Persons of Interest

by Peter Grainger

  Smith said, ‘I only say that because Mike has been in his team for a few days, and Pat has been laid off today like everyone else, hasn’t he?’

  That was a lie, of course – that was not why he had said it, and something in his face was not trying too hard to conceal the fact. It wasn’t a smile but something much more subtle.

  ‘Yes, true, but John is Mike’s regular sergeant.’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘And you are OK with that? You know why I’m asking, DC.’

  ‘I’m fine with it. And Wilson will be as long as he doesn’t think he’s taking orders from me.’

  She bridled a little at that, and then he did have to suppress a smile.

  She said, ‘Well, he won’t be, will he? I think the chain of command is pretty clear.’

  Smith said, ‘Yes it is, ma’am.’

  Cara Freeman gave her a look that said, all done here? As she left the room, Reeve looked back at Smith. He hadn’t moved, hadn’t changed his expression, but he knew now. Was it something she had said or not said, done or not done? She had no idea, but he knew now.

  There was intercom security at the entrance to The Old Harbour development. Smith and Murray stood in front of the steel and glass door, and their sunlit reflections looked back at them. It was all very new and to their left an agent’s board advertised the fact that there was just one luxury apartment remaining for sale – but the board was a little weathered and might be out of date. From the outside, it appeared as if the block was fully occupied.

  Smith studied the list of numbers and names beside the buttons; it was all done electronically, each resident’s name in an individual font – none of your bit of card poked into a slot for the people who could afford to live here. When he found the one he was searching for, he pointed it out to Murray and said, ‘Here he is. I can remember when villains used to hide away from us.’

  ‘He still is, DC, he’s just doing it in plain sight.’

  Smith pushed the button. The name lit up in recognition of the fact but there was no sound. Murray nudged Smith’s elbow and pointed upwards at the camera that was pointing down at them. After ten, perhaps twenty seconds, Smith pushed the button again; it was one thing to have to come here and see Routh in a place like this and quite another to be kept waiting before he did so. Of course, there might be nobody home.

  Then a disembodied male voice said, ‘Who is it?’

  Smith looked up at the camera again.

  ‘Well, assuming that’s, ‘and then reading from the list of residents, ‘Mr S Routh, and assuming that he has a screen by the unlock button in his apartment, I’d say you can see perfectly well who it is. If it isn’t Mr S Routh, this is Detective Sergeant Smith and Detective Constable Murray from Kings Lake Central police station. Either way, we’d like a word.’

  John Murray turned his back on the camera and said quietly, ‘He’d never normally let us in without a warrant. If he does, there’s definitely something going on.’

  The voice said, ‘What’s it about?’

  ‘I’d say it’s a personal matter – personal to you, Mr Routh. If you want me to start shouting it into this intercom, I’m quite happy to do so. In fact, I probably will start to do that in about seven seconds’ time...’

  After five seconds, the door opened – not simply the click of a lock, though; the door slid quietly to their right. As they stepped through, the voice from the speaker said, ‘Assuming you are who you say you are, you might be able to find your own way to the fourth floor.’

  The words “Cheeky bastard” could not fully convey Smith’s feelings at that moment and so he said something much worse. In the lift, Murray asked him how they were going to play this one.

  ‘Short and sharp. If his younger brother is a pawn in some game, fair enough, that’s their world, but that girl? Seventeen? Doing well at school, with a chance to better herself? If he starts pissing us about, I’m going to get annoyed and then you’ll have to hit him.’

  Murray nodded as if that was a perfectly reasonable plan of action.

  Smith looked at him and said, ‘I was exaggerating a bit.’

