THEN SHE RAN an absolutely gripping crime thriller with a massive twist

by Charlie Gallagher

  Whittaker finally flopped in his seat. George took the invitation to do the same.

  ‘I would offer you a coffee, George, but I’ve run out of people to ask to make it.’

  ‘A man of your stature, sir, and there’s no one left to make you a coffee?’

  ‘I know. Damned travesty is what it is. That will be the subject of another petition, I feel. How are you now anyway? I know this awful business with the wife was on your mind earlier. I need you up for this right now, George.’

  ‘I’m fine. Luckily I can’t deal with two things at once — so I’m more than happy for work to be the thing that consumes me for a bit.’

  ‘Did you get to see your little girl?’

  ‘No. I didn’t, but there was positive news around that. It shouldn’t be so difficult from now on. It’s her birthday tomorrow, this will be the first one in three years that I’ll be able to spend with her.’

  ‘You have the day off?’

  ‘I do, sir. Very much.’

  ‘Well, then, you’ve not got long to sort all this out now, have you?’

  Whittaker’s machine pinged a notification that he had mail. He clicked his mouse. ‘It’s here already.’

  George moved round. ‘There are two files?’ George frowned. One was labelled Inbound 1m20s, the other Outbound 36s.

  Both were attachments to the email in a WAV form. Whittaker clicked on the first and a player popped up. A few seconds of buffering and a female voice could be heard through the computer’s compact speakers. Both men leant in. The woman asked for the police, she told them she had the girl who had run away from the shooting. A female call-taker responded, her tone a little bored. She asked the questions George would expect. The caller wasn’t very forthcoming. She sounded older, sixty plus he guessed, and with a slight accent, maybe south London. They made the arrangements for the girl to be brought to the police station. The call ended.

  Whittaker was sat back in his chair shaking his head. He looked disappointed.

  ‘That doesn’t really tell us much, George, does it?’

  ‘Not really. What’s the outbound call?’

  Whittaker clicked on the second attachment. This time the FCR representative was a male voice. The informant answered the call and she sounded annoyed. The FCR agent said he was concerned, that he wanted to be sure they got there safely. He said the police officer had asked what car she would be arriving in and from what direction so they could come out and meet them. The informant gave details. She still sounded irritated. The call ended.

  Whittaker huffed. ‘Still nothing of great importance, George.’

  ‘With respect, sir, that’s the most important thing I’ve heard so far.’

  Whittaker straightened in his chair. ‘How so?’

  ‘Why would he need to know the type of car? And the direction they were coming from? And why did someone different call her back? That agent is a leak. He has contact with whoever rammed that vehicle off the road.’

  ‘Well, fuck my old boots! We need to get up there. He needs nicking.’

  ‘That would be my next move.’

  ‘What do you have planned for the next couple of hours, George?’

  George suddenly realised where this was heading. ‘Investigating a murder at a farmhouse, Major. Keeping a promise to a devastated old man.’

  ‘Anything you can put back? I need someone with your ability in front of this lad. I need answers from him, George — and immediately.’

  George sighed. ‘Fine. For you, Major. But remember this! I’ll call Paul Bearn on the way up. He’s going to FLO for my job. He’s not technically trained, sir, but I figured he could handle—’

  Whittaker waved him away. ‘Extraordinary times, George. You do what you have to do. Call me the instant you have something from him. Nobody else. The idea of a leak suddenly makes me feel very nervous.’

  ‘Will do. Can you hit redial and speak to Jane up there? We need to get this boy isolated. Get his personal phone off him and get him into a room.’

  ‘I’ll get him nicked, lord knows there should be enough coppers about up there.’

  ‘I’d rather you held off on that for now, Major. I’d rather speak to him before he realises how much trouble he’s in.’

  ‘Okay, George, I’ll make the call.’

  George lingered deliberately until Whittaker picked up on it.

  ‘Is there something the matter?’

