Close Ranks

by Valerie Keogh

  ‘I think I need some coffee.’

  ‘Look at it with an open mind, Peter,’ West said, as Andrews filled a mug, ladled it with sugar and came back to stand beside West.

  Andrews nodded, slurped his sugary brew and said nothing. After a few minutes he moved to the left, his eyes scanning, processing. Just when West thought he had done, he moved to the right, moved some notes to read others pinned underneath. Then he moved back to stand beside West once more.

  ‘Well?’ West bit out finally.

  ‘If I had a straw in my pocket I’d take it out. See if you’d clutch at that.’

  Disappointment clouded West’s face. He turned to look at his partner. ‘Of course,’ he said quietly, ‘I haven’t mentioned my theory about the mystery blonde. Remember Pat, from the vegetable shop, mentioned the woman spoke strangely. Well, the Larsson woman is Swedish, I’m sure she speaks with an accent. Wouldn’t that be speaking strangely?’

  ‘Speaks funny,’ Andrews said. ‘Pat said the woman speaks funny. That could be anything.’

  West, excited by his theory, still convinced he was on the right track, continued, ‘Yes, but here we have a blonde lady connected to all the cases and she does speak funny.’

  Andrews took another loud slurp. ‘There was no blonde associated with the home invasion. Never a reference to one. You are clutching.’

  ‘Offer.’

  Andrews slanted a look, eyebrows raised.

  West ran his hands through his hair in mute desperation before letting out a groan. ‘I’m not explaining this very well, am I? I thought it would be clear...Ok, let me start again. It was something Edwards said yesterday. What if it were someone just out to make trouble. Well, what if that were the motive? Then we have a group that was going nowhere suddenly galvanised into action by these three cases. And the group is led by a foreign blonde lady.’

  ‘Roberts died. That’s a little more than,’ Andrews held his index fingers up and wriggled them, wrapping his next words in heavily sarcastic semi-colons, ‘trouble.’

  Moving to the wall, West tapped his fingers on the report on the manihot esculenta. ‘A genuine accident, I think. She underestimated the potency of the vegetable. I’d say she hoped he’d become nauseous, maybe start vomiting, maybe even have some paralysis. They’d call a doctor; he’d be suspicious of poisoning, call the police. Mrs Roberts would have been upset and Offer would probably have come to assist.’

  Andrews wore his sceptical face. ‘It’s all a bit...’ he searched for a word, discarding the more scatological that came to mind, settling on, ‘farfetched.’

  ‘Then let’s bring it down to basics,’ West said, ‘We have three recent unsolved cases, all unusual, all motiveless, with one connection...Offer.’

  ‘We don’t have anything else,’ Andrews said, his tone of voice telling West clearly, he wasn’t convinced. ‘We may as well look into this Larsson woman. But I’m guessing you haven’t broached this with the inspector yet?’

  Footsteps, doors opening and closing, greetings and ribald comments, the general hullaballoo of more of the team arriving halted conversation between the two men. Andrews hadn’t needed an answer really, he knew damn well West would have put off telling the inspector until he had convinced the rest of them, had them all on his side.

  Jackets off, coffee in hand, they stood and listened. West read their faces, saw healthy scepticism waver as he pointed out the links, used his oratorical skills to swing them to his way of thinking. At the end, even Andrews’ scepticism had softened to a wary acceptance.

  ‘So this is what we’re going to do,’ West said, ‘Edwards, find a photograph of the Larsson woman. Offer has posters, flyers. She might be in one of them. Take it around to Pat in the vegetable shop. See if she recognises her. It’s a long shot but...’

  Edwards nodded and turned to his desk, the computer powering up, minutes later fingers flying over his keyboard.

  ‘What about taking one around to the young Mathews’ lad?’ Baxter asked.

  West shook his head. ‘The Mathews want to put it behind them. I’m not sure they’d agree. Anyway, it sounded like she kept herself well covered with a scarf when she was with him, so we’d be wasting our time. Let’s concentrate on getting the details on this Larsson woman. I want to know everything there is to know. Contact the Vetting Unit, see if everything is in order with them. I want to know exactly where she came from. She’s supposed to have run a similar group in Finland, find out where, does it still exist, why she left. I want to know what she had for breakfast. Ok?’

