Persons of Interest

by Peter Grainger

  When he looked up, Murray’s eyes were half-closed. What was it going to be like when there was an actual baby as opposed to an incipient one?

  ‘John, what are we doing still here? Ten minutes ago I said, let’s get back to the station!’

  ‘Sorry, DC. Did you? I wasn’t actually asleep.’

  ‘It’s alright – I didn’t actually say that. But now that you are awake, perhaps we can make progress in that general direction? And just for a change, can you not natter on like you do all the time. This business is making my head hurt a bit.’

  They went into the station by the side entrance, but when Smith glanced along the corridor he saw Charlie Hills with an arm raised, beckoning to him. Smith changed direction, telling Murray that he would meet him in the office in five minutes.

  ‘What the hell have you done this time?’

  Charlie had his voice lowered, as if he shouldn’t even be asking the question.

  ‘It’s not me in the pictures, Charlie, I swear it. They must have found a body double, though I don’t where, with a body as honed as this one, and then they’ve digitally put my face on it. But don’t worry, I’ll never tell them about your sister.’

  ‘God, what a thought – you and my sister. I’m glad I haven’t got one. Seriously, I’ve had half a dozen tecs come through here this morning complaining, saying it’s all your fault. And then not twenty minutes ago, Harry Alexander came through the door with a face as black as thunder – he could barely manage a civil word.’

  Alexander was the regional head of the Regional Serious Crimes Unit, if such a thing was possible. The fact that Charlie refrained from making his usual joke about the acronym meant that he might actually be concerned for Smith’s professional welfare.

  ‘Oh dear – it looks as if the video conference call didn’t go as well as expected. I might just wait down here for a few minutes, let the air clear.’

  ‘A few minutes? I reckon you’d better bring your sleeping bag. I just thought you should know – Wilson was one of those who came in.’

  ‘What did he have to say?’

  ‘Nothing. He just walked straight past. He was sort of smiling.’

  ‘Oh, well, that’s good. I expect he was getting bored with surveillance – at least one person on my side, then.’

  Charlie nodded, managing to include at the same time something of a shake of the head. The message would have got through – he didn’t actually have to say the words, watch your back.

  The office that the two teams shared, Smith’s and Wilson’s, was surprisingly full of people. When he entered, heads turned and there was a momentary lull in the conversation – he saw John Murray’s eyes look warningly across the room. Harry Alexander was there in the corner, speaking, and DCI Freeman and DI Reeve were listening. Alexander saw him then and gave the merest nod of recognition though he never paused in whatever he was saying to the two women. The regional head of RSCU was three years Smith’s junior, and long, long ago they had worked together under DCI Miller; he had been a mentor to both of them, and in the early years their careers had progressed rapidly side by side – there had been a sort of friendly rivalry. With the name, with the thought of Bert Miller, came an unexpected sense of loss – what on earth would the old man have made of all this?

  Smith sat at his desk, found a piece of paper and a pencil, and tried to clear his head of all the nonsense that was going on. Where were Waters and Butler? They should be back by now and he needed to know what they had. He checked his phone then, not expecting a message but finding one from Waters, who, he had to admit, was better at keeping in touch than the rest. It said, Tried to call you. Gone on to Sophie Williams, DI Reeve’s orders. Good, nothing wrong with that – the formal statements could come later. What they needed most of all was intelligence, and they needed it yesterday.

  He had written nothing yet but the light on the piece of paper darkened a little. Smith looked up and saw that Wilson was standing to the side of him, looking down and waiting to be noticed.

  Wilson said, ‘Can I have a word?’

  ‘As many as you like. Grab a chair.’

  ‘Outside.’

  Wilson walked away towards the door, giving Smith little choice but to follow. On another occasion he might have remained where he was, being unaccustomed to taking orders from sergeants, but there was enough static in the air at the moment. More than a few pairs of eyes watched them go, however.

  Wilson was waiting in the corridor. He said, ‘I imagine you know what this is all about.’

  ‘I know some of it, I don’t think anyone has the whole picture yet.’

  Wilson didn’t answer straight away. There was a sort of suppressed anger in his silence which might have been intimidating if you hadn’t sensed it fifty times before.

  ‘It’s effing ironic though, isn’t it?’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘You, always banging on about how it was in the good old days, when we actually went out there and fought the redskins every day with our bare hands, instead of sitting in meetings and behind computers. And then when we finally do, it’s you that pulls the plug. That’s effing ironic.’

  Smith thought it over.

  ‘I think it’s just ironic – it’s not effing ironic but there’s still time.’

  Wilson took half a step closer - he used plenty of antiperspirant and it seemed to be getting some overtime even though its wearer had just had his curtailed. Smith did more than just holding his ground – he kept very still and held Wilson’s angry stare with a level gaze of his own. This had to be as much about Mike Dunn as it was about the investigation, even though he had said nothing to Dunn himself about having him transferred from Wilson’s team to his own.

  Wilson said, ‘You still think you’re running the show, that’s your problem. You can’t let it go.’