  ‘I need to speak to Emily Ryker. I could do with her shaking some trees for my job.’

  ‘You can call her on the way, George. Or I can speak to her if you want?’

  ‘I’d rather speak to her myself. No disrespect — I’m not sure what I need myself yet and I wanted to talk it out.’

  ‘She’s the intel lead for this shooting, George. Be careful you don’t tuck her up with too much.’

  ‘I tell you what, sir. Let me take her with me to speak with our friend at the control centre. She will still be on the phone. That gives me a car journey to talk to her. And she needs to know the outcome of this conversation anyway.’

  ‘I don’t know, George. I need her on the pulse down here.’

  ‘You know Ryker, sir. She’s on the pulse no matter where she is. Call it a payoff. I’ll assist with talking to our leak and I can use your intel officer for the time it takes to get it done.’

  ‘Fine, George. But she’s there to assist you with this task and then you bring her back. I don’t mind her making a few calls for you, or whatever, but that’s all she can do. I need her full attention on this job.’

  ‘That’s all I need.’

  George stepped out of the office. He was careful to close the door behind him. He could see a few people hovering, Whittaker had been ignoring his phone but he was still in demand. George could hear the door knocking before he had made it to the other side of the room.

  Emily Ryker was in the intel office. She was leaning in close to her screen, her hand resting on her mouse. She had a desk lamp hooked over the top of her screen. George angled it so it shone in her face.

  ‘Jesus, George! You trying to blind me?’

  ‘Only with my beauty.’

  ‘I see. Well, I suggest turning lights off if you want to make yourself look better. Are you sober now at least?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Brilliant. It’s not like there’s anything much going on. You should just be able to find a dark corner somewhere and see this shift out.’

  ‘That would be lovely. Instead I’ve already been to one murder and now I have a task for another. And you are coming with me.’

  Emily backed away from her computer. She lifted her hand from her mouse and pulled her glasses off her face. ‘No can do, George, I’m trying to stay available. I’m hoping there are going to be some significant calls coming in. We’ve got public appeals and source handlers out and about and that’s just for starters. I have each of my fingers in a different pie. The answer’s out there somewhere.’

  ‘It always is, Ryker, and you’ve been warned about the pie thing. We’ve just had a look at two calls from today — the call telling us the missing girl was on her way and then an outbound one from someone at the FCR asking her what type of car she was driving and where she was coming from so he could leak the information to whoever led the ambush.’

  Emily stared at him a little more intently. He could tell she was testing him. ‘This is true?’

  ‘Of course it’s true. I’m on my way to speak to our leak. I want to take you with me.’

  ‘Who is he? I’ll need to get an intel package done for him.’

  ‘Not sure yet. Come find out with me. We’ll talk in the car!’

  ‘I can’t do anything in the car.’

  ‘Exactly. You can’t run away. You can assign the intel package to a minion. Do you want to be trying to find someone relevant on this loser’s Facebook profile, or would you rather be sat opposite him in a room? Your choice.’

  Emily stood up. ‘Fine. But Whittaker might get t
he hump. He’s been very protective of me. Anyone asking for an update has been sent in my direction. I don’t think he wants to lose me. I’m like his comfort blanket.’

  ‘I’ve just spoken to him. He’s on board. Maybe you’re not as important as you thought.’ George smiled. He was relieved when Emily broke into a smile too.

  Chapter 11

  Jenny ran until she felt like she had left the chaos behind her: the sirens, the tooting horns, the gunshots — everything. Through a break between buildings, she had seen trees and rolling hills in the distance, stretching away from the town with Dover’s famous castle dominating the backdrop. She made for it, passing the police station on her right as she did so. She kept her head down, her mind churning with so much confusion that rather than seeking sanctuary, she hurried past, convinced that someone might even spill out to continue the chase.

  How had they known? The people who rammed her car had known that she was on her way to the police station; she didn’t know how she could be so sure, but she had never felt more certain about anything.

