Unquiet Souls: a DI Gus McGuire case

by Mistry, Liz

  Gus nodded. ‘Yeah, yeah, you’re right. What did she find out?’

  ‘Well, not a lot, as you’d expect really. The deposit was made from the Royal Bank of Scotland to The Clydesdale Bank by a Robert C. Nesbit.’

  ‘Aw, for fuck’s sake! Talk about taking the piss. Rab C. Nesbit? Really?

  Alice nodded. ‘It gets worse. Rab C’s account was bogus. The funds had basically been sent round the block, to accounts under the names of every whimsical character the bastards could think of. The most the IT department could discover was that they’d originated in some dodgy account in the Canary Islands that has since been closed. So, basically a dead end.’

  Gus tapped his knee in agitation. Alice glanced at him.

  ‘Er, before we get back I probably should let you know that DCI Husain had a bit of a go at Sampson and Compo earlier. He’s complained to Nancy.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Well, apparently he caught them dancing with ‘Bat out of Hell’ blaring, in the incident room.’

  Gus raised his eyebrows. ‘Now, that I’d have loved to see.’

  Alice grinned. ‘Yeah, well Hannibal Hussain lived up to his name and nearly ate them alive. They’d had a bit of a techie breakthrough and our intrepid duo decided to celebrate with a bit of air guitar strumming to Meatloaf.‘

  Gus shook his head ‘That bloke’s got no sense of humour, fucking arse!’

  ‘Yeah, but now we owe him for the bank stuff and so Nancy couldn’t just tell him to butt out. Compo and Sampson are a bit worried you’ll be pissed off with them.’

  ‘As if,’ said Gus, as they pulled into The Fort car park.

  On entering The Fort Alice headed with her customary enthusiasm for the stairs whilst Gus, who’d only just managed the short walk from the car, headed for the lift, saying he’d meet her upstairs. By the time Alice had run up the three flights of stairs and burst into the investigation room, he was lying on the floor, his plastic physio band stretching from his thigh to the leg of his desk. With a pained grimace on his face, he executed a series of exercises. Alice grinned when she realised that the music blaring out from his PC speakers was Meatloaf.

  Panting slightly, a sheen of sweat on his forehead, he said, ‘Thought I’d welcome my rock star detectives back in style.’

  Laughing, she headed over to put the coffee on. ‘They’ll be here soon. Mo’s dropped off a delivery; fancy a samosa?’

  At that minute the door opened and Sampson and Compo, both looking sheepish, entered. Ignoring their surprised expressions, Gus continued with his exercises. A big grin spread over their faces when they realised what music was playing. From the floor, Gus winked at them. ‘Welcome back, boys. Heard you had a bit of a run in with Hannibal while I was away.’

  Hearing Gus’s teasing tone, Compo’s shoulders relaxed. Then, his nostrils flared and he headed across the room like a sniffer dog. ‘Samosas?’

  The microwave pinged. ‘These are for me and Gus. Get your own. That is, of course, if you can put your air guitars down for a minute.’

  As Gus finished off his thigh exercises and began his shoulder ones, Compo and Sampson faffed about near the microwave. He was half-way through his second rotation and could already feel the tightness lessen when Sadia came in. Seeing Gus mid-stretch she hesitated, then, straightening her spine, she walked over and stood in front of him.

  ‘Sir, earlier today I broke protocol, in the absence of both yourself and DCI Chalmers, by asking Hannibal Hussain to lend his weight to my request for information re the bank account in Scotland. I am sorry if this was the wrong thing to do, particularly in light of his arsy behaviour earlier with Compo and Sampson.’

  Gus studied her for a minute, his face expressionless. ‘Did you just in the space of two sentences call your own father and superior officer both Hannibal Hussain and an arse?’

  Sadia’s face reddened. ‘I’m sorry, sir.’

  Gus waved a hand in the air and winked at her. ‘Welcome to the team Hussain… at last. Now, have a samosa and let’s get down to business. It’s late and we all need to sleep at some point tonight.’

  The air smelled nicely of samosas and fresh coffee and despite the whirling snow that fell relentlessly outside Gus and his team felt warm and satisfied. Some things were coming together for them and that was good. Sampson pointed at the triangle he’d drawn on the map.

