Death Count: A Kat Munro Thriller (The Kat Munro Thrillers Book 1)

by SL Beaumont

  “That’s odd,” Adam agreed.

  “I know,” Kat said. “I’m excited that we’ve finally found an anomaly, but also scared because it involves my dad.”

  Chapter 13

  Adam’s mobile rang as he arrived at the incident room the next morning. The unadorned room allocated for the investigation into Henry Smyth’s death contained four desks with computers, a cluster of uncomfortable plastic chairs against one wall, and a large whiteboard on wheels at one end of the room. The incident board contained photos of security guard Popov and Smyth, both alive and deceased, and images of the remaining CIP business partners. Notes, dates, and times were scrawled beneath each photo.

  Adam nodded his greeting to the uniformed officers seated behind two computer screens as he answered the call.

  “Detective Jackson, it’s Alfred Smyth. You said to call if I had any more information on Henry’s death.”

  “Yes, of course, good morning, Mr. Smyth.”

  “Your colleagues have released Henry’s apartment to us, and when we started packing his belongings this morning, we came across his mobile phone. It appears to have fallen behind the bedside table, so I thought perhaps the crime scene people had overlooked it? Do you need it?”

  “Yes, that does seem to be an oversight,” Adam said.

  “We will be at his apartment all day, packing up his things,” Mr. Smyth said.

  “I’ll pop over this morning.”

  The next call Adam made was to Kat. He’d enjoyed having a drink with her the previous day and was surprised that she’d opened up to him as much as she had. She was smart, sassy, and attractive, all the things he liked in a woman, but he was going to have to be careful; it was too soon to get involved with anyone again. Yet he found himself with an excuse to call her and hear her voice.

  “Adam?” She sounded surprised to hear from him.

  “Kat, Greenwood is sending over everything that we’ve been able to gather on the assets of CIP’s partners.”

  “Okay. I spoke with my mother last night and got the names of Dad’s golf buddies who have also invested with CIP. Nate and I will check them against the client list that we have.”

  “Let me know how you go. I’m off to see Smyth’s parents. They’ve come across a mobile phone that I’m going to collect.”

  Adam turned around and headed back out, hailing a taxi from in front of his building. He climbed in the back and checked his email on the drive to Smyth’s apartment. He groaned out loud, reading a note from Nancy. Remember, we are meeting tonight to go over the final details of the settlement. He ran his fingers through his hair as his irritation spiked; even now, she was still trying to organise him and make sure he remembered appointments.

  ***

  Henry Smyth’s father was boxing up books when Mrs. Smyth let Adam into the apartment a little while later. He declined her offer of tea.

  “Hello again,” Adam said, shaking Mr. Smyth’s hand. “Have you got some help?” He turned to look at the wall of books. “You’ve got a big job there.”

  “The movers are coming later in the week, but I thought I’d make a start. I can’t sit around and do nothing,” he said. “Have you made any more progress?”

  “We’re looking into several leads,” Adam said, feeling inadequate. He wanted to give this lovely couple some solace, and soon.

  “Let me get you that phone,” Mr. Smyth said.

  Adam followed him through into the study. In comparison with his earlier visit, the room was tidy, and the desk clear. Several sealed cardboard cartons sat on the floor near the door. Mr. Smyth opened the desk drawer and withdrew a phone.

  “Would you mind if I took this?”

  “Not at all, I thought you would want to.”

  Adam produced an evidence bag from his pocket and held it open for Mr. Smyth to drop the phone.

  “Thank you. We’ll return this once we’ve analysed it,” Adam said, filling out a receipt from the notebook in his pocket and passing it to the older man.

  Mr. Smyth nodded.

  “Now, I have a few minutes,” Adam said, looking at his watch. “Can I pass you down the books from the top shelves?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t say no to an extra pair of hands.”

  Adam followed him back to the living room and began unloading books from the higher shelves as the lift chimed, announcing the arrival of a visitor. The doors swished open.

  “Hello,” a voice called.

