vodka. ‘Welcome to my domain.’

  ‘Mr Burrows – you wanted to see us? I presume it wasn’t just social?’

  Burrows shook his head. ‘Lovely though it is to see you, I do have something to tell you. Can I get you a coffee, by the way?’

  Lapslie shook his head before Emma could answer. He wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible, and the way his mouth was feeling the last thing he wanted to do was to put another strong flavour in there. ‘No thanks. What’s come out of the investigation into the Braintree bomb?’

  ‘There’s a lot of samples to examine, but so far there’s nothing out of the ordinary. We’ll analyse all the fragments, of course, check the chemical composition of the explosive and try to track it back to a manufacturer, but that’s about the best we can do.’

  ‘Do you know what the explosive was?’

  Burrows smiled. ‘Ah, you can’t beat the old favourites. It was Semtex H – which is technically a fifty-fifty mixture of penta-erythritol tetranitrate and cyclotrimethylene trinitramine with the addition of N-phenyl-2-naphthylamine as an antioxidant and di-n-octyl phthalate and tri-n-butyl citrate as plasticisers.’

  ‘If you’re ever on Mastermind,’ Emma said, ‘make sure you choose “Explosives” as your specialist subject.’

  ‘Funny you should mention that,’ Burrows continued, unfazed. ‘I do know quite a lot about Semtex. The stuff manufactured since 2002 has been deliberately adulterated with ethylene glycol dinitrate, making it easier to detect by security agencies. It’s also been coloured with a reddish-orange food dye named Sudan 1 to make it easier to spot. Chemical analysis confirms that the explosive used at Braintree is the original stuff, not the new adulterated version.’

  ‘No point checking manufacturers or suppliers, then,’ Lapslie said. ‘What about the potential triggering point up on the roof of the retail centre? Anything there?’

  ‘Nothing useful,’ Burrows said sorrowfully. ‘There was evidence of someone having been there. We discovered a small pool of urine a little way away: looks like whoever it was got caught short and had to take a piss. I’m assuming it wasn’t a dog; not up on the roof. Probably did it into an empty bottle – it’s the kind of thing these survivalist types love doing – but a little spilled.’

  ‘Survivalist types?’ Emma questioned.

  ‘It’s a particular mindset,’ Burrows said. ‘I’ve been reading up on it. Military wannabes, ex-army blowhards. All wanting to prove themselves. That’s the appeal of a bomb: they can convince themselves that they’re hunters tracking their prey, not just common or garden murderers.’

  ‘Duly noted,’ Lapslie said. ‘Can you get anything from the urine?’

  ‘There’s little or no DNA in urine,’ Burrows answered, ‘and even if we isolated some it wouldn’t be much use unless you had something to compare it with. We’re running a check of the hormone levels now: should be able to tell you whether it was a man or a woman, at least, but chances are it’s a man. Most bombers are.’

  ‘That’s the mindset thing again, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’m just a frustrated profiler,’ Burrows admitted. ‘You
get that way, poring over samples of hair and semen every day. You wonder: whose hair is this? Why did they dye it blond and then red a few days later? Are they unhappy with the way they look, or are they disguising themselves? And this semen: does the donor know he’s deficient in the sperm department? Is that why he raped so many women so brutally – just a repressed inferiority complex?’ He shook himself. ‘Evidence without context is just data; that’s what I say.’

  ‘Okay,’ Lapslie said, taken aback by Burrows’s sudden flash of … of what? Was it a deep-seated dissatisfaction with his job? Or was it just his underlying humanity shining through the scientific veneer? ‘Thanks. Let me know if anything else turns up.’

  Burrows paused thoughtfully. ‘There is something unusual about the urine, though, and that’s why I thought you ought to come over. It had a marked purple colour. Might be a result of something the bomber ate or drank, but it might also indicate some kind of metabolic problem. I’m doing some background research on that.’

  ‘Okay – let me know what you find.’

  Leaving the forensics laboratory, Lapslie said to Emma, ‘Did you manage to get me out of that press conference?’

  She shook her head. ‘No joy, boss. Rouse’s office were insistent It goes ahead, and you do it. We’ve got two hours to get back and prepare.’

  ‘Fuck,’ he said bleakly. There was no way out.

  ‘On the bright side, I arranged to see the profiler this afternoon at Catherine Charnaud’s house. There’s just enough time to fit it in before the press conference. I assume you want to come along?’

  ‘You assume right,’ he growled.

  The drive back to Catherine Charnaud’s place in Chigwell was familiar now, and Lapslie found his mind wandering while he drove, wondering about the drumming sound that he kept on hearing, and whether Jane Catherall was right about it signifying a connection to the murderer. And if so, was it something that only he could smell, or was there some distinct odour that the killer was giving off that anyone could detect, if they got close enough?

  The profiler wasn’t there when they arrived, so Lapslie and Emma went straight into the house.