Deadly Reprisal (Detective Zoe Finch Book 5)

by Rachel McLean

  “Frank. I’d like my desk back please.”

  “I need a word.”

  “OK.” She folded her arms and tapped her foot. “Can you get your shoes off my desk? Please.”

  He gave her a self-satisfied smirk and pulled his feet off the desk, straightening up in the chair.

  “Haven’t you got your own office to go to?” she asked.

  “I didn’t want to miss you.”

  “Well, you’ve got me.”

  “DCI Clarke told you to pull back from the Magpie investigation.”

  “Did she?”

  “She had a conversation with you when she came to Boulton Hall. Kit Singh witnessed it.

  Shit. Her intuition about that Kit guy had been right.

  “She did,” she said. “Thought I was too busy on this murder case.”

  Dawson raised an eyebrow. Did he know the real reason she’d been pulled off that case?

  “So why did you ask DS Uddin to discuss the case with the Organised Crime unit?” he asked.

  Zoe hesitated.

  “It wasn’t Mo’s fault, if you’re thinking of laying anything on him. I received a piece of evidence, and I asked him to pass it over to DS Griffin.”

  “You should have given it to me. Like you were told.”

  “Mo and I have been working with Sheila on this case. It seemed sensible to pass the information to her.”

  Dawson stood up and leaned over the desk. “You received a direct order, Zoe. You then failed to tell Adi Hanson that he should have called someone else with this evidence, and you continued liaising with DS Griffin despite knowing that the responsibility had been passed to me.”

  She met his gaze. “I did.”

  “Why?”

  “You weren’t at that hotel, Frank. Those poor bloody women. I watched one of them die, when Adam Fulmer deliberately ran her over. It’s hard to leave a case alone, after you’ve seen something like that.”

  Dawson shook his head. “I don’t give a fuck about your emotional reaction to cases, DI Finch. If you’re told to get off a case, you get off it. Understood?”

  She licked her lips and took a shaky breath. “DCI Clarke told me to leave the case alone. I accept that I shouldn’t have followed it up, but in my defence Adi came to me.”

  Dawson opened his mouth. Zoe raised a hand to stop him.

  “If I get an order like that from a senior officer again, I will pass on any information immediately, as commanded.”

  “You’re getting that order right now, Zoe.”

  She stared at him. She wasn’t about to say outright that he wasn’t her senior officer, but she knew they were both thinking it.

  After a moment, he broke the silence. “Very well. I’m glad we’re clear. I don’t expect to see you within ten miles of this case from now on, Zoe.”

  “Understood.” Zoe clenched her fists, her palms damp. DI Dawson had no idea what was really going on with Randle, Ian and Trevor Hamm, and she wasn’t about to tell him. Unless…

  No. She had to assume Dawson was clean.

  “Right.” Dawson stepped around the desk, his arm brushing hers as he passed. Zoe flinched. “I’ll be back in twenty minutes, for the briefing.”

  “I look forward to it.”

  He pursed his lips, staring into her face. He smelled of sweat. He wanted her to call him Sir, she knew it. He blinked at her a few times, then turned for the door.

  As he left the outer office, Zoe threw herself into her chair, her heart pounding. Reporting to Dawson again was no fun.

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  Zoe stood in front of the board, her stomach clenched. Mo, Rhodri and Connie were at their desks. They fidgeted in silence. Mo kept checking his phone, Rhodri was clicking a pen. Connie chewed on her bottom lip. No one knew when Dawson would reappear.

  “I say we get on with it,” said Mo. “He told you twenty minutes, it’s been twenty-five.”

  Zoe looked at the door for the umpteenth time. “You’re right. Come on, then. Connie, how did you get on with Lin last night? I take it there was nothing useful?”

  Connie shook her head. “She wouldn’t talk to me, boss.”

  “She refused?”

  “As good as. I asked her about Kayla and Jenson first, she was snippy with me, said they were consenting adults. Then when I asked if she knew anything about Laurence assaulting Kayla, she shut down on me. Walked away.”