  Mrs. Smyth hurried towards the lift.

  “Eddie,” she said. “How lovely of you to drop by.”

  Adam turned to see Eduardo Diaz standing at the doors with a large bouquet in his arms. He kissed Mrs. Smyth on both cheeks before handing the flowers to her.

  “I don’t know what to say,” he said, running his hand across his bald head.

  “I know, dear, we’re still in shock too,” Mrs. Smyth said, patting his arm. “Will you stay for a cup of tea?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Right then, I’ll put these into some water and put the kettle on.” Mrs. Smyth bustled from the room into the kitchen.

  Diaz stepped further into the apartment but stopped when he spotted Adam handing books to Mr. Smyth.

  “Eh, you’re that detective,” he said, his eyes narrowing.

  “Yeah, good to see you again, Mr. Diaz,” Adam said.

  “I hear you were jumped by car thieves in our parking garage the other day, and that chick stopped you taking a beating,” Diaz smirked.

  Adam gave a wry smile. “Yeah, ‘car thieves’. What can I say, she’s got hidden talents. So you have a lift pass for Henry’s apartment?”

  “Yeah, Henry gave it to me ages ago. I guess I won’t be needin’ it anymore,” he said, pulling it from his pocket and setting it down on a side table. “So, what brings you here?”

  “As I said the other day, two suspicious deaths in as many days needs careful review,” Adam replied.

  “Yeah,” Diaz said. “I can’t believe that Henry would have killed that security guard. He wasn’t that kind of guy.” He sighed before continuing. “But then again, I can’t believe that Henry would have killed himself.”

  “He didn’t, Eddie,” Mr. Smyth said.

  “What?” Diaz asked, looking at Adam. “You were serious the other day?”

  “There is strong evidence to suggest that someone murdered Henry.”

  Diaz dropped down onto the closest chair and ran his hand over his face. “That would make more sense, but why?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to work out,” Adam said.

  “We were supposed to go out that night,” Diaz said. “But Henry called me cancelling at the last minute, said there was something he needed to do.”

  “How was he in the weeks leading up to this death?”

  “Distracted, come to think of it, but I didn’t think anything of it at the time. Now I wish I had. I wasn’t a very good mate.”

  “How long had you known each other?” Adam asked as he continued to remove books from the shelves and stack them on the dining table where Mr. Smyth was loading them into boxes.

  “The day we both started at IBC. We hit it off straight away. Two guys from wildly different backgrounds, but two peas in a pod, really,” Diaz said with a smile. “We worked hard, but we both loved a party.”

  “So, did Henry have any enemies that you can think of?”

  Diaz looked thoughtful for a moment before shaking his head. “No one springs to mind. Everyone loved Henry.”

  “Well, someone clearly didn’t,” Mr. Smyth said.

  When Mrs. Smyth returned with the tea, Adam took his leave. He hailed a taxi on the street outside the building. As he sat in the cab on the return journey to the incident room, Adam turned Henry Smyth’s mobile phone, sealed in its evidence bag, over and over in his hand. He stared hard at it for several seconds before reaching for his own phone and making a call.

  “I have a small job for you.”

  He listened before replying. �
�6:30 tonight. See you then.”

  He slipped Henry’s phone out of the evidence bag and slid it into his jacket’s inside pocket.

  Chapter 14

  Charles Stephenson stopped by Kat’s desk as she and Nathan searched the client list from Smyth’s laptop for the names of her father’s golfing friends.

  “Making any progress?” he asked.

  Kat looked up and shook her head. “Something doesn’t feel right, but we can’t find any evidence to allow us to dig deeper. There’s a slight anomaly with client numbers, so we may not be comparing a complete list. It’s very frustrating.”

  “In that case, until Greenwood obtains further information for us, let’s put it to one side; a new case has come across my desk. Suspicion of embezzlement and it appears that the evidence is strong, but we need to put together an airtight case for the trial starting next month. I want your team working on that from tomorrow,” he said.

  Kat nodded, hiding her disappointment.

