She ate.
11:04
Lou had been providing Mr. Buchanan with his daily update, but now she was back in the Incident Room, complete with a tray of coffees and muffins from the canteen. Everyone was on the phone; everyone except for Jason, who was waiting in the doorway to her office, looking serious.
“What?”
“Phone stuff,” he said. “I’m not done, but yeah, it’s—interesting.”
“Have a seat.”
She had brought two of the coffees and two muffins in with her, and while he talked she pulled chunks off the side of hers and ate.
“So, Brian’s mobile-phone download, to start with. One of the other analysts said this to me when I started doing phone work: ninety percent of text messages sent over the network are porn. I didn’t believe it at the time, but hey.”
Lou laughed. “Really? He’s a right one, that Brian, isn’t he?”
“This is serious stuff, Lou. Bondage and shit like that. There are about thirty images on there of him with a woman.”
She stopped chewing. “Anyone we know?”
Jason shook his head. “She’s quite particular about not showing her face, funnily enough. And there’s more. Brian’s billing. There are a whole lot of calls to a number ending 987, in and outgoing. Long calls and texts. This is the same number that was in contact with Polly’s phone up to the night she died. This is the number she called when the cellsite shows the phone was in Forsyth Road. It’s saved in Brian’s phone as ‘Manchester office.’ ”
“Suzanne?”
“Yeah. It’s got to be her.”
“What about Brian’s cellsite?” Lou said.
“That’s where it gets even more interesting. Assuming Brian was using his phone and hadn’t given it to someone else, it hits cellsites all around Briarstone and Morden from the evening of the thirty-first into the early hours of the first. Most of the calls were back and forth between his number and the one we have for ‘Manchester office.’ ”
“Briarstone?”
“I’m going to plot all the calls on a map, so we can see where he was at what time. There’s one call near the quarry at”—he looked at the paper in his hand—“two thirty in the morning. Then the next one is at three, back in Morden. That’s a long one, nearly twenty minutes, and it’s the last contact.”
Lou was staring at him, rapt. Brian’s phone had been near the quarry, in the early hours. “Can you get all this in a brief report for me? I’ll get everyone back here for four this afternoon for a briefing, okay?”
“Sure.” He smiled at her. “So, you want to see some filthy pics now?”
“Of Brian? I think I’ll pass. If you can get a still of the woman showing her face rather than anything else, that would be great.”
13:11
Andy Hamilton was back in his car, heading toward Briarstone. He’d been home and had a shower, got changed, and gone straight back out again.
Bastard cows, bastard mud. His shoes were ruined and his suit had a bloody great rip in the seat. He’d rarely been this pissed off and now, to cap it all off, there was a voice mail and a text from Lou telling him to get his arse back to the office for a briefing at four.
At least the house had been empty when he’d got back. Karen was out, shopping probably, or at her sister’s. It was a blessed relief, a rare moment of perfect peace.
His mobile rang and he pulled over into a side street to answer it. “Andy Hamilton.”
“Yeah, this is Stacey from the CCU. You asked us to take a look at a laptop for Operation Nettle. Want the ref number?”
“No, I know the one you mean. Has it been analyzed?”
“We’ve still got some more to do on it, but I got a message to give you an update.”
“Anything useful so far?”
“Lots of porn. Fetish stuff.”
“What sort of fetish?”
“S and M mainly. Lots of amateur shots. I would think it’s the machine’s owner since most of the pictures feature this one man. Looks quite old, gray hair. Are you in the office? You can come and have a look if you’re really desperate.”
“I’m out at the moment. When I get back in later I’ll come over.”
“As long as it’s before half two, I’m on earlies today and there’s nobody else here.”
Fucking typical. He rang off, promising to visit as soon as he could. Not that he was particularly interested in looking at pictures of Brian Fletcher-Norman getting jiggy.
There was something more urgent he needed to do. It had been playing on his mind all day, and he could not go back to the office until he’d sorted it out one way or another. The news that Brian was into S&M made a difference to it all, too.
She was unlikely to be there, he reasoned, after all it was the middle of the day, a Monday. She would be at work, whatever that was. But it was worth a try. At the shopping center he turned right, toward Waterside Gardens.
* * *
MG11 WITNESS STATEMENT
Section 1—Witness Details
NAME: Samantha Jane BOWLES
DOB (if under 18; if over 18 state “Over 18”) Over 18
ADDRESS: Seaview Cottage
Cemetery Lane
Morden
Briarstone
OCCUPATION: Smallholder
Section 2—Investigating Officer
DATE: Monday 5 November 2012
OIC: PC 11625 BRIGHOUSE
Section 3—Text of Statement
My house is situated close to Hermitage Farm, approximately a hundred yards further along Cemetery Lane and on the opposite side of the road. From my kitchen window I can see both entrances to the farm clearly.
On the evening of Wednesday 31 October 2012 I was in my kitchen. At about eleven o’clock at night I saw a lorry in the driveway that leads to Yonder Cottage. I see lorries going in to the farm occasionally but they always use the other drive as it is much wider. It looked to me as though the lorry was stuck as it was parked with the rear of it still in the lane. I thought it was odd that the lorry was there at that time of night.