  ‘Compo and I followed the CCTV footage of the Asda car backwards to the time it was stolen and although the driver was smart enough to avoid being captured directly on the cameras, I think he fits the description of Sid Smith, on all the wide indicators of build and colouring and stature. He’s been busy as you can see. A lot of activity in the Ingleby Road, Cemetery Road areas and on up to Great Horton and along Thornton Road. He filled up at the self-service Asda petrol station where we found the car.’

  In full swing now, Sampson’s arm gestures became more pronounced, making Gus smile, happy that his protégé was in the zone. With a quick glance at Compo, whose face was full of samosa, he nodded encouragingly for Sampson to continue.

  ‘But, what we found interesting was that he’s made a couple of forays to Ilkley and we’ve caught that car on CCTV heading into Dales Way Link three times in the past two weeks. On each occasion, he was caught exiting the road around fifteen minutes after he entered. The last time was on the morning of the shooting at Jamal Asif’s brother’s house.’

  They all studied the footage for a few minutes more. Then, turning to Sampson, Gus said, ‘Good work, John. Looks like our man took a drive-by to check out the location. Any chance of enhancing it further, Compo?’

  Compo jerked his thumb at his computer that was purring away happily in the background. ‘On it, boss, but I don’t hold out a lot of hope. The footage is crap.’ He moved from his slouched position to a more upright one, pulled his hat down more firmly on his head and sniffed. ‘John’s not finished yet.’ He practically bounced up and down on his seat. ‘Go on, John, tell him the rest.’

  Face flushed to be on the receiving end of more attention, Sampson shuffled his feet and studied the floor for a second. When he raised his head a slight frown flitted across his forehead, before disappearing as he started to speak. ‘Well, we ran the number plates for all the cars that didn’t belong to any residents, or couldn’t be identified by them, and two stood out.’ He nodded to Compo who flicked a switch, making the interactive whiteboard split in two. On one side was a photo of a green Renault Cleo and on the other a blue Fiat. Both vehicles had been snapped turning into Dales Way Link. Using the laser pointer Sampson indicated the Renault Cleo and Compo immediately focussed in on the driver’s head. He was wearing a hat pulled well down over his forehead and a scarf bundled over his mouth.

  ‘This vehicle was reported stolen from a Rhodesway, which is slap bang in the middle of the area the shooter was recorded in. This footage was taken at 10:10 on Tuesday and the car exited the road at 10:32.’ Again Compo homed in on the front of the vehicle.’

  Sadia gasped. ‘There’s clearly a passenger in the front.’

  Compo zoomed in more. ‘I’d say it looks like it’s Molly. Those curls of hers are a bit of a giveaway.’

  Leaning forward, eyes narrowed, Gus studied the still. ‘Yes, looks like it, Compo. Have you two been able to get a current location on that vehicle?’

  ‘Working on it, Boss.’ Said Compo, grabbing the last samosa and taking a huge bite from it, sprinkling an avalanche of crumbs down his front.

  Alice looked at the other vehicle. ‘What’s the story with the Fiat, John?’

  Sampson grinned. ‘Well, this was pure luck really. We popped the reg in the system and a curious incident report was flagged.’ He nodded to Compo who obediently replaced the green Renault with footage of the blue fiat in a car park. Sampson pointed his magic dot at the car entering Dales Way Link. ‘This was taken at 8:57 on Tuesday morning. The Fiat exited the road a mere seven minutes later. What’s interesting is that on Tuesday evening this car was reported a
s being stolen from the Wetherspoon’s in Keighley.’ He paused and looked round the room, his face alight with anticipation. ‘And returned there, too, later on that same day.’

  Sadia’s mouth turned down. ‘What do you mean?’

  Sampson looked at her. ‘Well, it actually wasn’t reported as ‘stolen’ it was reported as being moved. The owner parks his car in the same spot every day, has his breakfast with his work mates and then gets in the works van to head off to wherever they’re at that day. He swears that when he returned that night, his car was in a different parking place. He insisted on looking at the Wetherspoon’s cameras and sure enough his car was hotwired not long after he left in the works transit and returned later. Bit of a coincidence, huh?’

  He nodded towards Compo again, who brought up another image. ‘This is the man doing the hotwiring,’ said Sampson.