  ‘And your problem is that you’ve never had a show to run. Along with the MacPherson case, which you can’t let go, and probably various sundry other issues. Have you considered some form of meditation? As far as this business is concerned, sound off at me all you like – but I’d advise you to wait until you’ve heard what someone who actually took the decision has to say this morning or you’ll just look like some loud-mouthed, bitter and twisted failure...’

  He managed to stop himself adding ‘again’ at the end.

  Alison Reeve was at the door. She must have caught the final words, and her face darkened before she said, ‘Everything alright?’

  Both men nodded, and then she said, ‘Come back in. Superintendent Alexander wants a word with everyone.’

  Serena Butler had done well. Waters was typing up the notes, being quicker on the keyboard than the rest of them put together, but it was clear that Sandra Fellowes had poured out her pent-up fears to the female detective. Smith looked down at the photographs on the desk, already printed out from the mother’s phone. In some of them the girl wore glasses – not for effect, she was short-sighted – and in others she did not, but the same serious young face had been looking back at the camera when the pictures were taken. It was not quite the face that Smith had been expecting, and he said as much to Butler.

  She said, ‘She’s the eldest and her mother’s pride and joy. From what I could make out no-one in mum’s nor dad’s families ever managed to finish school – Tina is the first one to stay on and achieve anything. She studies hard and wants to be a primary school teacher.’

  ‘Dear me.’

  He looked at the photographs again. He was always telling them about assumptions, telling them not to make them and always to question those made by others but he was guilty here; Tina Fellowes was not the girl that he had assumed she would be.

  ‘How on earth did she get mixed up with Cameron Routh?’

  Serena Butler had been waiting for that.

  ‘Ah. Obviously I don’t know these boys like you and John, but when I pushed Mrs Fellowes on the same question, she admitted that she had disapproved of the boyfriend because of who he was
and not because of anything he’s actually done. After her husband and her brother, she’s desperate to avoid her kids getting involved – especially this one. You can imagine it – the daughter’s first serious boyfriend turns out to be a member of Kings Lake crime royalty. Except that he isn’t.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘It’s my guess that mum was halfway to accepting him before this all blew up, and her worst fears were confirmed after all. She doesn’t think he’s actually involved in the dealing business now – she won’t even say that he ever was. He’s training to be a cabinet-maker.’

  Smith waved John Murray over and said, ‘Say that again.’

  She did, and more. Cameron Routh was eighteen months into an apprenticeship as a cabinet-maker, working for the minimum wage at a business in Hunston, and with another three and a half years to go. Mrs Fellowes had heard him talk enthusiastically about it, and as far as she could tell he was good at it – he had offered to make her a practice piece for her front room.

  ‘DC – remember what Stuart Routh said in the hallway about an hour ago?’

  Smith had indeed remembered it a few seconds before Murray had asked the question, and now he could picture Routh’s face as he said the words – “You don’t know him. You don’t know Cam”. They had a studious teenager who wanted to be a primary school teacher and a young man who wanted to make furniture being held hostage by the nastiest gang of villains that Kings Lake had played host to in quite a while.

  ‘Great work, Serena. Was the tea alright?’

  Waters was clearly able to listen and type at the same time – he looked up to hear her say that the milk should always go in first but other than that it was OK.

  ‘I can’t believe he didn’t know that already. What happened with the best friend, Sophie Williams?’

  Serena Butler said, ‘Not much yet – she’s downstairs in Interview 3.’

  ‘What? Why?’

  They had gone to the sixth form at the school and spoken to the girl in the deputy head’s office. She had at first been merely paralysed with fear – when they pushed her a little, she had become hysterical. The deputy agreed that she was in no fit state to return to a class, and called the girl’s mother, who said that the girl could be taken to the police station and looked after on condition that Sophie was not to be questioned until she, Mrs Williams, was present. Mrs Williams was also in Interview 3.

  Smith said, ‘What’s she so frightened of? Did you get that?’

  ‘I don’t think she’s been threatened but she knows the family and she’s talked to Mrs Fellowes. It’s my guess she’s been carrying this around and telling no-one else for three weeks – it’s no wonder she lost it this morning. Think about it – first Mrs Fellowes says don’t tell anyone; then she says, tell this private detective what you know, she’s helping us, and then Mrs Fellowes’ brother is murdered. And the girl is only seventeen, DC.’

  ‘Christ, I’d forgotten Katherine bloody Diver was in the mix as well. We need to know everything she told her asap. Get down to Interview 3 – I’ll ask DI Reeve to sit in but you lead off. The more women the better, it’s no place for thick-skinned, insensitive men. I’ll come down and listen in through the mic as sensitively as I can – let’s have that underway in ten minutes. John, cabinet-makers in Hunston. See if you can find one – there can’t be more than one. Check out what Mrs Fellowes said, see if they’ve got anything useful to say. Chris, when you’ve done the notes, write out one hundred times “The milk must go in first”.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Mrs Williams was a sensible woman but her daughter would not budge – she would tell them nothing at all about the night that Tina Fellowes was taken. To an outside observer, a lay person say, watching a police interview for the first time, the girl might have seemed to be a hardened teenaged tear-away who had long ago learned to have no fear of authority and those who tried to enforce it, but, watching on the screen and hearing every word, Smith guessed that the worst crime that Sophie Williams had ever committed was trying on her mother’s make-up when mum was down at the shops. It was fear that had sealed her lips, nothing more and nothing less.