  “Did she know anything?”

  “She said not. Told me to leave it alone.”

  “Which suggests there was something to leave alone,” said Mo.

  “That’s what I thought, sarge,” said Connie.

  “OK,” said Zoe. She used her pen to jab Lin’s photo on the board.

  “I told you to wait for me.” Dawson was in the doorway.

  “We did. Twenty minutes, you told me.”

  “Five minutes late, and you’re…” he caught himself. Even Dawson didn’t want to be seen arguing with Zoe in front of the team. Not about something as petty as a five-minute delay.

  “We were talking about Connie’s trip to see Lin Johnson last night,” said Zoe. “Lin denies that Laurence Thomms assaulted Kayla Goode, or that Kayla’s relationship with Jenson Begg was nonconsensual.”

  “You still flogging this old horse? What about the forensics?”

  “We’ve got results on the dog hairs. Nothing on the samples yet.”

  He sighed. “Well bloody well hassle the FSI buggers.” He looked around the team. “Go on, then. Get on the phone.”

  “We’re reviewing the evidence.”

  “You did this yesterday. You’ve made no progress, and standing around here isn’t going to get us anywhere.”

  Zoe took a step towards him. “This is how we work. We discuss the evidence we have, we confer on conclusions and hypotheses. It means everyone in the team knows what’s going on, and gives us more chance of spotting connections.”

  Dawson grunted. “Well now I’m in charge, and I want you to get on with it. DC Hughes, call the lab. Find out what’s happening with the DNA sampling from yesterday and tell them to get a shift on.”

  Rhodri looked at Zoe. She shook her head. “Before we do that, DI Dawson, there is one piece of forensic evidence we need to discuss. I already mentioned it.”

  “Enlighten us, then.”

  She had the photos and printouts that Adi had brought her the night before. She stuck them to the board and turned to face the team.

  “We found dog hairs on both bodies. Short, brown, wiry. They’re both from the same dog. Neither victim owned a dog, and there was no sign of a dog in Jenson’s house. Boulton Hall doesn’t allow pets.”

  “Maybe they both knew someone with a dog,” said Dawson.

  “I’m not aware of the two of them moving in the same social circles.”

  “So the killer had a dog?” said Rhodri.

  “Not for definite. But it’s a good possibility.”

  “And both of them were given drugs,” said Connie. “Both of them had them forced down their throat.”

  “How many people knew the details of Laurence’s death?” asked Mo.

  “Good question,” said Zoe. “We kept it tight. The warden. Lin and Kayla knew what they saw when they found him. That’s all.”

  “But the public knew that Laurence died of a drugs overdose,” said Dawson. “I saw the press release.”

  “We didn’t say what kind of drugs. We didn’t say anything about how it was introduced into his system.”

  “So the second murder wasn’t a copycat,” said Connie.

  “Exactly,” said Zoe. “I think we can assume we’re looking for one killer.”

  Mo nodded. “And you think Kayla has a motive for both men.”

  “If we’re to believe what Jenson’s housemate said. And Lin’s reaction to Connie’s questioning makes me more suspicious.”

  “You don’t have grounds for arrest,” said Dawson. “There’s no physical evidence putting her at the scene of either c
rime, at least, not at the time of the murders.”

  “She discovered the first body and was going out with the second victim,” said Zoe. “She’ll have had legitimate reason to leave traces at both scenes.”

  “You can’t arrest her.”

  She resisted rolling her eyes. “I’m not going to arrest her. But I would like to talk to her again. Possibly under caution.”

  Connie turned to Dawson. “After the way Lin was with me last night, I think the boss is right.” She blinked. “Sir.”

  “OK,” said Dawson. “But I’m doing it with you, DI Finch. I want to be sure this is done properly.”

  “I think she should be interviewed by two women,” said Zoe. “I was going to suggest Connie—”

  “Uh-uh. I don’t trust you to not fuck this up. I’ll be in there with you.”

  “Fair enough.” Zoe knew which battles to pursue, and which to drop. She turned to Mo. “In the meantime, you and Rhodri go back to Jenson’s house. I want to see what we can find out about where he got his drugs.”