  Nods all around and then everyone was moving together, hitting phones and keyboards, gathering information from a wide and varied network of sources.

  Edwards found a group photograph of the original six volunteers and there, dead centre, sat Viveka Larsson, turbaned, exotic, looking larger than life. He printed it out, full colour. It was a good shot, faces were clear, not the usual grainy photographs often used in cheap flyers. ‘There was money spent on these,’ he murmured, picking up the picture from the printer. He slid it into a folder, waved it in the air in explanation of what he was up to and where he was going, an explanation accepted by a nod from Andrews who had eyes not only on the back of his head, but on each side too, at least according to Jarvis. Edwards was convinced he had secretly microchipped them all. He certainly always knew what was going on and generally where they were. It was uncanny.

  West had gone to his office to prepare for his phone call to the inspector. Putting it off for as long as possible really, he knew. It would be so much easier if they had something a little more concrete. Despite his rousing oration of earlier, he was under no illusion. Everything they had was circumstantial. Conjecture. Morrison wasn’t keen on the first. And downright hated the second.

  ‘Anything you want me to chase up, Mike?’ Andrews asked coming in, leaning against the door. ‘The lads are beating down every door getting the low-down on Larsson.’

  West stretched and rolled his shoulders. ‘Spending far too much time sitting at a desk these days, Peter.’

  ‘A nice walk upstairs to talk to Inspector Morrison will sort you out.’

  West grinned. ‘Thanks. And yes, there is something you can chase up. It just came to me, I should have remembered earlier. When I spoke to Sergeant Blunt last week about Offer he mentioned they were fairly redundant at first and then they had a number of cases with, to quote Blunt, ‘needy victims’. Check with him and pull up those cases. See if they match our three. Maybe the pattern started with those and not ours.’

  The sceptical look had returned but West ignored it. He had more on his plate. It was time he bit the bullet and told Morrison what they were up to. Better he heard it from West than from one of his many sources, better known to the rest of the team as the sneaky ass-lickers who listened in on conversations and reported to Morrison, currying favour for God-knew-what. Yes, far better he heard it from him, he thought, getting to his feet reluctantly. He’d given up the idea of bringing him down to see the wall. If he hadn’t managed to convince Andrews, who would have been more than willing to be convinced, he certainly wasn’t going to convince the inspector who, as soon as he mentioned they were investigating Viveka Larsson, would probably go ballistic.

  The initial response was more catatonic than ballistic. Morrison sat and stared at him, mouth slightly agape, eyes, almost cartoon-like, protruding from his rather thin face. He hands were on the desk in front of him, fingers slightly clawed. Holding on for dear life or getting ready to spring and scratch his eyes out, West wondered, shifting uncomfortably under the inspector’s scrutiny.

  Finally, Inspector Morrison managed four words. Each bitten out, self-contained, ‘You. Are. Doing. What?’

  West was made of tough stuff. He had stood before some of the most annihilating judges in the country, had pleaded cases before them and won. So there was no way Mother Morrison should be making his knees wobble, but wobble they did, or his heart race, but race it did. Hell, it could have run
the derby and won. The man was bloody intimidating.

  But West was made of tough stuff. He listened as the inspector ranted and let the words circumstantial, conjecture, idiotic, jumped-up, far-fetched and even nonsensical go right over his head, waiting till he ran out of steam to make his case again.

  ‘So you just call your team back. Cancel any of these daft plans you have put into motion. I don’t want to hear about this nonsense again. Is that understood, Sergeant West?’

  ‘It may be conjecture, supposition and circumstantial, sir. But that is often the way an investigation starts. Until we investigate. Then we find the facts to confirm what we had conjectured, and our circumstantial evidence becomes firm proof of a crime. My team are looking now, sir. Give me to the end of the day. If we find nothing, well, then we have lost nothing except a few hours. And Ms Larsson will be none the wiser.’