  In the end it was Serena Butler who made the breakthrough; telling Sophie again that Mrs Fellowes really had been open about everything, the girl had said that she might believe that if she heard it for herself from Mrs Fellowes. Serena had turned to DI Reeve and asked if that was possible, and DI Reeve had said that it might be. She came out then and spoke to Smith.

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘It’s irregular but this isn’t a regular situation. Personally, I’d go for it. Get Mrs Fellowes on the line, after you’ve explained to her what’s going on. Sophie is petrified after what happened to Lionel Everett – she’s frightened that the same will happen to Tina. But she might listen to Tina’s mum.’

  ‘I need to run it past Allen, though.’

  Reeve was looking at him, questioning whether he, Smith, would have ‘run it past Allen’ – it was the kind of procedural corner that he was famous for cutting.

  He said, ‘I don’t blame you after what he said earlier. You could tell him you’ll record the phone conversation as well, just in case, even though we’re about a million miles from one that’s in any danger of ending up in court.’

  She left and he sat down in front of the screen again. Butler had turned the conversation away from Tina for a moment; she asked Sophie about Cameron, and the girl had said, with a wobble in her voice, that he was lovely, that he really cared about Tina, and Smith knew then that it was true. He regretted saying what he had to Stuart Routh but one can only speak from where one is and what one knows – already they were in a different place than they were a couple of hours earlier.

  When it took place, he could only hear Sophie’s end of the telephone conversation but it didn’t last long. She had said “If you’re sure...” several times, and when it was over she told the two female detectives what had happened. It was barely different to what Mrs Fellowes had passed on to them, and it seemed disappointingly so then, after the increased sense of expectation that her reluctance had encouraged. All they had was a little more on the car that had stopped in the middle of the road outside the club. It was a big saloon - she knew nothing about cars, even less than Waters - but it was not a familiar-looking one, something slightly unusual on the streets of Kings Lake, perhaps. Dark blue, and the alloy wheels had lots of little spokes, she thought. And there were the fragments of a number plate – she was almost sure that the first letter was an A. There was a 7 in it somewhere and it might have ended with a J. Or a G...

  Smith rested an elbow on the table and his chin on the palm of the upturned hand – not enough for evidence, not even enough for intelligence; running those details through the computer would produce hundreds of thousands of hits. Not entirely useless if a car with something like that turned out to belong to someone involved, of course, but they would have to find them in the first place in some other way. Alison Reeve began to explain to the girl and her mother that they did not believe her own safety was in question but that if she had any concerns... Smith took off the headphones and went back to the office.

  Murray had wasted no time. Pennington and Newton was an old-established company of cabinet makers with a royal warrant – they had, apparently, supplied the Norfolk residence with a number of pieces over the past century or so. They had been initially reluctant to take on “Mr Cameron”, as Douglas Pennington had called him, but he had passed their three month trial with no difficulty and they were sorry to have lost him.

  ‘Lost him?’ Smith said.

  ‘They’re sticklers for attendance. They contacted his brother the first morning he didn’t turn up and were told the boy wasn’t well. They’ve rung a couple of times since and got the same answer, no details, and so they’ve assumed that “Mr Cameron” has quit. Pennington reckoned Cameron has talent and could have made it.’

  ‘How did you leave it?’

  ‘I tried to
suggest that they might hear from him again, that it wasn’t his fault, he wasn’t in any bother but I couldn’t go into details sort of thing. I don’t think he believed me.’

  Smith nodded, stood for a moment longer by Murray’s desk and then went on to his own. When the boy’s life was in danger – and he was certain now that it was – it seemed absurd to be worrying about a lost apprenticeship, but it had annoyed him nonetheless. And there was the girl who should be in school, preparing to take the exams that could be her escape route into a decent life; two apparently sensible, hard-working youngsters doing their best but still being pulled into the black hole that was always at the centre of the drugs business. Feeling it, taking it personally, was dangerous, of course, and he had never met either of these star-crossed young lovers, but he would like to get hold of the nasty piece of work who would be at the dark heart of all this, and he didn’t mean Duncan Bridges – somewhere back beyond him was a ruthless and sophisticated mind. There always was.

  Wilson’s team were at their desks, typing away at their overtime claims most likely. As Smith watched and thought, two of them exchanged words and then looked across the office to where he was sitting – he stared back expressionlessly until they looked away again. There was no sign of Wilson himself. Smith wondered about the surveillance arrangements for The Wrestlers pub, whether they had been finalized, and then John Murray got up, crossed the space between them and said, ‘If we’re going to keep watch on The Wrestlers, we need to do a proper job of it, DC.’

  Smith wasn’t even surprised – he simply asked Murray to explain.

  ‘It’s on a corner, there’s a side-street and a side entrance. Unless you can park in the exact space to see both, you’re only watching one or the other. It needs two cars.’

  ‘Good point. I don’t suppose money will be an object at the moment. You could be in one with Mike and I could be in the other with Wilson.’