  “Can I have your interim report on CIP by the end of the day?”

  “Sure,” Kat said.

  “Damn,” Nathan said as Stephenson walked back to his office.

  “Let’s save everything. I don’t think we’ve seen the end of this one,” Kat replied.

  “Do you think you should tell Stephenson about your father?” Shamira asked. “You know what he’s like about disclosing any personal involvement.”

  Kat shook her head. “No point if we’re closing it down. I’m just going to take one more pass over everything that we have and finish drafting the report.”

  A short while later, an email arrived in Kat’s inbox.

  She clicked on the attachment.

  “Nate, I’m forwarding you the client lists that DI Greenwood has managed to obtain,” she called to him. “Can you run a comparison to Henry Smyth’s list, and I’ll run my eye down and see if I can find Dad and his friends’ portfolios.”

  Half an hour later, Nathan pushed back his chair and looked across at Kat and Shamira. “They’re not there,” he said.

  “None of them?” Shamira asked.

  “Also, I’ve just noticed that Dad’s portfolio number is quite different from any of their other client numbers,” Kat said.

  “Something doesn’t stack up,” Nate agreed. “The number of clients on the reports DI Greenwood just sent tie exactly to the lists on Smyth’s laptop.”

  “So, where are Dad and his friends’ portfolios?” Kat mused. She picked up the printout she’d made of her father’s report. “It can’t be in another company, because this quite clearly says CIP diversified global fund, which is the same name as one of CIP’s core offerings, and the contact details are the same.”

  She grabbed her mobile and keyed in the customer service number from the bottom of the report.

  “Capital Investment Partners, how can I help you?” a friendly voice answered.

  “Yes, I have a query on my portfolio?”

  “Just one moment.”

  Kat connected through to another person.

  “Investor services, how can I help you?”

  “I’d like to check which fund my investment is currently in?”

  “Certainly, but first, I’ll have to get some details to verify your identity.”

  “Okay.”

  “Portfolio number?”

  “F4-50019532.”

  “And your name?”

  “Munro.”

  “Your address?”

  Kat relayed her parents’ address.

  “Yes, here we are, Mrs. Munro.”

  The sound of keyboard strokes echoed down the phone line for a moment before the man spoke again. “I’m sorry, but the portfolio is just in the name of Mr. Munro, so we can’t give any details to you. Is he there?”

  “No, but I will get him to call. Thanks.”

  Kat hung up and looked across at her colleagues.

  “I need to talk to Stephenson,” she said.

  Chapter 15

  Adam pushed open the door of the old pub in Rotherhithe at 6:30 p.m. It was gloomy and somewhat dingy, but most of the tables and stools at the bar were full. Lights flashed from a row of gambling machines along one wall, and the dull thud of pool balls connecting echoed off the high ceiling.

  Adam scanned the room, his eyes alighting on the man that he was meeting, sitting at a table by the window nursing a pint of beer. He acknowledged Adam with a flick of his head. He was younger, a pale, gaunt face emerging from beneath a mop of wild hair. Tattoos crawled around his neck.

  “What can I get ya, love?” the barmaid enquired.

  “Becks, thanks,” Adam replied. He paid and wandered over to the table by the window and sat down.

  “Adam.”

  “Dave.”

  “What do you have for me?”

  Adam slid Smyth’s mobile from his pocket and placed it on the table. “I need to get into this.”

  Dave sat back and pulled a face at Adam. “Child’s play, I thought you might be bringing me something difficult to hack?”

  Adam laughed. “There are degrees of difficulty. For you, this might be simple; I don’t know where to start without being locked out.”

  Dave took a large swig of beer, burped, cracked his knuckles, and picked up the phone. “First, I need to know a little about whose phone this is such as name, date of birth, date of his wedding, children, pets, business name, etc.”

  He reached into a bag and pulled out a laptop and cable and attached the phone to the computer. His fingers flew across the keyboard for a moment before he looked across at Adam, waiting for his response.