  Inspector Morrison sat frowning, his hands still clawed on the desk. Then his hands relaxing, he sat back and looked at West. ‘It sounds like both a wild-goose chase and a fishing exercise, Sergeant West, but...’ he hesitated, then with a sigh continued, ‘...you are right. And you have enough belief in your convictions to still stand there after one of the best rants I have given in quite a long time. So, yes, you can have the rest of the day. But I want to hear from you before close of day. Now, go away.’

  West didn’t need to be told twice. Amusement battled with surprise at the inspector’s unexpected remark. ‘One of the best rants,’ he murmured with a chuckle, taking the stairs two at a time, still smiling as he pushed open the doors into the office, the smile dying quickly when he saw the clock. Shit, where had the morning gone.

  He needed coffee after his meeting with the inspector so he filled a mug and sat down at his desk. He was just about to take a sip when Andrews all but bounced into his office.

  ‘I think maybe you’re right,’ he said.

  25

  Andrews held a handful of slim files. He plopped them down on the desk in front of West, pulled a chair up to the desk and sat, watching expectantly as West opened the first file and started to read.

  Andrews sat back, watched for a few minutes silently, and then said, ‘We’d never have guessed, Mike. Never have linked these cases together with ours. Hell, they weren’t even serious enough to interest us. The uniformed guys dealt with them all.’

  West finished one file, opened the next, read quietly without comment.

  ‘It’s all petty, small stuff.’ Andrews commented. ‘Troublesome though. Upset people. A lot of crying and hysterics. But like our home invasion and Jake’s abduction, nobody was hurt. No real damage.’

  Still no comment from West as he worked his way through the files. Five in all. He read the final one, closed it, lifted all five and tapped them on the desk, lining up the edges.

  ‘She’s got a good imagination, I’ll give her that,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Tom is annoyed with himself for not spotting the connection,’ Andrews said, ‘He wants those Offer volunteers barred from the station.’

  ‘We can’t do anything without proof,’ West said, shaking his head. ‘Tom knows that. It’s all still circumstantial, conjecture. Just eight odd cases instead of three. I mean look at this first one,’ he said and opened the first file again. ‘This poor woman finds all her underwear gone from her washing line. Then the next day has it posted through her letterbox with the crotch cut from each one. A lady from Offer sat with her in the waiting room because she was too hysterical to speak to any of the male gardai when she arrived; there’s been no similar incidence since. And this one,’ he closed the first file, opened the next, ‘a face peeping in the windows of that residential home in the village. Put the wind up some of the old dears. The gardai who responded didn’t see anyone, said they’d keep an eye out but some of the poor old dears were so upset, they rang the station and an Offer volunteer went and stayed all night. She didn’t see anyone. There’ve been no reports since.’ West slammed the bundle of files down on his desk. ‘The same with every one. Irritating, troublesome but no real damage. And Offer involved in every one.’

  Andrews crossed his arms. ‘She was clever too. If she’d used the same ruse each time Blunt would have noticed and brought it to our attention.’

  ‘She was clever.’ West agreed with a frown. ‘But then she did something stupid and Gerard Roberts died. She crossed a line there, Peter, she can’t come back.’ His frown deepened. ‘She made a quick progression from petty misdemeanours to serious crime, didn’t she? Even without Gerard Roberts’ death, the other two cases are more serious. And they have caused more pain, more grief. Jake’s parents will take a long time to recover, I’m not sure Mrs Mathews will ever be the same. And Mrs Lee’s life has been devastated.

  ‘Maybe she’d got a taste for it now. And we both know how this kind of appetite develops, Pete.’

  ‘She’ll kill again. Deliberately or by accident,’ Andrews said.

  West tapped the files and bit his lip. ‘I think she will. We need to stop her. But we need something more than a series of bizarre cases to get a warrant for her arrest. We need proof.’

  The door opened and Edwards popped his head through the gap. ‘You busy?’

  ‘You should knock,’ Andrews said sharply.

  Edwards closed the door, knocked and opened it again. ‘Better?’ he asked.