  The town’s layout now opened up considerably. Leaving tight lines of terraced houses behind her, she was surrounded now by a broken mishmash of bigger houses and blocks of flats. She crossed a road and headed up the hill towards where she had seen the green grass. The higher she went, the bigger the houses became. Soon she saw a brown sign that pointed out a footpath. She followed it into a sparse wood, still hearing traffic through the thin layer of vegetation. When the path forked, she headed right up the slope; she needed a break from people.

  By the time the wood opened up to wild grass, Jenny had left the traffic far behind her. The worn path led to a gap in a stone wall behind which was the edge of a huge graveyard. She entered cautiously. The grass was shorter, well kept; the atmosphere sombre, of the sort only a graveyard can produce. She moved through a line of tombstones until she made it to a wooden bench beneath the canopy of a mature tree. The bench was dry and, though the rain was much lighter now, she was glad of the shelter. She now had an elevated view of Dover, nestled in the valley below. The green of the lawn ran into the brown of treetops then the grey of the town far below. She felt so much safer now that she was out of the town, looking in.

  Jenny checked herself over. She was damp, her clothes had a layer of moisture on the outside and she had a layer of sweat against her skin that was quickly turning cold. She shivered. She had her breath back but she knew she was just about done in. She doubted she could summon another sprint if one was needed. She was exhausted and her legs ached. Her hip and ribs were still sore from the day before. She had banged her shin badly and she had a bump on the top of her head that was tender to touch and the probable cause of her headache. Her left shoulder bled from the collision with the flint wall of the church. She pulled her legs up to hug them and rested her chin on her knees, staring out at the view. For the first time in a long while, she felt a degree of calm, like getting away from the chaos had afforded her an opportunity to think straight and work out her options. She only had one and that meant going back into the town. She could still hear sirens in the distance and see blue flashing lights. She had the impression that they didn’t know what they were chasing. And neither did she.

  * * *

  George had already released the handbrake when Emily got into the car.

  ‘This is a rush job then is it?’

  ‘We need to get him secure.’ George ran his fingers over a black panel, he settled on a button marked 999 and pushed it. The car was unmarked but it had blue lights concealed in the front grille and rear window. They flickered to life. The gate closed behind them and he pressed the horn to start the siren. George accelerated away from Langthorne House towards the town of Maidstone where their potential leak should be waiting for them.

  ‘There’s another reason I want to rush.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Emily was battling to do up her seatbelt.

  ‘Do you know about the other shooting?’

  ‘Wingmore Farm?’

  ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘What sort of an intelligence officer doesn’t know about a murder on her patch?’

  ‘How much do you know?’

  ‘Okay, fine, so I don’t know much. This Dover job is everything at the moment. I’ve not really kept up with Wingmore Farm. To be honest, I was told not to worry about it for now. The timing is not ideal.’

  ‘I thought as much. I’m worried that it’s going to get forgotten about. Already it’s been assigned one CSI and just a few response officers holding the scene. As far as investigators go, there’s me — officially. I managed to steal Paul Bearn, but he’s stuck to our witness and can’t really do much else. They’ve put out for overtime but everything that comes in seems to be sucked up by this other job.’

  ‘It won’t be forgotten about. It might just have to sit on the back burner for a day or two.’

  ‘That’s the thing . . . you can’t put something like that on the back burner. Whoever shot that woman is out there right now with a smoking gun, a dirty van and his co-defendants that he can’t guarantee control over. They’re no professionals. They turned up with balaclavas and lumps of wood and ended up with a gun going off. We need to be putting the pressure on, that’s how you force them to make mistakes or flush them out into the open.’

  ‘Are there no clues?’

  ‘Nothing. Robbery gone wrong. The victims targeted because they live in an expensive place in the middle of nowhere. They weren’t there to murder anyone. They’ll be panicking, expecting knocks on their doors. We need to keep the pressure up.’