When I went back into the kitchen approximately twenty minutes later to turn off the lights, I noticed that the lorry had gone.
We went away the following day for a long weekend and I was unaware of the events at the Farm until today.
Section 4—Signatures
__________________________
__________________________
WITNESS: (Samantha BOWLES)
OIC: (M BRIGHOUSE PC 11625)
* * *
14:29
“You want tea?” Ron Mitchell asked.
“Yes, please,” Jason replied.
“Yes, please,” Sam piped up.
“Fancy a pint later?” Ali asked. “You too, Sarge,” he said in Sam’s direction.
“Depends,” Sam replied. She’d come in early to catch up on things.
Ali and Jason exchanged glances. “Depends on who’s going?” Jason asked.
“Something like that.”
Whitmore grinned. “How about we don’t mention we’re going out?”
Sam looked up at last from her keyboard and treated them to a warm smile. When she smiled like that, her whole face lit up and she was suddenly beautiful. “You’re on,” she said.
Whitmore made them all a cup of tea and they went back to their respective desks for half an hour. Then Whitmore’s phone made a chirping noise and he started chuckling.
“You’re all right, Sam,” he said. “Definitely up for that pint, then?”
“Why’s that?” she asked, looking up again.
“The DI’s managed to take himself off for a big adventure in the great outdoors. John Langton says he’s trod in cow shit, fallen in a puddle, and literally gone through a hedge backward—then he had an argument with some cows and turned up at the quarry needing a ride back to his car.”
Sam laughed louder and harder than Jason had ever heard her. Into this scene of merriment Lou walked in, looking tired and h
arassed after her second meeting of the day with the superintendent.
“What’s the joke?” she asked.
Whitmore handed her the phone with the text that John Langton had sent him. She read it and a slow smile spread across her face, which turned into a laugh when she read the bit about the cows. Then she tried to look stern and failed. She met Jason’s eyes.
“We’re going out for a drink later. You coming?” he asked.
“Just us?”
“Just us.”
“If we can get away,” she said with a smile. “I think the first round is on me.”
14:30
He kept the engine running for the heat, but even so he could see his breath in the cold, stale air of the car, which smelled of beer, cow shit, and rain. He watched the minutes tick past on the clock.
He wasn’t even sure what he was going to say to her, how he could justify intruding on her once again. She was addictive, intoxicating, that was all there was to it. It wasn’t that she was even beautiful, not in the same way Lou was, or Karen, for that matter. He was trying not to think too hard about what they’d done, about how it was so far beyond kinky as to be actually dangerous. And yet, the thrill of it was not only that of trying something new. It had been an unbelievable high. He wanted, needed, more.
That was it. He got out of the car, glancing casually up and down the road. Not a soul to be seen. He crossed the gravel and rang the doorbell for flat one.
He was half expecting her not to answer, even though there was a sleek black Merc parked on the gravel. But moments later the door opened and there she was.
She smiled when she saw him, looked up at him from under her lashes with an expression that someone who didn’t know her might mistake as demure.
“Back so soon, Inspector?”
“I need to ask you something,” he said. He’d intended to be firmer with her, use the voice of authority, use his size—something. But instead he found his resolve slipping.
She stood aside to let him in.
14:35
She called at the farmhouse first. The front door was unlocked but nobody was home. So much for security, Flora thought. She rang her mother’s mobile.
“Yes, what is it? Flora?”
Flora could hear the wind, the intermittent noise of traffic. “Where are you, Mum?”
“Hacking with Marjorie. Is everything all right? Did you know the police were at the farm? They searched everywhere.”
Flora realized that her mother had no idea she had been at the police station, giving them a statement, and decided it was not worth enlightening her. “We’ve been through this already, Mum. It’s all just part of their inquiries.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m at the farm. The front door’s unlocked; I thought you were being more careful.”
“There hardly seems any point locking it when the bloody police have been crawling all over everything. Honestly, I feel quite violated by it.”
Flora tried a change of subject. “Do you know where Dad is?”
“Gone out somewhere, I think. I don’t know, he never tells me bloody anything . . .”
There was no sign of Nigel’s Land Rover in the yard, and heading up to the barn she could see all the other cars were in their spaces. The pickup truck Connor seemed to have adopted for his own use was missing.
The barn door had been locked but Flora knew where the spare key was. She also knew that the CCTV he had set up to record everyone who entered the barn was motion-sensitive, and sent an alarm text to his mobile unless you deactivated it as soon as you entered the doorway. She had memorized the code for it, but she had never had to use it before, so entering the number was nerve-racking. Why was she even doing this? What was she thinking?
She closed the door behind her and made for the office. It was empty, of course, but there was a presence there, nonetheless. The room was warm, the smell of alcohol, leather, the wax on her father’s Barbour jacket, oil, mud. Wherever it was they’d gone, they had been in here quite recently.