  “I think we should ask around on campus too,” said Mo. “If he was dealing, he’d have been doing it in Boulton Hall.”

  Zoe bowed her head. Jenson Begg was dead, but it was hard to grieve for him. “I agree. You two head over there. I’ll bring Kayla in, interview her with DI Dawson.”

  “What d’you want me to do?” asked Connie.

  Zoe’s gaze flicked to Dawson and back to the DC. “DI Dawson is right, Connie. I want you on the phone to Forensics. Make sure we get any match from the sampling the minute it comes in.”

  Connie sat up straight. Her eyes brightened. “I’ll go over there on my bike, boss. Refuse to leave till they give me something.”

  Zoe shrugged. “Don’t make a nuisance of yourself though, will you?”

  Connie smiled. “I won’t.”

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  Kayla stared at the ceiling. She couldn’t face lectures today. She felt hollow inside, as if someone had scooped out her intestines.

  Her phone buzzed. She ignored it. It buzzed again. Cursing, she picked it up from the floor next to her bed.

  It was Gina. How are you? Fancy a coffee?

  Just leave me alone, she thought. She let the phone slide to the floor.

  Maybe she should go out. Distract herself. Even if she didn’t make it to lectures, getting out of her stuffy room might help. She’d walk into Selly Oak, go to Jenson’s house. His housemates would let her in. She felt a need just to be in the house. To be closer to him.

  She pulled on her trainers and denim jacket, and yanked the door open. She hadn’t put any makeup on and wasn’t about to bother. No one that mattered would see her.

  She stood outside the lift, scanning the corridor. She didn’t want anyone seeing her. The people in the rooms around her knew about her and Jenson. They would be full of smiles and false sympathy.

  The lift door opened – empty, thank God – and she slid inside. It rumbled to the ground floor and she crept out, hoping no one would notice her.

  Lin was near the door to the canteen, talking to the warden. Kayla’s chest tightened. She hurried towards the main entrance, her head down.

  “Kayla?”

  Kayla paused, then carried on moving. She scuttled towards the door and pushed her way outside. The air was biting cold and she wished she’d put on a better coat. But there was no way she was going back in there.

  She rushed up the driveway towards the road. She could be at the house in ten minutes if she was quick. She just hoped the police wouldn’t be there still.

  A car rounded the corner leading to Edgbaston Park Road. It was a green Mini. She knew that car. She’d sat in that car.

  The car pulled up next to her and a uniformed policewoman got out of the passenger seat.

  “Kayla Goode?” The constable stood in front of her. Kayla stared back at her. Leave me alone. She shook her head and started walking away.

  The driver’s door opened and a woman stepped out. It was the tall redheaded one, DI Finch. The one who’d been full of insincere concern and friendliness. “Kayla, we need to talk to you.”

  “I don’t want to talk.”

  She turned away. There was a cut-through up ahead, she could lose them.

  She heard the car start up again. It stopped ahead of her. The detective jumped out on front of her and put a hand on her wrist. “We need you to come to Harborne police station to answer some questions.”

  Kayla jerked her arm away. The detective looked into her eyes, her grip firm. Could she do this?

  “Are you arresting me?”

  “I’m cautioning you. It’s not the same thing. You’re not under arrest and you don’t have to agree to questioning, but it’s in your interests to do so.”

  “I’ve got lectures.”

  “We’ll make sure your department knows where you are.”

  “No.” Kayla glared at her. “They don’t need to know.”

  “Fine. We’ll go to the station. I’ll have you back here in an hour.”

  Kayla looked between the detective and the car. The uniformed constable watched from inside, her hand on the door handle.

  The detective looked into her eyes. “Please.”

  The constable got out of the car and pulled the back door open. The detective led her to it.

  Kayla drew in a shaky breath and let the woman guide her in, her stomach full of lead.

  Chapter Seventy-Five

  The FSIs had gone and the house had been returned to its tenants. Mo pulled up opposite, glancing at the garden where Rhodri had seen a possible intruder.

