The Detective Jake Tanner Organised Crime Thriller Series Books 1-3 (DC Jake Tanner Crime Thriller Series Boxsets)

by Jack Probyn

  Liam moved to the corkboard on the right and pointed to a house number. ‘Thanks to Jake’s detective work, we’ve got a potential suspect. A Mr Archie Arnold. Steven and Jessica’s neighbour down the road. Now, we’ve not got any evidence linking Archie to the murders, but Jake had a sneaky suspicion there was something not quite right about him, and he’s been on our radar in the past for drug-related offences. I think it’s something we should look into and exploit if we can, bring him in for further questioning.’

  Liam paused to finish the last of his drink.

  ‘Today’s tasks are simple. I want Garrison to bring Mr Arnold in. And Drew, in the meantime, I want you to widen the search online. Build a victimology report and start looking into Steven and Jessica’s online profiles, activities. Find out if there’s anything we can learn from them. That laptop is likely going to be the greatest source of evidence when we eventually hear back from forensics. But I don’t want us to rely on that to then find out it’s completely useless. When Garrison gets back, I want you sitting in on the interview as well. And, finally, Jake’ – Liam pointed to another face on the board – ‘Steven’s an art dealer, so that means he must have an agent or an accountant somewhere. Someone he speaks to regularly. Someone he trusts more than his parents. Find them. Speak with them. Learn all you can. Go.’

  CHAPTER 13

  WORK IN PROGRESS

  Liam browsed aimlessly through his emails. Darkness encompassed him, save for the blue artificial light emanating from the computer monitor. The lights were off. The blinds were shut. And he was where he liked to be: in the dark. And today, in particular, he was in extra need of it. His head was spinning and he felt like there was a tonne of bricks crushing down on him. He could almost feel his brain cells dying. It made him nauseous and delirious, the sensation starting to make its way down his throat and into his stomach. And, worse still, he was out of alcohol to abate the sensation. There was none left in his reusable Starbucks cup. He pulled the desk drawer by his leg open and saw there was none left in there either. He had been slacking; he had forgotten to stock up on his last visit to the convenience store.

  Before he could think on it further, someone knocked on the door.

  Liam let out a little groan. Who was it and what the fuck did they want? He rubbed his temples with the palm of his hands, hoping to alleviate some of the pain swimming in his skull.

  ‘Come in,’ Liam said weakly.

  The door opened and Drew entered.

  ‘What’s up?’ Liam asked, avoiding the streak of light that flooded into the room. ‘What can I help you with?’

  Drew stepped inside and stopped behind the chair that was on the other side of Liam’s desk.

  He opened his mouth but hesitated. ‘You all right, guv? You look a little bit pale. And it’s really dark in here.’

  Drew turned on the lights despite Liam’s best efforts at waving him away from the switch. Liam threw his hands to his eyes to shield them, but it was no use. A harsh burst of white disorientated him. He tried to blink it away, muttering under his breath as he did so.

  ‘I… I’m fine. Hungover, that’s all.’

  ‘Let me get you some water.’

  Liam protested but Drew was having none of it. Within seconds, his colleague returned with water in a mug.

  ‘You’re not very good at listening, are you?’ Liam said, setting the cup down. He had no intention of drinking it. ‘Now, what do you want?’

  ‘Tanner. What’s the latest with him?’

  ‘I’ve sent him out today on his own. We’ll see how well he copes.’

  ‘I wasn’t talking about—’

  ‘I know what you meant.’ Liam sighed. ‘You know the plan with Archie, right? Play it cool with him for a little while. Don’t do anything yet. Just make him aware of where he stands. Use the drug angle if you have to. And make sure he doesn’t see my face.’

  ‘Guv,’ Drew said, nodding in acknowledgement. ‘And Jake?’

  Liam dipped his head. ‘He’s a good egg. I told him that yesterday. I told him we don’t like bad eggs here. We introduced him to the team last night over drinks. This morning I bought him a coffee. I’d say give him a few more days, a few more home comforts, and then he’ll be on side.’