Taking a quick look at Nigel’s desk, she could tell immediately that the paperwork was for show. Not that he didn’t have a legitimate farming business to run, but most of the paperwork was stored in the main office, the steel Portakabin beside the other barn. This was simply a carefully arranged display of farming crap that would fool anyone who might have managed to bypass all of Nigel’s security.
The ladder to the roof space was raised, but she lowered it, careful not to make any noise, even though there was no one to hear.
It was dark up here. She found the switch, and the roof space was illuminated brightly by a single bulb hanging from the ceiling. Not taking any chances, she raised the ladder again, but already she could see there was a problem: the door of the safe was hanging open, and it was completely empty. And then she realized that the police must have been here. So had they removed everything? Or had Nigel managed to get it all out and hidden somewhere else?
Then she heard something, and quickly turned off the light. Sitting in silence in the dark loft space, the office below barely lit, listening, knowing that something was wrong but not able to determine what. Was it a car, from the lane?
Then another noise, outside somewhere. Voices. Looking down through the rungs of the raised ladder, she could see into the office. She heard the main door of the barn open and the bleep made by Nigel entering the disable code for the alarm.
“I still think he fucked up big-time, you can’t get away with shit like that and he knows it.”
That was her father’s voice.
“You know I ain’t sayin’ that. You know I agree with you. It’s one fuckup after another with him, right? But it’s nothing we can’t put right.”
Then the two men—no, three—entered the office and she saw the tops of their heads. Nigel was the first, followed by a man she didn’t recognize. Overweight, with a full head of curly graying hair. A dark-colored sweater, smelling—all the way up here—of beer and tobacco. Behind him, Connor Petrie.
“Want me to sort ’im out?” That was Petrie.
“You’ve done enough sorting out, haven’t you?” Nigel said sharply. “Go home. I seem to remember giving you a job to do, remember?”
Suitably chastised, Petrie crossed his arms and left the office.
The second man lowered his voice. “You think it was him?”
Nigel didn’t reply at first, then Flora heard a deep sigh. “You’re not talking about the shipping, are you?”
“No. I’m talking about what happened on Wednesday night.”
“Not here. All right?”
“Why not? Nobody here but us, right?”
“Still, don’t want to talk about it. What’s done is done. There’s nothing we can do about it now except minimize the risk.”
“I’m not calling it off, if that’s what you mean. Got too much invested in this, Nige. Too much at stake.”
“I’m saying they can wait.”
“You’re not that worried. If you was worried we wouldn’t be having this conversation here, would we?”
Nigel laughed. “Bizarre as it sounds, this is still the safest place. At least I know the police aren’t listening in. Can’t trust anywhere else, right?”
“So what you want to do?”
“I think we should postpone for a week, maybe two.”
“Fuck that! You serious?”
“It’s too risky.”
“It’s fucking risky letting him down! The man’s a complete psycho. You want to postpone, you can fucking be the one to break the news, all right?”
“He’ll be fine. He can wait another couple of weeks. Besides, it’ll be worth his while, won’t it?”
There was a pause, then. Flora was starting to get a cramp in her leg. She heard the sound of the drawer opening, the chink as the bottle of whiskey was brought out, the twist of the bottle top.
“What about Petrie?”
“I don’t know.”
“You can’t jus
t leave him here. He’s another liability. That kid’s fucking not right in the head, if you get my drift.”
“So would you be, if you’d seen what he’s seen.”
“Did he see it, though? Or did he do it?”
“Seriously. We are not talking about this. All right?”
There was a long pause, and then, finally, in a low voice, Nigel’s companion said, “Whatever. I’ve got to go, anyway. I’ll ring you about Friday, right?”
“I’ll see you out.”
Flora breathed out, a deep breath, as the two men went to the main part of the barn. There was a chance they’d both leave and not come back, but even so she stayed as still as she possibly could, listening to the door of the barn opening and closing, and, a few moments later, a car door banging and a diesel engine starting.
She moved her leg, stretched it out in front of her.
And nearly died when a voice from down below said: “Flora. I know you’re up there.”
* * *
REPORT
Re: Liam O’TOOLE DOB 27/11/81 of No fixed abode
Monday 5 November
From: DC 8745 Alastair WHITMORE
To: Op NETTLE
On Monday 5 November at approximately 1545hrs I took a call from a male claiming to be Liam O’TOOLE, formerly employed as a tennis coach at the Morden Golf and Country Club.
O’TOOLE claimed he was employed until Wednesday, 31 October 2012, when he handed in his resignation, stated this was due to issues with the management of the club, specifically their response to complaints he had made previously about harassment by some female clients which O’TOOLE felt had not been appropriately addressed.
O’TOOLE went on to say that Barbara Fletcher-Norman was one of his regular clients at the club. She had been having private tennis lessons for some months. O’TOOLE stated that he made efforts to keep the relationship strictly professional, however she made it clear she wanted to pursue a sexual relationship. He states he told her on several occasions he was not interested. He also heard rumors from other clients that he and Mrs. Fletcher-Norman were having an affair and he believed this rumor had originated from her.
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