  Alice frowned. ‘You know, I’m not sure those two are the same bloke. The Renault driver seems shorter and burlier than the second. The second one looks more toned and possibly taller. Maybe the first one’s an accomplice. Maybe we’ve got eyes on another member of the team.’

  A buzz of excitement went round the room. Gus stood up and executed a left-handed high five with his two officers. ‘Great work lads, great work. Now, can you get the two images cleaned up for us, Compo, and get one of the experts in the tech team to have a look see what they can come up with. Sadia, get forensics to check out the blue Fiat and see if you can get someone in the Wetherspoon’s to give us a better description of this man.’

  Sadia, arms folded, looked thoughtful.

  ‘What’s up, Sadia,’ asked Gus.

  ‘I agree it’s too much of a coincidence to ignore, but I don’t get why he’d drive to Beth’s two hours before Molly’s abduction. Seems a bit risky to me.’

  ‘Maybe it’s a false lead. Maybe it is just a coincidence, but we need to follow it through. In my experience coincidences don’t happen very often.’

  ‘Yes, I know. I hope it is linked. We need something to go on.’

  Gus smiled at her and then addressed the rest of the room. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘I’ve got a message that Jamal’s friend wants to come in. His mum says he’s got some information for us, so I’ve arranged for them to come in tomorrow morning. I’ve also got them doing another run round the Heaton area to see if we can get any more info about either the kids or the Asif murder. Got Customs running through their records for around the time the kids were abducted. See if we can get some leads from them.’

  ‘Right, if that’s all, we’ll meet back here 8am tomorrow, ok?’

  Chapter 76

  Friday 7am

  Gus slipped into the pool, savouring the warm sensation of water sliding over his shoulders as he dipped beneath the surface before starting a slow crawl to the other end of the pool. He was used to the surreptitious glances of the other swimmers as he walked from the changing rooms into the pool. Their curious eyes were drawn to the knotted angry scarring that cabled in jagged lines across the front and back of his shoulder and along the top of his left thigh, but as soon as he was in the water, he forgot about them and concentrated on stretching his healing muscles. Two lengths of front crawl were all he could manage at a time.

  Then he swapped to breast stroke, which stretched the muscles but didn’t cause as much discomfort. He continued at a steady pace, feeling the residual tension brought about by his previous night’s tortured dreams drain away as he cleaved through the water.

  Half an hour later, showered and dressed, he paused by the water fountain to fill his bottle and slugged back his pain relief before heading back to his car. Frosty patterns decorated his windscreen and he knew he’d have to scrape it for the second time that morning. Cursing, he pulled on some gloves and did a half-hearted scrape using his left hand, before deciding to huddle in the car with the heater full blast until the ice had melted enough to sweep away with his wipers. Getting behind the wheel, he flexed his shoulders and thigh muscles before turning the ignition on and felt slightly more heartened when ‘Uptown Funk’ blasted from the Capital FM followed by Hirsty and JoJo’s irreverent humour. Finally, windscreen clear, he tentatively manoeuvred out of the car space.

  Today was the first time he’d driven himself since his injures and judging by the pain every time he pushed the clutch in and wrenched the wheel with his right arm, he wasn’t ready for it yet. He’d have to give it a miss for now, he decided as he drove away from the University Pool at the bottom of Great Horton Road and, with a fresh burst of pain, veered onto Shearbridge Road, past Bombay Stores.. Driving up Legrams Lane, he noticed a new Polish shop had opened which prompted him to wonder if Jankowski had got any new leads for him. He hoped, too, Madeline McCulloch would have something for him from Littlehey; and maybe some of Compo’s computer programmes would have come up with the goods. He indicated right onto Ingleby Road, groaning as his left shoulder burned, and wishing he’d asked someone to drive him or booked a taxi.

  By the time he edged his way through the gates and parked next to Alice’s mini in the reserved parking he knew that all the benefits from his early morning swim had been eradicated by the drive back to work. Resigned to another day of pain, he edged his way out of his car and took the lift up to the incident room. He’d no sooner got in when his phone rang. Shrugging out of his jacket and looping his bag over his chair he sat down at his desk, booted up his PC and answered his call.

  ‘You got something juicy for me, Jankowski?’ He listened for five minutes and when he hung up he was grinning. He glanced round the room and saw that everyone was there. Compo, as usual, was behind his PC with his mouth full of sausage roll, judging by the flakes of pastry down the front of his smiley face T-shirt. Alice was flicking through the faxes that had arrived last night and Sampson was going over the CCTV reports with Sadia.