  ‘Completely?’ There was apprehension and concern in Drew’s voice.

  ‘It’ll take time to fully break down his barriers. He’s a work in progress. And we all love a challenge. There’s a good man inside him – I can see it. A willingness and keenness to succeed. That’s just the rookie in him. The dedicated police officer. We were all like that once. Just give him some time and he’ll realise what it’s really like. That it’s not all sunshine and rainbows; that there’s a darker side to policing. But if you see any suspicious behaviour, come and let me know.’

  CHAPTER 14

  REMAND

  As Jake made his way out of the building, across the car park and towards his car, he held his phone to his ear, listening to it ringing on the other end.

  ‘Hello?’ the other person answered eventually.

  ‘Danika? It’s Jake. Jake Tanner.’

  ‘Jake! Oh my God, hi! How are you?’ She sounded excited to hear from him, though he didn’t believe it – she hadn’t bothered to contact him once since they’d last seen one another.

  ‘Things are going well. Elizabeth’s pregnant again. We’re expecting soon.’

  ‘Oh, Jake, that’s fantastic! How soon?’

  Jake unlocked his car door and slid in. ‘She’s due in the next couple of weeks.’

  ‘I’m so pleased for you,’ Danika replied. ‘You must be thrilled. Do you know what you’re having this time?’

  ‘A little girl.’

  ‘Beautiful. You’ll be outnumbered.’

  ‘I’m just looking forward to any future boyfriends I might get to intimidate,’ Jake said, and the two of them chuckled.

  A part of him missed her voice, her laugh, her personality; her tenacity, her dedication, her drive to work hard and outperform everyone else in the team. They had first met back when they were bobbies on the beat over three years ago. And since then, they had endured the stresses and pressures of becoming qualified detectives with one another, and, more recently, on their first case as trainee detectives, they’d been caught in the middle of The Crimsons’ final heist in Guildford. For Jake, Danika had been instrumental in helping him bring them down. She had been his eyes and ears throughout the entire operation, and without her, he remained adamant that it wouldn’t have been a success.

  ‘How’s life in Guildford treating you?’ he asked.

  ‘Boring. Not a lot to do here. Not a lot of incidents to respond to. Few robberies. Thefts. Car jackings. Pub stabbings. The odd kidnap. That seems to be about it. Nothing too exciting.’

  ‘Sounds like more than most. What were you expecting?’

  ‘Probably not as much as you’re getting up in London, eh?’

  Jake avoided the question and moved the conversation on. He didn’t want to make it about him. ‘I’ve been meaning to get in touch, but I’ve just been really busy.’

  ‘Likewise,’ Danika said, although he could sense the lie interlaced in her voice. ‘I can imagine you’re swamped with homicides and rapes and drug deals and everything?’

  Jake chuckled half-heartedly. He knew there was a line between the confidentiality of a case and the trust of a friend, but he wasn’t prepared to cross it.

  ‘Suppose you could say that. The workload’s definitely increasing.’ Jake hesitated for a moment. He had a favour to ask, but he wasn’t sure if Danika still needed warming up. ‘How’s the family?’

  Danika had married into a strict family. Both she and her husband had been police officers, but after her husband had been involved in a car accident that had rendered him disabled, their marriage had begun to fall apart. Jake supposed there was a reason Danika had continued to work for Surrey Police rather than return to her home borough in Croydon.

  ‘Tony still w
on’t let me see the kids. I’ve not seen them in five weeks. They’ve gone to his parents. He says I’m too unstable and unfit as a mother to look after them. But he’s no better – he’s in a worse state than me.’

  ‘Dan… I’m… I’m so sorry. That must be horrible,’ Jake said, at a loss for words. ‘And it was all because of that one night?’

  Danika hesitated before responding. It was clear this was a sensitive topic of conversation for her, but Jake wanted to know the details – he wanted to satisfy the hunger of curiosity inside him. Besides, the other part of him cared for Danika; they had spent years together, and he wanted to make sure she was safe – physically, mentally and emotionally.