  Rhodri grabbed his door handle. Mo put up a hand to stop him. “Hang on a minute.”

  He grabbed his phone and called Adi.

  “Hi, Mo. How’s it going?” Adi seemed to have cheered up since last night, at least.

  “Fine, thanks. I called to ask about the boot print you found at the Jenson Begg house.”

  “We’ve been working on that this morning. Still trying to identify the brand of shoe. It’s not easy.”

  “Did you do a soil analysis?”

  “We did. You’re wondering about the house opposite.”

  “I am.”

  “Well, I’ve got good news for you.”

  Mo threw Rhodri a thumbs-up. “You’ve got a match?”

  “Yup,” said Adi. “The mud on the kitchen floor has Ligularia seeds and dandelion fragments in it. So has the front garden of the house opposite.”

  “Could they have got there some other way?”

  “The two houses are very close. But we sampled the back garden of the house where the body was found, and it was different. Mainly annuals and a few sycamore seeds. They get everywhere.”

  “What about the front?”

  “Yeah, the front’s all tarmacked. Nothing but dog shit and remains of old Maccies.”

  “Surely if someone was in the front garden opposite and then went through the house to the kitchen, they’d have left traces in the front garden of Jenson’s house?”

  “It’s a tarmacked path, and it was trampled all over by the world and his wife yesterday. I’m not surprised we didn’t find anything.”

  “Right,” Mo said. “So you think that’s enough to conclude that the person who killed Jenson was in the front garden opposite beforehand?”

  “I think it’s enough to conclude that the person who left that boot print was in the front garden opposite. Not the same thing.”

  “No. Thanks, Adi.”

  Mo hung up and turned to Rhodri. “That’s encouraging.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Right. Let’s see who’s in, shall we?”

  They left the car and walked to the front door. Mo rapped on the wood with his knuckles. There was no knocker or door bell.

  A skinny man with a scruffy beard opened after a few moments. Will Bulmer, the man from the downstairs front room. “You again.”

  “Sorry to disturb you,” said Mo. “We need to ask you some que
stions about the drugs Jenson was taking.”

  “I told you I don’t know nothing about no drugs.”

  Mo eyed him. The man’s face was sunken and his eyes were yellowing. He knew about drugs, alright.

  “You’re not in any trouble,” Mo said. “But I do need to ask you some questions. And if you don’t feel able to cooperate, then my colleague here will have no choice but to search the premises…”

  “You’ve got no grounds.”

  “We found drugs here yesterday, in Jenson’s room. We do.”

  The man muttered under his breath. “Come in.” He turned towards the back of the house. Mo and Rhodri followed.

  In the kitchen, Will leaned against the stove and cocked his head at them. “Go on, then.”

  Mo nudged Rhodri, who jolted.

  “Look mate,” said Rhodri. “We don’t want to arrest anyone. Too much bloody paperwork, to be honest. We just want to know where Jenson got his stash from.”

  “Don’t try and talk like that, mate. You’re a copper.”

  Rhodri blushed. “Where’d he get his drugs?”

  Mo put a hand on Rhodri’s arm. “Tell us, and we’ll leave you alone.”

  The young man shrugged. “No fucking idea, pal.”

  “You sure about that?”

  He slumped against the stove. “Honest. I don’t know. He was secretive about it, like. Never told no one where he got them.”

  “Was he dealing?”

  A pause. “He shared his stash with his mates sometimes.”

  “In return for money?” asked Mo.

  A shrug. “Yeah.”

  Dealing, Mo thought. The question was how much, and who had supplied it.

  “Did you buy from him?”

  “You told me I weren’t gonna be in trouble.”

  “You’re not. If I don’t find any drugs in your possession, I can’t arrest you. And if I don’t look, then I won’t find anything.”

  “That good enough?” asked Rhodri. Will nodded.

  “Yeah, I bought from him. Don’t have it no more, though.”

  “I’m sure you don’t,” said Mo. “Did anyone else in the house buy from him?”