  Gus filled his mug with coffee and raised his voice. ‘Listen up! Jankowski’s come up with something. Going back over the reports from the Polish abductions, Jankowski noticed no less than six references to a large truck bearing the logo ‘Cosy Nights’ on the side. He then cross-matched this with the 2003 abductions and discovered that there were references to a similar truck then too. So, he got on to Customs to verify. Turns out they have references to this truck entering and leaving through Calais on corresponding dates. The thing is,’ Gus paused and looked round the room at the expectant faces, ‘there’s no such business registered in the UK or in Poland or in any other country it drives through between the UK and Poland. Looks like we might have got a lead. Let’s get our Customs on to it. Sampson you get on to CCTV. See if we can spot this van heading up north from Dover or from any of the other ferry ports.’

  As Sampson took a note in his book, Gus continued. ‘Also, when Jankowski looked at the repatriated kids’ files, he discovered that there were another two boys reported missing at around the same time. He’s sending us the details. Looks like we may still have at least two other children to find, as well as Molly.’

  Alice moved to the front of the room and turned to face the other detectives. ‘Just gone through the faxes sent by Governor McCulloch. She’s tentatively identified the warden she thinks facilitated Gogs Redwood’s attack on James Clegg. A Felix Broadfoot. An internal investigation is ongoing and she’ll keep us updated. Apparently, Broadfoot was due back to work after a holiday but hasn’t turned up yet.’

  ‘Get a warrant for Felix Broadfoot’s bank accounts. See what that throws up. Ask McCulloch if she’s already got them. I think she’ll share if she does.’

  Alice turned to Gus, her face flushed. ‘But, another bit of interesting news, which may or may not mean anything, is that one of the officers that investigated the attack on James Clegg was…’ she turned to her colleagues, ‘Any guesses?’

  As they all shook their heads, she smiled and announced, ‘DCI Wentworth.’

  Gus raised his eyebrows. ‘Well, well, well, that’s interesting, Al. Doesn’t prove anything, but it is a bit
of a coincidence, isn’t it? He was involved in the initial investigation and everyone concerned seems to think there was some sort of leak from above.’ He walked over and refilled his coffee cup. ‘Put in a request, via Nancy, for Wentworth to come and assist. Now we know there’s a link to Cambridge, it’s perfectly natural to request his assistance. And if he’s here under our noses we can keep a bit of an eye on him.’

  Alice frowned and pulled herself up onto a desk. ‘You know, he was a bit weird when we had Jamal in for interview. I was taking him and Jankowski to the interview suite when Jamal and his brother were in the corridor and Wentworth really abruptly turned and headed back the way we’d come, saying he’d left his phone in the meeting room. Thing was, I know he hadn’t because as the doors swung shut behind him, I saw him speaking on his phone.’

  ‘Right,’ said Gus, ‘we won’t jump to conclusions, but we will investigate this. Compo, get what you can on Wentworth. Now, anything else?’

  Alice raised a hand. ‘Mrs Robb, the mother of Jamal’s friend, Frankie, has phoned in again. She says she’s on her way in with her son because he’s got something to add to his statement.’

  Gus tilted his head to one side. ‘You’ll deal with that, Al?’

  She nodded.

  Gus flicked through the report that Governor McCulloch had sent, absentmindedly sipping his coffee as he did so. Alice’s phone rang and after a quick glance at caller ID she answered it. She turned to Gus. ‘That’s the FLO from the Graves’ house. Jessie Graham went out for her usual morning walk in the woods at the back of their house and she’s not back yet.’

  ‘Is that unusual?’

  Alice nodded. ‘Janine says so. Says she’s usually gone no more than an hour but it’s been three hours now and Beth’s worried.’

  Sadia raised an eyebrow. ‘Even after yesterday’s temper tantrum?’ When she’d heard about the incident the previous day, Sadia had voiced her lack of sympathy for either party.

  Gus shook his head slowly from side to side. ‘You really do need to work on your compassionate side, Sadia. Course she’s concerned about her. She’s the closest thing to a mother Beth’s got and though she flipped yesterday I’m sure she’s worried about her now.’