  ‘Yes and no. That night with Mark was a mistake. I hope I never have to see him again. But there were other things wrong with the relationship before that. The whole Mark thing didn’t help.’

  ‘Is he still with Surrey Police?’

  ‘You didn’t hear? He resigned a couple of months back. Nobody’s seen or heard from him since. I thought you would have known.’

  ‘Right. No. I hadn’t. Turns out I’m learning a lot of new things lately.’

  ‘It also transpires that he was fucking Pemberton as well – kako zoprno!’ she yelled in her native Slovenian.

  Jake smirked; he’d bought her a thesaurus for her birthday once as a tool for her to develop her English skills, and it was clear to see she had been using it, but she always reverted to her own language whenever she got angry.

  ‘You know what the worst thing about it is?’ she continued. ‘He not only ruined my marriage, but he also ruined Pemberton’s too. Her husband left and now she’s got the kids alone. I think there was an army of angry husbands gunning for him at one point.’

  ‘I… I… I don’t know what to say.’ Jake paused while he considered what to ask next, buckling his seat belt at the same time. ‘What about your parents? Are they speaking to you?’

  ‘There’s no coming back from my decision, Jake. It’s been made.’

  ‘Well,’ Jake said, ‘if you need anything… anything at all, then you can call me. If you need a witness or someone to testify against your husband, then you can ask me. I want you to have custody of the kids.’

  ‘No,’ Danika said. Her voice was soft and weak, almost devoid of all hope and life. ‘As much as I miss them, I don’t want the kids. In a way, Tony’s right – I can barely look after myself. I’m never home, and I’d never be able to care for them in the way they need. I wouldn’t be the mum they deserve.’

  ‘You always were job pissed, weren’t you?’

  ‘You’re not much better,’ she retaliated. ‘The kids are happy at their granny’s. That’s all I care about. I just want to be able to see them, that’s all. Make sure you don’t make the same mistakes I did, Jake.’

  Jake took a moment to reflect. About his children and their relationship with their grandparents. About how he had Elizabeth at home to look after them and care for them, About how little he was home. About how he wanted to be able to watch them develop. About how he didn’t want to miss the important stages in their lives – their first steps, their first words, their first laugh, their first smile, their first day at school, their first romance. So far, he’d missed almost all of those for Maisie, and she was only two years old. But his situation was much better than Danika’s. And that put things into perspective for him.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Dan.’

  ‘It’s fine. I’ll be all right. Thank you.’ Danika sniffed through the phone. ‘What was it you wanted?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I know you weren’t calling just for a chat, Jake.’

  Now hardly seemed like the right time to talk to her about Danny and Michael Cipriano, but he had questions he hoped she’d be able to answer.

  ‘I’m sure you’ve heard already…’

  Danika paused before replying, ‘Depends on what it is you’re talking about.’

  ‘It’s over. Their case. It’s collapsing. The CPS.’

  Another pause.

  ‘Danny and Michael?’ she asked tentatively. ‘Really? I… er… I had no idea. I’d heard something mentioned but didn’t know it was about that.’

  A uniformed officer walked past Jake and hopped into a police vehicle outside the station’s entrance.

  ‘You didn’t hear anything about it in the office? No one in the team’s been talking about it?’

  ‘No, Jake. Sorry.’

  ‘They must have said something. What about Bridger? Is he still there, pulling all the strings? He must have had something to do with it. I wouldn’t put it past him – he’s the reason our first interview on Michael couldn’t be used in court. I trusted him to follow the procedures to the letter of the law, especially considering he kept giving us that bullshit about not needing to be reminded of them because he was such a fucking superstar.’

  ‘Come on, Jake. You know that’s a sensitive subject. Nobody’s allowed to mention it around here. And he’s always so busy I hardly see him.’

  ‘Dan, this is serious. This is the group that killed four innocent people, including one of our own. You’ve got to help me here. I don’t know how, but I’m going to make sure they stay locked up.’

  Danika hesitated again, and for a moment Jake thought she’d disconnected. There was silence. Not even the sound of office chatter in the background. Not even the sound of her breath rustling in his ear.