  There was more to it, of course, more to the sense of urgency that Smith was both controlling and using. If you had asked him to tell you the one thing that he did not want to see ever again in his career, or in his life come to that, he would have told you the truth – he would say, the cold, pale dead body of a young woman. He had seen too many of those. Hiding amongst the urgency, hiding in plain sight like Stuart Routh in his luxury apartment, was a little fear, too – fear that if he had to confront the lifeless form of the girl, his nerve might fail him. Wasn’t that one of the reasons why he had stepped away from it, stepped down, so that he would never have to face that responsibility again, never have to be one of the first on the scene, looking down at the horror? Tina Fellowes was not a ghost, she must not be, not yet, but she was haunting him nonetheless.

  Routh did not look well. He had the drawn air of a man who has been ill for a while but, Smith thought, three weeks without proper sleep will do that to a person. There was a flabbiness about him, too, the kind that comes from losing a lot of weight whilst making no effort to tone things up again. Stuart Routh looked older than his thirty two years.

  He made a show of bravado, inviting them into the lounge that overlooked the river and asking them to take a seat where the impressive view could not be avoided. Smith declined and stood with his back to it, and Murray followed suit. Routh shrugged as if it was their loss, and sat himself on a white leather sofa. The entire apartment was decorated and furnished in a modern, minimalist style but it was all still too much to be convincing, a representation of the man’s money, not the man himself, and Routh knew it – he didn’t even look comfortable as he tried to sprawl on the sofa and smile.

  ‘So – what can I do for you, gentlemen?’

  He could not have been more than ten when his family came south but there was a trace of the Gorbals in the voice.

  Smith said, ‘John here tells me that you don’t usually see us without an appointment and the appropriate paperwork, Mr Routh.’

  ‘Oh, that makes it sound like I get regular visits. In the old days, maybe, but not any more. It’s been a while, hasn’t it, Mr Murray?’

  Murray said, ‘A couple of years.’

  ‘More like four, by my reckoning.’

  He looked more closely at Smith.

  ‘You and I’ve met before, sergeant, more years ago than that. Did you not pay a visit to a previous abode of mine?’

  Smith smiled long enough for Routh to see that the amusement was genuine before he answered – he was wondering whether the interior designers had offered elocution lessons to go with the décor, as a part of the package.

  ‘Yes, that’s right, sir. The London Road abode, that was, while you were on your way up to these dizzy heights from the Towers.’

  ‘I remember. I think you went away empty-handed on that occasion as well.’

  There was a noise off in another room – neither Smith nor Murray had realized that there was anyone else in the apartment. It was the sound of someone filling a kettle. Then a girl appeared in what must be the entrance to the kitchen – there seemed to be no doors at all.

  Routh said, ‘Would you like some coffee?’

  She was slender and dark, eastern-looking and wearing only a T shirt – Smith put her age at no more than twenty. She looked at Murray, then at Smith and then some more at Murray, until Smith thought he had better say something.

  ‘No, we don’t have time for the niceties this morning. It’s not a social call, I’m afraid.’

  The girl finally turned her dark gaze to Routh, and he waved her away – she disappeared as quickly as she had arrived, and the kitchen was silent again; they never heard the kettle boil.

  Routh said, ‘Go on.’

  Smith turned away and looked out of the huge picture window, as if he had noticed the view then, for the first time. Lake was not a pretty tow
n, ever, not a picture-postcard sort of place, but it had its moments when the sunlight was on the water as it was now, when a big boat was making its way in from the sea and the distant gulls were wheeling and crying against a blue, blue sky.

  ‘As I said, Stuart, we’re short on time, otherwise I’d ask you how the business is doing and all that nonsense. I’m sure we could amuse ourselves for a few minutes, you and me, but it’s not you I’ve come to ask about – I’ve come to ask about Cameron. When did you last see him?’

  Smith continued to look at the river for a few more seconds – the boat was registered in Hamburg – but afterwards Murray told him that Stuart Routh had become a little more difficult to see on the white sofa.

  ‘Now, the thing is,’ turning back to him, ‘I’m not expecting an answer to that, at least not a straight one, not yet, but it’s only right that we let you know we are looking into it all, Stuart. We’re looking into it in quite a big way, and if there’s anything you can tell us that might help to ensure that you do see Cameron again other than at his funeral, well, we have to give you the opportunity to tell us that thing, don’t we? It’s only right.’