  “Henry James Smyth, 13 February 1983, no children, no significant other, no pets. Worked for Capital Investment Partners, lived in Southwark,” Adam said.

  “Dead, I take it?”

  Adam nodded.

  “What else can you tell me about him? Interests, hobbies?” Dave asked.

  “Making money and partying,” Adam said.

  “Hmm… let’s try some combinations of all those things. Did you know that 93% of people use either a pet’s name or important date as their password?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  They sat in silence for a couple of minutes while Dave’s computer program ran. Adam knew from experience that Dave didn’t appreciate small talk while he worked. A soft ping indicated when the program finished.

  Dave pulled a face. “Okay, so he is not in the 93% then. Can you tell me anything else about this guy? Otherwise, I’ll have to take it back over the road to my office and set the random password generator going; he may have used one of those.”

  Adam sat back, spinning his beer bottle around in his hands and thought for a moment. The image of Kat coming out of the bookstore in Hampstead’s sunshine the previous afternoon sprang to mind. She had looked so unguarded and content, that he almost wished that he hadn’t orchestrated bumping into her.

  “Books,” he said, sitting up straight. “He was into books.” He closed his eyes, trying to bring up the bookshelves in Smyth’s apartment. He wished Kat were there; she would know what was on them. All he could remember were the coloured spines. He reached for his phone and called her, but it went straight to voicemail.

  “He was a collector, I think. Classics perhaps?” he said.

  Dave started typing.

  “Hey, try Kipling, The Jungle Book.” The thought came to Adam in a rush.

  Dave didn’t pause his typing, and several seconds later, there was an audible click, and the screen of Smyth’s phone lit up. Dave unplugged the phone from his laptop, slammed the lid shut and slipped it back into his bag. Adam slid a fold of £20 notes across the table and picked up the phone.

  “Mowgli123,” Dave said with a grin, pocketing the cash. He sculled the remainder of his pint and stood. Adam did the same and shook his hand.

  “Thanks.”

  Together they left the pub. Dave waited for a gap in the traffic to cross the road back to his office, housed above a kebab shop in t
he centre of a shabby row of shops. He raised a hand in a farewell wave as he stepped into the street. Smyth’s phone chimed in Adam’s pocket. Adam frowned and fished it out, looking at the screen.

  Jackson. You’d be best to stop, or you’ll be next.

  An explosion ripped through the night, the force throwing him back against the wall of the pub. He covered his head with his hands as debris rained down on him. There was silence for a few seconds before a car alarm began screaming, and people started running. In the distance, he could hear sirens.

  “Are you okay, mate?” a man said, crouching down in front of him. His voice sounded distant, as though he was speaking from far away.

  Adam nodded and allowed the man to help him to his feet.

  “Where’s Dave?” he asked and realised by the man’s reaction that he was shouting.

  The man shrugged. He bent down and picked something up and handed it to Adam. “Looks like you won’t be using this again.”

  Adam glanced down at the shattered remnants of Smyth’s phone before looking across the street. A small fire had taken hold at the front of the shops below Dave’s office. The twisted wreckage of a car littered the road, and several people were trying to divert traffic.

  Adam pushed off the wall and took a step into the street. “Dave,” he shouted.

  When there was no response, he began jogging across the road towards the fire. “Dave,” he called again. Two men lay on the footpath in front of the shop. He rushed forward as one of them groaned. Both men were strangers to him.

  “Are you hurt? Can you move?” he asked.

  The man nodded and tried to sit up. Adam supported him until he was sitting with his feet in the gutter. He had blood pouring from a wound in his head. “Help my father,” he said. “We were just outside having a smoke.”

  Adam moved towards the older man. Through his ripped shirt, Adam could see a large piece of glass embedded in the man’s shoulder. Adam put his fingers to the man’s neck. There was a pulse, but it was faint. He looked around and saw an ambulance coming down the street towards them with its siren blaring and lights flashing. He stood up and waved his arms above his head to attract their attention. He winced as he did so, his already injured ribs screaming in protest.