  ‘Danika? Dan? You there?’ Jake looked at the dashboard. He had been sitting there for ten minutes.

  ‘I’m here… There’s… There is something. But I don’t know… No, I can’t.’

  ‘Yes, you can, Dan. What’s holding you back? I know you want them to rot in prison as much as I do. It’s where they belong.’

  ‘You can’t say anything. I’m not even supposed to know about this.’

  ‘I promise.’

  ‘The other day I heard Bridger talking with someone over the phone about Danny and Michael. I overheard Bridger say that once they were let out of remand, both the brothers were going to be entered into the witness protection scheme.’

  CHAPTER 15

  WILD URGES

  Steven Arnholt’s agent was called Nathan Hewitt. He was a heavy, overweight man with leopard-print glasses and a button nose. He wore a navy suit – without a tie – and a brown leather watch. His suit trousers were tight against his legs and too short – about three inches of his blue polka-dot socks were visible between the top of his shoes and the bottom of his trousers.

  Jake had arrived at Nathan’s office unannounced. Drew had forwarded on the address to his email and Jake had rushed there as soon as he was finished with Danika, careful not to add any more suspicion to his inactivity outside the police station. Talking to Danika had been a big risk, but it was a necessary one – one that he couldn’t neglect any longer.

  ‘Thank you,’ Jake said as he stepped into the centre of the room and cast his eye around his surroundings. The office was small, almost the size of Jake and Elizabeth’s bedroom, and was situated in the centre of a street filled with off-licences and cafes. ‘Nice little place you got here.’

  It wasn’t. Jake was just being polite. It was, in fact, a shithole. There was nothing inside the office save a desk, two chairs, a small bench with a synthetic leather cushion, situated by the window, and a lonely plastic plant that looked as if it had been bought second-hand at a car boot sale. There was no indication that Nathan was an art dealer anywhere. At the very least, Jake had expected to find a painting on the wall, a masterpiece hanging over a printer or even a small portrait resting on the desk in a small frame. But there was nothing.

  ‘I’ve worked hard to get it where it is,’ Nathan said, smiling. As the corners of his mouth rose, the light overhead caught the thin, blonde hairs on his top lip.

  Jake raised his eyebrow. ‘Well, I think you’ve done a good job. Must have shelled out quite a bit.’

  Nathan found his seat and gestured for Jake to sit opposite.
As he touched the hard plastic chair, Jake instantly knew he’d made a bad choice in accepting the offer.

  ‘So,’ Nathan said, leaning forward. He sat with his hands locked together, his elbows perched on the edge of the table. ‘Are you in the art business? Are you looking to sell or buy?’

  ‘No,’ Jake said, shooting Nathan’s smile down abruptly. He reached for his warrant card and introduced himself. ‘I was wondering if I could—?’

  ‘I didn’t do anything.’ Nathan leant back in the chair and his body constricted; his shoulders moved closer to his chest and his hands fell between his legs.

  ‘I’m not saying you did.’ Jake substituted his ID for his pocketbook and paper. ‘I was just wondering if I could ask you a few questions about one of your clients?’

  ‘Oh, God. What’s Elijah done now?’

  Jake made a note of the name for someone at the station to check out later on. ‘I was referring to one of your other clients: Steven Arnholt… and his wife, Jessica.’

  Nathan’s brow furrowed. ‘What about them?’

  ‘Were you close with the two of them?’

  ‘Steven was my first-ever client. He trusted me when no one else did. I knew Jessica before Steven.’

  ‘Did you set them up?’

  Nathan shrugged. ‘I suppose you could say that. I introduced them to one another. They took the rest from there – I can’t take credit for that. He’s an incredible artist.’

  As they spoke, Jake made notes in his pad. ‘How did you introduce the two of them?’

  Nathan hesitated as he collected his thoughts. ‘It was a dinner. I was throwing a big party. We’d just sold one of Steven’s biggest artworks to a gallery in America for a large sum of money. I wanted to celebrate. My wife and I invited our friends and Steven invited his. Jessica was a friend of my wife’s, and then… well, you know the rest.’