  Routh was motionless, his eyes fixed not quite on those of Smith but somewhere slightly to the right of them and further away. Smith waited for a few more seconds.

  ‘And please don’t go getting any ideas about finding out who talked – don’t waste your time on that. Nobody did. It all turned up during a routine investigation’ – and he couldn’t help but think of Detective Superintendent Allen then – ‘into another matter. Well, that’s what we all thought but it wasn’t really. Did you know Sandra Everett’s brother? I have to say, Stuart, we’re dealing with some rum people here but I imagine you already know that.’

  Smith was reaching into his inside jacket pocket.

  ‘Ah, I did bring one with me. Here’s my card. Give me a ring when you’ve had a family conference, if you think you can help. We’ll see ourselves out. Places to go, people to see...’

  Smith left the room, followed by Murray. When he reached the door he turned back to see that Routh had followed them into the hallway – he stood a few feet away from them, and had something to say.

  ‘If they get a whiff of the pigs sniffing about, they’ll kill him.’

  The pigs? It hadn’t taken much to strip away the veneer.

  ‘To be completely honest, Stuart, I’m not too bothered about your brother. Those who live by the sword? But I am very bothered about the girl. We’ll look hard for her.’

  ‘You don’t know him. You don’t know Cam.’

  There was something other than anger in that – almost a note of protest that Smith was being unfair.

  ‘That’s true. Let’s hope I get the chance.’

  Outside, as they walked back to the car, there was the smell of the river, or rather the estuary – seawater draining slowly out of the saltmarshes, samphire glistening on the mudflats in the sunlight. It was going to last, this glorious weather, but Smith’s plans to go down to the caravan for the weekend had come to nothing now.

  As they reached the car, Murray said, ‘Next?’

  The blue Mondeo was even more anonymous than Smith’s Peugeot. He looked into the back but there was no sign of a baby-seat yet; they were being a little superstitious, he knew, and doing nothing that might offer a hostage to fortune. The last few weeks of Maggie’s pregnancy had become increasingly fraught with minor complications, and the entire team had adopted the general position that they would not talk about it unless John Murray did so first. Smith had wondered whether his role as godfather meant that he ought also to be the official spokesperson on such matters – he had even searched online for a book on the subject but had not found one. Surely someone had written the idiot’s guide to godparenting.

  ‘Just drive around into Quay Lane, see if you can park up with a view of the entrance. We’ll give it a few minutes. They won’t have done with Sandra Fellowes yet, and if we go back to the office there’ll be three more meetings to go to. Our friend back there didn’t try too hard, did he?’

  Murray drove across the car park, and waited at the entrance for a gap in the busy, late-morning traffic.

  ‘That was not the Stuart Routh you’d have met a month ago, DC. He’s scared witless. I never thought I’d see that.’

  ‘Yes, I know. It makes you realise what we’re dealing with here.’

  There was a small space opposite the turning into the Old Harbour apartments, and somehow Murray manoeuvred into it at the first attempt. From there they had a view of the entrance into the building, the same one that they had used forty five minutes ago, and any car entering the area would turn off Quay Lane not far from where they were now watching. Smith took out his phone and began to text, and Murray settled back, eyes already noting everyone going up and down the street.

  Smith paused in the texting process, his index finger – he only used one, the right one – hovering over the screen. Then he said, ‘Still, I think he was secretly relieved that we’re getting involved.’

  Murray said, ‘Yes, no doubt about that.’

  Smith completed the message to Waters and sent it – How’s it going? He never ceased to be amazed at how quickly other people replied to his messages, Waters in particular. He got back in a few seconds, Good. She’s talking to Serena. I’m making the tea – fortunately I already know where everything is. Smith sent, Well done but don’t forget one for the pot.