  ‘Sounds like sense to me. Not sure what you can do, though. This other job has more bodies. It’s all over the news and a likely intended victim is still out there and at risk. You can see why it’s sucked up everything we have.’

  ‘Can you make a few calls for me? To your source handlers? See if they can get word out to see if anyone is nervous about a job. Someone out there knows who these gang members are. They might have known it was going to happen. They might know it went wrong — or if someone is trying to get rid of a gun or a van. Anything.’

  Emily exhaled heavily. ‘You know I’ll try and help, George, but I’m the same as everyone else. I’ve already been in touch with the source handlers. They’ve all been tasked around the Dover shooting. Like I said, it’s all over the news, so everyone’s talking about it. If everyone’s talking about it, that includes the criminal world. I’m expecting a lot back, but it will all be about Dover. I need to be sifting through it and picking out what’s relevant.’

  ‘I know. I appreciate that. Just don’t forget about me like everyone else will. I met the husband this morning, Ryker. If my victim hadn’t left anyone behind her then maybe I could accept that it’s not the day’s most important job. But you should have seen him. You’re sixty-two years married to someone and then out of the blue you get a knock at the door and a gunshot. He’s lost everything. I can’t give any of it back, but I gave him my word I would find the bastard who took it away from him.’

  ‘You should be careful what you promise, George. I know how you get fixated on keeping promises. I seem to remember a few very-near-death experiences linked to your word.’

  ‘Still here though, aren’t I?’

  ‘You are.’

  ‘Ouch, Ryker.’

  ‘Jesus! Sorry, George. I didn’t mean it quite like—’

  ‘Yeah, you did. It’s okay. You’re right.’

  Emily didn’t speak again straight away. ‘Sixty-two years . . .’ she said, eventually.

  ‘I know, that’s almost two lifetimes.’

  ‘Did you even manage sixty-two days, George?’

  George laughed. He didn’t feel like it but it took him over. ‘Kick George while he’s down day, is it? You’d better get me some sort of a result now, Ryker!’

  Emily was laughing herself but she had at least pulled her phone from her pocket. She would use the rest of the car journey to make her call
s back to the source team.

  By the time they arrived at their destination, Emily had finished on the phone. It hadn’t sounded positive. George knew what he was up against. You couldn’t task too much out; you had to stick to one job at a time when you were dealing with grasses. It sounded like the Dover job was still taking precedence, but the source team had agreed that if they were offered any information they would send it back up the line. George had taken that as the best Emily was going to get. He did wonder, though, if the conversation might have ended differently if it had been him making the call.

  George could see Jane Adams out and waiting in what looked like a bike shed in the Force Headquarters car park. She’d been sucking on a cigarette and now pushed it into the top of a metal post. George had worked closely with Jane in a previous life; it had been rare for a day to pass where his team didn’t need copies of 999 calls. They were often used as part of the evidence: they could be very effective in identifying cries for help in the background or capturing the panic and intensity in a victim’s voice when they later denied being a victim at all. Jane bustled over and stood by George’s door before he had finished parking. She was a handsome woman, almost as tall as George in her heels. She had short hair brushed over to one side and black-rimmed glasses.

  ‘Adrian Minter,’ she said to George, straight off. ‘He’s still working at his desk. I spoke with the chief inspector and we thought that was best.’

  George climbed out of the car. ‘You told me you’d quit, Jane.’ George gestured at the post from which blue-tinged smoke still spiralled.

  ‘First one in four months. I guess that’s what happens when you suddenly find one of your team is a murder suspect.’

  ‘I don’t think we can call him that quite yet, Jane. More likely he’s been a bit silly. But we shall see. Does he have his phone?’

  ‘No. They all have to put them in a locker before they go out onto the floor. They all have their own lockers. I’ve pulled phone records so you can see that he made the outbound call. It was within thirty seconds of the other operator hanging up. He’s got some explaining to do, George.’