  ‘Nobody likes a smart-arse, Paul,’ West said quickly, forestalling the remark Andrews had on the tip of his tongue which would have led to another from Paul and another from Andrews. They’d probably have got funnier, Paul Edwards being the joker in the team, but today, West wasn’t in the mood. ‘Tell us what happened.’

  ‘I showed Pat the photograph, Mike. She thinks it’s the same woman. But she was pretty vague. I don’t think her testimony would stand up.’

  West wasn’t surprised. ‘It was always going to be a long shot, Paul. We’ll put it together with all the rest anyway. In combination it might be enough to get us a search warrant.’

  Foley and Jarvis were still doing the ring-around, phones stuck between chin and shoulder, pens scribbling almost indecipherable words across page after page. Baxter, was humming unmusically, while his fingers flew across his keyboard. Every now and then the printer would kick into life and print out pages of whatever he had found.

  It was approaching four o’clock. If he didn’t contact the inspector soon, the inspector would no doubt contact him and he wouldn’t be happy. He needed something to give him.

  Heading into the main office he raised his voice, ‘Ok everyone,’ he said, lowering the volume when he had their attention, ‘finish what you’re doing and let’s put it together. I need to let the inspector know what’s happening.’

  It took a few minutes for calls to finish, notes to be gathered from desks and printers. Jarvis rolled his head around, loosening muscles cramped from holding the phone. Foley stretched and yawned, stood and walked a turn around the room. All filled a mug of coffee before assembling before what they had taken to referring to as The Wall, its capitalisation ensuring it would last long after this case had ended. Why bother with a board, after all when there was a perfectly suitable wall, standing naked, doing nothing?

  ‘Ok,’ West said, quietening their chatter. ‘Before we start, listen up to what we’ve got from Sergeant Blunt.’ He quickly filled them in on the five cases that had first brought Offer into the forefront.

  ‘There was nothing serious enough to bring us into at the time. But, then we had the murder of Gerard Roberts. The next two cases, the Lee home invasion and the Mathews abduction case were also more serious. No physical harm, true, but a lot of people have had their lives turned upside down.’

  He looked around the room, saw Baxter was bursting with news and wanting to get the salient points from the off, just in case Mother Morrison beat him to the phone, he nodded at him, ‘Baxter. Tell us what’s bubbling away in that head of yours.’

  Seamus Baxter picked up a sheaf of papers from the desk b
eside him. He was a stocky, ginger-headed, freckle-faced man who always looked like he’s stepped straight from the farm which, in fact, is exactly what he had done several years before, straight from his father’s farm in Tipperary to the training college in Templemore, just a mile down the road.

  ‘It took a while to get through to our counterparts in Finland. And then there was a lot of toing and froing before they gave me the information I wanted. Once I mentioned Viveka Larsson’s name it went a bit more smoothly and, eventually, I ended up chatting to someone who knows her well.’ He stopped and looked around and West knew then that he’d got something he could use. Something to satisfy Mother Morrison, keep him off his back. Maybe even enough for a search warrant.

  Certain he had their undivided attention, Baxter went on, ‘An officer by the name of,’ he stopped and read directly from the page, ‘Eetu Laakkonen. He’s with their Vice Squad,’ he added lowering the page. ‘He knows Viveka Larsson very well indeed. She did run a group in Helsinki and it was called the Finnish name for Offer which is Tarjous. But, it’s not the same as Offer here, I’m afraid. Tarjous is, or rather was, since it was closed down about a year ago, a brothel.’

  Men inured to criminality in all its many and varied forms can still be surprised and whereas there weren’t gasps there were certainly a few well, wells among the older and bloody hells among the younger men.

  West’s reaction was a more restrained yes muttered softly. This would certainly get him off the hook with Morrison. ‘How on earth did she get through Vetting?’ he asked, puzzled. Garda Vetting wasn’t foolproof but something as glaringly obvious as this should surely have rang a few bells.

  Baxter smiled his slow smile. ‘Well our Madam Larsson is quite clever. She is the founder of Offer but she doesn’t actually work as a volunteer so...’

  ‘But surely she had to register with someone?’ Edwards asked. ‘Don’t you have to register as a charity?’

  They all looked to West who they knew would have the answer. The legal one anyway.