  How many hours had he spent sitting in cars over the years? Hundreds and hundreds, and not a few of them in more recent times with John Murray. There was silence for a few minutes, neither feeling the need to fill it with superfluous chat. Quay Lane was busy and it would be easy to miss someone going in. After a while Smith said that of course, Routh might just pick up the phone – there was bound to be someone he needed to speak to after their visit but he might do it that way. Murray nodded but pointed out that, as he had said in the office, they were careful with phones these days, and everyone had watched “The Wire”. Routh might come out himself – if he did so, did DC want him to follow?

  ‘Yes, why not. Let him see us – at least he’ll know that we care. If he – hello, someone turning in.’

  A silver Mercedes saloon had stopped and was waiting to turn right into the Old Harbour. There was enough tint in the windscreen to make the driver difficult to see – it might even be above the thirty per cent limit but they could let that one go for the moment – but it was certainly a male.

  Smith said, ‘Know the car?’

  ‘No.’

  Nothing else was said then but they both watched with a sense of purpose – experience becomes instinct in the end and something about the car and the timing was right, or maybe wrong. Murray took his own pair of miniature binoculars out of the glove compartment. The Mercedes crossed the road and drew into the Old Harbour, parking out of their line of sight; all they could do was wait for the occupant or occupants to reappear at the entrance, if they were heading that way at all.

  It was a wait of about fifteen seconds – and then a young, heavily built man was at the door, his thumb on the button. When he turned to look across the road in their general direction, Smith could make out a moustache and an unshaven chin beneath the sunglasses.

  Murray said, ‘That’s Malcolm Routh.’

  ‘Where does he live, John?’

  ‘I’ll have to check but I think it’s along Lavender Road, up past the sports centre. That’s where he used to be.’

  ‘So about ten minutes’ drive in a two and a half litre Merc in heavy traffic. And it’s twenty minutes since we left his brother. Bets on that being a coincidence?’

  ‘Two old pence.’

  ‘Quite. What are they talking about? What’s their next move?’

  Murray thought about that.

  ‘In the old days, Stuart would have just wound Malcolm up, pointed him in the right direction and retired to a safe distance. It doesn’t look as if that’s an option any more. I don’t k
now what their plan B would look like, to be honest.’

  Smith looked at his watch, and then he was making calculations. Malcolm Routh had entered the apartment building and the door had closed behind him. Murray folded the binoculars, put them back inside the little black velour bag and then put that back into the glove compartment – he was meticulous about that sort of thing.

  Smith said eventually, ‘Either they haven’t got a clue where the younger brother is, or they have but they daren’t make any sort of move. If they do know, it would good if they’d share that... But in their situation – and you’re right, Stuart looked as if he’d just glanced out of the window and seen four horsemen riding up Quay Lane – in their situation, if I’d been warned about keeping quiet, I might try to let the opposition know that we’d just paid them a visit. Because if that what’s-his-name... Bridges character got to hear of it, or of us beginning to poke around, he might get the wrong idea. And for Cameron and Tina, that could be very wrong indeed. On the other hand...’

  Murray sat and waited. The wheels were in motion, and although it was being spoken aloud, he knew that at this point no further contributions from him were required.

  ‘Three weeks? That’s already a long time, isn’t it? What are they going to do? Hold on to them forever to keep Stuart in line? Maybe they’re just teaching him a lesson, and when he’s got it they let them go, and everyone gets invited to a party. But then, what did Waters say – it’s the docks? This isn’t an old-fashioned turf war – Lake wouldn’t be worth the bother for people like them. Are they setting up a regular delivery, or is this about a one-off, a one-time special delivery? I reckon it’s the second option. Holding people hostage doesn’t work as a permanent solution to anything, not even in the Middle East. Remember what the DCI said? Routh was on board initially, before they fell out? Which means he probably knows enough to be a threat – and so you take a relative as insurance, until it’s over...’